Ruth Anne Latta

 My Aunt Lucy      Aunt Lucy was a large woman who wore dark print winter dresses and thick spectacles. In the summers, she  wore cotton print dresses with aprons that did not necessarily match.  She taught nine and ten year olds, and in the summer, when her sisters came to visit her, they slept late, then sat over brunch in their bathrobes talking about school until two or three in the afternoon, when it would be time to think about supper.      At nineteen, in November 1924, she wore a shapeless black coat on the train to a remote school district near Parry Sound where she’d been belatedly hired to teach.  She was met during a blizzard by a burly fur-coated man who looked like a buffalo driving a horse and sleigh. Twenty years her senior, he was the school board chairman. Though she  was afraid of him at first, two years later they were married.  He earned a living as a resort owner and hunting guide for tourists.  She c...

Book Reviews ,  Non fiction reviews A review of Capitalism and its Critics by John Cassidy November 2, 2025 Reviewed by Ruth Latta Capitalism and its Critics: A History from the Industrial Revolution to AI by John Cassidy Farrar, Straus and Giroux May 2025, 624 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0374601089 John Cassidy’s examination of capitalism from its origins to the present day is a big book, the size of  The Dawn of Everything  by David Graeber and David Wengrove. The “two Davids’ book, about the cooperative nature of early indigenous societies, was abbreviated and summarized in a shorter volume. Should Cassidy’s book be summarized to make it more digestible to a public that likes a quick read? No. Cassidy’s book is a reader-friendly book that takes readers on a journey from the Levellers and Diggers of the English Civil War, to Trump’s America.  By selecting an historical figure as the focus of each chapter, he gives readers a human story and makes the past come alive. Cassid...