> Zed Book Club / Podcaster, PR Maestro and Politico Amanda Alvaro’s Best-of Book List is Loaded With Memoirs
Photo: Courtesy of Amanda Alvaro
> Buzz
Podcaster, PR Maestro and Politico Amanda Alvaro’s Best-of Book List is Loaded With Memoirs
The Toronto host of 'Beyond a Ballot' highly recommends personal stories from Joan Didion, Huma Abedin and Amy Bloom / BY Shinan Govani / April 23rd, 2024
Always ready with a “take,” and good with a cause, Amanda Alvaro has long juggled interests in politics, philanthropy and public relations. The founder and president of Toronto communications firm Pomp & Circumstance has been a regular pundit for more than a decade on CBC-TV’s Power and Politics, and co-founded Artbound, a charity that builds arts schools in developing nations. Among her passion projects, Alvaro counts fundraising for a slew of organizations like Rethink Breast Cancer, the National Ballet of Canada and the Toronto Library Foundation.
Her latest one? Co-hosting the political podcast Beyond a Ballot, a weekly news show that takes a multi-partisan approach to get Canadian women involved in politics. Co-hosted with Rachael Segal, it launched in 2023, and has featured some of Canada’s leading political voices such as CTV News chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos and players like the Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, as well as former cabinet ministers Maryam Monsef and Lisa Raitt.
As such, her reading interests lean to books about public lives – and yes, some private ones, too. Alvaro recently gave us the talking points.
What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
I’m a sucker for a good memoir and I just devoured You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. The book, written in bite-size chunks and fashioned as a series of short essays, is heart-wrenching, but also brilliantly captivating. The writing of a poet. You feel full after just a few brief lines.
Although it’s been out for a while, I also read Both/And by former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin while I was travelling and had the time to really dig into the background of a political scandal that dominated international headlines for a time. It’s for anyone who loves a good political tell-all, but it’s written with the substance of a woman who had much more to say.
What book can’t you wait to dive into?
I’m waiting on Angela Merkel’s much-anticipated political memoirs, expected later this year. Named one of the world’s most powerful women, her memoir is co-authored by her long-time advisor Beate Baumann. She is notoriously private and didn’t participate in the popular biography of her life, The Chancellor. So this is really her first account of what she navigated during her 16 years as chancellor of Germany.
As part of Beyond a Ballot, our book club is also diving into two Canadian political books this spring, Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (an oldie but a goodie) and Indian in the Kitchen by Jody Wilson-Raybould.
What’s your favourite book of all time?
It has to be Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. I read it shortly after the death of my mother and it’s the only book in my adult life that I’ve read more than once just so I could linger over her exquisite and sometimes humorous prose on bereavement a second time. This book is a marvel, much like everything written by Didion.
What book completely changed your perspective?
As a political commentator in Canada, I’ve been closely watching the debate on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). I had the timely good fortune of recently reading In Love by Amy Bloom. You cannot read this book without sobbing into your pillowcase. But you also walk away being reminded of the critical agency in choosing a dignified end of life. While it didn’t change my perspective per se, it certainly solidified it. A beautiful, powerful love story and an important read.
If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
I’m more of a dinner party kind of gal, so I’d have to go with some of the women I mentioned here. Imagine a dinner with Huma Abedin, Angela Merkel and Joan Didion. Pass the champagne, we’d be in for a wild conversation.