Gun Curious

More than ever, it feels like cultural and political divisions over firearms are tearing the United States apart. Guns are an undeniable and contradictory presence in America, both widely owned and controversial. This book does something remarkable: it promotes insight over animosity in understanding the complex reality of guns in America. It challenges firearms skeptics, entertains enthusiasts, and informs the uncommitted by taking readers on a surprising journey inside gun culture. A lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, David Yamane became a new gun owner as a 42-year-old and embarked on an immersive twelve-year study of American gun culture. Weaving together his personal experiences and sociological observations to explain why guns make sense to those who own them, he illuminates defensive gun ownership, the risk of negative outcomes associated with firearms, and what responsible gun ownership looks like in the twenty-first century. This book lowers the heat on America's inflamed arguments about firearms and models the civil discussions we desperately need.

ONE OF CBC'S BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS OF 2022 A suspenseful and poignant tale from an award-winning writer about a girl navigating chaotic family life in a close-knit small town. On a June afternoon in a small city, a wild-eyed girl named Francie dashes down a neighbourhood street, clutching a gun. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s running from, and she doesn’t know what she’s heading towards. All she understands is the need to survive. To save herself, she has no choice but to run—and to save those she loves, she must hold tight to that gun. Swirling around Francie is a chorus of friends, family, and neighbours, each person with a different view of her. As we hear from these voices—Francie’s steadfast best friend, Alice; Alice’s comically unaware mother, Sally, and struggling mathematician father, David; Francie’s distressed and distracted mother, Marietta, and troubled, unwell father, Luce—a fractured portrait emerges of the girl and the village surrounding her. And at last we arrive at a still point in the chaos: a tall tree where Francie takes shelter, and where the meaning of her flight—for herself, and for the people around her—becomes clear. In Francie’s Got a Gun, award-winning writer Carrie Snyder assembles a chorus of unforgettable characters who are both well-intentioned and flawed. At their centre is Francie, a vulnerable, imaginative girl with surprising attachments to each of them. Here is a propulsive, polyphonic, heart-expanding novel—equal parts sorrow and humour, fear and love, anger and kindness—about social breakdown and the quest for connection in a close-knit community.

A Tokyo college student’s discovery and eventual obsession with a stolen handgun awakens something dark inside him. On a nighttime walk along a Tokyo riverbank, a young man named Nishikawa stumbles on a dead body, beside which lies a gun. From the moment Nishikawa decides to take the gun, the world around him blurs. Knowing he possesses the weapon brings an intoxicating sense of purpose to his dull university life. But soon Nishikawa’s personal entanglements become unexpectedly complicated: he finds himself romantically involved with two women while his biological father, whom he’s never met, lies dying in a hospital. Through it all, he can’t stop thinking about the gun—and the four bullets loaded in its chamber. As he spirals into obsession, his focus is consumed by one idea: that possessing the gun is no longer enough—he must fire it.

This engaging and accessible book explains the scientific principles behind guns, both ancient and modern. It connects their evolution to advances in science, as well as tracing the developments of projectiles and propellants. It is not limited to small arms but also looks at the science of enormous guns such the Paris Gun, for example, and reviews the efforts to build a gun to launch projectiles into space. Extremely fast guns are also covered, such as two-stage guns and rail guns. Further, the book provides insight into the science of terminal ballistics and wound ballistics as well as the challenging subject of gun control. It is full of interesting facts for all who are curious about the science and history of guns, as well as those for whom the gun is an accessory of their profession.