Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. In 2004, St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack. St John is mak­ing im­pres­sive strides as she moves on with her life.

This Sun­day’s Book­shelf fo­cus­es on Trinidad-born and based artist/pho­tog­ra­ph­er Abi­gail Hadeed, who has been doc­u­ment­ing Caribbean cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, the en­vi­ron­ment, and our peo­ple for over 30 years.

A mi­cro wed­ding usu­al­ly has a guest list of 20 peo­ple or less (some ex­perts al­so say 50 guests or less). Mi­cro wed­dings fol­low a sim­i­lar for­mat to that of a tra­di­tion­al wed­ding (cer­e­mo­ny and re­cep­tion) but have few­er guests and of­fer more flex­i­bil­i­ty.

An­oth­er lo­cal au­thor joins T&T’s im­pres­sive fam­i­ly of writ­ers and lit­er­a­ture junkies alike. At just 17 years old, Zen-Isaac Rey­mo pub­lished his first nov­el, Ter­ran Myths: In­cep­tion, in March 2023. The Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent from D’Abadie be­gan writ­ing the fic­ti­tious work at 13 years old, tak­ing in­spi­ra­tion from Greek mytholo­gies and An­i­mal Farm by fa­mous Eng­lish au­thor George Or­well, which fo­cus­es on themes of in­equal­i­ty and free­dom.

More than 500 mil­lion peo­ple in the world suf­fer from di­a­betes, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion.

This lit­tle gem of a book land­ed in my hands just over a week ago. Not know­ing the writer (it has ob­vi­ous­ly been writ­ten un­der a wist­ful nom de plume), I was in­trigued. Clear­ly writ­ten and forth­right in struc­ture, I rapid­ly con­sumed it over the short flight from Pi­ar­co to An­tigua.

In a ca­reer span­ning decades, filled with in­cred­i­ble mo­ments of merid­i­an achieve­ment that many peo­ple on­ly dream of, Re­nee Cum­mings takes pause when asked about the high­light of her ca­reer thus far. “I’m still wait­ing for my big mo­ment,” she mus­es qui­et­ly, de­spite her land­mark ac­com­plish­ments in the me­dia, a dec­o­rat­ed ca­reer in crim­i­nol­o­gy and be­ing named one of the World’s Top 50 In­no­va­tors in the field of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence in 2020.

One of the most im­por­tant things own­ers can do to keep their pets healthy and hap­py is to pro­vide a nu­tri­tious di­et. Pet food and treats can be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with harm­ful bac­te­ria that cause food­borne ill­ness­es such as sal­mo­nel­losis and lis­te­rio­sis. Im­prop­er stor­age can al­so ex­pose foods to pests such as in­sects and rats (which trans­mit dis­eases such as lep­tospiro­sis). Pet own­ers can low­er the risk of food­borne ill­ness from con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed pet food and treats by fol­low­ing safe han­dling in­struc­tions.

‘I de­cid­ed to share my sto­ry be­cause peo­ple need to know that you have to be your strongest ad­vo­cate when it comes to your health. The deep dread you feel when you get di­ag­nosed with can­cer is in­de­scrib­able.

Pearl Bal­ga­r­oo is an anom­aly as a sur­vivor of Stage 4 breast can­cer. Ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety, the five-year rel­a­tive sur­vival rate for Stage 4 breast can­cer is 28 per cent. The rel­a­tive sur­vival rate speaks to the like­li­hood of sur­vival of a per­son with the dis­ease as com­pared to a per­son with­out the dis­ease.

This Sun­day Guardian’s Book­shelf takes us to the work of In­di­an-born writer and in­vest­ment banker Shan­ta Acharya, the au­thor of 12 books span­ning po­et­ry, fic­tion and lit­er­ary crit­i­cism of fi­nance. Born and ed­u­cat­ed in Cut­tack, In­dia, Acharya is the first woman from the In­di­an state of Odisha to win a schol­ar­ship to Ox­ford and among the first batch of women ad­mit­ted to Worces­ter Col­lege in 1979.

Pe­dro Christo­pher is not your or­di­nary Trinida­di­an boy. The 11 year old has been a friend of the stage since he was four years old, act­ing with Lil­liput Chil­dren’s The­atre in Wood­brook. Off-stage, how­ev­er, Pe­dro and his bud­dies en­joy frol­ick­ing in the out­doors, play­ing sports like bas­ket­ball, ten­nis, and foot­ball. He does all of his favourite things while hav­ing Down Syn­drome, al­so known as Tri­somy 21. His moth­er, Rho­da Christo­pher, de­scribed him not as dis­abled but as some­one who is “dif­fer­ent­ly-abled”, ca­pa­ble of do­ing the same ac­tiv­i­ties that any­one can do.