North Shore Reads: The Pain Project

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In the fifth North Shore Reads, Kara Stanley, Simon Paradis, and Marsha Lederman discuss Stanley’s new book The Pain Project: A Couple's Story of Confronting Chronic Pain.

Ten years after her husband Simon Paradis’ catastrophic injury to his brain and spinal cord, Kara Stanley and Simon decide to spend one year researching pain, interviewing experts, reading self-help books, and trying new and alternative methodologies to deepen their knowledge and bring ease back into their lives. In The Pain Project, Kara and Simon record their honest conversations, insightful journal entries, and affectionate banter, all while addressing the nature of suffering and pain. Ultimately hopeful, their story is one for anyone looking for a greater understanding of pain as a phenomenon and in their own lives.

For the fifth North Shore Reads event, we invite you to a thoughtful online conversation between Kara, Simon, and The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman on what it means when we confront our pain head on.

This event is a collaboration between the North Vancouver City Library, North Vancouver District Public Library, and West Vancouver Memorial Library. Previous North Shore Reads authors include Suzanne Simard, Ivan Coyote, Brett Popplewell, and Steve Burgess.

Register through Eventbrite using the button below. The event is held virtually via Zoom webinar. A link will be emailed to you two days before to the email address you used to register.

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About the presenters:

Kara Stanley is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, a lyricist, and a movement teacher. Simon Paradis is a musician who has been playing in blues, rock, and roots bands across Canada for 30 years. A serious fall in 2008 resulted in life-altering injuries, but after a long rehabilitation process, he has returned to music again. Together, this couple has collaborated on Kara’s 2015 memoir Fallen, which was longlisted for the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, and on Simon’s CD’s Good Road Home (2013); Mouthful of Stars (2015); and Grooves and Ruts (2019). Their latest collaboration is The Pain Project: A Couple’s Story of Confronting Chronic Pain, a wide-ranging exploration of the definitions, treatments, science, myths, and meanings of the mysterious and multi-faceted force that is pain.

Marsha Lederman is an award-winning journalist and author. A staff columnist with The Globe and Mail, she was previously The Globe’s Western Arts Correspondent. Her memoir Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2022. Her most recent book is October 7th: Searching for the Humanitarian Middle, which came out last year. Born and raised in Toronto, Marsha now lives in Vancouver.