Caffeine and a Dose of Life: Writing about Science and about Family is a collection of both research-based writing and place-based writing. The caffeine section unleashes the various ways caffeine, a substance that reacts to natural responses in the body, can benefit human health. The life section details the author’s experiences she shares with her family in the High Park neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. This collection of creative non-fiction stories help us understand the ways places we occupy reveal our personal traits, shape our relationships and trigger our emotions.

Choi further explains that caffeine reduces insulin resistance levels because it acts as a xanthine oxidase inhibitor. Xanthine oxidase inhibitors reduce the production of uric acid. Reduced insulin levels decrease uric acid levels. Decreased uric acid levels reduce the accumulation of excess uric acid. Excess uric acid produces the crystallization process. When uric acid crystallizes in the joints, gout develops. Coffee and caffeine reduce crystalli­zation and the gout it produces.

- an excerpt from “Coffee & Gout”

 

At Hillside Gardens in High Park, Dream Pop music resonates from the portable stereo system at the end of the hill. People, mostly young adults, sit on the hill that descends onto Grenadier Pond. Grenadier Pond passes under the train and Gardiner Expressway bridges at the end of the park and empties into Lake Ontario. Every five minutes, GO and VIA Rail Trains echo into High Park. Traffic noises blend with reverberated voices and soft synths. Groups of twenty-somethings cluster the hill and sit with their eyes closed. Their bodies sway in rhythm. Some of them lay on the grass; some of them dance and wave their hands in front of the speakers. I smell weed.

- an excerpt from “My Birthday Plans”