Service Alert
CD service concludes July 31, 2025
CELA's audiobooks and magazines are available in Direct to Player and downloadable formats. We no longer mail out CDs. Please contact us for more information.
CELA's audiobooks and magazines are available in Direct to Player and downloadable formats. We no longer mail out CDs. Please contact us for more information.
Showing 1 - 4 of 4 items
By Chika Stacy Oriuwa. 2024
In this personal story of becoming, belonging and being seen, a psychiatry resident pulls back the curtain on the journey…
to becoming a doctor.From childhood, Chika Oriuwa dreamed of being a doctor. She knew that she was destined to wear the white coat one day, no matter what it took. The high of being accepted to the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine in 2016 came crashing down when Oriuwa discovered she was the only Black student in her incoming class of 259 students. Oriuwa soon learned that medical school and a medical career are not immune to the systemic discrimination that permeates the fabric of our world. Interwoven with descriptions of on-the-ground medical training, personal moments of doubt and success, and reflections on mental health and family expectations, Unlike the Rest is the moving and inspiring story of a young doctor’s journey through medical school and residency, where she found her calling in the science and in the patients, but also felt alone and lonely, and compelled to advocate for change, not only for those in training but for those in care. And while the risks in speaking up seemed great, to simply endure was unacceptable.If you’ve ever doubted that you belong or struggled to find your voice, Unlike the Rest will inspire you to stay true to yourself and fight for what you believe in.By Null Farah Ghafoor. 2025
Borrowing its title from a finance term—“the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists”—Shadow…
Price is a stunning debut that examines the idea of value in a world that burns under our capitalist lens. What gives life value? How do we serve existing societal structures that determine its cost? Employing both surreal and documentary imagery, Farah Ghafoor's arresting collection articulates how narrative is used to revise the past and manipulate the future, ultimately forming our present-day climate crisis. Interrogating personal complicity, generational implications, and the shock of our collective disregard for a world that sustains every living thing, Shadow Price captures the complexities of living and writing as a young poet born in the year that “climate change denial” first appeared in print. Mourning the loss of Earth’s biodiversity, from insects to mammoths to trees, these introspective poems invite us to consider the risks and rewards of loving what may vanish in our lifetime. Shadow Price charges readers to contemplate their power and purpose in the world today, recognizing that there is hope even in the belly of the beast.By Vinh Nguyen. 2025
An inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and the father’s mysterious disappearance along the way. This book is…
an intricate exploration of a searching mind, shedding light on the psyche of a grieving son, as he chases certainty and seeks elusive resolution.With the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat was Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and then mysteriously vanished.Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for answers. What he discovers is a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. To find his father—and anchor himself in the present—Nguyen must piece together the debris of history with family stories that have been scattered across generations and continents, kept for years in broken hearts and guarded silences.As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse takes readers on a poignant tour of disappeared refugee camps, abandoned family homes, and reimagined lives.Part fractured reminiscence, part invented history, and part fictional fabulation, Nguyen’s story is about learning to live with what’s already lost and the memories of what might have been.By Maggie Helwig. 2025
"Striking, elegant." – Publishers Weekly, ★ STARRED Review"An activist priest provides sanctuary for an encampment of unhoused people in her…
churchyardThe housing crisis plaguing major urban centres has sent countless people into the streets. In spring 2022, some of them found their way to the yard beside the Anglican church in Toronto’s Kensington Market, where Maggie Helwig is the priest. They pitched tents, formed an encampment, and settled in. Known as an outspoken social justice activist, Helwig has spent the last three years getting to know the residents and fighting tooth and nail to allow them to stay, battling various authorities that want to clear the yard and keep the results of the housing crisis out of sight and out of mind. Encampment tells the story of Helwig’s life-long activism as preparation for her fight to keep her churchyard open to people needing a home. More importantly, it introduces us to the Artist, to Jeff, and to Robin: their lives, their challenges, their humanity. It confronts our society’s callousness in allowing so many to go unhoused and demands, by bringing their stories to the fore, that we begin to respond with compassion and grace.