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Sea Trial: Sailing After My Father
By Brian Harvey. 2019
An adventure story set against the backdrop of a son trying to understand his fatherAfter a 25-year break from boating,…
Brian Harvey circumnavigates Vancouver Island with his wife, his dog, and a box of documents that surfaced after his father’s death. John Harvey was a neurosurgeon, violinist, and photographer who answered his door a decade into retirement to find a sheriff with a summons. It was a malpractice suit, and it did not go well. Dr. Harvey never got over it. The box contained every nurse’s record, doctor’s report, trial transcript, and expert testimony related to the case. Only Brian’s father had read it all — until now.In this beautifully written memoir, Brian Harvey shares how after two months of voyaging with his father’s ghost, he finally finds out what happened in the O.R. that crucial night and why Dr. Harvey felt compelled to fight the excruciating accusations.Voice: Adam Pottle on writing with deafness. (Writers on writing #2)
By Adam Pottle. 2019
In Voice, Adam Pottle explores the crucial role deafness has played in the growth of his imagination, and in doing…
so presents a unique perspective on a writer's development. Born deaf in both ears, Pottle recounts what it was like growing up in a world of muted sound, and how his deafness has influenced virtually everything about his writing, from his use of language to character and plot choices. Salty, bold, and relentlessly honest, Voice makes us think about writing in entirely new ways and expands our understanding of deafness and the gifts that it can offer. 2019.How to Die: A Book About Being Alive
By Ray Robertson. 2020
“He who would teach men to die would teach them to live,” writes Montaigne in Essais, and in How to…
Die: A Book on Being Alive, Ray Robertson takes up the challenge. Though contemporary society avoids the subject and often values the mere continuation of existence over its quality, Robertson argues that the active and intentional consideration of death is neither morbid nor frivolous, but instead essential to our ability to fully value life. How to Die is both an absorbing excursion through some of Western literature’s most compelling works on the subject of death as well as an anecdote-driven argument for cultivating a better understanding of death in the belief that, if we do, we’ll know more about what it means to live a meaningful life.The Art of Leaving: A Memoir
By Ayelet Tsabari. 2019
WINNER OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARD FOR MEMOIRFINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTIONAn unforgettable memoir…
about a young woman who tries to outrun loss, but eventually finds a way home. Ayelet Tsabari was 21 years old the first time she left Tel Aviv with no plans to return. Restless after two turbulent mandatory years in the Israel Defense Forces, Tsabari longed to get away. It was not the never-ending conflict that drove her, but the grief that had shaken the foundations of her home. The loss of Tsabari’s beloved father in years past had left her alienated and exiled within her own large Yemeni family and at odds with her Mizrahi identity. By leaving, she would be free to reinvent herself and to rewrite her own story. For nearly a decade, Tsabari travelled, through India, Europe, the US and Canada, as though her life might go stagnant without perpetual motion. She moved fast and often because—as in the Intifada—it was safer to keep going than to stand still. Soon the act of leaving—jobs, friends and relationships—came to feel most like home. But a series of dramatic events forced Tsabari to examine her choices and her feelings of longing and displacement. By periodically returning to Israel, Tsabari began to examine her Jewish-Yemeni background and the Mizrahi identity she had once rejected, as well as unearthing a family history that had been untold for years. What she found resonated deeply with her own immigrant experience and struggles with new motherhood.Beautifully written, frank and poignant, The Art of Leaving is a courageous coming-of-age story that reflects on identity and belonging and that explores themes of family and home—both inherited and chosen.Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)
By Lorna Crozier. 2020
A deeply affecting portrait of a long partnership and a clear-eyed account of the impact of a serious illness, writing…
as consolation, and the enduring significance of poetry from one of Canada's most celebrated voices.When we ran off together in 1978, abandoning our marriages and leaving wreckage in our wake, I was a "promising writer," Patrick had just won the Governor General's Award. I was so happy for him, and I've continued to be every time an honour comes his way, but I knew if I didn't grow, if I remained merely someone who showed potential, we wouldn't last. I swore I wouldn't play the dutiful wife, cheerleader, and muse of the great male writer, and he didn't envision a partner like that. We aspired to flourish together and thrive in words and books and gardens.When Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane met at a poetry workshop in 1976, they had no idea that they would go on to write more than forty books between them, balancing their careers with their devotion to each other, and to their beloved cats, for decades. Then, in January 2017, their life together changed unexpectedly when Patrick became seriously ill. Despite tests and the opinions of many specialists, doctors remained baffled. There was no diagnosis and no effective treatment plan. The illness devastated them both.During this time, Lorna turned to her writing as a way of making sense of her grief and for consolation. She revisited her poems, tracing her own path as a poet along with the evolution of her relationship with Patrick. The result is an intimate and intensely moving memoir about the difficulties and joys of creating a life with someone and the risks and immense rewards of partnership. At once a spirited account of the past and a poignant reckoning with the present, it is, above all, an extraordinary and unforgettable love story. Told with unflinching honesty and fierce tenderness, Through the Garden is a candid, clear-eyed portrait of a long partnership and an acknowledgement, a tribute, and a gift.Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
By Rebekah Taussig. 2020
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to…
paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.Entry Island
By Peter May. 2016
"A VIVID, FULLY REALIZED NOVEL OF LOST LOVE, YEARNING AND UNBEARABLE HARDSHIP." --Seattle Times"IN A WORD, SUPERLATIVE AND A BOOK…
TO GET LOST IN" --Deadly Pleasures MagazineOnly two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of just more than 100 inhabitants, the wealthiest of whom has just been discovered murdered in his home. Covered in her husband's blood, the dead man's melancholy wife spins a tale for the police about a masked intruder armed with a knife. The investigation appears to be little more than a formality--the evidence points to a crime of passion by the wife. But homicide detective Sime Mackenzie is electrified by the widow during his interview, convinced that he has met her before, even though this is clearly impossible. Haunted by this strange certainty, Sime's insomnia is punctuated by vivid, hallucinatory dreams of a distant past on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away, dreams in which he and the widow play leading roles. Sime's conviction soon becomes an obsession. And despite mounting evidence of the woman's guilt, he finds himself convinced of her innocence, leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must fulfill and the personal destiny he is increasingly sure awaits him.Extraordinary Canadians: Stories from the Heart of Our Nation
By Peter Mansbridge, Mark Bulgutch. 2020
From Peter Mansbridge, the beloved former anchor of CBC’s The National, and Mark Bulgutch, former CBC producer, comes a collection…
of first-person stories about remarkable Canadians who embody the values of our great nation—kindness, compassion, courage, and freedom—and inspire us to do the same.In this timely and heartwarming volume of personal stories, Peter Mansbridge and former CBC producer Mark Bulgutch bring together inspiring Canadians from across the country, who in their own way, are making Canada a better place for all. Hear Gitxsan activist Cindy Blackstock describe her childhood in northern British Columbia where she straddled two communities—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—and her subsequent fight for equitable health care for all children as the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. Meet Matt Devlin, the US broadcaster who found a new home in Canada when he got a job with the Toronto Raptors, and read how he helped calm the crowd when a gunman began shooting in Nathan Phillips Square after the team’s NBA championship win. From the young woman living with Crohn’s disease—and proudly modeling her ostomy bag—to the rabbi whose family fled Nazi Germany—and who now gives the benediction on Parliament Hill each Remembrance Day—Extraordinary Canadians celebrates the people who have overcome adversity and broken down barriers to champion the rights and freedoms of everyone who calls Canada home. Featuring voices from all walks of life—advocates, politicians, doctors, veterans, immigrants, business leaders, and more—this collection gets to the heart of what it means to be Canadian. These stories will change the way you see your country and make you fall in love with Canada all over again.Since their inception in 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays have been one of the most dynamic franchises in all of…
baseball. As an award-winning, longtime Jays columnist, Bob Elliott has witnessed more than his share of that history up close and personal. In If These Walls Could Talk: Toronto Blue Jays, Elliott provides insight into the Jays' inner sanctum as only he can. Readers will gain the perspective of players, coaches, and front office executives in times of greatness as well as defeat, making for a keepsake no fan will want to miss.Big: Stories about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies
By Christina Myers. 2020
Pop culture stereotypes, shopping frustrations, fat jokes and misconceptions about health are all ways society systemically rejects large bodies. BIG…
is a collection of personal and intimate experiences of plus-sized women, non-binary and trans people in a society obsessed with thinness. Revealing insights that are both funny and traumatic, surprising and challenging, familiar and unexpected, 26 writers explore themes as diverse as self perception, body image, fashion, fat activism, food, sexuality, diet culture, motherhood and more. These stories offer a closer look at what it means to navigate a world designed to fit bodies of a certain size (sometimes literally) and, in turn, invite readers to ask questions about?and ultimately reconsider?our collective and individual obsession with women?s bodies. Contributors include Dr. Rohini Bannerjee, Amanda Scriver, Cassie Stocks, Jo Jefferson, Layla Cameron, Rabbit Richards, Sonja Boon, Simone Blais, Tracy Manrell and other writers from across Canada, the US, and the UK.Meet Thérèse Casgrain (Scholastic Canada Biography)
By Elizabeth MacLeod. 2021
Meet Thérèse Casgrain, who battled for women’s equality and social justice, and was the first woman to lead a political…
party in Canada!The award-winning Scholastic Canada Biography series highlights the lives of remarkable Canadians whose achievements have inspired and changed the lives of those who followed.From 1916 to 1925, women across Canada were starting to win right to vote, province by province . . . but not in Quebec. It took another fifteen years of protest and the leadership of Thérèse Casgrain for women there to begin to win that right. And that was only the start of Thérèse’s 50-year career! She decided to change things from inside the government too, becoming the first woman to lead a political party in Canada. And although Thérèse may not have been elected, her decades-long fight for equal rights, health care, and world peace is in itself a victory.Written by award-winning author Elizabeth MacLeod, this portrait of Thérèse Casgrain couples simple yet compelling writing with comic-flavoured illustrations by Mike Deas that help bring this fascinating story to life!Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic (Essential Anthologies Ser. #15)
By Linda M. Morra, Marianne Ackerman, The Quebec Writers' Federation. 2021
Where were you when the pandemic hit? While the shock of COVID-19 was fresh, the Quebec Writers' Federation sent out…
a call to its members asking for short descriptions of life under lockdown. The response was immediate and heartfelt. Written and posted online between April 6 and May 26 of 2020, these dispatches--including several from the front lines--are first-person stories of hunkering down, gasping for air, facing challenges, getting through. Mainly written from isolation, the pieces present reading and writing as constant themes: trying, failing, being blocked, and finding renewed purpose. Award-winning author Susan Doherty opens the volume with a dramatic account of her own close call: how the man who saved her life unknowingly put her in danger of infection. Poet Rachel McCrum and writer Crystal Chan, who shepherded the project, reflect in their closing remarks on how the experience created community, and delivered unexpected insight into the power and purpose of chronicling our days. This book is a collaborative effort to document a time like no other. The cover image, a re-imagined detail from a seventeenth-century engraving of a plague doctor wearing elaborate personal protective equipment, links our present to a past in which disease was a decisive player. It is a moment we are not likely to forget anytime soon.Carry On: Poetry by Young Immigrants
By Various Contributors, Rogé Girard. 2021
A moving #OwnVoices poetry collection written by young newcomers to Canada Carry On began in a high school in Outremont,…
Quebec, where author and poet Simon Boulerice conducted creative-writing workshops for young newcomers to Canada. As the students began writing, their poems gave voice to their reflections on leaving family, friends, and countries of origin to make new homes and connections in their new home, Canada. Paired with expressive portraits by award-winning artist Rogé, each young writer reflects on the experience of leaving one home for another. The collection of poems express feelings of anxiety, sorrow, anticipation, gratitude, and hope for the future. With thoughtful verse and evocative illustrations, Carry On is a tribute to human resilience, the voices of newcomers, and creating empathy for all those who wonder about their place in the world.Halifax and Me
By Harry Bruce. 2020
In 1971, Harry Bruce, recognized as one of Canada's top non-fiction writers, lost his mind—according to his peers—when he left…
bustling, lucrative Toronto and moved his family to the tough little seaport of Halifax. For the past fifty years, Harry Bruce has been working as what The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature calls "an impassioned advocate for the Maritimes and an essayist of great charm and perception." Here, writing more charmingly and perceptively than ever, he celebrates the blossoming of Halifax as "A City to Dance In."Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River
By Philip Lee. 2020
Shortlisted, New Brunswick Book Award for Non-FictionA CBC New Brunswick Book List SelectionAn Atlantic Books Today Must-Have New Brunswick Books…
of 2020 SelectionThe Restigouche River flows through the remote border region between the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, its magically transparent waters, soaring forest hillsides, and population of Atlantic salmon creating one of the most storied wild spaces on the continent. In Restigouche, writer Philip Lee follows ancient portage routes into the headwaters of the river, travelling by canoe to explore the extraordinary history of the river and the people of the valley. They include the Mi’gmaq, who have lived in the Restigouche valley for thousands of years; the descendants of French Acadian, Irish, and Scottish settlers; and some of the wealthiest people in the world who for more than a century have used the river as an exclusive wilderness retreat.The people of the Restigouche have long been both divided and united by a remarkable river that each day continues to assert itself, despite local and global industrial forces that now threaten its natural systems and the survival of the salmon. In the deep pools and rushing waters of the Restigouche, in this place apart in a rapidly changing natural world, Lee finds a story of hope about how to safeguard wild spaces and why doing so is the most urgent question of our time.Lucy Maud Montgomery: Canada's Literary Treasure
By Stan Sauerwein. 2019
Indigenous Toronto: Stories that Carry This Place
By Denise Bolduc, Mnawaate Gordon-Corbiere, Rebeka Tabobondung, Brian Wright-McLeod. 2021
Rich and diverse narratives of Indigenous Toronto, past and present Beneath many major North American cities rests a deep foundation…
of Indigenous history that has been colonized, paved over, and, too often, silenced. Few of its current inhabitants know that Toronto has seen twelve thousand years of uninterrupted Indigenous presence and nationhood in this region, along with a vibrant culture and history that thrives to this day. With contributions by Indigenous Elders, scholars, journalists, artists, and historians, this unique anthology explores the poles of cultural continuity and settler colonialism that have come to define Toronto as a significant cultural hub and intersection that was also known as a Meeting Place long before European settlers arrived. "This book is a reflection of endurance and a helpful corrective to settler fantasies. It tells a more balanced account of our communities, then and now. It offers the space for us to reclaim our ancestors’ language and legacy, rewriting ourselves back into a landscape from which non Indigenous historians have worked hard to erase us. But we are there in the skyline and throughout the GTA, along the coast and in all directions." – from the introduction by Hayden KingThe bestselling biography of renowned Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables is available in English for the first time.The…
name Hanako Muraoka is revered in Japan. Her Japanese translation of L. M. Montgomery’s beloved children’s classic Anne of Green Gables, Akage no An (Redhaired Anne) was the catalyst for the book’s massive and enduring popularity in Japan. A book that has since spawned countless interpretations, from manga to a long-running television series, and has remained on Japanese curriculum for half a century. For the first time, the bestselling biography of Hanako Muraoka written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka, and translated by the award-winning Cathy Hirano (The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up), is available in English. Born into an impoverished family of tea merchants in rural Japan at the end of the nineteenth century, Hanako Muraoka’s fortunes change dramatically when she is offered a place at an illustrious girls’ school in Tokyo founded by the Methodist Church of Canada. Nurtured by the Canadian missionaries who teach her, she falls in love with English poetry and literature. This love of the written word develops into a passion for writing and translating children’s literature that sustains Hanako through devastating personal tragedies and the tumult of the twentieth century. In 1941, after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hanako abruptly resigns from her role of reading children’s news over the radio — for which she is known and loved throughout Japan as “Radio Auntie”. Branded as “enemies”, the peace-loving missionaries who nurtured Hanako in her youth and with whom she later worked have been forced to leave the country. But Hanako finds solace in a gift received from a Canadian friend: a copy of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Although it is a book from an “enemy nation”, the story of Anne Shirley brings back vivid memories of precious friends in distant lands, giving Hanako courage and hope for the future. Amidst the wail of air-raid sirens, she begins translating her copy into Japanese in 1943, fully aware that she risks imprisonment and even death if caught. Although she completes the majority of the work by the end of the war, it is only much later that a publisher decides to take a chance on a Canadian author previously unknown in Japan, unwittingly launching a cross-cultural literary legacy that continues to this day. Anne’s Cradle tells the complex and captivating story of a woman who risked her freedom and devoted her life to bringing quality children’s literature to her people during a period of tumultuous change in Japan. Through the gift of Hanako Muraoka’s translations, generations of Japanese readers have fallen in love with a plucky redhead from Prince Edward Island.Meet David Suzuki (Scholastic Canada Biography)
By Elizabeth MacLeod. 2021
Meet David Suzuki: scientist, educator, and environmental activist! The award-winning Scholastic Canada Biography series highlights the lives of remarkable Canadians…
whose achievements have inspired and changed the lives of those who followed.As a young boy, David Suzuki loved spending time in the glorious British Columbia outdoors with his father. The racist policies against Japanese Canadians during World War II put an abrupt end to that when David’s family was sent to a Japanese internment camp in 1942. After the war, the Suzuki family was forced to leave B.C., settling in Ontario. David immersed himself in learning, earning a PhD in zoology, becoming a professor, and eventually taking his love of science education into the public sphere with his shows on CBC radio and television. His connection to nature, commitment as a scientist, and media presence found David among the first to raise the alarm on how human behaviour is endangering all life on Earth. He has worked tirelessly to bring attention and, more importantly, offer solutions to this critical issue. Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time, and David Suzuki has led the charge in education and activism in Canada for decades.Written by award-winning author Elizabeth MacLeod, this portrait of David Suzuki couples simple yet compelling writing with comic-flavoured illustrations by Mike Deas that help bring this fascinating story to life!Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language
By Ayelet Tsabari, Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza. 2021
In this collection of deeply personal essays, twenty-six writers explore their connection with language, accents, and vocabularies, and contend with…
the ways these can be used as both bridge and weapon. Some explore the way power and privilege affect language learning, especially the shame and exclusion often felt by non-native English speakers in a white, settler, colonial nation. Some confront the pain of losing a mother tongue or an ancestral language along with the loss of community and highlight the empowerment that comes with reclamation. Others celebrate the joys of learning a new language and the power of connection. All underscore how language can offer both transformation and collective healing. Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language is a vital anthology that opens a compelling dialogue about language diversity and probes the importance of language in our identity and the ways in which it shapes us. With contributions by: Kamal Al-Solaylee, Jenny Heijun Wills, Karen McBride, Melissa Bull, Leonarda Carranza, Adam Pottle, Kai Cheng Thom, Sigal Samuel, Rebecca Fisseha, Hege Anita Jakobsen Lepri, Logan Broeckaert, Taslim Jaffer, Ashley Hynd, Jagtar Kaur Atwal, Téa Mutonji, Rowan McCandless, Sahar Golshan, Camila Justino, Amanda Leduc, Ayelet Tsabari, Carrianne Leung, Janet Hong, Danny Ramadan, Sadiqa de Meijer, Jónína Kirton, and Eufemia Fantetti.