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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.Scotty: A Hockey Life Like No Other
By Ken Dryden. 2019
NATIONAL BESTSELLERA hockey life like no other.A hockey book like no other.Scotty Bowman is recognized as the best coach in…
hockey history, and one of the greatest coaches in all of sports. He won more games and more Stanley Cups than anyone else. Remarkably, despite all the changes in hockey, he coached at the very top for more than four decades, his first Cup win and his last an astonishing thirty-nine years apart. Yet perhaps most uniquely, different from anyone else who has ever lived or ever will again, he has experienced the best of hockey continuously since he was fourteen years old. With his precious standing room pass to the Montreal Forum, he saw "Rocket" Richard play at his peak every Saturday night. He saw Gordie Howe as a seventeen-year-old just starting out. He scouted Bobby Orr as a thirteen-year-old in Parry Sound, Ontario. He coached Guy Lafleur and Mario Lemieux. He coached against Wayne Gretzky. For the past decade, as an advisor for the Chicago Blackhawks, he has watched Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and Connor McDavid. He has seen it all up close. Ken Dryden was a Hall-of-Fame goaltender with the Montreal Canadiens. His critically acclaimed and bestselling books have shaped the way we read and think about hockey. Now the player and coach who won five Stanley Cups together team up once again.In Scotty, Dryden has given his coach a new test: Tell us about all these players and teams you've seen, but imagine yourself as their coach. Tell us about their weaknesses, not just their strengths. Tell us how you would coach them and coach against them. And then choose the top eight teams of all time, match them up against one another in a playoff series, and, separating the near-great from the great, tell us who would win. And why.This book is about a life—a hockey life, a Canadian life, a life of achievement. It is Scotty Bowman in his natural element, behind the bench one more time.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.What Are the Paralympic Games? (What Was?)
By Gail Herman, Who Hq. 2020
It's time to cheer for the inspiring athletes of the Paralympic Games! As the Opening Ceremony for the 1948 Summer…
Olympic Games commenced in London, a similar sporting competition was taking place a few miles away. But the men at Stoke Mandeville weren't your typical athletes. They were paralyzed World War II veterans. The games at Stoke Mandeville were so successful that they would eventually lead evolve into the Paralympics. Participants from all around the world vie for the gold medal in a variety of sports, including archery, basketball, swimming, speed skating, and ice hockey. Author Gail Herman highlights their achievements, describes how these athletes train--both mentally and physically--for the games, and gives the reader a better understanding of what makes the Paralympic Games one of the world's most viewed sporting events.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.Breaking Through: Heroes in Canadian Women's Sport (Lorimer Recordbooks)
By Sue Irwin. 2018
This book highlights the achievements of Canadian women sports stars — the role models of today's young female athletes. They…
fought for the right to compete in sports traditionally dominated by men and proved that women's sports are just as competitive and exciting to watch as men's. Spanning decades, Breaking Through focuses on seven sports and the women who made them their own, including well-known legends such as soccer player Christine Sinclair, who brought women's soccer in Canada into the limelight, and hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser, the longest-serving member of Canada's National team and five-time Olympic medalist. Readers will also see basketball, bobsleigh and rugby represented and learn the stories of less well-known athletes such as Indigenous Cross-country skiers Sharon Anne and Shirley Firth, who faced down prejudice, and Carol Hunyh, who brought home Canada's first Olympic gold medal in women's wrestling.Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon
By Simran Jeet Singh. 2020
The true story of Fauja Singh, who broke world records to become the first one hundred-year-old to run a marathon,…
shares valuable lessons on the source of his grit, determination to overcome obstacles, and commitment to positive representation of the Sikh community.Every step forward is a victory.Fauja Singh was born determined. He was also born with legs that wouldn't allow him to play cricket with his friends or carry him to school miles from his village in Punjab. But that didn't stop him. Working on his family's farm, Fauja grew stronger to meet his own full potential.He never stopped striving. At the age of 81, after a lifetime of making his body, mind, and heart stronger, Fauja decided to run his first marathon. He went on to break records all around the world and became the first person over 100 to complete the grueling long-distance race.With exuberant text by Simran Jeet Singh and exhilarating illustrations by Baljinder Kaur, the true story of Fauja Singh reminds us that it's both where we start and how we finish that make our journeys unforgettable.We the North: 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors
By Doug Smith. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLER"Doug Smith always gets the first question in any Raptors press conference--as the dean of our press corps, he's…
been in the front row for every development over the past 25 years. There's no one better placed to write a history of our team's first quarter century."--Nick Nurse, head coach, Toronto RaptorsBringing Jurassic Park to your home, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Canada's most exciting team.When the Toronto Raptors first took the court back in 1995, the world was a very different place. Michael Jordan was tearing up the NBA. No one had email. And a lot of people wondered whether basketball could survive in Toronto, the holy city of hockey.Twenty-five years later, the Raptors are the heroes not only of the 416, but of the entire country. That is the incredible story of We the North, told by Doug Smith, the Toronto Starreporter who has been covering the team since the press conference announcing Canada's new franchise and the team's beat reporter from that day on.Comprising twenty-five chapters to mark the team's twenty-five years, We the North celebrates the biggest moments of the quarter-century--from Vince Carter's amazing display at the dunk competition to the play-off runs, the major trades, the Raptors'incredible fans, including Nav Bhatia and Drake, and,of course,the challenges that marked the route to the championship-clinching Game 6 that brought the whole countryto a standstill.We the North: 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors tells the story of Canada's most exciting team, charting their rise from a sporting oddity in a hockey-mad country to the status they hold today as the reigning NBA champions and national heroes.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.Change Up: How to Make the Great Game of Baseball Even Better
By Dan Robson, Buck Martinez. 2016
In the spirit of Moneyball, the voice of the Toronto Blue Jays offers cutting insights on baseballBuck Martinez has been…
in and around professional baseball for nearly fifty years as a player, manager and broadcaster. Currently the play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays, Martinez has witnessed enormous change in the game he loves, as it has morphed from a grassroots pastime to big business. Not all of the change has been for the better, and today’s fans struggle to connect to their on-the-field heroes as loyalty to club and player wavers and free agency constantly changes the face of every team’s roster.In Change Up, Martinez offers his unique insights into how Major League Baseball might reconnect with its fanbase, how the clubs might train and prepare their players for their time in “The Show,” and how players might approach the sport in a time of sagging fan interest. Martinez isn’t shy with his opinions, whether they be on pitch count, how to develop players through the minor-league system, and even if there should be a minor-league system at all. Always entertaining, ever insightful, Martinez shares brilliant insights and inside pitches about summer’s favourite game.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.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.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 KingSomebeachsomewhere: The Harness Racing Legend from a One-Horse Stable
By Marjorie Simmins. 2021
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.Alfabet / alphabet : a memoir of a first language
By Sadiqa De Meijer. 2020
alfabet / alphabet is the record of Sadiqa de Meijer's transition from speaking Dutch to English. Exploring questions of identity,…
landscape, family, and translation, the essays navigate the shifting cultural currents of language by using an eclectic approach to storytelling. As such, fellow linguistic migrants to anglophone Canada will recognize elements of their experience in alfabet / alphabet, while lifelong English speakers will perceive their mother tongue in a new lightIt Takes Guts: How Your Body Turns Food Into Fuel (and Poop)
By Jennifer Gardy, Belle Wuthrich. 2021
A 2022 Forest of Reading: Yellow Cedar Award Nominee!An illustrated book about the digestive system and microbiome for young readers,…
from famous (and funny) scientist Dr. Jennifer Gardy.Everybody eats, and everybody poops. Pretty ordinary stuff, right?But what happens in between is far from ordinary! That’s where your digestive system—also known as your gut—works its magic. It Takes Guts is an excellent, science-based resource for classroom learning and home-schooling for kids age 9 to 13, with information about: The surprising role that food and digestion play in your mood and immune system.The amazing tools your body uses to break down food including acids, which do their thing without burning a hole in your stomach!The incredible truth that not all bacteria is bad! Billions of “helpful bacteria” belong in your gut.And so much more.Dr. Jennifer Gardy also takes stomach-turning detours to investigate the science behind burps, barfs, and farts, proving that learning about the wonderful world of your gut—takes guts!Rebound: Sports, Community, and the Inclusive City
By Perry King. 2021
From basketball hoops to cricket bats, the role community sports play in our cities and how crucial they are to…
diversity and inclusion. “The virus exposed how we live and work. It also revealed how we play, and what we lose when we have to stop.” For every kid who makes it to the NBA, thousands more seek out the pleasure and camaraderie of pick-up basketball in their local community centre or neighbourhood park. It’s a story that plays out in sport after sport – team and individual, youth and adult, men's and women's. While the dazzle of pro athletes may command our attention, grassroots sports build the bridges that link city-dwellers together in ways that go well beyond the physical benefits. The pandemic and heightened awareness of racial exclusion reminded us of the importance of these pastimes and the public spaces where we play. In this closely reported exploration of the role of community sports in diverse cities, Toronto journalist Perry King makes an impassioned case for re-imagining neighbourhoods whose residents can be active, healthy, and connected. "I couldn’t stop reading Perry King’s Rebound. An evocative essay about the transformative and uniting power of local sports in a city with residents from every country in the world, the book is well researched, entertaining, and informative. It spoke to my own experiences as a young athlete fitting into a new city when I first came to Toronto – and to the importance our city government must place on local recreation and sports if our city is to help all residents reach their potential. A fantastic contribution to understanding Toronto – and to the power of local recreation in any major city." —David Miller, former mayor of TorontoThe Running-Shaped Hole
By Robert Earl Stewart. 2022
Robert Earl Stewart weighs 368 pounds and struggles to catch his breath while talking. He starts running to save his…
life. Along the way he loses 140 pounds, ends up in jail, and eventually runs the Detroit Free Press Half-Marathon.Proud to Play: Canadian LGBTQ+ athletes who made history
By Erin Silver. 2021
The 2018 Winter Olympics marked a milestone for LGBTQ+ athletes. Thirteen athletes out of 3,000 competitors were out and proud…
— nearly double the number who felt comfortable sharing their sexuality four years earlier at the Sochi Games. Many athletes stay closeted for their entire sports careers, often unable to compete at their highest ability because of the shame and self-doubt they feel in not being true to their orientation or identity. But coming out still means facing harassment from fans, teammates, opponents, and the media, and a lack of sponsorship opportunities. While organizations like You Can Play, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Eagle Canada have made progress in recent years in promoting inclusivity at the grassroots and elite sporting levels, there is still much work to be done to ensure all athletes feel safe being their authentic selves. Athletes profiled include swimmer Mark Tewksbury, rhythmic gymnast Rose Cossar, professional hockey player Brock McGillis, speed skater Anastasia Bucsis, pairs figure skater Eric Radford, volleyball players Betty Baxter and Christopher Voth and hockey player Angela James. Generously illustrated with photographs and given context by an overview of the history of LGBTQ+ athletes in Canada, this book will make all young sports enthusiasts and competitors proud to play.