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Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos
By Steven Heighton. 2020
"Searing ... the kind of book you won't forget."—Kirkus Reviews In the fall of 2015, Steven Heighton made an overnight…
decision to travel to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and enlist as a volunteer. He arrived on the isle of Lesvos with a duffel bag and a dubious grasp of Greek, his mother's native tongue, and worked on the landing beaches and in OXY-—a jerrybuilt, ad hoc transit camp providing simple meals, dry clothes, and a brief rest to refugees after their crossing from Turkey. In a town deserted by the tourists that had been its lifeblood, Heighton-—alongside the exhausted locals and under-equipped international aid workers—-found himself thrown into emergency roles for which he was woefully unqualified. From the brief reprieves of volunteer-refugee soccer matches to the riots of Camp Moria, Reaching Mithymna is a firsthand account of the crisis and an engaged exploration of the borders that divide us and the ties that bind.Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan's Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family's Past
By Jessica J. Lee. 2020
An exhilarating, anti-colonial reclamation of nature writing and memoir, rooted in the forests and flatlands of Taiwan, from the winner…
of the RBC Taylor Prize for Emerging Writers. "Two Trees Make a Forest is a finely faceted meditation on memory, love, landscape--and finding a home in language. Its short, shining sections tilt yearningly toward one another; in form as well as content, this is a beautiful book about the distance between people and between places, and the means of their bridging." --Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland. A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre-shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories. Winner of the 2020 Roger’s Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Canada Reads 2021.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.Burning Sugar
By Cicely Belle Blain. 2020
The latest from Vivek Shraya's VS. Books: a poetic exploration of Black identity, history, and lived experience influenced by the…
constant search for liberation. In this incendiary debut collection, activist and poet Cicely Belle Blain intimately revisits familiar spaces in geography, in the arts, and in personal history to expose the legacy of colonization and its impact on Black bodies. They use poetry to illuminate their activist work: exposing racism, especially anti-Blackness, and helping people see the connections between history and systemic oppression that show up in every human interaction, space, and community. Their poems demonstrate how the world is both beautiful and cruel, a truth that inspires overwhelming anger and awe - all of which spills out onto the page to tell the story of a challenging, complex, nuanced, and joyful life. In Burning Sugar, verse and epistolary, racism and resilience, pain and precarity are flawlessly sewn together by the mighty hands of a Black, queer femme. This book is the second title to be published under the VS. Books imprint, a series curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya, featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour.Bittersweet
By Natasha Ramoutar. 2020
Reflections on a reconstructed homeland and Scarborough. Bittersweet is an exciting, accomplished collection of poems evoking both a reconstructed homeland…
and Scarborough (Ontario). Using memory?intimate as well as collective?prompted by photographs, maps, language, and folklore, Ramoutar meditates on themes of obscured and suppressed history, time, and liminality. Her poems journey from home to home to home, from Toronto to Guyana to South Asia; and Scarborough remains omnipresent, with a mix of identities and a strong, active, and boisterous youthful presence.The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country
By Amanda Gorman. 2021
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller and #1 USA Today bestseller Amanda Gorman’s electrifying and historic poem “The Hill…
We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration, is now available as a collectible gift edition, perfect for graduation or any special occasion. “Stunning.” —CNN “Dynamic.” —NPR “Deeply rousing and uplifting.” —Vogue On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe with her call for unity and healing. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this special gift edition, perfect for any reader looking for some inspiration. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this remarkable keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry.Saltwater Chronicles: Notes on Everything Under the Nova Scotia Sun
By Lesley Choyce. 2020
This book celebrates the ordinary: the everyday disasters and discoveries that shape a life. In this, his one hundredth book,…
Lesley Choyce takes readers along as he writes about nearly everything under the sun from his home by the sea on the North Atlantic coast of Canada—all of it most ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan
By Alden Nowlan. 2017
Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) once wrote of a desire to leave behind "one poem, one story / that will tell what…
it was like / to be alive." In an abundance of memorable poems, he fulfilled this desire with candour and subtlety, emotion, and humour, sympathy and truth-telling. For many years, Nowlan has been one of Canada's most-read and -beloved poets, but only now is the true range of his poetic achievement finally available between two covers, with the publication of Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan.Nowlan takes us from nightmarish precincts of fear and solitude to the embrace of friendship and family. Delving into experiences of violence and gentleness, of alienation and love, his poetry reveals our shared humanity as well as our perplexing and sometimes entertaining differences. Nowlan's childhood and adult years are colourfully reflected in his poetry. These autobiographical threads are interwoven with fantasies, an astute historical consciousness, and a keen awareness of the shiftings and transformations of selfhood.Nowlan wrote with formal variety, visually shaping his poems with a dexterity that complicates impressions that he was primarily a "plainspoken" poet. His varied uses of the poetic line — his handling of line-lengths and -breaks, stanzas, and pauses — show him to be a writer who skilfully uses the page to suggest and embody the rhythms of speech. This long-awaited volume enables readers to experience his poetic genius in its fullness and uniqueness.Summer Feet
By Sheree Fitch. 2020
?From those first barefoot days, wobble-dy walking over rocks and pebbles, to wandering-wild while searching for sea glass and, finally,…
huddled-up cozy at a late-summer bonfire, these summer feet flutter kick, somersault, hide-and-seek, and dance in the rain, soaking up all the season has to offer. With Sheree Fitch's classic lip-slippery, lyrical rhymes and Carolyn Fisher's bright and colourful illustrations, Summer Feet will be an instant summertime favourite.You Won't Always Be This Sad: A Book of Moments
By Sheree Fitch. 2020
You won't always be this sad, her mother, who also lost a son, reassures her, while a close friend encourages…
her to pick up the pen and write it all down. Capturing her own struggles as she emerges from shock in the wake of her son’s unexpected death at age thirty-seven, author and storyteller Sheree Fitch writes unabashedly, with deep sorrow, unexpected rage, and boundless love. She discovers that she “dwells in a thin place now,” that she has crossed a threshold only to find herself in “the quicksand that is grief.” The result is a memoir of immense power and pain, a collection of moments, and a journey of resilience that lyrically combines prose and verse. Readers, bearing witness to the immeasurable depths of a mother’s love, will be forever changed.One Good Reason: A Memoir of Addiction and Recovery, Music and Love
By Séan McCann, Andrea Aragon. 2020
This deeply personal memoir, co-written by singer- songwriter, renowned mental health advocate, and recent Order of Canada recipient Séan McCann…
and wife Andrea Aragon leaves no stone unturned. Detailing in powerful and lyrical prose a Newfoundland childhood indoctrinated in strict Catholic faith, the creation of the wildly successful Great Big Sea, and the battle with alcoholism that nearly cost them everything, McCann and Aragon offer readers a story of reaching international fame and finding rock bottom. Most of all, this book is an honest, raw, and inspiring tribute to embracing the belief that we are all worth saving. At the heart of this insightful coming-of-recovery is McCann’s exploration of the root cause of his alcoholism; a secret he kept until 2014 when he came out as a survivor of sexual abuse. Aragon’s parallel narrative offers a rare and intimate spousal perspective, making the memoir a nuanced and complex portrait of the effects of addiction on family. Featuring lyrics from McCann’s celebrated solo career, personal colour photographs, and original drawings from visual artist Bee Stanton, One Good Reason is a rallying cry for holding on to the ones you love, helping yourself, and turning music into medicine.The Moon King
By Cara Kansala. 2020
***BEST BOOKS FOR KIDS AND TEENS 2020, PICTURE BOOKS*** When the magical Moon King tips over the night, it spills…
across the land and sea, and he seeks the help of animals big and small to collect the stars and return them to the sky. In this beautifully illustrated bedtime story, Cara Kansala weaves an enchanting fable destined to become a children’s classic—the perfect way to welcome the night and celebrate the wonder of dreams.I place you into the fire
By Rebecca Thomas. 2020
In Mi'kmaw, three similarly shaped words have drastically different meanings: kesalul means "I love you"; kesa'lul means "I hurt you";…
and ke'sa'lul means "I put you into the fire." Spoken word artist Rebecca Thomas' first poetry collection is at once a meditation on navigating life and love as a second-generation Residential School survivor, a lesson in unlearning, and a rallying cry for Indigenous justice, empathy, and equality.A Reluctant Search for Spiritual Truths
By Adrian McNally Smith. 2020
When Adrian McNally Smith was writing his family memoir Finding Forgiveness, he was struck by the number of times he…
had had spiritual encounters. The journey of writing the story of his life and his relationships brought home to him the fact that he had felt a sense of hubris before many important and life-changing moments in his life. Going through the process of forgiveness and the counseling he needed to forgive his father awakened in him the desire to dig deeper into these encounters and what it means to be embrace spirituality. This reluctant search changed his life and sparked a whole new awareness of spirituality.The Bygone Days: Folklore, Traditions & Toenails
By Reginald “Dutch” Thompson. 2019
Reginald—better known as “Dutch”—Thompson is a multi-faceted storyteller with unforgettable voices—those of Roy from Murray Harbour North, Adelaide from Bunbury,…
Gus from Chepstow, and countless others—to tell the stories of the Bygone days in Prince Edward Island [sometimes NS, too]. Stories that, without Dutch’s talent and care, might be remembered only by family and close friends or lost altogether.Crow Gulch
By Douglas Walbourne-Gough. 2020
Shortlisted, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and Raymond Souster AwardLonglisted, First Nation Communities READ AwardFrom the author: I cannot let…
the story of Crow Gulch — the story of my family and, subsequently, my own story — go untold. This book is my attempt to resurrect dialogue and story, to honour who and where I come from, to remind Corner Brook of the glaring omission in its social history.In his debut poetry collection, Douglas Walbourne-Gough reflects on the legacy of a community that sat on the shore of the Bay of Islands, less than two kilometres west of downtown Corner Brook.Crow Gulch began as a temporary shack town to house migrant workers in the 1920s during the construction of the pulp and paper mill. After the mill was complete, some of the residents, many of Indigenous ancestry, settled there permanently — including the poet's great-grandmother Amelia Campbell and her daughter, Ella — and those the locals called the "jackytars," a derogatory epithet used to describe someone of mixed French and Mi'kmaq descent. Many remained there until the late 1970s, when the settlement was forcibly abandoned and largely forgotten.Walbourne-Gough lyrically sifts through archival memory and family accounts, resurrecting story and conversation, to patch together a history of a people and place. Here he finds his own identity within the legacy of Crow Gulch and reminds those who have forgotten of a glaring omission in history.Portia White: A Portrait in Words
By George Elliott Clarke. 2020
?I take Liberties—poetic—and take License to relate her story In her voice, to tell History Who she was—as I hear…
her say Or sing. [...] But still you will come face-to-face With a "Portia," whose life outshines All brilliance this black ink divines.... In his unique brand of spoken word, Africadian poetry, the incomparable George Elliott Clarke explores a personal subject: his great-aunt Portia White. The result is a stirring, epic poem vibrating with energy and music that spans White's birth in 1911, a coming of age amidst the backdrop of two World Wars, and her life-long love affair with music—from singing in to directing the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church choir to her bel canto tutlege at the Halifax Conservatory of Music to her final, command performance before Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1964. Portia White is a stunning testament to the first African Canadian to become an international star. Features vibrant illustrations by contemporary artist Lara Martina.Cures for Hunger
By Deni Béchard. 2012
Almost unbelievable. You'll swear it's fiction."You haven't read a story like this one, even if your father was the kind…
of magnificent scoundrel you only find in Russian novels. Béchard is the rare writer who knows the secret to telling the true story." — Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven KillingsGrowing up in rural British Columbia, Deni Béchard worships his father, believing that he can do no wrong. Although his charismatic father is prone to racing trains and brawling, Deni has no idea how unusual his family is.But when Deni discovers his father's true identity (and his other life as a bank robber), his imagination is set on fire. Before long, he begins to see himself as a character in one of his father's stories. He can't escape the sense that his father's life holds the key to understanding his own passions, aversions, and motivations.Eventually Deni finds himself ensnared in the controlling impulses of his mysterious father and increasingly obsessed by his father's own muted recollections: the impoverished childhood in the Gaspé he'd fled long ago, the hunger for excitement and a better life, and a trail of crimes leading from Québec to the American west.At once an extraordinary family story and an unconventional portrait of the artist as a young man, Cures for Hunger is a singular, deeply affecting memoir by an acclaimed writer.If I Tell You the Truth (When You Ask Me Where I'm Going #2)
By Jasmin Kaur. 2021
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Rupi Kaur, this heartrending story told in prose, poetry, and illustration weaves together…
the stories of a mother and daughter’s lives.In this stunning sophomore novel, acclaimed writer Jasmin Kaur explores trauma, fear, courage, community, and the healing power of love in its many forms.Kiran flees her home in Punjab for a fresh start in Canada after a sexual assault leaves her pregnant. But overstaying her visa and living undocumented brings its own perils for both her and her daughter, Sahaara.Sahaara would do anything to protect her mother. When she learns the truth about Kiran’s past, she feels compelled to seek justice—even if it means challenging a powerful and dangerous man.if i tell you the truththat i’ve dugfrom the hardened depthsof this shrapnel-filled dirtwith these aching, bloody handswould you believe me?would you still love me?it was never going to be okay
By Jaye Simpson. 2020
it was never going to be okay is a collection of poetry and prose exploring the intimacies of understanding intergenerational…
trauma, Indigeneity and queerness, while addressing urban Indigenous diaspora and breaking down the limitations of sexual understanding as a trans woman. As a way to move from the linear timeline of healing and coming to terms with how trauma does not exist in subsequent happenings, it was never going to be okay tries to break down years of silence in simpson’s debut collection of poetry: i am five my sisters are saying boy i do not know what the word means but— i am bruised into knowing it: the blunt b, the hollowness of the o, the blade of y