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By Jagmeet Singh. 2019
Jagmeet Singh Jimmy Dhaliwal. Every part of Jagmeet Singh's full name reflects a part of his identity. Jagmeet--the intelligent, warm…
"friend to the world." Singh--the great grandson of a Punjabi freedom fighter who defended his people against injustice. Jimmy--the kid who grew up on the hardscrabble streets of Windsor. Dhaliwal--the son of immigrants who chanced it and uprooted themselves in Canada for a better life. With wisdom, warmth, and compassion, Love & Courage tells the stories behind each of those names. The son of Indian immigrants, Jagmeet Singh grew up in Windsor, and he learned at an early age that the world was not always be kind. Early experiences with racism and prejudice made Jagmeet question his place in the society around him as he fought on the streets and in the classroom to carve out a safe space for himself. But while the society around him sought to bring him down, Jagmeet's family lifted him up. Whenever Jagmeet returned home bruised or battered by the outside world, his mother repeated the same words: "We are all one. We are all connected." Drawing on his heritage and history, Jagmeet began to see the world through a new lens. To prove to a world that said, again and again, that he didn't have value, Jagmeet worked hard to be the best at everything he did. Martial arts, school, sports--he excelled at everything he tried. Still, he didn't want to simply push past others. He wanted to connect to them. Slowly but surely, Jagmeet learned the truth of his mother's words. As he broke down the barriers around him, Jagmeet came to define his life in two words: love and courage. Bestseller. 2019.By Kelly S. Thompson. 2019
At eighteen years old, Kelly Thompson enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. Despite growing up in a military family --…
she would, in fact, be a fourth-generation soldier -- she couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't belong. From the moment she arrives for basic training at a Quebec military base, a young woman more interested in writing than weaponry, she quickly realizes that her conception of what being a soldier means, forged from a desire to serve her country after the 9/11 attacks, isn't entirely accurate. A career as a female officer will involve navigating a masculinized culture and coming to grips with her burgeoning feminism. In this compulsively readable memoir, Thompson writes with wit and honesty about her own development as a woman and a soldier, unsparingly highlighting truths about her time in the military. In sharply crafted prose, she chronicles the frequent sexism and misogyny she encounters both in training and later in the workplace, and explores her own feelings of pride and loyalty to the Forces, and a family legacy of PTSD, all while searching for an artistic identity in a career that demands conformity. When she sustains a career-altering injury, Thompson fearlessly re-examines her identity as a soldier. 2019.By Kelley Keehn. 2019
Learn how to save and spend wisely, feel good about money, and start living a more balanced life. No matter…
your age, salary, social or relationship status, money is an important part of your life. Yet, somehow, talking about your money situation is hard. Why is it that you know more about what goes on in your friend’s bedroom than with their bank account? Do you know if your parents have a will or or if they’ll leave a legacy? How many of your colleagues are still paying off student debt but are jet-setting around the globe on multiple credit cards? Since no one is talking about it, you can’t be expected to learn how to manage your money on your own. With years of experience as a personal finance advisor and educator, Kelley Keehn will answer your most burning questions about money and will talk you through how to avoid mistakes along the way. You can gain control of your debt, learn to save for your future, have a life, and feel good about money all at the same time. And—spoiler alert—you don’t need a budget to do any of this! You’ll learn: -How to build good credit (and get rid of bad credit—especially credit card debt) -What all these dreaded acronyms mean and how they can work for you—TFSA, RRSP, RESP, CFP, CPP -How and when to invest for your future -How to talk about money with your partner—and everyone else in your life -How to save for a mortgage and then work towards being mortgage-free -How to have fun, splurge once in a while, and still save money With her unique blend of empathy and no-nonsense candor, Kelley takes you through the basics of personal finance with relatable anecdotes that expose the most common money pitfalls—and how to avoid them—so you can make financial decisions that are right for you.By Anna Mehler Paperny. 2019
NATIONAL BESTSELLERAward-winning journalist Anna Mehler Paperny's stunning memoir chronicles with courageous honesty and uncommon eloquence her experience of depression and…
her quest to explore what we know and don't know about this disease that afflicts almost a fifth of the population--providing an invaluable guide to a system struggling to find solutions. As fascinating as it is heartrending, as outrageously funny as it is serious, it is a must-read for anyone impacted by depression--and that's pretty much everybody. Depression is a havoc-wreaking illness that masquerades as personal failing and hijacks your life. After a major suicide attempt in her early twenties, Anna Mehler Paperny resolved to put her reporter's skills to use to get to know her enemy, setting off on a journey to understand her condition, the dizzying array of medical treatments on offer and a medical profession in search of answers. Charting the way depression wrecks so many, she maps competing schools of therapy, pharmacology, cutting-edge medicine, the pill-popping pitfalls of long-term treatment, the glaring unknowns and the institutional shortcomings that both patients and practitioners are up against. She interviews leading medical experts across Canada and the US, from psychiatrists to neurologists, brain-mapping pioneers to family practitioners, and others dabbling in strange hypotheses--and shares compassionate conversations with fellow sufferers.Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me tracks Anna's quest for knowledge and her desire to get well. Impeccably reported, it is a profoundly compelling story about the human spirit and the myriad ways we treat (and fail to treat) the disease that accounts for more years swallowed up by disability than any other in the world.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.By Alex Trebek. 2020
A RECOMMENDED SUMMER READ BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, TIME, AND NEWSWEEK Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon…
Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career.Since debuting as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek has been something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. Last year, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For over three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes in The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions he gets asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy!, with each chapter title in the form of a question, and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment. Bestseller.By Vashti Harrison. 2017
This beautifully illustrated board book edition of instant bestseller Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History showcases women who changed…
the world and is the perfect goodnight book to inspire big dreams. Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, Dream Big, Little One is the irresistible board book adaptation of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. Among these women, you'll find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn't always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come.By Jann Arden. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLERJann Arden--bestselling author, recording artist and late-blooming TV star--is back with this funny, heartfelt and fierce memoir on becoming…
a woman of a certain age. The power, gravity and freedom she's found at fifty-seven are superpowers she believes all of us can unleash.Digging deep into her strengths, her failures and her losses, Jann Arden brings us an inspiring account of how she has surprised herself, in her fifties, by at last becoming completely her own person. Like many women, it took Jann a long time to realize that trying to be pleasing and likeable and beautiful in the eyes of others was a loser's game. Letting it rip, and damning the consequences, is not only liberating, it's a hell of a lot of fun: "Being the age I am--that so many women are--is just the best time of my life." Jann weaves her own story together with tales of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, and the father she came close to hating, to show her younger self--and all of us--that fear and avoidance is no way to live. "What I'm thinking about now aren't all the ways I can try to hang on to my youth or all the seconds ticking by in some kind of morbid countdown to death," she writes, "but rather how I keep becoming someone I always hoped I could be. If I'm lucky one day a very old face will look back at me from the mirror, a face I once shied away from. I will love that old woman ferociously, because she has finally figured out how to live a life of purpose--not in spite of but because of all her mistakes and failures."Discover the Transformative Effects of Being Kind to Yourself“This brilliant book offers us both the science and practice of how…
self-kindness is the secret sauce of fulfillment, transformation, and joy.” —Lorin Roche, meditation teacher and author ofThe Radiance SutrasMany of us yearn to feel a greater sense of inner calm, ease, joy, and purpose. We have tried meditation and found it too difficult. We judge ourselves for being no good at emptying our minds (as if one ever could) or compare ourselves with yogis who seem to have it all together. We live in a steady state of “not good enough.” It does not have to be this way.InGood Morning, I Love You, Dr. Shauna Shapiro brings alive the brain science behind why we feel the way we do—about ourselves, each other, and the world—and explains why we get stuck in thinking that doesn’t serve us. It turns out that we are hardwired to be self-critical and negative! And this negativity is constantly undermining our experience of life.“It is never too late to rewire your brain for positivity—for calm, clarity, and joy,” writes Dr. Shapiro. “I know this is possible because I experienced it. Best of all, you can begin wherever you are.” In short, lively chapters laced with science, wisdom, and story, Shapiro, one of the leading scientists studying the effects of mindfulness on the brain, shows us that acting with kindness and compassion toward ourselves is the key.With her roadmap to guide you, including her signature “Good Morning, I Love You” practice, in which you deliberately greet yourself each day with these simple words, you can change your brain’s circuitry and steady yourself in feelings of deep calm, clarity, and joy. For good.By Kaleb Dahlgren. 2021
An inspiring story of hope and resiliency On April 6, 2018, sixteen people died and thirteen others were injured after…
a bus taking the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team to a playoff game collided with a transport truck in a rural intersection. The tragedy moved millions of people to leave hockey sticks by their front door to show sympathy and support for the Broncos. People from more than eighty countries pledged millions of dollars to families whose relatives had been directly involved in the accident. Crossroads is the story of Kaleb Dahlgren, a young man who survived the bus crash and faced life after the tragedy with resiliency and positivity. In this chronicle of his time with the Broncos and the loving community of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Dahlgren takes a hard look at his experience of unprecedented loss, but also revels in the overwhelming response and outpouring of love from across Canada and around the world. But this book also goes much deeper, revealing the adversity Dahlgren faced long before his time in Humboldt and his inspiring journey since the accident. From a childhood spent learning to live with type 1 diabetes to his remarkable recovery from severe brain trauma that astounded medical professionals, Dahlgren documents a life of perseverance, gratitude and hope in the wake of enormous obstacles and life-altering tragedy. The author will donate a portion of his proceeds from this book to STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service).By Madhur Anand. 2020
“Wondrously and elegantly written in language that astonishes and moves the reader…This is an important book: an emotional and intellectual…
tour de force.” —Jane Urquhart An experimental memoir about Partition, immigration, and generational storytelling, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart weaves together the poetry of memory with the science of embodied trauma, using the imagined voices of the past and the vital authority of the present. We begin with a man off balance: one in one thousand, the only child in town whose polio leads to partial paralysis. We meet his future wife, chanting Hai Rams for Gandhiji and choosing education over marriage. On one side of the line that divides this book, we follow them as their homeland splits in two and they are drawn together, moving to Canada and raising their children in mining towns and in crowded city apartments. And when we turn the book over, we find the daughter's tale—we see how the rupture of Partition, the asymmetry of a father's leg, the virus of a mother's rage, makes its way to the next generation. Told through the lenses of biology, physics, history and poetry, this is a memoir that defies form and convention to immerse the reader in the feeling of what remains when we've heard as much of the truth as our families will allow, and we're left to search for ourselves among the pieces they've carried with them.By Jon Tattrie. 2020
An Atlantic BestsellerA Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionFebruary 2016. Antigonish, Nova Scotia.Tareq Hadhad was worried about his…
father: Isam did not know what to do with his life. Before the war began in Syria, Isam had run a chocolate company for over twenty years. But that life was gone now. The factory was destroyed, and he and his family had spent three years in limbo as refugees before coming to Canada. So, in an unfamiliar kitchen in a small town, Isam began to make chocolate again.This remarkable book tells the extraordinary story of the Hadhad family — Isam, his wife Shahnaz, and their sons and daughters — and the founding of the chocolatier, Peace by Chocolate. From the devastation of the Syrian civil war, through their life as refugees in Lebanon, to their arrival in a small town in Atlantic Canada, Peace by Chocolate is the story of one family. It is also the story of the people of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and so many towns across Canada, who welcomed strangers and helped them face the challenges of settling in an unfamiliar land.By Tyler LeBlanc. 2020
A Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionOn Canada's History Bestseller ListGrowing up on the south shore of Nova…
Scotia, Tyler LeBlanc wasn’t fully aware of his family’s Acadian roots — until a chance encounter with an Acadian historian prompted him to delve into his family history. LeBlanc’s discovery that he could trace his family all the way to the time of the Acadian Expulsion and beyond forms the basis of this compelling account of Le Grand Dérangement.Piecing together his family history through archival documents, Tyler LeBlanc tells the story of Joseph LeBlanc (his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather), Joseph’s ten siblings, and their families. With descendants scattered across modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the LeBlancs provide a window into the diverse fates that awaited the Acadians when they were expelled from their homeland. Some escaped the deportation and were able to retreat into the wilderness. Others found their way back to Acadie. But many were exiled to Britain, France, or the future United States, where they faced suspicion and prejudice and struggled to settle into new lives.A unique biographical approach to the history of the Expulsion, Acadian Driftwood is a vivid insight into one family’s experience of this traumatic event.By Tyler LeBlanc. 2020
Winner, 2021 Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction, 2021 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical WritingShortlisted, 2021 Dartmouth Book Award…
for Non-Fiction, and the 2021 Margaret and John Savage Award for Best First Book (Non-fiction)A Hill Times' 100 Best Books in 2020 SelectionOn Canada's History Bestseller ListGrowing up on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Tyler LeBlanc wasn’t fully aware of his family’s Acadian roots — until a chance encounter with an Acadian historian prompted him to delve into his family history. LeBlanc’s discovery that he could trace his family all the way to the time of the Acadian Expulsion and beyond forms the basis of this compelling account of Le Grand Dérangement.Piecing together his family history through archival documents, Tyler LeBlanc tells the story of Joseph LeBlanc (his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather), Joseph’s ten siblings, and their families. With descendants scattered across modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the LeBlancs provide a window into the diverse fates that awaited the Acadians when they were expelled from their homeland. Some escaped the deportation and were able to retreat into the wilderness. Others found their way back to Acadie. But many were exiled to Britain, France, or the future United States, where they faced suspicion and prejudice and struggled to settle into new lives.A unique biographical approach to the history of the Expulsion, Acadian Driftwood is a vivid insight into one family’s experience of this traumatic event.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.By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon. 2019
A national bestseller, now updated, expanded, and revised to tell an even bigger story.On July 6, 2011, Richard Oland, scion…
of the Moosehead brewing family, was bludgeoned to death in his Saint John office. In a shocking turn, the multimillionaire’s only son, Dennis, was arrested for second-degree murder. Found guilty by a jury in 2015, Dennis Oland successfully appealed his conviction and was retried three years later.In this new revised and expanded edition, MacKinnon takes readers inside every stage of one of Canada’s most gripping murder trials. She addresses the issues with the original police investigation, Oland’s appeal and his subsequent appearance at the Supreme Court of Canada, new evidence and witnesses brought forward at the retrial, and the sensational final verdict.A reporter for the CBC, Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon covered the Oland case from the very beginning to the judge ’s final verdict. In this definitive account of a series of trials for a horrific crime, she lays bare the tribulations of a prominent family and the inner workings of the justice system that led to Dennis Oland’s contentious conviction, retrial, and acquittal.By John Boileau. 2019
Celebrate the amazing accomplishments of kids from across the East Coast in this book, the first in a new illustrated…
series about Amazing Atlantic Canadians. Learn about incredible young people excelling as athletes and inventors, overcoming adversity and even saving lives. Includes over 50 amazing, diverse youth from history to present day and shows young readers that greatness has no age limit.By Bruce MacNab. 2015
Winner, Best Atlantic Published Book AwardShortlisted, Canadian Regional Design Awardmet-a-mor-pho-sis: a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation…
by magic or witchcraft. In May of 1896, a young magician from New York City joined the cast of the Marco Magic Company and embarked on a summer-long tour of eastern Canada, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It was during this excursion that Handcuff Harry AKA Harry Houdini first showcased the talent that transformed him from a small-time conjurer, who performed for pennies in dime museums, into the world's most celebrated escape artist. When he wasn't performing on stage, Houdini was barnstorming through the streets of every town and city he visited, astounding onlookers in police stations, hardware stores and hospitals by freeing himself from the clutches of every restraining device strapped or wrapped around him. In this absorbing book, enriched by rare, period photographs, Bruce MacNab recounts a fascinating but shockingly untold chapter in the career of the man whose name is still synonymous with the word magic.By Debra Komar. 2014
At 2:21 am on September 8, 1896, authorities in Nova Scotia killed an innocent man. Peter Wheeler — a "coloured"…
man accused of murdering a white girl — was strung up with a slipknot noose. The hanging was state-sanctioned but it was a lynching all the same. Now, a re-examination of his case using modern forensic science reveals one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. On the night of January 27, 1896, 14-year-old Annie Kempton found herself home alone in the picturesque village of Bear River, Nova Scotia. She did not live to see the morning. Shortly after midnight, Annie was assaulted and bludgeoned with a piece of firewood. Her killer slit her throat three times with a kitchen knife then coldly sat and ate a jar of homemade jam before fleeing into the night. The senseless and brutal slaying devastated the town and plunged her parents into a near-suicidal abyss of guilt and grief. At trial, the prosecution's case focused on the inconsistencies in Wheeler's statements, the testimony of two children who placed Peter near the house on the night in question, and the detective's novel analysis of the physical evidence. It was one of the first trials in Canada to use forensic science, albeit poorly. Wheeler's defense team called no witnesses and did little to challenge the evidence presented. The jury deliberated less than two hours before declaring Peter Wheeler guilty of murder. The trial itself was a media sensation; every word was front page news. Several papers each ran their own version of "Wheeler's confession," an admission of guilt supposedly authored by the condemned man. Each rendition tried and failed to make sense of the conflicting timeline. With every new iteration, it became clearer that the case against Wheeler was not as airtight as the detective in charge, Nick Power, and the media had proclaimed. The Lynching of Peter Wheeler is a story of one town's rush to judgment. It is a tale of bigotry and incompetence, arrogance and pseudoscience, fear and misguided vengeance. It is a case study in media distortion, illustrating how the print media can manipulate the truth, destroy reputations, and so thoroughly taint a jury pool, that the notion of a fair trial becomes a statistical impossibility. At the height of the Victorian era, the media created a super villain in the mold of Jack the Ripper, the perfect foil for its other creation, super-sleuth Nick Power. The masterfully constructed narrative was perfect, save for one glaring detail: Peter Wheeler did not kill Annie Kempton.