Best of
Canada

2021

Crossroads: My Story of Tragedy and Resilience as a Humboldt Bronco


Kaleb Dahlgren - 2021
    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).

Call Me Indian: From the Trauma of Residential School to Becoming the NHL's First Treaty Indigenous Player


Fred Sasakamoose - 2021
    This page turner will have you cheering for 'Fast Freddy' as he faces off against huge challenges both on and off the ice--a great gift to every proud hockey fan, Canadian, and Indigenous person.--Wab Kinew, Leader of the Manitoba NDP and author of The Reason You WalkTrailblazer. Residential school Survivor. First Treaty Indigenous player in the NHL. All of these descriptions are true--but none of them tell the whole story.Fred Sasakamoose, torn from his home at the age of seven, endured the horrors of residential school for a decade before becoming one of 120 players in the most elite hockey league in the world. He has been heralded as the first Indigenous player with Treaty status in the NHL, making his official debut as a 1954 Chicago Black Hawks player on Hockey Night in Canada and teaching Foster Hewitt how to pronounce his name. Sasakamoose played against such legends as Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, and Maurice Richard. After twelve games, he returned home.When people tell Sasakamoose's story, this is usually where they end it. They say he left the NHL to return to the family and culture that the Canadian government had ripped away from him. That returning to his family and home was more important to him than an NHL career. But there was much more to his decision than that. Understanding Sasakamoose's choice means acknowledging the dislocation and treatment of generations of Indigenous peoples. It means considering how a man who spent his childhood as a ward of the government would hear those supposedly golden words: You are Black Hawks property.Sasakamoose's story was far from over once his NHL days concluded. He continued to play for another decade in leagues around Western Canada. He became a band councillor, served as Chief, and established athletic programs for kids. He paved a way for youth to find solace and meaning in sports for generations to come. Yet, threaded through these impressive accomplishments were periods of heartbreak and unimaginable tragedy--as well moments of passion and great joy.This isn't just a hockey story; Sasakamoose's groundbreaking memoir sheds piercing light on Canadian history and Indigenous politics, and follows this extraordinary man's journey to reclaim pride in an identity and a heritage that had previously been used against him.

Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance


Jesse Wente - 2021
    He was playing softball as a child when the opposing team began to war-whoop when he was at bat. It was just one of many incidents that formed Wente's understanding of what it means to be a modern Indigenous person in a society still overwhelmingly colonial in its attitudes and institutions.As the child of an American father and an Anishinaabe mother, Wente grew up in Toronto with frequent visits to the reserve where his maternal relations lived. By exploring his family's history, including his grandmother's experience in residential school, and citing his own frequent incidents of racial profiling by police who'd stop him on the streets, Wente unpacks the discrepancies between his personal identity and how non-Indigenous people view him.Wente analyzes and gives voice to the differences between Hollywood portrayals of Indigenous peoples and lived culture. Through the lens of art, pop culture, and personal stories, and with disarming humour, he links his love of baseball and movies to such issues as cultural appropriation, Indigenous representation and identity, and Indigenous narrative sovereignty. Indeed, he argues that storytelling in all its forms is one of Indigenous peoples' best weapons in the fight to reclaim their rightful place.Wente explores and exposes the lies that Canada tells itself, unravels "the two founding nations" myth, and insists that the notion of "reconciliation" is not a realistic path forward. Peace between First Nations and the state of Canada can't be recovered through reconciliation--because no such relationship ever existed.

Letters Across the Sea


Genevieve Graham - 2021
    I had obviously hoped to see you again, to explain in person, but fate had other plans. 1933 At eighteen years old, Molly Ryan dreams of becoming a journalist, but instead she spends her days working any job she can to help her family through the Depression crippling her city. The one bright spot in her life is watching baseball with her best friend, Hannah Dreyfus, and sneaking glances at Hannah’s handsome older brother, Max. But as the summer unfolds, more and more of Hitler’s hateful ideas cross the sea and “Swastika Clubs” and “No Jews Allowed” signs spring up around Toronto, a city already simmering with mass unemployment, protests, and unrest. When tensions between the Irish and Jewish communities erupt in a riot one smouldering day in August, Molly and Max are caught in the middle, with devastating consequences for both their families. 1939 Six years later, the Depression has eased and Molly is a reporter at her local paper. But a new war is on the horizon, putting everyone she cares about most in peril. As letters trickle in from overseas, Molly is forced to confront what happened all those years ago, but is it too late to make things right? From the desperate streets of Toronto to the embattled shores of Hong Kong, Letters Across the Sea is a poignant novel about the enduring power of love to cross dangerous divides even in the darkest of times—from the #1 bestselling author of The Forgotten Home Child.

The Strangers


Katherena Vermette - 2021
    Phoenix has nearly forgotten what freedom feels like. And Elsie has nearly given up hope. Nearly.After time spent in foster homes, Cedar goes to live with her estranged father. Although she grapples with the pain of being separated from her mother, Elsie, and sister, Phoenix, she's hoping for a new chapter in her life, only to find herself once again in a strange house surrounded by strangers. From a youth detention centre, Phoenix gives birth to a baby she'll never get to raise and tries to forgive herself for all the harm she's caused (while wondering if she even should). Elsie, struggling with addiction and determined to turn her life around, is buoyed by the idea of being reunited with her daughters and strives to be someone they can depend on, unlike her own distant mother. These are the Strangers, each haunted in her own way. Between flickering moments of warmth and support, the women diverge and reconnect, fighting to survive in a fractured system that pretends to offer success but expects them to fail. Facing the distinct blade of racism from those they trusted most, they urge one another to move through the darkness, all the while wondering if they'll ever emerge safely on the other side. A breathtaking companion to her bestselling debut The Break, Vermette's The Strangers brings readers into the dynamic world of the Stranger family, the strength of their bond, the shared pain in their past, and the light that beckons from the horizon. This is a searing exploration of race, class, inherited trauma, and matrilineal bonds that--despite everything--refuse to be broken.

Ghost Forest


Pik-Shuen Fung - 2021
    One of the many Hong Kong "astronaut" fathers, he stays there to work, while the rest of the family immigrated to Canada before the 1997 Handover, when the British returned sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.As she revisits memories of her father through the years, she struggles with unresolved questions and misunderstandings. Turning to her mother and grandmother for answers, she discovers her own life refracted brightly in theirs.Buoyant, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly funny, Ghost Forest is a slim novel that envelops the reader in joy and sorrow. Fung writes with a poetic and haunting voice, layering detail and abstraction, weaving memory and oral history to paint a moving portrait of a Chinese-Canadian astronaut family.

Astra


Cedar Bowers - 2021
    As her path intersects with others--often only briefly, but always intensely--she will encounter people who, by turns, want to rescue, control, become, change, and escape her, revealing difficult yet shining truths about who they are and what they yearn for. There is the childhood playmate who comes to fear Astra's unpredictable ways; the stranger who rescues her from homelessness and then has to wrestle with his own demons; the mother who hires Astra as a nanny even as her own marriage goes off the rails; the man who takes a leap of faith and marries her. Even as Astra herself remains the elusive yet compelling axis around which these narratives turn, her story reminds us of the profound impact that an individual can have on those around her, and the power struggles at play in all our relationships, no matter how intimate. A beautifully constructed and revelatory novel, Astra explores what we're willing to give and receive from others, and how well we ever really know the people we love the most.

A Town Called Solace


Mary Lawson - 2021
    Orchard, owns that home. Around the time of Rose's disappearance, Mrs. Orchard was sent for a short stay in hospital, and Clara promised to keep an eye on the house and its remaining occupant, Mrs. Orchard's cat, Moses. As the novel unfolds, so does the mystery of what has transpired between Mrs Orchard and the newly arrived stranger.Told through three distinct, compelling points of view--Clara's, Mrs. Orchard's, and Liam Kane's--the novel cuts back and forth among these unforgettable characters to uncover the layers of grief, remorse, and love that connect families, both the ones we're born into and the ones we choose. A Town Called Solace is a masterful, suspenseful and deeply humane novel by one of our great storytellers.

"Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power


Jody Wilson-Raybould - 2021
    Inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and raised as the daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would take on leadership roles and responsibilities. She never anticipated, however, that those roles would lead to a journey from her home community of We Wai Kai in British Columbia to Ottawa as Canada's first Indigenous Minister of Justice and Attorney General in the Cabinet of then newly elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau.Wilson-Raybould's experience in Trudeau's Cabinet reveals important lessons about how we must continue to strengthen our political institutions and culture, and the changes we must make to meet challenges such as racial justice and climate change. As her initial optimism about the possibilities of enacting change while in Cabinet shifted to struggles over inclusivity, deficiencies of political will, and concerns about adherence to core principles of our democracy, Wilson-Raybould stood on principle and, ultimately, resigned. In standing her personal and professional ground and telling the truth in front of the nation, Wilson-Raybould demonstrated the need for greater independence and less partisanship in how we govern."Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power is the story of why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader sitting around the Cabinet table, her proudest achievements, the very public SNC-Lavalin affair, and how she got out and moved forward. Now sitting as an Independent Member in Parliament, Wilson-Raybould believes there is a better way to govern and a better way for politics--one that will make a better country for all.

Fight Night


Miriam Toews - 2021
    When Swiv is expelled from school, Grandma takes on the role of teacher and gives her the task of writing to Swiv's absent father about life in the household during the last trimester of the pregnancy. In turn, Swiv gives Grandma an assignment: to write a letter to "Gord," her unborn grandchild (and Swiv's soon-to-be brother or sister). "You’re a small thing," Grandma writes to Gord, "and you must learn to fight."As Swiv records her thoughts and observations, Fight Night unspools the pain, love, laughter, and above all, will to live a good life across three generations of women in a close-knit family. But it is Swiv’s exasperating, wise and irrepressible Grandma who is at the heart of this novel: someone who knows intimately what it costs to survive in this world, yet has found a way—painfully, joyously, ferociously—to love and fight to the end, on her own terms.

Off the Record


Peter Mansbridge - 2021
    But ironically, he never considered becoming a broadcaster. In some ways, though, Peter was prepared for a life as a newscaster from an early age. Every night around the dinner table, his family would debate the news of the day, from Cold War scandals and Vietnam to Elvis Presley and the Beatles.So in 1968, when by chance a CBC radio manager in Churchill, Manitoba, offered him a spot hosting the local late night music program, Peter embraced the opportunity. Without a teacher, he tuned into broadcasts from across Canada, the US, and the UK to learn the basic skills of a journalist and he eventually parlayed his position into his first news job. Less than twenty years later, he became the chief correspondent and anchor of The National.With humour and heart, Peter shares never-before-told stories from his distinguished career, including reporting on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the horror of 9/11, walking the beaches of Normandy with Tom Brokaw, and talking with Canadian prime ministers from John Diefenbaker to Justin Trudeau. But it’s far from all serious. Peter also writes about finding the “cure” for baldness in China and landing the role of Peter Moosebridge in Disney’s Zootopia. From the first (and only) time he was late to broadcast to his poignant interview with the late Gord Downie, these are the moments that have stuck with him.After years of interviewing others, Peter turns the lens on himself and takes us behind the scenes of his life on the frontlines of journalism as he reflects on the toll of being in the spotlight, the importance of diversity in the newsroom, the role of the media then and now, and the responsibilities we all bear as citizens in an increasingly global world.

Neglected No More: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada's Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic


Andre Picard - 2021
    In this timely new book, esteemed health reporter Andr� Picard reveals the full extent of the crisis in eldercare, and offers an urgently needed prescription to fix a broken system.When COVID-19 spread through seniors' residences across Canada, the impact was horrific. Along with widespread illness and a devastating death toll, the situation exposed a decades-old crisis: the shocking systemic neglect towards our elders.Called in to provide emergency care in some of the hardest-hit facilities in Ontario and Quebec, the military issued damning reports of what they encountered. And yet, the failings that were exposed--unappetizing meals, infrequent baths, overmedication, physical abuse and inadequate personal care--have persisted for years in these institutions.In Neglected No More, Andr� Picard takes a hard look at how we came to embrace mass institutionalization, and lays out what can and must be done to improve the state of care for our elders, a highly vulnerable population with complex needs and little ability to advocate for themselves.Picard shows that the entire eldercare system--fragmented, underfunded and unsupported--is long overdue for a fundamental rethink. We need to find ways to ensure seniors can age gracefully in the community for longer, with supportive home care and respite for family caregivers, and ensure that long-term care homes are not warehouses of isolation and neglect. Our elders deserve nothing less.

The Vinyl Cafe Celebrates


Stuart McLean - 2021
    His charming, humane, and side-splitting stories brought the trials and triumphs of Dave, Morley, Sam, and Stephanie to life, and made their memorable circle of friends, family, and neighbours as real as our own.This collection is both timely and timeless, a rich celebration of Stuart McLean's inimitable voice, and of the importance of love, community, kindness, and the healing power of laughter.

Pluck: A Memoir of a Newfoundland Childhood and the Raucous, Terrible, Amazing Journey to Becoming a Novelist


Donna Morrissey - 2021
    She had grown up without television or telephones but had absorbed the tragic stories and comic yarns of her close-knit family and community. The death of her infant brother marked the family, and years later, Morrissey suffers devastating guilt about the accidental death of her teenage brother, whom she'd enticed to join her in the oilfields. Her misery was compounded by her own misdiagnosis of a terminal illness, all of which contributed to crippling anxiety and an actual diagnosis of PTSD. Many of those events and themes would eventually be transformed and recast as fictional gold in Morrissey's novels.In another writer's hands, Morrissey's account of her personal story could easily be a tragedy. Instead, she combines darkness and light, levity and sadness into her tale, as her indomitable spirit and humour sustain her. Morrissey's path takes her from the drudgery of being a grocery clerk (who occasionally enlivens her shift with recreational drugs) to western oilfields, to marriage and divorce and working in a fish-processing plant to support herself and her two young children. Throughout her struggles, she nourishes a love of learning and language.Morrissey layers her account of her life with stories of those who came before her, a breed rarely seen in the modern world. It centers around iron-willed women: mothers and daughters, wives, sisters, teachers and mentors who find the support, the wind for their wings, outside the bounds given to them by nature. And it is a mysterious older woman she meets in Halifax who eventually unleashes the writer that Morrissey is destined to become.An inspiring and insightful memoir, Pluck illustrates that even when you find yourself unravelling, you can find a way to spin the yarns that will save you--and delight readers everywhere.

Nothing But the Truth


Marie Henein - 2021
    Her story, as an immigrant from a tightknit Egyptian-Lebanese family, demonstrates the value of strong role models--from her mother and grandmother, to her brilliant uncle Sami who died of AIDS. She learned the value of hard work, being true to herself and others, and unapologetically owning it all.Marie Henein shares here her unvarnished view on the ethical and practical implications of being a criminal lawyer, and how the job is misunderstood and even demonized. Ironically, her most successful cases made her a "lightning rod" in some circles, confirming her belief that much of the public's understanding of the justice system is based on popular culture, and social media, and decidedly not the rule of law. As she turns 50 and struggles with the corrosive effect on women of becoming invisible, Marie doubles down on being even more highly visible and opinionated as she deconstructs, among other things, the otherness of the immigrant experience (Where are you really from?), the pros and cons of being a household name in this country, opening her own boutique law firm, and the likes of Martha Stewart and her commoditization of previously unpaid female labour. Nothing But the Truth is refreshingly unconstrained and surprising--a woman at the top of her game in a male-dominated world.

August Into Winter


Guy Vanderhaeghe - 2021
    Outraged and cornered, Ernie commits an act of unspeakable violence, setting in motion a course of events that will change forever the lives of all in his wake.With Loretta Pipe--the scrappy twelve-year-old he idealizes as the love of his life--in tow, Ernie flees town. In close pursuit is Corporal Cooper, who enlists the aid of two brothers, veterans of World War One: Jack, a sensitive, spiritual man with a potential for brutal violence; and angry, impetuous Dill, still recovering from the premature death of his wife who, while on her deathbed, developed an inexplicable obsession with the then-teenaged Ernie Sickert.When a powerful storm floods the prairie roads, wreaking havoc, Ernie and Loretta take shelter in a one-room schoolhouse where they are discovered by the newly arrived teacher, Vidalia Taggart. Vidalia has her own haunted past, one that has driven her to this stark and isolated place with only the journals of her lover Dov, recently killed in the Spanish Civil War, for company. Dill, arriving at the schoolhouse on Ernie's trail, falls hard and fast for Vidalia--but questions whether he can compete with the impossible ideal of a dead man.Guy Vanderhaeghe, writing at the height of his celebrated powers, has crafted a tale of unrelenting suspense against a backdrop of great moral searching and depth. His is a canvas of lavish, indelible detail: of character, of landscape, of history--in all their searing beauty but all their ugliness, too. Vanderhaeghe does not shrink from the corruption, cruelty, and treachery that pervade the world. Yet even in his clear-eyed depiction of evil--a depiction that frequently and delightfully turns darkly comic--he will not deny the possibility of love, of light. With August Into Winter, Guy Vanderhaeghe has given us a masterfully told, masterfully timed story for our own troubled hearts.

Coffin Cove


Jackie Elliott - 2021
    Once a star reporter, she’s been dumped by her lover and by the paper they both worked at.Andi moves to the tiny fishing village of Coffin Cove, on the Vancouver coast, where she lands a job at the local Gazette. Expecting bake sales and unpaid parking tickets to be the biggest news items, she quickly discovers the small town holds dark secrets.Two sea lions wash up on the shore. They’ve been shot dead. Activists point the finger at local fishermen. Then things get far worse . . .A dead body turns up.How does it all relate to a fifteen-year-old girl’s tragic death twenty years ago? The girl was found drowned with her arms and legs tied together.The deeper Andi digs, the more dirt she finds.Discover a web of murder and mystery laced with humour and a thread of romance in this fast-paced whodunnit set on the gorgeous coast of Western Canada.Fans of Joy Ellis, L.J. Ross, Peter Robinson, Thomas King, Louise Penny and Shari Lapena will devour this mesmerizing debut crime thriller.MEET ANDI SILVERSAndrea “Andi” Silvers is an investigative journalist in her late thirties. She is driven to uncover mysteries and expose truths. She’s attracted to local fisherman Harry Brown, and he’s interested in her, but he won’t engage in a casual relationship. It’s all or nothing for him.THE SETTINGCoffin Cove is a town of contradictions. It was once a thriving community on Canada’s beautiful Pacific coast, surrounded by spectacular nature. But the town’s stunning ocean front is marred by an ugly pulp mill and abandoned fish plant. Fiercely close-knit, kindness and community spirit are hindered by suspicion and mistrust of outsiders.

Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir


Tomson Highway - 2021
    Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenaged friends. Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood. But five of Tomson's siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so when Tomson was six, he was flown south by float plane to attend a residential school. A year later Rene joined him to begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words: Don't mourn me, be joyful. His memoir offers insights, both hilarious and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.

Binge: 60 stories to make your brain feel different


Douglas Coupland - 2021
    He's called it Binge because it's impossible to read just one. Imagine feeling 100% alive every moment of every minute of the day! Maybe that's how animals live. Or trees, even. I sometimes stare at the plastic bag tree visible from my apartment window and marvel that both it and I are equally alive and that there's no sliding scale of life. You're either alive, or you're not. Or you're dead or you're not.Thirty years after Douglas Coupland broke the fiction mould and defined a generation with Generation X, he is back with Binge, 60 stories laced with his observational profundity about the way we live and his existential worry about how we should be living: the very things that have made him such an influential and bestselling writer. Not to mention that he can also be really funny.Here the narrators vary from story to story as Doug catches what he calls the voice of the people, inspired by the way we write about ourselves and our experiences in online forums. The characters, of course, are Doug's own: crackpots, cranks and sweetie-pies, dad dancers and perpetrators of carbecues. People in the grip of unconscionable urges; lonely people; dying people; silly people. If you love Doug's fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert.

Escape from Manus: The Untold True Story


Jaivet Ealom - 2021
    A true story of bravery and resilience.The awe-inspiring story of the only person to successfully escape from Australia’s notorious offshore detention centre on Manus Island.In 2013 Jaivet Ealom fled Myanmar’s brutal regime and boarded a boat of asylum seekers bound for Australia. Instead of receiving refuge, he was transported to Australia’s infamous Manus Regional Processing Centre.Blistering hot days on the island turned into weeks, then years until, finally, facing either jail in Papua New Guinea or being returned to almost certain death in Myanmar, he took matters into his own hands. Drawing inspiration from the hit show Prison Break, Jaivet meticulously planned his escape. He made it out alive but was stateless, with no ID or passport. While the nightmare of Manus was behind him, his true escape to freedom had only just begun.How Jaivet made it to sanctuary in Canada in a six-month-long odyssey by foot, boat, car and plane is miraculous. His story will astonish, anger and inspire you. It will make you reassess what it means to give refuge and redefine what can be achieved by one man determined to beat the odds.

The Shaytan Bride: A Bangladeshi Canadian Memoir of Desire and Faith


Sumaiya Matin - 2021
    However, when she moved from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, at age six, visions of the demonic bride followed her. At first the Shaytan Bride seems to be the monster of fairy tales. However, in the weeks leading up to Sumaiya’s own unwanted wedding, she discovers the story and the bride herself are closer than they seem. This true account of Sumaiya’s life in love and violence is a testimony to the strength of one woman’s desire to assert her humanity and the complicated fallout of her decisions.

The Forsaken Children


Naomi Finley - 2021
    Fifteen-year-old Hazel Winters and her six-year-old brother, William, are placed on a ship by an organization that relocates British orphans and children of poverty to new homes in Canada. Arrivals in the new land are exported to distributing houses, where devastation and heartache greet the youngsters as headmistresses govern their fate.The assurance of a better life across the ocean is far from what Hazel experiences. Through hardships and loneliness, she is determined to survive. Finding refuge in memories of the past, she clings to the dream of returning to her homeland while preserving a reunion in her heart.In 1890, orphaned Charlotte Appleton and her sister Ellie were scooped up from London’s streets and sent to new homes across the ocean. Although mere miles kept them apart, Charlotte never knew her sister’s whereabouts until a chance interaction reunites them. Together the siblings vow to make a difference for the families and home children of an institution in Toronto, Ontario.Can an unexpected guardian give Hazel renewed strength and resolve for a future of promise?Based on the child emigration movement that occurred from 1869 through the late1930s, this poignant tale follows the lives of siblings who were burdensome byproducts of Britain's poverty.

Her Name Was Margaret: Life and Death on the Streets


Denise Davy - 2021
    Her Name Was Margaret traces Margaret's life from her childhood to her death as a homeless woman on the streets of Hamilton, Ontario. With meticulous research and deep compassion author Denise Davy analyzed over eight hundred pages of medical records and conducted interviews with Margaret's friends and family, as well as those who worked in psychiatric care, to create this compelling portrait of a woman abandoned by society.Through the revolving door of psychiatric admissions to discharges to rundown boarding homes, Davy shows us the grim impact of deinstutionalization: patients spiralled inexorably toward homelessness and death as psychiatric beds were closed and patients were left to fend for themselves on the streets of cities across North America. Today there are more 235,000 people in Canada who are counted among the homeless annually and 35,000 who are homeless on any given night. Most of them are struggling with mental health issues. Margaret's story is a heartbreaking illustration of what happens in our society to our most vulnerable and should serve as a wake-up call to politicians and leaders in cities across Canada.

New Girl in Little Cove


Damhnait Monaghan - 2021
    They want someone who can uphold their Catholic values and keep a motley group of largely unwilling students in line. The position is filled by mainlander Rachel O’Brien—technically a Catholic (baptized!), technically a teacher (honors degree!)—who’s desperate to leave her current mess of a life behind. She isn’t surprised that her students don’t see the value of learning French. But she is surprised that she can barely understand their English… Is it a compliment or insult to be called a sleeveen? (Insult.) And the anonymous notes left on her car, telling her to go home, certainly don’t help to make her feel welcome. Still, she is quickly drawn into the island’s traditional music and culture, and into the personal lives of her crusty but softhearted landlady, Lucille, her reluctant students and her fellow teacher Doug Bishop. But when her beliefs clash with church and community, she makes a decision that throws her career into jeopardy. In trying to help a student, has she gone too far?

Speak, Silence


Kim Echlin - 2021
    Now it's 1999 and, working as a journalist, she hears about a film festival in Sarajevo, where she knows Kosmos will be with his theatre company. She takes the assignment to investigate the fallout of the Bosnian war--and to reconnect with the love of her life.But when they are reunited, she finds a man, and a country, altered beyond recognition. Kosmos introduces Gota to Edina, the woman he has always loved. While Gota treads the precarious terrain of her evolving connection to Kosmos, she and Edina forge an unexpected bond. A lawyer and a force to be reckoned with, Edina exposes the sexual violence that she and thousands of others survived in the war. Before long, Gota finds her life entwined with the community of women and travels with them to The Hague to confront their abusers. The events she covers--and the stories she hears--will change herlife forever.Written in Kim Echlin's masterfully luminescent prose, Speak, Silence weaves together the experiences of a resilient sisterhood and tells the story of the real-life trial that would come to shape history. In a heart-wrenching tale of suffering and loss and a beautiful illustration of power and love, Echlin explores what it means to speak out against the very people who would do anything to silence you.

Can You Hear Me Now?: How I Found My Voice and Learned to Live with Passion and Purpose


Celina Caesar-Chavannes - 2021
    But when she became the first Black person elected to represent the federal riding of Whitby, Ontario, she hadn't really thought about the fact that Ottawa wasn't designed for someone like her. Celina soon found herself both making waves and breaking down, confronting at night, alone in her Ottawa apartment, all the painful beauty of her childhood and her troubled early adult life. She paid the price for speaking out about micro-aggressions and speaking up for her community and her riding, but she also felt exhilaration and empowerment. As she writes, This is not your typical leadership book where the person is placed in a situation and miraculously comes up with the right response for the wicked problem. This is the story of me falling in love, at last, with who I am, and finding my voice in the unlikeliest of places. Both memoir and leadership book, Can You Hear Me Now? is a funny, self-aware, poignant, confessional and fierce look at how failing badly and screwing things up completely are truly more powerful lessons in how to conduct a life than extraordinary success. They build an utter honesty with yourself and others that allows you to say things nobody else dares to say--the necessary things about navigating the places that weren't built for you and holding firm to your principles. And, if you do that, you will help build a world where inclusion is real. Just as Celina is now trying to do, in all her brilliance and boldness.

An Embarrassment of Critch's: Immature Stories from My Grown-Up Life


Mark Critch - 2021
    Since, he's found increasing opportunities to take his show on the road. In An Embarrassment of Critch's, the star of CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes revisits some of his career's--and the country's--biggest moments, revealing all the things you might not know happened along the way: A wishful rumour spread by Mark's father results in his big break; two bottles of Scotch nearly get him kicked out of a secret Canadian airbase in the United Arab Emirates; and for anyone wondering how to get an interview with the Prime Minister and Bono (yes, that Bono) on the same evening, Critch might recommend a journey to the 2003 Liberal Convention.Critch's top-secret access to all of the funniest behind-the-scenes moments involve many of the charismatic and notorious politicians we love to see blush, including fearless leaders Justin Trudeau, Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, and Jean Chr�tien, celebrities such as Pamela Anderson and Robin Williams, and other colourful figures he's met over years of pulling off daring skits at home and abroad. Remember when MP Carolyn Parrish took her boot to George W. Bush's head in an interview? Or when Critch asked Justin Trudeau where the best place to smoke pot on Parliament Hill was before pulling out a joint for them to share? There's more to each of those stories than you know. Though Critch has spent years crisscrossing the country--and the globe--with the explicit aim of causing trouble everywhere he goes, like the best journeys, this one takes him right back home.

Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary


Catherine Fogarty - 2021
    For four intense days, the prisoners held the guards hostage while their leaders negotiated with a citizens' committee of journalists and lawyers, drawing attention to the dehumanizing realities of their incarceration, including overcrowding, harsh punishment and extreme isolation. But when another group of convicts turned their pent-up rage towards some of the weakest prisoners, tensions inside the old stone walls erupted, with tragic consequences. As heavily armed soldiers prepared to regain control of the prison through a full military assault, the inmates were finally forced to surrender.Murder on the Inside tells the harrowing story of a prison in crisis against the backdrop of a pivotal moment in the history of human rights. Occurring just months before the uprising at Attica Prison, the Kingston riot has remained largely undocumented, and few have known the details--yet the tense drama chronicled here is more relevant today than ever. A gripping account of the standoff and the efforts for justice and reform it inspired, Murder on the Inside is essential reading for our times.Includes 24 pages of photographs.

Home of the Floating Lily


Silmy Abdullah - 2021
    A young woman moves to Toronto after getting married but soon discovers her husband is not who she believes him to be. A mother reconciles her heartbreak when her sons defy her expectations and choose their own paths in life. A lonely international student returns to Bangladesh and forms an unexpected bond with her domestic helper. A working-class woman, caught between her love for Bangladesh and her determination to raise her daughter in Canada, makes a life-altering decision after a dark secret from the past is revealed.In each of the stories, characters embark on difficult journeys in search of love, dignity, and a sense of belonging.

Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming


Antonio Michael Downing - 2021
    Raised by his indomitable grandmother in a hot, verdant Trinidad, Downing at age 11 is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But not urban Toronto: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern evangelical Aunt Joan, in Waubigoon, a mostly Indigenous community in northern Ontario where they are the only black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the search for a home. He briefly reunites with the feckless biological parents who abandoned him--Al, a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, who seems to regard her sons as cash machines. Downing finds surrogate families, whose love he can't fully accept, and later, enters a string of romantic relationships that fail. His saga takes him to New York to Toronto and to Manchester, where he will begin his European musical tour with Liam Gallagher of Oasis. He and his artistic collaborator Gada Jane create the gold-chain laden, sequin and leather clad rock star "John Orpheus." While abroad, Downing receives word that a fire has destroyed most of his belongings. He feels liberated, free to create his new self, one that has accepted and risen above the family dyfunction and trauma of his early years. Richly evocative, Becoming John Orpheus is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage.

Letters from Johnny


Wayne Ng - 2021
    Johnny’s world unravels after a murder, a betrayal, and the unexpected emergence of a family member, all this as he tries to make sense of the FLQ crisis. His only solace are letters to a penpal, then to Dave Keon, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Undoing Hours


Selina Boan - 2021
    Boan’s poems emphasize sound and breath; they tell stories of meeting family, of experiencing love and heartbreak, and of learning new ways to express and understand the world around her through the Nêhiyawêwan language.As a settler and urban nehiyaw who grew up disconnected from her father’s family and community, Boan initially turns to language as one way to challenge the impact and legacy of assimilation policies and colonization on her own being and the landscapes she inhabits. Exploring the nexus of language and power, the effects of which are both far-reaching and deeply intimate, these poems consider the ways language impacts the way we view and construct the world around us, and what it means to be a moniyaw/nehiyaw woman actively building community and working to ground herself through language and relationships. Boan writes from a place of linguistic tension, tenderness, and care, creating space to ask questions and to imagine intimate decolonial futures.

The Toronto Book of Love


Adam Bunch - 2021
    Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache. The Toronto Book of Love brings the history of the city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary; from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform one of Canada’s first same-sex marriage ceremonies.Home to adulterous movie stars, faithful rebels, and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by crushes, jealousies, and flirtations. The Toronto Book of Love explores the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost to a booming modern metropolis through the stories of those who have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires, and skyscrapers.

Midlife


Jhenifer Pabillano - 2021
    The contributors in this book have remained friends since their time at the Gateway during the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. This community of writers now finds itself at a crossroads, navigating the struggles of midlife, which is not necessarily as straightforward as anyone imagined. Midlife takes the reader through personal reflections ranging from funny and perceptive to introspective and vulnerable. The four sections of the book are Growth, Paths, Illusion, and Time, covering everything from lives not lived, self-discovery, parenthood, ambition, infertility, family illness and relationships.Midlife is a passion project fuelled by the desire to reclaim our creativity, particularly in a time when our lives feel like they are narrowing. It’s a labour of love, a reunion of friends, and a gift to each other and the community at large during a time when connection is more important than ever.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are


Carol Bruneau - 2021
    One glimpse of the tiny painted house that folk art legend Maud Lewis shared with her husband, Everett, in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, during the mid-twentieth century and the startling contrast between her joyful artwork and her life's deprivations is evident. One glimpse at her photo and you realize, for all her smile's shyness, she must've been one tough cookie. But, beneath her iconic resilience, who was Maud, really? How did she manage, holed up in that one-room house with no running water, married to a miserly man known for his drinking? Was she happy, or was she miserable? Did painting save or make her Everett's meal ticket? And then there are the darker secrets that haunt her story: the loss of her parents, her child, her first love. Against all odds, Maud Lewis rose above these constraints—and this is where you'll find the Maud of Brighten the Corner Where You Are: speaking her mind from beyond the grave, freed of the stigmas of gender, poverty, and disability that marked her life and shaped her art. Unfettered and feisty as can be, she tells her story her way, illuminating the darkest corners of her life. In possession of a voice all her own, Maud demonstrates the agency that hovers within us all.

Coconut


Nisha Patel - 2021
    These are vitally political, feminist poems for young women of colour, with bold portrayals of confession, hurt, and healing.Coconut rises fiercely like the sun. These poems bestow light and warmth and the ability to witness the world, but they ask for more than basking; they ask readers to grow and warn that they can be burnt. Above all, Nisha Patel’s work questions and challenges propriety and what it means to be a good woman, second-generation immigrant, daughter, consumer, and lover.

Out with the Sunset (Parks Pat Mysteries #1)


P.D. Workman - 2021
    How can Calgary’s park-goers feel safe with a murderer still on the streets—or pathways? Margie and the team are on the case while at the same time she and her daughter try to acclimatize to the new city.If she wants her coworkers to believe that she’s not just a ‘diversity hire,’ she needs to show them what she’s made of and track this killer down.Looking for a police procedural set in picturesque Canada? Let Award-winning and Bestselling Author P.D. Workman take you her favourite Calgary parks, as Métis detective Margie Patenaude investigates a murder in this fast-paced new series. These short mysteries are just right for those days when you could use a break from your busy life. Take a walk in a Calgary park with Parks Pat.Climb into/Take a dip into/Immerse yourself in a new mystery today!

Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water


Kazim Ali - 2021
    We belong to them."The child of South Asian migrants, Kazim Ali was born in London, lived as a child in the cities and small towns of Manitoba, and made a life in the United States. As a man passing through disparate homes, he has never felt he belonged to a place. And yet, one day, the celebrated poet and essayist finds himself thinking of the boreal forests and lush waterways of Jenpeg, a community thrown up around the building of a hydroelectric dam on the Nelson River, where he once lived for several years as a child. Does the town still exist, he wonders? Is the dam still operational?When Ali goes searching, however, he finds not news of Jenpeg, but of the local Pimicikamak community. Facing environmental destruction and broken promises from the Canadian government, they have evicted Manitoba's electric utility from the dam on Cross Lake. In a place where water is an integral part of social and cultural life, the community demands accountability for the harm that the utility has caused.Troubled, Ali returns north, looking to understand his place in this story and eager to listen. Over the course of a week, he participates in community life, speaks with Elders and community members, and learns about the politics of the dam from Chief Cathy Merrick. He drinks tea with activists, eats corned beef hash with the Chief, and learns about the history of the dam, built on land that was never ceded, and Jenpeg, a town that now exists mostly in his memory. In building relationships with his former neighbors, Ali explores questions of land and power―and in remembering a lost connection to this place, finally finds a home he might belong to.

Letters in a Bruised Cosmos


Liz Howard - 2021
    Letters in a Bruised Cosmos asks who do we become after the worst has happened? Invoking the knowledge histories of Western and Indigenous astrophysical science, Howard takes us on a breakneck river course of radiant and perilous survival in which we are invited to "reforge [ourselves] inside tomorrow's humidex". Everyday observation, family history, and personal tragedy are sublimated here in a propulsive verse that is relentlessly its own. Part autobiography, part philosophical puzzlement, part love song, Letters in a Bruised Cosmos is a book that once read will not soon be forgotten.

All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue


Brad Fraser - 2021
    He grew to be one of the most celebrated, and controversial, Canadian playwrights, his work produced to acclaim all over the world.All the Rage chronicles Brad Fraser's rise as he breaks with his past and enrolls as a performing arts student. He is pulled into the newly developing Canadian theatre scene, where he shows great promise. But his early career is one of challenge after challenge, some of which result from his upbringing and prejudice against his queerness. But just as many challenges arise from his combative personality and willingness to challenge the establishment. Few Canadian artists have been as abrasive, notorious and polarizing as Fraser was in his youth.Woven through this tale of artistic development is his journey as a queer man coming into himself during the most exhilarating period in the Gay Liberation Movement, and the dawn of a global health crisis. What should have been a triumphant time in a young, successful playwright's life was blighted with the terrifying emergence of AIDS, and the sickness and death of comrades and lovers.This is both the story of an artist's evolution and an important work of gay history that has rarely been recounted from a Canadian perspective. Written with Fraser's trademark wit and candour, All the Rage is unsparing, sometimes shocking and always enthralling.

Indigenous Toronto: Stories That Carry This Place


Denise Bolduc - 2021
    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 King

All Over the Map: Rambles and Ruminations from the Canadian Road


Ron James - 2021
    His seemingly improvisational flights of fancy--no two shows are ever the same--are crammed with inventive phrase-making, feature a voluminous vocabulary, and put every word into the service of uproarious comedy.He sounds like a man born to write a great book--and now at last he has. But this is a book he has been writing for most of his life, in his head, in his car, while driving from gig to gig.In All Over the Map, Ron has brilliantly captured the voice that has enthralled millions on stage and screen. He also lets up a little on the usually relentless laughs (though there are still plenty of those) to reveal a new dimension to his beloved showbiz character. His hilarious reminscences of growing up in Nova Scotia and his early struggles as an aspiring comic, his reveries on such topics as family, country, celebrity and lessons learned from myriad chance encounters will deepen our appreciation for this great comic and win him many new fans in his new role as author.

The Pump


Sydney Hegele - 2021
    Lighthouse dwellers, Boy Scouts, queer church camp leaders, love-sick and sick-sick writers, nine-year-old hunters, art-eaters—each must navigate the swamp of their own morality while living on land that is always slowly (and sometimes very quickly) killing them.“The Pump is populated with the kind of tough, awkward, dark, and tender characters you often find trapped in small town, no-place Canada. You’ll also find beavers, salt domes, a lighthouse, marshes, more beavers, a Mercury Villager, mosquitoes, and the rest of the beavers. Brooman has woven an inescapable, ferocious dream of a book. Good luck getting out.”—John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of Vanishing Monuments“Bristling with magic, horror, and romance, Sydney Warner Brooman’s The Pump transforms small-town Southern Ontario into a place of violence and sacrifice — or maybe presents it as it truly is. Like nothing I’ve ever read before, these killer beavers, strange diseases, and infectious waters wouldn’t leave my head and drew me back to their world again and again. If only I blurbed delightfully weird books like this for the rest of my life, I’d be happy.”—Jess Taylor, Author of Pauls and Just Pervs“This is the Southern Ontario that we don’t openly acknowledge but that scrapes at the back of our memories. The Pump shows us the surreal violence of living in the 401’s sprawl and the staggering beauty of the nature that surrounds it. Don’t be fooled by the nightmarish quality of these stories: they are as real as the Mercury Villager that Sydney Warner Brooman drives us in on. This is horror in broad daylight. These are the living ghosts that haunt so many of us who grew up here.”— Jia Qing Wilson-Yang, Lambda Award-winning author of Small Beauty“This is what small-town Ontario looks like when David Attenborough is a distant memory, when social structures are as polluted as the water, when myth has returned—big time—in mounting waves, sweeping our smaller stories out to sea. I don’t what is more terrifying: that The Pump exists, or that here, in this wretched, sinking place, you can find something that you desperately love, something that you want to survive. The Pump is an astonishing debut collection from a writer who is just warming up.”—Tom Cull, author of Bad Animals

The Crystal Crescent Inn Book 5 (Sambro Lighthouse Book 5)


Sylvia Price - 2021
    Her daughter and best friend insist she needs a project to keep her occupied. Liz decides to share the beauty of Crystal Crescent Beach with those who visit the beautiful east coast of Nova Scotia and prepares to embark on the adventure of her life. She moves into the converted art studio at the bottom of her garden and turns the old family home into The Crystal Crescent Inn.One of her first visitors is famous archeologist, Merc MacGill, and he’s not there to admire the view. The handsome bachelor believes there’s an undiscovered eighteenth-century farmstead hidden inside the creeks and coves of Crystal Crescent, and Liz wants to help him find it.But it’s not all smooth sailing at the inn that overlooks the historic Sambro Lighthouse. No one has realized it yet, but the lives of everyone in Liz’s family are intertwined with those first settlers who landed in Nova Scotia over two hundred and fifty years ago. Will they be able to unravel the mystery? Will the lives of Liz’s two children be changed forever if they discover the link between the lighthouse and their old home?Take a trip to Crystal Crescent Beach and join Liz, her family, and guests as they navigate the storms and calm waters of life and love under the watchful eye of the lighthouse and its secret.

Flower Diary: In Which Mary Hiester Reid Paints, Travels, Marries & Opens a Door


Molly Peacock - 2021
    It became a bestseller and a touchstone for many readers. In Flower Diary, the companion biography, Peacock looks at the balancing act of female creativity and domesticity in this biography of Mary Hiester Reid, one of Canada's preeminent landscape painters, known for her stunning, emotive still lifes. Born in the U.S. in 1854 and as one of the few women trained in art academies that mostly tutored men, Mary trailblazed in a life where she fought for her place as a professional artist without having to live as a tragic heroine. She married George Reid, a prominent Canadian muralist and life painter and moved with him to Canada. But it was the Edwardian age, and while their relationship was more equal than most, it was Mary's place to manage the domestic scene. How do you find the time to paint when you need to get to the market to buy a chicken for dinner? And how do you manage a marriage when your art student becomes your rival? With her poet's sensibility, Peacock looks at one woman's extraordinary life and the choices she made.

A Short History of the Blockade: Giant Beavers, Diplomacy and Regeneration in Nishnaabewin


Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - 2021
    Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of dams and the world-building possibilities of blockades, deepening our understanding of Indigenous resistance, as both a negation and an affirmation. Widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation, Simpson’s work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song, bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. A Short History of the Blockade reveals how the practice of telling stories is also a culture of listening, “a thinking through together,” and ultimately, like the dam or the blockade, an affirmation of life.

What Was Said to Me: The Life of Sti’tum’atul’wut, a Cowichan Woman


Ruby Peter - 2021
    Life histories are a form of contemporary social history and convey important messages about identity, cosmology, social behaviour and one’s place in the world. This first-person oral history—the first of its kind ever published by the Royal BC Museum—documents a period of profound social change through the lens of Sti’tum’atul’wut—also known as Mrs. Ruby Peter—a Cowichan elder who made it her life’s work to share and safeguard the ancient language of her people: Hul’q’umi’num’. Over seven decades, Sti’tum’atul’wut mentored hundreds of students and teachers and helped thousands of people to develop a basic knowledge of the Hul’q’umi’num’ language. She contributed to dictionaries and grammars, and helped assemble a valuable corpus of stories, sound and video files—with more than 10,000 pages of texts from Hul’q’umi’num’ speakers—that has been described as “a treasure of linguistic and cultural knowledge.” Without her passion, commitment and expertise, this rich legacy of material would not exist for future generations

The List of Last Chances


Christina Myers - 2021
    Having overstayed her welcome and desperate for a job, Ruthie responds to David’s ad: he’s looking for someone to drive his aging mother, Kay, and her belongings from PEI to Vancouver. Ruthie thinks it’s the perfect chance for a brief escape and a much-needed boost for her empty bank account.But once they’re on the road, Kay reveals that she’s got a list of stops along the way that’s equal parts sightseeing tour, sexual bucket-list, and trip down memory lane. As David prods for updates and a speedy arrival to his home in Vancouver, Kay begins to share details about a long-lost love and Ruthie takes a detour to play matchmaker, but finds herself caught up in a web of well-intentioned lies.With the road ahead uncertain, and the past and present colliding, will Ruthie be able to forge a new path? Heartfelt and humorous, The List of Last Chances follows a pair of reluctant travel companions across the country, into an unexpected friendship, new adventures, and the rare gift of second chances.

Tainna: The Unseen Ones, Short Stories


Norma Dunning - 2021
    Ranging from homeless to extravagantly wealthy, from spiritual to jaded, young to elderly, and even from alive to deceased, Dunning’s characters are united by shared feelings of alienation, displacement and loneliness resulting from their experiences in southern Canada.In Tainna—meaning “the unseen ones” and pronounced Da‑e‑nn‑a—a fraught reunion between sisters Sila and Amak ends in an uneasy understanding. From the spirit realm, Chevy Bass watches over his imperilled grandson, Kunak. And in the title story, the broken-hearted Bunny wanders onto a golf course on a freezing night, when a flock of geese stand vigil until her body is discovered by a kind stranger.Norma Dunning’s masterful storytelling uses humour and incisive detail to create compelling characters who discover themselves in a hostile land where prejudice, misogyny and inequity are most often found hidden in plain sight. There, they must rely on their wits, artistic talent, senses of humour and spirituality­ for survival; and there, too, they find solace in shining moments of reconnection with their families and communities.

Unravelling Canada: A Knitting Odyssey


Sylvia Olsen - 2021
    In the early twentieth century, Indigenous woolworkers on southern Vancouver Island began knitting what are now called Cowichan sweaters, named for the largest of the Coast Salish tribes in the region. Drawing on their talents as blanket weavers and basket makers, and adapting techniques from European settlers, Coast Salish women created sweaters that fuelled a bustling local economy. Knitters across the country copied the popular sweaters to create their own versions of the garment. The Cowichan sweater embodies industry and economy, politics and race relations, and is a testament to the innovation and resilience of Coast Salish families.Sylvia Olsen married into the Tsartlip First Nation near Victoria, BC, and developed relationships with Coast Salish knitters through her family’s sweater shop. Olsen was inspired to explore the juncture of her English/Scottish/European heritage and Coast Salish life experiences, bringing to light deeply personal questions about Canadian knitting traditions. In 2015, she and her partner Tex embarked on a cross-Canada journey from the Salish Sea to the Atlantic Ocean with stops in more than forty destinations to promote her books, conduct workshops, exchange experiences with other knitters and, Olsen hoped, discover a fresh appreciation for Canada.Along the way, with stops in urban centres as well as smaller communities like Sioux Lookout, ON, and Shelburne, NS, Olsen observed that the knitters of Canada are as diverse as their country’s geography. But their textured and colourful stories about knitting create a common narrative. With themes ranging from personal identity, cultural appropriation, provincial stereotypes and national icons, to “boyfriend sweaters” and love stories, Unravelling Canada is both a celebration and a discovery of an ever-changing national landscape. Insightful, optimistic, and beautifully written, it is a book that will speak to knitters and would-be knitters alike.

Moldovan Hotel


Leah Horlick - 2021
    What she unearthed there is an elaborate web connecting conscious worlds to subconscious ones, fascism to neofascisms, Europe to the Americas to the Middle East, typhus to HIV/AIDS, genocide in Romania to land grabs in Palestine, women’s lives in farming villages to queer lives in the city, language to its trap doors, and love to its hidden, ancestral obligations.With force, clarity and searing craft, Horlick’s poems are equal to the urgency of our political moment. “No one ever thinks they might be the dragon,” Horlick writes, and yet history repeats its cruelties. This work takes things apart to put them profoundly back together.“Every poem in Moldovan Hotel is a room thick with ghosts. Here, Horlick takes the language of the past—used to dehumanize and unmoor—and crystalizes it around revelation after revelation. A graceful, striking collection.” — Carmen Maria Machado“If Leah Horlick’s second book invited us to witness, this time she draws from her Jewish heritage and takes us back to show us how to read the landscape and mind-scape and tell us what the texts left out. This is an accounting, a calling, an invocation, a return, a skilful mediation on how to remember when the ‘names of the oppressors are blotted out’.” — Juliane Okot Bitek

Caught in the Pot


Hogan Short - 2021
    Kane is a wandering twenty-something, tattooing his way from town to town, looking for a place he can call home -- but what is home? Kane arrives in Sachem, a quaint fishing town on the Atlantic Ocean, where he meets and falls for the charming Tilly. When Kane finds work on a high paying lobster boat, Tilly becomes worried -- the dangerous and demanding work has led to tragedies of all kinds. Caught in the Pot is a beautifully tragic novel by author Hogan Short. If you like sweet contemporary romances -- and the power and failure of the human condition -- then you'll love this contained story of love, forgiveness, and the ways in which we hope and struggle to find our own way...and each other.

Fault Lines


Tsveti Nacheva - 2021
    Ashley would not just up and leave. As days turn into weeks, it becomes clear that she is not coming back. But without a body, proving that a crime has been committed—let alone unmasking the culprit—is a tall order.The truth should come first.All eyes are on Ashley’s boyfriend, who is being cagey. But Laurie’s own partner, Nate, is keeping secrets too. On that fateful night, his clothes were covered in blood, which he swears wasn’t Ashley’s. Refusing to accept the man she loves might be a murderer, Laurie decides to believe him. Yet, unable to put the past behind them, they drift apart.But what if it’s ugly? Seven years later, while working on a TV documentary about a local family drama, she reconnects with Nate, and the pieces start falling together. As Laurie draws closer to learning what happened that night, she realizes the truth might be the one thing she doesn’t want to uncover.

Over the Boards: Lessons from the Ice


Hayley Wickenheiser - 2021
    6 Olympic Games. Hockey Hall of Famer. All while raising a child, earning multiple university degrees, and not benefiting from the financial stability male professional athletes have. She gave the game everything she had--now, Hayley shares what the game gave her.From motherhood to pro leagues to her new career in medicine, Hayley shares the hard-won lessons she learned on and off the ice that helped her not only have a record-breaking hockey career but craft a life of joy, growth, and challenges. In her own words, Hayley shares how she rose from the backyard pond and changing in boiler rooms (because girls' dressing rooms didn't exist) to Olympic MVP (twice). How becoming a parent made her a better athlete. How she learned to thrive under monumental pressure. But she doesn't stop at revealing the pillars to her tremendous success--Hayley delves into her immense failures and how she grew from them. Like Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and Abby Wambach before her, Hayley shares her wisdom through personal stories of triumph, relentlessness, and more than a couple confrontations. Told with humour, compassion, and steadfast optimism, Hayley's practical advice, coaching, and invaluable perspective inspires readers to never accept "that's not the way we do things" or "that hasn't been done before" as limitations. An empowering and pragmatic guide, Hayley encourages readers to not follow in her footsteps, but to carve their own ice.

The Devil's Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War


John Boyko - 2021
    When Brigadier General Sherwood Lett arrived in Vietnam over a decade before American troops, he and the Canadians under his command risked their lives trying to enforce an unstable peace while questioning whether they were American lackeys--or handmaidens to a new war. As American battleships steamed across the Pacific, Canadian diplomat Blair Seaborn was meeting secretly in Hanoi with North Vietnam's prime minister; if Seaborn could convince the Americans to accept his roadmap to peace, those ships could be turned around before war began. Claire Culhane worked in a Canadian hospital in Vietnam and then returned home to implore Canadians to stop supporting what she demed an immoral war. Joe Erickson was among 30,000 young Americans who evaded the draft by heading north; Doug Carey was among 20,000 Canadians heading the other way to fight. Rebecca Trinh and her family fled Saigon and joined the waves of desperate Indochinese refugees, thousands of whom forged new lives in Canada. Through these wide-ranging and fascinating accounts, Boyko exposes what he calls the Devil's wiliest trick: convincing leaders that war is desirable, the public that it's acceptable and combatants that what they are doing and seeing is normal, or at least necessary. In uncovering Canada's side of the story, he reveals the many secret and forgotten ways that Canada not only fought the Vietnam War but was shaped by its lies and consequences.

Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language


Ayelet Tsabari - 2021
    This vital anthology opens a dialogue about this unique language diversity and probes the importance of language in our identity and the ways in which it shapes us.In this collection of deeply personal essays, twenty-six writers explore their connection with language, accents, and vocabularies, and contend with the ways they 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 transformation and collective healing to various communities.With contributions by: Kamal Al-Solaylee, Jenny Heijun Wills, Karen McBride, Melissa Bull, Leonarda Carranza, Adam Pottle, Kai Cheng Thom, Sigal Samuel, Rebecca Fisseha, Logan Broeckaert, Taslim Jaffer, Ashley Hynd, Jagtar Kaul Atwal, Téa Mutonji, Rowan McCandless, Sahar Golshan, Camila Justino, Amanda Leduc, Ayelet Tsabari, Carrianne Leung, Janet Hong, Danny Ramadan, Sediqa de Meijer, Jónína Kirton, and Eufemia Fantetti.

Cries from the Cold


Bernadette Calonego - 2021
    Until she gets one more chance on the wild Labrador coast, where evil washes ashore. A harrowing discovery on an icy beach—a crate with the remains of a young woman who disappeared three years earlier. The gruesome find sets the tiny, isolated town of Port Brendan on edge. A cryptic symbol burned into the crate gives RCMP Sergeant Calista Gates the first clue. The young investigator is desperate to prove she’s fully fit for service after an attack in Vancouver left her with a devastating brain injury.She must hunt down the woman’s killer at all costs—and confront what is threatening her: the hostile climate, the insular community, the dangerous pack ice, and a cold-blooded assassin.When a second murder shocks the village, Calista has a chilling suspicion. Her boss and some colleagues don’t believe her. Can she even trust her taciturn teammate? In the brutal Labrador winter, Calista has nowhere to turn. She has to fight for her job, for justice—and for her life.

The Rebel Christ


Michael Coren - 2021
    A fine advocate for the best of Christian thought and a faith that encompasses the human as well as the divine.” —Stephen FryChristianity is in crisis, and its founder is often misunderstood and misinterpreted. This book presents the real Jesus: a rebel, a radical, and a revolutionary.What did Jesus — the original Jesus — say about the pressing issues of his and our day? He didn’t mention homosexuality but did call for the poor and marginalized to be protected and championed; he never spoke of abortion but did criticize the wealthy and complacent; he didn’t side with the rulers and wealthy but did condemn those who judged and exploited others and turned their eyes away from those in need and from the cry for justice. This was Jesus the rebel, Christ the radical, who turned the world upside down and demanded that his followers do the same. Too many of those followers, tragically, seem to have misplaced that vital lesson.

Year of the Rocket: John Candy, Wayne Gretzky, a Crooked Tycoon and the Craziest Season in Football History


Paul Woods - 2021
    

The Undertaking of Billy Buffone


David Giuliano - 2021
    The suicides, the conspiracy of silence, the secrets and the damage done to the boys, their friends and families, persist long after the murder of Scouter Churley

Dark Water Under the Bridge (Parks Pat Mysteries, #3)


P.D. Workman - 2021
    She would be happy for the confidence placed in her if it weren’t for the fact that the body is in the water.Detective Pat hates the water. She’ll need to get over that if she is going to be able to investigate this case properly. Preferably before the rest of the department figures out her weakness. There is a killer out there to be caught. Somehow she’ll have to get past her block to find him.Looking for a police procedural set in picturesque Canada? Let Award-winning and Bestselling Author P.D. Workman take you her favourite Calgary parks, as Métis detective Margie Patenaude investigates a murder in this fast-paced new series. These short mysteries are just right for those days when you could use a break from your busy life. Take a walk in a Calgary park with Parks Pat.Dive into in a new mystery today!

My Indian


Mi'sel Joe - 2021
    In his journals, Cormack refers to his guide only as "My Indian." Now, almost two hundred years later, Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill reclaim the story of Sylvester Joe, the Mi'kmaq guide engaged by Cormack. In a remarkable feat of historical fiction, My Indian follows Sylvester Joe from his birth (in what is now known as Miawpukek First Nation) and early life in his community to his journey across the island with Cormack. But will Sylvester Joe lead Cormack to the Beothuk, or will he protect the Beothuk and lead his colonial explorer away?In rewriting the narrative of Cormack's journey from the perspective of his Mi'kmaq guide, My Indian reclaims Sylvester Joe's identity.

Pumpkins


Kevin Miller - 2021
    . . Fifteen-year-old Jeremy Fisher has always been an outsider, but now that he’s been convicted of a crime he “sort of” committed, his status as a small-town pariah has just been made official. Bullied at school, branded a criminal by the community, and grieving the loss of his father, who just left one day, the only bright spot in Jeremy’s bleak world is Roxanne, one of the most popular girls in school who happens to take a shine to him—or is it just pity?—in the midst of his troubles.As the community prepares for Halloween, Jeremy notices something strange is afoot, and he suspects it has something to do with the ghastly jack o’ lanterns that are mysteriously popping up all over town. Before Jeremy realizes it, he and Roxanne are caught up in a desperate struggle to save their community from a supernatural force that may have a closer connection to the two friends than either of them realize.

Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack


Heidi von Palleske - 2021
    When Jack falls and loses his eye on a thorn bush, the accident sets off a series of events that will bind the boys together for the rest of their lives. When the best friends meet albino twins Clara and Blanca, a shared fate unfolds. With Gareth and Jack’s help, the twins are able to reclaim their lives and leave their nightmarish past behind them. From the shores of Lake Ontario to the hustle of Berlin, from the art of oculary to punk opera, this is a story of dark secrets, suppressed desires, forgiveness, and love.

Wild Dogs: An Adventure in Adolescence


Christos Kalogirou - 2021
    After all, there's no greater reward than the attention of your peers.Christos Kalogirou was fifteen when his parents enrolled him in the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a prestigious co-ed boarding school tucked away in Saskatchewan. For Christos, high school was harder than real life. By sixteen, he had turned a desperate need to stand out into a business venture, reaping all the rewards he craved—until the rewards almost cost him everything.In Wild Dogs, Christos shares the personal story that became an urban legend. Relatable and inspiring, this chronicle contains lessons for everyone who has made a mistake and wants to right the wrongs in their life. Whether you're a current student or a graduate of the tumultuous teenage years, you'll learn the power of redemption, the importance of friendships, and the value of working with the system instead of against it. This entertaining and insightful coming-of-age story will provide you with a perspective you didn't know you needed and show you that life is a journey you can't take too seriously.

Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes


Hannah Moscovitch - 2021
    

Mushrooms of British Columbia


Andy MacKinnon - 2021
    Now there’s Mushrooms of British Columbia, the newest handbook from the Royal BC Museum. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to know more about BC mushrooms—whether for study, harvest, photography or appreciation.Authors and mushroom experts Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther bring a practical and playful approach to helping people quickly and confidently identify the mushrooms of British Columbia. Common names trump technical terminology, fungi are grouped by overall shape, and written descriptions of more than 350 common species are reinforced with carefully curated diagnostic images.This is the go-to guidebook for anyone, amateur or expert, who loves to study, draw, photograph and eat BC mushrooms.

On Scene: Inspired by one of the longest manhunts in Canadian history


Kate Kading - 2021
    He’d hunted men before, but never one who’d murdered his best friend.Speculation is a dangerous thing when dealing with someone's life.What causes people to react the way they do? Say the things they say?Fear. Anger. Mental instability. Revenge.Sometimes there is no clear motive at all.The absence of why is where speculation is born.Speculation can kill a man.On October 9, 1970, it killed two of them.

Take d Milk, Nah?


Jivesh Parasram - 2021
    Or maybe he's just colonized. He's not the "white boy" he was teased as within his immigrant household. Especially since his Nova Scotian neighbours seemed to think he was Black. Except for the Black people--they were pretty sure he wasn't. He's not an Arab, and allegedly not a Muslim--at least that's what he started claiming after 9/11. Whatever he is, the public education system was able to offer him the chance to learn about his culture from a coffee-table book on "Eastern Mythology." And then he had a religious epiphany while delivering a calf in Trinidad. By now, Jiv's collected a lot of observations about trying to find your place in your world. This story asks the gut-punching questions: What divides us? Who is served by the constructs of cultural identity? And what are we willing to accept in the desire to belong? Then again--it doesn't really matter, because we are all Jiv.

From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta's Italian History


Adriana A. Davies - 2021
    It places them in the narrative of province building from work on railways, mines and other industries to breaking the land for agriculture. Oral history excerpts allow the men, women and children to speak for themselves. What emerges is an unquenchable desire to make good, and overcome intolerable working conditions and discrimination, which culminated with enemy alien designation and internment during the Second World War. The book also provides an exploration of the impact of Government of Canada’s multicultural policy on the process of assimilation for the post-war influx of immigrants. It offers a prototype of an immigrant community’s movement from marginalization to the mainstream.

The Family Way


Christopher DiRaddo - 2021
    Nothing about the process feels natural to him. But for a gay man of a certain age, making a family still means finding your own way through a world with few ready answers. The eighteen-month journey reveals many insights about Paul's past and present, from his strained relationship to his father, his overprotective relationship with his partner Michael, and the many friends around him whom he considers his family.

The Difficult Loves of Maria Makiling


Wayne Santos - 2021
    

On Patrol with the US Coast Guard


Dana Stabenow - 2021
    

Stories of Métis Women: Tales My Kookum Told Me (Indigenous Spirit of Nature)


Bailey Oster - 2021
    The Métis are known by many names — Otipemisiwak, “the people who own ourselves;” Bois Brules, “Burnt Wood;” Apeetogosan, “half brother” by the Cree; “half-breed,” historically; and are also known as “rebels” and “traitors to Canada.” They are also known as the “Forgotten People.” Few really know their story. Many people may also think that Métis simply means “mixed,” but it does not. They are a people with a unique and proud history and Nation. In this era of reconciliation, Stories of Métis Women explains the story of the Métis Nation from the women’s own perspective. The UN has declared this “The Decade of Indigenous Languages” and Stories of Métis Women is one of the few books available in English and Michif, which is an endangered language.

The Donnellys: Powder Keg: 1840-1880


John Little - 2021
    In the 1840s, the Donnelly family immigrates from Ireland to the British province of Canada. Almost immediately problems develop as the patriarch of the family is sent to the Kingston Penitentiary for manslaughter, leaving his wife to raise their eight children on her own. The children are raised in an incredibly violent community and cultivate a devoted loyalty to their mother and siblings, which often leads to problems with the law and those outside of the family. The tensions between the family and their community escalate as the family's enemies begin to multiply. The brothers go into business running a stagecoach line and repay all acts of violence perpetrated against them, which only worsens the situation. Refusing to take a backwards step, the Donnellys stand alone against a growing power base that includes wealthy business interests in the town of Lucan, the local diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, law authorities and a number of their neighbours.

Living in Indigenous Sovereignty


Elizabeth Carlson-Manathara - 2021
    Increasing numbers of Canadians are beginning to recognize how settler colonialism continues to shape relationships on these lands. With this recognition comes the question many settler Canadians are now asking, what can I do?Living in Indigenous Sovereignty lifts up the wisdom of Indigenous scholars, activists and knowledge keepers who speak pointedly to what they are asking of non-Indigenous people. It also shares the experiences of thirteen white settler Canadians who are deeply engaged in solidarity work with Indigenous Peoples. Together, these stories offer inspiration and guidance for settler Canadians who wish to live honourably in relationship with Indigenous Peoples, laws and lands. If Canadians truly want to achieve this goal, Carlson and Rowe argue, they will pursue a reorientation of their lives toward “living in Indigenous sovereignty” — living in an awareness that these are Indigenous lands, containing relationships, laws, protocols, stories, obligations and opportunities that have been understood and practised by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial.Collectively, these stories will help settler Canadians understand what transformations we must undertake if we are to fundamentally shift our current relations and find a new way forward, together.

The Prairie Chicken Dance Tour


Dawn Dumont - 2021
    Dawn Dumont brings her signature razor-sharp wit and impeccable comedic timing to this hilarious, warm, and wildly entertaining novel.Dumont lives in Saskatoon, SK. From the author of 'Glass Beads'.

The Case for Basic Income: Freedom, Security, Justice


Jamie Swift - 2021
    Decent work is down. Free market fundamentalism has been exposed as a tragic failure. In a job market upended by COVID-19—with Canadians caught in the grip of precarious labour, stagnant wages, a climate crisis, and the steady creep of automation—an ever-louder chorus of voices calls for a liveable and obligation-free basic income.Could a basic income guarantee be the way forward to democratize security and intervene where the market economy and social programs fail? Jamie Swift and Elaine Power scrutinize the politics and the potential behind a radical proposal in a post-pandemic world: that wealth should be built by a society, not individuals. And that we all have an unconditional right to a fair share.In these pages, Swift and Power bring to the forefront the deeply personal stories of Canadians who participated in the 2017–2019 Ontario Basic Income Pilot; examine the essential literature and history behind the movement; and answer basic income’s critics from both the right and left.

Best Canadian Poetry 2021


Souvankham ThammavongsaPaola Ferrante - 2021
    Guest editor Souvankham Thammavongsa, Giller Prize-winning author of How to Pronounce Knife, brings a keen ear for rhythm, an peerless sense of narrative compression, and an appetite for vital subject matter to this year’s edition of Best Canadian Poetry.

Operation Jubilee: Dieppe, 1942: The Folly and the Sacrifice


Patrick Bishop - 2021
    It reminds the rest of us what their war was all about' Evening Standard on Bomber Boys____________On the moonless night of 18 August 1942 a flotilla pushes out into the flat water of the Channel. They are to seize the German-held port of Dieppe and hold it for at least twenty-four hours, showing the Soviets the Allies were serious about a second front and to get experience ahead of a full-scale invasion.But confidence turned to carnage with nearly two thirds of the attackers dead, wounded or captured. Operation Jubilee - the Royal Air Force's biggest battle since 1940 - has drama from start to finish, human folly and tragedy in spades and a fast, tight narrative with heroes at every level. The raid was both a disaster and a milestone in the narrative of the war - it had powerful lessons and far-reaching consequences that paved the way to D-Day. Using first-hand testimony and recently declassified source material from archives across several countries, bestselling author Patrick Bishop's account of this gallant endeavour reveals the big picture and unearths telling details, establishing definitively Operation Jubilee's place in history.

Nothing Will Be Different: A Memoir


Tara McGowan-Ross - 2021
    Tara has it pretty good: a nice job, a writing career, a forgiving boyfriend. She should be happy. Yet Tara can’t stay sober. She’s terrible at monogamy. Even her psychiatrist grows sick of her and stops returning her calls. She spends most of her time putting out social fires, barely pulling things off, and feeling sick and tired.Then, in the autumn following her twenty-seventh birthday, an abnormal lump discovered in her left breast serves as the catalyst for a journey of rigorous self-questioning. Waiting on a diagnosis, she begins an intellectual assessment of her life, desperate to justify a short existence full of dumb choices. Armed with her philosophy degree and angry determination, she attacks each issue in her life as the days creep by and winds up writing a searingly honest memoir about learning to live before getting ready to die.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

Dying for Attention: A Graphic Memoir of Nursing Home Care


Susan MacLeod - 2021
    She found herself involuntarily placed at the pivot point between her frail, elderly mother's need for love and companionship, the system's inability to deliver, and her brother's indifference. She had also spent three years as a government spokesperson enthusiastically defending the very system she now experienced as brutally cold.MacLeod's tone is defined by a gentle, self-effacing humour touched by exasperation for the absurdities and the newfound wisdom around expectations.Dying for Attention is the latest memoir in the graphic medicine field, shelved alongside My Begging Chart by Keiler Roberts and Tangles by Sarah Leavitt. MacLeod includes helpful tips for communicating with nursing homes, as well as background research, to provide a larger context for this under-discussed experience.

Great Too


Lauri Holomis - 2021
    But as the tournament goes on, Taylor is distracted by the loud cheering crowd, and his confidence starts to fade. Lucky for him, Coach Wally is in his corner, reminding Taylor that it's okay to be nervous but the most important thing is to remember that he is part of a team, working together with his teammates. As Coach Wally says, if you have a good time, work hard and do your best, that is all that matters.

Beneath Her Skin: A Kes Morris File


C.S. Porter - 2021
    As usual, she's the only woman in the room, and must draw on the lessons passed down by her detective father, a furtive and dangerous practice of going deep inside a killer's mind to put on their skin.What Kes uncovers is a web of gruesome crimes reaching back decades, and a town that may have been complicit. With a reputation of being hard, relentless and unbending to authority, she finds herself on the hunt for a killer seeking brutal retribution, someone who takes sadistic pleasure in the death and wants their work seen. The farther she follows the trail, the more the line blurs between guilt and innocence, predator and prey.An atmospheric thriller with complex characters, Beneath Her Skin signals the emergence of a bold new voice in crime fiction and a dark and thrilling new series.

Look at That Bird!: A Young Naturalist's Guide to Pacific Northwest Birding


Karen DeWitz - 2021
    

Fragile and Flourishing


Sana' K.C.N. Watts - 2021
    A woman of faith. And it’s hard to hold my faith and my anxiety-depression in tension. My hold for a few years has been fragile.No one wants to be fragile.And yet, I’m learning that, maybe, fragility is not something to be despised, avoided, or hidden but treasured, embraced and put on display.Some days, I have bold faith that embraces this fragility. But there are also days when I’m just weary and I can no longer outrun the anxiety and depression. My chest always hurts and I’m constantly on edge trying not to think; when despair has caught up with me and everything seems meaningless and I genuinely don’t want to live anymore.I have gone to countries where being a Christian is not just rare but unsafe, and yet I haven’t feared death there. The death I fear is by my own hand.Jesus loving me has made all the difference.So what does this mean for you? Know that Jesus loving you makes a difference and I invite you into knowing how He does by sharing my story with you.Read:- Original poetry- A vulnerable story of trusting Jesus in becoming and being a Christian- Ways for Christians to think about mental illness, mental health and suicide

The Eleventh Province


Robert Hrzic - 2021
    Iceland, a country that has been strongly impacted by the virus, seeks to join Canada so that it can regain its economic stability. Although the decision was made democratically through a referendum, not everyone views the decision positively. When Canada pursues new interests under the benefit of its new province, the people opposed to Iceland's ascension into Canada become violent. It's up to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Iceland's local forces to stabilise the region and find out who is rallying the dissidents to become violent. The culprit may not be who they expect.

Chemical Valley


David Huebert - 2021
    Full-hearted, laced throughout with bruised optimism and a sincere appreciation of the profound beauty of our wilted, wheezing world, Chemical Valley does not shy away from urgent modern questions―the distribution of toxicity, environmental racism, the future of technology, the climate, and the human body―but it grounds these anxieties in vivid and often humorous intricacies of its characters’ lives. These are stories about big questions, but they are not scared of sentiment. Swamp-wrought, they run wild with vital energy, tilt and teeter into crazed and delirious loves.

Travels in Cuba


Marie-Louise Gay - 2021
    But the island they discover is a far cry from the all-inclusive resorts that Charlie has heard his friends talk about.Charlie has never visited a country as strange and puzzling as Cuba — a country where he often feels like a time traveler. Where Havana’s grand Hotel Nacional sits next to buildings that seem to be crumbling before his very eyes. Where the streets are filled with empty storefronts and packs of wild dogs, but where flowers and sherbet-colored houses may lie around the next corner, and music is everywhere. Where there are many different kinds of walls — from Havana’s famous sea wall to the invisible ones that seem aimed at keeping tourists and locals apart.Then the family heads “off the beaten track,” traveling by hot, dusty bus to Viñales, where Charlie makes friends with Lázaro, who often flies from Miami to visit his Cuban relatives. The boys ride a horse bareback, find a secret cache of rifles inside a little green mountain and go swimming with small albino fish in an underground cave. A rent-a-wreck takes the family into the countryside, where they find an abandoned hotel inhabited by goats, and a modern resort filled with tourists.And as he goes from one strange and marvelous escapade to another, Charlie finds that his expectations about a place and its people are overturned again and again.

Buried Secrets (Sgt. Windflower Mysteries #11)


Mike Martin - 2021
    Just as the pandemic ends, the little oceanside communities are rocked by the murders of prominent figures, an RCMP Staff Sergeant in St. John’s and a minister in Grand Bank, and it’s implied that there are national security implications to at least one crime. There’s also a sinister new character hanging around doing the parish’s dirty work. Windflower finds himself a primary investigator, balancing work, potential major changes, and life with a young family while seeking guidance from his ancestral teachings and dreams. Are the crimes connected, and can Windflower and his team find the killer before they strike again? Even as the police work becomes more complicated and even dangerous, Sgt. Windflower finds time to enjoy his family, his friends and always some great food. Come back to Grand Bank for another great adventure in Sgt. Windflower Mysteries.

I Will Be More Myself in the Next World


Matsuki Masutani - 2021
    Some poems rise tall like sunflowers in an understated garden, untangled and reflective, addressing marriage, Parkinson’s, Chemo and impermanence. You will know exactly where you are when you read “I will be more myself in the next world.” Refreshing work from a new BC poet. Includes translations of many of the poems into Japanese.

A Precious Daughter


Diane Allen - 2021
    When Ethan Postlethwaite, his wife Grace and their daughter Amy announce that they will be leaving the family home in the Yorkshire Dales, Grace’s parents are heartbroken. Ethan has always struggled to fit into the family and now they feel he is stealing their daughter away. Hoping for a new life prospecting for gold in the wilds of Canada, the young family say goodbye and set sail across the Atlantic in search of a brighter future. The journey there proves hard and treacherous, however, and upon arrival it becomes apparent that the riches they had been promised in the gold fields have already been plundered. So when the family is devastated by the death of Grace, Ethan decides he must take his daughter back to England. Arriving in Liverpool, Ethan and Amy soon find work in a dairy as cow-keepers, but Amy is restless and struggles to settle into yet another new life. And when a chance encounter at a cattle show ignites an old friendship, she must decide where her own future lies and what she must do in order to find happiness at last . . .

No Cure for Love (Book 5 in the Calderone Family Romance series)


Victoria Grant - 2021
    His trip to the hospital for yet another sports-related injury finds him back under the care of Dr. Rylee Kavanaugh. Jamie’s fallen fast and hard for the gorgeous Irish doc and goes to great lengths to prove it to her. Rylee is a gifted, caring physician who’s chosen her career over her personal life. She’s sworn off romance because of her abysmal relationship history and her crippling abandonment issues, but she’s intrigued by the many charms of this kind, handsome man. But when the doctor discovers her patient is deliberately ignoring warning signs his body is sending him, putting his life — and her heart — in danger, she refuses to stick around to watch him self-destruct, even if it means she’ll be alone forever.Do they have the remedy for each other’s pain? And will they learn the hard way that there is no cure for love?

The Donnellys: Massacre, Trial, and Aftermath: 1880-1916


John Little - 2021
    In 1880, an organized mob of the Donnellys' enemies murder four family members and burn their house to the ground. Another sibling is shot to death in a house a short distance away. William Donnelly and a teenage boy are the only witnesses to the murders. The surviving family members seek justice through the local courts but quickly learn that their enemies control the jury and the press. Two sensational trials follow that make national and international headlines as the Donnellys continue to pursue justice for their murdered parents, siblings and cousin. Behind the scenes, political factors are at play, as Oliver Mowat, the Premier/Attorney General of the province of Ontario, fearing the backlash a conviction would render, gradually withdraws support from the prosecution of the killers. After the trials, the Donnelly's enemies continue their crusade against the family, paying off potential witnesses to the murders and fabricating one last set of charges that they hope will put the remaining Donnellys away forever.

Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic


Linda M. Morra - 2021
    Many other great literary works have centered around storytelling at the time of a pandemic. Of people quarantined in their homes in 1722, Daniel Defoe wrote: "It was generally in such houses that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the poor people, terrified and even frighted to death by the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by the terror of being imprisoned as they were."In March of 2020, a new virus in the shape of a crown forced Montrealers and people worldwide to be locked in their homes in fear of contagion. Social distancing, self-isolation, and quarantine became the new buzzwords dominating everyday vocabulary.In April, once this new reality set in, the Quebec Writers' Federation asked its members, "What’s the story of your day?” It initiated a project, Chronicling the Days, inviting writers to detail a typical day in their life. The aim was to provide writers with a forum to put their creative thoughts to paper to try to make sense of the surreal situation and find some connection with other writers. “Every story valid,” the guidelines stated. One hundred writers responded to the challenge.True to its slogan of “No Borders, No Limits,” Guernica Editions is collaborating with the Quebec Writers’ Federation to publish these essays in an anthology in the spring of 2021. These 100 essays are interspersed by six longer ones, also on the topic of the pandemic, but written for the QWF Writes series. Most submissions are by professional authors, members of the QWF; for some, however, this anthology represents their first time in print.Chronicling the Days—Dispatches from a Pandemic provides an intimate panorama of the early days and experiences of the coronavirus. Constituting a rich mosaic of different styles, forms, and voices, this anthology provides a moving account of the everyday life of Quebec writers in isolation, digging deeply into their souls and reaching out to others.

Pineapple Kisses in Iqaluit


Felicia Mihali - 2021
    When she meets Constable Liam O’Connor, her past comes out to challenge her once again.

Well Seasoned: A Year's Worth of Delicious Recipes


Mary Berg - 2021
    But as for what those meals include? Well, that's what makes it fun. As the seasons change, so does the food Mary craves and cooks. Sometimes it's based on what's available at the farmers' market, other times it's based on the weather or how she feels on a particular day. Well Seasoned is a cookbook to celebrate friends and family, giving readers a peek into how Mary cooks over the course of a year.- SPRING is Crisp, Light, and Lively with Green Risotto, White Wine Coq au Vin, and Pistachio Sponge Cakes with Matcha Cream - SUMMER is Bright, Fresh, and Classic with Cottage Pancakes, Grilled Summer Squash Pizza, and Neapolitan Ice Cream Cake - AUTUMN is Cozy, Hearty, and Nostalgic with Baked Meatballs with Pesto and Ricotta, Curried Shrimp Orzo, and Pumpkin Pecan Pudding - WINTER is Rich, Savory, and Celebratory with Everything Bagel Drop Biscuits, Roasted Fennel and Beet Salad, and Eggnog Basque CheesecakeThe recipes in this book range from easy weeknight meals to more elaborate weekend feasts, but all of them share Mary's simple instructions and warm style. With Mary's guidance and encouragement, you'll find beautiful recipes to nourish yourself and your family all year long.

Take Me Outside


Colin Harris - 2021
    But with a decrepit support vehicle housing two dogs that despised each other, a good friend who left after five months, a lot of peanut butter, and a hope to inspire thousands of students, Colin Harris decided to start this journey by running 7600 kilometres, the equivalent of 181 marathons, across Canada. And to ensure this was a truly Canadian venture, he started in the bleak and snowy month of January.Take Me Outside is Colin's story of spending nine months running from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia, visiting over 80 schools along the way to engage with 20,000 students about the importance of spending time outside learning, playing, and exploring in the Canadian landscape. With one of the biggest and best backyards in the world, people across Canada are spending the vast majority of their time inside. Yet, our identity as Canadians has always been rooted in our relationship with the outdoors. This wildly entertaining book not only recounts what it’s like to run across the world’s second-largest country but also implores readers of all ages to reignite their connection with the natural world.

Standoff: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It


Bruce McIvor - 2021
    In this series of concise and thoughtful essays, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor explains why reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is failing and what needs to be done to fix it.Widely known as a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, McIvor reports from the front lines of legal and political disputes that have gripped the nation. From Wet’suwet’en opposition to a pipeline in northern British Columbia, to Mi’kmaw exercising their fishing rights in Nova Scotia, McIvor has been actively involved in advising First Nation clients, fielding industry and non-Indigenous opposition to true reconciliation, and explaining to government officials why their policies are failing.McIvor’s essays are honest and heartfelt. In clear, plain language he explains the historical and social forces that underpin the development of Indigenous law, criticizes the current legal shortcomings and charts a practical, principled way forward.By weaving in personal stories of growing up Métis on the fringes of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba and representing First Nations in court and negotiations, McIvor brings to life the human side of the law and politics surrounding Indigenous peoples’ ongoing struggle for fairness and justice. His writing covers many of the most important issues that have become part of a national dialogue, including systemic racism, treaty rights, violence against Indigenous people, Métis identity, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and the duty to consult.McIvor’s message is consistent and powerful: if Canadians are brave enough to confront the reality of the country’s colonialist past and present and insist that politicians replace empty promises with concrete, meaningful change, there is a realistic path forward based on respect, recognition and the implementation of Indigenous rights.

Govern Like a Girl: The Women Who Became Canada's First Ministers


Kate Graham - 2021
    In Govern Like a Girl, Kate Graham tells the stories of these thirteen women, from childhood to political power. Their experiences span three decades, every political stripe, and extend from coast to coast to coast. What motivated them to run for office? What did they accomplish once they were elected? And how did their style of governing differ from male politicians?From Indigenous premiers, Eva Aariak and Nellie Cornoyea, to Premier and later Senator Catherine Calbeck of Prince Edward Island, to Quebec's first female premier, Pauline Marois, these powerful women changed Canada for the better and showed the world how to govern like a girl.