Book picks similar to
Bad Medicine: A Judge's Struggle for Justice in a First Nations Community by John Reilly
canadian
non-fiction
first-nations
law
Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
Rabia Chaudry - 2016
Syed has maintained his innocence, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, has always believed him. By 2013, after almost all appeals had been exhausted, Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life, in hopes of finding a journalist who could shed light on Adnan’s story. In 2014, Koenig's investigation turned into Serial, a Peabody Award-winning podcast with more than 500 million international listenersBut Serial did not tell the whole story. In this compelling narrative, Rabia Chaudry presents new key evidence that she maintains dismantles the State's case: a potential new suspect, forensics indicating Hae was killed and kept somewhere for almost half a day, and documentation withheld by the State that destroys the cell phone evidence -- among many other points -- and she shows how fans of Serial joined a crowd-sourced investigation into a case riddled with errors and strange twists. Adnan's Story also shares Adnan’s life in prison, and weaves in his personal reflections, including never-before-seen letters. Chaudry, who is committed to exonerating Adnan, makes it clear that justice is yet to be achieved in this much examined case.
People of the Deer
Farley Mowat - 1950
With them, he observed for the first time the phenomenon that would inspire him for the rest of his life: the millennia-old migration of the Arctic's caribou herds. He also endured bleak, interminable winters, suffered agonizing shortages of food, and witnessed the continual, devastating intrusions of outsiders bent on exploitation. Here, in this classic and first book to demonstrate the mammoth literary talent that would produce some of the most memorable books of the next half-century, best-selling author Farley Mowat chronicles his harrowing experiences. People of the Deer is the lyrical ethnography of a beautiful and endangered society. It is a mournful reproach to those who would manipulate and destroy indigenous cultures throughout the world. Most of all, it is a tribute to the last People of the Deer, the diminished Ihalmiuts, whose calamitous encounter with our civilization resulted in their unnecessary demise.
Truth Be Told: My Journey Through Life and the Law
Beverley McLachlin - 2019
While her family was poor, their lives were rich in the ways that mattered most. Even at a young age, she had an innate sense of justice, which was reinforced by the lessons her parents taught her: Everyone deserves dignity. All people are equal. Those who work hard reap the rewards. Willful, spirited, and unusually intelligent, she discovered in Pincher Creek an extraordinary tapestry of people and perspectives that informed her worldview going forward. Still, life in the rural Prairies was lonely, and gaining access to education—especially for girls—wasn’t always easy. As a young woman, McLachlin moved to Edmonton to pursue a degree in philosophy. There, she discovered her passion lay not in academia, but in the real world, solving problems directly related to the lives of the people around her. And in the law, she found the tools to do exactly that. She soon realized, though, that the world was not always willing to accept her. In her early years as an articling student and lawyer, she encountered sexism, exclusion, and old boys’ clubs at every turn. And outside the courtroom, personal loss and tragedies struck close to home. Nonetheless, McLachlin was determined to prove her worth, and her love of the law and the pursuit of justice pulled her through the darkest moments. McLachlin’s meteoric rise through the courts soon found her serving on the highest court in the country, becoming the first woman to be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She rapidly distinguished herself as a judge of renown, one who was never afraid to take on morally complex or charged debates. Over the next eighteen years, McLachlin presided over the most prominent cases in the country—involving Charter challenges, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. One judgment at a time, she laid down a legal legacy that proved that fairness and justice were not luxuries of the powerful but rather obligations owed to each and every one of us. With warmth, honesty, and deep wisdom, McLachlin invites us into her legal and personal life—into the hopes and doubts, the triumphs and losses on and off the bench. Through it all, her constant faith in justice remained her true north. In an age of division and uncertainty, McLachlin’s memoir is a reminder that justice and the rule of law remain our best hope for a progressive and bright future.
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land
Toni Jensen - 2020
As an adult, she’s had guns waved in her face near Standing Rock, and felt their silent threat on the concealed-carry campus where she teaches. And she has always known that in this she is not alone. As a Métis woman, she is no stranger to the violence enacted on the bodies of indigenous women, on indigenous land, and the ways it is hidden, ignored, forgotten.In Carry, Jensen maps her personal experience onto the historical, exploring how history is lived in the body and redefining the language we use to speak about violence in America. In the title chapter, Jensen connects the trauma of school shootings with her own experiences of racism and sexual assault on college campuses. "The Worry Line" explores the gun and gang violence in her neighborhood the year her daughter was born. "At the Workshop" focuses on her graduate school years, during which a workshop classmate repeatedly killed off thinly veiled versions of her in his stories. In "Women in the Fracklands", Jensen takes the listener inside Standing Rock during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and bears witness to the peril faced by women in regions overcome by the fracking boom.In prose at once forensic and deeply emotional, Toni Jensen shows herself to be a brave new voice and a fearless witness to her own difficult history - as well as to the violent cultural landscape in which she finds her coordinates. With each chapter, Carry reminds us that surviving in one’s country is not the same as surviving one’s country.
Bone Black
Carol Rose GoldenEagle - 2019
At least that is the way Wren StrongEagle sees it.Wren is devastated when her twin sister, Raven, mysteriously disappears after the two spend an evening visiting at a local pub. When Wren files a missing persons report with the local police, she is dismissed and becomes convinced the case will not be properly investigated. As she follows media reports, Wren realizes that the same heartbreak she’s feeling is the same for too many families, indeed for whole Nations. Something within Wren snaps and she decides to take justice into her own hands. She soon disappears into a darkness, struggling to come to terms with the type of justice she delivers. Throughout her choices, and every step along the way, Wren feels as though she is being guided. But, by what?
Sun Chief: The Autobiography of a Hopi Indian
Don C. Talayesva - 1945
Talayesva, the Sun Chief, who was born and reared until the age of ten as a Hopi Indian, and then trained as a white man until he was twenty. Although torn between two worlds and cultures, he returned to Hopiland and readopted all the tribal customs. This is his autobiography, written for Leo Simmons, a white man who was a clan brother.
Mayor Rob Ford: Uncontrollable How I Tried to Help the World's Most Notorious Mayor
Mark Towhey - 2015
Weeks later, he was accused of groping a campaign rival. In March, he was asked to leave a gala for being too intoxicated; in May fired as the coach of a high school football team. The events were part of a stream of Rob Ford “mishaps,” which include DUIs, accusations of domestic violence, and a trial where the Toronto City Council stripped him of his powers.Through it all, Ford’s former chief of staff, Mark Towhey, stood by his side. Towhey was part of Ford’s inner circle; he’d joined Ford’s mayoral campaign in 2010 and quickly became one of his closest advisors. He responded to media questions regarding Ford’s drug and alcohol additions, his anger management problems, and, of course, the video of Ford smoking crack. In May 2013, Mark Towhey had a confidential conversation with Ford. It was shortly after the video was made public and also followed rumors of Ford's involvement in the murder of Anthony Smith, who stands beside Ford in the video. Thus far, the public only knows two words from that conversation; Towhey told Ford to “get help.” They also know what happened next, Towhey was fired. In Uncontrollable: My Life with Mayor Rob Ford, Towhey gives an insider account of working with Ford, covering for him, managing a man who people see as a joke, who trips over himself in videos; who throws candy at children instead of handing it to them; who rants and raves, and gets belligerent in meetings and at private events.This is a must-read for Canadians voting in the mayoral election, as well as fans of Ford—and his antics—all over the world. It’s an unparalleled tell-all and perhaps what’s most amazing is that Towhey bears no ill will toward the mayor. This is not the account of a man eager to get revenge. It’s simply an up-close look at the mayor—and what goes on behind the scenes.
The Hard Way Out: My Life with the Hells Angels and Why I Turned Against Them
Jerry Langton - 2017
He was sergeant-at-arms for Toronto’s notorious Downtown chapter of the Hells Angels, and he saw it all: the drug trafficking, the violence and the structure of the organization. First his involvement with the gang cost him his career in personal security, and then it threatened to cost him everything.Atwell opted to work with the police, becoming the highest-ranking Hells Angel in history to co-operate with law enforcement. Wearing the gang’s colours as a soldier among the men who called him a brother, Atwell reported the Hells Angels’ activities to law enforcement. He risked his life providing valuable information aimed at taking down the club.In the harrowing and revelatory The Hard Way Out, Atwell retraces his days living a dual life as both biker and informant, surrounded by major drug trafficking and the violent, paranoid and increasingly suspicious bikers who stood to lose their livelihoods and potentially their freedom unless they found the rat they knew was hidden in their midst. Written by bestselling crime author Jerry Langton, this is a high-octane true story that will have you on the edge of your seat.
Heart Berries
Terese Marie Mailhot - 2018
Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.
I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism
Lee Maracle - 1988
A revised edition of Lee Maracle's visionary book which links teaching of her First Nations heritage with feminism.
This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications
Diane Schoemperlen - 2016
The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen takes us inside this complex and difficult relationship as she journeys through the prison system with Shane. Not only did this relationship enlarge her capacity for both empathy and compassion, but it also forced her to more deeply examine herself.
A Brother's Journey
Richard B. Pelzer - 2000
I am more afraid of her than ever...I get in more trouble for anything I do or say. Now I find that I'm always in trouble and I don't know why. Now that David is gone, I'm afraid that she will try to kill me, like she tried to kill him. I'm afraid that she will treat me like an animal like she did him. I'm afraid that now I'm her IT. The Pelzer family's secret life of fear and abuse was first revealed in Dave Pelzer's inspiring New York Times bestseller, A Child Called "It," followed by The Lost Child and A Man Called Dave. Here, for the first time, Richard Pelzer tells the courageous and moving story of his abusive childhood. From tormenting his brother David to becoming himself the focus of his mother's wrath to his ultimate liberation-here is a horrifying glimpse at what existed behind closed doors in the Pelzer home. Equally important, Richard Pelzer's touching account is a testament to the strength of the human heart and its capacity to triumph over almost unimaginable trauma.
The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times
Barbara Taylor - 2014
Her journey there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with alcohol and tranquillizers. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades- long psychoanalysis.The analysis dredged up acutely painful memories of an unhappy and confusing childhood back in Saskatoon. As Taylor struggled to cope with these, she would twice be re-admitted to Friern. She took refuge in day-care institutions and a psychiatric hostel, all the while continuing her therapy, which eventually put her on the road to recovery.This searingly honest, beautifully written memoir is the narrative of the author’s madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, ‘Big Pharma’, and quick fixes. It is a meditation on her own experience as well as that of millions of others – both in Europe and in North America – who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from mental illness.
Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Volume One: 1919-1968
John English - 2006
As prime minister between 1968 and 1984, Trudeau, the brilliant, controversial figure, intrigued Canadians and attracted international attention as no other Canadian leader has ever done. Volume One takes us from his birth in 1919 to his election as leader in 1968.Born into a wealthy family in Montreal, Trudeau excelled at the best schools, graduating as a lawyer with conservative, nationalist and traditional Catholic views. But always conscious of his French-English heritage, desperate to know the outside world, and an adventurer to boot, he embarked on a pilgrimage of discovery – first to Harvard and the Sorbonne, then to the London School of Economics and, finally, on a trip through Europe, the Middle East, India and China. He was a changed man when he returned – socialist in his politics, sympathetic to labour, a friend to activists and writers in radical causes. Suddenly and surprisingly, he went to Ottawa for two mostly unhappy years as a public servant in the Privy Council Office. He frequently shocked his colleagues when, on the brink of a Quebec election, for example, he departed for New York or Europe on an extended tour. Yet in the 1950s and 60s, he wrote the most important articles outlining his political philosophy.And there were the remarkable relationships with friends, women and especially his mother (whom he lived with until he was middle-aged). He wrote to them always, exchanging ideas with the men, intimacies with the women, especially in these early years, and lively descriptions of his life. He even recorded his in-depth psychoanalysis in Paris. This personal side of Trudeau has never been revealed before – and it sheds light on the politician and statesman he became.Volume One ends with his entry into politics, his appointment as Minister of Justice, his meeting Margaret and his election as leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Canada. There, his genius and charisma, his ambition and intellectual prowess, his ruthlessness and emotional character and his deliberate shaping of himself for leadership played out on the national stage and, when Lester B. Pearson announced his retirement as prime minister in 1968, there was but one obvious man for the job: Pierre Trudeau.In 1938 Trudeau began a diary, which he continued for over two years. It is detailed, frank, and extraordinarily revealing. It is the only diary in Trudeau’s papers, apart from less personal travel diaries and an agenda for 1937 that contains some commentary. His diary expresses Trudeau’s own need to chronicle the moments of late adolescence as he tried to find his identity. It begins on New Year’s Day 1938 with the intriguing advice: “If you want to know my thoughts, read between the lines!”–from Citizen of the World
Based on a True Story
Norm Macdonald - 2016
When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, "Call it anything you damn like."