Prelude to Dystopia


John Lyman - 2015
    In a psychological, dystopian thriller with Hitchcock-like twists, a young writer with some serious issues comes face to face with an enigmatic figure who's about to change the world forever. Set in present-day Atlanta, aspiring author Ben Swain struggles with internal demons while he tries to lead a normal life behind the wall of glass in his high-rise apartment ... until he meets the general.Not your typical dystopian tale, Prelude to Dystopia zeros in on the days leading up to a world-changing event and the lives of those who are transported from one reality to another in an instant. From Atlanta to Jekyll Island. From the coastal marshes of South Carolina to the Potomac. The action spirals to a whole new level when Ben and the new woman in his life attempt to flee from what's coming, only to learn the truth lies in the aftermath.

Fire Me I Beg You: Quit Your Miserable Job (Without Risking it All)


Robbie Abed - 2018
    Maybe you’re stuck in a boring industry. Maybe your boss likes to slam doors. The truth is that many smart, motivated people would quit in a heartbeat if they weren’t afraid of the financial risks…and, well, the unknown. Whether you want to upgrade your 9-5 or start your own company, Robbie Abed presents a foolproof strategy to find a better job—without stressing, worrying your family, or losing money. You’re talented. Talent is in high demand. You just have to know where to look. In this accessible handbook, full of anecdotes, stories, and tips, you’ll learn how to reconnect with your interests, sharpen your talents, build a network, experiment with ideas for next steps, elicit job offers, and negotiate for higher salaries than your last. Oh, and how to quit your job with aplomb (goodbye email template included). You’ve been miserable for long enough. Look at it this way: hating your job might be the best thing that could’ve happened to you. It’s a kick in the pants to learn survival skills for the coming jobpocalypse. As our machines get smarter, robots, cognitive machines, and the simple software on your computer will render old jobs obsolete. In other words, there is no such thing as job security. The goal of this book is twofold: to help you get out before the music stops, and to teach you skills to find a job you love. Not just once, but anytime, anywhere, in any economic climate, with almost any salary goal. You didn’t hear that wrong.

The World is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village


Anna Badkhen - 2013
    Here, where heroin is cheaper than rice, every day is a fast day. B-52s pass overhead—a sign of America’s omnipotence or its vulnerability, the villagers are unsure. They know, though, that the earth is flat—like a carpet.Anna Badkhen first traveled to this country in 2001, as a war correspondent. She has returned many times since, drawn by a land that geography has made a perpetual battleground, and by a people who sustain an exquisite tradition there. Through the four seasons in which a new carpet is woven by the women and children of Oqa, she immortalizes their way of life much as the carpet does—from the petal half-finished where a hungry infant needs care to the interruptions when the women trade sex jokes or go fill in for wedding musicians scared away by the Taliban. As Badkhen follows the carpet out into the world beyond, she leaves the reader with an indelible portrait of fates woven by centuries of art, war, and an ancient trade that ultimately binds the invaded to the invader.

Dear Canada: These Are My Words: The Residential School Diary of Violet Pesheens


Ruby Slipperjack - 2016
    She misses her Grandma; she has run-ins with Cree girls; at her “white” school, everyone just stares; and everything she brought has been taken from her, including her name—she is now just a number. But worst of all, she has a fear. A fear of forgetting the things she treasures most: her Anishnabe language; the names of those she knew before; and her traditional customs. A fear of forgetting who she was.Her notebook is the one place she can record all of her worries, and heartbreaks, and memories. And maybe, just maybe there will be hope at the end of the tunnel.Drawing from her own experiences at Residential School, Ruby Slipperjack creates a brave, yet heartbreaking heroine in Violet, and lets young readers glimpse into an all-too important chapter in our nation’s history.

Five Little Indians


Michelle Good - 2020
    The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

Two Is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice


Laura S. Scott - 2009
    Get married. Have children. For most couples, marriage and children go hand in hand. And yet, the number of people choosing childlessness is on the rise. These are the childless by choice-people who have actively decided not to have children—rather than the childless by circumstance. In Two Is Enough, Laura S. Scott explores the assumptions surrounding childrearing, and explores the reasons many people are choosing to forgo this experience. Scott, founder of the Childless by Choice Project, examines the personal stories of people who have faced this decision and explores the growing trend of childlessness. Scott’s expert knowledge and analysis offer a picture of the childless by choice-who they are, why they’ve chosen to remain childless, and how they’ve had these conversations with loved ones. Honest and unapologetic, Two Is Enough recognizes the challenges of being childless in today’s society and offers suggestions on how that same society can change to make room for the childless and the childfree.

Solomon Speaks on Reconnecting Your Life


Eric Pearl - 2012
    Eric Pearl had with one of his patients? What was it about that encounter that would not only radically accelerate the trajectory of his life, but ultimately affect the lives of millions . . . and will most likely profoundly affect your life as well? What is this phenomenon? In his international bestseller, The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself, Dr. Pearl taught readers how to access and tap into a comprehensive spectrum of energy, light, and information previously inaccessible to anyone, anywhere. In doing so, he allowed us to entirely transcend complex healing "techniques" and bring about dramatic, often instantaneous, lifelong healings and life transformations! Since then, the world has clamored for Eric’s second book. His response? When I have something else to say. Today Dr. Pearl, in collaboration with Frederick Ponzlov, indeed has something else to say. You might have to reconsider everything you’ve read up until now about healing, consciousness, and our four-dimensional existence here on Earth. As guided by the spirit of Solomon, a multidimensional intelligence that speaks through Frederick Ponzlov, experience firsthand the insights imparted during the evolution of this unique transmodality known today as Reconnective Healing. Now you can discover these insights and apply them to your life—insights that have revolutionized the healing world and given us the key to access the immense power that we each have within our lives. Solomon speaks. . . .

I Shall Live: Surviving the Holocaust Against All Odds


Henry Orenstein - 1987
    When Henry Orenstein and his siblings end up in a series of concentrations camps, Orenstein's bravery and quick thinking help him to save himself and his brothers from execution by playing a role in the greatest hoax ever pulled on the upper echelons of Nazi command. Orenstein's lucid prose recreates this horrific time in history and his constant struggle for survival as the Nazis move him and his brothers through five concentration camps. His description of their roles in the fake Chemical Commando sheds new light on an incredible and generally unknown event in the history of the Holocaust. This edition of I Shall Live contains new evidence about this false Commando, including letters signed to and from Himmler himself.

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America


Thomas King - 2012
    In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope—a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.

Burning In This Midnight Dream


Louise Bernice Halfe - 2016
    Many were written in response to the grim tide of emotions, memories, dreams and nightmares that arose in her as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. With fearlessly wrought verse, Halfe describes how the experience of the residential schools continues to haunt those who survive, and how the effects pass like a virus from one generation to the next. She asks us to consider the damage done to children taken from their families, to families mourning their children; damage done to entire communities and to ancient cultures. Halfe’s poetic voice soars in this incredibly moving collection as she digs deep to discover the root of her pain. Her images, created from the natural world, reveal the spiritual strength of her culture.

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.

Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Superpowers


Matt Kaplan - 2015
    Like Ken Jennings and Mary Roach, Kaplan serves as a friendly armchair guide to the world of the supernatural. From the strengthening powers of Viking mead, to the super soldiers in movies like Captain America, Kaplan ranges across cultures and time periods to point out that there is often much more to these enduring magical narratives than mere fantasy. Informative and entertaining, Science of the Magical explores our world through the compelling scope of natural and human history and cutting-edge science.

Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation


John Freeman - 2017
    You don't need a fistful of statistics to know this. Visit any city, and evidence of our shattered social compact will present itself. From Appalachia to the Rust Belt and down to rural Texas, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest stretches to unimaginable chasms. Whether the cause of this inequality is systemic injustice, the entrenchment of racism in our culture, the long war on drugs, or immigration policies, it endangers not only the American Dream but our very lives.In Tales of Two Americas, some of the literary world's most exciting writers look beyond numbers and wages to convey what it feels like to live in this divided nation. Their extraordinarily powerful stories, essays, and poems demonstrate how boundaries break down when experiences are shared, and that in sharing our stories we can help to alleviate a suffering that touches so many people.

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality


Bob Joseph - 2018
    Bob Joseph’s book comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance—and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act’s cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.

Red River Girl: The Life and Death of Tina Fontaine


Joanna Jolly - 2019
    It was wrapped in material and weighted down with rocks. Red River Girl is a gripping account of that murder investigation and the unusual police detective who pursued the killer with every legal means at his disposal. The book, like the movie Spotlight, will chronicle the behind-the-scenes stages of a lengthy and meticulously planned investigation. It reveals characters and social tensions that bring vivid life to a story that made national headlines. Award-winning BBC reporter and documentary maker Joanna Jolly delves into the troubled life of Tina Fontaine, the half-Ojibway, half-Cree murder victim, starting with her childhood on the Sagkeeng First Nation Reserve. Tina's journey to the capital city is a harrowing one, culminating in drug abuse, sexual exploitation, and death. Aware of the reality of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Jolly has chronicled Tina Fontaine's life as a reminder that she was more than a statistic. Raised by her father, and then by her great-aunt, Tina was a good student. But the violent death of her father hit Tina hard. She ran away, was found and put into the care of Child and Family Services, which she also sought to escape from. That choice left her in danger. Red River Girl focuses not on the grisly event itself, but on the efforts to seek justice. In December 2015, the police charged Raymond Cormier, a drifter, with second-degree murder. Jolly's book will cover the trial, which resulted in an acquittal. The verdict caused dismay across the country. The book is not only a true crime story, but a portrait of a community where Indigenous women are disproportionately more likely to be hurt or killed. Jolly asks questions about how Indigenous women, sex workers, community leaders and activists are fighting back to protect themselves and change perceptions. Most importantly, the book will chronicle whether Tina's family will find justice.