“Here is my disconnect: the private and public self. My mind and body. The real person and curated spectacle. . . . Are there actual roots with which to fasten this performance to anything real?” As a transnational and transracial adoptee, Jenny Heijun Wills has spent her life navigating the fraught spaces of ethnicity and […]
Read more »
Startlingly honest, bracing personal essays from a perceptive educator that bring us into the world of Black masculinity, hip-hop culture, and learning. This is an examination of the parts that construct my Black character; from how public schooling shapes our ideas about ourselves to how hip-hop and sports are simultaneously the conduit for both Black […]
A queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place. “Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past […]
Bob McDonald, host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, offers a personal and inspiring memoir of life-changing events in his early years through five decades in science journalism. Revered science reporter and radio host Bob McDonald has devoted his career to turning our attention away from everyday perspectives and outward to the vast, intricate wonders of […]
This passionate book describes the author’s struggles as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, who was born and raised in Tunisia, where she attended university before coming to Quebec, Canada as an immigrant. Mazigh describes her struggles against Islamophobia as it applies to women, especially those wearing hijab, who consistently get stereotyped as silent and compliant women […]
Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany A sharp, funny, informative and deliciously captivating book about writer, Bill Buford’s year-in-training as a cook at Mario Batali’s famous New York restaurant, Babbo, his apprenticeship to a Tuscan butcher, and his quest to make the perfect […]
One of the most important Ukrainian voices throughout the Russian invasion, the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees collects his searing dispatches from the heart of Kyiv. This journal of the invasion, a collection of Andrey Kurkov’s writings and broadcasts from Kyiv, is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a 21st-century […]
A diary of a woman longing for community in a crowded urban area during the pandemic times, when casual intimacies are forbidden. The novelist Rebecca Rosenblum lives in St James Town, Toronto — the most densely populated square kilometre in all of Canada. When the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns arrive, she’s cut off from […]
An astonishing memoir about how song saved a life Singer/songwriter Tara MacLean has had an extraordinary musical career. From being discovered singing on a BC ferry to touring with Dido, Tom Cochrane and Lilith Fair, her solo albums and those with the band Shaye have touched legions of fans. But she hasn’t, until now, disclosed […]
A powerful memoir about how one woman resurrects her life and career in the glamorous but sexist wine industry. Natalie MacLean, a bestselling wine writer, is shocked when her husband of twenty years, a high-powered CEO, demands a divorce. Then an online mob of rivals comes for her career. Wavering between despair and determination, she […]
In his poignant memoir, Charles Foran presents a portrait of his gruff-but-fond father wrestling with the end of life as Charlie acts as witness, solace, and would-be guide while facing his own mortality. What story can we tell ourselves and those we love, this radiant book asks, to withstand the inevitable mutability of time and […]
An uncompromising portrait of identity, family, religion, race, and class that “cuts to the bone” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) told through Omer Aziz’s incisive and luminous prose. In a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto, miles away from wealthy white downtown, Omer Aziz struggles to find his place as a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy. […]
This powerful memoir from a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist features poetry, letters, recipes, and other personal artifacts that provide an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with. In an intimate and non-traditional (or “new-fashioned”) memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how […]
From the Academy Award-nominated director of Women Talking, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present. These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in […]
A wildfire of a debut memoir by internationally recognized French/Cree/Iroquois journalist Brandi Morin set to transform the narrative around Indigenous Peoples. Brandi Morin is known for her clear-eyed and empathetic reporting on Indigenous oppression in North America. She is also a survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis and uses her […]
