The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
Written by Robert Macfarlane with illustrations by Jackie Morris, The Book of Birds is the spiritual successor to their project The Lost Words.
Non-Fiction
Blue thinks itself within me by Kim Trainor
Full of a variety of works of art and poetry, slices of history, theories, and anecdotes of Trainor’s activism, all sections weave source material and personal experience back to the pulsing questions Trainor poses: what can artists do in the face of climate disaster, and more specifically how can activism be informed and impacted by ecopoetry?
From Ragged Ass Road to Rideau Hall: Stories of Canada by Whit Fraser
How fortunate we are to have a Canadian like Whit who experiences such adventures and dares to tell about them.
Reframing Healing: Indigenous Voices for the Future
Two recent collections, You Were Made for This World: Celebrated Indigenous Voices Speak to Young People and A Steady Brightness of Being: Truths, Wisdom, and Love from Celebrated Indigenous Voices, offer something rare in conversations about Indigenous experiences: a shift away from narratives that confine us to trauma, and toward stories that illuminate healing, agency, and responsibility to one another.
Barefoot Gringo by George Bowering and Spying on America by Bill Gaston
Here two senior-level Canadian writers retrace bracing encounters with our two southern neighbours.
Still Laughing by Helen C. Escott
A collection of authentic tales celebrating Helen C. Escott’s life as a frazzled mother, a doting daughter, a loving wife and a writer of crime.
Big Girls Don’t Cry: A Memoir About Taking Up Space by Susan Swan
Although Swan had begun to write an earnest book about her experience of feminism in the 1970s, Margaret Atwood encouraged her to instead write a memoir about being tall.
Seven Days in Halifax by Robert Ashe
Seven Days in Halifax is another piece of that history, detailing a seven-day event in 1970 called Encounter on Urban Environment, which was a road show where experts (from away) came to Halifax and held a series of town halls to speak to citizens, industry, and government to get a sense of Halifax.
Louis J. Robichaud: A Man for the Moment by Donald J. Savoie
Even less so did anyone expect that Robichaud would drag the province, in the face of often virulent and bigoted opposition, into a series of reforms that would eventually make New Brunswick a fairer, better-governed, more modern, and more economically sustainable place.
Family Secrets: A Daughter’s Search for Her Parents’ Hidden War by Alice Switocz Goldbloom
This book is three memoirs, daughter, mother, and father, all wrapped together in the often-untold story of the Polish experience in WWII. Alice Switocz Goldbloom is both the daughter and the author.
To Leave a Warrior Behind: The Life and Stories of Charles R. Saunders, the Man Who Rewrote Fantasy by Jon Tattrie
In this tale, Tattrie brings the reader on a journey of media, Nova Scotia, and our Black history beyond the pages by sharing stories of the people and their obstacles.
Interregnum: Inside the Gruelling and Glamorous Battle to Become the Next King of Chess by Jordan Himelfarb
Through 2023 and into 2024, Himelfarb attends the tournaments, interviews the players, and traces the journeys to get to the highest level of the chess world.
The Future Belongs to Those Who Fight: Climate Revolution for Beginners by Todd Dufresne
It is the climate change book for our current moment, written with the force necessary to wake us from our collective slumber that has delayed action on climate change, deferring it to some unnamed later date, downloading the heavy lifting onto our children and grandchildren.
Walking into Healing: A Review of Colleen O’Toole’s Restoring Joy
The walk parallels O’Toole’s inner journey of healing from wounds caused by a family estrangement.
A Steady Brightness of Being, edited by Sara Sinclair and Stephanie Sinclair
A Steady Brightness of Being is a moving collection of letters by celebrated Indigenous Voices from across Turtle Island (North America) with titles like “Dear Relative,” “Letter to Clouds,” and “Dreaming, Listening, Belonging.”
