A beige image with thin diagonal lines, mimicking a curved lines piece of paper. The bottom of the image is black like the page has been burned. The title and author's name are in large letters in the center of the image.

On Book Banning by Ira Wells

Canada’s annual Freedom to Read Week takes place during the last week of February. With this year marking the 40th anniversary of this important observance, it seems most appropriate that this book, part of Biblioasis’ “Field Notes” series, should be published midway through the week when we pay closer attention to the banning of books.

Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene by Guy Vanderhaeghe

The personas writers invent (often subconsciously) for their non-fiction usually attempt or pretend to show more or less of the private self. In Because Somebody Asked Me To, bemedaled and oft-rewarded Guy Vanderhaeghe favours a straight speaking tone, whether reviewing Richard Ford or talking to historians.

Cover of Five Manifestos for a beautiful World. The cover is a midtone blue, with two off-set black half-circles on it. The title and authors are written in white text on the black shapes.

Five Manifestos for the Beautiful World by Phoebe Bosewell, Saidiya Hartman,  Janaína Oliveira, Joseph M. Pierce, and Cristina Rivera Garza, with an introduction by Christina Sharpe

Hosted at York University, the free,  public events gather writers, artists, and thinkers from various disciplines and geographies to discuss the most pressing issues of our time. The insights shared at the live and streamed events are later transcribed and expanded in artful books published by Alchemy, a Knopf Canada publishing program, in collaboration with York University.

Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class by Sarah Smarsh

Smarsh’s August 9, 2024, essay on Walz easily could have found a home in Bone of the Bone, her new collection of journalism and other non-fiction writings (2013-24). These pieces extend the narrative of Smarsh’s 2018 memoir, Heartland, a survey of her Kansas-born life into poverty, the generations who preceded her, and a finalist for the National Book Award.

Indigiqueerness: A Conversation About Storytelling by Joshua Whitehead, in dialogue with Angie Abdou

Indigiqueerness is a lean, skinny book full of meat. At just under 100 pages, it is a comprehensive dive into who is Joshua Whitehead. And, through this vessel, what makes a storyteller?