Secrets of the Sprakkar by Eliza Reid
The Canadian first lady of Iceland pens a book about why this tiny nation is leading the charge in gender equality, in the vein of The Moment of Lift.
non-fiction
Fool’s Gold: The Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Fool by Jesse Donaldson
In Fool's Gold, Donaldson explores the legacy of Joachim Foikis. On April 1, 1968, a tall, bespectacled, 35-year-old former social worker named Joachim Foikis received $3,500 from the Canada Council for the Arts in order to finance a unique, self-imposed mission unseen since Elizabethan England: reinvent the vanished tradition of "Town Fool."
Trail Mix: 920 km on The Camino de Santiago by Jules Torti
A rollicking travel memoir that invites the curious, the initiated, and even the skeptics to tag along on the ever-changing landscape of “The Way”
Be Free: Mountains, Mishaps, and Miracles in Africa by Angela deJong
Be Free is a collection of personal travel essays that takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride across Africa as seen through the eyes of a solo female backpacker, Angela deJong.
Best Non-Fiction of 2021
To complement our “Best Fiction of 2021” list, we will now turn our attention to the best non-fiction of the year. The eight selections below are based on the recommendations of The Miramichi Reader’s fine team of contributors.
Revisiting Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River by Philip Lee
In this article, author Wanda Baxter revisits Philip Lee's "Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River".
The “Mr. Big” Sting: The Cases, the Killers, the Controversial Confessions by Mark Stobbe
The “Mr. Big” Sting is essential reading for anyone interested in unorthodox approaches to justice, including their successes and failures. It sheds light on how homicide investigators might catch and punish the guilty while avoiding convicting the innocent.
On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Quake by Gregor Craigie
Finalist, 2021 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.
The Big One and what we can do to get ready for it.
No Thanks, I Want to Walk by Emily Taylor Smith
In Emily Taylor Smith's latest adventure, walking the perimeter of New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula, is another epic journey for the record books.
The Sun is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert
In Comox, I stopped at Blue Heron Books, where I picked up Caroline Van Hemert’s The Sun is a Compass, her personal account of travelling, along with her husband, for five months by rowboat, kayak, raft, foot, ski, and sled from Washington State to Alaska, crossing Canada’s Yukon and Northwest Territories in the process.
Don’t Lose Sight: Vanity, incompetence, and my ill-fated left eye by Genevieve A. Chornenki
When Genevieve Chornenki escapes a brush with blindness, things never looked better-city pigeons, people, stainless steel pots. But questions about her experience linger: Who was responsible for her close call? Can she safeguard other people's eyesight? How do our eyes work, anyway, and why do they give so much pleasure?
Excerpt from Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt’s Peacekeeper’s Daughter: A Middle East Memoir
An excerpt from Peacekeeper’s Daughter, the story of a French-Canadian military family stationed in Israel and Lebanon in 1982-1983. Told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old girl, Peacekeeper’s Daughter parchutes the reader into the Lebanese Civil War, the Palestinian crisis, and the wave of terrorism—including the bombing of the American Embassy—that ravaged Beirut at the height of the siege.
Bill Arnott’s Showcase: The Graydon Hazenberg Interview
An interview with Graydon Hazenburg, author of Pedalling to Kailash.
TMR’s Recommended Reads For 2020/2021 Part 2
Since Part 1 of TMR’s Recommended Reads for 2020/2021, there have been many more wonderful reads crossing our collective desks here at The Miramichi Reader. Before the Spring 2021 releases start flowing in (and some have already) February is a … Continue reading
Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley by Sherill Grace
Sherill Grace’s mammoth work on one of Canada’s greatest writers sets us on course for an exhaustive exploration, not only of Timothy Findley’s life, as the title indicates, but also into his creative mind, heart and spirit.