In 1974 Lorne Dufour moved to Alkali Lake Reserve, a Shuswap community near Williams Lake in British Columbia, to help reopen the local elementary school. Like many First Nation communities across Canada, Alkali Lake had been ravaged by decades of residential schools and forced religion. Colonialism had robbed them of their language and culture and had left a legacy of abuse and alcoholism. But in 1972, Chief Andy Chelsea and his wife Phyllis took it upon themselves to lead their community...

Since its first publication in 1985, The Grey Islands has become a classic of Canadian wilderness writing to set beside the works of Thoreau, Annie Dillard and Aldo Leopold. Using a broad range of forms and styles - lyric, anecdote, field notes, documents and pseudo-documents, ghost story, tall tale - Steffler relates the story of one man's pilgrimage to a remote island of Newfoundland's northern peninsula. Often comic, and always deeply passionate and sensuous, The Grey Islands tells of t...

Combining fable, story telling and the grubbiness of harsh reality, Marisa Labozzetta tells the story of Fatma, a young woman from a storied family in Somalia. Brought to the United States as part of an arranged marriage, Fatma must undergo losing her child, drug addiction, abuse and prison before coming out the other side. A tale of someone who never gives up, no matter how bleak her prospects. A novel that allows hope to shine even in the darkest hour.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CHLOË GRACE MORETZA “captivating” (The New York Times Book Review), award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is a powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move o...

The view 16-year-old Thomas Osborne first had of Muskoka was at night, trudging alone with his even younger brother along unmarked primitive roads to find their luckless father who, in 1875, had decided to make a new start for his beleaguered family on some "free land" in the bush east of the pioneer village of Huntsville, Ontario. The miracle is that Thomas lived to tell the tale.For the next five years Thomas endured starvation, falling through the ice and freezing, accidents wit...

Driven by deep frustration, anger, and sorrow in the wake of yet another violent assault upon a First Nations woman in November 2014, dozens of acclaimed writers and artists have come together to add their voices to a call for action addressing the deep-rooted and horrific crimes that continue to fester in our country.Kwe means woman in Ojibwe. More specifically, kwe means life-giver or life-carrier in Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language. It is a pure word, one that speaks powerf...

Follow along a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan in this true story of survival and difficult choices.On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less the...

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award for Fiction, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction PrizeIn 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once.Only three people are privy to the secret — the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult...

Selected as one of World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations of 2013Spanning five turbulent decades in Iranian history, from before the 1979 revolution, through the Islamic Republic, and up to the present, The Book of Fate is a powerful story of friendship and passion, fear and hope.A teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran, Massoumeh is an average girl, passionate about learning. On her way to school she meets a local man and falls in...

Josie told me she was murdered. When you're a lonely six-year-old, you don't really understand what that means. All you know is you're happy to have a friend to play with.Patsy Whyte caught glimpses of an invisible world growing up in a children's home in Aberdeen. One of a family of ten traveller children, torn apart by the state in the 1950's, Patsy recalls a childhood scarred by years of mental and emotional abuse, prejudice and hatred.Patsy left the home at the age of 1...

"[Bowen's] remarkable journey transforming Chinese orphanages . . . is a testament to the power of perseverance." —Larry Brilliant, TED Prize-winnerAfter reading an article about the thousands of baby girls languishing in Chinese orphanages, Jenny Bowen and her husband adopted a little girl from China and brought her home to Los Angeles, not out of a need to build a family but rather a commitment to save one child. A year later, as she watched her new daughter play...

In this true story, Armande Martel, a young nun from Quebec, is arrested by the Germans in 1940 during a stay at her religious order’s mother house in Brittany. She spends the war years in a German concentration camp. After her return to Canada, she leaves the Church, finds the love of her life in Montreal, and adopts Lise Dion.Growing up, Lise is familiar with only a few facts of her mother’s past. It’s when she clears her mother’s small apartment after her death that Lise Dion di...