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Lucky
by Marissa Stapley
A thrilling roller-coaster ride about a heist gone terribly wrong, with a plucky protagonist who will win readers' heart. Lucky Armstrong is a tough, talented grifter who has just pulled off a million-dollar heist with her boyfriend, Cary. She's ready to start a brand-new life, with a new identity--when things go sideways ans Lucky finds herself alone for the first time. When she discovers thar a lottery ticket she bought on a whim is worth millions, her elation is tempered by one big problem: cashing in the winning ticket means she'll be arrested for her crimes. She'll go to prison, with no chance to redeem her fortune. To save herself and her future, Lucky will have to confront her past. This is a novel about truth, personal redemptions, and the complexity of being good. It introduces a singularly gifted, multilayered character who must learn what it means to be independent and honest...before her luck runs out. --
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When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World
by Suzanne Simard
The trailblazing scientist who pioneered the once-radical - and now broadly accepted - concept of sophisticated communication between trees returns with a book that blends rigorous science and neglected Indigenous wisdom in service of a powerful vision for the future of our forests. Simard examines the forces that threaten forest ecosystems and, with years of research at her back, offers a pragmatic and hopeful vision for a responsible relationship with the forests that sustain us. Raised in a family of loggers committed to sensible forest stewardship, Simard has watched timber companies ignore the complexity of nature’s self-regulation and Indigenous communities’ finely honed knowledge of the natural world. Plundering the forests for profit, they leave in their wake heightened risk of wildfire, drought, water crises, and endangerment of plant and animal life.
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The Last Mandarin
by Louise Penny
Alice Li, a first-generation Chinese-American, is an erstwhile food blogger who has lived in the shadow of her mother, Vivien Li. A Chinese dissident who escaped China after Tiananmen Square, Vivien is now a globally recognized human rights activist and passionate advocate for a free and democratic China. When security and fire alarms go off simultaneously all around the world, setting off a panic, the signal is traced back to China. As world leaders scramble to respond, Vivien and Alice are called to the White House in hopes Madame Li can decode the Chinese intentions. While it makes some sense that the President would turn to Vivien, since she regularly advises world leaders on the actions of today’s Chinese government, what isn’t clear is why they’d want to talk to Alice.
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Endling
by Maria Reva
In the absurdist literary tradition of George Saunders and Percival Everett comes a brilliant debut novel, about a biologist in Ukraine battling to save the country’s snail species from the brink of extinction. Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to give up, settle down and finally start a family of her own. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men - not for love, but to fund her work - entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother.
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Small Ceremonies
by Kyle Edwards
Tomahawk Shields (a.k.a. Tommy) and Clinton Whiteway are on the cusp of adulthood, imagining a future rife with possibility and greatness. The two friends play for their high school’s poor-performing hockey team, the Tigers, who learn at the start of the new season that the league wants them out. As we follow these two Indigenous boys over the course of a year, we are given a panoptic view of Tommy and Clinton’s Winnipeg. Ferociously piercing the heart of an Indigenous city, Kyle Edwards’s sparkling debut is a heartbreaking yet humour-flecked portrayal of navigating identity and place, trauma and recovery, and growing up in a land that doesn’t love you.
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Joyful, Anyway
by Kate Bowler
Bestselling author and Duke University professor Kate Bowler reveals the surprising magic of joy - and how we can access it even when happiness feels out of reach. After surviving a stage-4 cancer diagnosis, Kate Bowler knew she was supposed to be grateful. She was alive. Blessed, even. But still she ached - for more connection, more surprise, less resentment on an ordinary day. So she went looking for joy. Not the toxic positivity kind. Not a 5-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere. A lemur sunbathing. A belly laugh at a funeral. A dive into the Atlantic with a shark wrangler. Witty and honest, in "Joyful, Anyway", Bowler shows how joy can surprise us - even in the middle of pain, boredom, and longing
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Lessons from a Lifetime: Ninety Years of Inspiration and Activism
by David Suzuki
In "Lessons From a Lifetime", Suzuki shares pearls of wisdom and hard-earned lessons for the next generation of activists, alongside personal stories and heartfelt contributions from his friends and family, his admirers, and even his opponents, including: Margaret Atwood, Neil Young, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth May, Justin Trudeau... and many more. In words and photographs, "Lessons from a Lifetime" shares David Suzuki's journey from surviving internment camps as a Japanese-Canadian child to becoming North America's most trusted voice in science communication.
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Moonlight Murder: A Detective Aunty Novel
by Uzma Jalaluddin
When Kausar Khan decided to move back to Toronto to be closer to her family, she didn't expect to have another murder investigation on her hands so soon - or rather, she didn't expect to have another murder investigation on her hands ever. But when a young man named Mateen is found dead in their Golden Crescent neighborhood, and when it turns out Mateen was close with Kausar's granddaughter, Maleeha, what's a grandmother to do but try to solve the case? And it's not just a devastated Maleeha that is spurring Kausar on to find answers; it's also how much the circumstances of Mateen's death remind her of her own teenage son and his mysterious death nearly 20 years before.
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Son of Nobody
by Yann Martel
A brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar. Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs. In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody.
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Wild People Quiet
by Tara Gereaux
A taut, exquisitely rendered story exploring the repercussions of a woman's decision to hide her Métis identity while living in a small, predominantly white prairie town in the 1940s.Torduvalle, Saskatchewan, 1946. Florence has created a beautiful life for herself. Her home is immaculate; she is a model employee at Pratt's Insurance, where she works as a secretary. Her hair is the perfect shade of movie-star blonde--never once does she allow her brown roots to show. She dyes them every other Saturday night, without fail. But one morning, everything changes. Florence notices a new group of men at the local diner, Métis workers from out of town, hired on for the season at a nearby farm. And one of them has a connection to the past that Florence has spent her entire life outrunning. He has one simple request for her. Suddenly, Florence is thrown back into memories of her life before. Suddenly, the line between who she once was and who she has chosen to be feels very thin. And when Florence learns of the government's plans for the Métis community on the fringes of town, she will be faced with a choice--one that will shatter her carefully constructed life forever. This extraordinary novel asks us what we will do for our community, for our families, for our friends, even at our own expense.
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