★ Sister Language

Some authors are experimental by choice; others come by it biochemically. Toronto writers Martha Baillie and Christina Baillie, sisters as well as creators of the idiosyncratic co-autobiography Sister Language, have both bases covered. Unconventional in ... Read More »

October 3, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews

★ In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience

By Helen Knott

In her haunting, lyrical debut memoir, acclaimed Indigenous activist and writer Helen Knott – recipient of a 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Author honour – sheds light on her addiction and mental health struggles, providing ... Read More »

August 19, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

★ Breaking the Ocean: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Reconciliation

By Annahid Dashtgard

The child of a British mother and Persian father, Annahid Dashtgard “was always trying to fix [her] world.” Dashtgard’s family was exiled from Iran in 1980, the year following the Islamic Revolution that ushered in ... Read More »

August 15, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews

Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person

By Anna Mehler Paperny

Anna Mehler Paperny is the kind of person who knows exactly what Anne Sexton meant when, in her poem “Wanting to Die,” she described the “almost unnameable lust” of suicide. Paperny’s memoir begins with her ... Read More »

August 8, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews

★ From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way

By Jesse Thistle

Jesse Thistle has lived a hard life. A descendent of Saskatchewan’s Michif “road allowance” people (who lived on small strips of land between homesteads that were unused by the Crown), his parents were not able ... Read More »

July 29, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Native Peoples, Reviews

Jim Christy: A Vagabond Life

By Ian Cutler

“[T]he only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn ... Read More »

July 4, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Reviews

Outside In: A Political Memoir

By Libby Davies

Libby Davies and Sid Ryan are high-profile figures who for decades have been on the front lines, calling out governments on social service cutbacks, environmental outrages, wars, and discrimination. While they share similar life trajectories ... Read More »

June 27, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Politics & Current Affairs, Reviews

A Grander Vision: My Life in the Labour Movement

By Sid Ryan

June 27, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Politics & Current Affairs, Reviews

Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Café and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants

By Ann Hui

Chop Suey Nation, by Globe and Mail food writer Ann Hui, is an entertaining look at how Chinese food evolved to become quintessentially Canadian. Hui tells her "sweet and sour story" via a cross-country road ... Read More »

June 24, 2019 | Filed under: Memoir & Biography

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