Over the course of three instalments, Q&Q presents the titles we’re most excited about this fall. This week’s final instalment features nonfiction. The first instalment featured fiction. Short fiction, graphic novels, and poetry were featured last week. 

Q&Q’s fall preview covers books published between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2024. All information (titles, publication dates) was supplied by publishers. Books that have appeared in previous editions of the preview but whose publication was postponed are not included. 

Special Topics in Being a Parent
Bear Bergman and Saul Freedman-Lawson, ill.
Arsenal Pulp Press, July

S. Bear Bergman’s second book of graphic advice – once again illustrated by Saul Freedman-Lawson – draws on his own experiences as a queer dad and a long-time educator to offer sound and gentle guidance to all current and prospective parents. Realistic and judgment-free, Special Topics is an especially vital resource for progressive caregivers who are seeking new models for how to live their values as parents. –Andrew Woodrow-Butcher

Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Andrea Freeman
Metropolitan Books/Raincoast Books, July

Drawing her title from George Washington’s 1779 order meant to subdue Indigenous populations, in Ruin Their Crops on the Ground, pioneering “food oppression” scholar and University of Toronto alumna Andrea Freeman offers a deeply researched account of the colonial politics of food in North America, from the 18th century to the present. –AWB

Everything and Nothing At All: Essays
Jenny Heijun Wills
Knopf Canada, Aug. 

Memoirist Jenny Heijun Wills (Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.) combines literary criticism, cultural studies, and a personal history in a book about the various forms of family and community, parenthood, mental illness, love, and a radical vision of what kinship can be. –Attila Berki

The Knowing
Tanya Talaga
HarperCollins, Aug. 

The award-winning journalist and author (Seven Fallen Feathers) retells Canadian history through an Indigenous perspective and specifically, through the history of her family, starting with the life of her great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter. –AB

Salvage: Readings from the Wreck
Dionne Brand
Knopf Canada, Aug.

CanLit icon and acclaimed poet and novelist Dionne Brand examines her reading life in this book that blends criticism and autobiography to explore how Brand learned to read American and British literature through an anti-colonial lens, and build her own sense of self in her reading and writing life. –Cassandra Drudi

I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine
Daniel Levitin
Allen Lane/Penguin Random House Canada, Aug.

In this follow-up to his bestselling This Is Your Brain on Music, neuroscientist, musician, and writer Daniel Levitin traces the co-evolution of the human brain and music-making, connecting recent breakthroughs in the field of music therapy to our species’ long history of music as a tool for healing. –AWB

Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene
Guy Vanderhaeghe
Thistledown Press, Sept.  

This collection of nonfiction pieces that span Guy Vanderhaeghe’s acclaimed 40-year career considers the craft of fiction and traces the economic, societal, and cultural changes that have transformed Canadian writing. –AB

Born to Walk: My Journey of Trials and Resilience
Alpha Nkuranga
Goose Lane Editions, Sept.       

At the age of eight, Alpha Nkuranga took her younger brother by the hand and ran from her grandparents’ house, eventually walking to safety in Tanzania with other refugees, during the horrific Rwandan Civil War. A story of survival that, even as a child, Nkuranga always knew she needed to tell. –AB

Embedded: The Irreconcilable Nature of War, Loss and Consequence
Catherine Lang
Caitlin Press, Sept.

In trying to process the death of her niece, Calgary Herald journalist Michelle Lang, who died in Afghanistan in 2009, Catherine Lang sought out families of soldiers who were also killed, and into this memoir of personal loss she weaves an exploration of war, Canada’s military participation in conflict zones, sacrifice and survival, and the purpose of journalism. –AB

Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests
Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Random House Canada, Sept.

Scientist and author Diana Beresford-Kroeger offers a collection of essays on the importance of forests to our world and to our health – both individual and collective. Our Green Heart captures the present ecological moment while looking toward the future, with considerations of the stewardship the Earth requires now, and the science that remains to be done by the coming generations. –AWB

Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love
Sarah Leavitt
Arsenal Pulp Press, Sept.

Cartoonist Sarah Leavitt’s new graphic memoir is a record of her grief after the loss of her partner in 2020. Though these comics began as a private expression of mourning, Leavitt’s experiments with form and medium over the course of two years coalesced into an emotional, inventive work that meditates on loss while celebrating the possibilities of moving forward. –AWB

All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey
Teresa Wong
Arsenal Pulp Press, Sept. 

Teresa Wong’s graphic novel memoir tackles her disconnect from her immigrant parents – exploring her experience and trying to understand her parents’ stories that, because of cultural and personal differences, had not been shared or understood. –AB

The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada
Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Aurélie Campana, and Samuel Tanner
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Oct.        

Until very recently, far-right organizations in Canada were considered a negligible phenomenon, and still don’t get much attention. Based on years of research, this book examines the surprisingly large number of existing groups, exploring their ideologies, how they fragment and recruit, as well as finance their activities. –AB

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love
Julie Sedivy
Farrar, Straus & Giroux/Raincoast Books, Oct.         

In this combination of science, cultural commentary, and memoir, Calgary-based language scientist Julie Sedivy looks at how language informs human life, from the development of language in infants to the losses with aging, and shares her own love of the nature of language through the lens of both science and literature. –AB

The Rough Poets: Reading Oil-Worker Poetry
Melanie Dennis Unrau
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Oct.

Much has been written about Canada’s oil industry, but what does it actually feel like to be an oil worker in the face of an unfolding ecological catastrophe? Researcher Melanie Dennis Unrau collects a sample of the many poetic writings created by Canadian oil workers themselves, from 1938 to the present, along with close-readings and analysis. –AWB

Urban Mobility: How the iPhone, COVID, and Climate Changed Everything
Shauna Brail and Betsy Donald, eds.
University of Toronto Press, Sept.

The essays in this book from scholars and researchers across multiple disciplines explore how the ways that humans move through cities have been radically transformed by technology, the pandemic, and the need to respond to climate change by lowering carbon emissions. –CD 

Poutine: A Deep-Fried Road Trip of Discovery
Justin Giovannetti Lamothe
Douglas & McIntyre, Sept. 

From its origins as lowly Québécois chip-wagon fare to its more recent status as national dish, Justin Giovanetti Lamothe traces the history of Canada’s favourite food. As a journalist raised outside Trois-Rivières in a bilingual home, Lamothe investigates the coast-to-coast embrace of poutine, despite a persistent cultural distance between Quebec and anglophone Canada. –AWB

The Lives of Lake Ontario: An Environmental History
Daniel Macfarlane
McGill-Queen’s University Press, Sept.

Straddling the Canada–U.S. border, and home to Canada’s largest city, Lake Ontario has been used and abused by many. Daniel Macfarlane details the lake’s relationships with the people who have lived along its shores, and its vulnerability and resilience. –CD

The Monster and the Mirror: Mental Illness, Magic, and the Stories We Tell
K.J. Aiello
ECW Press, Sept. 

An unusual blend of memoir and cultural criticism that looks at social perceptions of mental illness through works of popular fantasy, examining in particular the dichotomies of mad and sane, weakness and heroism, and good and evil. –AB

Who We Are: Four Questions For a Life and a Nation
Murray Sinclair
McClelland & Stewart, Sept. 

The senator, judge, and chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission uses the four questions that have shaped his world view as the basis for a memoir that centres Indigenous knowledge to provide a vision for Canada that heals the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. –AB

Bad Artist: Creating in a Productivity-Obsessed World
Nellwyn Lampert, Pamela Oakley, Christian Smith, Gillian Turnbull, eds.
Brindle & Glass, Oct.

Art for art’s sake can seem to be disparaged in a culture that values productivity over all else. The essays in this collection from 21 contributors across Canada and the world explore the importance of honouring the artistic impulse instead of focusing simply on production, and remind readers that creativity comes in many forms. –CD

Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread
Dorothy Grant with Lucy Bell Sdahl Kawaas, Kwiaahwah Jones, and India Rael Young
Figure 1 Publishing, Oct.

Part lookbook, part memoir, and part history, this book celebrates the work and career of trail-blazing Haida fashion designer Dorothy Grant. –CD

Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves
Andrea Currie
Arsenal Pulp Press, Oct. 

In a combination of prose, poetry, and essays, Andrea Currie, a Métis Sixties Scoop survivor, writes of her experience of profound cultural loss, the long road to reconnecting with her birth family, and the complexities of re-entering her cultural community. –AB

i heard a crow before i was born
Jules Delorme
Goose Lane Editions, Oct. 

Jules Delorme’s poetic memoir tells of the impact of generational trauma caused by residential schools, and how his tóta (grandmother) and his animal protectors helped him survive a childhood with abusive and resentful parents. –AB

Home Truths: Fixing Canada’s Housing Crisis
Carolyn Whitzman
On Point Press, Oct.

With local shops shuttered by predatory rent hikes, individuals struggling to find housing, and evictions on the rise, it’s becoming more and more difficult to imagine an end to Canada’s housing crisis. In Home Truths, academic Carolyn Whitzman does just that, offering a clear analysis of the housing issues we face, and policy proposals that could lead us toward a better housing future for all. –AWB

Montreal Standard Time: The Early Journalism of Mavis Gallant
Neil Besner, Marta Dvorák, and Bill Richardson, eds., with a preface by Mary K. MacLeod
Véhicule Press, Oct.

The early journalism work of famed short story writer Mavis Gallant is collected in book form for the first time, in a collection that paints a portrait of Montreal before, during, and after the Second World War, and showcases the wit and precision of a master. –CD

A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada
John Ibbitson, ed.
McClelland & Stewart, Oct.

As The Globe and Mail celebrates its 180th anniversary, 31 journalists explore the newspaper’s history and that of the country it covered in a collection of essays edited by columnist John Ibbitson. –CD

Reconciling History: A Story of Canada
Jody Wilson-Raybould and Roshan Danesh
McClelland & Stewart, Oct. 

Bestselling author and former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould builds on the oral history included in 2022’s True Reconciliation to present a history of Canada – and of the relationship between its Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples – that includes the voices and experiences of the many whose perspectives have traditionally been left out of the official narrative. –CD

Relative to Wind: On Sailing, Craft, and Community
Phoebe Wang
Assembly Press, Oct.

Poet and writer Phoebe Wang turns her pen to her decade-long pursuit of sailing, from her first time on a boat to racing and organizing races, while presenting sailing in parallel to a creative life. –CD

What She Said: Conversations About Equality
Elizabeth Renzetti
McClelland & Stewart, Oct.

In her second book publishing this year, after March’s co-written, cozy mystery Bury the Lead, former Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti returns to the frequent subject matter of her columns as she shines a light on the ongoing inequalities and pressing issues facing Canadian women today. –CD

Rethinking Free Speech
Peter Ives
Fernwood Publishing, Nov.

Political science professor Peter Ives takes a microscope to the current state of free speech, outlining with clear-eyed prose how current flashpoints over language emerge and how rethinking the way we see free speech can help us achieve a range of goals, including increased democratic participation. –CD

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT

These two titles look at the ways in which contemporary discourse has shifted in recent years, to the detriment not only of civility, but also meaning. These books delineate the trend toward political and social polarization, and instead call for earnest connections and constructive dialogue. –AWB

At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage
Carol Off
Random House Canada, Sept.

What I Mean To Say: Remaking Conversation in Our Time
Ian Williams
House of Anansi Press, Oct.

IDENTITY AND BELONGING

Contributors to two new anthologies out this fall explore the complexities inherent to hyphenate citizenship.

Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home
Taslim Jaffer and Omar Mouallem, eds.
Book*hug Press, Nov.

Geographies of the Heart: Stories from Newcomers to Canada
Raymonde Tickner, Amea Wilbur, Zahida Rahemtulla, and Kerry Johnson, eds., foreword by Ava Homa
UBC Press, Sept.

BACK TO SCHOOL

These titles offer contemporary pedagogical strategies to prepare new generations for life in a complex world. –AWB

Roles of Resistance: Game Plans for Teachers and Troublemakers
John-Henry Harter and Mark Leier
Between the Lines, Sept.

Reading the Room: Lessons on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom
Natalie Kouri-Towe, ed.
Concordia University Press, Nov.

Re-Storying Education: Decolonizing Your Practice Using a Critical Lens
Carolyn Roberts
Page Two Books, Sept.

Unsettling Education: Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Land
Anna-Leah King, Kathleen O’Reilly, and Patrick J. Lewis, eds.
Canadian Scholars Press, July

FOUNDING COVENANT

Two titles that look back at the founding covenant between the earliest European settlers and the Haudenosaunee confederacy – the Covenant Chain or Two Row Wampum – that still provides the basis for respectful relationships between Indigenous and settler societies. 

Deyohahá:ge: Sharing the River of Life (Indigenous Imaginings series)
Daniel Coleman, Ki’en Debicki, and Bonnie M. Freeman, eds.
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Dec.  

Grandfather of the Treaties: Finding Our Future Through the Wampum Covenant
Daniel Coleman
James Street North Books/Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, Nov.   

ANOTHER ROUND

Puncheons & Flagons: The Official Dungeons & Dragons Cocktail Book
Andrew Wheeler
Ten Speed Press, Aug.

Drawing on his background as a food, comics, and pop-culture writer, Toronto-based Andrew Wheeler offers 75 cocktail and snack recipes designed to pair perfectly with your next role-playing adventure. –AWB

The Last Martini: A Hangover Bedside Companion
Peter Sellers and Rob Milling
Mosaic Press, Oct.

Taking its title from a line in the 1941 film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, The Last Martini provides a historical overview of the hangover. Toronto bookseller Peter Sellers and Rob Milling don’t offer cures for the common ailment, but instead celebrate how it has been captured by writers over time. –CD

These quaffable reads explore Toronto and Vancouver through the connections – often unexpected – between each city’s distinctive history and its beer culture. –AWB

Toronto in 100 Beers
Steve Himel, Adin L. Wener, Tony Halmos, with John Semley
House of Anansi Press, Aug.

Brewmasters and Brewery Creek
Noëlle Phillips
TouchWood Editions, Oct.

 

 

 

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

This fall brings a fresh crop of memoirs from Canadians with high profiles in sport, music, and culture, including Terry Fox, with a posthumous volume that includes excerpts from his Marathon of Hope journal. 

Heart on My Sleeve: Stories from a Life Well Worn
Jeanne Beker
Simon & Schuster Canada, Oct.

A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics, and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream
Marc Garneau
Signal/Penguin Random House Canada , Oct.

This Is Our Life
The Tragically Hip
Genesis Publications, Oct.

Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell
Deryck Whibley
Simon & Schuster, Oct.

Hope by Terry Fox
Terry Fox and Barbara Adhiya, ed.
ECW Press, Sept.

Dreamer: My Life On the Edge
Nazem Kadri with Dan Robson
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, Oct.

The Beautiful Dream: A Memoir
Atiba Hutchinson with Dan Robson
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, Aug.