2025 Fall Preview: Nonfiction

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. Fiction, short fiction, and poetry were featured in previous weeks.

Q&Q’s fall preview covers books published between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2025. All information (titles, publication dates) was supplied by publishers.

MEMOIR AND BIOGRAPHY

Big-name memoirs and biographies out this fall include the anticipated “memoir of sorts” from Margaret Atwood, which promises insight to her life and work; a memoir of healing by Inuk artist Susan Aglukark; a first full biography of comedian John Candy; and a memoir that explores, among other things, the current challenges of political life as a woman by former minister of environment and climate change Catherine McKenna.

Kihiani: A Memoir of Healing
Susan Aglukark with Andrea Warner
HarperCollins Publishers, Sept.

Run Like a Girl: A Memoir of Ambition, Resilience, and Fighting for Change
Catherine McKenna
Sutherland House, Sept.

John Candy: A Life in Comedy
Paul Myers
House of Anansi Press, Oct.

Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts
Margaret Atwood
McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada, Nov.

Other forthcoming memoirs and biographies include a look at the women whose work has dominated the field of primatology, stories of individuals fighting to belong when their identity has been stripped from them, a portrait of contemporary Indigenous life spurred on by the reconnection of a son with his father, and a memoir of surviving Iran’s Evin Prison.

A Truce That Is Not Peace
Miriam Toews
Knopf Canada, Aug.

Reconciling: A Lifelong Struggle to Belong
Larry Grant and Scott Steedman
ECW Press, Sept.

Sisters of the Jungle: The Trailblazing Women Who Shaped the Study of Wild Primates
Keriann McGoogan
Douglas & McIntyre, Sept.

To Linger With You: A Memoir of Sunshine and Longing
Donna Nebenzahl
Stonehewer Books, Sept.

In This Faulty Machine: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation
Kathy Page
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, Sept.

Hunting History: A Writer’s Odyssey
Erna Paris
At Bay Press, Sept.

In her final work, published posthumously, award-winning writer Erna Paris provides a personal look at some of the themes she explored in her many works: how history is used and lived, what gives rise to the best and worst of human behaviour, and the writer’s role in seeking truth and justice.

You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times
Saeed Teebi
Scribner Canada/Simon & Schuster, Sept.

Saeed Teebi explores what it is to be a Palestinian experiencing, from outside of Palestine, the devastation of his homeland, his people, and ultimately his identity, and how art and imagination can be an act of defiance.

We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning
Julian Brave NoiseCat
Random House Canada, Oct.

The Darkest Night Brings Longer Days: Surviving War and Iran’s Evin Prison
Sirous Houshmand
McGill-Queens University Press, Oct.

The Work of Our Hands: A Cree Meditation on the Real World
Adrian Sutherland
Viking/Penguin Random House Canada, Dec.

ISSUES OF OUR TIME

Writers tackle various contemporary issues, from the lives and treatment of migrant workers in Canada and the dark side of the booming lobster fishery to the precarious state of human rights around the world and finding ways to transform the safety and health of our cities. And, unsurprisingly, several titles aim to help us understand and cope with digital media and the technological changes that are altering our world and our relationships.

The Lobster Trap: The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
Greg Mercer
McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada, Aug.

Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers
Marcello Di Cintio
Biblioasis, Sept.

Universal: Renewing Human Rights in a Fractured World
Alex Neve
House of Anansi Press, Sept.

Understory: An Ecologist’s Memoir of Loss and Hope
Kevin Van Tighem
RMB | Rocky Mountain Books, Sept.

Coming Home from the Candy Factory
Jane Byers
Caitlin Press, Oct.

That’ll Never Work Here: Challenging the myths around biking in a winter city
Patty Wiens
Great Plains Publications, Oct.

The Winemaker’s Gamble: How One Man and a Handful of Rebels Turned Canadian Wine into a Global Industry
Jill Troyer
Mosaic Press, Nov.

Smartphone Nation: Why We’re All Addicted to Our Screens and What You and Your Family Can Do About It
Kaitlyn Regehr
Knopf Canada/Penguin Random House Canada, Aug.

Needy Media: How Tech Gets Personal
Stephen Monteiro
McGill-Queens University Press, Sept.

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
Cory Doctorow
MCD Books/Macmillan Publishing, Oct.

The Friend Machine: On The Trail of AI Companionship
Victoria Hetherington
Sutherland House, Oct.

Victoria Hetherington, who in her fiction has explored synthetic consciousness, turns her eye to the rapidly evolving world of AI companionship and those who have sought out such relationships, examining the multiple dimensions and ramifications of this trend in human and technological interaction.

FURTHERING RECONCILIATION

Two titles examine the history and ongoing nature of Indigenous relations with Canada and how the work of reconciliation can be advanced.

21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act
Bob Joseph
Page Two Books, Sept.

Bob Joseph’s 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act has been a consistent indie bookstore bestseller for several years. This follow-up title is a guide to understanding and advancing Indigenous self-governance.

Unceded: Understanding British Columbia’s Colonial Past and Why It Matters Now
George M. Abbott
Purich Books/UBC Press, Sept.

HISTORY

A veteran Canadian journalist traces the recent history of Afghanistan through the lens of Kabul’s Inter-Continental hotel and a fresh look at the First World War is based on the letters of a northern B.C. homesteader. Two moments in history when our southern neighbour could have disrupted the formation of Canada, the story of the first female captain of a merchant ship, and a graphic novel about a 19th-century publicity stunt that sent two women journalists around the world round out the list of history titles.

Till We Meet Again: A Canadian in the First World War
Brandon Marriott
Simon & Schuster, Sept.

Trading Fate: How a Little-known Company Stopped British Columbia from Becoming an American State
Graeme Menzies
Heritage House, Sept.

He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada
Madelaine Drohan
Dundurn Press, Sept.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan
Lyse Doucet
Allen Lane/Penguin Random House Canada, Nov.

Globetrotters: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s World Tour
Julian Voloj and Julie Rocheleau
Abrams ComicArts, Nov.

The Sea Captain’s Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
Tilar J. Mazzeo
St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan Publishing, Dec.

POP AND COUNTER-CULTURE

An intriguing crop of books combine the personal with cultural analysis, and range from a smart collection of essays on fandom and a look at Christian pop culture and its influence on current politics and social attitudes, to the music that accompanied one gay man’s coming of age in the shadow of AIDS and the publication, in book form, of the short-lived 1990s zine that helped to defiantly define transsexual presence and culture.

Jesusland: Stories from the Upside Down World of Christian Pop Culture
Joelle Kidd
ECW Press, Aug.

Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games
Kawika Guillermo
Arsenal Pulp Press, Sept.

Personal essays by a lifelong gamer examine the often intimate role that video games play in people’s lives and how they can become a quest for community, particularly for individuals from marginalized groups.

Fan Mail: A Guide to What We Love, Loathe, and Mourn
Jason Guriel
Véhicule Press, Sept.

Soundtrack: A Lyric Memoir
Michael V. Smith
Book*hug Press, Sept.

Gendertrash from Hell: The First Print Collection of the Zine That Changed Everything
Mirha-Soleil Ross, ed.
Little-Puss Press, Nov.

THE ARTS

A trio of books addresses the business aspects of the arts, including a view of “the perilous trade” of publishing from the West Coast, the transcript of a unique seminar on museology featuring Marshall McLuhan is published, and Dennis Lee discusses the craft of poetry.

Wrestling with Cadence: Essays on Writing and Intuition
Dennis Lee
Stonehewer Books, Sept.

This new collection of critical and personal essays on poetry provides insight into Dennis Lee’s life and craft.

How Artists Make Money and How Money Makes Artists
David Berry
Coach House Books, Oct.

9 Times My Work Has Been Ripped Off
Raymond Biesinger
Drawn & Quarterly, Oct.

A Precarious Enterprise: Making a Life in Canadian Publishing
Scott McIntyre
ECW Press, Sept.

The Museum as Large-Room Pinball Machine: A 1967 New York City Seminar Featuring Marshall McLuhan, Harley Parker, and Museum Professionals
William J. Buxton, ed.
University of Alberta Press, Dec.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM

A hefty first volume of the history of photography in Canada, an intriguing photographic survey of small, hand-built structures across the country, an illustrated history of the National Film Board of Canada, and a study of colonialism as reflected in horror films are visual arts highlights.

A History of Photography in Canada, Volume 1: Anticipation to Participation, 1839–1918
Martha Langford
McGill-Queen’s University Press, July

Bloodied Bodies, Bloody Landscapes: Settler Colonialism in Horror
Laura Hall
University of Regina Press, Sept.

Richard Johnson: Resilience – Ice Huts and Root Cellars (2007-2021)
Lucie Bergeron-Johnson and Tom Smart
Figure 1 Publishing, Oct.

Animation for the People: An Illustrated History of the National Film Board of Canada
Charles Solomon, Pete Docter, and Suzanne Guèvremont
Abrams Books, Nov.

ON HOCKEY

Two hockey titles look at bigger issues in the sport: a history of the creation of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which only had its first season in 2024, and a look at what can be done about the toxic elements in the world of hockey.

Breakaway: The PWHL and the Women Who Changed the Game
Karissa Donkin
Goose Lane Editions, Sept.