2023 Summer Reading Guide

In a world that requires knowledge and wisdom to address developing crises around us, The Gatherings shows how Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples can come together to create meaningful and lasting relationships.

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Known for his work on humanitarian issues and decades of public service and teaching, Bob Rae is the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and recipient of the 2020 Symons Medal. In this book, adapted from his lecture of the same title, he explores themes such as Canada’s origins, its place within the United Nations, and the significance of the Canadian Constitution. 

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A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the development — and demise — of civilizations across time. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history.

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Visual artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas brings to life the tumultuous history of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples on the northern West Coast. This history is told using a blend of traditional and modern art, eschewing the traditional boxes of comic books for the flowing shapes of North Pacific iconography.

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A history of the Chatham Coloured All-Stars, the first Black team to win an Ontario amateur baseball title in 1934. Sporting Justice situates the team in a broader history of Black baseball in Chatham and southwestern Ontario, exploring themes including racism in sport, gender, class, and social justice.

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In 1930, a young Jewish man fled persecution and the rise of Nazism in the hopes of starting a new life in Canada. Like countless “non-preferred” applicants, he gained entry by claiming to be single — only to discover that his family was unable to follow. This deeply personal family memoir showcases a resolute struggle against Canada’s historically xenophobic and anti-Semitic government policies.

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On its third reprinting, this book is an accessible and empirically rich introduction to Canada. Canada in the World begins by arguing that the colonial relations with Indigenous peoples represent the first example of foreign policy. Highlighting the continuities across more than 150 years of history, Shipley demonstrates that Canadian policy and behaviour in the world is deep-rooted, and argues that changing this requires rethinking the fundamental nature of Canada itself. 

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Warriors and Warships brings to life a much-neglected part of Canada’s military history, covering the warships and the people who built them at Point Frederick from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.

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In Rubymusic, award-winning journalist and broadcaster Connie Kuhns takes readers on an explosive journey through the Pacific Northwest’s groundbreaking women’s music scene in the ’80s and ’90s.

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In three volumes, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Jarymowycz recounts the story of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, the oldest Highland regiment in the country. In volume 1, readers learn of the Black Watch’s origins; its first foreign enterprise, the South African War; and a detailed account of the Great War, where the regiment evolved from the 5th Royal Highlanders to become the Canadian Black Watch.

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Gender, race, and politics in late-nineteenth-century Toronto swirl around this riveting true story of the murder of Frank Westwood and the controversial acquittal of the main suspect, Clara Ford — a cross-dressing Black single mother.

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Legends of the Capilano updates E. Pauline Johnson’s 1911 classic Legends of Vancouver, restoring her intended title for the first time and celebrating the contributions of her collaborators, Joe and Mary Capilano, by including five additional stories narrated by Mary. Editor Alix Shield provides photographs and biographical information for the three storytellers and contextualizes the legacy of Legends within Mohawk and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh communities.

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Written nearly 100 years ago, these diaries provide a visceral and cinematic experience of the North in a remarkable tale highlighted with archival photos. For four months, adventurer and ecologist Hamilton Mack Laing spent his days deeply immersed in observing the natural world alone in the remote windswept wilderness. At the same time, Fred Lambart documented the escalating tempers and rivalries on the gruelling Mount Logan expedition. 

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In 1943, Wanda Gizmunt was ripped from her home in Poland and deported to a forced-labour camp in Nazi Germany. At the end of the war, she became one of 100 Polish women brought to Canada to address a labour shortage — finding themselves captives to their employer. An untold story of Europe’s past and Canada’s history.

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Serpent River Resurgence tells the story of how the Serpent River Anishinaabek confronted the persistent forces of settler colonialism and the effects of uranium mining at Elliot Lake, Ontario. Drawing on extensive archival sources, oral histories, and newspaper articles, Lianne C. Leddy examines the environmental and political power relationships that affected her homeland in the Cold War period.

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This book examines the ongoing history of reforms to education in Canada and explores several paths to reform that have the potential to eliminate the discrimination inherent in denominational institutions while preserving some form of religious involvement in certain schools. 

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In this rigorously researched biography, a 19th-century Inuk — separated from his family, community, and language — finds his place in history. The Life and Times of Augustine Tataneuck is an arresting, unique glimpse into the North as it was in the early 19th century and into the lives of translators and labourers, often invisible in the historical record.

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Out to Defend Ourselves tells the story of Montreal’s first Haitian street gang, les Bélangers. It is a story about a gang, but it is also a story of young Haitians making their lives in 1970s and ’80s Montreal and a story about Montreal in a period of great change.

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An engaging social history profiling forty historic hotels in the southern interior of BC from the 1890s to 1950s by late historian Glen A. Mofford. 

“Room at the Inn is so deftly told, populated with the vivid true-life characters, places and events ... it surely will also fascinate and delight readers far away from BC as well.” — Aaron Chapman, author

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Why does Louis Riel matter? Because 137 years after his hanging, Riel is enlisted to support a wide variety of causes. Sometimes to combat the very same causes. John A. Macdonald called Riel “some sort of half-breed Mahdi” just before the Battle of Batoche. Can we consider that insult a compliment in this age of decolonization? Morrow has dived into Riel’s massive oeuvre to set the record straight.

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A novel in fourteen stories, East Grand Lake is a warm-hearted tale of life at the cottage in the summer of 1972. Join the rambunctious Murphy clan as they swim, sing, wander, dream, squabble, and struggle with grief, betrayal, aging, living with each other, living without each other, and growing up.

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“A rich and beautiful book that tackles issues of great importance for many Northern communities: land and dispossession, tradition and change, memory and loss. With an impressive array of eminent scholars who seek to foreground Indigenous voices, this volume addresses the interplay of colonial pressure and Indigenous peoples’ resilience through topics ranging from berry picking and house forms to ecological knowledge and place naming.” — Peter Schweitzer, University of Vienna

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Bob Hunter, the co-founder of Greenpeace, was a true environmental hero and activist who devoted his life to safeguarding the planet and its inhabitants. Mr. Mindbomb provides readers with an intimate look at Hunter’s life through a collection of personal essays written by those who knew him best, offering a rare insight into the thrilling adventures of Hunter and his fellow activists. 

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This book traces the origins of PEI’s domestic architecture up to 1918 and profiles 84 of the island’s most significant heritage homes. Includes archival black-and-white and colour photographs, floor plans, locator map, index, and bibliography. A former architect, Scott Smith has been researching and writing about PEI architecture since 1986. His three books on this subject have all won publishing awards.

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“Some Unfinished Business is a very readable example of historical fiction, with vivid characters and a compelling storyline. Sileika has combined history and fiction in a way that makes the events of mid-20th century Lithuania relevant and interesting, regardless of the current political situation in eastern Europe.” — Winnipeg Free Press

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In January 1832, in the most southern part of Ontario’s James Bay, an elderly Cree man by the name of Quapakay was told by the spirits of the shaking tent that in order to survive the winter he was required to “spoil” the post at Hannah Bay, a Hudson’s Bay Company goose-hunting station. Following the directions of the spirits, Quapakay and his sons carried out this ill-fated task, resulting in the deaths of sixteen occupants of the Hannah Bay post. 

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Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the First World War, Canada’s Great War Album is an unprecedented and remarkable collection of Canadian photographs, memorabilia, and stories of the war. Includes contributions from Peter Mansbridge, Charlotte Gray, J.L. Granatstein, Christopher Moore, Jonathan Vance, and Tim Cook.

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Anthropologist Frances M. Slaney examines the professional legacy of Marius Barbeau, founder of Canadian anthropology. With a special focus on Barbeau’s education at Oxford and career at Canada’s National Museum, Slaney draws upon archival research in England, France, and Canada to bring this person of national historic importance to life.

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In three volumes, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Jarymowycz recounts the story of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, the oldest Highland regiment in the country. In volume 2 we are offered the story of the bloody battlefields of the Second World War, when the Black Watch joined Commonwealth regiments to defeat the Axis Powers.

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Explore the remnants of vanished villages across Ontario’s cottage country. Crumbling foundations lost in the forest, weathered buildings leaning wearily with age, cracked tombstones jutting from the ground — all serve as haunting reminders of once thriving villages that have since been abandoned. 

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Stephen Kakfwi, residential school survivor and former Premier of the Northwest Territories, transforms politics into philosophy and sheds light on a history that too many Canadians have long ignored, in the deeply personal and unapologetic memoir Stoneface.

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The discovery of a trove of sepia-toned pictures from the late 1930s drew coastal historian Jeanette Taylor to research and document the history of Twin Islands, located in the Salish Sea at the interface between wilderness and urban settlement. 

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Scoundrels and Shirkers examines the deep relationship between capitalism and poverty in England since the 12th century. It exposes the dynamics of capitalism, from its origins in the long transition from feudalism to its current crisis under neoliberal capitalism, in producing poverty.

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Written during the early twentieth century, Old Keyam and the never-before-published Black Hawk are semi-autobiographical stories told in the charming, insightful voice of Canon Edward Ahenakew. Through fictional characters, Ahenakew protests against the colonial settler’s attempts to force the Cree peoples into “civilization” and documents the changing society of the time, including the pass system and residential schools.

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A riveting account of the years, months and days leading up to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and the unexpected ways Canadians were involved in every aspect of the American Civil War.

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Lavishly illustrated with more than 260 works reproduced in full colour, Western Voices in Canadian Art delivers the most ambitious survey of Western Canadian art to date. Patricia Bovey, the first art historian appointed to the Senate of Canada, amplifies the depth, scope, and importance of this diverse group of artists from the eighteenth century to the present, connecting art and artists through time and across provincial boundaries. 

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This book collects the letters of young W.A.B. (Alec) Douglas, who wrote from his wartime home in Toronto to his mother back home in London. This is a story of exposure, at an impressionable age, to ocean passage in wartime, the sights and sounds of New York, the new and unfamiliar world of Canada, the excitement of passage home in a Woolworth Aircraft Carrier, and his eventful return to a world he had left behind three years before.

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We Shall Persist is the first book to detail the distinctive political contexts and common problems that characterized campaigns for women’s suffrage and other rights in Atlantic Canada.

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Celebrating 75 years of conservation, the Atlantic Salmon Treasury includes a curated selection of images, articles, and essays from the influential Atlantic Salmon Journal by some of North America’s best writers on the art and lore of the wild Atlantic salmon.

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Written by leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, Voicing Identity examines the issue of cultural appropriation in the contexts of researching, writing, and teaching about Indigenous peoples. This book grapples with the questions of who is qualified to engage in these activities and how this can be done appropriately and respectfully.

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In Les Juifs de la Révolution tranquille, historian Simon-Pierre Lacasse analyzes the period of the postwar era to the mid-1970s in Québec, which saw decisive changes within the Quebec Jewish community and the creation of a distinct Montréal Jewish identity built upon ideas of pluralism and “togetherness.”

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In three volumes, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Jarymowycz recounts the story of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, the oldest Highland regiment in the country. Volume 3 relates the regiment’s post-Second World War story. Canada’s commitments to NATO and the United Nations led to the creation of two regular battalions of the Black Watch, while retaining the reserve battalion in Montreal.

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A poignant memoir of a rough-and-tumble boyhood on the streets of Toronto’s Cabbagetown. When the Burke family left Ireland, in 1959, they thought they were leaving the trials and tribulations of the Dublin slums behind. Instead, Molly, Bill, and their nine children found the same poverty and hardship awaiting them in the east end of Toronto.

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“A vivid, passionate and compassionate page-turner in which political turmoil and oppression acts as an unwitting catalyst for self-realization. The ongoing situation in Myanmar lends Daniel Gawthrop’s novel continuing relevance and poignancy. Compelling, imaginative, timely, and gutsy.” — C.E. Gatchalian, author of Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man

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Journey back in time to the bygone era of “printer’s devils” and uncover how their influence shaped the establishment of BC’s Smelter City.

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A story of heroism and heartbreak for 13-year-old Acadian Nathalie Belliveau. Based on the real lives of two Acadian families, the novel is grounded in the historic facts of the Acadian expulsion and the 10-year exile from Nova Scotia.

“Seamlessly weaves fact and fiction drawing us deep into the lives, losses, and longings of her vivid characters.” — Caroline Pignat, Governor General’s Award winner 

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This book is maritime artist and historian Gordon Miller’s tribute to the humble little ships that first ventured across the great Pacific and the brave sailors that manned them. With gorgeous reproductions of Miller’s paintings, it is a condensed story of the charting and exploitation of the Pacific Ocean, mostly in small, wooden ships, with only wind and human muscle for power.

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Until 1969, the City of Winnipeg had undertaken only two public housing projects, even though the failure of the market to provide adequate housing for low-income Winnipeggers had been apparent. By 1919, providing housing also became a proxy issue for refighting the 1919 General Strike at city hall. However, Winnipeg’s business community proved effective opponents. This books documents that struggle and its continued consequences for public housing today.

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A residential school survivor finds his way back to his language and culture through his family’s traditional stories. When reflecting on forces that have shaped his life, Solomon Ratt says his education was interrupted by his schooling. Torn from his family at the age of six, Ratt was placed into the residential school system. Here, Ratt reflects on these memories and the life-long challenges he endured through his telling of âcimisowin — autobiographical stories — and also traditional tales.

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What would Indigenous resurgence look like if the parameters were not set with a focus on the state, settlers, or an achievement of reconciliation? Indigenous Resurgence in an Age of Reconciliation explores the central concerns and challenges facing Indigenous nations in their resurgence efforts, while also mapping the gaps and limitations of both reconciliation and resurgence frameworks.

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In the mid-to-late 1660s and early 1670s, the Haudenosaunee established settlements along the trade routes close to the north shore of Lake Ontario. Bringing together traditional Indigenous knowledge and documentary and recent archaeological evidence, this book describes the historical context and examines the unique material culture found at these settlements. 

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