Canada Reads!
Brother
Chariandy, David, 1969- author
2018
Michael and Francis are the sons of Trinidadian immigrants, their father has disappeared and their mother works double, sometimes triple shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise of their adopted home. Coming of age in The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in the disparaged outskirts of a sprawling city, Michael and Francis battle against the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry. But their bright hopes are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting, and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow.
By chance alone : a remarkable true story of courage and survival at Auschwitz
Eisen, Max, author
2016
This autobiography of Canadian Max Eisen details the rural Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, back-breaking slave labour in Auschwitz I, the infamous 'death march' of January 1945, the painful aftermath of liberation, and a journey of physical and psychological healing.
The marrow thieves
Dimaline, Cherie, 1975-, author
2018
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden - but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
Radicalized
Doctorow, Cory, author
2019
"A timely collection ... connected by social, technological, and economic visions of today and what America could be in the near, near future"-- Provided by publisher.
Small game hunting at the local coward gun club
Coles, Megan Gail, 1981- author
2019
February in Newfoundland is the longest month of the year. Another blizzard is threatening to tear a strip off downtown St. John's, while inside The Hazel restaurant a storm of sex, betrayal, addiction, and hurt is breaking. Iris, a young hostess from 'round the bay, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Olive, a young Indigenous woman far from home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street. It is through Olive, largely unnoticed by the others, that we glimpse the truth behind the scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and it is her resilience that proves most enduring in the dead of this winter's tale.
The woo-woo : how I survived ice hockey, drug raids, demons, and my crazy Chinese family
Wong, Lindsay, 1987- author
2018
In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family whose members blamed their woes on ghosts and demons when in fact they should have been on anti-psychotic meds. On one hand a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience, and on the other a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself.