WINNER of CBC Canada Reads Finalist for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the OLA Evergreen Award #1 National Bestseller When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many young Canadian soldiers, Ralph was captured by the Japanese army. He would spend the war in prison camps, enduring pestilence, beatings and starvation, as well as a journey by hell ship to Japan to perform slave labour, while around him his friends and countrymen perished. Back in Canada, Mitsue and her family were expelled from their home by the government and forced to spend years eking out an existence in rural Alberta, working other people's land for a dollar a day. By the end of the war, Ralph emerged broken but a survivor. Mitsue, worn down by years of back-breaking labour, had to start all over again in Medicine Hat, Alberta. A generation later, at a high school dance, Ralph's daughter and Mitsue's son fell in love. Although the war toyed with Ralph's and Mitsue's lives and threatened to erase their humanity, these two brave individuals somehow surmounted enormous transgressions and learned to forgive. Without this forgiveness, their grandson Mark Sakamoto would never have come to be.

A career-spanning volume that brings together new and selected works by an iconic voice in Canadian literature. From the Lost and Found Department, by the trailblazing Joy Kogawa, is a profound work of spare, trenchant, and haunting poems that lets us stay with the quietest qualities of beauty and the sublime. This essential volume brings together thrilling new work with selected poems from The Splintered Moon (1967), A Choice of Dreams (1974), Jericho Road (1977), Woman In the Woods (1985), and A Garden of Anchors: Selected Poems (2003). Kogawa’s poems here are evidence that our every vulnerability can open into vast channels of grace.

In this latest collection of personal stories, Peter Mansbridge and former CBC producer Mark Bulgutch shine a light on the everyday jobs that keep our nation running and the inspiring people who perform them with empathy and kindness. Meet the 911 operator in British Columbia who sends help to callers in crisis and stays on the line, steadying them as they wait. Hear from the chief of the Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario, who sacrifices his personal time to fight for better resources for his community, which has had a boil water advisory since the mid-1990s. From the air traffic controller who ensures people get to where they need to go, to the midwife in Saskatchewan who guides families through pregnancy and the birthing process, these are the jobs that connect Canadians on both a logistical and personal level. Though Canada is still very much a work in progress, this enlightening book celebrates how we are greater than the sum of our parts by championing the people that make our country great.

From Sportsnet Central host and broadcaster Ken Reid comes an inspiring and entertaining new collection of hockey stories about local legends who define the game and its values. In many communities across Canada, hockey lives in the nearby arenas and leagues that forge both decades-long rivalries and unbreakable friendships. Fans show up to cheer not for distant NHL superstars, but for the homegrown heroes who define their town. These players don’t always make it to the big leagues, but they inevitably become legends. In this entertaining collection, Canadian broadcaster and Sportsnet Central host Ken Reid tells their uplifting stories, from Pictou, Nova Scotia, to Kimberley, British Columbia—and everywhere in between. There’s Robbie Forbes, who arrived in Newfoundland in the mid-eighties still dreaming of the pros and ended up giving the town a dream of its own when he led the Corner Brook Royals to a Canadian Senior Hockey title. He also happens to be Sidney Crosby’s uncle. In a legendary Ontario community, the name Paul Polillo is spoken in the same reverential breath as Wayne Gretzky in their shared hometown of Brantford. There’s also the tragic story of George Pelawa, who may have been the inspiration for Tom Cochrane & Red Rider’s famous song “Big League.” And Tyson Wuttunee, an Indigenous player in Saskatchewan who, through hockey, found the family and home he’d always longed for. Featuring heartwarming stories of grit, leadership, and lifelong bonds, Ken Reid’s Hometown Hockey Heroes celebrates how hockey, and the values the game teaches, can shape our communities for the better.

For readers of Ross Gay and listeners of Therapy for Black Girls, a reflective examination of Black self-love and joy that guides the reader to ditch old beliefs, achieve difficult unlearnings and redefine language, relationships and love to find their own unique path to joy. A warm, candid and essential book that will guide the reader to carve a new path to joy as unique as each individual. Created by the founder of Breathing Space Creative Literary Studio, acclaimed writer and editor Chelene Knight, Let It Go draws on personal experience and the advice of leaders from various Black communities to share hard-won tools for joy-discovery--tools such as how to say no with love; how to call back activities that feel good; how to reshape communication with those closest to you; how to revise language; and most of all, how to learn to let go in order to redefine what we think joy is. Organized around the seasons and the natural cycle of reflection and renewal, Let It Go showcases, through conversation and solitary reflection, the broad spectrum of Black realities and reveals the colourful kaleidoscope of joy and your own ways to find it. From Let It Go: "My own path to joy has been blurred by hardship, but part of my journey is that I refuse to believe that all of my negative experiences are tethered to being a Black woman, even though it can feel like this, even when some people want me to feel like this. And when I feel it, it's a pain that swells and refuses to subside. I didn't learn this on my own and I don't think I can unlearn it on my own. But I'm willing to do the work. I want my joy as I find it; I want my joy as it comes. I'm willing to let the wind push me backwards through the difficult moments. Maybe there's something big holding you back too. Take a breath. What is it? Maybe we can let go, together."

In 1997 Ted Nolan won the Jack Adams Award for best coach in the NHL. But he wouldn’t work in pro hockey again for almost a decade. What happened? Growing up on a First Nation reserve, young Ted Nolan built his own backyard hockey rink and wore skates many sizes too big. But poverty wasn’t his biggest challenge. Playing the game meant spending his life in two worlds: one in which he was loved and accepted and one where he was often told he didn’t belong. Ted proved he had what it took, joining the Detroit Red Wings in 1978. But when his on-ice career ended, he discovered his true passion wasn’t playing; it was coaching. First with the Soo Greyhounds and then with the Buffalo Sabres, Ted produced astonishing results. After his initial year as head coach with the Sabres, the club was being called the “hardest working team in professional sports.” By his second, they had won their first Northeast Division title in sixteen years. Yet, the Sabres failed to re-sign their much-loved, award-winning coach. Life in Two Worlds chronicles those controversial years in Buffalo—and recounts how being shut out from the NHL left Ted frustrated, angry, and so vulnerable he almost destroyed his own life. It also tells of Ted’s inspiring recovery and his eventual return to a job he loved. But Life in Two Worlds is more than a story of succeeding against the odds. It’s an exploration of how a beloved sport can harbour subtle but devastating racism, of how a person can find purpose when opportunity and choice are stripped away, and of how focusing on what really matters can bring two worlds together.

The long-awaited memoir from iconic, beloved actor and living legend Sir Patrick Stewart! From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, Making It So, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.

Following the bestselling success of the inspiring All the Way, pioneering Inuit NHLer Jordin Tootoo begins the process of healing in the wake of the suicide and violence that marks his family, only to discover the source of all that trauma in his father's secret past. For some hockey players, retirement marks the moment when it’s all over. But Jordin Tootoo is not most hockey players. Having inspired millions when he first broke into the league, Tootoo continued to influence people throughout his career—not only through his very public triumph over alcoholism, but also his natural charisma. And now, years after hanging up his skates, he is more committed to doing things the right way and speaking about it to others, whether it’s corporate executives or Indigenous youth. But the news of unmarked graves on the grounds of residential schools brought back to life many of the demons that had haunted his family. In a moment of realization that left him rattled and saddened, Tootoo fit the pieces together. The years that were never spoken of. The heavy drinking. The all too predictable violence. His father was a survivor, marked by what he had survived. As he travels back to Nunavut to try to speak with his father about what haunts him, he encounters the ghosts of the entire community. Still, as Tootoo says, we are continuously learning and rewriting our story at every step. He has learned from his mistakes and his victories. He has learned from examples of great courage and humility. He has learned from being a father and a husband. And he has learned from his own Inuk traditions, of perseverance and discipline in the face of hardship. Weaving together life’s biggest themes with observations and experiences, Jordin shares the kind of wisdom he has had to specialize in—the hard-won kind.

Start waking up to your full potential every single day with the updated and expanded edition of the groundbreaking book that has sold more than two million copies. “So much more than a book. It is a proven methodology that will help you fulfil your potential and create the life you’ve always wanted.” —Mel Robbins, New York Times bestselling author of The High 5 Habit and The 5 Second Rule Getting everything you want out of life isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming more. Hal Elrod and The Miracle Morning have helped millions of people become the person they need to be to create the life they’ve always wanted. Now, it’s your turn. Hal’s revolutionary SAVERS method is a simple, effective step-by-step process to transform your life in as little as six minutes per day: - Silence: Reduce stress and improve mental clarity by beginning each day with peaceful, purposeful quiet - Affirmations: Reprogram your mind to overcome any fears or beliefs that are limiting your potential or causing you to suffer - Visualization: Experience the power of mentally rehearsing yourself showing up at your best each day - Exercise: Boost your mental and physical energy in as little as sixty seconds - Reading: Acquire knowledge and expand your abilities by learning from experts - Scribing: Keep a journal to deepen gratitude, gain insights, track progress, and increase your productivity by getting clear on your top priorities This updated and expanded edition has more than forty pages of new content, including: - The Miracle Evening: Optimize your bedtime and sleep to wake up every day feeling refreshed and energized for your Miracle Morning - The Miracle Life: Begin your path to inner freedom so you can truly be happy and learn to love the life you have while you create the life you want

The debut memoir from award-winning journalist Morgan Campbell: an incredible history of a family’s battles across generations, a hilarious and emotional coming-of-age story, and a powerful reckoning with what it means to be Black in Canada—particularly when you have strong American roots. Morgan Campbell comes from “a fighting family,” a connection and clash that reaches back to the south side of Chicago in the 1930s. His father’s and mother’s families were both part of the Great Migration from the U.S. rural south to the industrial north, but a history of perceived slights and social-class differences solidified a great feud that only intensified over the course of the century after the families came together in marriage and split up across the border. Morgan’s maternal grandfather, Claude Jones—a legendary grudge-holder, as well was an accomplished musician, peer of Oscar Peterson, and fixture of the Chicago jazz scene—was recruited to play some shows in Toronto, fell in love with the city, and eventually settled in Canada in the mid-1960s, paving the way for Morgan’s parents to join him amid the tumult of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. Morgan’s paternal grandmother, Granny Mary, however, remained stateside, a distance her schemes and resentments would only grow to fill. That fighting spirit wasn’t limited to the family’s own squabbles, though—it animated the way every generation moved through the world. From battling back as a group against white supremacist newcomers who violently resisted Black neighbours, to Morgan’s pre-teen mother burnishing her own legend by cold-cocking some racist loudmouth bullies, the lesson was clear: sometimes words weren’t enough. In Canada, the Campbells started a family of their own, but the tensions between in-laws never ceased, even as divorce and disease threatened the very foundations of the life they’d built. Bearing witness to all of this was young Morgan, an aspiring writer, budding star athlete, and slow-jam scholar, whose deep American roots landed him an outsider status that led to its own schoolyard scraps and exposed the profound gap between Canada’s utopian multicultural reputation and the very different reality. Having grown up bouncing between these disparate identities and nationalities, real or imagined—Black and Canadian, Canadian and American, Campbell and Jones—My Fighting Family is a witty, wise, rich, and soulful illumination of the journey to find clarity in all that conflict.

In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever. As the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam progressed, Anne and the Frank family seemingly vanished, leaving behind unmade beds and dishes in the sink--but no trace of Anne's precious diary. Torn from her dear friend without warning, Hannah spent the next two years tormented by questions about Anne's fate, wondering if she had, by some miracle, managed to escape danger. In this long‑awaited memoir, Hannah shares the story of her childhood during the Holocaust, from the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Amsterdam to the gradual disappearance of classmates and, eventually, the Frank family, to Hannah and her family's imprisonment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Hannah chronicles the experiences of her own life during and after the war, she provides a searing look at what countless children endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, as well as an intimate, never‑before‑seen portrait of the most recognizable victim of the Holocaust. Culminating in an astonishing fateful reunion, My Friend Anne Frank is the profoundly moving story of childhood and friendship during one of the darkest periods in the world's history.

The author of the popular Lagom introduces another Scandinavian concept --njuta (pronounced "nyutah"), the Swedish art of consciously appreciating everyday experiences, that embodies the idea "to enjoy, to delight in, to savor a moment." "Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; love more; and all good things are yours."--Swedish proverb The Danes taught us how to embrace coziness and contentment. Now, the Swedes show us how to pause and savor the moment, to njuta, a philosophy closely tied to Swedish life and culture. Deeply ingrained in the Swedish psyche, njuta is about simplicity and intent in every aspect of life, from daily routines and leisure to family and food and everything in between. The Swedish delight in the simple things in life. They see greatness in the small things--it doesn't take grand gestures or vast amounts of money to make life not only okay but truly wonderful. Simple pleasures are all around us and can be found in every minute and every hour of the day. You just have to stop, use your senses, and take time to consciously appreciate what's already there. That is the essence of njuta. In this inviting and inspirational guide, Niki Brantmark explains njuta and offers advice for incorporating it into any lifestyle. Best of all, you can start right now. At home, take time to savor that first sip of coffee in the morning. Relish a quiet moment while everyone is out--just you, in a cozy corner by the window, basking in the stillness. Outside, enjoy your surroundings, no matter the season or place. Notice the dappled sunlight through the leaves of a tree in summer, or the puff of clouds formed by warm breath in the frigid air of winter. Njuta might be as simple as turning your face to the sun to soak up its wonderful warmth, or to feel the wind in your hair as you bike or drive to work. You'll find these and many more suggestions in this wonderful guide, including how to discover njuta in moments spent with friends, family, and most importantly, in solitude. Beautifully designed, idea-filled, and featuring full-color illustrations throughout, this delightful lifestyle guide shows how to relax and consciously seize the moment--no matter how small--to enrich and deepen your life.

Not Too Late is the book for anyone who is despondent, defeatist, or unsure about climate change and seeking answers. As the contributors to this volume make clear, the future will be decided by whether we act in the present--and we must act to counter institutional inertia, fossil fuel interests, and political obduracy. These dispatches from the climate movement around the world feature the voices of organizers like Guam-based lawyer and writer Julian Aguon; climate scientists like Dr. Jacquelyn Gill and Dr. Edward Carr; poets like Marshall Islands activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijner; and longtime organizers like The Tyranny of Oil author Antonia Juhasz. Guided by Rebecca Solnit's typical clear-eyed wisdom and enriched by photographs and quotes, Not Too Late leads readers from discouragement to possibilities, from climate despair to climate hope.

***Now an International Bestseller!*** I'm starting a service... available for any situation in which all you want is a person to be there. Maybe there's a restaurant you want to go to, but you feel awkward going on your own. Maybe a game you want to play, but you're one person short. Or perhaps you'd like someone to keep a space in the park for your cherry blossom viewing party... Shoji Morimoto was constantly being told by his boss, "It makes no difference whether you're here or not," and that his presence contributed nothing to the company. Morimoto began to wonder whether a person who "does nothing" could still have actual value and a place in the world. Perhaps he could turn "doing nothing" into a service? With one tweet, Rental Person was born. Rental Person provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. This book details thousands of his true-life adventures: Accompanying a divorcee to her favorite restaurant Waving goodbye to a client from the train platform Sitting in the courtroom during a client's trial Supporting a client during a difficult surgery Rental Person is dependable, nonjudgmental and committed to remaining a stranger, and the curious encounters he shares are revelatory about both Japanese society and human psychology. In Rental Person Who Does Nothing, Morimoto chronicles his extraordinary experiences in his unique line of work and reflects on how we consider relationships, jobs and family in our search for meaningful connection and purpose in life.