How to...Forage for Wild Mushrooms
Mushrooming: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt – An Illustrated Guide to the Fascinating, the Delicious, the Deadly and the Strange, by Diane Borsato, illustrated by Kelsey Oseid
Foraging for wild mushrooms is an increasingly popular pursuit and this beautifully produced volume—filled with insights, anecdotes and details about more than 120 common and charismatic fungi from across the northern hemisphere—will appeal to everyone from beginner mushroomers to advanced mycophiles.
Mushrooming offers a new perspective on the fascinating, edible, deadly and strange world of fungi, from candy caps to earth stars, puff balls to poison pie, prized chanterelles, morels, hedgehogs and the bloodless destroying angel. There are mushrooms named after fairies and demons, little brown mushrooms that are wildly hallucinogenic, phallic specimens prized as aphrodisiacs, and mushrooms that are the colour of precious jewels. Some mushrooms look so much like woodland birds they are shot at by hunters, and others, incredibly, glow in the dark.
Walk along with award-winning artist and educator Diane Borsato and illustrator Kelsey Oseid as they inspire foragers at all levels to see the wondrousness of fungi wherever they are: in the forest, the city park or the local market.
Learn how mushrooming can radically expand our perspectives, connect us to nature and quietly enrich our lives.
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How to...Overcome Imposter Syndrome
From Showing Off to Showing Up: An Impostor's Journey from Perfect to Present, by Nancy Regan
"My life was perfect. I was confident and outgoing. I was a deliriously happy wife and mother. I loved my job. That all sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, every one of those statements is false. I was false."
This might seem like shocking honesty, but to Nancy Regan, it's simply the result of dropping a mask she clung to for decades. In her first book, the former television broadcaster gives us a behind-the-scenes account of her experience hosting a newsmagazine with a daily audience of over a quarter million—and interviewing some of the biggest celebrities in the world—all while studiously concealing fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. With remarkable candour, Regan describes how she created the illusion of having it all together because she didn't want anyone to know how close she was to falling apart.
In From Showing Off to Showing UP, Regan explores in lyrical prose how overcoming these challenges enriched her life and now fuels her ability to help others through her work as a presentation coach. Weaving together memoir and self-help, this intimate book takes readers on a compelling journey—from Regan's childhood growing up in the thorny world of politics, through highlights and lowlights of her TV career, to what she considers her greatest personal accomplishment: self-acceptance. Featuring soulful lessons from her conversations with such luminaries as Oprah and bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) and serving up some of Regan's favourite practices for staying grounded in presence, From Showing Off to Showing UP is a powerful roadmap for living a more authentic life.
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How to...Talk About Race (For White People)
Frequently Asked White Questions, by Ajay Parasram & Alex Khasnabish
Are you a white person with questions about how race affects different situations, but you feel awkward, shy, or afraid to ask the people of colour in your life? Are you a racialized person who is tired of answering the same questions over and over? This book is for you: a basic guide for people learning about racial privilege. In Frequently Asked White Questions, Alex Khasnabish and Ajay Parasram answer ten of the most common questions asked of them by people seeking to understand how race structures our every day. Drawing from their lived experiences as well as live sessions of their monthly YouTube series Safe Space for White Questions, the authors offer concise, accessible answers to questions such as, “Is it possible to be racist against white people?” or “Shouldn’t everyone be treated equally?” With humour and compassion, this book offers relatable advice and a practical entry point into conversations about race.
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How to...Stay Hopeful For a Better World
Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism, by Maude Barlow
In this timely book, Barlow counters the prevailing atmosphere of pessimism that surrounds us and offers lessons of hope that she has learned from a lifetime of activism. She has been a linchpin in three major movements in her life: second-wave feminism, the battle against free trade and globalization, and the global fight for water justice. From each of these she draws her lessons of hope, emphasizing that effective activism is not really about the goal, rather it is about building a movement and finding like-minded people to carry the load with you. Barlow knows firsthand how hard fighting for change can be. But she also knows that change does happen and that hope is the essential ingredient.
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How to...Navigate the Messiness of Midlife
Navigating the Messy Middle: A Fiercely Honest and Wildly Encouraging Guide for Midlife Women, by Ann Douglas
Roughly 68 million North American women currently grapple with the challenges of midlife, faced with a culture that tells them their "best-before date" has long passed. In Navigating the Messy Middle, Ann Douglas pushes back against this toxic narrative, providing a fierce and unapologetic book for and about midlife women.
In this deeply validating and encouraging book, Douglas interviews well over one hundred women of different backgrounds and identities, sharing their diverse conversations about the complex and intertwined issues that women must grapple with at midlife: from family responsibilities to career pivots, health concerns to building community. Readers will find a book that offers practical, evidence-based strategies for thriving at midlife, coupled with compelling first-person stories.
Offering purpose and meaning in a life stage that can otherwise feel out of control, Douglas pushes back against the message that women at midlife are no longer relevant and needed, highlighting the far-reaching economic, political and social impacts of these messages and providing a refreshing counter-narrative that maps out a path forward for women at midlife.
Both a midlife love letter and a lament, Navigating the Messy Middle both celebrates the beauty and rages at the many injustices of this life stage and provides readers with the tools to chart their own course.
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How to...Find Solace and Acceptance in the Face of Death
Ordinary Deaths: Stories from Memory, by Samuel LeBaron
In Ordinary Deaths, Dr. Samuel LeBaron reminds us of our need for human connection when experiencing death and loss. Based on more than thirty years of working with children and adults dying from cancer, LeBaron’s memoir contains stories of longing, confusion, love, and humility—often woven together.
Sharing recollections from his childhood in rural Alberta and experiences from his career, LeBaron reveals a life of vital, intimate connection with others. His employment at a morgue during medical school, his early years as a clinical psychologist, and later careers in primary care and hospice in California, all translate into compassion and a deep understanding of death. Writing as he faces his own terminal illness—Stage IV lung cancer—LeBaron helps readers find acceptance and solace.
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How to...Learn to Draw
How I Draw: Scott McKowen Sketchbooks, by Scott McKowen
For many artists, drawing is both vocation and avocation. Drawing for pleasure keeps our skills sharp and allows us to expand our horizons by trying new materials and media—to say nothing of providing countless hours of enjoyment. Scott McKowen has enjoyed a four-decade career as an award-winning illustrator and designer known across North America. Drawing is his livelihood, but he makes a constant practice of observational drawing from life. He always travels with a sketchbook—he draws everywhere from museums, restaurants, theatres and zoos, to cities, parks and on holiday. How I Draw provides an overview of Scott's draftsmanship in various media, with insights and tips guaranteed to help anyone who shares his love of drawing.
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How to...Find Magic in the Everyday
Ordinary Wonder Tales, by Emily Urquhart
A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday.
“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia. In essays on death and dying, pregnancy and prenatal genetics, radioactivity, chimeras, cottagers, and plague, Ordinary Wonder Tales reveals the essential truth: if you let yourself look closely, there is magic in the everyday.
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How to...Co-Parent with Poise
Your Place or Mine?: Practical Advice for Developing a Co-Parenting Arrangement After Separation, by Charlotte Schwartz
So you did it. You separated. And now the kids that you always planned to raise together are being raised apart. Most people don’t start a family expecting not to see their children every day, and yet roughly half of us end up in that scenario. From there, it’s a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure—and there are many choices you can make.
Your Place or Mine? is a detailed resource for separating parents. It will help you navigate the legal system, including negotiating a settlement, mediation, and litigation, and explains the nuances of different paths to dispute resolution. It also provides specific advice about what to include in a compassionate separation agreement, such as specifying how far parents can live from each other, where transitions take place, how to handle kids’ belongings, communication, future disputes, and introducing your child to a new partner.
Schwartz introduces you to several families (including her own) with separated parents, as well as adults who were raised by co-parents, and offers their insights. She also provides accessible advice from psychologists on kids’ mental health, as well as tips from family law lawyers, who share anecdotes about the world of co-parenting.
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How to...Find Humour in the Absurdity of Existence
Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions, by Tomson Highway
Brilliant, jubilant insights into the glory and anguish of life from one of the world’s most treasured Indigenous creators.
Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap fool. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have a blast and to laugh ourselves silly.
Celebrated author and playwright Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to an exploration of five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. A comparative analysis of Christian, classical, and Cree mythologies reveals their contributions to Western thought, life, and culture—and how North American Indigenous mythologies provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Highway also offers generous personal anecdotes, including accounts of his beloved accordion-playing, caribou-hunting father, and plentiful Trickster stories as curatives for the all-out unhappiness caused by today’s patriarchal, colonial systems.
Laugh with the legendary Tomson Highway as he illuminates a healing, hilarious way forward.
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