elseship (March), by Tree Abraham, recounts the year that followed a friendship's confrontation with unrequited love, detailing the beauty and mania of this experience, mapping thought pathways, confessing ugly truths, and treading the edges of eroding territory. Full of joy, honesty, adversity, and great clothes, From the Rez to the Runway (March), by Christian Allaire, is a gripping memoir about how to achieve your dreams—and elevate others—while always remaining true to yourself. And Bodies of Art, Bodies of Labour (February), by Kate Beaton, award-winning author of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, explores connections between class, literature, and art from Cape Breton Island.

Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a revolutionary look at a most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful path for the future in Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead (April). Edited by Jaime Black-Morsette, founder of the REDress Project—an art installation consisting of placing red dresses in public spaces as a call for justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S)— REDress: Art, Action, and the Power of Presence (April) is a powerful anthology uniting the voices of Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by the tragedy across Turtle Island. And covering the rowdy punk rock of Gob and Sum 41, the arena-sized ambitions of Simple Plan and Marianas Trench, the reinvention of the pop star by Avril Lavigne and Fefe Dobson, and the quest to bring hardcore into the mainstream by Billy Talent, Silverstein, and Alexisonfire, In Too Deep (June), by Adam Feibel and Matt Bobkin, traces the evolution of a music scene that challenged notions of who and what should be considered punk.

Meltdown (June) tells the story of Sarah Boon’s field adventures in snow and ice, the struggles of choosing an academic career over that of a writer, and the challenges of being a woman in science. Cathrin Bradbury’s This Way Up (April) is a funny, closely observed, and briskly honest guide to the pleasures and perils of living life fully as a woman on the road to the far side of mid-life. And, inspired by adventures of world travellers but unwilling to rack up her fossil fuel consumption, Elspeth Bradbury sets out with a deep curiosity to explore the world that exists in her own garden in Journeys to the Nearby (April).

In her debut book of essays, The Story of Your Mother (April), Chantal Braganza considers the limits of understanding motherhood as identity or action alone, while reflecting on her upbringing as a daughter of Mexican and Indian immigrants and the first years of raising her two children. Kate Braid is back with her signature blend of guts, wit, and warmth, tackling the fresh territory of women, bodies, and aging in her latest memoir, The Erotics of Cutting Grass (March). And Banana Capital (March), by Ben Brisbois, reveals the power dynamics of life in the banana industry—dynamics vividly experienced by workers caught in a struggle against corporations prioritizing profit over the health of the land and the community.

In Yogalands (April), Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner, drawing from his own experience and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and students in the US and Canada, to explore what yoga means for people in the modern West. In Psychedelic Capitalism (May), Jamie Brownlee and Kevin Walby ask if corporations and the medical establishment are suited to steward the mainstreaming of psychedelics, raising concerns with how the psychedelic renaissance is entrenching systems of inequality, limiting access and affordability, and increasing the reach of drug war surveillance and criminalization. And, in In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times (June), drawing on social research, pop culture and literature, as well as his experience as an activist, father and teacher, James Cairns explores the ecological crisis, Trump’s return to power amid the so-called crisis of democracy, his own struggle with addiction and other moments of truth facing us today.

Through collaboration with more than 65 Dene Elders and culture bearers across 34 communities in Alaska and Canada, In the Footsteps of the Traveller (April), by Chris M. Cannon, reveals the significance of the stars to Northern Dene life, language, and culture. In How to Survive a Bear Attack (March), the debut memoir from the bestselling author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event—a predatory bear attack. Former Bank of Canada Governor and bestselling author Mark Carney charts an ambitious and urgent path forward for Canada and the world as we collectively face a multitude of existential threats to our long-standing democratic traditions in The Hinge (May).

In terms that are strikingly familiar today, with Montreal After Dark (May), Matthieu Caron, elucidates how the desires of politicians would come to reorganize how consumption and leisure, labour and dissent, noise, sex, and art were lived in Montreal after the sun went down. In the Light of Dawn (February), by Marie Carter, shines a spotlight on the Dawn Settlement, a historic abolitionist community in rural Ontario led by Reverend Josiah Henson (the real “Uncle Tom” of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s landmark anti-slavery novel), and reveals how the town’s scope and impact eclipses previously narrow interpretations as a “failed” utopian colony at a terminus of the Underground Railroad. In The Certainty Illusion (January), Timothy Caulfield lifts the curtain on the forces contributing to our information chaos and unpacks why it’s so difficult—sometimes even for experts—to escape the fake.

Drawing on insights from behavioural science, Future-Generation Government (May), by Nicholas Chesterley offers a fresh perspective on short-termism and proposes clear, practical reforms that can help leaders respond to tomorrow’s challenges without compromising today’s democratic rights and freedoms. In Grandfather of the Treaties (February), Daniel Coleman introduces the founding wampum covenants that the earliest European settlers made with the Haudenosaunee nation and shows how returning to these covenants, and the ways they were made, could heal our society. And, like a John le Carré novel updated for the digital age, Ronald J. Deibert’s Chasing Shadows (February) provides a gripping account of how the Citizen Lab, the world’s foremost digital watchdogs, uncovered dozens of cyber espionage cases in countries around the world.

Rachel Deutsch’s graphic memoir The Mother (March) offers empathy and laughs to new and seasoned parents, encouraging readers to embrace the unexpected depths of feeling, wildness, weirdness and love that comes with the territory. Indigenous knowledge keeper Cecelia Dick DeRose tells her life story in One Arrow Left: The Memoir of Secwepemc Knowledge Keeper Cecilia DeRose (March). And A School for Tomorrow (May), by Mark Dickinson, is a story about the people who brought Canada World Youth to life; the larger global movements, events, and disruptions they witnessed; and the organization’s struggle to survive in the face of the rapid changes and dislocations of the early 21st century.

 Look Ma, No Hands: A Chronic Pain Memoir (May) is a humorous, profound debut memoir about chronic pain, accessibility, and young adulthood by acclaimed essayist and cartoonist Gabrielle Drolet. From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes One Day Everybody Will Have Been Against This (February), a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human. And astronaut Robert Thirsk, Mi’kmaw astronomer Hilding Neilson, digital humanities scholar Chris Pak, and outer space archaeologist Alice Gorman, among others, are joined by artists, literary scholars, art critics, scientists, and a poet to explore how humanity thinks about outer space in Mythologies of Outer Space (January), edited by Jim Ellis & Noreen Humble.

Is This an Illness or an Accident? (March), by Daniela Elza, is a profound exploration of belonging, identity, and the question of home. In his latest offering, Ten Telecaster Tales: Liner Notes for a Guitar and Its Music (March), Rik Emmett explores creativity and delves into the process—the roots, influences, philosophy, and spirituality involved in writing and recording. Against the People (February), by Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli, provides an in-depth look into the policies of the Ford government in Ontario across a wide range of public policy issues: from health care, municipal, education and judicial restructuring, to economics, arts, labour, environmental, housing and Indigenous lands.

Viola MacMillan had it all: success, money, respect, and influence, but as Tim Falconer shows in Windfall (February), in 1964, after three decades in the mining industry, one of the most fascinating women in Canadian business history became the central character in one of the country’s most famous stock scandals. Dark Chapters (March), curated by Arin Fay, edited by Nik Wilson, brings together 17 poets, fiction writers, curators, and critics to engage with the works of David Garneau, the Governor General’s Award-winning Métis artist. And The Microbiome Master Key: Unlock Whole-Body Health and Lifelong Vitality by Harnessing the Microbes Living In, On, and All Around You (May), by B. Brett Finlay and Jessica M. Finlay, posits that better health actually goes hand-in-hand with embracing the invisible microbes living on, in, and all around us.

A tale of unexpected coincidences, astonishing revelations, and more than a little luck, One in Six Million: The Baby by the Roadside and the Man Who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor's Lost Identity (April), by Amy Fish, is an amazing story of lost—and found—identity. Equal parts sharp-eyed observation and beautiful digression, the essays in Andrew Forbes’ Field Work: On Baseball and Making a Living (April) celebrate the ways in which baseball shapes the way we move through the world—and how our understanding of work has an unmistakable influence on what happens on the ball diamond. And Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, 1895-1925 (February), by George Robert Fosty & Darril W. Fosty, is an expanded and revised edition of the pioneering work of history about the Colored Hockey League, founded in Halifax, NS.

An incendiary anti-capitalist response to climate change rooted in hope for the future, The Book is a Knife (May), by L.E. Fox, is a tool or a weapon, depending on how you use it. Alphabet Soup: A Memoir in Letters (January), by A. Gregory Frankson, is a tasty yet experimental recipe of creative memoir in poetic prose cooked up for your consumption—one letter at a time. Beyond the Rink: Behind the Images of Residential School Hockey (April), by (author) Alexandra Giancarlo, Janice Forsyth and Braden Te Hiwi, reveals the complicated role of sports in residential school histories, commemorating one team’s stellar hockey record and athletic prowess while exposing important truths about “Canada’s Game” and how it shaped ideas about the nation.

Annapurna, the Indian Goddess of Nourishment, presides over a rich harvest of stories reimagined for the 21st-century palate in Annapurna's Bounty: Indian Food Legends Retold (June), by Veena Gokhale. It Must be Beautiful to be Finished (February), by Kate Gies, is the story of a girl born missing an ear, a medical system insistent on saving her from herself, and our culture’s desire to “fix” bodies. And One Foot on the Platform: A Rock 'N' Roll Journey (March) represents more than 50 years of thought and writing by Peter Goddard, one of Canada’s foremost cultural critics.

Joyce Wieland: Heart On (February), edited by Anne Grace and Georgiana Uhlyarik, is the first publication to offer a comprehensive view of Wieland’s multifaceted career as a painter, experimental filmmaker, and cultural activist. Food for the Journey: A Life in Travel (May), by Elizabeth J. Haynes, is a memoir reflecting on a life lived across the globe with help coming in the form of food—Southern grits with pancakes, Armenian eggplant stuffed with walnuts and pomegranate, grilled guinea pig in Peru, nourishment for the soul of the traveller. And Encampment (May)—which tells the story of activist priest Maggie Helwig’s lifelong activism as preparation for her fight to keep her churchyard open to people needing a home—confronts our society’s callousness in allowing so many to go unhoused, and it demands, by bringing their stories to the fore, that we begin to respond with compassion and grace.

In The Left in Power: Bob Rae’s NDP and the Working Class (February), Steven High revisits the years of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government—from their historic and unexpected 1990 victory, to their policy shifts that left working-class voters feeling betrayed, to their landslide defeat in 1995—to uncover what we can learn from one social democratic party’s mistakes about how to govern from the Left. Celebrated poet Susan Holbrook returns to tackle midlife with Steamy: A Menopause Symptomology (April), a raucous menopause memoir. And Sandy Hudson’s Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All (April) is a fiercely argued, deeply informed examination of why defunding the police is the only way to support a model of security and protection that increases public safety overall.

Trevor Marc Hughes tells the story of the battle to conquer BC’s tallest mountain in The Fire Spire (April). New York Times-bestselling author of Endure, Alex Hutchinson, returns with a fresh, provocative investigation into how exploration, uncertainty, and risk shape our behavior and help us find meaning in The Explorer’s Gene (March). And Makeshift Fields(April), by Dale Jacobs, is a book that provides a snapshot of grassroots baseball in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, played as it is in the rain and cold, on temporary diamonds that are sometimes less than ideal, baseball is still fragile in these places and an enormous group effort is needed to sustain it.

Catch a Fire: The Blaze and Bust of the Canadian Cannabis Industry (January), by  Ben Kaplan, is the definitive history of a massive societal change—and a great boom and bust. Try Hard (April), by Max Kerman, front man of the multiplatinum band The Arkells, is for anyone looking to make sense of their own creative pursuit or bring more creativity into their life, offering a framework for how to do it and where to begin. And Scaachi Koul follows up her bestselling debut with Sucker Punch (March), a brand new memoir in essays.

Featuring breathtaking photographs from around the globe, the anthology Flow: Women’s Counternarratives from Rivers, Rock, and Sky (June), edited by Denisa Krásná and Alena Rainsberry, delves into the personal journeys of women in outdoor adventure sports like whitewater kayaking, climbing/mountaineering, and highlining. In Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission (March), Carmen Lansdowne—the first Indigenous woman  Moderator of the United Church of Canada—searches out answers to the question: If Indigenous hearts are broken by Christianity, what is it in Christian theology that is life giving at all? And Beneath Dark Waters (April), by Eve Lazarus, is an epic chronicle that restores the Empress of Ireland—largely forgotten in the shadow of the Titanic disaster—as well as its survivors and victims to their rightful place in maritime history.

Lost Songs of Nature: Nature's Symphony in the Age of Noise Pollution (April), by Michel Leboeuf, translated by Jennifer Strachan, is an invitation to listen, to discover and rediscover the planet's ecosystems—its forests, marshes, swamps, bogs and shorelines. In The Third Solitude (May), Benjamin Libman gathers and weaves the threads of multiple pasts—of his community, of his family, and of himself—in an attempt to escape the inadequate narratives around Zionism that he grew up with, and to create nothing short of a new Jewish identity. And the shocking crimes of a trusted teacher wrought lasting damage on Inuit communities in Canada’s Arctic are told in Arctic Predator: The Crimes of Edward Horne Against Children in Canada's North (February), by Kathleen Lippa.

Jesse Lipscombe uses lessons from his life as an actor, speaker, writer, entrepreneur, pro-athlete and singer to craft a simple template that anyone can use to ensure they get out of the blocks and continue the momentum towards their dreams and goals with The Art of Doing (January). In Ugh As If!: Clueless (June), Veronica Litt argues that this seemingly fluffy teen romp is the quintessential thinking woman’s movie, one in which the audience is asked to seriously consider the beauty and power of naïveté. And in Corporate Control (May), activist, author, and journalist Nora Loreto identifies why Canadian politicians seem impotent in the face of corporate Canada.

Christine Lowther’s Blockade (February) is a celebration of resilience and a powerful account of successful environmental activism. In their day, Mary Chesley and her daughter Polly held prominence in activist causes, yet—primarily because they were women—they have largely disappeared from the historical record, and Disruptive Women (May) is not only their story but also the story of Sharon M. H. MacDonald's meticulous sleuthing to track down and bring to light these noteworthy forgotten figures. The Toronto and Los Angeles restaurant institution Terroni opens the vaults in La Cucina di Terroni: The Cookbook (April), by Cosimo Mammoliti, with Meredith Erickson, releasing over 100 of their classic and beloved southern Italian recipes to adoring clientele and newcomers alike.

Beneath My Scars (February) is an emotional and intimate account of Anna Maskerine's escape from an abusive partner and the path that led her to safety. An intimate and enlightening no-holds-barred memoir that uncovers the many unexpected details of dying, Cautiously Pessimistic (June), by Debbie McGee, is one woman’s personal account of her husband’s death and what it means to die in the public eye. Internationally renowned as an expert in Aboriginal law and an advocate for Indigenous rights, Bruce McIvor delivers concise, essential information for Canadians committed to truth and reconciliation in Indigenous Rights in One Minute (May). Wild swimmers will love Swimming Holes and Beaches of Southwestern British Columbia (May), by Alex McKeen and George Harwood Smith.

Eric McLuhan takes up his father Marshall's mantle by marrying communications and religion in a journey through the senses with The Sensus Communis, Synesthesia, and the Soul: An Odyssey (June). In Toward Prosperity (May), social scientist Don Mills and economist David Campbell (co-hosts of the Insights podcast) examine, with the aid of numerous explanatory graphics and visuals, the economic transformation that is currently under way in Atlantic Canada and provide a blueprint for sustaining that momentum in the long term. Brilliant, funny, and unflinchingly honest, No Fault (February), by Haley Mlotek, is a kaleidoscopic look at marriage, secrets, ambitions, and what it truly means to love and live with uncertainty, betrayal, and hope. And part memoir, part manifesto, Garth Mullins’ Crackdown (April) is a story of the drug war, told from the frontlines.

The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse (April), by Viet Nguyen, is a compelling and inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and the father’s mysterious disappearance along the way, shedding light on the psyche of a grieving son as he chases certainty and seeks resolution. Founding Folks: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Folk Festival (May) is the story of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, from the folks who were there. And Roza Nozari’s All the Parts We Exile (February) is a memoir of dualities: mother and daughter, home and away, shame and self-acceptance, conflict and peace, love and pain—and the stories that exist within and between them.

From Hockey Night in Canada’s Scott Oake comes For the Love of a Son (January), a raw and honest memoir about his son’s struggle with opioid use and how he turned a father’s worst nightmare into a second chance for others battling addiction. A single mother of two from small-town Canada looks for her missing father in Mexico and ends up taking on one of the most corrupt justice systems in the world in Malcolm is Missing (April), by Robert Osborne. Ans Agnes Pascal compiles firsthand narratives from Northern and Indigenous cancer survivors and caregivers that illuminate the unique challenges of healthcare accessibility in the North in Book of Hope: Healthcare and Survival in the North (April).

Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging (April), by Rachel Phan, is a warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach. Bee Quammie invites women and girls everywhere to embrace the power of possibility in her intimate and empowering collection The Book of Possibilities: Words of Wisdom on the Road to Becoming (April). And Elizabeth Quinlan traces the events before, during, and after one of Canada’s greatest strikes in Standing Up to Big Nickel (May), capturing an intensely dramatic juncture in Canadian labour history.

A free-wheeling philosophical essay, Hypochondria (March), by Will Rees, is expansive in its range of references, from the writings of Franz Kafka to original yet accessible readings of theorists like Lauren Berlant. Forty essays by a range of writers from around the world illuminate the role of messy urbanism in enabling creativity, enterprise, and grassroots initiatives to flourish within dense modern cities in Messy Cities: Why We Can’t Plan Everything, edited by Dylan Reid, Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo and John Lorinc. And in Storm the Ballot Box (March), Jo-Ann Roberts brings her unique experience from both broadcast newsrooms and political backrooms, laying out 20 concrete steps for how to kick-start a non-violent yet powerful voting revolution, empowering Canadians to mark their X—no matter who they vote for.

With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Robertson explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression in All the Little Monsters (January), and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people’s mental health journeys a little less lonely. Robertson also releases 52 Ways to Reconcile (May), an accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country. Weaving together research, interviews, and an unmacho, malodorous, anticolonial adventure tale, Dan Rubinstein’s Water Borne (June) shows us that we don’t need an epic journey to find solutions to so many modern challenges and that repair and renewal may be close at hand: just add water.

In the memoir Soft As Bones (May), with candid, incisive, and delicate prose, Chyana Marie Sage braids personal narrative with Cree stories and ceremonies, all as a means of healing one small piece of the mosaic that makes up the dark past of colonialism shared by Indigenous people throughout Turtle Island. That Gun In Your Hand: The Strange Saga of 'Hey Joe' and Popular Music's History of Violence (May), by Jason Schneider, tells the story of the long journey of "Hey Joe" from New York coffeehouses to the bars on L.A.'s Sunset Strip to the ears of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix who launched his career with his radical, electrified interpretation. And in No Judgment and Other Busking Stories (March), BC provincial court judge Philip Seagram recounts his eight-week busking venture, chronicling the challenges faced and insights gained while driving from city to city and meeting people through his street performances.

Celebrated author Sarah Selecky brings the spirit of her popular online writing school to the page in Story Is a State of Mind (January), a collection of short, personable essays delivering gentle coaching, practical advice, and heartfelt encouragement, alongside writing exercises and meditations that offer abundant opportunities to build awareness, confidence, and technique. Chinatown Vancouver (May), by Donna Seto, is a colourful illustrated history of the buildings in Vancouver’s Chinatown, celebrating the richness, diversity, and vibrancy of the Chinese community. And Fallosophy (March), by Ardra Shepherd, serves up wisdom like a seasoned bartender who’s seen it all, and doesn’t try to sugarcoat what it’s really like to live with a progressive, disabling illness in a world that would rather not build a ramp.

Searching for Serafim (January), by Ruby Smith Diaz, explores the life and legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes, a trailblazing Black lifeguard, who became a cultural icon in a racist society. Homegrown Radicals (February), by Youcef Souci, is an unflinching examination of the state violence that created and indelibly tied together the fates of homegrown radical and moderate Muslims in the post-9/11 era. Packed with proven strategies and including “raise their roof” playbooks for leaders, parents and educators, Raise Your Roof (March), by Karl Subban, is an inspiring and practical guide to creating meaningful change, realizing goals and finding fulfillment.

In Big Girls Don’t Cry (May), Susan Swan shares her story  about what it means to defy expectations as a woman, a mother and an artist. Named in honour of the homes her mother provided for her family, author Rosalie Tennison’s powerful memoir Naomi’s Homes (April) exposes the beauty and resilience in her humble upbringing and is a fascinating portrait of Prairie life, family turmoil, societal shifts, and the enticing pull of a bigger, faster-paced world. Linda Trinh plays with form and structure in Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (Non) Buddhist Memoir (April),  to show the interconnection of life events, trauma, and spiritual practice, to move from being a passive believer to an active seeker.

Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill (December), by Catherine Tsalikis, is a unique behind-the-curtains look at Canadian politics through the story of a trailblazing woman. Playing Hard (February) is a tribute to the power of play in all its forms, Peter Unwin reflecting on life and relationships through the countless acts of play and the many unexpected places it is found. And Karin Wells pulls readers into the lives—and this time, the legal trials—of a group of women integral to the advancement of women’s rights in Canada—in Women Who Woke Up the Law (March).

Openly Karl (April), by Karl Wells, is a frank and generous memoir by one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most well-known media figures. In Think Like a Human (April), David Weitzner offers a new way of thinking that improves how we work, create and live, empowering readers to outsmart AI—a tool that can never do what humans do. And in Unconditional (February), an inspirational, practical self-help book, bestselling author of A Good Wife, Samra Zafar, weaves together research and personal stories to share how she has broken free of beliefs that held her back, and how readers can too.