Enter for a Chance to Win Free Books!
49th Shelf members can enter to win a copy of any of the books listed here (please sign up here if you haven’t already). At the end of the giveaway period, we do a random draw, and the publishers ship copies directly to the winners. Good luck!
Finding Otipemisiwak
The People Who Own Themselves
A Sixties Scoop survivor's journey back to her Nation and the truth of who she is
Otipemisiwak is a Plains Cree word describing the Metis, meaning "the people who own themselves."
Andrea Currie was born into a Metis family with a strong lineage of warriors, land protectors, writers, artists, and musicians - all of which was lost to her when she was adopted as an infant into a white family with no connection to her people. It was 1960, and the Sixties Scoop was in full swing. Together with her younger adopted brother, also Metis, she struggled through her childhood, never feeling like she belonged in that world. When their adoptions fell apart during their teen years, the two siblings found themselves on different paths, yet they stayed connected. Currie takes us through her journey, from the harrowing time of bone-deep disconnection, to the years of searching and self-discovery, into the joys and sorrows of reuniting with her birth family.
Finding Otipemisiwak weaves lyrical prose, poetry, and essays into an incisive commentary on the vulnerability of Indigenous children in a white supremacist child welfare system, the devastation of cultural loss, and the rocky road some people must walk to get to the truth of who they are. Her triumph over the state's attempts to erase her as an Indigenous person is tempered by the often painful complexities of re-entering her cultural community while bearing the mark of the white world in which she was raised. In Finding Otipemisiwak, one woman's stories about surviving, then thriving as a fully present member of her Nation and the human family are a portal. Readers who walk through will better understand the impact of the Sixties Scoop in the country now called Canada.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 76
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Days and Days
A Story about Sunderland’s Leatherface and the Ties That Bind
A revelatory adventure that leads two friends into the belly of the beast with the ’90s most influential U.K. punk band that changed so many lives
It might seem odd — a punk band introducing poetry into someone’s life. But what if this lyrical influence was the reason you became a writer in the first place?
Days and Days weaves together two stories. One is a tale of friendship and self-discovery that occurs during a backpacking adventure through England, Scotland, and Ireland. The other celebrates the highly influential yet underestimated UK band Leatherface, a group that The Guardian called “the greatest British punk band of the modern era.”
Without so much as a single hostel booked, Chris MacDonald and his friend Jason cross the Atlantic. They sleep in train stations, endure a haunting on top of a volcano in Edinburgh, are driven out of Belfast by the IRA, and witness the mother of all storms. They also find themselves in the rehearsal space of their teenage punk idols, a building steeped in cultural significance for the Sunderland music scene.
Days and Days is about the silver thread that connects us even after drifting apart. It’s a story about forgiveness and reflection, how beauty can be found within callous cladding. Leatherface band members, colleagues, and friends generously share personal insights that guide the reader into the melancholy, darkness, and humor that surround Sunderland’s best-kept secret.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 60
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Sunrise over Half-Built Houses
Love, Longing and Addiction in Suburbia
Enter into the life and mind of a shy teenager coming of age in the early 2000s in a pretty, suburban neighbourhood where nothing is quite as it seems—including her. At a glance, she’s a student with a boyfriend and a job at the coffee shop. Yet she’s skipping class, grappling with intense feelings for girls and growing dangerously dependent on illicit pills with cute names.
Wanting nothing more than to be who she is on the inside, Erin Steele's spiral into addiction and parallel quest for meaning takes readers into big houses with spare room for secrets; past quiet cul-de-sacs where kids party in wooded outskirts zoned for development; where West Coast rains can pummel for days.
Written with searing honesty that stares at you until you turn away, then stares at you some more, Sunrise over Half-Built Houses digs down past pleasantries and manicured lawns, through the sucking hole of addiction, then further still to reveal a place where we can all see ourselves and each other more clearly.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 66
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I Don't Do Disability and Other Lies I've Told Myself
With the arrival of her daughter with Down syndrome, Adelle Purdham began unpacking a lifetime of her own ableism.
In a society where people with disabilities remain largely invisible, what does it mean to parent such a child? And simultaneously, what does it mean as a mother, a writer, and a woman to truly be seen?
The candid essays in I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself glimmer with humanity and passion, and explore ideas of motherhood, disability, and worth. Purdham delves into grief, rage, injustice, privilege, female friendship, marriage, and desire in a voice that is loudly empathetic, unapologetic, and true. While examining the dichotomies inside of herself, she leads us to consider the flaws in society, showing us the beauty, resilience, chaos, and wild within us all.
- Giveaway period ends
- Dec 01, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 60
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