Nonfiction Books

Shortlisted for the 2025 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024

From the bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre Esprit-Radisson

This is the story of the collision of two worlds. In the early 1600s, the Jesuits—the Catholic Church’s most ferocious warriors for Christ—tried to create their own nation on the Great Lakes and turn the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy into a model Jesuit state. At the centre of their campaign was missionary Jean de Brébeuf, a mystic who sought to die a martyr’s death. He lived among a proud people who valued kindness and rights for all, especially women. In the end, Huronia was destroyed. Brébeuf became a Catholic saint, and the Jesuit’s “martyrdom” became one of the founding myths of Canada.

In this first secular biography of Brébeuf, historian Mark Bourrie, bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, recounts the missionary’s fascinating life and tells the tragic story of the remarkable people he lived among. Drawing on the letters and documents of the time—including Brébeuf’s accounts of his bizarre spirituality—and modern studies of the Jesuits, Bourrie shows how Huron leaders tried to navigate this new world and the people struggled to cope as their nation came apart. Riveting, clearly told, and deeply researched, Crosses in the Sky is an essential addition to—and expansion of—Canadian history.

Praise for Crosses in the Sky

“Crosses in the Sky is dramatic and enthralling . . . Bourrie has done more than any other Canadian historian writing for a general audience to disinter the root causes of degenerating settler-Indigenous relations and disrupted Indigenous societies in the 400 years since Brébeuf’s death. And he has done it with attention-grabbing panache.”
—Charlotte Gray, Globe and Mail

“Bourrie’s colloquial writing style and storytelling skill make Crosses in the Sky . . . an interesting and accessible retelling of an important chapter in Canadian history.”
—Kate Jaimet, Canada’s History

“Bourrie’s latest, like its Charles Taylor Prize-winning predecessor, Bush Runner, focuses on the clash between European and Indigenous cultures in 17th-century colonial North America. Here, it’s the events leading to the violent ruin of Huronia, traditional home of the Huron-Wendat people, as they were experienced by the French Jesuit missionary and mystic Jean de Brébeuf.”
—Emily Donaldson, Globe and Mail

“[Mark Bourrie] writes meticulous history in bracing style.”
—National Post

“In 2019, Mark Bourrie published Bush Runner, a biography of the adventurer Pierre-Esprit Radisson that was ‘compelling, authoritative, not a little disturbing—and a significant contribution to the history of 17th-century North America,’ as I wrote at the time. The same can be said about Bourrie’s latest, Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia . . . In reinterpreting the Jesuit’s martyrdom against the backdrop of Huronia’s destruction, Bourrie presents a revisionist history.”
—Ken McGoogan, Toronto Star

“Canada’s greatest historian has done it for a third time, stripping the carcass of Canadian history and leaving readers horrified, riveted, in shock . . . A triumph.”
—Heather Mallick, Toronto Star

“Gripping stuff, grippingly told.”
—Literary Review of Canada

“Bourrie is fast becoming the dean of Canadian literary non-fiction . . . Bourrie also manages to be panoramic in his historical descriptions of Huronia while concurrently focusing on biographical details of Brébeuf’s missionary work. This treatment of the problematic legacy of both the cleric and his religious order is top drawer.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Crosses in the Sky paints a detailed and nuanced portrait of that destruction, enriching our modern understanding of a time and people who have been stereotyped or simply ignored for too long.”
—Ottawa Review of Books

“In Crosses, the first secular biography of Brébeuf, Bourrie takes the accepted Sunday school version and ‘humanizes’ it. Here, the Jesuits aren’t quite so noble, the Hurons are not so pure, and the Iroquois are no longer one-dimensional villains . . . This is a ripping yarn in the classic sense, with plenty of action—epic canoe voyages, battles, and of course, martyrdom—and it marks Bourrie’s second foray into the early history of the French in Canada.”
—Ian Coutts, Zoomer

“Crosses in the Sky provides a detailed account of the giant-framed missionary who walked among the Hurons . . . This patron saint of Canada has long been given plenty of attention by Jesuits, whether for his missionary spirit or for his extreme suffering. It is good to see his legend now given serious historical treatment.”
—Michael Taube, Washington Examiner

“[A] fascinating and engrossing tale . . . a meticulously researched book . . . It told me, on nearly every page, something I did not know about the history of this province, of the lives lived here in the 17th century.”
—Edith Cody-Rice, Millstone News

“Bourrie looks at how such early encounters between French colonists and missionaries and Indigenous Peoples continue to resonate in those same relationships.”
—Quill & Quire

Shortlisted for the 2025 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024

From the bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre Esprit-Radisson

This is the story of the collision of two worlds. In the early 1600s, the Jesuits—the Catholic Church’s most ferocious warriors for Christ—tried to create their own nation on the Great Lakes and turn the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy into a model Jesuit state. At the centre of their campaign was missionary Jean de Brébeuf, a mystic who sought to die a martyr’s death. He lived among a proud people who valued kindness and rights for all, especially women. In the end, Huronia was destroyed. Brébeuf became a Catholic saint, and the Jesuit’s “martyrdom” became one of the founding myths of Canada.

In this first secular biography of Brébeuf, historian Mark Bourrie, bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, recounts the missionary’s fascinating life and tells the tragic story of the remarkable people he lived among. Drawing on the letters and documents of the time—including Brébeuf’s accounts of his bizarre spirituality—and modern studies of the Jesuits, Bourrie shows how Huron leaders tried to navigate this new world and the people struggled to cope as their nation came apart. Riveting, clearly told, and deeply researched, Crosses in the Sky is an essential addition to—and expansion of—Canadian history.

Praise for Crosses in the Sky

“Crosses in the Sky is dramatic and enthralling . . . Bourrie has done more than any other Canadian historian writing for a general audience to disinter the root causes of degenerating settler-Indigenous relations and disrupted Indigenous societies in the 400 years since Brébeuf’s death. And he has done it with attention-grabbing panache.”
—Charlotte Gray, Globe and Mail

“Bourrie’s colloquial writing style and storytelling skill make Crosses in the Sky . . . an interesting and accessible retelling of an important chapter in Canadian history.”
—Kate Jaimet, Canada’s History

“Bourrie’s latest, like its Charles Taylor Prize-winning predecessor, Bush Runner, focuses on the clash between European and Indigenous cultures in 17th-century colonial North America. Here, it’s the events leading to the violent ruin of Huronia, traditional home of the Huron-Wendat people, as they were experienced by the French Jesuit missionary and mystic Jean de Brébeuf.”
—Emily Donaldson, Globe and Mail

“[Mark Bourrie] writes meticulous history in bracing style.”
—National Post

“In 2019, Mark Bourrie published Bush Runner, a biography of the adventurer Pierre-Esprit Radisson that was ‘compelling, authoritative, not a little disturbing—and a significant contribution to the history of 17th-century North America,’ as I wrote at the time. The same can be said about Bourrie’s latest, Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia . . . In reinterpreting the Jesuit’s martyrdom against the backdrop of Huronia’s destruction, Bourrie presents a revisionist history.”
—Ken McGoogan, Toronto Star

“Canada’s greatest historian has done it for a third time, stripping the carcass of Canadian history and leaving readers horrified, riveted, in shock . . . A triumph.”
—Heather Mallick, Toronto Star

“Gripping stuff, grippingly told.”
—Literary Review of Canada

“Bourrie is fast becoming the dean of Canadian literary non-fiction . . . Bourrie also manages to be panoramic in his historical descriptions of Huronia while concurrently focusing on biographical details of Brébeuf’s missionary work. This treatment of the problematic legacy of both the cleric and his religious order is top drawer.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Crosses in the Sky paints a detailed and nuanced portrait of that destruction, enriching our modern understanding of a time and people who have been stereotyped or simply ignored for too long.”
—Ottawa Review of Books

“In Crosses, the first secular biography of Brébeuf, Bourrie takes the accepted Sunday school version and ‘humanizes’ it. Here, the Jesuits aren’t quite so noble, the Hurons are not so pure, and the Iroquois are no longer one-dimensional villains . . . This is a ripping yarn in the classic sense, with plenty of action—epic canoe voyages, battles, and of course, martyrdom—and it marks Bourrie’s second foray into the early history of the French in Canada.”
—Ian Coutts, Zoomer

“Crosses in the Sky provides a detailed account of the giant-framed missionary who walked among the Hurons . . . This patron saint of Canada has long been given plenty of attention by Jesuits, whether for his missionary spirit or for his extreme suffering. It is good to see his legend now given serious historical treatment.”
—Michael Taube, Washington Examiner

“[A] fascinating and engrossing tale . . . a meticulously researched book . . . It told me, on nearly every page, something I did not know about the history of this province, of the lives lived here in the 17th century.”
—Edith Cody-Rice, Millstone News

“Bourrie looks at how such early encounters between French colonists and missionaries and Indigenous Peoples continue to resonate in those same relationships.”
—Quill & Quire

As Canada heads towards a pivotal election, bestselling author Mark Bourrie charts the rise of Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and considers the history and potential cost of the politics of division.

Six weeks into the Covid pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks identified two types of Western politicians: rippers and weavers. Rippers, whether on the right or the left, see politics as war. They don’t care about the destruction that’s caused as they fight for power. Weavers are their opposite: people who try to fix things, who want to bring people together and try to build consensus. At the beginning of the pandemic, weavers seemed to be winning. Five years later, as Canada heads towards a pivotal election, that’s no longer the case. Across the border, a ripper is remaking the American government. And for the first time in its history, Canada has its own ripper poised to assume power.

Pierre Poilievre has enjoyed most of the advantages of the mainstream Canadian middle class. Yet he’s long been the angriest man on the political stage. In Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, bestselling author Mark Bourrie, winner of the Charles Taylor Prize, charts Poilievre’s rise through the political system, from teenage volunteer to outspoken Opposition leader known for cutting soundbites and theatrics. Bourrie shows how we arrived at this divisive moment in our history, one in which rippers are poised to capitalize on conflict. He shows how Poilievre and this new style of politics have gained so much ground—and warns of what it will cost us if they succeed.

Praise for Ripper

“Mark Bourrie has produced a searing but convincing critique of the Conservative Leader’s shortcomings that will give pause to anyone outside the diehard Poilievre base.”
—Charlotte Gray, Globe and Mail

“In his pull-no-punches book, Mr. Bourrie portrays Mr. Poilievre as one serious ripper: mean, sneering, insulting, truth-evading, skilled at whipping up mass anger.”
—Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail

“If Pierre Poilievre is going to win, shake [the comparison to Trump] he must. This book, with all its pungent reminders of his record, will make it harder to do.”
—Lawrence Martin, Globe and Mail

“Every Liberal in their war room, every journalist covering the campaign and—should he win—every stakeholder doing business with an eventual Poilievre government owes it to themselves to read Bourrie’s Ripper so that they can have a clear picture of who Poilievre is, how he came to be, and how that past is almost certain to shape his decision-making going forward.”
—Jamie Carroll, The Hill Times

“Former political journalist Mark Bourrie’s new book, Ripper, is a bracing reminder of some of the reputations Poilievre has ruined, the malicious fictions he has promoted, [and] the tiresome slogans he stitches into every utterance.”
—Susan Riley, The Hill Times

“This book is a phenomenal effort, carefully researched and nicely written. Ripper should be widely read by everyone who cares about the value of casting an informed vote on April 28.”
—Michael Harris, The Tyee

“Despite [the rush to print], the work never seems rushed. It is lengthy and historically detailed while relying on media, secondary sources and parliamentary debates.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Ripper is a must-read for all who are concerned about the path Canada is on.”
—Timothy Niedermann, Ottawa Review of Books

“By positioning Poilievre in the context of the global social and economic cleavages that permitted him him to attain power, Bourrie transcends a simple biography and creates a snapshot of our riven historical moment, one that should prove illuminating for anyone looking around in abject confusion and wondering how we got to this particular point.”
—Steven Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag

“The page-turner is crack for political junkies.”
—Cult MTL

“Mark Bourrie’s new book is a detailed and surgical examination of the man who could be Canada’s next prime minister.”
—NB Media Co-op

“Ripper has no business being so detailed and wide-ranging, so authoritative and convincing, so brilliantly analytical and colourfully entertaining.”
—Ken McGoogan

“[Mark Bourrie’s] latest book Ripper isn’t just a biography—it’s a field guide to fascism wrapped in a Canadian flag soaked in Axe body spray.”
—Dean Blundell

“If it weren’t for Mark and a small number of others willing to make sacrifices, popular Canadian history would have vanished entirely from book stores.”
—Dan Gardner

“[Ripper] is far from a hatchet job. Bourrie appreciates Poilievre’s cunning and instinct for the jugular—he just doesn’t like him too much.”
—Ethan Phillips, Oversight

“In a scathing but comprehensive recent biography, Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, the historian Mark Bourrie points out that his [Poilievre’s] thinking on most subjects has not advanced much since adolescence.”
—Michael Ledger-Lomas, UnHerd

“Bourrie’s style is accessible, the prose is clear and sparse . . . Bourrie’s dry wit brings a chuckle now and then.”
—Margaret Shkimba

“[Bourrie] helpfully puts the past twenty years of federal politics into a single reference book. Even his endnotes are engaging.”
—Nora Loreto

Praise for Mark Bourrie

“Bourrie’s book positively sings . . . [Big Men Fear Me] is thoroughly researched and the prose is clean and engaging . . . [McCullagh] made The Globe the dominant voice in English Canadian journalism. Bourrie’s biography does him full justice.”
—Globe and Mail

“Canada’s greatest historian has done it for a third time, stripping the carcass of Canadian history and leaving readers horrified, riveted, in shock . . . A triumph.”
—Heather Mallick, Toronto Star

“Bourrie is fast becoming the dean of Canadian literary non-fiction . . . Bourrie also manages to be panoramic in his historical descriptions of Huronia while concurrently focusing on biographical details of Brébeuf’s missionary work. This treatment of the problematic legacy of both the cleric and his religious order is top drawer.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“Crosses in the Sky is dramatic and enthralling . . . Bourrie has done more than any other Canadian historian writing for a general audience to disinter the root causes of degenerating settler-Indigenous relations and disrupted Indigenous societies in the 400 years since Brébeuf’s death. And he has done it with attention-grabbing panache.”
—Charlotte Gray, Globe and Mail

“A remarkable biography of an even more remarkable 17th-century individual . . . Beautifully written and endlessly thought-provoking.”
—Maclean’s

“Gripping stuff, grippingly told.”
—Literary Review of Canada

Featuring critical essays, erotica, and stitched-up memories, Gender/Fucking explores sexual arousal as a site of knowledge about the self and world.

Taking the idea of intellectual masturbation a bit too literally, Florence Ashley draws on their experiences as a transfeminine activist, academic, and slut to interrogate what it means to live in a gendered body in our difficult yet occasionally loving world.

With personal essays about the fetishization of trans bodies, recovering from surgery, and losing hope, Florence’s collection celebrates the queer messiness of sex and identity.

Through the embrace of its raw and lyrical prose,Gender/Fucking invites the reader into the intimate world of academic smut to ask what it means to be horny on main in a sex-negative world—and what power it might hold.

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Florence Ashley (they/them/that bitch) is a transfeminine professor of law and bioethics at the University of Alberta. A prolific transdisciplinary researcher, Florence has mesmerized many academic fields with their incisive style and irreverent footnotes. Their first book was more boringly titled Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis. When not engaged in research or teaching, Florence enjoys speaking French and oversharing on social media.

In this newest colouring book by the author of the internationally bestselling Fantastic Cities (more than 400,000 copies in print), artist Steve McDonald uses his unique photo-based approach to create beautiful and intimately detailed line drawings of amazing collections of objects.

Finding inspiration in the unusual (museum collections, antiques, and quirky toys) and the everyday (leaves, butterflies, vintage cameras, store product displays), McDonald creates playful and immersive illustrations that are as lovely as they are fun to color.

The quality of the large, crisp white pages are conducive to a range of applications, while a middle margin keeps all the artwork fully colourable. A dozen meditative mandalas created from the drawings round out this gorgeous adult coloring book.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF ONE OF THE 2023 LEACOCK MEDAL FOR HUMOUR • A CBC BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOK OF 2022 • SHORTLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025 

Consummate storyteller and bestselling novelist Wayne Johnston reaches back into his past to bring us a sad, tender, and at times extremely funny memoir of his Newfoundland boyhood.

For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a wreck of a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly and skinny, unable to keep food down, plagued with insomnia and a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose, though they had already removed his ton­sils, adenoids, and appendix. To the neighbours, he was known as “Jennie’s boy,” a backhanded salute to his tiny, ferocious mother, who felt judged for Wayne’s condition at the same time as she worried he might never grow up.

Unable to go to school, Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grand­mother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne’s childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, the odds against them both.

Jennie’s Boy is Wayne’s tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him. His boyhood was full of pain, yes, but also tenderness and Newfoundland wit. By that wit, and through love—often expressed in the most unlikely ways—Wayne survived.

*#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
*Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nonfiction
*Winner, Indigenous Voices Awards
*Winner, High Plains Book Awards
*Finalist, CBC Canada Reads
*A Globe and Mail Book of the Year
*An Indigo Book of the Year
*A CBC Best Canadian Nonfiction Book of the Year

In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistle, once a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholar, chronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is.

If I can just make it to the next minute...then I might have a chance to live; I might have a chance to be something more than just a struggling crackhead.

From the Ashes is a remarkable memoir about hope and resilience, and a revelatory look into the life of a Métis-Cree man who refused to give up.

Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, whose tough-love attitudes quickly resulted in conflicts. Throughout it all, the ghost of Jesse’s drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling with all that had happened, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. Finally, he realized he would die unless he turned his life around.

In this heartwarming and heart-wrenching memoir, Jesse Thistle writes honestly and fearlessly about his painful past, the abuse he endured, and how he uncovered the truth about his parents. Through sheer perseverance and education—and newfound love—he found his way back into the circle of his Indigenous culture and family.

An eloquent exploration of the impact of prejudice and racism, From the Ashes is, in the end, about how love and support can help us find happiness despite the odds.

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