Nonfiction Books

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Award-winning Indigenous author Harold R. Johnson discusses the promise and potential of storytelling.

Approached by an ecumenical society representing many faiths, from Judeo-Christians to fellow members of First Nations, Harold R. Johnson agreed to host a group who wanted to hear him speak about the power of storytelling. This book is the outcome of that gathering. In The Power of Story, Johnson explains the role of storytelling in every aspect of human life, from personal identity to history and the social contracts that structure our societies, and illustrates how we can direct its potential to re-create and reform not only our own lives, but the life we share. Companionable, clear-eyed, and, above all, optimistic, Johnson’s message is both a dire warning and a direct invitation to each of us to imagine and create, together, the world we want to live in.

Praise for The Power of Story

“Johnson’s idea is a powerful one: that a person is not only the ‘author’ but also the ‘editor’ of his or her life, that reframing a narrative is enough to change it.”
—Literary Review of Canada

“By examining Indigenous stories, ways of living, dying, and—yes—laughing, Johnson … offer[s] powerful alternatives to hierarchical structures of society that insist on consuming the Earth’s natural resources at an unsustainable pace.”
—Steven Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag

“Recently in conversation with a friend I remarked that the whole world is a story. Harold Johnson fills that phrase with profound meaning in The Power of Story as he takes ancient figures and modernizes their storied wit and role in creating the worlds we perceive and the boundaries we need. Harold blessed us one last time with a profound conversation on the role of story in every aspect of our lives.”
—Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians

“The Power of Story begins where all great stories begin: around a fire. Harold Johnson gives us a seat at the fire to listen and take into ourselves some spellbinding, bracing, and provocative stories told with a view to healing and transforming. As Harold writes ‘It’s starting to get darker now, and a bright fire will help.’ The Power of Story is that bright fire. And it will help. His final book is a balm for our times.”
—Shelagh Rogers

Praise for Harold R. Johnson

“An extraordinary memoir by a Cree writer who understands the damage alcohol does when used to kill the pain caused by white Canadians stealing and torturing Indigenous children throughout this nation’s history. I know many white alcoholics but it’s always ‘the drunk Indian.’ Why? Firewater is a great book; it burns in the hand.”
—Toronto Star

“A natural storyteller, Johnson seeks imagined pasts and futurity with equal parts longing and care. This work allows readers and writers the possibility of new and ancient modes of storytelling.”
—Tracey Lindberg, author of Birdie

“A luminous, genre-bending memoir. Heartache and hardship are no match for the disarming whimsy, the layered storytelling shot through with love. The power of land, the pull of family, the turbulence of poverty are threads woven together with explorations of reality, tackling truth with a trickster slant.”
—Eden Robinson, author of Son of a Trickster

“Written in the style of a kitchen-table conversation, Johnson’s personal anecdotes and perceptive analysis are a call to return to a traditional culture of sobriety … [a] well-argued case.”
—Publishers Weekly

A defense of the dying art of losing an afternoon—and gaining new appreciation—amidst the bins and shelves of bricks-and-mortar shops.

Written during the pandemic, when the world was marooned at home and consigned to scrolling screens, On Browsing’s essays chronicle what we’ve lost through online shopping, streaming, and the relentless digitization of culture. The latest in the Field Notes series, On Browsing is an elegy for physical media, a polemic in defense of perusing the world in person, and a love letter to the dying practice of scanning bookshelves, combing CD bins, and losing yourself in the stacks.

A Globe and Mail Book of the Year

A CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2021

From plantation rebellion to prison labour's super-exploitation, Walcott examines the relationship between policing and property.

That a man can lose his life for passing a fake $20 bill when we know our economies are flush with fake money says something damning about the way we’ve organized society. Yet the intensity of the calls to abolish the police after George Floyd’s death surprised almost everyone. What, exactly, does abolition mean? How did we get here? And what does property have to do with it? In On Property, Rinaldo Walcott explores the long shadow cast by slavery’s afterlife and shows how present-day abolitionists continue the work of their forebears in service of an imaginative, creative philosophy that ensures freedom and equality for all. Thoughtful, wide-ranging, compassionate, and profound, On Property makes an urgent plea for a new ethics of care.

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IAN WILLIAMS was born in Trinidad and raised in Canada. In 2019 he won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his first novel, Reproduction, which was published in Canada, the US, and the UK, and translated into Italian. His poetry collection, Personals, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. His short story collection, Not Anyone's Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for the best first collection of short fiction in Canada. His first book, You Know Who You Are, was a finalist for the ReLit Poetry Prize. Williams holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto and has recently returned to that university as a tenured professor, after several years as a professor of poetry in the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia. His third poetry collection, Word Problems, was published by Coach House Press in the fall of 2020.

A Winnipeg Free Press Top Read of 2021

What if David Bowie really was holding the fabric of the universe together?

The death of David Bowie in January 2016 was a bad start to a year that got a lot worse: war in Syria, the Zika virus, terrorist attacks in Brussels and Nice, the Brexit vote—and the election of Donald Trump. The end-of-year wraps declared 2016 “the worst … ever.” Four even more troubling years later, the question of our apocalypse had devolved into a tired social media cliché. But when COVID-19 hit, journalist and professor of public policy Andrew Potter started to wonder: what if The End isn’t one big event, but a long series of smaller ones?

In On Decline, Potter surveys the current problems and likely future of Western civilization (spoiler: it’s not great). Economic stagnation and the slowing of scientific innovation. Falling birth rates and environmental degradation. The devastating effects of cultural nostalgia and the havoc wreaked by social media on public discourse. Most acutely, the various failures of Western governments in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the legacy of the Enlightenment and its virtues—reason, logic, science, evidence—has run its course, how and why has it happened? And where do we go from here?

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
*Indigo Top 10 of the Year*

Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin offers an intimate and revealing look at her life, from her childhood in the Alberta foothills to her career on the Supreme Court, where she helped to shape the social and moral fabric of the country—for readers of Educated and Becoming.

From a very early age, all I knew was that I wanted to do something that was not ordinary. Because, for a girl growing up in a remote prairie town in the 1940s, the ordinary was very ordinary indeed.

Beverley McLachlin has led an extraordinary life. One of the few women studying law in the 1960s, she graduated at the top of her class and began her long career—first as a dedicated lawyer and professor, later as a judge serving on the highest court in the country, and finally as the first woman to be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The journey wasn’t easy. The options for women growing up in rural Pincher Creek, Alberta, were limited. But McLachlin was willful and spirited, and she wanted an education. She also had an innate sense of justice, which was reinforced by the lessons her parents taught her about equality and the value of hard work. It was this faith in justice that pulled her through dark times, especially when faced with sexism and exclusion at work and personal tragedy at home.

Over time, McLachlin became a champion for Canadians from all walks of life. As a judge on the Supreme Court, she presided over charged debates on topics such as same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With each judgment, she laid down a legal legacy proving that fairness and justice are not luxuries of the powerful but rather rights owed to each and every one of us.

With warmth, honesty, and deep wisdom, McLachlin recounts her remarkable life on and off the bench. Truth Be Told is an inspiring reminder that integrity and the rule of law are our best hopes for a progressive and bright future.

About the Author:

Beverley McLachlin was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the first woman to hold that position and the longest-serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. In 2018, McLachlin became a Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest honour within the Order. Her memoir, Truth Be Told, was an instant national bestseller, as was her debut novel, Full Disclosure. Visit her at BeverleyMcLachlin.com.