A Victory Garden for Trying Times

By Debi Goodwin

“A compelling and intimate reflection on love and grief and ordinary things that comfort and sustain us. ” — Alison Smith, award-winning journalist

Ever since her childhood on a Niagara farm, Debi has dug in the dirt to find resilience. But when her husband, Peter, was ... Read more

Bloodroot

By Betsy Warland

In Bloodroot, Betsy Warland traces how a mother and daughter's shared gender can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself. In her mother's final year,Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected ... Read more

Finding Heartstone

By Cathy Sosnowsky

When Cathy Sosnowsky, her husband Woldy, and their little boy Alex first joined the Hemming Bay Community, a cooperative formed to preserve a large piece of wilderness on a remote coastal island of British Columbia, she found the idea of owning part of an island appealing. But ... Read more

Min Hayati

By Rayya Liebich

This collection travels through a daughter's childhood memories in Montreal, her mother's homeland of Lebanon, and the dark realities of grief across borders. Min Hayati uncovers the well of sorrow and the depth of love discovered only through loss. Poetry pays homage to the ... Read more

Not of Reason

By Rita Moir

Rita Moir's mother and sister underwent heart surgery in the same week; a year later her sister was dead and her elderly mother lived many more years. Not of Reason: A Recipe for Outrunning Sadness is a family memoir centred on the deaths of the author's sister and mother and ... Read more

The Book of Grief and Hamburgers

By Stuart Ross

A poignant meditation on mortality from a beloved Canadian poet

A writer friend once pointed out that whenever Stuart Ross got close to something heavy and “real” in a poem, a hamburger would inevitably appear for comic relief. In this hybrid essay/memoir/poetic meditation, ... Read more

The Light Streamed Beneath It

By Shawn Hitchins

A Publishers Weekly Notable Book
49^th Shelf Recommended Read

A modern gay memoir exploring love, death, pain, and community that will resonate long after the last page.

“This is an embodied story of love, loss, and recovery — raw, candid, and filled with a sense of awe ... Read more

Through, Not Around

Edited by Allison McDonald Ace, Caroline Starr, and Ariel Ng Bourbonnais

Everything doesn't (always) happen for a reason.

Infertility and pregnancy loss can be devastating, yet both are often private sorrows for the one in six people who cope with the experience. This collection offers personal stories about what it's like to go through the emotional ... Read more