Looking to the fall
In the final instalment of the Citizen’s fall books preview, Carla Lucchetta reveals what’s coming in Canadian non-fiction. The list includes journalist Ian Brown writing on the anxiety of aging, and Olympian Clara Hughes, who reveals the depression that
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Ever wonder what was on the table for dinner in a prime minister’s house a couple centuries ago? Lindy Mechefske’s got the answer in Sir John’s Table: The Culinary Life and Times of Canada’s First Prime Minister. (Goose Lane, out now)
Humour writer Will Ferguson travelled to Rwanda with friend Jean-Claude, who escaped the genocide 20 years ago. Road Trip to Rwanda: A Journey Into the Heart of Africa, reflects on the devastation but also celebrates the country’s progress with some hilarity, as well as moving stories of survival. (Viking Canada, September)
Back to the Well: Rethinking the Future of Water is Marq de Villiers’ updated look at the politics of water — from its many uses to the impact of climate change. His initial book on the topic, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource, won a Governor General’s Award 15 years ago. (Goose Lane, September)
It began with a Facebook page documenting the high number and frequent demolitions of houses dating back to the 1920s. In Vanishing Vancouver: The Disappearance of Old Vancouver, Caroline Adderson (author of Ellen in Pieces, 2014) and other contributors lament the lost narratives of the city. With photos by Adderson and Tracey Ayton. (Anvil Press, November)
MEDIA
Peter Mansbridge, Adrienne Arsenault, Wendy Mesley are some of the 44 journalists who describe challenging and memorable assignments in Mark Bulgutch’s That’s Why I’m a Journalist: Top Canadian Reporters Tell their Most Unforgettable Stories. (Harbour Publishing, September)
In Our Turn, former CBC executive and current managing director for Twitter Canada, Kirstine Stewart, offers the benefit of her experience to show how women can effectively take their turn as corporate leaders. (Random House, October)
The decline of the newspaper business, as old models try to keep up with new consumer habits and the demands of technology, is the topic of Brian Gorman’s Crash to Paywall: Canadian Newspapers and the Great Depression, informed by interviews with leading Canadian journalists and editors. (McGill-Queen’s University Press, October)
In Mass Disruption: Thirty Years on the Front Lines of a Media Revolution, former Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse discusses how responsible and lively journalism can survive in the digital age. (Random House, October)
ENTERTAINMENT/ARTS/ CULTURE/MEMOIR
This is Happy is novelist Camilla Gibb’s affecting story of creating a new family and support system when she unexpectedly becomes a single mother. (Doubleday, out now)
’Membering is novelist Austin Clarke’s memoir chronicling his childhood in Barbados and his emigration to Canada in 1955, to attend university, and a career in journalism, including a memorable interview with Malcolm X, and a post teaching African-American Literature at Yale. (Dundurn, out now)
Winner of the Charles Taylor Prize for Boy in the Moon, Ian Brown applies his precise insights and self-deprecating humour to the universal anxiety about aging in Sixty: The Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning. (Random House, September)
Legendary editor and publisher Douglas Gibson tells tales about some of Canada’s best-known authors on the road promoting their books — including Alice Munro, W.O. Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Laurence and Alistair MacLeod — in Across Canada By Story: A Coast-to-Coast Literary Adventure. (ECW, September)
The Reason You Walk is broadcaster-musician Wab Kinew’s memoir of a year spent reconnecting with his dying father, learning about the effects of his time in residential school and his career as a respected leader and traditional chief. (Viking Canada, September)
Award-winning novelist Richard B. Wright (Clara Callan, Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard) recounts his journey to become a writer — its struggles and triumphs — in A Life With Words. (Simon & Schuster, September)
Helen Humphreys writes a memoir of place — her small waterside property on the Napanee River — that incorporates non-fiction, fiction, maps, archival materials and natural history in The River. (ECW, October)
Fans of Canadian literary icon Robertson Davies will welcome the first publication of his diaries. A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist, edited by Ramsay Derry and Jennifer Surridge, is a look inside his literary life, and also provides a cultural snapshot of Canada in the 1960s. (McClelland & Stewart, October)
The McGarrigle family is a North American musical institution whose story begins in Montreal and the Laurentian Mountains. In Mountain City Girls: The McGarrigle Family Album, sisters Anna and Jane McGarrigle write about their early lives (along with their late sister, Kate), their musical awakening and their lives in music. (Random House, October)
In All Out: A Father and Son Confront the Hard Truths That Made Them Better Men, broadcast journalist Kevin Newman and his son Alex, an award-winning art director, write about the period in their lives when grappling with personal truths drove them apart. This relatable father-son alienation story results in a closer than ever bond. (Random House, October)
SPORTS
Olympian Clara Hughes writes about her tumultuous struggle with depression — from her teen life as a drug and alcohol user to her ambition to win Olympic gold, her retirement from sports and a new life as a humanitarian and advocate. Open Heart, Open Mind reveals the truth behind her public success. (Simon & Schuster, September)
Curling is at least as definitively Canadian as hockey, and there’s one name that’s synonymous with the sport: Colleen Jones. Throwing Rocks at Houses: My Life In and Out of Curling (written with Perry Lefko) details Jones’s early success, her dedication to the sport and the life she built around it. (Viking Canada, October)
No one has more stories about hockey towns in Canada than Ron MacLean. With co-author Kirstie McLellan Day, he brings those stories to life in Hockey Towns. (Harper-Collins Canada, October)
One-of-a-kind player and entertainer on the ice, Tie Domi writes about his start and rise in hockey and his life outside the game, in Shift Work (with the help of Jim Lang). (Simon & Schuster, November)
INTERNATIONAL FICTION AND NON-FICTION
Fiction by notable international authors include: Jonathan Franzen’s Purity (Doubleday, September); Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (Knopf, September); Bream Gives me Hiccups and Other Stories, by Jesse Eisenberg; and The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King (Simon & Schuster, November)
In international non-fiction, look for: Chrissie Hynde, Reckless: My Life as a Pretender (Random House, September); Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me? (Crown, October); Drew Barrymore, Wildflower (Penguin Canada, October); Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (Penguin Canada, October); and Patti Smith, M Train (Random House, October).