26 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2024
Check out these Canadian biographies, essay collections, memoirs and other works coming out in spring 2024.
Let It Go by Chelene Knight
Based on lessons from several Black community leaders and Chelene Knight's personal experiences, Let It Go offers important tools for cultivating and finding joy — including how to let go, rethink communications with loved ones and establish boundaries with care. Knight uses reflection and conversation to guide readers to create their own path to joy.
Let It Go is out now.
Knight is a Vancouver-based writer and poet who is the author of the Braided Skin and the memoir Dear Current Occupant, which won the 2018 Vancouver Book Award. Her 2022 novel Junie was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024 and won the 2023 Vancouver Book Award. Her work has appeared in literary magazines in Canada and the U.S. and she has been a judge for literary awards, including the B.C. Book Prizes.
Black Boys Like Me by Matthew R. Morris
Black Boys Like Me is Matthew R. Morris' debut collection of eight essays that examines his experiences with race and identity throughout his childhood into his current work as an educator. The child of a Black immigrant father and a white mother, Morris was influenced by the prominent Black male figures he saw in sports, TV shows and music as he was growing up in Scarborough, Ont. While striving for academic success, he confronted Black stereotypes and explored hip hop culture in the 1990s.
Black Boys Like Me is out now.
Morris is a writer, advocate and educator based in Toronto. As a public speaker, he has travelled across North America to educate on anti-racism in the education system. Morris was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
My Fighting Family by Morgan Campbell
My Fighting Family is a detailed history of one family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a Black Canadian with strong American roots. Sports journalist and writer Morgan Campbell traces his family's roots in the rural American south to their eventual cross-border split and the grudges and squabbles along the way. From the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and Campbell's life dealing with the racial tensions in Canada — My Fighting Family is about journeying to find clarity in conflict.
My Fighting Family is out now.
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Morgan Campbell reflects on his family legacy in his memoir My Fighting Family – read an excerpt now
Campbell is an Ontario-based journalist and a senior contributor at CBC Sports. He was a sports writer at the Toronto Star for over 18 years. His work highlights where sports intersect with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. His memoir My Fighting Family is his first book.
Blood by Dr. Jen Gunter
In Blood, Dr. Jen Gunter uses medical expertise and scientific facts from a feminist perspective to address the shame and misinformation about menstruation. She explores how the ovaries and uterus function, challenges patriarchal approaches and answers questions about reproductive anatomy.
Blood is out now.
Gunter is an obstetrician, gynecologist and pain medicine physician from Winnipeg. She is an advocate for women's health and writes about the intersection of pop culture, science and sex for the New York Times. She is also the author of The Preemie Primer, The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto.
Big Mall by Kate Black
In Big Mall, Kate Black examines the history of shopping and its place in capitalist structure. As places of pleasure, memory and pain, she pays particular attention to West Edmonton Mall — North America's largest mall where she spent a lot of time growing up.
Big Mall is out now.
Black is a Vancouver-based writer whose essays have been published in Maisonneuve, The Walrus and The Globe and Mail. She was named one of Canada's top emerging voices in nonfiction by the 2020 National Magazine Awards and RBC Taylor Prize.
Never Better by Gonzalo Riedel
The memoir Never Better chronicles Riedel's life from meeting the woman who would become his wife, to her getting sick and then as a widower with two young children. It tackles difficult subjects like how to keep his wife's memory alive for his two boys when their mother died before their second son even turned one.
Never Better is out now.
Gonzalo Riedel is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Never Better is his debut book. Riedel was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
The Heart of a Superfan by Nav Bhatia
Nav Bhatia is known as the Toronto Raptors's number one fan. In The Heart of a Superfan, he tells his story of hardship and determination as he faces challenges in India and Canada as an immigrant. The book explores how he came to connect with basketball more than with any other sport through inspiration and community, and the role it played in his life's personal success.
The Heart of a Superfan is out now.
Bhatia is a business owner and the founder of The Nav Bhatia Superfan foundation, which aims to unite people through basketball around the world. He is the first non-basketball player to receive a NBA championship ring and is honoured in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Rogers v. Rogers by Alexandra Posadzki
Rogers v. Rogers is a detailed investigative account of the battle for control of Rogers, Canada's largest wireless carrier. Alexandra Posadzki's coverage of the telecom empire and its rules of corporate governance exposes the high-stakes disputes between the factions within the company's boardroom and the Rogers family.
Rogers v. Rogers is out now.
Posadzki is a Toronto-based business reporter for the Globe and Mail. Her coverage of Roger Communications and Canada's telecommunications industry won Canada Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Outspoken by Sima Samar, with Sally Armstrong
In her memoir Outspoken, Sima Samar recounts her journey from agreeing to an arranged marriage to be able to attend university to her revolutionary battle for human rights and career as a medical doctor. When her husband disappears under the country's Pro-Russian regime, she flees to the countryside with her son to treat people who had never had access to medical care. Samar's powerful stories bring attention to the corruption of religion and politics that she spent her life fighting against both at home and abroad.
Outspoken is out now.
Samar is a Hazara doctor, human rights defender and activist from Afghanistan who is dedicated to the empowerment of women and girls. She founded Shuhada Organization, a civil society collective that runs schools, hospitals and clinics to provide access to healthcare and education. She served as Minister of Women's Affairs, chaired the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in 2019.
Sally Armstrong is a Canadian author, journalist, human rights activist and documentary filmmaker who covers war and conflict.
Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee
Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging is a collection of 14 essays that use the global world of flora to examine how the lives of plants and human beings intersect and connect with each other. Blending memoir, scientific research and history, Jessica J. Lee interrogates displacement, identity and belonging to explore the movement and evolution of individuals and plant species across borders.
Dispersals is out now.
Lee is a British Canadian Taiwanese author and environmental historian. She won the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. She is the author of Turning and Two Trees Make a Forest.
Apocalypse Child by Carly Butler
In Apocalypse Child, Carly Butler recounts growing up in 1990s Montana and moving to the Canadian wilderness at a young age due to her mother's belief in the Evangelical Christian end of the world. Isolated in the woods, her life shifts to learning survival techniques based on religious doctrine and conspiracy theories.
The book explores Butler's resilient journey dealing with the end of the world that never came, motherhood and the development of her queer, Mexican-Indigenous identity.
Apocalypse Child is out now.
Butler is a B.C.-based author who has written for Loose Lips Magazine. She has been a babysitter, birth doula, barista and house cleaner and identifies as a bisexual Indigenous woman with roots in Mexico.
Motherlike by Katherine Leyton
In her feminist memoir Motherlike, Katherine Leyton blends her personal experiences as a new mother with cultural commentary and historical research. From the challenges of labour and the objectification of women's bodies to the history of the birth control pill, she looks at motherhood as an essential part of human life that is often dismissed in society.
When you can read it: March 19, 2024
Leyton is a nonfiction writer, poet and screenwriter from Toronto. Her first book of poetry All the Gold Hurts My Mouth won the 2018 ReLit Award for poetry.
52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life by Farzana Doctor
52 Weeks to a Sweeter Life for Caregivers, Activists and Helping Professionals is a practical guide that offers weekly advice to helpers and activists struggling with exhaustion and burnout. Farzana Doctor uses her own experience as a social worker, community organizer and activist to discuss the challenges and necessity of setting boundaries and preventing overwork in a spirit of self and community care.
When you can read it: March 23, 2024
Doctor is an Ontario-based novelist, activist and psychotherapist of Indian ancestry. She is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Seven and the novels All Inclusive and Six Metres of Pavement, which won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for a 2012 Toronto Book Award. She was the recipient of the 2011 Dayne Ogilvie Prize from the Writer's Trust of Canada for an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer and the 2023 Freedom to Read Award.
Nowhere, Exactly by M.G. Vassanji
Nowhere, Exactly examines the challenges around the idea of home, belonging and identity from an immigrant perspective when home is not always one specific place — not the country of origin nor the place of resettlement. M.G. Vassanji reflects on feelings of guilt, loss and gain that come with emigration and the ways that communities and their histories shape individuals.
When you can read it: March 26, 2024
Vassanji is a Toronto-based author of Indian descent born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. His original works include Everything There Is, A Delhi Obsession and The Book of Secrets. He was the recipient of the 1994 and 2003 Giller Prize for best work of fiction for his books The Books of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.
A Darker Shade of Blue by Keith Merith
In A Darker Shade of Blue: A Police Officer's Memoir, Keith Merith chronicles his journey from a teenager disrespected by a white police officer to a York Regional Police superintendent, guided by his mission to create systemic reform from within. He shares his personal experiences as a Black man facing discrimination within law enforcement, but also a strong believer in the police's duty to serve and advocate for the fair and equal treatment of all citizens.
When you can read it: March 26, 2024
Merith is a retired police officer who worked for 31 years with York Regional Police. He was the fourth president of the Association of Black Law Enforcers and also worked as a child care worker and correctional officer before entering the police force.
Medicine Wheel for the Planet by Dr. Jennifer Grenz
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, restoration ecologist Jennifer Grenz meditates on the disconnect between her training in Western colonial science and her Indigenous worldview to explore the preservation of flora and fauna. Her decades of experience in the Pacific Northwest expose ecology's failure to reach its goal of creating a pre-human, untouched natural world. Based on the knowledge of elders, field observations and sacred stories, Grenz explores land reconciliation and advocates for a diversity of world views to fight against climate change and protect the planet.
When you can read it: March 26, 2024
Grenz is a NIaka'pamux ecologist based in British Columbia. She is the founder and leader of Greener This Side, a consulting company that conducts invasive species management and environmental restoration activities for the provincial government and Indigenous communities. She is also an assistant professor in the department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia.
The Peace by Roméo Dallaire, with Jessica Dee Humphreys
In The Peace: A Warrior's Journey, Roméo Dallaire proposes the notion of peace as a humanitarian state that rallies people together around the world and challenges the emotional distance that people who are not in danger often feel. He uses his experience as a human rights advocate and peace warrior to offer a new world that prevents violence against all.
When you can read it: April 2, 2024
Dallaire is a humanitarian, former Lieutenant-General and Canadian senator. He was the Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
Beneath the Surface of Things by Wade Davis
Beneath the Surface of Things is an essay collection that dives into the wisdom and opportunity of knowledge under the surface of everyday things. Wade Davis explores diverse topics and events — from the meaning of the sacred to the birth of modernity and the war in the Middle East — from an anthropological lens to bring a promise of hope and discovery.
When you can read it: April 30, 2024
Davis is a B.C-based professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He served as the explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013. He is the author of 23 books, including Into the Silence, which won the 2012 Samuel Johnson nonfiction prize.
Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes by Adrienne Gruber
In Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes, Adrienne Gruber explores the theme of motherhood through a collection of essays. It celebrates bodies, maternal bonds, beauty — but also the uglier side of parenthood, the chaos and even how close we are to death at any given moment.
When you can read it: May 1, 2024
Gruber is a poet and essayist originally from Saskatoon. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Q & A, and five chapbooks. She placed third in Event's creative nonfiction contest in 2020 and was the runner up in SubTerrain's creative nonfiction contest in 2023.
Gruber was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize for Clocks. In 2020, she made the CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Our Feedback Loop, Our Fractal, Our Never-Ending Pattern. Gruber was also on the longlist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize for Better Birthing Through Chemistry.
Small Acts of Courage by Ali Velshi
In Small Acts of Courage: A Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for Democracy, Ali Velshi details 125 years of his family's history from India to Gandhi's ashram in South Africa, Kenya, Canada and the United States.
He recounts his relatives' strong belief in equality and public service as they experience discrimination, apartheid and emigration. He stresses the power of action, no matter how small, to fight for social justice and maintain a pluralistic democracy for all.
When you can read it: May 7, 2024
Velshi is a New York-based Canadian American journalist, anchor and business correspondent with NBC news. He is the host of Velshi at MSNBC. He won a National Headliner Award for Business & Consumer Reporting for his coverage of the American auto industry and was nominated twice for the News and Documentary Emmy Award for his work on Chicago's red-light camera controversy and disabled workers.
A Map of the New Normal by Jeff Rubin
In A Map of the New Normal: How Inflation, War, and Sanctions Will Change Your World Forever, Jeff Rubin analyzes the political and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizen life.
He explores the interconnected nature of war in Eurasia, the functioning of central banks, foreign markets and global supply chains to show how governments and corporations have an immense impact on the state of western everyday life.
When you can read it: May 14, 2024
Rubin is a Canadian economist who specializes in trade and energy. He is the author of several books, including The Carbon Bubble and Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, which was longlisted for the 2009 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and won the National Business Book Award. Rubin is also the former chief strategist and economist at CIBC World Markets.
Wînipêk by Niigaan Sinclair
Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre is the story of Winnipeg, told in a series of essays through the lens of Indigenous resilience and reconciliation.
From the Indian Act and atrocities of colonialism to the creativity and ferocity of the Indigenous peoples preserving their heritage, Sinclair illustrates the way a place — how we love, lose, and fight for it — can help pave the way for the future of an entire country.
When you can read it: May 28, 2024
Niigaan Sinclair is an Anishinaabe (St. Peter's/Little Peguis) thinker and assistant professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He has written for The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama, The Guardian and CBC Books and is a regular contributor on APTN, CTV and CBC News. Sinclair is also the editor of The Debwe Series and the author and co-editor of award-winning Manitowapow and Centreing Anishinaabeg Studies.
Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan
While Danny Ramadan is known for his powerful fiction about queer Syrian-Canadian experiences, he's never written about it with such a personal lens — until now.
Crooked Teeth is his latest project, a memoir, that refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver. Told with nuance and fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth revisits parts of Ramadan's past he'd rather forget.
When you can read it: May 28, 2024
Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas by Gloria Blizzard
Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas is a collection of poetry and narrative essays on motion, memory and music. Gloria Blizzard examines the nuances of language, geography and culture from an international diasporic lens.
When you can read it: June 4, 2024
Blizzard is a Toronto-based nonfiction writer, poet and songwriter who explores the intersections of music, dance, spirit and culture. Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas is her first book.
A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb
A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue looks at the criminal exploits of Arthur Barry, one of the most successful thieves in history who stole today's equivalent of $60 million in diamonds, precious gems and pearls over seven years.
Barry befriended aristocracy and stole from elite business magnates such as a Rockefeller and a General Motors executive. The book also chronicles his love for his wife Anna Blake, for whom he committed burglaries and staged a prison escape to spend time with her as her illness progressed.
When you can read it: June 4, 2024
Dean Jobb is a journalist and author who teaches nonfiction writing and journalism at University of King's College in Halifax. He writes for the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail and has a monthly crime column in the Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. He is also the author of Empire of Deception that was named the Nonfiction Book of the Year by the Chicago Writers Association and The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, which won the 2022 CrimeCon CLUE Award for true crime Book of the Year.
North of Nowhere by Marie Wilson
Part documentary and part memoir, North of Nowhere is an account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by one of the three commissioners. A mother, journalist and the spouse of a residential school survivor, Marie Wilson is a compassionate and skilled guide as she honours the voices of survivors and calls Canada to action.
When you can read it: June 11, 2024
Wilson spent over three decades as a journalist in Canada's North, serving as CBC North's regional director and creating the first daily television news service in 1995. She served as one of the three commissioners on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to create a record of the abuses of the residential school systems and recommend ways to move forward.
Corrections
- This post has been updated to reflect the correct release date for A Gentleman and a Thief by Dean Jobb.Mar 20, 2024 10:38 AM ET
