In 1888, a prosperous industrial family in Calne, Wiltshire, sent one of its younger sons, a lad judged to have no head for business, to Guelph Agricultural College in Ontario to learn to be a farmer.

Joseph Colebrook Harris, the author’s grandfather, didn’t take to Ontario and after visiting a friend on Salt Spring Island, fell in love with BC. …

An honest memoir that deconstructs an evolving father–son relationship, uncovers the struggles in becoming one of Canada’s most respected adventure cyclists and the dramatic impact of a recent cancer diagnosis.

In the summer of 1996, a father and his 13-year-old son embarked on a 3400 kilometre bicycle tour across Canada. Affectionately known as …

After plans to live in Africa shatter, young journalist Laurie Sarkadi moves to the Subarctic city of Yellowknife seeking wilderness and adventure. She covers the changing socio-political worlds of Dene and Inuit in the late '80s-catching glimpses of their traditional, animal-dependent ways-before settling into her own off-grid existence in the bor …

One man retraces the ancient voyages of Captain Vancouver alone in his sailboat in this updated edition of a classic travelogue.

As Sam McKinney retraced the explorations of Captain George Vancouver and his men from Puget Sound to Queen Charlotte Sound he wondered, "Could I have been one of them?"

In the 1790s, Vancouver’s crew rowed for long hours …

A warm-hearted memoir of a childhood spent living in various mining towns in the Kootenays throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

When young Shirley Doris Hall and her family moved to BC’s West Kootenay region in 1927, the area was a hub of mining activity. Shirley’s father, a cook, had no problem finding work at the mining camps, and the family dutif …

A warm-hearted memoir of a childhood spent living in various mining towns in the Kootenays throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

When young Shirley Doris Hall and her family moved to BC’s West Kootenay region in 1927, the area was a hub of mining activity. Shirley’s father, a cook, had no problem finding work at the mining camps, and the family dutif …

Just over fifty years ago, China’s Cultural Revolution began. The movement was intended to bring about a return to revolutionary Maoist beliefs and resulted in attacks on intellectuals and those believed to be counter-revolutionaries, capitalists and rightists; a large-scale purge in government posts; the appearance of a personality cult around M …

Alok Mukherjee was the civilian overseer of the Toronto police between 2005 and 2015, during the most tumultuous decade the force had ever faced. In this provocative and highly readable collaboration with Tim Harper, former Toronto Star national affairs columnist, Mukherjee reveals how Police Chief Bill Blair changed the channel after the police-ki …

Unflinching and heart-stopping stories that evoke a respect for nature both in its fragility and its power. Wild Fierce Life is a heart-stopping collection of true stories from the Pacific Coast that build a vivid portrait of life on the continental edge and one woman's evolving place within it. Author Joanna Streetly arrived on the west coast of V …

”I Am Nobody is an honest, tragic account of child sexual abuse and a powerful resource for individuals struggling with recovery. Gilhooly clearly highlights the shortcomings of the Canadian justice system’s approach; hopefully, one day, the punishment will fit the crime." —Sheldon Kennedy, former NHL player and author of Why I Didn't Say Any …

At age nineteen, Pat Ardley packed up her belongings and left Winnipeg for Vancouver, looking for adventure. Little did she know that she’d spend the next forty years in the wilderness, thirty of which would be spent with a man known as George “Hurricane” Ardley. Pat met George soon after arriving in Vancouver, and not long after that the two …

What do you do when you decide you no longer want to be responsible for anyone but yourself? When faced with that moment, Donna Kane leaves her twenty-five-year marriage for life with a conservationist and wilderness guide who is so certain of the path he is on that she thinks she’s just along for the ride.

A few days before Kane’s new husband l …

A life story sure to inspire a new movement of self-discovery and soul-searching for years to come. A story that captures a life richly lived, celebrating fantasy, passion and the ideals that lie within our soul. Who is to say that the outer stories of our lives are more important than the images that haunt our imagination? What if memoir could cap …

The emotional unravelling of a mind, body and soul -- a remarkably new and original take on surviving the Holocaust three generations later. Imprint is a profound and courageous exploration of trauma, family, and the importance of breaking silence and telling stories. This book is a fresh and startling combination of history and personal revelation …

A vibrant look back through a century of student life, achievement, and activism at UBC.

“Sheldon Goldfarb’s skillful and lively storytelling makes this a valuable contribution to social history and a memoir to be enjoyed by all who lived it.”—from the foreword by Kim Campbell

From Pierre Berton to Kim Campbell, Debbie Brill, and Justin Trude …

The never-before-published memoir of Major-General Sir Edward Morrison, a true Canadian hero of the First World War.

The First World War marked a turning point in Canadian history and in Canada’s self-identification as a nation. Yet in memorializing the iconic events and battles of the War, certain key individuals who participated have been lost i …

A collection of personal stories and reflections based on the memoirs of Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mount Everest and the Seven Summits.

Honouring High Places is a compelling collection of highlights from Junko Tabei’s stirring life that she considered important, inspiring and interesting to mountaineering culture. Until now, her works …

Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by Toots is the story of a man who had no obituary and no funeral and who would have left no trace if it weren't for the woman he'd called Toots, who took everything she remembered of him and — for seven days — wrote it down.

Erín Moure, a poet who once lived in Vancouver, begins this "work of the imagination" ("m …

An updated edition of Herb Belcourt’s remarkable life story with a brand-new foreword by the author.

The eldest of ten children, Belcourt grew up in a small log home near the Métis settlement of Lac Ste. Anne during the Depression. His father purchased furs from local First Nations and Métis trappers and, with arduous work, began a family fur tr …

"At first I'm calm as the trees fall. But suddenly a rat's nest of wood, bent horizontal and cribbed into the trees above us, comes down in a rush of a hundred machine gun snaps. Trees caught in the nest flail around before hitting the ground. Our eyes dart everywhere, trying to keep track of every moment. Trees break free and swing themselves like …

"This is the account of twenty-three years of wilderness wandering, sea voyages and overland treks to survey the earth, with no home or possessions other than what fit in my trusty backpack. There was no specific destination in mind except to visit countries, not the airports and luxury hotels but the country itself, to experience local culture and …

An inspiring, humorous and adventure-packed mountain memoir that takes the reader on a journey into western Canada’s backcountry parks during the raucous 1960s and 1970s.

Born in the west but raised initially in the east, Dale Portman was eight years old when his family headed back to the land of the Rockies. Growing up in Calgary, he was introduc …

In 1970, twenty-two-year-old Thom Henley left Michigan and drifted around the northwest coast, getting by on odd jobs and advice from even odder characters. He rode the rails, built a squatter shack on a beach, came to be known as "Huckleberry" and embarked on adventures along the West Coast and abroad that, just like his Mark Twain namesake, situa …

A sequel to the acclaimed Such a Lovely Little War: growing up Vietnamese in swinging London as the Vietnam war intensifies.

Marcelino Truong's first book about the early years of the Vietnam war, the graphic memoir Such a Lovely Little War (2016), received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews and was named "one the season's best …

The Receiver is Sharon Thesen's thirteenth book, and the first from the three-time Governor-General's Award finalist since Oyama Pink Shale, six years ago.

More formally various than Thesen's recent books, The Receiver includes the short lyrics documenting the poet's witnessing that readers of her work will recognize, as well as various kinds of fou …

The compelling story of one family’s life among the rugged landscapes of British Columbia's Coast Mountains, converting youthful ideals, raw land and a passion for the outdoors into a practical off-grid homestead.

Rob Wood grew up in a village on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, where he eventually developed a preoccupation with rock climbing. Aft …

Living alone in the remote wilderness, Chris Czajkowski has given her dogs a rich life, although not without its difficulties. Often residing in areas accessible only by float plane, the dogs have encountered grizzlies and cougars, slept in the snow, hiked with packs of food and equipment, and occasionally gotten themselves into scrapes, such as be …

Finalist, Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction

A Globe 100 Best Book of the Year

Finalist, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)

When Carys Cragg was eleven, her father, a respected doctor, was brutally murdered in his own home by an intruder. Twenty years later, and despite the reservations of her family and friends, she decid …

Author and playwright Dan Needles has long delighted readers and audiences alike with his insightful and laugh-out-loud perspective on small-town life, published in such bestselling books as Wingfield's World (Random House, 2011), Wingfield's Hope (Key Porter, 2005), With Axe and Flask (McFarlane, Walter and Ross, 2002) and Letters From Wingfield F …

"Call me Chick. I've been called Chick since I was six years old. If you call me Donald, I'll know you don't know me. In this story, I'll tell you how my life unfolded over the last eight decades: how I got that nickname; how I met and married the most beautiful girl in the world; and how I came to own and operate S & R sawmills in Surrey, British …

The time is the early 1980s. Judith Plant and her new partner, Kip, are ready for a change. Inspired by the charismatic Fred Brown, their communications professor at Simon Fraser University, they join a commune in a remote valley near the Yalakom River, deep in BC's Coast Mountains. Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley tells the s …

Until recently, hepatitis C—which infects 170 million people throughout the world—was always fatal. But today there is finally a remarkable cure.

Elizabeth Rains describes how she was likely infected with hepatitis C during her wild hippie days, how she was diagnosed more than four decades later, and how she became one of the early patients to be …

Dirty Windshields is the long-awaited memoir from CBC host and award-winning author Grant Lawrence, baring all the salacious and hilarious details from his touring days as the lead singer of Vancouver-based rock and roll band The Smugglers.

Formed when most of the members were still in high school, The Smugglers came of age during the height of the …

Growing up in a household of food-loving Italian-Americans, Marissa Landrigan was always a black sheep—she barely knew how to boil water for pasta. But at college, she thought she’d discovered her purpose. Buoyed by animal rights activism and a feminist urge to avoid the kitchen, she transformed into a hardcore vegan activist, complete with sha …

An inspiring memoir that details one man’s determination to help disadvantaged children through the power of sport while dealing with the dramatic realities of his body’s own physical limitations.

In 2010, at age 55, Martin Parnell began tackling a series of extreme sporting challenges which became known as “Quests for Kids,” designed to hel …

Compelling and honest life of a stubborn BC rancher living tenaciously in the face of her Multiple Sclerosis condition. The devastating diagnosis of an incurable, debilitating disease does not ordinarily form the starting point of a triumphant story. This, however, is a triumphant story. Heidi Redl was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2004 and …

A coming-of-age novel contrasting a daughter's disappointment in her mother's abandonment with the generational differences around feminist values. Summer 1971. While women demand equality, protests erupt over the Vietnam War, and peace activists march, adolescent Maybe Collins' life in quiet Oak Bay is upended by the appearance of her mother, who …

Curious about the previous inhabitants of the lake community where her family has vacationed for over one hundred years, author Shelley O’Callaghan starts researching and writing about the area. But what begins as a personal journey of one woman’s relationship to the land and her desire to uncover the history of her family’s remote cabin, soo …

Curious about the previous inhabitants of the lake where her family has spent the summer for over one hundred years, author Shelley O'Callaghan starts researching and writing about the area. But what begins as a personal journey of one woman's relationship to the land and her desire to uncover the history of her family's remote cabin turns into an …

The redefinition of family values as seen from the eyes of a polyamorous, queer Italian Canadian obsessed with food.

This mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghetti's unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica lear …

Covering a span of more than 60 years, these classic fishing essays are brought together for the first time, celebrating the thoughts, pleasures and adventures of a devoted angler and renowned storyteller as he fishes some of the timeless streams of the Ireland, New Zealand and British Columbia.

Through the pages of Casting Back Peter McMullan takes …