Canada flag Memoir books from Canada

Recommended memoir books (12)
Travel the world without leaving your chair. If you are into memoir here are some memoir books from Canada for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.

1.

Disfigured : On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
"Challenges the ableism of fairy tales and offers new ways to celebrate the magic of all bodies. In fairy tales, happy endings are the norm - as long as you're beautiful and walk on two legs. After all, the ogre never gets the princess. And since fairy tales are the foundational myths of our culture, how can a girl with a disability ever think she'll have a happy ending? By examining the ways that fairy tales have shaped our expectations of disability, Disfigured will point the way toward a new world where disability is no longer a punishment or impediment but operates, instead, as a way of ce... continue

2.

Doppelganger : A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
From the award-winning, bestselling author of No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, and This Changes Everything, a revelatory analysis of the collapsed meanings, blurred identities, and uncertain realities of the mirror world. Over the past twenty-five years, Naomi Klein has charted and documented our politics and culture with a series of trenchant bestselling books laying bare the effects of branding, austerity, and climate profiteering on our societies and souls. With Doppelganger, Klein takes a more personal turn, braiding together elements of tragicomic memoir, chilling political reportage, and cob... continue


4.

Embers : One Ojibway's Meditations by Richard Wagamese EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
"Life sometimes is hard. There are challenges. There are difficulties. There is pain. As a younger man I sought to avoid them and only ever caused myself more of the same. These days I choose to face life head on--and I have become a comet. I arc across the sky of my life and the harder times are the friction that lets the worn and tired bits drop away. It's a good way to travel; eventually I will wear away all resistance until all there is left of me is light. I can live towards that end." --Richard Wagamese, Embers In this carefully curated selection of everyday reflections, Richard Wagamese... continue

5.

For Joshua: One Ojibway Father Teaches His Son by Richard Wagamese EN

0 Ratings
Description:
“An expansive work about healing, resilience, humanity, respect, inheritance, Indigenous teachings, and most of all, love” from the author of Indian Horse (Literary Hub). “We may not relight the fires that used to burn in our villages, but we can carry the embers from those fires in our hearts and learn to light new fires in a new world.” Ojibwe tradition calls for fathers to walk their children through the world, sharing the ancient understanding “that we are all, animate and inanimate alike, living on the one pure breath with which the Creator gave life to the Universe.” In this intimate ser... continue

6.

High School by Sara Quin, Tegan Quin EN

0 Ratings
Description:
From the iconic musicians Tegan and Sara comes a memoir about high school, detailing their first loves and first songs in a compelling look back at their humble beginnings High School is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Sara and Tegan Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, who grew up at the height of grunge and rave culture in the nineties, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today. While grappling with their identity and sexuality, often alone, they also faced academic meltdown, their parents’ divorce, and the looming pressure... continue

7.

Indian in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
THE #1 BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY A compelling political memoir of leadership and speaking truth to power by one of the most inspiring women of her generation Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to be a leader. Inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and raised as the daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would take on leadership roles and responsibilities. She never anticipated, however, that those roles woul... continue


9.

Run Towards the Danger : Confrontations with a Body of Memory by Sarah Polley EN

0 Ratings
Description:
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice* These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry. In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing. Each of these six essays captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time exami... continue

10.

The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie EN

0 Ratings
Description:
In this award-winning memoir, two sisters reckon with the convalescence and death of their outlandishly tyrannical mother and with the care of their psychologically terrorized father, all relayed with dark humor and brutal honesty. When Vicki Laveau-Harvie and her sister learn their mother has been hospitalized for a broken hip, they return to their parents' home in Alberta, Canada, to put things back in order. Though their parents disowned them years before, the sisters now reassert themselves in the dysfunctional household: their father, undernourished and suffering from Stockholm syndrome i... continue