FINALIST FOR TORONTO BOOK AWARDS

The inside story of the grassroots fight to have a suicide barrier erected on Toronto’s “bridge of death.”

Most Torontonians have no idea their city once hosted the second most popular suicide magnet in North America, behind the Golden Gate Bridge. Since its completion in 1918, more than four hundred people jumped to their death from the Bloor Viaduct, which spans the cavernous Don Valley.

That number might still be rising if not for the tireless efforts of a group of volunteers, led by two citizens, who fought City Hall for years to get a suicide barrier erected. Not only did they win, they saved numerous lives and brought to light valuable research on how barriers actually lower suicide numbers overall. The resulting barrier — The Luminous Veil — has been praised for its ingenious and inspiring design.

The Suicide Magnet tells how the battle was won, and explores the ongoing efforts to help those suffering from mental health challenges.

Although many adults believe they have had encounters with strange creatures from alien spaceships, not everyone has actually reported their experiences to official investigators. But if you're a young person it's even less likely that people will believe you and more likely that your story will never be officially recorded. After all, who would believe a kid?

I Saw It Too! is the first collection of stories told by children, documenting what they saw and when they saw it. These accounts are real cases of UFOs they've seen or alien creatures they've encountered that were reported to government or military officials, UFO investigators, and journalists.

Inside you will find eighteen of these strange, fascinating, and believable tales recounted by young people from around the world with story illustrations by Stacey Archer with Lonigan Gilbert. The truth is really out there, and renowned ufologist Chris Rutkowski has tracked it down!

The mysterious death of a patriarch brings the far-flung Cameron family home to Prince Edward County, sending their familiar world into a tailspin.

When their father’s sudden death brings Toronto novelist Amelia Cameron and her three siblings together in Prince Edward County for his funeral, the ancient family dynamic crumbles. First, the will — not what anybody expected. Then Amelia’s beautiful young niece, Ginny, an aspiring writer, begs her famous aunt for advice, leading to an innocent bit of typing that brings them to the brink of scandal.

Steeped in the legendary County’s urge to sweep gossip under the rug and tamp down high emotion, a family is called to account by events they cannot control.

Oyster is both a coming-of-age journey and a big love story, in spite of the teller’s best efforts to avoid emotional truths.

The most astonishing and extraordinary bequests and last requests found in people's wills.

“This will is uncommon and capricious.” These words actually began a will, which shows that our final words needn’t be standard legalese but instead creatively individualistic. Will Power tells the riveting stories of big names and “ordinary people” who did just this.

There are eccentric wills, in which a mansion and its grounds are inherited by a parrot. Developers could do nothing until it died — and parrots have long lives. There are cautionary tales of family conflict, including the one-page will fought over for two decades by three generations. Want to write a parting shot? Read about the will that mocked the beneficiaries, such as the bequest that said “for my sister because she is married to a minister who (God help him) she hen pecks.” Or the contested will that ordered the deceased’s horses to be killed by a police firing squad; the bigoted will that bequeathed everything to a neo-Nazi organization; and the will that left far more money to sons than daughters, sparking a landmark gender discrimination case.

These stories and many more will amuse, entertain, and inform — for your consideration when you write or revise your will.

A necessary roadmap for leaders of colour in polarized, white-dominant workplaces to navigate from survive to thrive.

In these politically fraught times, BIPOC leaders need to understand how to navigate the workplace, using our own experiences of discrimination to re-imagine how power can help others — rather than hurt them. To thrive, we must learn to occupy leadership without annexing off crucial aspects of who we are.

Fire and Silence offers a roadmap toward using anger instead of trauma, pain without victimhood, and strength inclusive of vulnerability to maximize our impact as leaders, in ways that are fair to all. From the trenches of social activism to coaching board room executives, Annahid Dashtgard offers tips and tricks, strategies and stories, to support other leaders of colour to achieve the support and recognition they so richly deserve — without having to sacrifice who they are in the process.

Provocateur and priest Rev. Michael Coren shares the joyful, heart-rending, and thought-provoking moments that fill his life.

Michael Coren is a very rare figure: he’s an ordained priest of the Anglican Church of Canada working in a parish but also an internationally known columnist and bestselling author.

In Diary of a Low-Born Priest, Coren takes us through a year in his life, a diary of the everyday journey of a cleric, who also deals with public controversy and profile as a writer. He chronicles pain, loss, joy, doubt, abuse, poverty, crime, and so many other aspects of what a priest sees every day. But he also offers historical examples, arguments for and against various beliefs, and acute observations of life around him. Like pebbles thrown into a lake, he records the ripples and the waves of the spiritual role he plays in his community.