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.

After years working in homicide, retired Toronto detective Steve Ryan reflects on six cases he will never forget.

Retired detective Steve Ryan worked in Toronto’s homicide squad for over a decade. For Ryan, the stories of Toronto’s most infamous crimes were more than just a headline read over morning coffee — they were his everyday life.

After investigating over one hundred homicides, Ryan can never forget the tragedies and the victims, even after his retirement from the police force. In The Ghosts That Haunt Me, he reflects on six of the many cases that greatly impacted him — seven people whose lives were senselessly taken — and that he still thinks about nearly every day. While the stories are hard to tell for Ryan, they were harder to live through. Yet somewhere between the crimes and the heartache is a glimmer of hope that good eventually does prevail and that healing can come after grief.

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!

One family’s story of racism, redemption, and the long shadow of the Black Construction Battalion.

From an early age, Lance Dixon had heard about his grandfather, George Dixon, who was one of six hundred men that served in the only Black battalion in Canadian history — Nova Scotia’s No. 2 Construction Battalion in 1916. Sadly, much of his knowledge about his grandfather’s involvement in the battalion stopped there. It was undoubtedly difficult for his father, a veteran, to tell the story without reliving the painful racism his own father and he himself endured, and the shame they were taught to feel about being Black bodies in “a white man’s world.”

In A Footnote to Freedom, Dixon grapples with the effects of racism on three generations of his family. Drawing on their collective intergenerational strength, he brings to light the painful irony of the Black battalion’s struggle: that these men had to fight their own country to fight for the freedom of others in a distant land. This is the tale of his grandfather’s redemption.

Travel to the bustling districts of Istanbul, get a little lost on the journey, and encounter locals who share their wisdom about life.

After fifteen years away from the city, our narrator returns to their homeland of Istanbul the day before their sister’s wedding. Consumed by discontent and needing a new direction in life, our narrator searches for comfort as they wander the familiar districts of their beloved city. Along the way, they become acquainted with delightful strangers who each share their stories and enlighten the cloudy path back to our narrator’s authentic self.

This debut novel guides readers through the beauty of Turkish culture and celebrates how storytelling can provide us with the support to restore strength to our burdened spirit. Named after the Turkish delight candy, this sweet novel reminds us to lean on the power of our community to uplift and reorient us in times of difficulty.

A RARE MACHINES BOOK

Safeguarding collective wisdom is a powerful tool for civilization to overcome the major upheavals ahead.

Climate change, civil unrest, wars: How will we make it through the tough times that loom ahead of us? By remembering, Mary Soderstrom argues.

Our time is the first in history that catastrophe has threatened societies, but, using examples from China, the Roman Empire, and North American Indigenous cultures, Soderstrom shows how memory can lead the way toward the future. Before We Forget examines how memory works in people, and then details how we store our collective memories in libraries and archives, as well as in the vastness of the electronic universe.

In part an entertaining history of knowledge and where we keep it, Before We Forget allays fears and encourages people to develop strategies for safeguarding collective and individual wisdom, which we will need to meet the challenges ahead.