“In these exquisitely illustrated pages, we hear from ten explorers who clamber down cliffs, traverse bogs, and dodge killer bees to study the world’s greatest plants.”—Oliver Uberti, author of Atlas of the Invisible and Where the Animals Go

From the Giant Sequoia to the Bald Cypress, this captivating book explores the stories of 10 species of ancient trees, their unique environments, and what they have to tell us about the history of our world.

Ingrained and encrypted in the growth rings of every tree are stories of its environment and the events to which it bore witness. In the Circle of Ancient Trees presents the stories of ten ancient tree varieties in engrossing chapters written by ecologists with specialist knowledge. From the Bosnian pine to the giant sequoia, from the United States, to Europe, to South America, these essays explore how human and environmental history share common roots, while drilling down into the ecology, persistence, and resilience of trees.

Beautifully designed, and illustrated with wood-engravings and graphics that visualize each tree’s chronology and geography, In the Circle of Ancient Trees considers what lessons for our future might be discovered in our planet’s past.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute

For fans of Bill Bryson and David Sedaris comes an anti-nature memoir that will resonate with anyone who would rather stay inside with a book than venture into the mountains, from one of Scandinavia’s biggest comedians.

“A smart, funny and honest exposé of the cult of the outdoors, from the sublime to the ridiculous.”—Foreword Reviews

Sometime around his forties, Are Kalvø starts losing his friends… to the mountains. Friends who used to meet him at the pub are now hiking and skiing every weekend, and when they do show up, all they talk about is feeling at one with nature (without a hint of irony). When Are realizes he’s the only person who hasn’t posted a selfie on a mountain, he starts to wonder: does he have it all wrong?

To find out, Are buys some ridiculously expensive gear and heads into the woods. The result of his sardonic trek is at once a smart and funny take-down of outdoors culture, and a reluctant surrender to nature’s undeniable pull. An adventure, a comedy, and a tragedy, The Hiking Book from Hell is destined to become a nature writing (and nature hating) classic.

“The remarkable Bishnoi of India, whose unique religion ‘has environmental protection at its very core,’ recruited Goodman to tell their dramatic story…”—Booklist, STARRED review

Perfect for nature enthusiasts, My Head for a Tree is a timely and remarkable book about India’s Bishnoi people, passionate defenders of nature whose ecological wisdom carries a powerful message.

Meet the Bishnoi, followers of a religion with nature conservation at its heart. Today, Bishnois remain fierce defenders of trees and animals, living by principles set by their guru Jambhoji in the fifteenth century. They chase down armed poachers, rescue and care for injured animals, save endangered species, and lead heroic reforestation efforts in the Rajasthani desert. In a time of biodiversity loss and climate change, what lessons do they have to teach us?

The story of the Bishnoi is true, though it reads like a fable. In 1730, the Maharajah of Jodhpur sent his troops to chop down a forest in northwest India. When 363 local villagers, led by Amrita Devi, hugged the trees to protect them, the Maharajah’s men chopped off their heads. Who are these people who love trees so much that they would give their lives to save them?

My Head for a Tree takes us from temples, homes, and schoolrooms to animal sanctuaries, farms, and desert forests, revealing a thriving community of eco-warriors. Their stories inspire and challenge readers to live more kindly and defend nature with a passion. While you can only be born a Bishnoi, we can all follow their example.

Winner of the BC National Award for Non-Fiction

Shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction and the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

A vivid, intimate look at the life of a tree planter on the Pacific Northwest coast, exposing the brutal, exhilarating realities of modern reforestation, a unique subculture, and the importance and wonders of forests.

In the remote rain-drenched forests of Cascadia, an eclectic group of tree planters rises before dawn to replace the trees loggers have felled. Over Charlotte Gill’s 20-year, million-tree career, she came to know these clearcuts as a collision site between human civilization and the natural world—a working frontier where chainsaws go quiet and a different kind of crew moves in to stitch the ground back together.

In Eating Dirt, Gill offers up a slice of tree planting life in all its soggy, gritty exuberance. She traces the life of a seedling from cone picker to greenhouse to helicopter sling, and asks what is really restored when a razored hillside is replanted in tight ranks of conifers. Along the way, she braids in the deep history of forests from ancient redwoods and Indigenous cedar cultures to the clear-cut empires of Rome, Britain, and North America. She looks at logging's environmental impact and its boom-and-bust history, and reveals how thoroughly our cities, wars, and daily comforts have been carved from wood.

More than a memoir, Eating Dirt is a meditation on resilience: of ecosystems, of seasonal workers, and of trees themselves. Gill celebrates the wonder and stubborn beauty of forests and confronts the moral tangle of trying to mend them. Most of all, the book joyously celebrates the priceless value of forests and the ancient, ever-changing relationship between humans and trees.

Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year

Bestselling author Candace Savage embarks on a profound and dramatic journey through the eloquent landscape of the northern Great Plains to reveal the haunting untold history of the land.

When Candace Savage and her partner buy a house in the romantic little town of Eastend, Saskatchewan, she has no idea what awaits her. From their home on the edge of Eastend, they look out over the tawny sweep of the Frenchman River valley, watch swallows skim the water and deer graze at dusk, and wander among dinosaur bones. The prairie, which once seemed empty, begins to reveal itself as a living archive of history and fragile life.

As Savage explores further, she uncovers a darker reality. Archaeological shards, old police forts, and Métis wintering sites lead her into the buried history of the northern plains: the deliberate slaughter of the buffalo, the Cypress Hills Massacre, whiskey forts and starvation camps, the forced herding of Indigenous Peoples onto reserves. Listening to Blackfoot and Assiniboine elders, Métis descendants, and the Nekaneet people who still claim the hills as home, she is compelled to confront the violence that made her own homesteading ancestry possible—and to rethink everything she thought she knew about “pioneer” courage and prairie progress.

Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and imbued with Savage's passion for this place, A Geography of Blood braids memoir, natural history, and Indigenous testimony. Savage’s unforgettable portrait of the Cypress Hills and the surrounding plains offers both a shocking retelling of western Canadian history and an invitation to see the prairies with new eyes.