Every month, a new set of book club titles will be highlighted in The Book Club Hub post. This month features memoirs. These memoirs – autobiographies about a specific time period of the author’s life – offer insights into different time periods, lifestyles and cultures in the world around us. Each of these memoirs offers a new perspective to readers about the varying stories and directions that our lives can take. From the stage to the school bus, these stories will give you a fresh take on life. Here are this month’s selections:
In the tradition of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild comes this funny and gritty debut memoir in which Jan Redford grows from a nomadic rock climber to a mother who fights to win back her future.
“Compassionate and courageous, End of the Rope shows us that there are many types of bravery required, not just in the wilderness, but in surviving day to day life.” —Tanis Rideout, author of Above All Things
After the love of her life is killed in an avalanche, a grieving Jan finds comfort in the arms of his climbing buddy, an extreme alpinist. But their marriage soon falters. While her husband logs forests and dreams of distant peaks, Jan has children, and takes on a wife’s traditional role. Over the following years, however, she pursues her own dream, one that pits her against her husband—attending university, and ultimately, gaining independence.
End of the Rope is Jan’s telling of heart-stopping adventures, from a harrowing rescue off El Capitan to leading a group of bumbling cadets across a glacier. It is her laughter-filled memoir of learning to climb, and of friendships with women in that masculine world. Most moving, this is her story of claiming freedom from a crushing marriage, an act of bravery equal to climbing mountains.
Surprising and revelatory non-fiction from a talented young writer whose last book, Cataract City, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Trillium Book Prize, and was a Globe Best Book and national bestseller.
With his last novel, Cataract City, Craig Davidson established himself as one of our most talented novelists. But in his early thirties, before writing that novel and before his previous work, Rust and Bone, was made into an Oscar-nominated film, Davidson experienced a period of poverty, apparent failure and despair. In this new work of intimate, riveting and timely non-fiction, based loosely on a National Magazine Award-winning article he published in The Walrus, Davidson tells the story of one year in his life–a year during which he came to a new, mature understanding of his own life and his connection to others. Or, as Davidson would say, he became an adult.
One morning in 2008, desperate and impoverished and living in a one-room basement apartment while trying unsuccessfully to write, Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read, “Bus Drivers Wanted.” That was the first step towards an unlikely new career: driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year. Armed only with a sense of humour akin to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving a large, awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of kids, and surprising but unsentimental reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride. He shows us how his evolving relationship with the kids on that bus, each of them struggling physically as well as emotionally and socially, slowly but surely changed his life along with the lives of the “precious cargo” in his care. This is the extraordinary story of that year and those relationships. It is also a moving, important and universal story about how we see and treat people with special needs in our society.
One of Newfoundland’s funniest and most beloved storytellers offers his cure for the Covid blues.
Is there a more sociable province than Newfoundland and Labrador? Or anywhere in Canada with a greater reputation for coming to the rescue of those in need?
At this time of Covid, singer, songwriter and bestselling author Alan Doyle is feeling everyone’s pain. Off the road and spending more days at home than he has since he was a child hawking cod tongues on the wharfs of Petty Harbour, he misses the crowds and companionship of performing across the country and beyond. But most of all he misses the cheery clamour of pubs in his hometown, where one yarn follows another so quickly you have to be as ready as an Olympian at the start line to get your tale in before someone is well into theirs already. We’re all experiencing our own version of that deprivation, and Alan, one of Newfoundland’s finest storytellers, wants to offer a little balm.
All Together Now is a gathering in book form–a virtual Newfoundland pub. There are adventures in foreign lands, including an apparently filthy singalong in Polish (well, he would have sung along if he’d understood the language), a real-life ghost story involving an elderly neighbour, a red convertible and a clown horn, a potted history of his social drinking, and heartwarming reminiscences from another past world, childhood–all designed to put a smile on the faces of the isolated-addled.
Alan Doyle has never been in better form–nor more welcome. As he says about this troubling time: We get through it. We do what has to be done. Then, we celebrate. With the best of them.
An international bestseller, this compassionate memoir by a leading pioneer in medically assisted dying who helps suffering patients explore and fulfill their end of life choices is “written with sensitivity, grace, and candor…not to be missed” ( Publishers Weekly , starred review).
Dr. Stefanie Green has been forging new paths in the field of medical assistance in dying since 2016. In her landmark memoir, Dr. Green reveals the reasons a patient might seek an assisted death, how the process works, what the event itself can look like, the reactions of those involved, and what it feels like to oversee proceedings and administer medications that hasten death. She describes the extraordinary people she meets and the unusual circumstances she encounters as she navigates the intricacy, intensity, and utter humanity of these powerful interactions.
Deeply authentic and powerfully emotional, This Is Assisted Dying contextualizes the myriad personal, professional, and practical issues surrounding assisted dying by bringing readers into the room with Dr. Green, sharing the voices of her patients, her colleagues, and her own narrative. As our population confronts issues of wellness, integrity, agency, community, and how to live a connected, meaningful life, this progressive and compassionate book by a physician at the forefront of medically assisted dying offers comfort and potential relief.
“A humane, clear-eyed view of how and why one can leave the world by choice” ( Kirkus Reviews ), This Is Assisted Dying will change the way people think about their options, and ultimately is less about death than about how we wish to live.
Memoirs offer readers a glimpse into a life that can either be a window or mirror to their own life. Windows offer us a glimpse outward into a different perspective, while mirrors show us a reflection of our own stories. These four stories chosen this month can offer readers something new to learn and discover.
Not in a book club? No problem! These books are also available as single copies in our online catalogue.
Book descriptions via GoodReads
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