The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past, by Taras Grescoe

Genre: Nonfiction

Publisher: Greystone Books

What It's About

Many of us are worried (or at least we should be) about the impacts of globalization, pollution, and biotechnology on our diets. Whether it's monoculture crops, hormone-fed beef, or high-fructose corn syrup, industrially-produced foods have troubling consequences for us and the planet. But as culinary diversity diminishes, many people are looking to a surprising place to safeguard the future: into the past.

The Lost Supper explores an idea that is quickly spreading among restaurateurs, food producers, scientists, and gastronomes around the world: that the key to healthy and sustainable eating lies not in looking forward, but in looking back to the foods that have sustained us through our half-million-year existence as a species.

Acclaimed author Taras Grescoe introduces readers to the surprising and forgotten flavors whose revival is captivating food-lovers around the world: ancient sourdough bread last baked by Egyptian pharaohs; raw-milk farmhouse cheese from critically endangered British dairy cattle; ham from Spanish pata negra pigs that have been foraging on acorns on a secluded island since before the United States was a nation; and olive oil from wild olive trees uniquely capable of resisting quickly evolving pests and modern pathogens.

From Ancient Roman fish sauce to Aztec caviar to the long-thought-extinct silphium, The Lost Supper is a deep dive into the latest frontier of global gastronomy—the archaeology of taste. Through vivid writing, history, and first-hand culinary experience, Grescoe sets out a provocative case: in order to save these foods, he argues, we've got to eat them.

What People Say

"In the tradition of Michael Pollan, Anthony Bourdain, and Mark Bittman, "a surprising, flavorsome tour of ancient cuisines"—from Neolithic bread to ancient Roman fish sauce—and why reviving the foods of the past is the key to saving the future."—Kirkus, STARRED

"A fascinating look at the people who are keeping these ancient food traditions alive against the odds, while offering a rough roadmap toward a more sustainable food ecosystem."—Eater

**

This Is How I Disappear, by Mirion Malle

Genre: Graphic novel, YA Lit

Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

What It's About

An affecting glimpse into the ways millennials cope with mental health struggles

Clara’s at a breaking point. She’s got writer’s block, her friends ask a lot without giving much, her psychologist is useless, and her demanding publishing job leaves little time for self care. She seeks solace in the community around her, yet, while her friends provide support and comfort, she is often left feeling empty, unable to express an underlying depression that leaves her immobilized and stifles any attempts at completing her poetry collection. In This Is How I Disappear, Mirion Malle paints an empathetic portrait of a young woman wrestling with psychological stress and the trauma following a sexual assault.

Malle displays frankness and a remarkable emotional intelligence as she explores depression, isolation, and self-harm in her expertly drawn novel. Her heroine battles an onslaught of painful emotions and while Clara can provide consolation to those around her, she finds it difficult to bestow the same understanding on herself. Only when she allows her community to guide her toward self-love does she find relief.

Filled with 21st century idioms and social media communication, This Is How I Disappear opens a window onto the lives of young people as they face a barrage of mental health hurdles. Scenes of sisterhood, fun nights out singing karaoke, and impromptu FaceTime therapy sessions show how this generation is coping, connecting, and healing together.

"The black-and-white, hand-drawn style suits the story perfectly and quietly enhances Clara's darker moments. It is a heartbreakingly familiar story."—BOOKLIST, Starred Review

**

Border & Rule, by Harsha Walia

Genre: Nonfiction

Publisher: Fernwood Publishing

What It's About

In Border and Rule, one of North America’s foremost thinkers and immigrant rights organizers delivers an unflinching examination of migration as a pillar of global governance and gendered racial class formation.

Harsha Walia disrupts easy explanations for the migrant and refugee crises, instead showing them to be the inevitable outcomes of conquest, capitalist globalization, and climate change generating mass dispossession worldwide. Border and Rule explores a number of seemingly disparate global geographies with shared logics of border rule that displace, immobilize, criminalize, exploit, and expel migrants and refugees. With her keen ability to connect the dots, Walia demonstrates how borders divide the international working class and consolidate imperial, capitalist, ruling-class, and racist nationalist rule.

Ambitious in scope and internationalist in orientation, Border and Rule breaks through American exceptionalism and liberal responses to the migration crisis and cogently maps the lucrative connections between state violence, capitalism, and right-wing nationalism around the world.

Illuminating the brutal mechanics of state formation, Walia exposes US border policy as a product of violent territorial expansion, settler-colonialism, enslavement, and gendered racial exclusion. Further, she compellingly details how Fortress Europe and White Australia are using immigration diplomacy and externalized borders to maintain a colonial present, how temporary labor migration in the Arab Gulf states and Canada is central to citizenship regulation and labour control, and how far-right nationalism is escalating deadly violence in the United States, Israel, India, the Philippines, Brazil, and across Europe, while producing a disaster of statelessness for millions elsewhere.

A must-read in these difficult times of war, inequality, climate change, and global health crisis, Border and Rule is a clarion call for revolution. The book includes a foreword from renowned scholar Robin D. G. Kelley and an afterword from acclaimed activist-academic Nick Estes.

What People Say

"This is a book of unsparing truth and dazzling ambition."—Naomi Klein

“Harsha Walia’s Border and Rule forwards a clear and incisive analysis of the multiple crises facing migrants today amidst the rise of racist nationalisms globally. It is a must-read, sure to become a classic, for those of us concerned with building a world premised on freedom of movement, against and beyond the logics of the nation-state.”—Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives

**

Gamechanger, by L.X. Beckett

Genre: Science fiction

Publisher: Tor/Forge

What It's About

Neuromancer meets Star Trek in Gamechanger, a fantastic new book from award-winning author L. X. Beckett.

First there was the Setback.

Then came the Clawback.

Now we thrive.

Rubi Whiting is a member of the Bounceback Generation. The first to be raised free of the troubles of the late twenty-first century. Now she works as a public defender to help troubled individuals with anti-social behavior. That’s how she met Luciano Pox.

Luce is a firebrand and has made a name for himself as a naysayer. But there’s more to him than being a lightning rod for controversy. Rubi has to find out why the governments of the world want to bring Luce into custody, and why Luce is hell bent on stopping the recovery of the planet.

What People Say

"This delightful pinball machine of a book recalls the whiz-bang joy and gleeful innovation of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"A visionary glimpse into the future."—Kirkus Reviews

**

Gone to Pot, by Jennifer Craig

Genre: Fiction, humour

Publisher: Second Story Press

What It's About

After losing her job and learning she might also lose her house because of a bad investment, Jess, a fiercely independent and hilariously wry BC grandma, resorts to growing pot in her basement to make ends meet. She then has to juggle her public life as a grandmother and member of the town’s senior women’s group – The Company of Crones – with her secret life as a pot grower. The unusual characters she meets along the way include Swan, the enigmatic young woman who introduces her to the grower’s world, and Marcus, the socially awkward "gardener" who shows her the tricks of the trade. Both of her new young friends are more than they appear, and Jess’ adventures in pot growing break down barriers in both her old and new circles. The delightful outcome of an almost legitimate business leaves Jess and her associates flushed with success.

What People Say

"Gone to Pot is an entertaining read, thanks largely to Craig’s dynamic writing style. Characters all differ greatly from each other in age and disposition, but dialogue is well parsed and believable, Craig making the seamless transition between voices look easy.... A great read for any age, reminding us that the elderly can be vibrant, active, and involved."—Foreword Reviews