This Ultimate Canadian Book Six-Pack Might Just Inspire a Coast to Coast Trek of Canada

Six books for the summer

1. There’s Always More to Say by Natalie Southworth

Aside from a serious Marg Atwood phase in the 90s, it’s rare that I read short fiction collections. However, There’s Always More to Say made me a believer. From her home in Montreal, Natalie Southworth deftly evokes empathy in her myriad of broken characters. With the unwavering eye of a classical realism artist, she has coloured a narrative of several women as they navigate dissolving relationships, failure, anxiety and generational depression. Her consistent play between the light and shadows is constant, like the deliberate nature of chiaroscuro.

Southworth’s stories are immediately transportive and as raw as a skinned knee. It’s impossible not to identify with the frayed threads of friendship and family, either first-hand or as a bystander. To become fully entrenched in the mood and heart of the loneliest, misunderstood, heartbroken and struggling women she portrays with grace and resilience is inevitable. “Inheritance” is one that is guaranteed to linger like a bruise. This book is a gift of voices both heard and silenced.

2. Exploring Montreal: 151 Best Buildings by Robin Ward

For residents, first-time visitors or frequent fliers, Robin Ward’s architectural foray into Montreal is an enormous resource to plot your own experience. All the staples are accounted for: Schwartz’s Deli, Marché Atwater, the famed Jardin botanique de Montreal, Fairmont Queen Elizabeth and Habitat 67.

From the sawtooth design of the Insectarium greenhouse to the iconic Farine Five Roses silos, Montreal is an open history book with its foundries, shipyards, textile mills, bell towers, rail lines, fur trade heritage, fires and typhoid outbreaks.

“The most sustainable buildings are those you already have” is a sentiment that Montreal takes pride in. The concrete silos from the Redpath sugar refinery have been repurposed as a rock-climbing gym while the ‘76 Olympic Games Velodrome pivoted to become the Biodôme, showcasing the earth’s five dramatic ecosystems of the Americas from tropical rainforest to the Arctic.

3. No Thanks, I Want to Walk: Two months on foot around New Brunswick and the Gaspe by Emily Taylor Smith

Emily Taylor Smith’s memoir is an easy one to slip into. The visuals are an immediate marinade in the Maritimes—you can almost taste the briny spray of the Atlantic on your face. From the viridescent sea to brackish estuaries, fields of swaying timothy, butter yellow hollyhocks and purple fireweed, you’ll quickly fall in step with Smith and billboards that suggest: “Get High on Milk—Our Cows Are on Grass!” It’s the kind of humour that can be missed at too many miles per hour.

On foot, Smith’s observations on her daunting 2,400km journey (in just two months) from St. Stephen, New Brunswick to Quebec City are peppered with reality, anxiousness, introspection, gratitude, epiphanies and the hot salvation of Tim Hortons coffee. Despite her summer timeline, the eastern provinces deliver with their typical blasts of sideways rain and wind—but Smith is seasoned and resilient after hiking the coastlines of both Nova Scotia and PEI. She stops checking the current forecast online. “Walking forty-five kilometres each day had me outwalking forecasted weather systems before they arrived.”

4. Open House: A Life in Thirty-Two Moves by Jane Christmas

Jane Christmas candidly admits that her affection for property shows is a “gateway drug to a full-on renovation.” She is energized when her home looks like sacs of flour have been detonated.

Naturally, this memoir goes many wallpaper layers deep in true Jane Christmas-style. The veneer is removed early on and there’s admission that the chronic restoration she seeks in houses is also an essential tool in the redesign of her emotional scaffolding. The throwbacks to her childhood are difficult to read and they’ll sit sideways in your throat.

Quasi Under the Tuscan Sun but more like, Under the Bristol Brelly, Christmas looked at 60 homes in England’s “stonking-hot” 2017 market. The undercurrent is subtle but undeniable. Open House is about belonging and how that fluid concept really has no fixed address.

5. The Healing Wisdom of North American Trees: From Root to Remedy by Brenda Gallagher

This enormously rich resource is a dynamic tribute to our forests. Brenda Gallagher, a vegetation specialist with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority in Southern Ontario, believes trees are our oldest teachers. Quickly and quietly, she illustrates the impossibility of our lives without trees through folklore, herbal alchemy, botanical science, Indigenous teachings, wildlife relationships, and personal insights into over a dozen species.

She shares fascinating bits of history, taboos, mating rituals, and quirky trivia throughout and
reminds us of how trees are so deeply rooted in our lives. From Aspirin to gin, insect repellent, teas, ink, broomsticks, maple syrup, artificial limbs, canoes, ox yokes, paper, flooring, perfume, bobsleds, guitars, cricket bats, polo balls, trim, moulding, treehouses, and shade to the paintings of the Group of Seven, trees are instrumental. Really, scan the room you’re in. From beehives to lobster pots, trees are a part of our survival and well-being.

Gallagher’s compendium is a gorgeous celebration of species that have been planted as trees of peace (white pine), superstitious safeguards (elderberry), food sources to fatten pigs (oak), natural protection from lightning (beech), and to ward off snakes (white ash). The Healing Wisdom of Trees serves as a surreptitious reminder to appreciate the traditional ties, magic, and mystery of our forests. This book will definitely compel you to hug a tree. And plant one.

6. THE CHIP STAND: 130 of Canada’s Iconic Food Landmarks by Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel

There are certain books that swallow you whole and vice versa. They distract and tempt at every turn, daring you to read them in one indulgent sitting. The only thing missing from this grand French fry compendium is a bamboo wooden fork and scratch-and-sniff feature reminiscent of sharp vinegar and hot grease.

Authors and illustrators Chantal Bennett and Joel Kimmel, dedicated the last 10 years to creating this edible ode to Canada’s landmark chip stands from Nunavut to Gananoque (and a few notables from Amsterdam and the fry motherland, Belgium).

The cash-only simplicity, unmistakable waft and repurposed whimsy of the vehicles (a retired Canada Post delivery truck even) is captured in over 150 pages of jazzy chip stand drawings (one on a grease-spotted fry bag). From the anatomy of a perfect poutine to the history of the POGO, the drawings, owner interviews and salt-sprinkled blurbs are as playful as some of the classic stand names like Fry Me to the Moon and the Hippie Chippie.