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ID: 494203

Title: Road Ends

Author: Mary Lawson

Narrator: Ishan Davé, Jess Salgueiro, John Fleming

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:12:36

Language: English

Release date: 02-16-21

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Literary Fiction, Family Life, Sagas

Summary:

He listened as their voices faded into the rumble of the falls. He was thinking about the lynx. The way it had looked at him, acknowledging his existence, then passing out of his life like smoke. . . It was the first thing—the only thing—that had managed, if only for a moment, to displace from his mind the image of the child. He had carried that image with him for a year now, and it had been a weight so great that sometimes he could hardly stand.

 

Mary Lawson’s beloved novels, Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge, have delighted legions of readers around the world. The fictional, northern Ontario town of Struan, buried in the winter snows, is the vivid backdrop to her breathtaking new novel.

 

Roads End brings us a family unravelling in the aftermath of tragedy: Edward Cartwright, struggling to escape the legacy of a violent past; Emily, his wife, cloistered in her room with yet another new baby, increasingly unaware of events outside the bedroom door; Tom, their eldest son, twenty-five years old but home again, unable to come to terms with the death of a friend; and capable, formidable Megan, the sole daughter in a household of eight sons, who for years held the family together but has finally broken free and gone to England, to try to make a life of her own.

 

Roads End is Mary Lawson at her best. In this masterful, enthralling, tender novel, which ranges from the Ontario silver rush of the early 1900s to swinging London in the 1960s, she gently reveals the intricacies and anguish of family life, the push and pull of responsibility and individual desire, the way we can face tragedy, and in time, hope to start again.

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ID: 494200

Title: Crow Lake

Author: Mary Lawson

Narrator: Amelia Sargisson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8:34:09

Language: English

Release date: 02-16-21

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Literary Fiction, Family Life, Sagas

Summary:

Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so emotionally pitch perfect, you know from the opening page that this is the real thing—a literary experience in which to lose yourself, by an author of immense talent.

Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the rural “badlands” of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. For the farming Pye family, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and terrible events occur–offstage.

Centerstage are the Morrisons, whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is, in reality, insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt’s protegee, her fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the state of her own emotional life. And she thinks she’s outgrown her siblings–Luke, Matt, and Bo–who were once her entire world.

In this universal drama of family love and misunderstandings, of resentments harbored and driven underground, Lawson ratchets up the tension with heartbreaking humor and consummate control, continually overturning one’s expectations right to the very end. Tragic, funny, unforgettable, Crow Lake is a quiet tour de force that will catapult Mary Lawson to the forefront of fiction writers today.

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ID: 486882

Title: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Author: Adam Grant

Narrator: Adam Grant

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6:41:04

Language: English

Release date: 02-04-21

Publisher: Penguin Books LTD

Genres: Business & Economics, Non-Fiction, Career Development, Psychology

Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin.

The bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people's minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life

Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In recent months, the pandemic has forced us all to reevaluate our assumptions about health and safety and multiple acts of police brutality have challenged most of us to reconsider our responsibility for fighting racism. Yet in our daily lives, too many of us still favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: there's evidence that being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder we can become to our own limitations.

As an organizational psychologist, Adam Grant has spent his career exploring how we can open other people's minds--and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, one of his guiding principles in life is arguing like he's right but listening like he's wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, harness the surprising advantages of impostor syndrome, bring nuance into charged conversations about abortion and climate change, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. You'll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces anti-vaxxers to immunize their children, and how Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox. Think Again reveals that we don't have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. It's an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility, humility, and curiosity over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom.

© Adam Grant 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

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ID: 438557

Title: Brief History of Anxiety (Yours and Mine)

Author: Patricia Pearson

Narrator: Patricia Pearson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6:09:55

Language: English

Release date: 02-02-21

Publisher: Random House Canada

Genres: Biography & Memoir, Non-Fiction, Self Development, Health & Wellness, Psychology

Summary:

Patricia Pearson returns to non-fiction with a witty, insightful and highly personal look at recognizing and coping with fears and anxieties in our contemporary world.

The millions of North Americans who silently cope with anxiety at last have a witty, articulate champion in Patricia Pearson, who shows that the anxious are hardly “nervous nellies” with “weak characters” who just need medicine and a pat on the head. Instead, Pearson questions what it is about today’s culture that is making people anxious, and offers some surprising answers–as well as some inspiring solutions based on her own fierce battle to drive the beast away.

Drawing on personal episodes of incapacitating dread as a vivid, often hilarious guide to her quest to understand this most ancient of human emotions, Pearson delves into the history and geography of anxiety. Why are North Americans so much more likely to suffer than Latin Americans? Why did Darwin treat hypochondria with sprays from a hose? Why have we forgotten the insights of some of our greatest philosophers, theologians and psychologists in favor of prescribing addictive drugs? In this blend of fascinating reportage and poignant memoir, Pearson ends with her struggle to withdraw from antidepressants and to find more self-aware and philosophically-grounded ways to strengthen the soul.

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ID: 413857

Title: Kill the Mall

Author: Pasha Malla

Narrator: Anand Rajaram

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6:51:36

Language: English

Release date: 02-02-21

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Mystery, Thriller & Horror, Satire

Summary:

'Pasha Malla writes like a reincarnated Kafka.' —Ian Williams, winner of the Giller Prize for Reproduction

 

Douglas Adams meets David Lynch in this ingenious, witty fable about one of North America's most surreal inventions—the local mall.

After writing a letter in praise of malls, our eccentric narrator is offered a residency at a shabby suburban shopping centre. His mission: to occupy the mall for several weeks, splitting his time between 'making work' and 'engaging the public,' all while chronicling his adventures in weekly progress reports.

Before long, a series of strange after-hour events rattles our hero, and he sets forth on a nightly quest to untangle the mysterious forces at play in the mall's unmapped recesses. Things quickly get hairy, and our narrator's optimism about his mall residency descends into doubt, and then into a full-blown phantasmagoria of horror and (possibly) murder. With the aid of a weird and wonderful cast of mall-dwelling misfits--including a pony named Gary--our narrator is forced to conclude that his new residence may not be the temple of consumer bliss he initially imagined, but something far more sinister. And who, or what, is benefitting from its existence?

Much like the shopping centres it praises and parodies, Pasha Malla’s wildly adventurous novel follows its own internal logic, channeling its narrator’s unshakeable innocence to explore the darker edges of human (and other) nature.

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ID: 491277

Title: He Must Like You

Author: Danielle Younge-Ullman

Narrator: Gabi Epstein

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:29:27

Language: English

Release date: 02-02-21

Publisher: Penguin Teen

Genres: Fiction, Teen, Tough Topics

Summary:

An authentic, angry, and surprisingly funny and romantic novel about sexual harassment, from the award-winning author of Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined.

Libby's having a rough senior year. Her older brother absconded with his college money and is bartending on a Greek island. Her dad just told her she's got to pay for college herself, and he's evicting her when she graduates so he can AirBnB her room. A drunken hook-up with her coworker Kyle has left her upset and confused. So when Perry Ackerman, serial harasser and the most handsy customer at The Goat where she waitresses, pushes her over the edge, she can hardly be blamed for dumping a pitcher of sangria on his head. Unfortunately, Perry is a local industry hero, the restaurant's most important customer and Libby's mom's boss. Now Libby has to navigate the fallout of her outburst, find an apartment and deal with her increasing rage at the guys who've screwed up her life--and her increasing crush on the one guy who truly gets her. As timely as it is timeless, He Must Like You is a story about consent, rage, and revenge, and the potential we all have to be better people.

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ID: 438558

Title: Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They're Going

Author: Patricia Pearson

Narrator: Patricia Pearson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9:36:32

Language: English

Release date: 02-02-21

Publisher: Random House Canada

Genres: Health & Wellness, Death & Bereavement, Naturopathy & New Age

Summary:

From the award-winning, groundbreaking author of A Brief History of Anxiety...Yours and Mine comes a touching, exhilarating, challenging exploration of the inexplicable gleamings of another world many of us experience, in life, in grief, and near death.

Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occurred in her family when her father and her sister both died in 2008, Patricia Pearson was launched on a journey of investigation into what she calls 'a curious sort of modern underground--a world beneath the secular world, inhabited by ordinary human beings having extraordinary experiences that they aren't, on the whole, willing to disclose.' Roughly half the bereaved population, about 20% of those near death who recover, and an unreported number of the dying witness or experience a sensed presence, the mystery of near-death awareness, and, if they are not in horrible pain or medicated into unconsciousness, rationally inexplicable feelings of transcendence and grace as they depart on the journey from which none of us return. 

Pearson brings us effortlessly into her illuminating quest for answers, inspiring us to own up to experiences we may never have shared with anyone. Secular or religious, all of us wonder deeply about these things if we let ourselves, and also about the medical, social and psychological implications of understanding what it means to pass through heaven's door.

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ID: 429277

Title: Beguiling

Author: Zsuzsi Gartner

Narrator: Amanda Cordner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7:38:20

Language: English

Release date: 01-26-21

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Canada

Genres: Religion & Spirituality, Fiction & Literature, Religious Fiction, Contemporary Women

Summary:

An electrifying debut novel from the Giller Prize-shortlisted author of Better Living Through Plastic Explosives that takes readers for a wild ride with urban-gothic flair and delectably wicked humour.

Lucy is a lapsed-Catholic whose adolescent pretensions to sainthood are unexpectedly revived.

It all starts when her cousin Zoltan, in hospital following a bizarre incident at a party, offers her a disturbing deathbed confession. Lucy's grief takes an unusual turn: Zoltan's death appears to have turned her into a magnet for the unshriven. Lucy is transformed into a self-described 'flesh-and-blood Wailing Wall' as strangers unburden themselves to her. She becomes addicted to the dark stories, finds herself jonesing for hit after hit.

As the confessions pile up, Lucy begins to wonder if Zoltan's death was as random and unscripted as it appeared. She clutches at alarming synchronicities, seeks meaning in the stories of strangers. Why do the stories seem connected to each other or eerily echo elements of her life? Could it be because Lucy has her own transgressions to acknowledge? And then there is that stubbornly resurfacing past, like a tell-tale ribbon of hair snagged on a fish hook.

With ruthless wit and dizzying energy, The Beguiling explores blessings and curses, sainthood and sin, mortality and guilt in all its guises. Weaving together tales of errant mothers, vengeful plants, canine wisdom, and murder, it lays bare the flesh and blood sacrifices people are willing to make to get what they think they desire.

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ID: 484695

Title: Complete Idiot's Guide to Theories of the Universe

Author: Gary Moring

Narrator: Richard Trinder

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12:54:33

Language: English

Release date: 01-19-21

Publisher: DK Audio

Genres: Science & Technology, General

Summary:

You're no idiot, of course. You know Heisenburg's uncertainty principle has nothing to do with where you put your car keys. But modern cosmology is relatively complicated. The mystery of the universe definitely isn't one we can flip to the end to see whodunit. That hasn't stopped physicists, astronomers, and philosophers from searching for clues! The topic is infinite (literally), but once you've listened to this book you'll have a solid idea of our place in the universe and even where the cosmos itself might be headed.

In this 'Complete Idiot's Guide', you'll explore:

-Major religions, philosophical and scientific theories concerning the nature and origin of the universe.

-The theory of everything; one coherent model that would explain how all the forces and particles of nature work.

-The fascinating and even sometimes bizarre implications of the latest theories.

© 2001 David Levine; Paula Petrella © 2021 DK Audio

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ID: 427434

Title: Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming

Author: Antonio Michael Downing

Narrator: Antonio Michael Downing

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11:45:55

Language: English

Release date: 01-19-21

Publisher: Viking Canada

Genres: Biography & Memoir, Arts & Entertainment

Summary:

SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Speaker's Book Award

 

LONGLISTED for the 2021 Toronto Book Award

The triumph of Saga Boy is the triumph of Blackness everywhere--the irrepressible instinct for survival in a world where Blacks are prey.'

--Ian Williams, Giller Prize-winning author of Reproduction

An enthralling, deeply personal account of a young immigrant's search for belonging and Black identity amid the long-lasting effects of cultural dislocation.

Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only Black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines.

He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: 'Mic Dainjah,' a punk rock rapper, 'Molasses,' a soul music crooner and finally 'John Orpheus,' a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a 'Saga Boy,' a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself.

Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his Black identity and embrace a rich heritage.

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