The month is February in the year 1807. The place is Weybridge, Vermont: small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. Sylvia Drake is exhausted. As an unwed woman with few prospects, she is residing with and caring for her sister’s rambunctious family. Today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant. A friend of the family, she is most known for her elegant letters, with their swoopy and evocative penmanship and carefully chosen prose. But Charity’s visit is a guise, she is coming to Vermont to start over after heartbreak and rumours—so many rumours—that have grown too loud back in Massachusetts.

Being openly gay in 19th century New England is not an easy row to hoe. But Charity can only be herself, and she immediately catches—and holds—the eye of none other than Sylvia Drake. From this point on, for 44 years, the two would be inseparable, building a life together despite all odds and living as a lesbian couple in small town Vermont.

The true, exceptional story of these remarkable women is brought to life with humor and passion by the unparalleled and award-winning Tillie Walden (Spinning, On A Sunbeam). We see America grow alongside these women over a period that brings about the railroad, many novels, 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, plagues, and poetry. Based on extensive archives of their writing, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America.

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Miranda Campbell and Benjamin Woo advocate for an ecological view of the grassroots forces that sustain and develop cultural and artistic activity. The authors ground this book in examples from their own involvement in and research with cultural communities such as comics creators, game players, music scenes, zine-makers, artist co-operatives, and fan cultures. Serving as a response to some of the early twenty-first century’s gig-economy boosterism, this is also a book that seeks to document how culture is not only consumed but produced in everyday practices.

Broadening the field of cultural studies and understandings of what constitutes culture, Making Worlds recognizes and celebrates the work of the chronically unsupported, underfunded, and the precariously situated in spaces at risk of eviction or gentrification.

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Through an examination of references to the weather as a key element or influence on food practices, Bassnett shows how early modern households understood seasonal food cycles and developed systems to become more resilient during an unpredictable period. Identifying and discussing practices involving “weathering,” “seasoning,” and “preserving,” this book investigates how perceptions of food insecurity, alongside strategies for resilience, were shared among networks of readers. Authors and works of particular focus include Hugh Plat’s Sundrie Newe and Artificiall Remedies Against Famine (1596) and Delightes for Ladies (1600), the seventeenth-century manuscript recipe books of Ann Fanshawe and Mary Evelyn, and Hannah Woolley’s The Queen-Like Closet (1670).

Connecting the historical record with modern concerns about disruptions to food production and distribution, Climate Change Cookery demonstrates how people previously increased their ecological and local awareness.

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Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor was one of the greatest American athletes of the early 20th century, setting records in regional bike races as a teen and winning his first world championship by the age of twenty. But Taylor was born in 1878 in Indianapolis and came of age during the height of the Jim Crow era, facing racism at every turn.

Cartoonist Frederick Noland is a cyclist himself and in this epic 400 page graphic biography of America’s first Black world champion, he thrills in the records Taylor broke and the adoring public he found across North America, Europe, and Australia, all the while showing how the invention of the bicycle changed society. Yet Noland also documents how racism inflected Black life in the post Civil War era: cyclists would collude to injure Taylor, and he faced segregationist policies even in liberal cities such as San Francisco. And while Taylor found respite racing overseas, he soon found American-style racism exported internationally to sell tickets.

Noland pens a gorgeous, humane, graphic paean to Major Taylor, illustrating how the fastest man in America also had a deep well of integrity and fortitude not just to succeed, but to overcome the racist abuse he faced from fellow athletes and society at large. Major Taylor is a loving tribute to an exceptional American.

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How the Indigenous Beothuk people in Newfoundland were made extinct – through stories.

The well-known story of the Beothuk is that they were an isolated people who, through conflict with Newfoundland settlers and Mi’kmaq, were made extinct in 1829. Narratives about the disappearance of the Beothuk and the reasons for their supposed extinction soon became entrenched in historical accounts and the popular imagination.

Beothuk explores how the history of a people has been misrepresented by the stories of outsiders writing to serve their own interests – from Viking sagas to the accounts of European explorers to the work of early twentieth-century anthropologists. Drawing on narrative theory and the philosophy of history, Christopher Aylward lays bare the limitations of the accepted Beothuk story, which perpetuated but could never prove the notion of Beothuk extinction. Only with the integration of Indigenous perspectives, beginning in the 1920s, was this accepted story seriously questioned. With the accumulation of new sources and methods – archaeological evidence, previously unexplored British and French accounts, Mi’kmaq oral history, and the testimonies of Labrador Innu and Beothuk descendants – a new historical reality has emerged.

Rigorous and compelling, Beothuk demonstrates the enduring power of stories to shape our understanding of the past and the impossibility of writing Indigenous history without Indigenous storytellers.

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A definitive guide to a perplexing and increasingly polarized topic, Immigration and Canada distills the latest research into a highly accessible account, explaining how Canada’s immigration system works both domestically and within the context of international migration, and how profoundly it shapes the lives of newcomers and the fabric of Canadian society.

Written for readers with little familiarity of the field, the book’s lively Q&A format delivers information concisely, without sacrificing analytical depth. As well as providing a helpful backgrounder, the authors address more complex and delicate questions – Is immigration good for the economy? Are immigrants learning the official languages? Are immigrants driving the housing crisis? Is Canadian immigration policy still racially biased? – responding with clear, evidence-based analysis. This primer offers a welcome understanding of Canada’s immigration system, its historical development and current pressures, the politics of immigration across the country including Quebec, and the critical data on immigration and integration trends.

Amid widespread misinformation, Immigration and Canada fosters informed debate on one of today’s most topical issues.

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On an island located an hour from Seoul, North Korea sits visible from cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s home and studio. The specter of the infamous dictatorship and nuclear power looms over daily life. Artillery fire, helicopters, and sirens from a nearby military base paint the acoustic landscape. In her award-winning books Grass and The Waiting, Gendry-Kim documents the pain and heartbreak of Korea’s history. In My Friend Kim Jong-Un, she looks to the present—to the man currently responsible for upholding the national divide created after World War Two.

While the rest of the world partakes in the popularity of Korean culture, a certain unease and anxiety hangs in the air in South Korea as its people still grapple with the distrust and anger of one culture split into two distinct societies. Gendry-Kim explores the life of the supreme leader, searching for commonalities to make sense of the daily fear: from his birth to his international education, his hobbies, and his relationships. She weaves her personal accounts and includes interviews with former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, North Korean defectors, researchers, journalists, and even Kim’s former chef.

Translated by the award-winning Janet Hong, My Friend… is a cautionary tale on what makes a dictator, at a time when these lessons are more relevant in the West than ever.

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Chris Oliveros sets out to dispel common misconceptions about the birth and early years of a now-defunct movement whose legacy still holds a tight grip on Canadian politics and the hearts and minds of Quebec. The Front de libération du Québec (or in English, the Quebec Liberation Front), began as a socialist movement with a goal of championing workers’ rights among the province’s French-speaking majority. Their goal? Ridding the province of English business owner oppression by any means necessary–including violent revolution.

Using dozens of obscure and long-forgotten sources, Oliveros skillfully weaves a comics oral history where the activists, employers, politicians, and secretaries piece together the sequence of events. At times humorous, other times dramatic, and always informative, Are You Willing To Die For The Cause? shines a light on how just little it takes to organize dissent and who people trust to overthrow the government.

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