Throughout Maya Angelou's life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant - and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

Avid North American birders share wit, wisdom, advice, and what fuels their passion for birds.Birding gets you outside, helps you de-stress, exercises your body and mind, puts your day-to-day problems in perspective, and can be lots of fun. Birders know this, and in this collection of thirty-seven brief essays, birders from diverse backgrounds share their sense of wonder, joy, and purpose about their passion (and sometimes obsession).From the Pacific Ocean to Central Park, from the rainforest in Panama to suburban backyards-no matter what their habitat, what good birders have in common is a curiosity about the natural world and a desire to share it with others. In these delightful essays, each accompanied by an endearing drawing, devoted birders reveal their passion to be fulfilling, joyful, exhilarating, and maybe even contagious.Contributors include many well-known birders, such as Richard Crossley, Pete Dunne, Kenn Kaufman, Michael O'Brien, Bill Thompson, and Julie Zickefoose.A portion of the proceeds goes to the American Birding Association, North America's largest membership organization for active birders.

Go Ahead and Shoot Me is a collection of stories written and edited by former probation officer Doug Heckbert about real people who have been convicted of real crimes and who have been on probation, on parole, or in prison. The title story is of a woman who shot her husband upon his insistence and who, like many other subjects in the book, have come to see their offences as being “pretty stupid.” Some stories might be described as ordinary crimes and some are stunningly extraordinary, but all stories show the human side of criminals that Heckbert worked with and came to know, not just the nature of the crimes they committed. By getting inside glimpses of offender’s backstories, motivations, and personalities, Go Ahead and Shoot Me shows there is much more to an offender than their criminal behavior. Says Heckbert, “I have always been guided by the mantra, 'The criminal is not the crime.'"

National Bestseller Named a Most Anticipated Book by: The New York Times * Buzzfeed * Time.com * OprahMag.com * The Millions * The Rumpus * LitHub * Paperback Paris * The Lily (Washington Post) * Ms. * LAMBDA Literary. A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society. In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them. When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she'd been told about herself and the habits and defenses she'd developed over years of trying to meet others' expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs. Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny. Written with Febos' characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

Wisdom and Humor from the Front Porch - Master storyteller Philip Gulley shares tender and hilarious real-life moments that capture the important truths of everyday life. When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

Oil is not new to Saskatchewan. Many of the wells found on farmland across the province date back to the 1950s when the industry began to spread. But there is little doubt that the recent boom (2006-2014) and subsequent downturn in unconventional oil production has reshaped rural lives and landscapes. While many small towns were suffering from depopulation and decline, others reoriented themselves around a booming oil industry. In place of the abandoned houses and shuttered shops found in many small towns in Saskatchewan, housing developments sprang up with new trucks and boats parked in driveways. Yet people in oil-producing areas also lived amid flare stacks that made them ill, had trouble finding housing due to vacancy rates that were among the lowest in the country, suffered through family breakdown because of long working hours and time spent away from home, and endured spills and leaks that contaminated their land. In the summer of 2014, at the height of the boom, geographer Emily Eaton and photographer Valerie Zink travelled to oil towns across the province, from the sea-can motel built from shipping containers on the outskirts of Estevan to seismic testing sites on Thunderchild First Nation's Sundance grounds.

Do you remember the invasion of Newfoundland's hydroponic cucumber? How about New Brunswick's Bricklin sports car? Dan Soucoup follows the money up the political ladder to deliver the dirt on the most devastating failed business ventures, political scandals, and industry fiascos in Atlantic Canadian history. Presented in entertaining vignettes, he exposes two centuries of debacles. Exposed is the downfall of many local industries including steel, coal mining, and hydro-power. Relive the tragic fall of Sydney Steel in Cape Breton, PEI's flawed immigrant investor program, the controversial (and ongoing) Churchill Falls project in Newfoundland, and plenty more. Includes 40 historical and contemporary images

Bill Nye has been the public face of science for more than 20 years. In Everything All at Once, the New York Times bestselling author urges readers to become activists and agents of change. Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his readers the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality. Problem solving is a skill that anyone can harness to create change, and Bill Nye is here to teach us how. Each chapter describes a principle of problem solving that Nye himself uses-methodical, fact-based approaches to life that aspires to leave no stone unturned. He explains how the nerd mindset leads to a richer and more meaningful life; far more than that, it can help address hunger, crime, poverty, pollution, and even assist the democratic process. Throughout the book, Nye draws on his own experiences-leavened with his trademark humor and self-deprecation-to show how he came to think like a Science Guy, and how you can, too. By the end you will be ready to sort out problems, recognize solutions, and join him in changing the world.

Poison Ivy Acres, 250 acres of wilderness in Renfrew County, Ontario, long dedicated to the preservation of natural habitat, has been home to nature writer Carol Bennett McCuaig for many years. Her keen powers of observation, coupled with her insights into wildlife behaviour and her evocative writing style, have produced this captivating collection of stories. Whether noting the courtship rituals of turkey vultures and red foxes or finding a black bear on her roof, an ermine in her bedroom, and a cougar on her lawn, Carol is always surrounded by the delights and challenges of living in a wilderness setting. Even night visitors bring joy, including flying squirrels at the bird feeder, a whippoorwill peering in a window, and a midnight standoff between a porcupine and a skunk. Encountering the Wild is a delightful book that will appeal to country lovers in Canada and beyond.