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Learning to understand “who you are talking to, what the situation is, and how to filter yourself accordingly” are fundamental to building stronger relationships, according to Ami Trivedi, Artsci’19, MIB’21. This aptitude helped inform the entrepreneur’s philosophy behind her podcast, Ask For It, in which she shares sales strategies, mindset shifts, and real-world lessons to help people elevate their performance. Her episodes address how to nail an interview, ask for a raise, and take control of one’s career. Ask For It is found on most platforms offering podcasts.

Take two music lovers and add a desire for North American travel and you get a guidebook for the musically obsessed. Co-authored by Craig Jones, MA’87, PhD’97, and his wife, Josephine Matyas, The Music Lover’s Guide to North America explores the familiar (think Nashville) to the less well known: including the Celtic Interpretive Centre in Cape Breton, N.S., featuring Ashley MacIsaac’s and Natalie MacMaster’s fiddles, to the Hank Snow Home Town Museum in Liverpool, N.S. is available from Bloomsbury Publishing October 2025.

Ever since she was young, Melodie Campbell, Com’78, wanted to be either Carolyn Keene (the pen name used by authors of the Nancy Drew series) or Agatha Christie, and she’s well on her way to achieving that, having authored 19 novels, many of them mysteries. Her latest whodunnit, The Silent Film Star Murders, involves former mob goddaughter Lucy Revelstoke (from her Merry Widow series) confronting another murder. This one is set on an ocean liner during the roaring ’20s.  is available from Cormorant Books.

Given the climate between Canada and the United States, insight into navigating that relationship is vital. Trading on Art examines how visual art and exhibitions have played a key role in North American free trade relationships in the past, and how artists and cultural institutions have been central to constructing this understanding. Authored by Sarah E.K. Smith, BFA’06, MA’08, PhD’13, it explores how Canadian artists engaged with, contested, and reflected on free trade to create a continental unity, and yet were paradoxically left out of this vision. is available from UBC Press.

Imagine a world where meat grown in a lab becomes sentient, where there are no longer any bees left to pollinate, where disease wipes out fruit crops – are these the plots of a dystopian fantasy or the terrifying possibilities of tomorrow? Adam Pasquella, Artsci’96, has created an anthology of speculative short fiction, Devouring Tomorrow, that imagines a not-too-distant future where society grapples with climate, technological, political, and social changes that may affect how and what we eat. It includes work by collaborator Elan Mastai, Artsci’97.   is available from Dundurn Press.

“Smoother blending of parts,” “More powerful from end to end,” “Most complete individual” – just some of the comments you might hear at a cow-showing competition or on the new comedy series Cows Come Home. Co-written, co-produced, and directed by Katie Uhlmann, Artsci’09, it is a “heartfelt comedy about a woman who hits rock bottom and moves back to her small town, putting her life back together with the help of her best friend, through the world of competitive cow showing.” The six-part series is set to air June 11 on Bell Fibe TV1 and also features actor Allie Dunbar, Artsci’07.

What may seem like junk to us may in fact be treasure to someone else, as a young boy discovers in the children’s picture book Beautiful Junk by alumna and elementary school teacher Melissa Assaly, Artsci’00. Before moving day, a family leaves unwanted items on the curb. The boy observes people rummaging through the pile in search of treasure and discovers the joy in saving items destined for the landfill. is available from Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

What is it about the bicycle that causes it to be beloved by many, yet despised by others? That question is at the heart of Wheeling Through Toronto: A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders, a new book by Albert Koehl, Law’84. The book, which is especially timely given Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s controversial plan to rip up bike lanes, pedals through 130 years of transportation history – including archival materials, newspapers, and interviews – highlighting the oft-ignored humble bicycle and its potential in a climate emergency.  is available from University of Toronto Press.

Imagine living in the home that was the inspired setting for Lucy M. Montgomery’s famous Green Gables in her novels about Anne. This was the reality for Myrtle Webb, Montgomery’s cousin, who lived in the Cavendish, P.E.I., farmhouse featured in the Anne of Green Gables series. Becoming Green Gables by biographer Alan MacEachern, MA’91, PhD’97, provides a glimpse of what it was like to live in such a literary-famous place. The diary also tells how fame eventually upends the Webb family when they are faced with expropriation and forced to move. A contains digital scans, photos, and more. is available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

We’ve all experienced what it’s like to be pulled in different directions. For a child, that experience can seem irreversibly consequential. In After the Wallpaper Music, Flora, a 12-year-old violinist, has to choose between friends competing in a battle of the bands. Author Jean Mills, Artsci’78, MA’80, explores empathy for outsiders, friendship, and being true to oneself in this novel for ages eight to 12. The author is an accomplished musician, and it’s no surprise that her book includes the score for her original song, Time is a Fickle Friend. Publishers Weekly says that “poignant life lessons and a focus on the emotions evoked by music permeate this soulful novel.” is available from Pajama Press.

In the 21st century, Canada’s democracy is unprepared to meet shocks resulting from regional conflicts, climate change, and technology. In The Adaptable Country: How Canada Can Survive the Twenty-First Century, Alasdair S. Roberts, Artsci’87, examines how Canada’s politicians and leaders, as well as technological changes affecting journalism and a lack of agility within the public service, have made the country less adaptable. The author reminds readers that a country that respects diversity and human rights can also respond well to existential threats.  is available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Canada relies on thousands of temporary workers – workers who are vulnerable to abuse. Catherine Connelly, MSc’00, PhD’04, looks at their experiences in Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Her book includes various forms of mistreatment, from the perspective of organizational behaviour and human resources management, and she also includes employers’ perspectives, distinguishing between those who follow the rules and those who don’t. is available from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Author Gloria Blizzard, Artsci’85, is an award-winning, Toronto-based writer and poet, and a Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages whose collection of personal essays, Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas, is a thought-provoking and poetic work. Weaving together moments from different parts of her life, she takes a closer look at the connections between music, dance, and culture, as well as geography and language, in what CBC Books calls a “powerful and deeply personal collection.” Her work draws attention to issues involving belonging, while fearlessly addressing contemporary themes of feminism, racism, and colonialism. is available from Dundurn Press.

In 1935, Martha Black became only the second woman ever elected to the House of Commons – the culmination of an unstoppable spirit that governed her life and is captured by Enid Mallory, Arts’58, in her biography, Irrepressible: Yukon’s Martha Black. The author of 11 books, some of which chronicle other prominent figures of the North such as Robert Service and George M. Douglas, in Irrepressible she takes the reader from late 1800s gold-rush-era Yukon to Parliament Hill. Abandoned by her first husband, Martha perseveres and later marries a lawyer who becomes commissioner of the Yukon. When he falls ill, there is an opportunity for Martha to take his place. is available from Hancock House Publishers.

The mass death on an offshore oil rig on the East Coast is believed to be the work of the fabled kraken, a legendary sea monster of mythical proportions. In his debut novel, False Bodies, J.R. McConvey, Artsci’02, plunges an already unhinged detective into a sinister world of squid cults, a corrupt corporation and tentacled beasts. The author was the winner of the for his collection of short stories, Different Beasts. Giller Prize-nominated author David Demchuk calls False Bodies “a gripping supernatural thriller with a wry, noirish edge.” is available from Breakwater Books.

Idleness is not often praiseworthy; it is associated with laziness and unproductiveness that can lead to ruin – a state captured by the idiom “gone to seed.” But author Kate J. Neville, Artsci’04, makes a case for the opposite in Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature, and Sustainable Work. What could we learn about ourselves, our society, and our planet, she explores, if we simply took a cue from nature and sat idle like a seed, which is a packet containing the energy for new life? Winner of the. is available from University of Regina Press.