Reading is fun no matter the genre or method you choose to go on your literary adventure, and it’s even more fun when stories are inspired by the unexpected. Books with an interesting origin story not only capture the imagination but also add layers of meaning and intrigue to the read. Each of these books originated from places, events, and significant moments from personal experience, cultural, and even historical influences that feel like getting two fascinating stories for the price of one!
The Art of Misadventure: The Outtakes and Mistakes Of An Adventurous Photographer by Dave Brosha (Rocky Mountain Books)
Join Canadian photographer, explorer, and writer Dave Brosha as he shares a heartfelt and adventurous account of his life off the beaten track, blending humour, determination, and self-deprecation. Dave’s stories of his grand (mis)adventures as a top Canadian adventure photographer highlight that life is about experiences, not possessions.
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We Follow the River by Onjana Yawnghwe (Caitlin Press)
We Follow the River tells the story of one family’s escape from military violence in Myanmar, their exiled existence in Thailand, and their immigration to Canada with only a pile of beat-up suitcases on a luggage cart. It is about growing up as a foreigner in a foreign land, sifting through family history and grief, and alighting across cultures and continents to find a home.
Onjana Yawnghwe’s third poetry book is expertly written—at times joyful, disobedient, wild, and other times condensed and restrained. A work of over twenty years, these poems are written and rewritten through the retroactive prism of experience, polished and honed, eroded and erased. Sweeping in scope, intimate and honest, these poems tell of the quiet moments, the unruly moments of rage and sorrow, and the rough distillation of self, both hated and loved.
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Queenie Jean Is in Trouble Again by Christine Read (Heritage House Publishing)
This captivating book is inspired by the author’s daughter, who also struggled with ADHD as a child. When ten-year-old Queenie and her family move from small-town Ontario to a glitzy suburb of Vancouver, she is desperate to fit in and make a best friend for the first time in her life. With her creativity and bubbly personality, Queenie arrives at Western Canada Preparatory School ready to win over her classmates and conquer the world. But even before the first bell rings, she finds herself in trouble.
From always being late to talking out of turn to never being able to focus, Queenie stands out like a sore thumb, especially among the cool girls she wants to impress. Hardest of all, she has a secret. She’s been diagnosed with ADHD, and she hates how different it makes her feel. After struggling to navigate her new world, dreaming up ill-advised schemes to make the other kids like her, she must face her greatest fear of all: making a speech in front of the whole school that will show everyone her true self.
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The Day Dancer Flew by Tiffany Stone, Illustrated by Brittany Lane (Orca Book Publishers)
Inspired by real events during the flooding near Spences Bridge, BC in 2021, this gorgeously illustrated book tells the tale of a girl’s love for her horse and the power of a community coming together to help humans (and animals) during a natural disaster.
Dancer is a gentle and loving horse. He got his name because of how he moves his hooves—happily, like he’s dancing. Every day when the girl rides on his back, it feels like she is flying—until the rain descends and won’t let up. Everything floods, and the girl and her family flee. Having to leave Dancer behind, the girl worries about her horse constantly. Finally, with the help of an agriculture officer, a horse expert, and a helicopter pilot, a plan comes together to save the stranded Dancer.
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Princess of the Savoy: A Priscilla Tempest Mystery, Book 3 by Prudence Emery, Ron Base (Douglas & McIntyre)
Step back into the swinging sixties at London’s Savoy Hotel in the third volume of this internationally bestselling series.
While everything at the hotel seems perfectly normal with Italian princes and a dashing English lord as guests, the Savoy Press Office is a hotbed of chaos. Miss Priscilla Tempest faces a scheming boss, a menacing gangster, and a Tarzan star, only to be swept into a fascist plot threatening British democracy. Teaming up with Fleet Street reporter Percy Hoskins, Tempest dives into a high-stakes adventure full of glamour, danger, and intrigue. Princess of the Savoy promises suspense and entertainment with a cocktail of excitement and peril.
Fun Fact: Both Prudence Emery and the fictional protagonist, Priscilla Tempest, held the job as press secretary at the Savoy.
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Commune by Des Kennedy (Harbour Publishing)
Author Des Kennedy uses his personal experience of embracing the back to the land movement in the 1970s as inspiration for his novel. In Commune, Kennedy brings his signature humour and intimate knowledge of gardens and woodlands to the engaging story of six young dreamers who set out to haphazardly establish a back-to-the-land commune on a small island in the Salish Sea. Over fifty years, they face internal strife, community upheavals, births, deaths, disasters, and external threats, yet the land’s enduring spirit remains. The tale unfolds as the commune’s last resident shares its history with an enigmatic stranger, guiding him from grief to renewal.
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Mauled: Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack by Jeremy Evans, Crosbie Cotton (Rocky Mountain Books)
An inspiring true-life survival story set in the remote backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. In August 2017, 32-year-old Jeremy Evans endured multiple ferocious attacks by a protective female grizzly bear while hunting in the Alberta wilderness. Jeremy’s injuries were massive, his scalp and face destroyed. The tendons on one leg had been fully severed during the mauling and his hands damaged. It was more than a dozen kilometres to where he had parked his truck in darkness early that morning, and absolutely no one was near.
Mauled carefully details what happened deep in an Alberta forest where few humans tread. Jeremy’s miraculous recovery and life lessons learned when so close to death show that human determination can defy the greatest of odds, and that setting small goals along the road to recovery can lead to remarkable achievements. Despite the traumatic stress the encounter produced, Jeremy holds no animosity toward the bear and still enjoys spending time in the backcountry. To him, the grizzly was doing what the best parents do: protecting their young.
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