Run Towards The Danger

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE 2022 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book of 2022 by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * “A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” —Vanity Fair “[A] roving, psychologically probing memoir in essays . . . On the page, Polley turns out to be as brave, funny, and unself-serious as she is on the screen.” —The New Yorker From the Academy Award-nominated director of Women Talking, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present. These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry. Sarah Polley’s work as an actor, screenwriter, and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity, and deep humanity. She brings all of those qualities along with her exquisite storytelling chops to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person you are now but were not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.” Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger. In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER * SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Named a Most-Anticipated Book of 2022 by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club * “A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” —Vanity Fair “[A] roving, psychologically probing memoir in essays . . . On the page, Polley turns out to be as brave, funny, and unself-serious as she is on the screen.” —The New Yorker From the Academy Award-nominated director of Women Talking, Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present. These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry. Sarah Polley’s work as an actor, screenwriter, and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity, and deep humanity. She brings all of those qualities along with her exquisite storytelling chops to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley’s life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person you are now but were not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a “reciprocal pressure dance.” Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger. In this extraordinary book, Sarah Polley explores what it is to live in one’s body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing.

From the Newsuem, America's only museum of news, comes the definitive book detailing behind the scenes of how journalist covered the deadly assaults of September 11, 2001.

A finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a national bestseller, Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People is a stunning tour de force about the unravelling of an all-American family. George Woodbury, an affable teacher and beloved husband and father, is arrested for sexual impropriety at a prestigious prep school. His wife, Joan, vaults between denial and rage as the community she loved turns on her. Their daughter, Sadie, a popular over-achieving high school senior, becomes a social pariah. Their son, Andrew, assists in his father’s defense, while wrestling with his own unhappy memories of his teen years. A local author tries to exploit their story, while an unlikely men’s rights activist attempts to get Sadie onside their cause. With George locked up, how do the members of his family pick up the pieces and keep living their lives? How do they defend someone they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt? With exquisite emotional precision, award-winning author Zoe Whittall explores issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.

NOW A CBC TELEVISION SERIES WINNER OF THE MARGARET AND JOHN SAVAGE FIRST BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE STEPHEN LEACOCK MEMORIAL MEDAL FOR HUMOUR A hilarious story of family, getting into trouble, and finding one's place in the world. What could be better than growing up in the 1980s? How about growing up in 1980s Newfoundland, which—as Mark Critch will tell you—was more like the 1960s. Take a trip to where it all began in this funny and warm look back on his formative years. Here we find a young Mark trick-or-treating at a used car lot, getting locked out of school on a fourth-floor window ledge, faking an asthma attack to avoid being arrested by military police, trying to buy beer from an untrustworthy cab driver, shocking his parents by appearing naked onstage—and much more. Best known as the "roving reporter" for CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Mark Critch has photo-bombed Justin Trudeau, interviewed Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle (while impersonating Alan Doyle), offered Pamela Anderson a million dollars to stop acting, and crashed White House briefings. But, as we see in this playful debut, he's been causing trouble his whole life. Son of a Critch captures the wonder and cluelessness of a kid trying to figure things out, but with the clever observations of an adult, and the combination is perfect.

A bold, riveting debut novel of desire, betrayal, and loss, centering on three teenage girls, a horse ranch, and the tragic accident that changes everything. Rory Ramos works as a ranch hand at the stable her stepfather manages in Topanga Canyon, California, a dry, dusty place reliant on horses and hierarchies. There she rides for the rich clientele, including twins June and Wade Fisk. While Rory may have unwittingly drawn the interest of out-and-proud June, she's more intrigued by Vivian Price, the beautiful teenager with the movie-star father who lives down the hill. Rory's blue-collar upbringing keeps her largely separate from the likes of the Prices--but, perched on her bedroom windowsill, Rory steals glimpses of Vivian swimming in her pool nearly every night. After Rory's stepfather is involved in a tragic car accident, the lives of Rory, June, and Vivian become inextricably bound together. Rory discovers photography, begins riding more competitively alongside June, and grows closer and closer to gorgeous, mercurial Vivian, but despite her newfound sense of self, disaster lurks all around her: in the parched landscape, in her unruly desires, in her stepfather's wrecked body and guilty conscience. One night, as the relationships among these teenagers come to a head, a forest fire tears through Topanga Canyon, and Rory's life is changed forever. Kept Animals is narrated by Rory's daughter, Charlie, twenty years after that fateful 1993 fire. Realizing that the key to her own existence lies in the secret of what really happened that unseasonably warm fall, Charlie is finally ready to ask questions about her mother's past. But with Rory away on assignment as a war photographer, Charlie knows she must unravel the truth for herself.

'Writing of dangerously beautiful intensity ... Magnificent' Sunday Telegraph ___________________ A mesmerising, luminously beautiful poetry collection from Anne Michaels, internationally acclaimed poet and bestselling author of Fugitive Pieces In this passionate, profound collection, Anne Michaels explores one of her essential concerns: 'what love makes us capable of, and incapable of'. Here is the paradox at the heart of loss, the ways in which passion must accept, must insist, that 'death ... give/not only take from us'. A sea in darkness, a woman's hair shining in light, rain falling... how quiet must a voice be in order to be heard? In this way, desire is evoked with intensity and precision. By the end, we are left with a renewed awareness of the mystery at the core of existence; we enter a space that is 'not inside, not outside: / dusk's doorway,' where love remains alive.

"In this intimate collection of autobiographical essays, Canadian Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and actor Sarah Polley delves into her past to illuminate powerful truths about post-traumatic memory, our relationship to the body, and how we tell our stories. Each of the literary essays in Run Towards the Danger captures a piece of Sarah's life, as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality as it is constructed in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person you are now but were not then. By turning to her own past, Sarah draws out questions of individual morality and of structural violence that affect and implicate us all. Anyone who's seen her documentary, Stories We Tell, will know the emotionally charged and resonant ways in which Sarah writes and expresses herself, and her aptitude for exploring the very nature of stories, the ambiguity that lies within memories, and the complexity of parental love. The trauma she experienced as a prominent child actor folds into and affects the trauma she experienced at the hand of Jian Ghomeshi, and her reflections on the act of recalling these horrific moments in her own life importantly echo widespread issues around our legal system's understanding of a victim's memory of their assault. From her relationship with her body to her numerous terrifying health crises to her profound heartbreak over her mother's untimely death, these essays are at once crushing, redolent, haunting, and inspiring-each story is a testament to the strength and defiance of the human spirit. Unearthing the intricacies of parenthood, inheritance, and our capacity for human connection, Run Towards the Danger exquisitely captures what it is to live in one's body, in the constant flux of becoming and learning. Woven into this devastating and uplifting story of trauma, love, and survival is a reminder not to succumb to the familiar pain and fear when it threatens to overcome you. When you think you've reached your threshold, when the danger feels close: run towards it."--