NON FICTION![]()
Aboriginal Neighours Lending Library Catalogue
Over the years, the Aboriginal Neighbours network established a comprehensive lending library catalogue. The library resides at Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria BC and is open to the public. Click here to download a PDF copy of the searchable catalogue, and contact Christ Church Cathedral for lending library hours of operation.
After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging by Willie James Jennings
"After Whiteness is for anyone who has ever questioned why theological education still matters. It is a call for Christian intellectuals to exchange isolation for intimacy and embrace their place in the crowd—just like the crowd that followed Jesus and experienced his miracles." - WM.B. Eerdmans Publishing C.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about USA history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding the current racial crisis. The colonial west has built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-First Century edited by Ian T. Douglas Kwok Pui-Lan
This is a collection of fifteen provocative essays by a cadre of international authors that examine the nature and shape of the Communion today; the colonial legacy; economic tensions and international debt; sexuality and justice; the ecological crisis; violence and healing in South Africa; persecution and religious fundamentalism; the church amid global urbanization; and much more.
Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada by Lawrence Hill
Part personal stories, part coast-to-coast interviews with Canadians of black and white parentage, this book examines subjects such as romance between blacks and whites, racial terminology and Ku Klux Klan activity in Canada.
Challenging Racist "British Columbia": 150 Years and Counting (2021) is an open-access, multi-media resource that documents how this recent cycle of anti-racist activism is part of a broader history of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities challenging white supremacy for over 150 years – particularly since 1871 when BC joined Canada.
Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy
"Do Better is a revolutionary offering that addresses racial justice from a comprehensive, intersectional, and spirit-based perspective. This actionable guidebook illustrates how to engage in the heart-centered and mindfulness-based practices that will help us all fight white supremacy from the inside out, in our personal lives and communities alike. It is a loving and assertive call to do the deep—and often uncomfortable—inner work that precipitates much-needed external and global change." —Simon and Schuster. *note: This title contains course language.
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good tells the story of five residential school survivors and how their paths crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome the trauma of their years at the Mission on the BC coast (based on St Michael's Indian Residential School, Comorant Island), and to find their way forward.
I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter by David Chariandy
Ten years after his then three-year-old daughter asked him a question about racism that set him on a course to learn how to talk about the politics of race with his children, David Chariandy wrote a letter to his now thirteen-year-old daughter.
The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole
Canadian specific, makes clear we are not “better” than our American Neighbours. Also made into a CBC short documentary.
The Truth About Stories by Thomas King
Canadian writer, broadcaster and scholar, Thomas King explores how stories shape who we are and how we understand and interact with other people. With wry humor, King deftly weaves events from his own life as a child in California, an academic in Canada, and a Indigenous North American with a wide-ranging discussion of stories told by and about Indigenous peoples.
They Called Me George: The Untold Story of the Black Train Porters by Cecil Foster
The Canadian author is a novelist and intellectual, writing on race, culture, etc. His research into why Canadian passenger trains had black porters is fascinating and illuminating. The book makes a connection to the end of the American civil war coinciding with the the building of transcontinental railways, and a massive number of formerly enslaved men looking for work. These men could be hired at low wages, their hours manipulated to keep them ineligible for advancement, and the unions barred them based on race. Over time they formed their own union, their struggles for justice providing some of the earliest wins for civil rights.
Picking Up the Pieces: Residential School Memories and the Making of the Witness Blanket by Carey Newman and Kirstie Hudson.
This visual chronical of the creation of the Witness Blanket Project re-stories the history of Canada's residential school system from the perspective of surivors and their families.
Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-up Call by Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ron Derrickson
A Canadian bestseller. Both men have served as chiefs of their bands in the B.C. interior and both have gone on to establish important national and international reputations. But the differences between them are in many ways even more interesting
White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
FICTION
A Short History of Indians in Canada by Thomas King
A collection of twenty short stories told in the Canadian writer, broadcaster and scholar's classic wry, irreverent and allegorical voice.
Brother by David Chariandy
Winner of the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, explores questions of masculinity, family, race and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough ON housing complex during the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991.