In 1967 the eastern section of Nigeria, dominated by a minority tribe, attempted to form a separate country: Biafra . The civil war which followed killed tens of thousands of people. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie follows the lives of well-to-do twin sisters and their poor house-boy through the disaster and famine which followed in Half of a Yellow Sun.
Published by Knopf Canada.
Winner of the 2002 Booker Prize, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is an extraordinary book. It tells the story of a young boy, lost in the south Pacific in a life-boat accompanied by a Royal Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. After that the story gets a bit strange!
Seth Lloyd makes very, very, very small computers. In fact his computers are smaller than many molecules. He talks about quantum computing in his surprisingly entertaining new book "Programming the Universe".
When Michael Ross, from Victoria B.C., left the Canadian Armed Forces to go backpacking through Europe, he had no idea it would lead to being a spy for Israel's Intelligence Agency. He tells his story in "The Volunteer: A Canadian's Secret Life in the Mossad"
Bret "The Hitman" Hart was a World Wrestling Federation champion in and out of the ring. Beyond his remarkable physical skills he also spoke out on behalf of his wrestling brothers and sisters. His new book "Hitman" is a warts-and-all look at his life, his father Stu the wrestling teacher, his profession and the colourful characters of wrestling.
Canada's unofficial national troubadour is Stompin' Tom Connors. His name comes from his habit of stamping his boot down hard on the stage to keep time. So hard in fact that he brings a sheet of plywood along to save the stage from splintering into bits. Stompin' Tom, who sings about every corner of the country has written his autobiography "Stompin' Tom: Before the Fame"
Young adult novelist William Bell has won the Mr. Christie's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and the Canadian Librarians' Association Award amongst others. His latest book is "The Blue Helmet".
What makes us buy the things we buy? Price? Function? Utility? Or is it because it triggers some long forgotten memory with a strong emotional connection deep in the reptilian part of our brains? Clotaire Rapaille helps some of the biggest companies in the world make those associations make money for them. He shares his secrets in The Culture Code.
Published by Random House of Canada.
Best-selling fantasy and speculative-fiction writer Terry Brooks is now linking several of his various novel series together in a new trilogy. "Armageddon's Children" is filled with everything you've come to expect from the author of the Shannara series.
Madhur Jaffrey is an Indian-born actress and cookbook author. Her latest book is much more personal, "Climbing the Mango Trees: a Memoir of a Childhood in India".
Claire Clark is the British-born pastry chef for North America's highest rated restaurant, The French Laundry. Her first cookbook is"Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts".
When you think Economist, chances are you picture some ivory-tower intellectual desperately out of touch with the real world. That is NOT Tim Harford. He uses his experience on the real world as "The Undercover Economist".
Conrad Black, currently appearing in a Chicago court on fraud charges, is also a highly respected biographer. "The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhouse Nixon" is the most thorough biography ever written about America's most controversial President.
Once upon a time Bill Buford had a great job behind a desk, but six
months later he found himself the galley-slave and general whipping-boy to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany. How he got there via famed cook Mario Batali's kitchen is the story in "Heat"!
Published by Doubleday Canada.
Nega Mezlekia's new novel is set in his home country of Ethiopia just prior to the revolution. "The Unfortunate Marriage of Azeb Yitades" tells the story of a family in a remote village slowly being drawn into a much larger and uglier world.
Diana Gabaldon's 'Outlander' universe now has two narrative strands. The story of the time-travelling Claire and her love for Jamie Fraser an 18th century highlander has spun off one of the major-minor characters into his own series with the latest "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade".
In high school you probably studied the novella "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. There is a new biography of the Ukrainian-born ethically Polish writer who wrote some of the greatest works of English literature by John Stape "The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad".
Architect and writer Sarah Susanka, whose "The Not So Big House" books have been hugely successful, has now written "The Not So Big Life". At first it might seem that the jump from design to self-help is a great one, "The Not So Big Life" is in many ways a prequel because before she could write her first six books, she had to change her own life.
Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. This Turkish-born writer, and Columbia University professor is the author of several books including: "Snow", "The Black Book" and "Istanbul: Memories of a City" for which he was awarded the Nobel. His latest book "Other Colors: Essays and a Story" is exactly what the subtitle suggests.
The Answer: Who is Ken Jennings? For $200 Alex, "Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs" was written after this computer programmer won more than anyone else in the history of the TV game show Jeopardy.
Published by Random House of Canada.
Edith Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, a celebrated designer and a close friend of fellow novelist Henry James. Hermione Lee, who has previously written a biography of Virginia Woolf says Wharton was both chronicler and critic of life in the upper classes of New York City at the dawn of the 20th Century.
Have you ever wanted to just trade lives with someone else? That is the premise of Jane Green's new novel "Swapping Lives".
Published by Viking Canada.
Author Kelley Armstrong's female werewolf Elena Michaels is back in a new book. "Broken" involves Elena and her pack in the hunt for a powerful artifact linked to the notorious Jack-the-Ripper.
Published by Random House of Canada.
The subtitle of Beppe Severgnini's book is "A Field Guide to the Italian Mind". It is a funny, rollicking, fascinating and sometimes infuriating look at Italy in all its glory and with all its warts showing.
Published Random House.
![Michael Ross-The Volunteer:A Canadian\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/uCw7LqZLwLA/2.jpg "Michael Ross-The Volunteer:A Canadian\")
![Stompin\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/Mt1C-WIsMa4/2.jpg "Stompin\")
![Terry Brooks-Armageddon\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/wx6PcwbtXlA/2.jpg "Terry Brooks-Armageddon\")
