Accessible Alberta: eBooks for Everyone

Discover a collection of Alberta-published accessible eBooks— because everyone deserves access to great stories.

10 Days That Shaped Modern Canada

by Aaron W. Hughes

University of Alberta Press

2022

Revisiting ten notable days from recent history, Aaron W. Hughes invites readers to think about the tensions, events, and personalities that make Canada distinct. These indelible dates interweave to offer an account of the political, social, cultural, and demographic forces that have shaped the modern nation. The diverse episodes include the enactment of the War…

100 Days

by Juliane Okot Bitek and Cecily Nicholson

University of Alberta Press

2016

100 days… 100 days that should not have been… 100 days the world could have stopped. But did not. For 100 days, Juliane Okot Bitek recorded the lingering nightmare of the Rwandan genocide in a poem—each poem recalling the senseless loss of life and of innocence. Okot Bitek draws on her own family’s experience of…

59 Glass Bridges

by Steven Peters

NeWest Press

2017

In 59 Glass Bridges, an unnamed narrator travels through a maze that is at once mutable and immutable: walls fall to vine-filled forests, hallways to rivers, bridges to lamp-lit boats. What remains is the desire to escape. He is led along his harrowing path by Willow, a mysterious figure who cajoles him and responds to questions…

A Brief View from the Coastal Suite

by Karen Hofmann

NeWest Press

2021

Set in Vancouver during the turbulent year of 2008, Coastal Suite explores the Lund family’s differing values in respect to relationships, money, and environment – all markers for a materialistic society that is becoming increasingly inhospitable.…

A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North: Terrestrial Sovereignty, 1870-1939

by P. Whitney Lackenbauer

University of Calgary Press

2014

Researched and written over decades, this multiple-award winning book brings Gordon W. Smith’s unpublished opus on northern sovereignty to the public for the very first time. Gordon W. Smith, PhD, dedicated much of his life to researching Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. His 1952 dissertation from Columbia University, “The Historical and Legal Background of Canada’s…

A Hummingbird Dance

by Garry Ryan

NeWest Press

2008

Detective Lane and Harper are back for the third Detective Lane Mystery in this gripping twister of a novel that baffles with its ever-increasing body count and suspect list. When Ryan Dudley ventures out on horseback and his horse returns without him, Lane and Harper are summoned to unravel the mystery. Dudley’s disappearance marks the…

A Metaphoric Mind: Selected Writings of Joseph Couture

by Ruth Couture and Virginia McGowan (Editors)

Athabasca University Press

2013

A respected Elder, traditional healer, and educational psychologist, Dr. Joseph Couture (1930-2007) transformed long-held views of Canada’s Indigenous peoples. These essays range from Aboriginal spirituality to ancestral ways of knowing, from the process of Native healing to education’s role in self-determination and social change.…

A Sales Tax for Alberta: Why and How

by Robert L. Ascah

Athabasca University Press

2021

The days of buoyant capital investment, jobs, and wealth are passing Alberta by as the boom-and-bust cycle runs its course and the global climate crisis becomes more acute. As the province scrambles to boost the dying oil economy and curb spending, one solution is all but ignored—a sales tax. In this collection, Alberta scholars and…

A Short History of the Blockade: Giant Beavers, Diplomacy, and Regeneration in Nishnaabewin

by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

University of Alberta Press

2021

In A Short History of the Blockade, award-winning writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg stories, storytelling aesthetics, and practices to explore the generative nature of Indigenous blockades through our relative, the beaver—or in Nishnaabemowin, Amik. Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of dams and…

A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance: Imagining Multilingualism

by Tomson Highway

University of Alberta Press

2015

“Fasten your chastity belts, ladies and gentlemen, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.” From his legendary birth in a snowbank in northwestern Manitoba, through his metamorphosis to citizen-artist of the world, polyglot, playwright, pianist, storyteller, and irreverent disciple of the Trickster, Tomson Highway rides roughshod through the languages and communities that have shaped him. Cree,…

A White Lie: Women’s Voices from Gaza Series

by Madeeha Hafez Albatta

University of Alberta Press

2020

Palestinian refugees in Gaza have lived in camps for five generations, experiencing hardship and uncertainty. In the absence of official histories, oral narratives handed down from generation to generation bear witness to life in Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba—the catastrophe of dispossession. These narratives maintain traditions, keep alive names of destroyed villages, and…

Adventures in Small Tourism: Studies and Stories

by ed. Kathleen Scherf

University of Calgary Press

2023

Adventures in Small Tourism presents academic studies and personal stories about small tourism. While small tourism is not new, it has become increasingly important as the widespread negative effects of overtourism have become increasingly apparent, with cities like Amsterdam and Barcelona experiencing barriocide, the death of neighbourhoods, as they host overwhelming numbers of visitors. With…

Agnes, Murderess

by Sarah Leavitt

Freehand Books

2019

Agnes, Murderess is a graphic novel inspired by the bloody legend of Agnes McVee, a roadhouse owner, madam and serial killer in the Cariboo region of British Columbia in the late nineteenth century. Fascinated by this legend—which originated in a 1970s guide to buried treasure in BC, and has never been verified—Sarah Leavitt has imagined an…

Al Rashid Mosque: Building Canadian Muslim Communities

by Earle H. Waugh

University of Alberta Press

2018

About the Book: Al Rashid Mosque, Canada’s first and one of the earliest in North America, was erected in Edmonton in the depth of the Depression of the 1930s. Over time, the story of this first mosque, which served as a magnet for more Lebanese Muslim immigrants to Edmonton, was woven into the folklore of…

All of Us in Our Own Lives: A Novel

by Manjushree Thapa

Freehand Books

2018

A beautiful story of strangers who shape each other’s lives in fateful ways, All of Us in Our Own Lives delves deeply into the lives of women and men in Nepal and into the world of international aid. Ava Berriden, a Canadian lawyer, quits her corporate job in Toronto to move to Nepal, from where she was…

All Sky, Mirror Ocean: A Healing Manifesto

by Brad Necyk

University of Alberta Press

2024

All Sky, Mirror Ocean is for everyone looking to understand the complex issues around mental illness and healing. Combining autobiography, research-creation, poetry, and creative philosophy, Brad Necyk uses art and words to uncover and tell new stories about trauma and recovery. Necyk weaves his own histories with bipolar affective disorder and childhood medical trauma with…

All That’s Left

by Lisa Guenther

NeWest Press

2024

Darby Swank’s entire life changed when her Aunt Bea was brutally murdered one summer in their rural Saskatchewan community. Following her gripping debut Friendly Fire, Lisa Guenther skillfully picks up Darby’s story a few weeks after the dramatic finale. Building her life anew, Darby makes new and lasting friendships and connections with recently found family members,…

All the World’s a Mall

by Rinny Gremaud

University of Alberta Press

2023

All the World’s a Mall details a whirlwind world tour in five stops: Edmonton, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, and Casablanca, chosen because they are home to some of the biggest malls on the planet. Cities within cities, these malls are wonderlands where visitors come from afar to: walk, eat, sleep, watch, swim, ride, photograph, and,…