Summer Reading List
Consider the Birds - A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible
Author: Debbie Blue
Publication Date: 2013
# of Pages: 221
Location: Toronto Public Library
From biblical times to today, people have found meaning and significance in the
actions and symbolism of birds. From the well-known image of the dove to the birds that gorge on the flesh of the defeated "beast" in Revelation, birds play a dynamic part in Scripture. They bring bread to the prophets. They are food for the wanderers. As sacrifices, they are the currency of mercy. They also challenge,
offend, devour, and fight. Highlighting 10 birds throughout Scripture, poignant life lessons illuminate such qualities as desire and gratitude, power and vulnerability, insignificance and importance--and provide us with profound lessons about humanity, faith, and God's mysterious grace.
Two Dogs & A Parrot
Author: Sr Joan Chittister
Publication Date: 2016
# of Pages: 192
Location: Memorial Hall Library Cart
Our pets draw us out of ourselves and show us what it truly means to be alive They teach us to accept life’s struggles and to cherish its pleasures and the importance of being able to accept ourselves and respect others They help us to find purpose and meaning in what we do, and to overcome challenges and setbacks
Fight Evil with Poetry
Author: Micah Bournes & Chris Campbell (editors)
Publication Date: 2011
# of Pages: 218
Location: Memorial Hall Library Cart
A collection of poetry from a community of 30 diverse authors whose voices need to be heard. They have united under the banner of FIGHT EVIL WITH POETRY, overlooking their differences, that their socially charged verse would win hearts and minds to the side of truth, justice, and love.
Journey to the Common Good
Author: Walter Brueggemann
Publication Date: 2021
# of Pages: 144
Location: Memorial Hall Library Cart
Where is the church going? What is its role in contemporary society? What lessons does it have to offer a world enmeshed in turbulent times? Brueggemann links the wilderness tradition of Exodus to current crises, as a framework to help the church navigate this time of risk and vulnerability and to pursue a genuine social alternative to the governance of Pharaoh. The answer to the question of the church’s role in society is the same answer God gave to the Israelites thousands of years ago: love your neighbor and work for the common good.
Gathering Moss - A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Publication Date: 2003
# of Pages: 168
Location: Affirming Library Cart
The best science books offer not only detailed scientific knowledge but also good writing and insights into much wider aspects of nature and life. Kimmerer, a botany professor who is also a Native American and a mother, strings together a series of essays teaching us about a fascinating, if humble and neglected, group of plants. Individual narratives are built around her own experiences related to mosses, both as a professional scientist and as a woman exploring her personal environment. She deftly interweaves her different viewpoints but avoids sentimentality and confusing the different "ways of knowing." We learn a good deal about mosses and their ecology as well as gain many insights into how larger ecological systems work and how human intervention has damaged them.
We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope
Author: Steven Charleston
Publication Date: 2023
# of Pages: 207
Location: Toronto Public Library
Written by retired Episcopalian bishop and Choctaw elder with words on resilience, hope, and wisdom as we navigate our current apocalypse. Charleston explores four prophets from his tradition and, while cautioning against appropriation, he explores all that we can learn about their different approaches to apocalypse and hope-gathering. (Sarah Bessey recommendation)
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine - A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917 - 2017
Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publication Date: 2020
# of Pages: 319
Location: Toronto Public Library
A history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict told from the Palestinian perspective, arguing the period since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 has amounted to a hundred years of colonial war against the Palestinians.
Life After Doom - Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart
Author: Brian McLaren
Publication Date: 2024
# of Pages: 290
Location: Toronto Public Library
McLaren defines doom as the “un-peaceful, uneasy, unwanted feeling” that “we humans have made a mess of our civilization and our planet, and not enough of us seem to care enough to change deeply enough or quickly enough to save ourselves.”
The Emptiness of Our Hands - 47 Days on the Street
Author: Phyllis Cole-Dai & James Murray
Publication Date: 2018
# of Pages: 308
Location: Memorial Hall Library Cart
In 1999 Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray lived by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, with the intention to be as present as possible to everyone they met, offering them sustained and nonjudgmental attention. Such attention is the heart of compassion. This book chronicles their streets experiences, forcing you to confront what might happen to you, and who you might become, if suddenly you had no home. (Accompanied by pinhole photographs shot by James using cameras constructed from trash)
Being Mortal - Medicine and What Matters in the End
Author: Atul Gawand
Publication Date: 2017
# of Pages: 304
Location: Toronto Public Library & Memorial Hall Library Cart
International best selling Canadian author
Being Mortal looks at the way modern medicine has changed the experience of dying, what the implications of this change are for each of us, and what we would need to do to change a system that knows a lot about prolonging life but little about tending to death.
At the heart of this book is something larger and more lasting than even its agenda for how to effect change: it is a deeply humane portrayal of how our society copes with who we really are. We are not economic beings. We are not political beings. We are not digital beings or analog beings, social beings or solitary beings. We are mortal beings. And in that is every important thing to know about how we must live.
Indigenous Toronto - Stories That Carry This Place
Author: Bolduc, Denise, Mnawaate Gordon Corbiere, Rebeka Tabobondung, Brian Wright-McLeod (Editors)
Publication Date: 2021
# of Pages: 208
Location: Affirming Library Cart
A collection of perspectives by and about Indigenous Toronto, past, present, and future. Beneath every major city in North America lies a deep and rich Indigenous history that has been colonized, paved over, and ignored. Few of its current inhabitants know that Toronto has seen 12,000 years of different peoples, including the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit, and a vibrant culture and history that thrives to this day. With original contributions by Indigenous elders, scholars, journalists, artists, activists, and historians about art, food, health, and more, this unique anthology explores the poles of erasure and cultural continuity that have come to define a crossroads city-region that was known as a meeting place long before the arrival of European settlers.
A Treaty Guide for Torontonians
Author: Talking Treaty Collective
Publication Date: 2022
Location: Affirming Library Cart
An examination of historical treaties and agreements bearing on Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations in Toronto, Canada, with generative arts-based activities for readers to use individually or in groups to explore their own relationship to the lands and Indigenous peoples of the Greater Toronto Area. The book is illustrated by Indigenous artists with images from previous Talking Treaties community arts projects (carried out by Jumblies Theatre) and includes specialty pages, including a fold-out map of local Indigenous nations, activity packs, and fold-out wampum belts.
We Can Do Hard Things - Answers to Life's 20 Questions
Author: Glennon Doyle, Amanda Doyle, and Abby Wambach
Publication Date: 2025
# of Pages: 497
Location: Toronto Public Library
A collection of wisdom from their award-winning podcast of the same name, this book covers twenty of our biggest questions - why am I like this? am I getting this right? why am I angry? etc. - with responses from a lot of spiritual and practical teachers you know and love interspersed with their own answers to those questions. (Sarah Bessey recommendation)
Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place at the Table
Author: Brandan Robertson
Publication Date: 2025
# of Pages: 288
Location: Toronto Public Library
The author (of TikTok fame) is well-loved for being a voice in those spaces affirming fellow LGBTQ+ folks that they are deeply loved by God and invited into the fullness of a life of faith. This book is joyously for LGBTQ+, offering evidence, arguments, mentors, resources, and fellow sojourners in their journey. (Sarah Bessey recommendation)
The Tears of Things
Author: Fr. Richard Rohr
Publication Date: 2025
# of Pages: 173
Location: Toronto Public Library
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
In his first major work since The Universal Christ, one of our most prominent spiritual voices offers a wholehearted and hope-filled model for the world today, grounded in the timeless wisdom of the Hebrew prophets.
Church of the Wild
Author: Victoria Loorz
Publication Date: 2021
# of Pages: 245
Location: Toronto Public Library & Memorial Hall Library Cart
Coping with an unraveling vocation, identity, and planet, Loorz turned to the wanderings of spiritual leaders and the sanctuary of the natural world, eventually cofounding the Wild Church Network and Seminary of the Wild. With an ecospiritual lens on biblical narratives and a fresh look at a community larger than our own species, Church of the Wild uncovers the wild roots of faith and helps us deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by falling in love with it--and calling it church. (Check out Toronto's Church of the Wild this summer!)
How to be Compassionate … Creating Inner Peace & A Happier World
Author: Dalai Lama
Publication Date: 2011
# of Pages: 160
Location: Toronto Public Library & Memorial Hall Library Cart
Each one of us is responsible for all of humankind, and for the environment in which we live. . . . We must seek to lessen the suffering of others. Rather than working solely to acquire wealth, we need to do something meaningful, something seriously directed toward the welfare of humanity as a whole. To do this, you need to recognize that the whole world is part of you.
—from How to Be Compassionate
Letters in a Bruised Cosmos
Author: Liz Howard
Publication Date: 2021
# of Pages: 80
Location: Affirming Library Cart
"In Letters in a Bruised Cosmos, Griffin Poetry Prize winner Liz Howard gives us a new book of intimate, challenging, robust, and ingenious poems. Here is an astonishing talent and a fearless and exciting voice in contemporary poetry.
52 Ways to Reconcile - How to Walk with Indigenous Peoples on the Path to Healing
Author: David A. Robertson
Publication Date: 2025
# of Pages: 224
Location: Toronto Public Library & Memorial Hall Library Cart
An accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country. As much as non-Indigenous people want to walk the path of reconciliation, they often aren't quite sure what to do, and they're afraid of making mistakes. This book is the answer and the long overdue guide. The idea of this book is simple: 52 small acts of reconciliation to consider, one per week, for an entire year. They're all doable, and they're all meaningful. All 52 steps take readers in the right direction, towards a healthier relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and a time when we are past trauma.
The Comfort of Crows - A Backyard Year
Author: Margaret Renkl
Publication Date: 2023
# of Pages: 269
Location: Toronto Public Library
Best described as a devotional through the lens of nature. Her uplifting prose is so lovely, so joyful, so compelling and comforting about the realities of aging, change, children growing up, grief, and the natural end of things. Plus: beautiful illustrations abound. (Sarah Bessey recommendation)