Winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction Finalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction A remarkable work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller, All We Leave Behind is the story of an Afghan family's frightening escape from a murderous warlord, written by a journalist who broke all her own rules to get them to safety. In 2002, Carol Off and a CBC TV crew encountered an Afghan man with a story to tell. Asad Aryubwal wanted to expose the tyranny of his country's warlords and reveal their deep involvement with Americans and NATO troops. He took a calculated risk when he agreed to be a key figure in a documentary. But his courage and candour set off a chain of events from which there was no turning back. Asad, his wife, Mobina, and their five children had to flee their home. In exile, the family was still in danger and facing an uncertain future. Their dilemma compelled a journalist to cross the lines of disinterested reporting and become deeply involved. Together, they navigated the Byzantine international bureaucracy and the Canadian government's intransigence until the family finally found a new home. Carol Off's powerful account traces not only one family's journey and fraught attempts to immigrate to a safe place, it also illustrates what happens when a journalist becomes irrevocably caught up in the lives of the people in her story and finds herself unable to leave them behind.

What We Leave Behind is a piercing, impassioned guide to living a truly responsible life on earth. Human waste, once considered a gift to the soil, has become toxic material that has broken the essential cycle of decay and regeneration. Here, award-winning author Derrick Jensen and activist Aric McBay weave historical analysis and devastatingly beautiful prose to remind us that life—human and nonhuman—will not go on unless we do everything we can to facilitate the most basic process on earth, the root of sustainability: one being's waste must always become another being’s food.

Shortlisted for the New Brunswick Book Award for Fiction A novel of absence and adolescence by the author of the award-winning The Town That Drowned. It's 1977. Seventeen-year-old Violet is left behind by her parents to manage their busy roadside antique stand for the summer. Her restless older brother, Bliss, has disappeared, leaving home without warning, and her parents are off searching for clues. Violet is haunted by her brother's absence while trying to cope with her new responsibilities. Between visiting a local hermit, who makes twig furniture for the shop, and finding a way to land the contents of the mysterious Vaughan estate, Violet acts out with her summer boyfriend, Dean, and wonders about the mysterious boneyard. But what really keeps her up at night are thoughts of Bliss's departure and the white deer, which only she has seen. All the Things We Leave Behind is about remembrance and attachment, about what we collect and what we leave behind. In this highly affecting novel, Nason explores the permeability of memory and the sometimes confusing bonds of human emotion.

*A USA TODAY Bestseller*It is said that our lives are a sum total of the choices we make, which inevitably leaves us to wonder: what if? What if we had the chance to go back and live what could have been? What We Leave Behind hones in on the fleeting moments and stand-out events that irrevocably change our lives. The book chronicles the life and emotional growth of Jessica Parker as she frees herself from the past and moves forward with her future. At sixteen, Jessica is managing the emotional trauma of her father's death while surrendering to the profound pain of a failed first love. Jonas Levy, a twenty-two-year-old medical student, has abruptly walked out of Jessica's life after an intense summer romance, and the wounds are still raw. Is it possible to ever forget the boy you first gave your heart to? Jessica eventually moves on, and in her twenties, becomes a successful music supervisor in Los Angeles. She marries film producer, Marty Tauber, starts a family, and appears to have it all, until things slowly begin to unravel. The marriage struggles through a miscarriage and becomes harder and harder to sustain. With an unexpected phone call from New York, a secret from Jessica's past comes to light. As the rippling effects of her betrayal emerge, Jessica finds herself caught in the firestorm of long-hidden emotional trauma. Thrust into a modern day moral and ethical dilemma, Jessica must face the pain of her past or lose everything she holds dear. Will she be able to reconcile old feelings in time to salvage her marriage? An honest, tender, and poignant portrayal of love in its many forms, this heart wrenching novel will resonate with any woman who has questioned her past and wondered what could have been.

“An artful exercise in melancholy…Every reader will love openhearted Will.” —Booklist (starred review) “Haunting, introspective.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Emotionally raw…[A] piercing narrative.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “McGhee artfully illustrates the tangled web wherein grief intertwines with the mundane.” —BCCB After his dad dies of suicide, Will tries to overcome his own misery by secretly helping the people around him in this exquisitely crafted story made up of one hundred chapters of one hundred words each, by award-winning and bestselling author Alison McGhee. Sixteen-year-old Will spends most of his days the same way: Working at the Dollar Only store, trying to replicate his late father’s famous cornbread recipe, and walking the streets of Los Angeles. Will started walking after his father committed suicide, and three years later he hasn’t stopped. But there are some places Will can’t walk by: The blessings store with the chest of 100 Chinese blessings in the back, the bridge on Fourth Street where his father died, and his childhood friend Playa’s house. When Will learns Playa was raped at a party—a party he was at, where he saw Playa, and where he believes he could have stopped the worst from happening if he hadn’t left early—it spurs Will to stop being complacent in his own sadness and do some good in the world. He begins to leave small gifts for everyone in his life, from Superman the homeless guy he passes on his way to work, to the Little Butterfly Dude he walks by on the way home, to Playa herself. And it is through those acts of kindness that Will is finally able to push past his own trauma and truly begin to live his life again. Oh, and discover the truth about that cornbread.

Diane picked up her mother's phone. "How do you feel about your mother being let out of prison today after sixty-five years?" the reporter asked. Diane stared at her mother. "My grandmother is alive?" That one phone call hurled shock waves throughout the entire family.1955 - Anna Bergman Craine's life changes in an instant when she commits a crime of passion and is sentenced to life in prison. Leaving behind two young children, she is left alone in the world, never to hear from family or friends again. Decades later, she is set free and finds she has a family that has chosen to forget her. What caused this beautiful, intelligent, young woman to commit such a drastic deed that would pull her away from everyone she loved?2020 - Diane Martin is shocked to learn that not only is her maternal grandmother alive, but she's just been released after decades in prison. Against her aging mother's wishes, she visits the older woman and soon hears a tale of the events that led up to that tragic day in 1955. Diane realizes that her own life has mirrored that of her grandmother's and, had circumstances gone differently that fateful day, she might have experienced the same fate.A heart-wrenching story of a family torn apart because of a moment in time and trying to put the pieces back together after being separated for decades.

Thirty-seven-year-old John Morgans personal life is already in disarray when he receives a phone call that his brother and niece are dead. His relationship with his father is nearly nonexistent, he barely speaks to his sister, and he has no real friends to lean on. As the tragic news slowly begins to sink in, John realizes he is floating aimlessly in the middle of an unpredictable sea of emotions with no one to rescue him. Lost in his childhood memories, regrets, and grief, John begins to reevaluate his life, his relationships, and why he has trouble connecting withand even lovingothers. As he attempts to regain the happiness that was stolen from him when his father rejected him over his writing, John begins a painstaking journey to climb out of the depths of despair. But it is only a matter of time before his past catches up with him and forces him to face all of the realities in his life. In this compelling tale that movingly illustrates the devastating effects of a dysfunctional family, John must learn to change what he can, accept what he cannot, and make the difficult decision to leave some things behind.