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Holiday Gift List: Lifelong Learners

The final Read Alberta Holiday Gift List has book recommendations from Alberta publishers to help you cross hard-to-pin-down lifelong learners off your list! These are the readers that love to learn—they prefer non-fiction over fiction and every book they pick up is on a different topic. Varying from a deluxe box set of celebrity profiles to an anthology on concussions, there is an Alberta book perfect for everyone left on your list.

Don’t forget: The book industry in Alberta and across North America is facing supply chain issues that are impacting the availability of books. If you can’t find the exact title you are looking for, #GoBeyondTheGiftGuide and ask your local independent bookseller for a recommendation instead.

Reindeer Reflections
by Jerry Haigh

Perfect for the person who is interested in the overlap between folklore and reality

Reindeer Reflections: Lessons from an Ancient Culture provides a fascinating look at the state and fate of caribou in North America through Jerry Haigh’s decades-long journey to uncover how this unique species of deer has been woven into the lives of people scattered across the northern hemisphere. Haigh examines the changes in population numbers, effects of climate change, poaching, and disease, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of the people he met along the way.

Reindeer Reflections: Lessons from an Ancient Culture

Jerry Haigh

Published: Sep 28, 2021 by RMB | Rocky Mountain Books
ISBN: 9781771605151

High Profile
edited by Michael Hingston

Perfect for the person who loves a glimpse into the lives of celebrities

High Profile: Accordions, Fur Pillows, Neck Workouts, Unexpected Nudity, Olympic Medals, and Other Takeaways from the Best Celebrity Profiles in Recent Memory is an ode to the celebrity profile. This deluxe box set collects ten of the best profiles published from the past decade, including pieces on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kanye West, Roger Ebert, Lindsay Lohan, Penny Oleksiak, and more!

High Profile

Michael Hingston

Published: Sept, 2021 by Hingston & Olsen Publishing
ISBN: 9781777185534

Impact
edited by E. D. Morin and Jane Cawthorne

Perfect for the person who advocates for others

In Impact: Women Writing After Concussion, twenty-one women writers consider the effects of concussion on their personal and professional lives. By sharing their complex and sometimes incomplete healing journeys, these women convey the magnitude of a disability which is often doubted, overlooked, and trivialized, in part because of its invisibility. This anthology bears witness to the painstaking work that goes into redefining identity and regaining creative practice after a traumatic event.

Impact: Women Writing After Concussion

Published: Sep 07, 2021 by University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 9781772125818

Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty
by Carrie Armstrong

Perfect for the DIYer

In Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty: Indigenous Plants, Traditions and Recipes, author Carrie Armstrong shares recipes and traditions she learned from her grandmother and that reflect the culture and the knowledge of the Medicine Wheel. Featuring twenty-six edible and medicinal plants that you can gather in nature as the author and her grandmother did, this reference guide will help readers craft their own lotions, soaps, and teas from all-natural ingredients. For the die-hard lifelong learner, Read Alberta also has a case study on how this book became a great success! Find it here.

Mother Earth Plants for Health & Beauty: Indigenous Plants, Traditions, and Recipes

Carrie Armstrong

Published: Dec 01, 2020 by Eschia Books
ISBN: 9781926696645

Horse Woman
by Lee McLean

Perfect for the person who journals daily

Drawing from a riding journal kept for over forty-five years and the best of her Keystone Equine blogs, Horse Woman: Notes on Living Well and Riding Better, is a collection of stories from Lee McLean. McLean, a true horsewoman, has ridden and shown sidesaddle since the age of eight, runs a ranch in Alberta, and was responsible for bringing sidesaddle to the Calgary Stampede. In these pages, you will ride with her through the seasons of the year and the ages and stages of life. As much about human nature as about horses, this book will become a resource you turn to, again and again.

Horse Woman: Notes on Living Well & Riding Better

Lee McLean

Published: Jul 23, 2019 by Red Barn Books
ISBN: 9781999108755

Memory Serves
by Lee Maracle

Perfect for the person who wants to broaden their worldview

From award-winning author Lee Maracle, Memory Serves: Oratories is an extremely timely book offering readers, in Maracle’s own words, “another way to be, to think, to know,” a way that holds the promise of a “journey toward a common consciousness.” From her Coast Salish perspective and with great eloquence, Maracle shares her knowledge of Sto:lo history, memory, philosophy, law, spirituality, feminism, and the colonial condition of her people.

Memory Serves: Oratories

Lee Maracle

Published: Oct 15, 2015 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781926455440

The Loxleys and the War of 1812
by Alan Grant, Claude St. Aubin, Lovern Kindzierski, Todd Klein, and Mark Zuehlke

Perfect for the person who wants to learn from the past

A beautiful full-colour, hardback graphic novel, The Loxleys and the War of 1812 follows the Loxleys, a Canadian family living in the Niagara peninsula. The family is torn apart by the American invasion of Canada in 1812, and the subsequent war that raged across both countries as British troops, Canadian militia, and Indigenous warriors sought to thwart the expansionist plans of the American government.

The Loxleys and the War of 1812

Alan Grant

Published: Dec 18, 2013 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9780992150808

Sustainability Matters
by Noel Keough with Geoff Ghitter

Perfect for the person who wants to save the world

Sustainability Matters: Prospects for a Just Transition in Calgary, Canada’s Petro-City brings together quality journalism and front-line academic research to examine thirty years of Calgary’s efforts to enact sustainable policy and development, and advocate for a global, holistic, and radical understanding of the importance of sustainability. This academic title is essential reading for Calgarians, Albertans, and all city-dwellers who care about sustainable development.

Sustainability Matters: Prospects for a Just Transition in Calgary, Canada’s Petro-City

Noel Keough

Published: Sep 15, 2021 by University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 9781773852485

A Brush With Depth
by Rick Sealock and Christina Vester

Perfect for the art fanatic

Rick Sealock has created wild and wacky illustrations for clients as varied as Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, The Washington Post, Natural Health Magazine, and GQ Magazine. His work has been used to skewer politicians, fitness fanatics, and death. A Brush with Depth: The Art of Rick Sealock, while a retrospective of Sealock’s life in illustration, is also a how-to guide of the business and creativity of art.

A Brush With Depth: The Art of Rick Sealock

Holiday Gift List: Lifelong Learners

Reindeer Reflections
by Jerry Haigh