We like consuming words on the page almost as much as we like consuming food on the plate. Welcome to the Scout Book Club: a brief and regular rundown of what we’re reading, what’s staring at us from the bookshelf begging to be read next, and what we’ve already read and recommend.

In this edition, we’re honing in on nine recent and upcoming titles that call out and urge for change – whether it be forthright and manifesto-style, in a no-holds-barred and in-depth exposé, or entrenched in an insidious parable or science-fiction fantasy.

Non-Fiction

Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers (Biblioasis), by Marcello Di Cintio | One of the most engrossing and activating books I’ve read so far this year is Precarious. In it, Calgary-based journalist and author Marcello Di Cintio details the multiple systemic ways in which Canada has historically oppressed migrant workers and how it continues to keep them down – effectively exploding the well-preserved, prevailing image of Canada as a haven of diplomacy, benevolence and friendliness (and probably changing the way you look at fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, as well, to say the very least). Precarious is both thoroughly researched and deeply nuanced; personalized via multiple firsthand accounts, conversations and meetings with several migrant workers and/or activists hailing from various countries (Italy, India, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, the Philippines) working as farmhands, caregivers, fast food chain employees, and in other generally low-paying industries. Each subject shares their personal backstories, motivations for leaving their home countries, and experiences and impressions along the way and on the ground (typically unsavoury; often gut-wrenching). Overall, Di Cintio delivers a compassionate portrayal of the migrant workers who invisibly contribute to Canada’s economy; and a damning portrait of a seriously flawed, inhumane governmental system that exists out of sight of most Canadian citizens – one which promotes the abuse of power, systemizes exploitation of non-white people, and extorts and normalizes unfair (slave?) labour in support of a capitalist ideal. Get ready to have your Canadian pride knocked down a few pegs. Essential reading for all. DETAILS | Release date: September 30th, 2025

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times (Scribner Canada), by Saeed Teebi | The publication of You Will Not Kill Our Imagination marks author Saeed Teebi’s rise to a personal challenge: to write his personal story, truthfully. The Toronto-based Palestinian writer and lawyer’s new memoir details his struggle with the ownership of his Palestinianness and his feelings of complicity in the violence happening in the land of his heritage; how the genocide perpetuated by Israel against the people of Palestine has transformed their bodies, voices, stories, and lives in Western perceptions through tactics blatantly and insidiously violent. In one chapter, Teebi rails against the prevalent narrative of individual Palestinian people where, at best, their victimization and deaths are the foregone conclusion that makes them relevant at all. You couldn’t argue that his own story lacks nuance or complexity, though. Teebi’s development as a writer, as well as an extended period of relative silence in order to focus on becoming a lawyer, imbues this book with a special sensitivity for all the creatives/artists out there, to produce a complex breakdown of being a Palestinian in exile amidst a raging genocide. DETAILS | Release date: September 30th, 2025

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide (Biblioasis), by Batool Abu Akleen, Nahil Mohana, Ala’a Obaid, and Sondos Sabra | Speaking of voices we need to hear – like, really listen to; the ones that should be broadcast far and wide to one and all: Voices of Resistance is a compilation of journals belonging to four different Palestinian women living in various parts of Occupied Palestine, with excerpted entries spanning from October 7th, 2023 up until Spring 2025 (give or take, depending on the person). Besides all being women in their twenties struggling to live through the ongoing genocide, what these writers have in common is their attempts to maintain their selfhood and/or jobs, and sense of autonomy, community, and culture. Here, their exceptional circumstances are shared via first-person diary entries, accounting day-to-day routines marked by being constantly under threat based on the whims of the Israeli army. Hopelessness, depression, fear, grief, frustration, and outrage dovetail with ‘ordinary’ moments of hope, joy, humour, and celebration… Simple pleasures – like coffee, eggs, falafel, meat and fresh fruit; a walk through the neighbourhood or a trip to the sea; a reliable internet connection; a haphazard birthday cake or wedding ceremony – are elevated by the violence surrounding them, with basic necessities more often than not unattainable (either due to shortages, blockades, or exorbitant market costs) and the physical duress of performing daily tasks taking a terrible, bodily toll. Voices of Resistance is a literary litmus test of sorts – unless you’re as inhumane as the Israelis perpetrating the violence against Palestinians like the very real women filling its pages, it’s impossible not to be moved by these devastating, honest human accounts dispatched from on the ground. DETAILS | Release date: October 14th, 2025

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

On Oil (Biblioasis), by Don Gillmor | For his contribution to Biblioasis’ concise and timely ‘Field Notes’ non-fiction series, Toronto-based journalist and author Don Gillmor taps into his experience working as a roughneck in Alberta beginning during the 70s-era oil boom. Wild-West-y personal anecdotes (think whisky-swigging, rattlesnake shooting, hard-partying, and bar-brawling) add colour to an otherwise bleak picture of the global oil industry up to now, with a Canadian (usually Albertan) focus. Gillmor covers an impressive amount of ground in this slim 134-page volume, from the oil industry’s ties to Evangelic Christianity, how it’s been (and continues to be) shaped by conspiracies and corruption; how it’s informed politics, been formed by politics, and in many cases become inextricably intertwined with governments; its irreversible devastations on the environment; its semantics and relationships to environmentalists/climate change science; the countries that are. DETAILS

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books (special order only), and Upstart & Crow.*

The Garden and the Jungle: How the West Sees the World (Other Press), by Edwy Plenel | Originally intended as an address to the European public, and published in French back in September 2024, journalist Edwy Plenel’s long form essay The Garden and the Jungle is now available in English translation (by Luke Leafgren) with a new introduction designed for its American readers. Riffing off of the problematic titular analogy as it is used to compare the West with the rest, recently invoked by Josep Borrell (former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and VP of the European Commission) in an October 13th, 2022 speech at the new European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Plenel’s essay on the recent rise of the far right is bolstered by centuries of European colonial and fascist history, with particular attention paid to his home country of France. Despite Canada’s exclusion from Plenel’s scope of the West and argument framework, there is plenty enough reason contained within these 149 pages to get riled up, enraged, and engaged with it. DETAILS

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

On Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy (Biblioasis), by Ira Wells | On Book Banning provides a multidimensional examination of book banning through North American history up until very recently, courtesy of Toronto-based writer and professor, Ira Wells. Besides his multi-pronged personal investment in books (as a father, reader, writer, and teacher of literature), the writing of this volume (also part of Biblioasis’ wonderful pamphlet-inspired ‘Field Notes’ series) was especially spurred by Wells’ personal experience volunteering on a parental task force enlisted to “weed” problematic books from his child’s school library, and the ensuing impassioned feelings, line of thinking, and questions that it aroused in him. Lucky us: here we have a compelling and jam-packed argument against the banning of books – including a thorough examination of free speech, a breakdown of the definition of ‘obscenity’ over the eras, and a genuinely heartbreaking rundown of the history of ‘libricide’ (library destruction) since time immemorial, and the author’s recently lived first-person accounts of how it’s playing out in the Ontario school system (well-intendedly, of course) in the current decade. Horrifying, enraging, and scintillating stuff. Long live literature and reading for pleasure! DETAILS

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books (special order only), and Upstart & Crow.*

Fiction

Rich and Poor (Book*hug Press), by Jacob Wren | Montreal-baed author Jacob Wren has a knack for writing deeply thoughtful, activist novels that are ambitious in scope yet humble and aware of their limitations; earnest in a way that makes you feel entrenched in the story and invested in the narrator, as well as in Wren’s own process of working out an idea or concept. In other words, they are political without being preachy. More specifically, his 2016 novel, Rich and Poor, carries an anticapitalist message delivered through the alternating perspectives of two seemingly polar opposite men (both nameless): a bumbling yet passionate and well-intended dishwasher with meagre means and a grand plan to bring down the system one murdered billionaire at a time; and the ‘self-made’, egotistical, sociopathic billionaire that he targets, as he is on the cusp of an ominous and life-changing event. Although it’s fairly obvious who is the ‘bad guy’ here, the reasons for the dishwasher/assassin’s plans aren’t entirely impersonal or noble either, and his convoluted journey into a life of activism for the rights of immigrant farmers is very much unintentional. However, after his botched assassination attempt and subsequent fleeing, the relationships that he accumulates at a work camp in an undisclosed setting (that could be almost anywhere temperate, where modern day slave labour is employed), plus the sense of investment in community and burning passion to protect them replaces his murderous rage against those who take advantage of and oppress them, transforming his inner fire into one fed by love instead of hate. DETAILS

Available as a special order from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (Book*hug Press), by Jacob Wren | Another case in point: Jacob Wren’s most recent novel, published in September 2024, utilizes a meta storytelling style to ponder the moral and ethical conundrums dredged up when a writer visits a war torn country with the hope of crossing the threshold from passive spectator to active participant (in the alternative community at its heart) in order to sate his suffering conscience. As the narrator ventures deeper into their mission and becomes more entangled in the country’s political situation, he has various interactions with residents of the community who provide constant, consistent challenges to his ideas and intentions, acting as a sort of cohort of devil’s advocates. True to Wren’s established form, although inspired by real life events in Rojava, Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim is adamantly “not reality” – a disclaimer-slash-self-reminder stated by the story’s protagonist throughout the novel. Also ‘as usual’, the ending of Dry Your Tears… provides no answers – in fact, it feels a bit gimmicky and overly ironic – however, that’s not to discount the fact that Wren poses no shortage of pertinent and valuable questions within its pages. DETAILS

Available from such local independent bookstores as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books (special order only), and Upstart & Crow.*

Audition (Strange Light), by Pip Adam | Surreal, all-too-real, queer, absurd, psychedelic, horrific, dystopic – all of these words could be used to describe the new book by New Zealand author Pip Adam, which ultimately resists category or convention. In the first part of Audition, we’re introduced to the story’s three protagonists – outsized human beings Alba, Stanley, and Drew – who have been brainwashed and crammed into a city-sized spacecraft hurtling towards an unknown destination in outer space, and are meanwhile nonsensically, repetitively babbling away. From then on, section by section, Adam reveals the backstory of how they got there, who they are, and how they became so damned big anyways. Alternating between different times, perspectives and dimensions, and extrapolating beyond current “realities”, Audition is an unusual futuristic parable about what happens when people are delegated as unworthy of civilization, systematically imprisoned, dehumanized and stripped of their autonomy, and one advocating for prison reform. DETAILS

Available from such local independent booksellers as Massy Books, Iron Dog Books, and Upstart & Crow.*

*It would be remiss for me not to mention Vancouver’s various independent and used book stores, and encourage you to pay them an in-person visit to seek out these and other titles.