FOOD
Family Meals: 100 Easy Everyday Recipes
by Michael Smith
Join Chef Michael Smith as he makes simple and delicious meals for breakfast, school lunches and dinners for families who are short on time in his latest cookbook, Family Meals. These easy-to-make recipes coincide with tips on how to make cooking fun and turn your kitchen into place to prepare and share meals together as a family. This collection of more than 100 stress-free recipes includes everything from Nutmeg Waffles, Granola Muffins, Tuna Chip Sandwiches, Nacho Burgers, Shanghai Bean Salad and Boston Cream Cupcakes along with a variety of one-pot meals. Available August 5.
$32; penguin.ca
DESIGN
Kentucky: Historic Houses and Horse Farms of Bluegrass Country
by Pieter Estersohn
Pre-eminent architectural and interior photographer Pieter Estersohn provides a visual snapshot of Kentucky's Bluegrass Country in the new book Kentucky: Historic Houses and Horse Farms of Bluegrass Country. Once the wealthiest town west of the Alleghenies, Bluegrass Country's rich architectural and cultural history is manifested in the elegant houses and rolling landscapes of the region. Dramatic aerial photographs celebrate the expansive horse farms that made Lexington the “Horse Capital of the World,” while the homes themselves tell their own unique tales of tradition and Southern hospitality.
$68; monacellipress.com
JUVENILE FICTION
Julia, Child
by Kyo Maclear
Best friends Julia and Simca are in agreement about two things: first, when it comes to cooking you can never use too much butter, and second, it is best to remain a child forever. Through this mutual love of cooking and stubbornness for growing old the pair decide to create a feast for growing and staying young. Loosely inspired by the life and spirit of Julia Child, Toronto-based author Kyo Maclear presents a story that celebrates the joy of eating, the art of having a good time and the importance of never fully growing up.
$19.99; tundrabooks.com
ARTS & CULTURE
Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World
by Stephen Trombley
A concise history of modern thought from the Enlightenment to present day, Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World outlines the history of human ideas from antiquity to the European eighteenth century culminating in the philosophies of Decartes and the development of the scientific method. Striving for a well-rounded cultural history, Stephen Trombley explores thought from the great idealists and utilitarians, transcendentalists and existentialists, analytic philosophers, political leaders and theorists, historians and naturalists of past and present. Available August 26.
$25; penguin.ca
FICTION
The Afterlife of Stars
by Joseph Kertes
As Russian tanks roll into the public squares of Budapest in the waning months of 1956, ready to crush the Hungarian revolution, brothers Robert and Attila Beck and their family travel through minefields both real and imagined while fleeing to the Parisian townhouse of their great-aunt Hermina. Along the way grappling with sibling rivalry, family secrets and incalculable loss, Joseph Kertes presents a story of displacement and uncertainty in a dark time from the youthful wonderment of two boys on a journey to find a place they thought they'd lost forever: home. Available September 9.
$22.95; penguin.ca
CULTURE
The Tastemakers
by David Sax
From kale to cupcakes, chia seeds to sriracha, North Americans love food trends. How does one food make it from a novelty houseplant (chia) to the super food of today? Did these foods stop being healthy only to become healthy again? These are the questions David Sax answers in The Tastemakers, an eye-opening, witty book dedicated to uncovering the world of food trends: where the come from, how they grow and where they end up. Travelling from the South Carolina rice plot of America's premiere grain guru to Chicago's gluttonous Baconfest, Sax reveals a world of influence, money and activism through meetings with entrepreneurs, chefs and data analysts who have made food trends a mission and a business.
$29.95; mcclelland.com
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Zoo Tails
by Oliver Graham Jones
As the London Zoo's first in-house veterinary officer and curator of animals, Oliver Graham Jones has a few stories up his sleeve. Beginning work at the zoo in 1951, Jones has experienced everything from performing a colostomy on a python, being chased by a not-quite anaesthetized gorilla to fitting a raven with a wooden leg. The go-to person for all animal needs, Jones uses self-deprecating humour to unveil a skillful life filled with fear, bravery and an amazing care and companionship between man and animal. Available August 26.
$15.99; randomhouse.ca