Like a modern-day Jane Jacobs, Janette Sadik-Khan transformed New York City's streets to make room for pedestrians, cyclists, buses, and green spaces. Describing the battles she fought to enact change, Streetfight imparts wisdom and practical advice that other cities can follow to make their own streets safer and more vibrant.As New York City’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan managed the seemingly impossible and transformed the streets of o...

A globe-trotting, eye-opening exploration of how cities can—and do—make us happier peopleCharles Montgomery's Happy City will revolutionize the way we think about urban life.After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tow...

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability.The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at.Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exac...

In Tragedy in the Commons, Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan, founders of the non-partisan think tank Samara, draw on an astonishing eighty exit interviews with former Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum to unearth surprising observations about the practice of politics in Canada.Though Canada is at the top of international rankings of democracies, Canadians themselves increasingly don’t see politics as a way to solve society’s problems. Small wonder. I...

The bestselling "quackbuster" and "tireless tub-thumper against pseudoscience" fishes for the facts in a flood of misinformation ( Maclean's).Eat this and live to 100. Don't, and die. Today, hyperboles dominate the media, which makes parsing science from fiction an arduous task when deciding what to eat, what chemicals to avoid, and what's best for the environment. In Is That a Fact?, bestselling author Dr. Joe Schwarcz carefully navigates through...

The bestselling popular science author " has made it his mission to tackle myths about science and the so-called experts who spread them" ( CBC Radio).The internet is a powerful beast when it comes to science; the answer to any query you may have is just a few keystrokes away. But when there are multiple answers from various sources, how do we know what information is reliable? In Monkeys, Myths, and Molecules, bestselling...

**The Christian Science Monitor's #1 Best Book of the YearA witty, informative, and popular travelogue about the Scandinavian countries and how they may not be as happy or as perfect as we assume, “The Almost Nearly Perfect People offers up the ideal mixture of intriguing and revealing facts” (Laura Miller, Salon).Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than ten years, and he has grown increasi...

Taking us on walks through Paris, New York, Toronto, North Vancouver and Singapore, Mary Soderstrom examines how cites have changed the lives of ordinary citizens—in positive and negative ways. Making the city walkable again is crucial. The author looks to the future and suggests ways in which we can reorganize our lives and our cities. The idea that a city might not be walkable would never occur to anyone who lived before 1800. Over the past 200 years there have been dramatic changes to o...

As the price of oil falls, bestselling author and economist Jeff Rubin takes us to the epicentre of the bursting global carbon bubble, and dares us to imagine a new engine for growth that does not run on oil.For a decade, the vision of Canada's future as an energy superpower has driven the country's political agenda, as well as the fast-paced development of Alberta's oil sands and the push for more pipelines like Keystone XL across the continent to bring that bitum...

One of the world's foremost urban designers shares his passion and methods for rejuvenating neglected cities and argues passionately for the importance and possibilities of their renewal.From a youth spent in the boroughs of New York City and other great cities of the world, to his beginnings as an architect in Toronto, Ken Greenberg has long recognized that cities at their best provide much of what we seek in a place to call home. Community, places of culture and business that we ...

“The government in the past created one American Dream at the expense of almost all others: the dream of a house, a lawn, a picket fence, two children, and a car. But there is no single American Dream anymore.”For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. As the middle class ballooned and single-family homes and cars became more affordable, we flocked to pre-fabricated communities in the suburbs, a place where open air and solitude offered a retre...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYNPR • The Seattle Times • The Globe and Mail • Kirkus Reviews • Daily Mail • The Vancouver SunFrom the author of The Italian Teacher and The Imperfectionists comes a brilliant, intricately woven novel about a young woman who travels the world to make sense of her puzzling past.Look in the back of the book for a conversation between Tom Rachman and J. R. Moehringer