Rumours to the contrary notwithstanding, publishing is alive and well moving into spring. In the January/February issue, Q&Q looks ahead at some of the spring’s biggest books.

Health & self-help

Sociologist Lyndsay Green had a surprise hit with the boomer-oriented You Could Live a Long Time: Are You Ready? She’s back with The Perfect Home for a Long Life: Housing Ourselves for the Future (Thomas Allen Publishers, $19.95 pa., May), a practical guide for seniors anxious about where they will live as they grow old ¢ Supporting Parents with Alzheimer’s (Self-Counsel Press, $19.95 pa., March), by Tanya Lee Howe, is a guide for caregivers who may be struggling to balance their daily lives with the need to support an aging loved one.

Motivational speaker and doctor David Posen hit a nerve with his self-help guide The Little Book of Stress Relief. He follows it up with a volume tailored to the professional class. Is Work Killing You? A Doctor’s Prescription for Treating Workplace Stress (Anansi, $18.95 pa.) drops in February, in time to cure the winter blues. ¢ Can money buy happiness? It sure can, as long as you’re spending it right. That’s the argument in Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending (Simon & Schuster, $28.99 cl., May) by University of British Columbia associate professor Elizabeth Dunn and Harvard University instructor Michael Norton, two rising stars in the field of behavioural psychology.

History

At the close of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, more than 2,700 blacks joined other loyalists in fleeing the American colonies to settle in Nova Scotia. The Black Loyalists: Southern Settlers of the First Free Black Communities in Nova Scotia (Nimbus Publishing, $29.95 cl., April), by Ruth Holmes Whitehead, describes the lives of those settlers before and after coming to Canada. ¢ Another overlooked facet of Canadian history is the role of women during the First World War. At least that’s the argument of Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw in A Sisterhood of Suffering and Service: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland during the First World War (UBC Press, $34.95 pa., Jan.), a collection of scholarly essays examining the absence of women from official accounts of the war effort. ¢ In The History of the Nature Conservancy of Canada (OUP, $32.95 cl., March), long-time board member Bill Freedman examines the work of one of this country’s leading environmental not-for-profit organizations.

Art & literature

Oxford University Press is publishing the unabridged diaries of one of Canada’s most beloved authors. The second volume, The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901“1911 ($29.95 cl., March), edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston, covers the years leading up to the author’s marriage. ¢ McMaster University prof Lorraine York examines the complex process whereby literary celebrity is managed and maintained by looking at the career of one of Canada’s most famous living writers in Margaret Atwood and the Labour of Literary Celebrity (UTP, $29.95 pa., May).

For much of the past decade, Fredericton’s Beaverbrook Art Gallery had been locked in a legal battle with the U.K.-based Beaverbrook Foundation over who owned some of the museum’s most valuable pieces. Now that the dispute has been resolved in the gallery’s favour, the collection is ready to tour Canada and the U.S. for the first time, and Goose Lane has produced a lavish edition to accompany the exhibit. Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery ($65 cl.), edited by gallery curator Terry Graff, ships in February.

Cookbooks

Cookbooks used to be the focus of a handful of specialty publishers in Canada, but with the explosion of cooking shows and celebrity chefs, it seems everyone wants to get in on the latest foodie trend.
Penguin Canada hops on the food-truck bandwagon with the Food Network“­inspired Eat St. ($24 pa., March), in which James Cunningham takes readers on a culinary road trip to find the tastiest “ and most extreme “ street food on the continent. ¢ Not to be outdone, HarperCollins Canada is set to release a new tome from Chuck Hughes, known for his Gallic spin on traditional comfort food. Chuck’s Day Off ($34.99 cl., June) draws on recipes from the chef’s Food Network show of the same name, as well his two Montreal boîtes, Garde Manger and Le Bremner.

Could the next big culinary trend be raw food? If so, Raw Essence (Robert Rose, $24.95 pa., April) could become the go-to volume for meals prepared without a heat source. The book was cooked up by David Côté and Mathieu Gallant, co-founders of Montreal’s Crudessence chain of restaurants.

Vancouver’s Arsenal Pulp Press continues its successful franchise of vegan- and vegetarian-themed books with Mérida Anderson‘s Vegan Secret Supper: Bold & Elegant Menus from a Rogue Kitchen ($26.95 pa., April), which evolved from the author’s experiments with pop-up restaurants and an in-house supper club. ¢ The All-new Vegetarian Passport (Whitecap Books, May), by Linda Woolven, takes a health-oriented approach to vegetarianism, offering recipes that aim to prevent or treat arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and other ailments.

Never know what edibles to pack on your outdoor adventures? Camping expert Kevin Callan has you covered with The New Trailside Cookbook (Firefly Books, $19.95 pa., March), which includes lightweight, high-energy, and gourmet recipes for your wild­erness excursions. The book is co-authored by nutritionist Margaret Howard.

Sports

In 2007, pro wrestler Bret Hart published his best-selling memoir, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling. It turns out that won’t be the final word on the personal life of The Pink and Black Attack. Hart Strings: My Life with the Hart Family, Bret, and Me (Tightrope, $25 pa., June) by Bret’s ex-wife, Julie Hart, looks at the couple’s early romance and courtship, and the trials of raising a family of four while married to a wrestling superstar.

Q&Q‘s spring preview covers books published between Jan. 1 and June 31, 2013. ¢ All information (titles, prices, publication dates, etc.) was supplied by publishers and may have been tentative at Q&Q’s press time. ¢ Titles that have been listed in previous previews do not appear here.