Toronto Public Library’s 2025 Reading Challenge (Parts 3 and 4, of 4) #LoveYourLibrary

Originally I’d planned to split this post into two, as I gradually read through the categories for the Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge (Part One and Two), but with a lot of desk hours lost to illness this year, I’ve combined them.

(Notes: Other books read for the challenge were discussed here, here, and here. And, if you want to see the categories but are blocked from the library’s website, I’ve linked them to the coral-coloured button previously posted here.)

Each year, I read at least 25 books by Indigenous writers, but for 2025 I wanted to increase the amount of non-fiction I read by them: the library challenge seemed like a great way to help shift my habits a little, and it worked. Even though non-fiction usually make up 25-30% of my reading, of the 34 books I read this year by Indigenous writers, about half were non-fiction!

Jordin Tootoo’s All the Way: My Life on Ice (2014) is a book I’ve considered many times when browsing in the library because it’s the first of two memoirs by this hockey player. Because when you’re not very interested in something yourself, two books on the topic seems even better? But, in fact, I have really enjoyed some hockey stories. Like Bruce McDougall’s The Last Hockey Game (non-fiction) and Richard Wagamese’s novel Indian Horse. And now I can add this memoir but, admittedly, less for the hockey and more for this NHL player’s experience of navigating pro-athletics as an Inuk man. What really stands out to me are his relationship with his father, who taught him about having a right relationship with the land (growing up in Rankin Inlet), the sequence of events that led to his first contract (in Nashville), and the challenges of balancing northern values he inherited with the southern life he was living. The book is written with Stephen Brunt, who’s written about plenty of other sports figures (and way more than two books).

This book is one of the first I identified for this challenge (#21), as a Book about an Athlete. The next popped up while searching the library catalogue for another book, and I realised his account of his years in residential school would suit the category for having been formerly incarcerated (#6); to be clear, he committed no crime, but Indigenous children were compelled to attend residential school and often faced such deprivation and cruelty that it was akin to a prison sentence.

Chief Robert Joseph’s Namwayut: A Pathway to Reconciliation (2022) is dedicated to the “Survivors of Indian residential schools with special remembrance for those who never returned home. These are the child heroes who exposed the truth and the spectre of genocide.” The story begins with memories of growing up on Gilford Island, north and east of Vancouver Island (in colonial terms)—the village of Gwa’yasdam. I love the way he described his childhood home, the front of the house extending over the water: where “the ebb and flow of the current and tiny waves could be heard.” And the view he describes, of a natural aquarium, rich with so many forms of life. He also spent eleven years in residential school and his life’s work has revolved around the idea that each of us is one in the universe and one with the universe: “When I started to see myself as part of a whole, when I reconciled with myself, everything changed for me. I suddenly realised that my well being depended on my connecting with others, sharing others’ stories, understanding others’ gifts.” This story of one of the hereditary chiefs of the Gwawaenuk nation is told in simplest terms, and whether he’s writing about his days as a young reporter or sharing wisdom, his voice is engaging and inviting.

As the days in 2025 dwindled, I wondered if I would be able to find a book by an Indigenous author about AI before year-end: would it be the only category (#10) I’d miss in my quest to focus on Indigenous writers for every square in the challenge? Enter: Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse (2011), the Cherokee writer’s first novel (his first book was non-fiction, published in 2005 while he was in grad school: How to Survive a Robot Uprising).

Wilson’s got quite a reputation in the genre and was, for instance, selected to write to the sequel to Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. Despite being a tremendously difficult word to type, Robopocalypse, is an easy and inviting read. It reads a little like a cross between Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry of Time* (structurally, with excerpts from documents and publications, along with quotations, so there are a lot of short segments) and Robert Cargill’s Sea of Rust (thematically, raising questions about the nature of humanity and how one behaves/operates in stressful situations). For my taste, I prefer the Cargill style (still lots of action but ultimately character-driven), but there were times when I absolutely hated a scene in Robopocalypse but the dialogue and events were so compelling I read on. Maybe I won’t read the follow-up (Robogenesis), but then again, I might—or another of his books. I do enjoy “discovering” a new-to-me writer via a challenge like this. [*EDIT: Ministry of the Future. Thanks, Stefanie.]

Thanks to the Toronto Public Library for hosting such a fun challenge again this year and inviting everyone to keep their stacks and shelves fresh. And thanks to Rebecca for her monthly #LoveYourLibrary posts (I still cannot believe that a library overseas has a bra exchange, but I’m guessing that borrowing snowshoes sounds weird to the folks wearing those swapped bras.)