When:

Sunday December 11, 10.00 am 

Where:

King Edward Hotel, 37 King St E.

Brunch is served in the Vanity Fair Ballroom on the second floor of the King Edward Hotel.

Tickets are $55.00 each (taxes included) and must be purchased in advance.

Tickets are non-refundable.

Please call us at 416.361.0032 with your credit card information to reserve tickets

The Promise of Canada: 150 Years – People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country by Charlotte Gray

Simon & Schuster

On the eve of Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations comes a richly rewarding new book from acclaimed historian Charlotte Gray about what it means to be Canadian. Readers already know Gray as an award-winning biographer, a writer who has brilliantly captured significant individuals and dramatic moments in our history. Now, in The Promise of Canada, she weaves together masterful portraits of nine influential Canadians, creating a unique history of the country over the past 150 years.

What do these people—from George-Étienne Cartier and Emily Carr to Tommy Douglas, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper—have in common? Each, according to Charlotte Gray, has left an indelible mark on our country. Deliberately avoiding a “top down” approach to our history, Gray has chosen people whose ideas have caught her imagination, ideas that over time have become part of our collective conversation.

Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All by Steve Paikin

Dundurn Press

A biography of one of Ontario’s most important premiers, who, despite having been out of public life for more than thirty years, is remembered fondly by many as the father of the community college system, TVO, OISE, and was indispensable in repatriating the Canadian Constitution with an accompanying Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Before he became premier, Davis was perhaps the most important education minister in Ontario history, responsible for the creation of the community college system and TVOntario. As premier, he went on to lead Ontario through buoyant and recessionary economic times, leaving a legacy Ontarians continue to enjoy. Now 87, Davis still lives on Main Street in his beloved Brampton.

Brown by Kamal Al-Solaylee

HarperCollins

Brown is not white. Brown is not black. Brown is an experience, a state of mind. Historically speaking, issues of race and skin colour have been interpreted along black and white lines, leaving out millions of people whose stories of migration and racial experiences have shaped our modern world. In this new book by Kamal Al-Solaylee¸ whose bestselling Intolerable was a finalist for Canada Reads and for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and won the Toronto Book Award, fills in the narrative gap by taking a global look at the many social, political, economic and personal implications of being a brown-skinned person in the world now.

Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety by Ann Y.K.Choi

            Simon and Schuster

This haunting coming-of-age story, told through the eyes of a rebellious young girl, vividly captures the struggles of families caught between two cultures in the 1980s. Family secrets, a lost sister, forbidden loves, domestic assaults—Mary discovers as she grows up that life is much more complicated than she had ever imagined. Her secret passion for her English teacher is filled with problems and with the arrival of a promising Korean suitor, Joon-Ho, events escalate in ways that she could never have imagined, catching the entire family in a web of deceit and violence.

A unique and imaginative debut novel, Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety evocatively portrays the life of a young Korean Canadian girl who will not give up on her dreams or her family.