As the year winds down and the days grow shorter, December invites us to slow down, reflect, and reach for stories that bring warmth, wonder, and a touch of escape. This month’s book round-up features powerful new releases and hidden stories of strength, change, and new beginnings—perfect for cozy nights or holiday gifting.
CommunityShip by Bruce Poon Tip
Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
From the bestselling author of Looptail comes a remarkable new approach to business and life
Bruce Poon Tip started one of the world’s biggest global travel companies with only a couple of kayaks and a dream. The company, G Adventures, was on track for a record year in January 2020. Then, the world stopped—their income dropped to zero and they had to shut down operations in more than 100 countries. Now the Canadian company is about to crack a billion dollars in annual sales for the first time. How did they survive and ultimately thrive when so many other businesses didn’t?
In his long-awaited new book, the award-winning CEO of G Adventures, Bruce Poon Tip, shares lessons about company culture, strategy, and a new approach to succeeding in business and life that he calls “communityship.” Communityship is what happens when companies and the people they employ stop seeing themselves as separate and start acting like they’re part of the world. It’s not just working together—it’s caring about each other. It’s shared responsibility, trust, and connection, whether it’s within a company or a neighbourhood, or with people halfway across the world. It’s about creating value that lifts everyone, not just a handful of people cashing in. Success isn’t just money—it’s the relationships we build, the impact we make, and the good we leave behind. It’s not a business strategy. It’s a way of being.
Provocative, inspiring, and groundbreaking, Communityship shows how everyone, from those on the ground floor to those in the C-suites, can thrive in a new world and not only future-proof but century-proof their businesses.
The Power of Gulit by Chris Moore
Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Guilt sheds a whole new light on an emotion we all experience . . . and try to avoid. Guilt might not feel good, but it is good for us.
The human condition is one plagued by guilt. Whether you are a child or a parent, a friend or a lover, religious or atheist, you have almost certainly felt guilt at some point in your life. For some, it is a regular, even daily experience. It’s never pleasant, but it can be useful. Rather than thinking of guilt in terms of wrongdoing, we need to focus instead on who (or what) we feel guilty about. Then, we can recast guilt as an emotional signal that a relationship has been damaged. And set things right.
Guilt tells us when we have harmed someone we care about and that we should attempt to repair that harm. It helps us care for our relationships and upholds our very society. However, when ignored, internalized, and misdirected, it can cause us all kinds of trouble—which may be where it got its bad reputation. When we understand it and pay attention to its signals, guilt is actually a healthy reaction, not the negative scourge it is made out to be. Its purpose is to motivate us to try to gain forgiveness for our mistakes and missteps, and, ultimately, to restore our relationships.
Psychologist Chris Moore weaves storytelling and science together to explore the many ways this emotion affects our lives, using his own deep personal experience, as well as extensive research into human and animal psychology, psychotherapy, philosophy, comparative religion, and legal frameworks. Guilt tells the story of the emotion we would all rather escape: what it is, where it comes from, how it works, and the heart of its purpose.
The Brink of Something Beautiful by Bobbi French
Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
For readers of Miriam Toews and Claire Keegan, an immersive and deeply poignant new novel set on the Rock about female friendship and found family.
Ruby Nolan is a new widow. Hidden in her grief and guilt for her husband, Joe, is a sense that she is free from a marriage she never wanted. But how can she possibly begin again? An encounter with Maxine, a pregnant teen who reminds Ruby of her own sorry past, and a shocking revelation from her mother, Vera, send Ruby on a collision course with old truths and regrets and on a mission to help Maxine whether she wants it or not. While a friend warns Ruby that you can’t help anyone until you help yourself, it’s a lesson Ruby has to learn the hard way if she’s going to find any real peace.
Set over the course of one winter in 1990s St. John’s and infused with the rich culture and characters of the Rock, The Brink of Something Beautiful is the life-affirming, ultimately hopeful story about how women lift each other up and figure themselves out.
Royal Spin by Omid Scobie & Robin Benway
Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
The much-anticipated novel from preeminent journalist and royal biographer Omid Scobie and National Book Award-winner Robin Benway, two bestselling and beloved authors who are drawing from their real world expertise, an irresistibly entertaining story about a young American woman who takes a job at Buckingham Palace—where she finds herself tangled in a royal mess she might not be able to spin her way out of.
She can handle the press…but can she handle the Palace?
With the British monarchy reeling from a wave of scandals, young American politico Lauren Morgan is plucked from the White House press office to breathe new life into the Buckingham Palace communications team and improve the royal family’s streak of bad headlines. But the Palace is an institution steeped in tradition and strict protocol, and Lauren quickly discovers that change is far from easy, or welcome, especially when you’re dealing with culture clashes, displeased royal aides, and a risky new love interest—or two.
Just as Lauren finds her footing at work—and with a charming royal reporter who may be more than just a press contact—an unexpected encounter from her past threatens the career she’s worked so hard to build. And when scandal looms over the dashing duke who Lauren has developed a special bond with, she finds herself torn between duty, loyalty, success, and happiness.
From London’s high society clubs to the sacred corridors and rarely seen spaces of Buckingham Palace, Royal Spin is a fun, humorous, and heartfelt novel that reminds us of the importance of chasing your dreams, and that the most rewarding journeys are often the messiest.
The Fourth Princess by Janie Chang
Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
From the internationally bestselling author of The Porcelain Moon comes a haunting Gothic novel set in 1911 China. Two young women living in a crumbling, once-grand Shanghai mansion face danger as secrets of their pasts come to light, even as the mansion’s own secret threatens the present.
Shanghai, 1911. Lisan Liu is elated when she is hired as secretary to wealthy American Caroline Stanton, the new mistress of Lennox Manor on the outskirts of Shanghai’s International Settlement. However, the Manor has a dark past due to a previous owner’s suicide, and soon Lisan’s childhood nightmares resurface with more intensity and meld with haunted visions of a woman in red. Adding to her unease is the young gardener, Yao, who both entices and disturbs her.
Newly married Caroline looks forward to life in China with her husband, Thomas, away from the shadows of another earlier tragedy. But an unwelcome guest, Andrew Grey, attends her party and claims to know secrets she can’t afford to have exposed. At the same party, the notorious princess Masako Kyo approaches Lisan with questions about the young woman’s family that the orphaned Lisan can’t answer.
As Caroline struggles with Grey’s extortion and Thomas’s mysterious illness, Lisan’s future is upended when she learns the truth about her past, and why her identity has been hidden all these years. All the while, strange incidents accelerate, driving Lisan to doubt her sanity as Lennox Manor seems unwilling to release her until she fulfills demands from beyond the grave.
