Audiobooks narrated by Nathalie Toriel

"CBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023 49th SHELF EDITORS' PICK FOR JUNE 2023 When a family is forced to return to the mother’s childhood home, she seeks meaning in her ancestral roots and the violent beauty of the natural world. Fleeing the city at the beginning of the pandemic, two families are cramped together in a small century-old country house. Winter seeps through the walls, the wallpaper is peeling, and mice make their nest in the piano. Without phones or internet, they turn to the outdoors, where a new language unfolds, a language of fireflies and clover. The five children explore nature and its treasures, while our narrator, Anaïs, turns to the eccentric neighbours and her own family history to find peace and meaning in the middle of her life. To the Forest is a field guide to a quieter life, a call to return to the places where we can reweave the threads of memory, where existence waltzes with death, where we can recapture what it means to be alive."

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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Sing, Nightingale

"Peter Greenaway meets Angela Carter: a Gothic tale of secrets and revenge When the curtain rises on Malmaison, it reveals a once-enchanting estate, quietly falling into darkness and ruin, and at the heart of it, a father, one of a long line of fathers who have flourished at the expense of those around them. The silence seems peaceful, but lurking under it is a deep malevolence, scores of ugly and violent secrets kept by cast-off mistresses and abandoned daughters. Ever-greedy, the father brings in Aliénor, a woman who promises to make the lands give even more of themselves; the plants will flourish, the animals will multiply, each feast will be more sumptuous than the last. The father thinks the stage is set to satisfy his every desire, but Aliénor will bring a new script, one in which the hunters are hunted and a new reign will begin."

Marie Hélène Poitras (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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The Case for Basic Income: Freedom, Security, Justice

"Inequality is up. Decent work is down. Free market fundamentalism has been exposed as a tragic failure. In a job market upended by COVID-19-with Canadians caught in the grip of precarious labour, stagnant wages, a climate crisis, and the steady creep of automation-an ever-louder chorus of voices calls for a liveable and obligation-free basic income. Could a basic income guarantee be the way forward to democratize security and intervene where the market economy and social programs fail? Jamie Swift and Elaine Power scrutinize the politics and the potential behind a radical proposal in a post-pandemic world: that wealth should be built by a society, not individuals. And that we all have an unconditional right to a fair share. In these pages, Swift and Power bring to the forefront the deeply personal stories of Canadians who participated in the 2017-2019 Ontario Basic Income Pilot; examine the essential literature and history behind the movement; and answer basic income's critics from both the right and left."

Elaine Power, Jamie Swift (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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About Canada: Disability Rights: 2nd Edition

"Including people with disabilities fully into Canadian society, with the rights enjoyed by non-disabled people, requires a fundamental social transformation, not simply "fixing" some bodies. It requires deep changes in the attitudes, cultural images and policies that make people with disabilities invisible, set them aside, undermine or reject their contributions and value, and justifies their neglect, abuse and death. This shift involves the simple recognition and honouring of the dignity, autonomy and rights of all people, including those who experience disabilities. In the second edition of About Canada: Disability Rights, Deborah Stienstra explores the historical and current experiences of people with disabilities in Canada, as well as the policy and advocacy responses to these experiences. Stienstra demonstrates that disability rights enable people with disabilities to make decisions about their lives and future, claim rights on their own behalf, and participate actively in all areas of Canadian society. Disability rights can and does increase access to and inclusion in critical areas like education, employment, transportation, telecommunications and health care. Additionally, Stienstra identifies new approaches and practices, such as universal design, disability supports and income supports, that can transform Canadian society to be more inclusive and accommodating for everyone."

Deborah Stienstra (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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Feminist City: A Field Guide

"Feminist City: A Field Guide combines memoir, feminist theory, pop culture, and geography to expose what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities built right into our cities, homes, and neighbourhoods. Focusing on gendered experiences of the city, the books grapples with the challenge of claiming urban space amongst barriers designed to keep women "in their place." From the geography of rape culture to the politics of snow removal, the city is an ongoing site of gendered struggle. Yet the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping new social relations based around care and justice. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out a feminist intersectional approach to urban histories and pathways towards different urban futures. Feminist questions about safety and fear, paid and unpaid work, and rights and representation prompt us to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and open space to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and care-full cities together."

Leslie Kern (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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What's Yours is Mine

"The news is full of their names, supposedly the vanguard of a rethinking of capitalism. Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber, and many more companies have a mandate of disruption and upending the "old order"-and they've succeeded in effecting the "biggest change in the American workforce in over a century," according to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. But this new wave of technology companies is funded and steered by very old-school venture capitalists. In What's Yours Is Mine, internationally-acclaimed technologist Tom Slee argues the socalled sharing economy damages development, extends harsh free-market practices into previously protected areas of our lives, and presents the opportunity for a few people to make fortunes by damaging communities and pushing vulnerable individuals to take on unsustainable risk. This revised and updated edition of Slee's original "smart and searing critique" includes a new foreword by the author."

Tom Slee (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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Giving Up

"At times funny, at other times sad, and more than often a mixture of the two, Giving Up by Mike Steeves is a deeply felt account of what goes on in the inner sanctum of the modern couple's apartment. In grappling with the line between what happened and what might have happened, Steeves gives voice to the anguish of a generation of people who grew up with great expectations, and are now settling into their own personal failures and compromises: James is obsessed with completing his life's work. Mary is worried about their problems starting a family, and is scared that their future might not turn out as she'd planned. In the span of a few hours on an ordinary night in a non-descript city, two relatively small events will have enormous consequences on James' and Mary's lives, both together and apart. With an unrelenting prose style and pitch-black humour, Giving Up addresses difficult topics--James's ruinous ambition, and Mary's quiet anguish--in a funny and relatable way."

Mike Steeves (Author), Andrew Bigelow, Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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Coming Ashore

"Written with the same spirit and wit as the bestselling Too Close to the Falls and After the Falls, Coming Ashore is the third and final volume of Catherine Gildiner's memoir series. Picking up her story in the late '60s at age 21, Cathy whisks through seven years and three countries. Whether reciting verse in the classrooms of the University of Oxford, arranging a date with Jimi Hendrix, teaching inner city kids literature, rooming with a major drug dealer, falling in love, or working in a psychiatric hospital, Cathy determinedly blazes her own trail through all the passion and uncertainty that comes with the cusp of adulthood. Coming Ashore transports readers to a fascinating era populated by lively characters, but most memorable of all is the singular Cathy McClure."

Catherine Gildiner (Author), Nathalie Toriel (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Nathalie Toriel