C/O @goodmindsindigenousbooks
GoodMinds.com provides voices to Indigenous authors and their stories
By: Serena Habib, Contributor
GoodMinds.com is the largest Indigenous bookseller in Canada, but its impact extends far beyond that of a typical bookstore. It is a source of inspiration, a well of knowledge, a voice for Indigenous authors, an educational hotspot and a support for Indigenous communities across North America.
Dave Anderson, whose spirit name is Wahwahbiginojii, is Bear Clan of Dene and Anishinabe descent born in Atikokan, Ontario. As an educator with a doctorate in Indigenous education, he has been involved with Goodminds.com on a number of projects and is constantly directing students and teachers to GoodMinds.com in order to help them learn about Indigenous peoples.
Anderson described GoodMinds.com as an Indigenous way of doing business, with the purpose of helping Indigenous peoples and business grow economically due to disproportionate socioeconomic barriers faced.
The original vision for GoodMinds.com was to ensure there was a place where Indigenous authors could be supported and promoted. Founded over 20 years ago by Jeff Burnham and currently run by Achilles Gentle, the company’s owners have personally looked at every single book before choosing to sell it, ensuring it accurately represents Indigenous peoples in an honest and prideful way. Anderson described how each book will keep your mind growing in the spirit of having “GoodMinds”.
“Respect, responsibility and relationship: that's what GoodMinds is about . . . Understanding our relations, understanding the knowledge of each other, respecting that knowledge and being responsible to do what needs to be done,” explained Anderson.
Another important part of GoodMinds vision is to support Indigenous libraries through their initiative, Supporting Indigenous Libraries Today. Since many Indigenous communities have neither libraries nor access to books, five per cent of every sale goes towards SILT.
In addition to selling books, the company speaks to students, libraries and schools. They also support Indigenous education in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. The company tries to ensuring libraries purchase Indigenous books from Indigenous booksellers and reach out to schools and their teachers to help with the delivery of educational concepts and issues relating to Indigenous communities. GoodMinds have also begun to publish works by Indigenous authors and present interviews and reviews with Indigenous authors on their YouTube channel in their collection, “13 Moons 13 Reads.”
For Indigenous peoples, stories are a critical way of remembering and celebrating their life on this land.
“We're learning our teachings again, we're learning to laugh again . . . The resiliency and the life that these authors bring in spite of what’s happened — that needs to be shared. There’s a vision . . . there’s a life. And we need to celebrate that life,” explained Anderson.
For non-Indigenous people, this is an important opportunity to finally listen to the stories of Indigenous peoples. We all can learn from these teachings and from the interactions of Indigenous peoples with the land we live on today. They have been offering their teachings for 500 years to help us understand our land. It is time we embrace one another and learn so we can step towards a better future.
“We are in a time of truth and reconciliation and educating everybody, understanding everybody,” said Anderson.
As an example, Anderon spoke about the climate crisis. There are a number of books about Josephine-ba Mandamin, a Water Walker who walked around all five Great Lakes, carrying a bucket of water and a staff, singing Anishinaabe water songs and honouring the water because of how important it is.
The stories about her and the reasons behind her actions can teach us how to value water and ensure that our future generations will have clean water. The lessons from these stories are applicable to every one of us. To further explain our relationship with our land and water, Anderson recalled a statement from a Cree Elder he had spoken to.
“It’s about Kenanow. It’s about all of us. That’s you and me and the water and the plants and the animals and the land. It’s about all of us living together,” said Anderson.
Reading one story is taking one step on a road towards learning and understanding our place and responsibility as human beings on this shared land. The path of learning is ever-expanding; every book illuminates a path to infinite more for us to discover.
GoodMinds’ catalogue feature lists so that every individual can find multiple books for themselves. Anderson also recommended 500 Nations and the Truth About Stories as places to start reading Indigenous work.
To complement university courses, there are books in every subject ranging from engineering, medicine, astronomy and many more. The children’s books, novels and poetry collections also share wisdom from an Indigenous perspective that are beneficial for everyone to become more aware of.
“It’s your first step on [your] road — your road to knowledge [and], to being. If you've taken that first step, it means there's something that has brought you here. And now, there's more . . . There's so much for us to learn,” explained Anderson.
The truth about stories, as Anderson powerfully described, is that everything we need is in the story. GoodMinds provides us with these stories in a way that allows us to help our communities by making a purchase and by reading a book. Let us open a story and join hands and minds for a future of flourishing and friendship.
“It's a time when we live together and for us to share with you. [Y]ou can listen in and we'll grow together to build a better world, a world that we can be proud of to leave for our children [and] our grandchildren,” said Anderson.
By Nisha Gill, Staff Writer
As technology continues to evolve and play an increasingly large role in our everyday lives, taking time away from it has never been more important. However, the temptations of technology are difficult to resist and, as a result, there are very few places where one is able to truly disconnect.
The Printed Word (69 King St. W.), is one of those few places where it is truly possible to disconnect. For owner James McDonald, opening the store was, in part, a reaction against the digital—this was also the inspiration for its name. The store is well-lit and open, perfect for exploring the line-up of floor to ceiling bookshelves, all of which house a carefully curated collection of both fiction and nonfiction works.
“I’ve had a lot of people come, in early days, and first of all, not even recognize that it’s a bookstore, it’s so idiosyncratic. Which is weird, because go back thirty years and this is what just bookstores looked like. They have books in and different subjects and here we are. But because it doesn’t look like Chapters . . . or the traditional chains that we have, it’s ‘What is this place? What do you do here?’” explained McDonald.
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For McDonald, reading and exploration go hand in hand; reading is an opportunity for a special kind of exploration. But this kind of exploration is becoming increasingly difficult to follow through on in our technology-driven world. Thanks to our devices and social media, we have almost all the information we could ever want at our fingertips. However, the kind of exploration we engage with on our devices, or while scrolling through social media, is often different from what we find in books. What we find in books is a slower, more experimental form of exploration that simply cannot be found in technology.
“Books are slower and imaginative. You enter them in a completely different way . . . What are books really are places of exploration and imagination and quiet wondering and all those great things,” said McDonald.
In particular though, McDonald recognizes the importance of this kind of exploration—and the conversation that it can provoke—for students, who are often the most tied to their technology.
“A lot of people come in and see that you have philosophy or you have university press titles and stuff, [they think we] must get a lot of students, [that] the McMaster community must be a huge supporter of [our] establishment and the fact is, not at all . . . It’s just people, just interested people who like books, reading, thinking, talking . . . The reason to have a bookstore is to explore, find the thing you didn’t know you were looking for, the thing you didn’t know existed and students should really be tapping into some of this. And there are conversations that happen here that are interesting, conversations that students can bring.”
The Printed Word is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
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cw: this article references eating disorders/disordered eating
Body Brave Canada is a charitable organization that provides resources and support for individuals struggling with eating disorders/disordered eating. On Nov. 10, they will be holding a Book Swap at The Spice Factory (121 Hughson St. North) in order to being the community together and raise awareness about their work. There will be a reading by local author Anne Bokma for her new book, “My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful” and a pop-up shop for the body-positive clothing brand Mettamade.
Julie Shea, the chair of Body Brave’s Board of Directors, says that she hopes the event will help people realize how important it is to have adequate resources for eating disorders/disordered eating.
“Eating disorders are sometimes not given the validation that they need to have. They’re a very serious mental health disorder and I don’t think enough people realize how serious and prevalent they are, and that they have a 10% mortality rate. This is in our community. There are people dying in our community, there are people suffering in our community, and there are no resources,” said Shea.
Body Brave Canada seeks to fill the gap left by traditional health care. They offer a number of accessible options and resources, both in-person and online.
Mettamade is a manifestation of the good work Body Brave has done for the community. It was created by mother-daughter duo Carol Davies and Morgan MacDonald, both of whom have worked with Body Brave in the past. They create clothing that is more forgiving for people who struggle to shop and find clothes that fit. They have designed a sizing system based around gemstones instead of numbers. Rather than a size eight or a medium, you might be a topaz. The fabric is bamboo-spandex, making it both comfortable and sustainable.
“When you wear them it’s like giving yourself self-compassion,” said Davies.
Mettamade frequently collaborates with Body Brave and donates a portion of their sales to the organization. For the Book Swap, 50 per cent of the proceeds will be donated to Body Brave.
“We’re giving back to a group that was instrumental in my daughter’s recovery,” said Davies.
Mettamade was in part created to make more forgiving clothes for MacDonald while she was struggling with an eating disorder. It was during that time that she and Davies started to work with Body Brave. MacDonald wasn’t able to find resources elsewhere, but Body Brave helped her.
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The Book Swap takes place this Sunday Nov. 10 from 2 p.m.-5 p.m. at The Spice Factory. Tickets are $20 each. Bring five books with you and take five away. If you are interested in supporting Mettamade, they have a few pop-up shops coming up this month and a brick-and-mortar store in Westdale.
“We need people to know we’re here, and to support the cause,” said Shea.
To find out more about Body Brave Canada, you can take a look at their website or drop by the Book Swap. If you or someone that you care about is struggling with disordered eating and are not sure where to turn, reach out.
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Floating in the window of an Ottawa Street storefront is a crocheted pool float in the shape of a pink flamingo. The sign at the top of the store reads “The City & The City Books”(181 Ottawa St. North). Owned by Janet Hoy and Tim Hanna, this independent bookstore opened last spring.
The store is located right next to Cannon Coffee Co., so if you like to study in coffee shops, then just a quick trip from Cannon will let you pick up a book and support this local business.
The City & The City Books gets its name from the 2009 book by author China Miéville.
“[Miéville] writes what’s called the new weird. He defies genre. If you go into a bookshop all of his books could be in a different section. They could be in literature, they could be in science fiction, they could even be in mystery,” said Hanna, “Something we’re interested in is books that defy genre, or not having genre. I always say to people: in an ideal bookshop there wouldn’t be a literature or science fiction section, there would just be stories.
This is clearly evident in the store. The book sections intermingle together. Philosophy and literature rub elbows with science fiction and mystery. New books are located on white shelves at the front and used books on black shelves at the back, making it easy to navigate between the two. Hoy points out that one of the benefits of offering used books is the affordability.
“It’s great seeing someone get excited because they just found War and Peace for $5,” said Hoy.
Hoy jokes that she does have one regret about the name of the store.
“Writing an ampersand is hard,” she said.
Hoy and Hanna are hoping that the store can help make buying school books easier for students.
“When you get your syllabus for the beginning of the year and the list of books that you need, if we know what people are looking for we’ll be out looking for it,” said Hoy.
Come the winter semester, if you’re struggling to afford textbooks, it’s definitely worth a look to see if The City & The City Books has what you’re looking for. Hanna emphasized that, for students, they were going to try and have everything possible from spirituality to philosophy and political science.
The store isn’t limited to just books. There are eclectic socks, cards and most importantly, cat tarot decks. That alone is worth the trip down to Ottawa Street. Not to mention, Ottawa Street has art galleries, a board game cafe, thrift stores and restaurants. If you’re planning a day trip out with your friends, it’s a must-try hotspot. While you’re there, stop by The City & The City Books to have a look around to see where the words can take you.
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