Indigenous summer reading: 3 top picks by Lisa Charleyboy

CBC Aboriginal asked some of our favourite people to recommend some holiday reading suggestions.

In this on-going summer seriesauthors, celebrities and CBC personalities share their favourite books, the ones they want to read this summer and the ones they think everyone should read.

• Indigenous summer reading: 3 top picks by Shelagh Rogers
• New Fire with Lisa Charleyboy

Here is Lisa Charleyboy, thehost of CBC Radio One's summer radio series New Fire.

Hopeto read:First Wives Club: CoastSalishStyle by Lee Maracle

Whether I'm at a cottage by the lake, or at a park in the city, I love delving intolighter books during the summer season. I put away my meaty reads and go forsomething that feels more like a salad, but that doesn't mean it can't be chock full ofsavoury bites.

First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style is the perfect paperback that I'll be packingaround with me throughout the summer. This book looks like a classicsummer "beach" read, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Anyone familiarwith Sto:lo author, academic, and activist Lee Maracle will anticipate great insightand depth within this collection of ten short stories.

In these stories readersmeet aboriginal women who have a variety of lifeexperiences and social stratificationsfrom professor to single mother. Within thesepages, indigenous female sexuality is revealed from varied positions,of bothprivilege and permission. Now that sounds like a lot more to digest than any kind ofbook with only shades of grey.

A fave:Tsawalk: ANuu-chah-nulth-WorldviewbyUmeek

Last fall I took a philosophy class where my textbook was Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth-Worldview by Umeek (E. Richard Atleo). I was very excited to read this book asI spent some time last summer in Nuu-chah-nulth territory and felt a deepconnection to the land on the west side of Vancouver Island. Little did I know thatthis book was going to change the way I saw myselfand the world.

Through a collection of seven traditional stories, Atleo weaves together anunderstanding for the reader to grasp the importance and relevance of traditional indigenous storytelling for societal structure. While that sounds like a lot to take infor a summer read, keep in mind that you are reading stories that you may haveheard before, but will walk away with an entirely new understanding of howtraditional teachings are rooted in these seemingly simple stories.

The essential takeaway is gleaned from the title Tsawalk, which translates to"everything is one." This means that we are one within both the physical andspiritual world and that there are deep connections that should be examined andhonoured.

The reader is asked to strip away the way they may have been taught tolook at their environment, and embrace another way of seeing the world.

This Nuu-chah-nulth worldview is a lens that you might have difficulty ever forgetting.

A recommendation: The Comeback by John Ralston Saul

Every once in a while I come across a book and wonder why I haven't read thisbefore, and why these words haven't come together prior to itspublishing date.

John Ralston Saul's book The Comeback is one that fits this bill.Celebrated author and public intellectual John Ralston Saul details the history of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and describes ways in which we might be able tomove forwardtogether. In this era of romanticism about reconciliation, it iscertainly time to really reveal some strategies for realizing what that might mean.

• CBC'sIdeas: The Comeback

After reading this book, I was energized to take responsibility in my role as a bridgebuilder and to create understanding between Indigenous Peoples and non-indigenous Canadians. Without understanding, we cannot truly move forward in agood way.

This book is one that I hope each and every single Canadian will take thetime to read, and to reflect on their responsibility in creating a better future for thiscountry.