Best Selling Kindle Books by Adrienne Clarkson

Adrienne Clarkson grew up in Ottawa after her family escaped Japanese-occupied Hong Kong in 1942. Decades later, she would become Canada’s 26th governor general. Clarkson reached out to Canadians everywhere, refashioning Rideau Hall into a real home and welcoming the public. Her determination to invest meaning in her official actions created controversy, and in her memoir, Clarkson reflects on the behind-the-scenes political machinations. Heart Matters is more than a public life remembered—it chronicles an astonishing journey through triumph and turmoil. Remarkably insightful and inspiring, it is an extraordinary work by an extraordinary Canadian.

In this exciting and revealing personal inquiry, former governor general Adrienne Clarkson explores the immigrant experience through the people who have helped transform Canada. The Canadians she befriends—whether an Ismaili doctor, a Doukhobor farmer, a Holocaust survivor, or a Vietnam War deserter—illustrate the changing idea of what it means to be Canadian and the kind of country we have created over the decades. Like her, many of the people who came did not have a real choice: they often arrived friendless and with a sense of loss. Yet their struggles and successes have enriched Canada immeasurably.What drove them to become the kind of people they have become? What would have happened to them if Canada had not taken them in? What have they added to our national life us as we go forward in the twenty-first century? Written with humour, insight and personal revelation, Room for All of Us is a tale of many destinies. Like W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, Clarkson’s book offers a richly textured, intimate and unforgettable portrait of a changing country and its people.

Never has the world experienced greater movement of peoples from one country to another, from one continent to another. These seismic shifts in population have brought about huge challenges for all societies. In this year’s Massey Lectures, Canada’s twenty-sixth Governor General and bestselling author Adrienne Clarkson argues that a sense of belonging is a necessary mediation between an individual and a society. She masterfully chronicles the evolution of citizenship throughout the ages: from the genesis of the idea of the citizen in ancient Greece, to the medieval structures of guilds and class; from the revolutionary period which gave birth to the modern nation-state, to present-day citizenship based on shared values, consensus, and pluralism. Clarkson places particular emphasis on the Canadian model, which promotes immigration, parliamentary democracy, and the rule of law, and the First Nations circle, which embodies notions of expansion and equality. She concludes by looking forward, using the Bhutanese example of Gross National Happiness to determine how we measure up today and how far we have to go to bring into being the citizen, and the society, of tomorrow.

Honoured as a hero in China, Ontario-born Norman Bethune was a surgeon, medical innovator, and charismatic political activist who deployed his skills on the battlefields of Spain and China in the 1930s. His prodigious energy included inventing surgical instruments, mobile blood-transfusion units, teaching, and advocating for social justice at home and abroad. Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian, has always been fascinated by the dynamic man who married his social conscience to his medical mission. Reviled as a Communist by some, revered as a humanitarian by others, Bethune was a complicated, inspirational figure who lived and loved on a large canvas.