Don’t be fooled by the unassuming appearance of this compact book. The paper confines of Here After carry serious weight. Writer Amy Lin deftly conveys the complex emotions of love and grief as she tells the story of losing her late husband with unflinching honesty.

“There’s no box for you to check, there’s also no box for being a young widow,” she says. “I’m always trying to turn people to this idea that there’s a person who lives here, in between these different categories.” Don’t blame us when you spontaneously burst into tears at the bookstore with this one.

The long legacy of Vietnamese-owned nail salons is probably the last thing on your mind when you’re getting a gel mani. But Mai Nguyen wants you to know the people on the other side of the table. Born in Winnipeg and raised in Halifax, Nguyen’s immigrant parents ran a nail salon which inspired her debut novel. “My Asian identity is the reason why this book was written,” she says. “I just felt like there wasn’t any representation of the nail salon community.” And her family’s nail salon? It’s still open to this day!

This empathetic account of how to love yourself forgoes the usual scientific terms that cloud most self-help books for something more accessible. Humble the Poet offers insight and advice on how to create more pathways for love in your life with understanding and gentle humour, sharing his own life experiences along the way. Reading it feels like having coffee with an old friend.

Vivek Shraya is a chameleon, weaving tales of gender, race and pop culture through multiple mediums including music, books and film. The Edmonton-born trans creator has won a Canadian Screen Award for her work on the CBC show Sort Of and currently sits on the board for the Tegan and Sara Foundation. Oh, and she also teaches English at the University of Calgary. While not everyone may be so lucky to have Vivek Shraya as a lecturer, her collection of books are worth adding to your own personal syllabus. People Change is no exception, exploring our ever-evolving identities and relationships with heart.

Recommended by author Roselle Lim for her wit and aptitude at capturing the true “Desi experience”, Farah Heron is another Asian Canadian writer making waves in the romantic comedy genre. Centring South Asian characters in relatable stories, the Toronto-based writer knows all the hallmarks of a juicy read. Who doesn’t love an adorable fake-dating scenario? We’ll be lying under the sun reading this giggling and kicking our feet this summer.

Kai Cheng Thom’s words are a healing balm for anyone who has ever felt hopeless, ashamed and lost. Written as a collection of letters addressed to various groups of people, Falling Back in Love with Being Human is poetry that’ll linger in your mind long after you finish the final pages.

If you’re into pop culture, you’ll appreciate all the little nods and references Chinese Canadian writer Jen Sookfong Lee inserts into this memoir. Sharing her experiences with loss, racism, fetishization and more, Jen’s writing is relatable and thought-provoking, tying her stories to familiar moments.

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