Naheed Nenshi is known for discussing urban issues now he's ready to talk books on Canada Reads

Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi is championing the novelDenison Avenueby Christina Wong and Daniel Innes onCanada Reads2024!

Passionate about cities and urban life, Nenshi is excited to share this story told in art and fiction about Toronto's changing areas of Chinatown and KensingtonMarket.

The great Canadian book debate will take place on March 4-7. This year, we are looking forone book to carry us forward.

• Meet theCanada Reads2024 contenders

The debates will be hosted byAli Hassanandwill be broadcast onCBC Radio One,CBC TV,CBC Gem,CBC Listenand onCBC Books.The debates will take place live at 10:05 a.m. ET.You can tune in live or catch a replay on the platform of your choice.Check out all the broadcast details here.

A passion for books about the immigrant experience

Nenshiwas Calgary's mayor for three terms between 2010 and 2021. He was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2014 and is recognized internationally as a voice on urban issues. He is a proud first-generation Canadian of Indian ancestry and ofIsmaili Muslim faith, which instilled in him the ethic of "seva,"which means "service to the community."

Before becoming mayor, Nenshi wasCanada's first tenured professor of nonprofit management at the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University and worked in consulting.

• Miss theCanada Readscontenders onThe Next Chapter? Catch up here

Nenshilovesbooks about the immigrant experience,community, urban life and citiesthattest our biases and don't fall into tired tropes.

"The magnificent Denison Avenue will tell you a story you've never heard beforeabout people you think you know in your neighbourhood," said Nenshiin his 30-second pitch onCBC Radio'sCommotion.

It will change you. It will change how you look at people on the bus and on the streets. It will change how you live your life.- Naheed Nenshi on why Denison Avenue should win Canada Reads 2024

"It will change you. It will change how you look at people on the bus and on the streets. It will change how you live your life. Christina Wong is gonna tear your heart out and stomp on it and then hand it back to you a little bandaged, a little bruised, but filled with empathy and filled with hope," said Nenshi.

"And empathy and hope are what are going to carry us forward."

LISTEN | TheCanada Reads2024contenders speak with CBC Radio'sCommotion:

25:00Book lovers, rejoice it's time for Canada Reads!

Commotion is proud to announce the most highly anticipated reading list of the year. Elamin will reveal the five Canadian celebrities and the five books they'll be championing, and give each panelist a thirty second preview of what's to come.

How reading builds better communities

As a child and university student, Nenshi was an avid reader, but as he began his professional life, he lost the habit.

"I have allowed screens to take over my life. I've allowed work to take over my lifeand I've lost that pleasure of reading," he told CBC Books in an interview. "And when I even read a book, it might be a nonfiction book or a business book or something that is related to the work that I was doing."

WithCanada Reads, that's all been changing, with Nenshi making a conscious effort to come back to reading and bring others along with him.

In his preparation for the great Canadian book debate, he's noticedhow stories, especiallyDenison Avenue, can make him a better community builder.

• Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi shares 6 books to build your empathy

"I realized that it's so clich, but reading is the only thing that transports you into someone else. And there are people in our communities and our neighbourhoods, there's people on the other side of the world who we have to understand better if we want to build a better world."

"So Denison Avenue,for example, tells us about seniors, immigrant seniors in our community. We see them every dayand without giving too much away from the book, it tells us about people who, well, we might cross the street to avoid walking in our neighbourhoods, forgetting that they're actually human beings and they have a rich life."

That kind of empathy, you can only get it from books.- Naheed Nenshi

"And in the case of Denison Avenue, the protagonist, Cho Sum doesn't speak English very well and so it's easy to demean or belittle her ability to contribute. But one of the brilliant things about the book is that it's sort of an interior monologue. And when she's not talking to someone else, she is so eloquent, she is so articulate, but her poorEnglish skills prevent people from seeing her as who she is. And that kind of empathy,you can only get it from books."

LISTEN | Naheed Nenshi talks Canada Reads on Homestretch Calgary:

Canada Reads8:34Naheed Nenshi on The Homestretch Calgary

Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi speaks with Chris Dela Torre about being one of this year's Canada Reads panellists.

Where fiction and illustration collide

Set in Toronto's Chinatown and Kensington Market,Denison Avenueis a moving portrait of a city undergoing mass gentrification and a Chinese Canadian elder experiencing the existential challenges of getting old and being Asian in North America. Recently widowed, Wong Cho Sum takes long walks through the city, collecting bottles and cans and meeting people on her journeys in a bid to ease her grief.

• Read an excerpt fromDenison Avenuenow

Wong is a Toronto writer, playwright and multidisciplinary artist who also works in sound installation, audio documentaries and photography.

Innes is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. He works inpainting, installation, graphic and textile design, illustration, sign paintingand tattooing.

• How Denison Avenue brought an author and a former mayor together for noodles and Canada Reads

"[Chinatown/Kensington Market is] a neighborhood that I've pretty much grown up with," said Wong in an interviewon The Next Chapter. "My parents and my grandparents, our family, we would just go there on Sundays and go for dim sum and go grocery shopping. So it's a place that's like home for me.

It's a place that's like home for me.- Christina Wong

"It's also where my family association is, the Wong Association, and it's also considered like another home where I would go and talk to the elders and learn things. So I felt like myself, in a sense, like I could learn more about my culture."

LISTEN | Naheed Nenshi and Christina Wong meeton The Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter20:07Canada Reads Panellist Naheed Nenshi and Denison Avenue author Christina Wong meet for the first time

Former three-term mayor of Calgary and community builder Naheed Nenshi explains why he chose to champion Christina Wong and Daniel Inness Denison Avenue. Wong talks about her deep personal connection to the Kensington Market area of Toronto, and why it was the perfect setting for her novel.