James Maskalyk's Life on the Ground Floor is on the Canada Reads 2019 longlist. The final five books and the panellists defending them will be revealed on Jan. 31, 2019.

The 2019 debates are happening March 25-28, 2019 and will be hosted by Ali Hassan.

Dr. James Maskalyk is a doctor who divides his time between Toronto and Addis Adaba. He is the author of two works of nonfiction: Six Months in Sudan, a chronicle of his time treating patients in war-torn Sudan with Médecins Sans Frontières, and Life on the Ground Floor, a memoir of working in emergency rooms around the world. The latter book won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, one of Canada's biggest awards for nonfiction writing.