"I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958." So begins literary legend Diana Athill in the preface to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a long-overdue collection of her short fiction, stories which were originally published in the 1950s to the 1970s.

In unsentimental though often touching prose, Athill’s youn …

Against his will and his nature, the hulking Gordon Rankin ("Rank") is cast as an enforcer, a goon -- by his classmates, his hockey coaches, and especially his own "tiny, angry" father, Gordon Senior.

Rank gamely lives up to his role -- until tragedy strikes, using Rank as its blunt instrument. Escaping the only way he can, Rank disappears. But almo …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured annually with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's richest and most prestigious literary awards. The 2010 edition of the anthology includes poems from all the books to be shortlisted this year by judges Anne Carson, Kathleen Jamie, and Carl Phillips. Th …

With her multiple-award-winning, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander, Gil Adamson established herself as one of our preeminent fiction writers. But ten years before The Outlander, when Adamson published another book of fiction with a small press, readers and critics immediately sat up and took note. Barbara Gowdy called Help M …

Cameron Dodds has just turned thirty. A writer, he get his ideas from the lives of others, often borrowing stories from the patients of his workplace, the Salvation Army Treatment Centre. When one of the patients, Darrel Greene, hangs himself, Cameron sees a great opportunity for a story -- maybe even a novel. He begins to research Darrel's past, a …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured annually with the Griffin Poetry Prize. The 2009 edition of the anthology includes poems from all the books to be shortlisted this year by judges Michael Redhill, Saskia Hamilton, and Dennis O'Driscoll. The poems in the anthology are selected and introduced by …

Award-winning author and poet Emily Schultz offers an immensely readable, funny, and sharp novel about a man who works for a Harlequin-like publisher, and gradually discovers that he has arrived in "heaven." Like Will Ferguson's international bestseller, Happiness, Heaven is Small is a smart, satirical novel from one of our best.

Heaven is Small is …

Fascinating, revelatory, and powerful, Butterfly MindM is a memorable work from a renowned reporter on the front line of history.

In this memoir, award-winning journalist Patrick Brown weaves together three stories: the first is Brown's own education as a journalist over the past twenty-five years, and his parallel struggle with alcoholism. The seco …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize. The 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology includes poems from the exceptional books shortlisted by judges George Bowering, James Lasdun, and Pura Lopez Colome. The poems in the 2008 anthology are selected and introduced by …

In February 1956, a remarkable young woman named Christina McCall began her working life as an editorial secretary at Maclean's magazine. It was a legendary time there, when the likes of Pierre Berton, Robert Fulford, June Callwood, Peter Gzowski, and Peter C. Newman graced the magazine's pages. McCall would come to join that illustrious group, and …

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches, originally published in French as La Petite Fille qui Aimait Trop les Alumettes, dominated the bestseller lists and captured major media attention when it appeared in Quebec. It was the first novel published in Quebec ever to be nominated -- let alone become a finalist -- for France's prestigious Prix Re …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's richest and most prestigious literary awards.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology: A Selection of the 2007 Shortlist includes poems from the exceptional books shortlisted by jurors John Burnside, Charles …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured in June of each year with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's richest and most prestigious literary prizes.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2006: A Selection of the Shortlist includes poems from the seven exceptional books shortlisted for the 2006 pr …

East-end Montreal in the mid-1920s. A popular restaurant is razed by an arsonist. Seventy-five people perish in the inferno. While strolling with his wheelchair-ridden father, a man furtively salvages a charred icon from the ruins. He is Remouald Tremblay, a self-effacing bank clerk whose pocket holds a treasured rabbit's foot and whose memory cont …

First published by Anansi in 1969, Five Legs was a breakthrough for Canadian experimental fiction, selling 1,000 copies in its first week. At the time Scott Symons wrote that "Five Legs has more potent writing in it, page for page, than any other young Canadian novel that I can think of." Or indeed any young American novel — including Pynchon and …

With characters ranging from the desperate to the obsessive to the wildly comic, Mark Anthony Jarman's 19 Knives employs dazzling linguistic verve and staggering metaphoric powers in every sentence. But Jarman doesn't just write about people, he puts us in their skin so that we feel their frailty and courage.

No other contemporary Canadian short-sto …

In this expanded edition of her bestselling 1989 CBC Massey Lectures, renowned scientist and humanitarian Ursula M. Franklin examines the impact of technology upon our lives and addresses the extraordinary changes since The Real World of Technology was first published.

In four new chapters, Franklin tackles contentious issues, such as the dilution o …

Atonement is Sheila Fischman's translation of Gaetan Soucy's brilliant novel, originally published in French as L'Acquittement.

Twenty years after leaving the tiny village of Saint Aldor, Louis Bapaume has come home to make amends. During that one blustery winter solstice day, between the railway station and the church where a funeral mass is underw …

Reissued in a handsome A List edition, the largest collection of critical prose to date from world renowned author and poet Margaret Atwood, featuring an introduction by Lennie Goodings.

Originally published in 1982, Second Words brings together fifty of Margaret Atwood’s finest essays and reviews spanning two decades, beginning in 1962, with an i …

For more than fifteen years, iconoclastic thinker Ivan Illich refused to be interviewed. Finally, in 1988, CBC's David Cayley persuaded Illich to record a conversation. This first interview led to additional sessoins that continued until 1992 and are now gathered in Ivan Illich in Conversation.

In these fascinating conversations, which range over a …

Six magnificent and stimulating essays examining the role of technology in shaping how we live, by one of Canada’s most influential philosophers, now reissued in a handsome A List edition.

Originally published in 1986, the six essays that comprise Technology and Justice offer absorbing reflections on the extent to which technology has shaped the w …

Brilliant and still-timely analysis of the implications of technology-driven globalization on everyday life from Canada’s most influential philosophers, reissued in a handsome A List edition, featuring an introduction by Andrew Potter.

Originally published in 1969, Technology and Empire offers a brilliant analysis of the implications of technology …