Exclusively available from Anansi Digital, Communion is one of the lost, great works by a Canadian literary titan.

Originally published in 1971, Communion continues the story of Felix Oswald that began in Five Legs. We meet Felix Oswald again, a self-mocking and obsessed hero, a voyeur, and all-time loser, after he graduates from school and accepts …

In the sweep of human history, the European Union stands out as one of humankind's most ambitious endeavours. It encompasses half a billion people, twenty-seven member states, twenty-three languages, and an economy valued at over $15 trillion. Modern Europe's stunning achievements aside, its sovereign debt crisis has shaken the world's largest poli …

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. This edition of the anthology includes poems from each of the books shortlisted in both the Canadian and international categories for 2011, and are select …

What is Poetry? is a brilliant, soulful, and life-affirming collection of aphorisms in free verse by one of our most important contemporary poets, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Also an acclaimed activist, anarchist philosopher, and editor, he is one of the founders of City Lights, the legendary bookstore and publishing house.

In this hardcover limited edi …

Some days, it doesn't pay to be a lapsed pretend Buddhist . . . particularly when you're charged with a lengthy list of war crimes. Vida Zankovic has done many things to stay alive. A wily young man caught in the insanity of the Balkan wars, Vida has dealt drugs, been forced to join the army, and then deserted when he tried to save a young boy trap …

This study marks a major step in making collaboration between seniors, academic researchers, and community researchers a reality. Many aging adults are motivated to undertake research projects in later life or even return to university after retirement. Grey Matters is the result of a pilot project developed to study the effectiveness of collaborat …

Winner of the Quebec Writers' Federation Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

In the Carnival city there are two types of taxi drivers -- the spiders and the flies. The spiders patiently sit in their cars and wait for the calls to come. But the flies are wanderers - they roam the streets, looki …

When first published in 1972, Survival was considered the most startling book ever written about Canadian literature. Since then, it has continued to be read and taught, and it continues to shape the way Canadians look at themselves. Distinguished, provocative, and written in effervescent, compulsively readable prose, Survival is simultaneously a b …

On January 22, 2005, Inuit from communities throughout northern and central Labrador gathered in a school gymnasium to witness the signing of the Labrador Inuit Land Claim Agreement and to celebrate the long-awaited creation of their own regional self-government of Nunatsiavut. This historic agreement defined the Labrador Inuit settlement area, ben …

The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's most prestigious and valuable literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has acted as a tremendous spur to interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidab …

Testament is the summation of Dennis Lee’s decade-long exploration of the dilemma of contemporary existence. Incorporating and rethinking the work published in Un and Yesno, and featuring many completely new poems, this startling collection reminds us anew of the catastrophic reality we have made of our planet, while simultaneously insisting on a …

As seen on W Network

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir dazzled the world when they became the first Canadians -- and first North Americans -- to win an Olympic gold medal in ice dancing in 2010. Now, for the first time ever, they share their incredible and inspiring story with the world.

Tessa and Scott: Our Journey from Childhood Dream to Gold tracks the …

The human story behind Canada's worst chemical fire
"Why you leaving Stelco?" the friend asked the rookie firefighter.
"'Cause it's hot and dirty and I don't like shifts."
Enter the world of Hamilton's firefighters. Theirs is a smouldering, combustible workplace, and in the effort to save lives they routinely put their own on the line. They know t …

John R. Jewitt's story of being captured and enslaved by Maquinna, the great chief of the Mowachaht people, is both an adventure tale of survival and an unusual perspective on the First Nations of the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.

On March 22, 1803, while anchored in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Boston was attacked …

The Green Chain looks at the past, present and future of forestry through interviews with environmentalists, loggers, scientists and others. Raw log exports, environmental devastation, making a living . . . all are discussed in this exploration of the problems facing our forests, and the possible solutions.

It's an emotional topic, especially in Bri …

"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 …

Technically it was a minor league, but for hockey fans west of the Mississippi, the Western Hockey League provided major-league entertainment for over 25 years.

The WHL was a determined and ambitious professional league, with some 22 teams based in major American and Canadian cities. Known as the Pacific Coast Hockey League prior to 1952, the WHL a …

On January 22, 1906, the passenger ship Valencia lost her way in heavy fog and rain and rammed into the deadly rocks at Pachena Point on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As the wreck was shattered by the pounding waves, the survivors clung desperately to the rigging. Few made it the short distance to shore through the frigid and turbulent wavesâ …

Remarkable cattle drives, famous ranches and legendary characters are at the heart of Ken Mather's account of the early days of ranching in British Columbia. These are stories about drovers, ranchers, cowboys and "mud pups" (the remittance men of the ranching industry). You'll meet such people as:

• the flamboyant Harper brothers, drovers who went …

Winner of the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour

The cops wanted to shoot me, my bosses thought I was a Bolshevik, and a local lawyer warned me that some people I was writing about might try to test the strength of my skull with a steel pipe. What more could any young reporter hope for from his first real job?

The night Mark Leiren-Young drove …

In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a pe …

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 West was a lawless domain when Jerry Potts was born into the Upper Missouri fur trade in 1838. The son of a Scottish father and a Blood mother, he was given the name Bear Child by his Blood tribe for his bravery and tenacity while he was still a teen. In 1874, when the North West Mounted Police first marched west and sat lost and starving near …

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 …

Longlisted for a ReLit Award (2007)

Alcuin Society Citation for Excellence in Design

The stories in Sugar Bush & Other Stories deal with gender relations, love, and sex in a frank way. Most of the pieces feature female protagonists who navigate their young adult years in some questionable ways. They make some ill-advised choices, which are driven by …

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 …

On August 22, 1922, near Macroom, County Cork, a single bullet from an unknown gunman killed Michael Collins, the Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Free State Army. The day Collins was buried, businesses across Dublin shut down as thousands lined the streets to pay their respects. And on that day, Michael Lyons, a cooper from the Guinness factory tak …

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 …

Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Ottawa from August 18 to 23, 1996. -- Actes du 22e congrès international des sciences généalogique et héraldique à Ottawa du 18 au 23 août 1996.

Winnipeg writer Katherine Martens interviewed 26 women from the Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, ranging in age from 22 to 88 years old. They had many different backgrounds, but they all had one important characteristic: all were mothers.In the course of these interviews, Martens was searching for answers to questions that affected her bot …

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 …