A View from the Porch is an illuminating collection of 22 essays about the points where design touches life and the big and small things that make us appreciate, or become disconnected from, our homes and neighbourhoods.

Drawing on his experiences as an architect, planner, world traveller, and educator, Friedman delves into issues such as the North …

The North-South Project is an original work of collective storytelling made up of prose pieces that consider what it means to be lost, the significance of memory, imagination, and history, and how all of these intersect and contribute to our sense of place and belonging. Edited by Noah Richler, author, journalist, cultural critic, and Literary & Id …

Growing inequality within Chinese society has led to public indignation, petitions to Party and state agencies, strikes, and large-scale protests. This book examines the intersection between the Chinese government’s preoccupation with the “protection of social stability” (weiwen), and its legal commitments to protect human rights. Drawing on …

Suzanne Leblanc's The Thought House of Philippa transposes a theory of individuality into a stunningly reflective, sensuous and frank philosophical novel. Setting the chapters in the various rooms of the house Ludwig Wittgenstein designed for his sister in Vienna, Leblanc's novel lays out P.'s intensely emotional and intellectually acute way of see …

His body, like yours, would lie
mute as a plum
until a vigilant limb came
to a decision. As you might have guessed
I've come to one myself.

Moving from the absurdity of the First World War to the chaos of today’s cities, where men share beds, bottles of ouzo and shade from willow trees, these poems ask questions: If your lover speaks in his sleep, …

Chinksta rap is all the rage in Red Deer, Alberta. And the king of Chinksta is King Kwong, Run’s older brother. Run isn’t a fan of Kwong’s music – or personality, really. But when Kwong goes missing just days before his crowning performance and their mom gets wounded by a stray bullet, Run finds himself, with his sidekick, Ali, in the middl …

For forty years, RM Vaughan has been fighting, and failing, to get his forty winks each night. He's not alone, not by any stretch.

More and more studies highlight the health risks of undersleeping, yet we have never been asked to do more, and for longer. And we can't stop thinking that a lack of sleep is heroic: snoozing is a kind of laziness, after …

From the author and translator of And the Birds Rained Down, a 2015 CBC Canada Reads selection

Winner of the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for French-to-English Translation

An abandoned mine. A large family driven by honour. And a source of pain, buried deep in the ground.

We’re nothing like other families. We are self-made. We are an essen …

The story of the growth and destruction of Toronto's first 'priority neighbourhood.'

From the 1840s until the Second World War, waves of newcomers who migrated to Toronto – Irish, Jewish, Italian, African American and Chinese, among others – landed in 'The Ward.' Crammed with rundown housing and immigrant-owned businesses, this area, bordered by …

Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands are home to over two dozen active lighthouses. For over a century, these coastal beacons have guided ships through the fog and represented hope for countless mariners. Today, the lighthouses on BC’s southern islands are ideal destinations for day trippers and coastal explorers of all ages who are looking for …

Liz Ryerson believes that Hillcrest Village, her Toronto neighbourhood, is quaint and quiet, but stumbling over a corpse while walking her dog dissolves that illusion for good. When she realizes that she actually knew the dead man, a real estate broker who appraised the building she coowns with her philandering ex-husband, she becomes obsessed with …

Once you decide to follow Jesus, what does it look like? Many people who come to church aren’t really sure. Bullseye maps out six markers that are signs of a Christian life. In practical, inviting, and clear ways, Bullseye examines • Using Spiritual Practices • Worshipping Together Weekly • Discovering Authentic Community • Serving • Gi …

How dull plays are killing theatre and what we can do about it.

Had I become disenchanted with the form I had once fallen so madly in love with as a pubescent, pimple-faced suburban homo with braces? Maybe theatre was like an all-consuming high school infatuation that now, ten years later, I saw as the closeted balding guy with a beer gut he’d bec …

In their last adventure, Cody, Eric, and Rachel were clever enough to fool townspeople with a homemade "ancient Egyptian" tablet. Their exploits brought some much-needed tourism to Sultana, Manitoba, but their deception ensured they would spend the summer doing community service. While mowing the grass in the local cemetery, they stumble across som …

Does true love have supernatural power?

Where Did You Sleep Last Night is a love story about a teenage girl who embarks on a relationship with Kurt Cobain.

Evelyn Gray is a sad and lonely sixteen-year-old from Carnation, Washington who is terrorized by her classmates at school. She spends most of her time in her room reading, writing letters to dead …

“I am not afraid to be called a politician,” declared Paul Martin Sr., defending his life’s work in politics. “Next to preaching the word of God, there is nothing nobler than to serve one’s fellow countrymen in government.” First elected to the House of Commons in 1935, Martin served in the cabinet of four prime ministers and ran for th …

Jayne Seagrave—author of the bestselling Camping British Columbia and Yukon—is back with a book that only an avid camper with children could write. Camping with Kids in the West: BC and Alberta’s Best Family Campgrounds is the definitive guide for parents who want to introduce their children to the wonders of nature and create family memories …

As night falls on a soft summer evening, neighborhood children are drawn out of their houses by the sights and sounds of the world after dark. First the fireflies come sparkling past, followed by a host of domestic and wild animals, from cats and dogs to owls and skunks. Accomplished children’s poet Robert Heidbreder creates a world of enchantmen …

Winner of the 2015 Quebec Writers' Federation's A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry

If you tore off the tops of canola --
yellow canola flowers -- would you
jump in a tub of canola margarine
just to make the best of despair?

Implored by concerned readers to be 'classy' and 'real' for once, David McGimpsey has composed a sequence of canonical note­books on …

I'm ill-equipped
for this. I sit
by a fake fireplace

that frames a real flame.
I've been crossed
by two crows today.

'Multi-vectored, Rogers's poems hum with life and tension, their speaker poised as mother, seer, reporter and daughter. They speak of loss and cold realities (misplaced charms of luck, a tour of an assisted-living facility, coins t …

This little book is written for Canadians who care about our democracy and the future of our planet. The Senate, surprisingly, could make major contributions to both. A People’s Senate for Canada explains how we can make that happen.

What if we had a Senate that was independent of party politics, truly committed to “sober second thought” and …

In 1981 Jake Kennedy accidentally burnt down an abandoned house. Years later as an adult, he read a story about how Kurt Schwitters' "interior house-sculpture" ("Merz Structure No. 2") was destroyed in 1951 after some children playing with matches accidentally burnt the building down. This sad 'unmaking,' so similar in nature to his own haunting ex …

A roof, a door, some windows, a floor.

All houses have them, but not all houses are alike. Some have wings (airplane homes), some have wheels (Romany vardoes), some float; some are made of straw, some of snow and ice. Some are enormous, some are tiny; some are permanent and some are temporary. But all are home. Take Shelter explores the ways people …

Flynn hates the outdoors. Always has. He barely pays attention in his Outdoor Ed class. He has no interest in doing a book report on Lost in the Barrens. He doesn’t understand why anybody would want to go hiking or camping. But when he gets lost in the wilderness behind his parents’ friends’ house, it’s surprising what he remembers—insula …

Did you know that cars can run on french-fry grease or that human poop can be used to provide power to classrooms?

Brilliant! is about what happens when you harness the power of imagination and innovation: the world changes for the better! Kids in Mexico help light up their houses by playing soccer, and in the Philippines, pop-bottle skylights are i …

In 1948, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is founded by General Kim Il-sung.

In 1978, North Korea celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of its founding, and Kim Jong-il, who at the time is the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, orders the kidnapping of the greatest South Korean movie star, the actress Madame Choi, and her ex- …

An utterly convincing and moving look at the beauty and perils of consciousness.

WINNER OF CANADA READS 2017

WINNER OF THE 2015 GILLER PRIZE

WINNER OF THE 2015 ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE 2015 TORONTO BOOK AWARDS

— I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.

—I'll wager a year's servitude, …

Kobzar Literary Award, Finalist

Eric Hoffer Award, Shortlist

City of Victoria Book Prize, Finalist

Vancouver, summer 1962. Cyril Andrachuk and Connie Chow are seventeen and in love.

Cyril is the only Canadian-born member of the Andrachuk family, his parents and older brother having survived Stalin’s systematic starving of the Ukraine. His brother’s …

House Dreams, Deanna Young's haunted and haunting third collection, is at once a core sample of the life we all live underground, and a view beneath the foundations of the various eras and places that make up one woman's life story. These poems have the plainspoken power, surreal shifting, uncanny logic and transformed everyday imagery of our most …

Just as thirteen year-old Edith Walker is about to leave childhood behind, she thinks she spots a unicorn high on a slope while hiking. Her daydreamer father Henry convinces her that what she’s seen is real. Edith’s sighting of the fabled creature – and her unfailing belief that the imaginary creature will eventually be found – sets in moti …

The seventh novel in the Ava Lee series finds Ava caught up in the election for the chairmanship of the Triad Societies.

It’s been three months since Uncle’s passing, and Ava is finally ready to begin her new life as a partner with May Ling Wong and her sister-in-law Amanda in their Three Sisters venture capital firm. Ava travels to Shanghai to …

Mark Tartaglia of the London murder squad investigates a series of bizarre and brutal murders in these gripping and compulsively readable thrillers — get the exclusive bundle featuring books 1, 2, and 3 now!

This bundle includes:

Die With Me
When fourteen-year-old Gemma Kramer’s broken body is found on the floor of St. Sebastian’s Church in a q …

Someday is a powerful new play by award-winning playwright Drew Hayden Taylor.  The story in Someday, though told through fictional characters and full of Taylor's distinctive wit and humour, is based on the real-life tragedies suffered by many Native Canadian families.

Anne Wabung's daughter was taken away by children's aid workers when the girl wa …

In August 1914, Canada found itself jolted from its splendid isolation by the onrush of a European catastrophe. In Victoria, British Columbia, five hundred youth who had been educated at Victoria High School went to war and were forever changed by the experience.

From Classroom to Battlefield follows the experiences of this cohort through the Second …

Set in sixteenth-century Istanbul during the illustrious Ottoman Empire, The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi chronicles the fate of Grazia’s son, Danilo, and his forbidden love affair with Princess Saida, the Sultan’s beloved daughter.

Judah del Medigo, Jewish physician to the Sultan at the Ottoman court and husband of Grazia dei Rossi, has been misi …

Shortlisted, Toronto Book Awards

On May 2, 1967, Montreal and Toronto faced each other in a battle for hockey supremacy. This was only the fifth time the teams had ever played each other in the Stanley Cup finals. Toronto led the series 3-2.

But this wasn't simply a game. From the moment Foster Hewitt announced "Hello Canada and hockey fans in the Un …

In the traditional Algonquian world, the windigo is the spirit of selfishness, which can transform a person into a murderous cannibal. Native peoples over a vast stretch of North America—from Virginia in the south to Labrador in the north, from Nova Scotia in the east to Minnesota in the west—believed in the windigo, not only as a myth told in …

Canadian Pacific at its apex operated the most expansive and comprehensive transportation system the world has ever seen, before or since. Vast amounts of freight and multitudes of people, including some of the 20th century's most important and celebrated personalities, moved seamlessly back and forth on the North American continent and across the …

Gods, giants, violence, the undead, theft, trolls, dwarves, aphorisms, unrequited love, Valkyries, heroes, kidnapping, dragons, the creation of the cosmos and a giant wolf are just some of the elements dwelling within these Norse poetic tales. Committed to velum anonymously in Iceland around 1270, they were flash frozen from much-older oral version …

John is a poet. Only John almost never writes poems, because he is also unemployed. He lives with four friends, and they squat in a loft in New York New York, a fantastical city that resembles the Big Apple, but also any other city where artists live. They throw fabulous parties and practice group sodomy. That is, until John meets Andy.

Andy is an …

The Girl Before, the Girl After is the story of a man who would rather remain anonymous. The boutique where he used to work has been condemned, and so has the house where he rented a room, torn down to make way for a luxury hotel. His demanding boss vows her love for him; then she fires him. The woman he loves – the much younger wife of a profess …

An old man in a military uniform and a Santa hat is dumped at the police station. He doesn’t speak English, and a lawyer’s business card is baited on the meat hook that hangs on his neck. As a lawyer, a police officer and a translator struggle to unravel the truth, they uncover a past that won’t stay buried, and a decades-old quest for justic …

How can we carve private spaces from discarded publics?

DOWN takes junk language – with cameos by Frank O’Hara, Frank Ocean, Aaliyah and the Temptations – and distresses it, building sonically dense poems that are caught between the poignancy and flatness of their source texts. Disorientation and defamiliarization yank fresh feeling from banal …

One of The Globe and Mail's Globe 100: Best Books of 2014

The fairground screamed. The mountains
and valley were gone. The fire was gone
too. The hanging ‘because’

was gone too. The men were away
and my heart already dead
and the fairground monkey dead in my mouth.

A spectre haunts a derelictNSA surveillance station on a hill in Berlin. Our po …

Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood across Cultural Differences, the first-ever Reader on the subject matter, examines the meaning and practice of mothering/ motherhood from a multitude of maternal perspectives. The Reader includes 22 chapters on the following maternal identities: Aboriginal, Adoptive, At-Home, Birth, Black, Disabled, East-Asian, Fem …

Life is getting more dismal by the minute in the town of Sultana, Manitoba. Thanks to a dry season that nearly dried up the river, no one wants to camp there anymore. There aren’t enough tourists to keep the local restaurant busy and, if Cody’s best friend’s mom loses her job there, the family will have to move away.

Cody, his best friend, Er …

Mink is a witness, a shape shifter, compelled to follow the story that has ensnared Celia and her village, on the West coast of Vancouver Island in Nuu’Chahlnuth territory.

Celia is a seer who — despite being convinced she’s a little “off” — must heal her village with the assistance of her sister, her mother and father, and her nephews. …

Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow ("This might be my favorite thing ever") and named Saveur's Best New Food Blog of 2013 — with half a million Facebook fans and counting — Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take …

Simon enjoys school, TV, pizza, and video games. So when his grandmother tells legends of the sea goddess, Sedna, and his grandfather invites him to build an igloo, Simon's heart sinks.
"Sorry Ananaksaq, my show is on. Sorry, Ataatga, maybe another time," he responds.
Secretly he thinks his grandparents are stuck in their old ways. Secretly his …

Now that we 'curate' even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture?

‘Curate’ is now a buzzword, applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate t …