In the tradition of short story writers Alice Munro and Carol Shields, Binnie Brennan examines the minutiae of ordinary life. During a tipsy night out escaping the frustrations of daily routines, two middle-aged school teachers try their luck at scoring a joint. A long-haul trucker drives an injured butterfly to its breeding ground in Florida, givi …

The poems in Dark Water Songs begin on the margins of islands and ancestors, and fan out, probing love, loss and life’s dilemmas. They expand and deepen the poetic exploration which began with her earlier collections, mining the reciprocal spaces enabled by the hyphen between Jamaican and Canadian, exploring silences, the weight of memory, and a …

A searing triptych of three monologues all exposing the ugly truth behind the headlines of the Iraq War.

Based around the lives of three distinct characters—a young soldier imprisoned for her misconduct at a prison camp in Iraq, a microbiologist-cum-weapons inspector who exposes the false justifications for war, and a mother/political opponent of …

Lesley Choyce writes rings around most Canadian authors. And in this collection, we have choice Choyce.

Dance the Rocks Ashore contains substantial stories including "Dance the Rocks Ashore," a bittersweet account of an elderly couple's decline; the hilarious and bizarre "My Father Was a Book Reviewer" "The Third or Fourth Happiest Man in Nova Scoti …

Winner of the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, the IODE Violet Downey Book Award and the IODE National Chapter Award

Drawing on the real background of the Chinese role in the gold rush, the building of the railway and the settling of the west coast in the nineteenth century, noted historian and children’s author Paul Yee has created ei …

★ "A quiet loveliness, sense of gratitude, and—yes—happiness emanate from this tender celebration of simple pleasures."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

The sun on your face. The smell of warm bannock baking in the oven. Holding the hand of someone you love. What fills your heart with happiness? This beautiful board book, with illustrations …

Mahmoud is an exuberant, if overwhelmingly passionate, Iranian engineer-cum-taxi driver who relishes the chance to regale his passengers with his love of Persian culture. Emanuelos, a fabulously gay Spanish perfume salesman, can talk a mile-a-minute about his boyfriend, Behnam. And then there's Tara, an awkwardly charming Iranian Canadian preteen w …

With a dozen original songs percolating in his head, bestselling author Eric Siblin had two chance encounters in the same month: one with a real estate agent named Jo, a talented singer with pop star dreams; and the other with a college acquaintance named Morey, a fiery guitarist, record exec turned digital music producer, and manager of his teenag …

Caramba is a sweet, shy cat who bravely accepts that he is different, and then discovers his own special talent.

Award-winning author and illustrator Marie-Louise Gay, best known for her Stella and Sam books, brings us an endearing character in Caramba, a sweet, shy cat who bravely accepts that he is different, and then discovers his own special tal …

An investigation of the origins of democracy in a range of countries and societies, from ancient Greece to modern times, and the threats that democracy is under today. An excellent introduction to democracy for young adults.

In this eye-opening work, political scientist and award-winning author James Laxer warns readers that our common assumptions a …

Being Muslim is written for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It presents a readable explanation of the most complex and emotion-laden issues of our troubled times. The varying branches of Islam are analyzed and their history outlined — but the focus is on the present.

In speaking about and crossing political, cultural and religious divisions, this b …

Metaphysical Licks, a hybrid prose-poem/novella riffing on the lives and works of Austrian poet Georg Trakl and his sister, Grete, is the restless new work by writer and translator Gregoire Pam Dick [a.k.a. Mina Pam Dick, Jake Pam Dick et al., author of Delinquent (Futurepoem, 2009)]. With a mix of high and low, tragic and comic, abstract and concr …

Finalist, ReLit Award

Amazon.ca's 50 Essential Canadian Books selection

First published in 1997 to much critical acclaim, Salvage King, Ya! is a novel firmly rooted in Canada’s favourite national pastime—hockey. Critics have called Salvage King, Ya! “the great Canadian novel,” and a “postmodern Canadian classic.” Drinkwater, Jarman’s n …

Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award: Fiction and selected as a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book

Juliet Friesen is ten years old when her family moves to Nicaragua. It is 1984, the height of Nicaragua's post-revolutionary war, and the peace-activist Friesens have come to protest American involvement. In the midst of this tumult, Juliet's …

Titled after the Latin term for “unknown land”—a cartographical expression referring to regions that have not yet been mapped or documented—Terra Incognita is a collection of poems that creatively explores various racial discourses and interracial crossings both buried in the grand narratives of history and the everyday experiences of being …

When Andy Warhol's a, A Novel was first published in 1968, The New York Times Book Review declared it "pornographic." Yet over four decades later, a continues to be an essential documentation of Warhol's seminal Factory scene. And though the book offers a pop art snapshot of 1960s Manhattan that only Warhol could capture, it remains a challenging …

People often recognize that their drinking is causing problems in their lives long before they are ready to seek help. Knowing that there is a problem can be a good first step to cutting back or quitting drinking, but it can be hard to know what further steps to take to make changes and stick to them.

Saying When presents a step-by-step program to h …

In the summer of 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada issued rulings on five copyright cases in a single day. The cases represent a seismic shift in Canadian copyright law, with the Court providing an unequivocal affirmation that copyright exceptions such as fair dealing should be treated as users’ rights, while emphasizing the need for a technolog …

A gorgeously illustrated, lyrical non-fiction picture book about loons.

It’s summertime, and as darkness falls there is a haunting sound from the lake — Ooh-hoo-oo, ooh-hoo-oo. It is a loon calling to its family across the water.

This lyrical story follows the life cycle of two loon chicks. We see them breaking out of their eggshells, then learni …

A fascinating look at hip hop, the world’s most popular music, and what it means to young people all over the globe, written by an acclaimed pop-culture critic. An excellent introduction to hip hop for young adults.

Hip hop is arguably the predominant global youth subculture of this generation. In this book Dalton Higgins takes vivid snapshots of …

A book about media power, media ethics, media corporations and the need for reliable, unfiltered international news. An excellent introduction to the news for young adults.

Too many of us have no choice about the type of news we receive. Too many of us remain ignorant of major issues and diverse opinions because the news isn't providing them. Over t …

This fascinating look at Africa refutes the common assumption that the Western world is the solution to the challenges the continent faces. An excellent introduction to the subject for young adults.

Think Africa, and many people think of brutal war, endless famine, pervasive corruption, unworthy rulers, universal poverty, an AIDS epidemic out of con …

This book examines the meaning of law from a global perspective and the many connections between law and law enforcement. An excellent introduction to the subject for young adults.

Most of us in liberal democratic countries think that we live under the rule of law. Governments make the rules, we live by them and the police enforce them if we try to …

A thought-provoking look at the demands and expectations we place on our growing cities in the twenty-first century. An excellent introduction to the subject for young adults.

Today, more people live in cities than in rural areas. The search for better housing, transit, economic opportunity, and security within neighbourhoods forces today's city-dwe …

What is genocide? Why does it happen, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again? These urgent questions are clearly and concisely explored for young adult readers.

Some view the systematic killing, rape and destruction of homes in Darfur as a grave humanitarian crisis. For others, it’s a clear example of the ultimate crime against hu …

When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, settlers in southern Alberta's cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia charged with ensuring the safety of the open ran …

With unsentimental prose and ironic dialogue, Katie Boland brings to life a variety of characters who all have one thing in common—a need for something more. A literary debut by a refreshing new voice in fiction, the stories in Eat Your Heart Out are about the haunted and heartbroken, about dreamers, losers and love-lost souls. From a sixteen-yea …

Adventures on wild waters

In Finlay's River, R. M. Patterson, whose style was described by noted author Bruce Hutchison as a a mixture between Thoreau and Jack London, tells the story of his 1949 trip up this wild river in remote northern British Columbia. Patterson uses his own journey as a framework to recount the adventures of explorers who went …

Widely recognized as a classic of northern-exploration literature, A Journey to the Northern Ocean is Samuel Hearne's story of his three-year trek to seek a trade route across the Barrens in the Northwest Territories. Hearne was a superb reporter, from his anguished description of the massacre of helpless Eskimos by his Indian companions to his met …

Elora Dixon is a vibrant, middle-aged lawyer and disability-rights activist who has never walked a step in her life. A neuromuscular disease left her with a curved spine and a reliance on around-the-clock care. Nonetheless, she is an inexorable force when chance pits her against the notorious Julian Summer, who is in town promoting his internationa …

This stunning collection will break your heart and put it back together again, as Pamela Porter unravels a long-held family secret in a moving personal search for redemption, face to face with the question of her own identity. As she says, “It was this way when Rome was burning, / and was not so different / when dark fires flared / outside the wa …

Drinkin’ rye and water with Grandma. Guns in False Creek. Frat boy homies from the North Delta ghetto. Samuel L. Jackson. Phantom Lord & Metallica. A kid who’s got the hots for his mom…

Hunh?

That’s right. It’s all here in this collection of immediate, lean and visceral short fiction from Clint Burnham.

Praise for Airborne Photo:

"A stack of …

Orangutan Orphanage is the second in the 4-book Wildlife Rescue series. Each book introduces a species of animal in danger somewhere in the world and profiles a rescue center that helps them. Stunning photos by award-winning wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas give readers a rare view of these adorable animals and the high level of care they rece …

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines hoax as a “humorous or malicious deception,” and hex as “a magic spell.” In Hoaxes and Hexes, Barbara Smith explores these intriguing reflections of human nature, showing our curious desire to believe in the impossible and explain the inexplicable.

Here are tales of swindlers, charlatans and imposters, …

One of the CBC’s Best Books of the Year.

A pregnancy test is taken at a wedding, a bad diagnosis leads a patient to a surprising outlook, and a civic holiday becomes a dystopian nightmare. By turns caustic, tender, and creepily hilarious, Sweet Affliction reveals the frailties, perversions, and resilience of Anna Leventhal’s cast of city-dweller …

Nominated for several Dora Awards

When a young scholar finds Eternal Hydra, a long-lost, legendary and encyclopedic novel by an obscure Irish writer, she brings the manuscript to an esteemed publisher, hoping to secure an international audience for the book. But Vivian's obsession with the dead author, who has materialized in her life, is challenged …

Nicole Brossard's lucid, subversive and innovative work on language has influenced an entire generation of readers and writers. But three of her seminal works of postmodernism and feminism have been lost to us for years. The Blue Books brings them back.

A Book: A novel about a novel; five characters in 'search of a narrative, a narrative in search o …

Shortlisted for the 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize

Shortlisted for the 2007 Governor General's Award for Translation

The heat of summer on an earlobe, a parking meter, the shadow of crabs and pigeons under a cherry tree, an olive, a shoulder blade in the poems of Nicole Brossard these concrete, quotidian things move languorously through the senses to find …

p>You wake up, and your sister is dead.

With an absent father and their mother constantly ill, sisters Darcy and Carly Nolan were forced to rely on each other growing up. While unpredictable Carly bounced around, her life’s direction uncertain, Darcy fell in love, went to University, and moved to another province. When nineteen-year-old Carly unex …

Extensively illustrated with Ian McAllister's magnificent photographs, The Salmon Bears explores the delicate balance that exists between the grizzly, black and spirit bears and their natural environment, the last great wilderness along the central coast of British Columbia.

Key to this relationship are the salmon that are born in the rivers each sp …

something like wait for me
in the braille of scars
tonight can i suggest a little punctuation
circle half-moon vertical line of astonishment
a pause that transforms
light and breath
into language and threshold of fire

Even as vowels tremble in danger and worldly destruction repeats itself on the horizon, Ardour reminds us that the silence pulsing w …

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 …

Finaliste de langue française, Essais, des Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général de 2013! http://ggbooks.canadacouncil.ca/fr

Cet ouvrage présente une analyse discursive des récits identitaires albertains développés par rapport aux ressources pétrolières de l'Alberta, au fil de l'histoire moderne de la province. Par le biais des théories …

The cowboy, as perhaps no other figure, has captured the imagination of North Americans for over a century. Before Owen Wister's publication of The Virginian in 1902, the image of the cowboy was essentially that of the dime novel - a rough, violent, one-dimensional drifter, or the stage cowboy variety found in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. Wi …

At 2:21 am on September 8, 1896, authorities in Nova Scotia killed an innocent man. Peter Wheeler — a "coloured" man accused of murdering a white girl — was strung up with a slipknot noose. The hanging was state-sanctioned but it was a lynching all the same. Now, a re-examination of his case using modern forensic science reveals one of the grea …

Rose Dubois and Julie O’Brien find themselves on the roof of a Montreal apartment building on a scorching summer’s day, and from that moment on their fates are intertwined. Worldwide climate change and dramatic shifts in weather patterns foreshadow their predestined suffering.

As is soon revealed, the two women share a submissive love for the sa …

Few writers have Harriet Richards’ understanding of childhood, and fewer still can evoke the never-lost child at the heart of our adult experience. Like her previous, critically-acclaimed books, this new collection is deft, comic, and poignant, but there is malice and tragedy at work in these stories — their gaiety and cool observation counterb …

In these stories, readers will not find heartwarming sentimentality, but mature literary prose with surprising twists and indeterminate endings, and women of intense substance and spirit. P. J. Worrell understands girls who dream of being wives and mothers in safe cozy homes, then find out that trying hard to secure that life does not necessarily m …

A vividly wrought memoir, Last Dance in Shediac is a collection of the author’s personal memories of her mother—celebrated Canadian artist Molly Lamb Bobak—and a tender meditation on life and death.

Molly Lamb Bobak (1922–2014) was the first woman to travel overseas as an official Canadian war artist. She was also the daughter of famous Cana …

Experience all the thrills and suspense of chasing down the world’s highest-profile criminals.

What does it take to catch a criminal? Not just any criminal, but one of the world’s most wanted? In Outlaws, Spies, and Gangsters, Laura Scandiffo chronicles eight of history’s most famous manhunts, from searches for drug dealers to dictators, hacke …