Books

Alma's beautiful, hairy world is turned upside down by the arrival of a stranger. From the utterly original imagination of the author-illustrator of Ooko comes a story about celebrating differences and making new friends. For fans of Where the Wild Things Are and Wild.

Alma lives happily in her hairy world, where she can braid the trees, comb the grass, pet the roof and feed her plumpooshkie butterfly. Until one day . . . a hairless, button-nosed beast appears in the garden! At first Alma is scared but when she realizes the beast is lost and misses her hairless home, Alma offers to help her find her way back. As the two take a fantastical journey through the red-headed woods and the bearded mushroom glen to the beast's bald abode, they discover that they are much more alike than different.

This quirky and charming story about friendship, empathy and perspective invites readers into a surreal, fantastical world that evokes Alice in Wonderland, Where the Wild Things Are and The Lorax.

National Winner for Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2019 - Cocktails category

From Geoff Dillon, founder of Dillon's Small Batch Distillers and leader of the craft distilling movement, a collection of cocktails for every season and recipes for the perfect snacks to enjoy with them.

Grounded in a belief in using fresh ingredients, this must-have collection of cocktails offers impressive yet simple modern cocktails with an elegant vintage feel. The 100 recipes, divided by season, range from the classics, like a warm-weather Whisky Sour and a cool-weather Manhattan, to custom creations inspired by seasonal produce and local barkeeps. Imagine a glass filled with the fresh aroma of spring strawberries alongside the clean, crisp taste of lemon, with herbal notes of absinthe and a hint of rich sweetness from white port, then recreate this award-winning drink called the Royal Velvet at home. Quick and easy large batch recipes like Summer Sangria and Holiday Pomegranate Punch are sure to please a crowd, and snacks like Rosemary Maple Pecans, Roasted Cranberry Flatbreads, and Blackberry-Topped Brie will be the perfect complement to any cocktail.

Whether you're craving a Plum Sparkler to refresh you on a sticky summer afternoon, or a Hot Toddy recipe to enjoy by the fire on a cold winter night, this complete collection of cocktails has the perfect recipe for every occasion and every season.

Hartley Addison is the nicest guy in Port D’Espere, Ontario. Everybody loves him, even when they disagree with him. He’s never officially run for mayor of his small lakeside town but he keeps getting elected anyway. The town has been a major environmental dumpsite for decades and most of his constituents prefer to look the other way and accept the government line: There is no problem. At home, his wife is slowly disappearing before his eyes, and the young reporter he’s taken under his wing is out on the lake every night doing something downright mysterious. When the media circus comes to town chasing a runaway story about Boyd Banta, an escapee from the local poultry plant, Hart wants to believe that help has arrived at last. Will he finally get some much-needed national attention and possibly a little justice for his contrary citizenry, whether they want it or not? King of Hope brings Southern Ontario Gothic with an environmental twist, through the lens of a small town that’s been facing radical environmental uncertainty for generations.

Praise for King of Hope

Kim Conklin has written an important story for our times with repercussions and relevance reaching far beyond the town of Port D’Espere, Ontario where the story is set. First-rate storytelling keeps the pages turning. Bravo.—Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Port Despere thinks of itself as a “great place to grow” but behind its picturesque façade, something sinister lurks. Kim Conklin has created a memorable cast of characters who try to make sense of their lives in their own distinct and often quirky way. Before they can make sense of their present, however, each character must first come to understand their town and the hold it has on them.—Heidi L.M. Jacobs, author of Molly of the Mall, 2020 Winner of the Stephen Laycock Medal for Humour

By the end of the 2016 season, Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs both finally admitted to themselves and to each other that they were losing interest in the Tigers and, consequently, in baseball itself―a thread that had not only connected the two of them, but brought them together with their families and with their own histories as well. They weren’t sure what they were missing, but they had an idea where it might be found: in their own backyard. Drawing a radius of one hundred miles around their home in Windsor, Ontario, Heidi and Dale set a goal of seeing fifty games within that circle in one summer, a schedule that took them across southwestern Ontario and into Michigan and Ohio, from bleachers behind high schools, to manicured university turf, to the steep concrete stands of major league parks. 100 Miles of Baseball is the story of their rediscovery of their love of the game―and with it their relationships, and the region they call home.

A unique and eerily convincing masterwork, American War takes a scalpel to American politics, precisely dissecting it to see what would happen if their own policies were turned against them. The answer: inevitable, endless bloodshed.

In a disturbingly believable near future, the need for sustainable energy has torn the United States apart. The South wants to maintain the use of fossil fuels, even though the government in The North has outlawed them. Now, unmanned drones patrol the skies, and future martyrs walk the markets. For the first time in three hundred years, America is caught up in a civil war. Out of this turmoil comes Sarat Chestnut, a southern girl born into the ongoing conflict. At a displaced persons camp, a mysterious older man takes her under his wing, and while her family tries to survive, Sarat is made into a deadly instrument of war, with consequences for the entire nation.

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OMAR EL AKKAD is an author and a journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned Canada's National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, NPR, and Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

A NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOK

A history of bookshops, an autobiography of a reader, a travelogue, a love letter—and, most urgently, a manifesto.

Good bookshops are questions without answers. They are places that provoke you intellectually, encode riddles, surprise and offer challenges … A pleasing labyrinth where you can’t get lost: that comes later, at home, when you immerse yourself in the books you have bought; lose yourself in new questions, knowing you will find answers.

Picking up where the widely praised Bookshops: A Reader’s History left off, Against Amazon and Other Essays explores the increasing pressures of Amazon and other new technologies on bookshops and libraries. In essays on these vital social, cultural, and intellectual spaces, Jorge Carrión travels from London to Geneva, from Miami’s Little Havana to Argentina, from his own well-loved childhood library to the rosewood shelves of Jules Verne’s Nautilus and the innovative spaces that characterize South Korea’s bookshop renaissance. Including interviews with writers and librarians—including Alberto Manguel, Iain Sinclair, Luigi Amara, and Han Kang, among others—Against Amazon is equal parts a celebration of books and bookshops, an autobiography of a reader, a travelogue, a love letter—and, most urgently, a manifesto against the corrosive influence of late capitalism.

Praise for Jorge Carrión’s Against Amazon and Other Essays

“This is just the sort of book that bibliophiles—to say nothing of bibliomaniacs—will enjoy … A subtle pleasure for lovers of the printed word, even if they order books from the leviathan.” —Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Jorge Carrión’s Bookshops: A Reader’s History

“The perfect merging of love of travel and literature.”—Buzzfeed

“[Carrión’s] purpose is to celebrate bookstores. And he does so by wandering the globe in search of those that play—or have played—a special role in the intellectual and social lives of their communities. They become Carrión’s personal mappa mundi.”—New York Times

“‘Every bookshop is a condensed version of the world,’ begins Mr. Carrión’s literary and unabashedly sentimental exploration of bookstores around the globe . . . [Carrion] wanders through volume-laden aisles in Athens, Paris, Bratislava, Budapest, Tangier and Sydney, and invokes many other shops, both open and closed, telling stories about writers, readers and literary circles . . . By the end, you may feel poorly read—but well armed with titles and bookshops to visit on your own.”—Wall Street Journal

“Carrión explores the fine lines between pilgrimage destination, touristy gimmick, and decent bookshop. This is the perfect book for those who feel compelled to visit every bookstore they see.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

“Excellent . . . entertaining . . . this quietly intelligent little book speaks volumes.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“Sublimely entrancing . . . brilliant . . . [Carrión’s] Borgesian book—it can be opened at any point and read forward, or backwards for that matter—is not at all sad. To read is to travel in time and space, and to travel from bookshop to bookshop is an ecstatic experience for Carrión, a joy he conveys page after page.”—Maclean’s

Canada’s most successful celebrity chef shows us how to make fun, delicious, anything-but-dull slow cooker food!

Ricardo proves that the slow cooker is simply the most useful kitchen tool ever. It can cook virtually anything. This amazing collection of recipes, initially published in Slow Cooker Favourites and Slower Is Better, shows you the incredible versatility of this humble appliance. Recipes for the comforting (Lentil Stew with Poached Eggs; Flemish Carbonnade), the unconventional (cheesecake and crème brûlée) and the completely fabulous (Veal Cheeks with Figs; Apple and Mustard Ham) vie for your attention alongside tips for winter and summer entertaining, ideas for vegetarian meals, reimagined French classics like duck confit and cassoulet, special brunches and amazing desserts. Over 130 recipes, gorgeous photographs and a fun design make this a cookbook to treasure.

Economical, energy- and time-saving, easy to use and always ready when you are, the slow cooker, with Ricardo’s help, finally takes its place front and centre in your kitchen.

A stunning portrait of Canada from coast to coast to coast

Home to the majestic Rocky Mountains, vibrant cities, pristine wilderness and the world’s longest coastline, Canada is a photographer’s paradise. With more than 300 spectacular images from award-winning photographers, Canada captures the rugged beauty of the country in a timeless and beautiful treasury.

Book measures 5 1/4" wide x 4.5" tall x 1.25" thick

Team Canada is facing the United States in a must-win game at the Vancouver Olympics. The score is 2-1 for Canada, and then disaster strikes—with only 24 seconds left in the game, the US scores. The game is tied and goes into overtime. The team that scores the next goal will win the Olympic gold medal. Seven minutes into overtime, Sidney Crosby gets the puck and shoots . . .

Ideal for young hockey fans and future stars, this level-2 I Can Read book is perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences.

Bernice Meetoos will not be broken.

A big, beautiful Cree woman with a dark secret in her past, Bernice (”Birdie”) has left her home in northern Alberta to travel to Gibsons, B.C. She is on something of a vision quest, looking for family, for home, for understanding. She is also driven by the leftover teenaged desire to meet Pat Johns--Jesse from The Beachcombers--because he is, as she says, a working, healthy Indian man. Birdie heads for Molly’s Reach to find answers, but they are not the ones she expected.

With the arrival in Gibsons of her Auntie Val and her cousin Skinny Freda, Birdie begins to draw from her dreams the lessons she was never fully taught in life. Informed by the lore and knowledge of Cree traditions, Birdie is a darkly comic and moving first novel about the universal experience of recovering from tragedy. At heart, it is the story of an extraordinary woman who travels to the deepest part of herself to find the strength to face the past and to build a new life.