Hotline
Regular price $21.95
A vivid love letter to the 1980s and one woman’s struggle to overcome the challenges of immigration.
It’s 1986, and Muna Heddad is in a bind. She and her son have moved to Montreal, leaving behind a civil war filled with bad memories in Lebanon. She had plans to find work as a French teacher, but no one in Quebec trusts her to teach the language. She needs to start making money, and fast. The only work Muna can find is at a weight-loss center as a hotline operator.
All day, she takes calls from people responding to ads seen in magazines or on TV. On the phone, she’s Mona, and she’s quite good at listening. These strangers all have so much to say once someone shows interest in their lives–marriages gone bad, parents dying, isolation, personal inadequacies. Even as her daily life in Canada is filled with invisible barriers at every turn, at the office Muna is privy to her clients’ deepest secrets.
Following international acclaim for Niko (2011) and The Bleeds (2018), Dimitri Nasrallah has written a vivid elegy to the 1980s, the years he first moved to Canada, bringing the era’s systemic challenges into the current moment through this deeply endearing portrait of struggle, perseverance, and bonding.
Awards: Longlist - 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Canada Reads Selection 2023
Praise:
“Nasrallah’s fourth novel, it takes his work to a new level of sophistication and constitutes a significant addition to the literary chronicling of the Canadian immigrant experience.” – Ian McGillis, Montreal Gazette
“Hotline intertwines hope and sorrow to create a moving story that sears the heart.” - Zeahaa Rehman, Quill & Quire
“I admire how Nasrallah plumbs new territory with each novel. That said, underlying themes and concerns thread through his oeuvre, such as emotional and geographic exile and ‘family.’" - Ami Sands Brodoff, Montreal Review of Books
“A quietly transformative story, one that takes your assumptions, twists them into a shape you didn’t initially see and casts them back at you in a really lovely way.” - Alison Manley, Miramichi Reader
"Fiction about immigrants tends toward melancholy and tragedy. Dimitri Nasrallah’s new novel delivers something different. Hotline suggests that immigrant literature may be able to navigate its own course between the Scylla of despair and the Charybdis of naïveté. The problems of bootstraps narratives aside, happy endings are still worth writing." – Amanda Perry, The Walrus
“Nasrallah’s fourth novel, it takes his work to a new level of sophistication and constitutes a significant addition to the literary chronicling of the Canadian immigrant experience.” – Ian McGillis, Montreal Gazette
“Hotline intertwines hope and sorrow to create a moving story that sears the heart.” - Zeahaa Rehman, Quill & Quire
“I admire how Nasrallah plumbs new territory with each novel. That said, underlying themes and concerns thread through his oeuvre, such as emotional and geographic exile and ‘family.’" - Ami Sands Brodoff, Montreal Review of Books
“A quietly transformative story, one that takes your assumptions, twists them into a shape you didn’t initially see and casts them back at you in a really lovely way.” - Alison Manley, Miramichi Reader
"Fiction about immigrants tends toward melancholy and tragedy. Dimitri Nasrallah’s new novel delivers something different. Hotline suggests that immigrant literature may be able to navigate its own course between the Scylla of despair and the Charybdis of naïveté. The problems of bootstraps narratives aside, happy endings are still worth writing." – Amanda Perry, The Walrus
Ducks
Regular price $39.95
An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival." - Carmen Maria Machado
Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beaton, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. With the singular goal of payingoff her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta's oil rush - part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.
Beaton's natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, northern lights, and boreal forest. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
Kate Beaton was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. After graduating from Mount Allison University with a double degree in History and Anthropology, she moved to Alberta in search of work that would allow her to pay down her student loans. During the years she spent out West, Beaton began creating webcomics under the name Hark! A Vagrant, quickly drawing a substantial following around the world.
The collections of her landmark strip Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops each spent several months on the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list, as well as appearing on best of the year lists from Time, The Washington Post, Vulture, NPR Books, and winning the Eisner, Ignatz, Harvey, and Doug Wright Awards. She has also published the picture books King Baby and The Princess and the Pony .
Beaton lives in Cape Breton with her family.
Pourquoi j'aime l'hiver
Regular price $12.99Featuring children’s own words and heart-warming pictures, this board book, this is the perfect book for children who love winter!
‘I love winter because… ‘
This charming book combines endearing things said by children about winter with gentle illustrations of familiar animals. And from making snowmen to coming home to a mug of hot chocolate, there is plenty to celebrate!
With beautiful pictures and charming words from children - this is the perfect book to read together!
French edition.
My Giant Animal Book
Regular price $24.95This highly visual giant colorful book presents some of the most adorable and beautiful animals on the planet. The big board pages are packed with amazing photos and fantastic facts presented in a fun way, waiting to be discovered by early leaners.
Sharon, Lois and Bram's One Elephant Went Out to Play
Regular price $21.99The Barnabus Project
Regular price $23.99Anne's Alphabet
Regular price $10.99True Reconciliation: How to Be a Force for Change
Regular price $32.95From the #1 bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet, a groundbreaking and accessible roadmap to advancing true reconciliation across Canada.
There is one question Canadians have asked Jody Wilson-Raybould more than any other: What can I do to help advance reconciliation? It is clear that people from all over the country want to take concrete and tangible action that will make real change. We just need to know how to get started. This book provides that next step. For Wilson-Raybould, what individuals and organizations need to do to advance true reconciliation is self-evident, accessible, and achievable. True Reconciliation is broken down into three core practices—Learn, Understand, and Act—that can be applied by individuals, communities, organizations, and governments.
The practices are based not only on the historical and contemporary experience of Indigenous peoples in their relentless efforts to effect transformative change and decolonization, but also on the deep understanding and expertise about what has been effective in the past, what we are doing right, and wrong, today, and what our collective future requires. Fundamental to a shared way of thinking is an understanding of the Indigenous experience throughout the story of Canada. In a manner that reflects how work is done in the Big House, True Reconciliation features an “oral” history of these lands, told through Indigenous and non-Indigenous voices from our past and present.
The ultimate and attainable goal of True Reconciliation is to break down the silos we’ve created that prevent meaningful change, to be empowered to increasingly act as “inbetweeners,” and to take full advantage of this moment in our history to positively transform the country into a place we can all be proud of.
Maple Leaf Moments
Regular price $19.95Leafs fans remember the ups. And, oh boy, do they remember the downs. But how many know Harry “Big Mum” Mummery’s (1911-1923) habit of broiling a steak on a shovel over the Mutual Street Arena’s coal furnace before each home game? Or that two-time Stanley Cup champ Ken Randall (1917-1927) once paid a fine with a sack of pennies? Or that legendary goalie Johnny “The China Wall” Bower (1958-69) wrote and recorded a children’s Christmas song that charted with The Beatles’ “Yesterday” on Toronto’s Top 100 list?
In this quirky collection of stories from the first century of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ history, renowned hockey columnist Bob Duff offers over 200 of the most memorable, unlikely anecdotes that all fans of the old Blue-and-White are sure to love.
If You're Happy And You Know It
Regular price $9.99Canada 365
Regular price $26.99Canada 365 is a visually compelling walk through Canadian history. Showcasing an event and image for each day of the calendar year, Canada 365 tells the stories of our nation—from historical turning points to the unusual and curious, to milestones in sports, business, politics and entertainment. With more than 400 photographs, Canada 365 forms a fascinating and unique look at our home and native land.
Why I Love Ontario
Regular price $12.99Featuring children’s own words and heart-warming pictures, this is the perfect book for children living in or visiting Ontario!
‘I love Ontario because… ‘
This charming book combines endearing things said by children about Ontario, with gentle illustrations of familiar animals. And from the beautiful lakes to the snowy cities, there is certainly a lot to love!
A wonderful keepsake for residents of Ontario, or souvenir for visitors.
With beautiful pictures and charming words from children - this is the perfect book to read together!
So This is Christmas
Regular price $21.00 Sale price $13.00USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday concludes her beloved royal Christmas series with an unforgettable romance about a confident American woman and the strait-laced royal advisor who falls hopelessly in love with her.
Matteo Benz has spent his life serving at the pleasure of the Eldovian crown. His work is his life and his life, well...he doesn’t have much of one. When he is tasked to aid a management consultant who has been flown in to help straighten out the king’s affairs, he is instantly disturbed by her brash American manner—as well by an inconvenient attraction to the brainy beauty.
Cara Delaney is in Eldovia to help clean up the king’s financial affairs, but soon finds herself at odds with the very proper Mr. Benz. As intrigued by his good looks as she is annoyed by his dedication to tradition for its own sake, she slowly begins to see the real man behind the royal throne.
As they work together to return Eldovia to its former glory during the country’s magical Christmas season, Matteo discovers he is falling hopelessly in love with the unconventional American. But a man who has devoted his life to tradition doesn’t change easily. Can he become the man Cara needs, or will their love be another sacrifice to the crown?
"Witty banter and sizzling love scenes played out against the backdrop of a dazzling winter wonderland make Holiday’s latest sparkle. Series fans are sure to be charmed." — Publishers Weekly
"With So This Is Christmas, Holiday delivers a holiday delight full of banter and wintry magic." — Popsugar
"Fans of Holiday’s A Princess for Christmas series will enjoy being whisked back to Eldovia in this latest. The book stands on its own, with appearances by characters from earlier installments." — Library Journal
"It is refreshing to see two successful people admiring each other’s competence in Holiday's slowly evolving, gentle romance." — Booklist
"Holiday’s knack for writing witty banter is on full display here, with Dani and Max's escalating text messages and phone conversations showing a deepening friendship between them... This slow-burn romance will appeal to readers who enjoy the friends-to-lovers trope. The novel carefully builds trust and a deepening emotional attachment between Dani and Max." — Kirkus Reviews on Duke, Actually
"Holiday’s follow-up to A Princess for Christmas hits all the right notes as the heir to a dukedom discovers love during the holidays...Holiday cleverly draws parallels to Love, Actually throughout this witty, emotionally charged holiday tale. Readers will delight in the strong heroine seeking love on her own terms." — Publishers Weekly on Duke, Actually
"RITA-nominated Holiday follows A Princess for Christmas with another splendidly entertaining romance that offers just the right dash of holiday cheer and delectably droll wit." — Booklist on Duke, Actually
“A Princess for Christmas is a confection of a holiday plot with more steam than a perfect cup of hot cocoa. Given her surname, Holiday was virtually obligated to write a book like this—and she delivers with a sexy, sugary delight full of her signature delectable banter.” — Entertainment Weekly
“A modern fairy tale that’s perfect for reading with a warm cup of cocoa.” — USA Today Yes Shopper on A Princess for Christmas
A Town Called Solace
Regular price $21.00_________________
Mary Lawson was born and brought up in a small farming community in Ontario. She is the author of the nationally and internationally bestselling novels Crow Lake, The Other Side of the Bridge, and Road Ends. Crow Lake was a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a Book of the Year by The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. The Other Side of the Bridge was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. A Town Called Solace is her fourth novel. Lawson lives in England but returns to Canada frequently.
Poetry is Queer
Regular price $19.95
Poetry is Queer is a kaleidoscope of sexual outlaws, gay icons, Sapphic poets, and great lovers—real and imagined—conjured like gateway drugs to a queer world. Claiming the word “queer” for those who self-proclaim the authority of their own bodies in defiance of church and state, Kirby pays tribute to gay touchstones while embodying both their work and joy. From gazing upon street boys with constant companion C.P. Cavafy, to end of day observances with Frank O’Hara, to mowing Walt Whitman’s grass, Poetry Is Queer is a hybrid-genre memoir like no other.
Praise for Kirby:
“Kirby teaches us to explore the parts of ourselves the world wants to render impossible, to deny, dismiss, or even destroy, and to do so with the various voices and connections, protests and ecstasies, poetry makes possible.”— Daniel Scott Tysdal
“These poems [This is Where I Get Off] make radiant the particular pain of gay lust in a world that denies its existence. Love is not obscene, bodies are beauty, and belonging can be found even in the back row of an adult cinema. “Can you imagine all she’s lived through?” Kirby questions, then answers by blowing open all closets, tossing skeletons aside to two-step on the bones.”— Roxanna Bennett
This is Klaus
Regular price $15.00A charming 7x7in book centred around the author's backyard cat, Klaus! Each page is illustrated with Klaus and his adventures and friends in his South Walkerville backyard. This is a perfect gift for cat lovers, gardeners, kids, birdwatchers, or anyone else!
The cover is printed on a sturdy 12pt paper and the inside on an 100lb glossy text.
A portion of every book sold goes to the Windsor Essex Humane Society (www.windsorhumane.org).
22 Murders
Regular price $26.95#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.
As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter.
Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives.
The Apollo Murders
Regular price $24.00#1 INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
THE TIMES (LONDON) THRILLER OF THE YEAR PICK
AN INDIGO BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"Exciting." —Andy Weir, author of The Martian
"Nail-biting." —James Cameron, writer and director of Avatar and Titanic
"Not to be missed." —Frederick Forsyth, author of The Day of the Jackal
The #1 bestselling Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is back with an exceptional Cold War thriller from the dark heart of the Space Race.
1973. A final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny module, a quarter of a million miles from home. A quarter of a million miles from help.
As Russian and American crews sprint for a secret bounty hidden away on the lunar surface, old rivalries blossom and the political stakes are stretched to breaking point back on Earth. Houston flight controller Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis must do all he can to keep the NASA crew together, while staying one step ahead of his Soviet rivals. But not everyone on board Apollo 18 is quite who they appear to be.
Full of the fascinating technical detail that fans of The Martian loved, and reminiscent of the thrilling claustrophobia, twists and tension of The Hunt for Red October, The Apollo Murders puts you right there in the moment. Experience the fierce G-forces of launch, the frozen loneliness of Space and the fear of holding on to the outside of a spacecraft orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, as told by a former Commander of the International Space Station who has done all of those things in real life.
Strap in and count down for the ride of a lifetime.
CHRIS HADFIELD is one of the most seasoned and accomplished astronauts in the world. The top graduate of the U.S. Air Force test pilot school in 1988 and U.S. Navy test pilot of the year in 1991, Colonel Hadfield was CAPCOM for twenty-five Shuttle missions and NASA’s Director of Operations in Russia. Hadfield served as Commander of the International Space Station where, while conducting a record-setting number of scientific experiments and overseeing an emergency spacewalk, he gained worldwide acclaim for his breathtaking photographs and educational videos about life in space. His music video, a zero-gravity version of David Bowie's “Space Oddity,” has nearly 50 million views, and his TED Talk on fear has been viewed over 10 million times. He helped create and host the National Geographic miniseries One Strange Rock, with Will Smith, and has a MasterClass on exploration. Chris Hadfield's books, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, You Are Here and The Darkest Dark, have been bestsellers all around the world, topping the charts for months in his Canadian homeland.
The Running-Shaped Hole
Regular price $23.99A searching, self-deprecating memoir of a man on his way to eating himself to death before discovering the anxiety and fulfillment of distance running.
“Uplifting, emotional, and just plain hilarious, The Running-Shaped Hole may even inspire you to put down your fork and pick up those running shoes.” — JAY ONRAIT, TSN host and broadcaster
When Robert Earl Stewart sees his pants lying across the end of his bed, they remind him of a flag draped over a coffin — his coffin. At thirty-eight years old he weighs 368 pounds and is slowly eating himself to death. The only thing that helps him deal with the fear and shame is eating. But one day, following a terrifying doctor’s appointment, he goes for a walk — an act that sets The Running-Shaped Hole in motion. Within a year, he is running long distances, fulfilling his mother's dying wishes, reversing the disastrous course of his eating, losing 140 pounds, and, after several mishaps and jail time, eventually running the Detroit Free Press Half-Marathon.
At turns philosophical and slapstick, this memoir examines the life-altering effects running has on a man who, left to his own devices, struggles to be a husband, a father, a son, and a writer.
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Robert Earl Stewart’s first book of poetry, Something Burned Along the Southern Border, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and his poetry has been published in This, Magma, and The Best Canadian Poetry. He spent fifteen years as a newspaper reporter, photographer, and editor. Robert lives in Windsor, Ontario.
As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories
Regular price $11.95The superbly crafted stories collected in Alistair MacLeod’s As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories depict men and women acting out their “own peculiar mortality” against the haunting landscape of Cape Breton Island. In a voice at once elegiac and life-affirming, MacLeod describes a vital present inhabited by the unquiet spirits of a Highland past, invoking memory and myth to celebrate the continuity of the generations even in the midst of unremitting change.
His second collection, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories confirms MacLeod’s international reputation as a storyteller of rare talent and inspiration.…
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Alistair MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, in 1936 and raised among an extended family in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He still spends his summers in Inverness County, writing in a clifftop cabin looking west towards Prince Edward Island. In his early years, to finance his education he worked as a logger, a miner, and a fisherman, and writes vividly and sympathetically about such work.
His early studies were at the Nova Scotia Teachers College, St. Francis Xavier, the University of New Brunswick and Notre Dame, where he took his Ph.D. He has also taught creative writing at the University of Indiana. Working alongside W.O. Mitchell, he was an inspiring teacher to generations of writers at the Banff Centre. In the spring of 2000, MacLeod retired from the University of Windsor, Ontario, where he was a professor of English.
He has published two internationally acclaimed collections of short stories: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986). In 2000, these two books, accompanied by two new stories, were published in a single-volume edition entitled Island: The Collected Stories of Alistair MacLeod. In 1999, MacLeod?s first novel, No Great Mischief, was published to great critical acclaim, and was on national bestseller lists for more than a year. The novel won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, The Trillium Award for Fiction, the CAA-MOSAID Technologies Inc. Award for Fiction, and at the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Awards, MacLeod won for Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year. No Great Mischief was also a finalist for the Pearson Canada Reader?s Choice Award at The Word on the Street.
Alistair MacLeod and his wife, Anita, have six children. They live in Windsor.