Canadian Books

Two crystalline novellas linked by one devastating crime: Say This is an immersive meditation on the interplay between memory, trauma, and narrative.

It’s a cold spring in Baltimore, 2018, when the email arrives: the celebrity journalist hopes Eva will tell him everything about the sexual affair she had as a teen with her older cousin, a man now in federal prison for murder. Thirteen years earlier, Lenore-May answers the phone to the nightmare news that her stepson’s body has been found near Mount Hood, and homicide is suspected. Following Eva’s unsettling ambivalence towards her confusing relationship, and constructing a portrait of her cousin’s victim via collaged perspectives of the slain man’s family, these two linked novellas borrow, interrogate, sometimes dismantle the tropes of true crime; lyrically render the experiences of grief and dissociation; and brilliantly mine the fault lines of power and consent, silence, justice, accountability, and class. Say This is a startling exploration of the devastating effects of trauma on personal identity.

For more than three decades, The Journey Prize Stories has been Canada's most celebrated annual fiction anthology and a who's-who of up-and-coming writers. With settings ranging from a wildlife rescue centre to a Living Body exhibit, the thirteen stories in this collection represent the year's best short fiction by some of our most exciting emerging literary talents.

On Sunday afternoons, a coven of teenagers gathers at The Lois Lanes bowling alley to discuss their shared obsession with the second hottest boy in school. A patient joins her therapist and her therapist's granddaughter for an unconventional session--a field trip to confront the reviled Feed Machine. Troubled by dreams and trailed by crows, a woman far from home struggles to confront an old guilt. As a half-remembered Beach Boys song plays in the background, a daughter recalls the man her father used to be through a tender inventory of their time together. In a community plagued by petrochemical-induced diseases and environmental ruin, a man spends his nights caring for his dying partner and his days navigating a dangerous workplace. An android watches her creators' relationship break down before her eyes. A gang of girls roams the streets of a ravaged city, hunting their would-be predators. In her journey to become a woman and a healer, a Cree girl enters the woods alone to learn the stories and medicines of plants, only to be transformed by an unexpected connection.

The stories included in this volume are contenders for the $10,000 Writers' Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.

WINNER OF THE 2018 QUEBEC WRITERS' FEDERATION CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY FIRST BOOK PRIZE

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE 2018 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION

A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2018

A QUILL & QUIRE BOOK OF THE YEAR

Fantastical, magnetic, and harsh—these are the women in Paige Cooper’s debut short story collection Zolitude. They are women who built time machines when they were nine, who buy plane tickets for lovers who won’t arrive. They are sisters writhing with dreams, blasé about sex but beggared by love—while the police horses have talons and vengeance is wrought by eagles the size of airplanes. Broken-down motorbikes and housebroken tyrannosaurs, cheap cigarettes and mail bombs—Cooper finds the beautiful and the disturbing in both the surreal and the everyday. Troubling, carnal, and haunting, these stories are otherworldly travelogues through banal, eco-fabulist dystopias. Zolitude is a gorgeous, sad, and sexy work of slipstream and an atlas of fantastic isolation. The monstrous is human here, and tender.

One of The Globe and Mail’s “Canadian Books We’re Most Excited About in 2022”
One of CBC Books’ “Works of Canadian Fiction to Watch for in Spring 2022”
One of Esquire’s “The Best Books of 2022 Will Provoke, Persuade and Perturb You”
One of Entertainment Weekly’s “Must-Read Books to Heat Up February”
One of BuzzFeed News’ “Books to Get Excited About This Year”
One of Publishers Weekly’s Book Club Picks for February 2022
One of The New Statesman’s “What to Read in 2022: Fiction”
One of The A.V. Club’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2022”
One of Vulture’s “Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2022”
One of Yahoo’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2022”
 
A new novel about art, love, death and time from the author of Motherhood and How Should A Person Be?

Here we are, just living in the first draft of creation, which was made by some great artist, who is now getting ready to tear it apart.
    In this first draft, a woman named Mira leaves home for school. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira’s chest like a portal—to what, she doesn’t know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and she enters the strange and dizzying dimension that true loss opens up.
    Pure Colour tells the story of a life, from beginning to end. It is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. It is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and a shape-shifting epic. Sheila Heti is a philosopher of modern experience, and she has reimagined what a book can hold.

A girl is sent against her will to a remote wilderness boot camp where things aren't what they seem in this riveting and twisty paperback thriller.

FROM THIS MOMENT ON, YOU'RE A BEAR CUB. YOU'LL LEARN RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT. HOW TO SURVIVE. IT'S EASIER IF YOU JUST ACCEPT IT.

Dawn isn't a bad person--she's just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn't expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to OUT OF THE WILD, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important "life lessons." It's true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot--but it's not what any of them expect. Because what happens in the woods isn't what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she's ever been in her life. And you will be too.

Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it.

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Owen Laukkanen is the author of the Stevens and Windermere series, beginning with The Professionals, which was nominated for the Anthony Award, Barry Award, Spinetingler Magazine Best Novel: New Voices Award, and the International Thriller Writers’ Thriller Award for best first novel. His follow-up, Criminal Enterprise, was nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for best novel. A resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, he is now at work on the next book featuring Stevens and Windermere.

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Miriam Toews is the author of seven bestselling novels: Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life.  She is a winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She lives in Toronto. 

Nomi Nickel, a heartbreakingly bewildered and wry young woman, is growing up trapped in a small Mennonite town that seeks to set her on the path to righteousness and smother her at the same time. Left alone with her father when half her family disappears, Nomi is trying to avoid a career at the local chicken abattoir, while dreaming of life elsewhere and--soon enough--finding herself on a collision course with the only community she has ever known. 

A work of fierce originality and brilliance, A Complicated Kindness fearlessly, achingly explores the ties that bind families together and the forces that tear them apart.…

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Miriam Toews is the author of seven bestselling novels: Women Talking, All My Puny Sorrows, Summer of My Amazing Luck, A Boy of Good Breeding, A Complicated Kindness, The Flying Troutmans, and Irma Voth, and one work of non-fiction, Swing Low: A Life.  She is a winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. She lives in Toronto. 

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

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Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

_________________

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

_________________

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize;The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

This sidekick misses his superhero... After hearing that his grandfather has gone to a "better place", a boy sets off on a grand adventure to find him, dressed as his favourite comic book character.

Dylan just moved to a new house, with no friends, and a mother who doesn't have time for him. Luckily, he has his grandad. Together, they are Red Rocket and Kid Cosmo, who save the universe every day with the power of imagination! But one day, Dylan learns that his grandad is suddenly gone... to a "better place." Now, Kid Cosmo will have to save the day, all by himself.

Debut author Duane Murray joins artist Shawn Daley (Samurai Grandpa) for a touching story about family, grief, change, and growth.

Two long-time pastry chefs share 100 of the simple, mouthwatering recipes for desserts and savoury delights that they've perfected over years spent working together in the kitchen.
 

The recipes in Earth to Table Bakes are designed for everyday baking at home--for indulgent moments shared with family and friends and for celebrations large and small. With quality pantry essentials, you'll soon be whipping up an impressive array of baked goods, including mouthwatering Salted Tahini Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Almond Anise Biscotti, Wild Blueberry Ginger Lattice Bars, Lemon Ricotta Muffins, Strawberry Glazed Chai Cake Doughnuts, and Plum and Cardamom Coffee Cake. Recipes for savoury baking include Crumpets, English Muffins, Garlic Kale and Goat Cheese Soufflé, Tourtière, and Spring Onion and Roasted Mushroom Tart, among others.

In addition to chapters with recipes for cookies, bars and squares, scones, muffins, and biscuits, pies, and more, four seasonal sections highlight fresh, local ingredients. Try baking Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Croissants in the spring, Heirloom Tomato and Burrata Quiche in the summer, Pumpkin Pudding Jars in the fall and Chocolate and Vanilla Brulée Cheesecake when winter comes around. Abundant and approachable, these are recipes to keep on your shelf for a lifetime.

Capricious, big-hearted, joyful: an epic memoir from one of Canada’s most acclaimed Indigenous writers and performers

Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the eleventh of twelve children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family. Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenaged friends. Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood. But five of Tomson's siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so when Tomson was six, he was flown south by float plane to attend a residential school. A year later Rene joined him to begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words: "Don't mourn me, be joyful." His memoir offers insights, both hilarious and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.

"Unreconciled is one hell of a good book. Jesse Wente’s narrative moves effortlessly from the personal to the historical to the contemporary. Very powerful, and a joy to read." —Thomas King, author of The Inconvenient Indian and Sufferance

A prominent Indigenous voice uncovers the lies and myths that affect relations between white and Indigenous peoples and the power of narrative to emphasize truth over comfort.

Part memoir and part manifesto, Unreconciled is a stirring call to arms to put truth over the flawed concept of reconciliation, and to build a new, respectful relationship between the nation of Canada and Indigenous peoples.

Jesse Wente remembers the exact moment he realized that he was a certain kind of Indian--a stereotypical cartoon Indian. He was playing softball as a child when the opposing team began to war-whoop when he was at bat. It was just one of many incidents that formed Wente's understanding of what it means to be a modern Indigenous person in a society still overwhelmingly colonial in its attitudes and institutions.

As the child of an American father and an Anishinaabe mother, Wente grew up in Toronto with frequent visits to the reserve where his maternal relations lived. By exploring his family's history, including his grandmother's experience in residential school, and citing his own frequent incidents of racial profiling by police who'd stop him on the streets, Wente unpacks the discrepancies between his personal identity and how non-Indigenous people view him. 

Wente analyzes and gives voice to the differences between Hollywood portrayals of Indigenous peoples and lived culture. Through the lens of art, pop culture, and personal stories, and with disarming humour, he links his love of baseball and movies to such issues as cultural appropriation, Indigenous representation and identity, and Indigenous narrative sovereignty. Indeed, he argues that storytelling in all its forms is one of Indigenous peoples' best weapons in the fight to reclaim their rightful place.

Wente explores and exposes the lies that Canada tells itself, unravels "the two founding nations" myth, and insists that the notion of "reconciliation" is not a realistic path forward. Peace between First Nations and the state of Canada  can't be recovered through reconciliation--because no such relationship ever existed.

Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose.

Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only black children in the town.

In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines.

He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah", a punk rock rapper, "Molasses", a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus", a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy", a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself.

Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage. (From Viking)