BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Over 235,000 people couch-surf, stay in emergency shelters, or live on the street in Canada every year. But lack of housing security is just one barrier faced by people who are homeless. As A Complex Exile shows, the homelessness sector inadvertently reinforces social exclusion as well. The very policies, practices, and funding models that exist to house the homeless, promote social inclusion, and provide mental health care form a homelessness industrial complex. These practices emphasize personal responsibility and individualized responses that ultimately serve to exclude people in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Erin Dej demonstrates that the causes of, and responses to, homelessness have become largely medicalized, limiting discussion on structural and systemic drivers such as income inequality, discrimination, and housing affordability. A Complex Exile goes beyond bio-medical and psychological perspectives on homelessness, mental illness, and addiction to call for a transformation in how we respond to homelessness in Canada.
Erin Dej is an assistant professor of criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, where she co-authored A New Direction: A Framework for Homelessness Prevention with Stephen Gaetz, and she is the co-editor of Containing Madness: Gender and ‘Psy’ in Institutional Contexts with Jennifer M. Kilty.
Dej...offer[s] three key truths that the homelessness sector and anyone interested in the field would benefit from hearing.
Erin Dej's essential work of non-fiction makes the connection clear between Canada's failed response to the homelessness epidemic and its role in perpetuating social exclusion.