Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize finalist

Set in the early 1990s, Ashley Little's follow-up to her award-winning novel Anatomy of a Girl Gang introduces readers to unforgettable eleven-year-old Tucker Malone--the only child of a narcoleptic touring stripper--who believes his father is Sam Malone from Cheers. He and his mother move from motel to motel unti …

Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Prize finalist; Canadian Historical Association's Clio Prize for BC winner

Decades before organized crime syndicates brought sensational drug wars to Vancouver, street gangs held sway over its unruly east side. None was considered tougher or more feared than the Clark Park gang, a wild, two-fisted crew of characters f …

This extraordinary graphic novel is a powerful denunciation of sexual violence against women. As seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old girl named Una, it takes place in northern England in 1977, as the Yorkshire Ripper, a serial killer of prostitutes, is on the loose and creating panic among the townspeople. As the police struggle in their clu …

Arthur is a young gay man in Montreal at a crossroads. He gets lost in a blizzard of boys and endless possibilitiesâ??looking to fall in love and to experience devotionâ??but finds himself increasingly immersed in a world of hedonism and deception, especially as he deals with the messy remains of his relationship with Jeremy, his chimerical ex-bo …

In this beautiful children's picture book by Vivek Shraya, author of the acclaimed God Loves Hair, a five-year-old boy becomes fascinated with his mother's bindi, the red dot commonly worn by South Asian women to indicate the point at which creation begins, and wishes to have one of his own. Rather than chastise her son, she agrees to it, and teach …

Lambda Literary Award finalist

Alan Turing, subject of the Oscar-winning 2014 film The Imitation Game, was the brilliant mathematician solicited by the British government to help decipher messages sent by Germany's Enigma machines during World War II. The work of Turing and his colleagues at Hut 8 saved countless lives and millions' worth of British …

Prize-winning writer Jane Eaton Hamilton's novel explores the complexities of contemporary queer love.

On her fiftieth birthday, crazy-in-love Ajax visits her mercurial lover Logan, who trails their tarnished reputation like a lapsed halo. Logan has secrets, but so does Ajax, and during their weekend getaway to Ontario's cottage country, some of the …

Adoptive parents need more than the usual parenting skills. Adoption has changed drastically in recent decades with more concern for the adoptees' point of view and more education required by adoptive parents. Adoptive parents can be bewildered or apprehensive and find themselves struggling in ways they hadn't anticipated.

Thicker Than Blood is a co …

Adult colouring books (such as Secret Garden) have exploded in popularity in recent years, embraced for their calming, therapeutic effect. This elegant, imaginative colouring book explores the dynamic, fanciful creations of iconic fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who headed the House of Dior at the age of twenty-one before launching his own des …

In this lavish colouring book for adults, the fanciful, elegant world of artist, playwright, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau comes alive. As a playwright, he is best known for The Human Voice (1930); as a filmmaker, for directing Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1948). In the 1910s, he was a prominent member of the Paris avant-garde, forming fri …

1983. Vancouver is on the precipice of transforming itself from a dirty little town to a blandly sophisticated big city. Convertibles cruise beneath runty palm trees, and the air is filled with the delicious tang of ocean breezes, cheeseburgers, and pot smoke.

In this fast and furious crime novel set in the midst of a long west coast summer, an East …

Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature winner

Lambda Literary Award finalist

Longlisted for Canada Reads

As a writer, musician, performance artist, and filmmaker, Vivek Shraya has, over the course of the last few years, established herself as a tour de force artist of the highest order. Vivek's body of work includes ten albu …

Winner, Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction

This unsettling novel is set thirty years in the future, in the wake of a third world war. Runaway effects of climate change have triggered the collapse of nation/states and wiped out over a third of the global population. One of the survivors, a former soldier nicknamed Mercy, suffers f …

QUEER FILM CLASSICS is a critically acclaimed series that launched in 2009, edited by Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays, covering some of the most important and influential films about and/or by LGBT people made between 1950 and 2005, and written by leading LGBT film scholars and critics.

A Queer Film Classic on the 2005 film by French-Canadian director …

QUEER FILM CLASSICS is a critically acclaimed series that launched in 2009, edited by Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays, covering some of the most important and influential films about and/or by LGBT people made between 1950 and 2005, and written by leading LGBT film scholars and critics.

A Queer Film Classic on the 1992 Canadian feature documentary sub …

A bold YA novel about a South Asian teenager struggling with anorexia.

Just days before her eighteenth birthday, Lila has resolved to end her life. The horror of becoming an adult, and leaving her childhood behind, has broken her heart.

Faerie, a novel for young people, is the fierce yet gently unfolding story of a hyper- imaginative girl who is on a …

New edition of Michael Turner's seminal 1995 poetry collection, including a new essay by the author.

When Michael Turner's Kingsway was published in 1995, critics and readers were either effusive in their praise or confounded by the book's unwillingness to adhere to traditional poetry structures. In this collection of linked poems that evolve around …

A wide-ranging anthology of Asian Canadian literature to celebrate 20 years of Ricepaper.

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Ricepaper magazine, a pioneering periodical devoted to Asian-Canadian writing. Over the years, Ricepaper's focus has shifted from predominantly arts and culture reporting to the publication of original literature; as such, it …

A Globe 100 Best Book of the Year

Lambda Literary Award winner

The debut book by Hasan Namir is a revelatory novel about being queer and Muslim, set in war-torn Iraq in 2003. Ramy is a closeted university student whose parents have died, and who lives under the close scrutiny of his strict brother and sister-in-law. They exert pressure on him to fin …

The untold story behind some of Vancouver's notorious unsolved murder cases.

Finalist, Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award (BC Book Prizes)

While Vancouver is much loved by tourists and locals alike for its spectacular natural scenery and diverse culture, behind that facade lurks a violent past. Cold Case Vancouver takes a look at the city's disre …

A return to indigenous Mexican-American cooking: delicious recipes for physical and spiritual healing.

More than just a cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet redefines what is meant by "traditional" Mexican food by reaching back through centuries of history to reclaim heritage crops as a source of protection from modern diseases. Authors Luz Calvo and Catr …

A funny, poignant graphic novel about a young woman's coming out amidst both Islamic and western cultures.

In this fresh, often funny autobiographical graphic novel, Beldan Sezen depicts her coming of age, and her coming out as lesbian, in both western and Islamic cultures (as the daughter of Turkish immigrants in western Europe)?to friends, family, …

Darkly off-kilter stories about the moving parts to being human.

A blind date blooms in a grocery store parking lot. Lake Erie forms the backdrop to a botched assisted suicide. A neurotic, dog-loving caretaker writes a complaint letter after an unfortunate leg-waxing incident. While his uncle lies in a coma, a young man befriends a dead homeless guy …

A thought-provoking collection of essays on Michel Foucault that reframes his legacy.

In his private life, as well as in his work and political attitudes, Michel Foucault often stood in contradiction to himself, especially when his expansive ideas collided with the institutions in which he worked. In Francois Caillat's provocative collection of essa …

A stirring graphic novel based on the extraordinary book by Irene Nemirovsky.

Suite Francaise, an extraordinary novel about village life in France just as it was plunged into chaos with the German invasion of 1940, was a publishing sensation ten years ago; Irene Nemirovsky completed the two-volume book, part of a planned larger series, in the early …

A transformative memoir by a queer disabled person of colour and abuse survivor.

Lambda Literary Award and Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction finalist

In 1996, poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, carrying only two backpacks, caught a Greyhound bus in America and ran away to Canada. They ended up in Toronto, where they were welcomed by a comm …

Ten Women is a new collection of short fiction from one of Canada's preeminent writers. Each of these stories offers us a portrait of a woman with whom the author may or may not have had either an intimate and/or a meaningful relationship. You can't really tell for sure. Depending on your proclivities, some of them might even seem pretty hot - like …

On the heels of America's renewed relations with Cuba: a vivid graphic novel on the life of Fidel Castro.

As America moves toward normalizing relations with Cuba, this gripping, vivid graphic novel reveals the life and times of Fidel Castro, one of the 20th century's most intriguing, charismatic, and divisive figures. The book is narrated by a Germa …

A novel about a boy with a stutter, and the tangled barbs of repressed memory.

Montreal, 1979. A boy's speech starts to fracture along with the cement of le Stade olympique. Do they share a fault line? Daniel Allen Cox's unconventional fourth novel tells the story of a boy with a stutter who grows up and uses sound to remember the past. A coming-of- …

Delicious meat-free recipes in which root vegetables take centre stage.

Once the lonely, unattractive kin of sexier, more popular produce, root vegetables finally get the love and attention they deserve in this inventive and far-reaching vegan cookbook. Author Carla Kelly puts roots, tubers, and rhizomes front and centre in recipes that include ligh …

Paul Yee's first novel for adults: an historical account of a Chinese man on a journey to find the mother of his son.

For more than thirty years, Paul Yee has written about his Chinese-Canadian heritage in award-winning books for young readers as well as adult non-fiction. Here, in his first work of fiction for adults, he takes us on a harrowing jou …

New edition of this important YA novel coinciding with the new film starring Mo'Nique.

First published in 1986, Blackbird is a funny, moving, coming-of-age novel about growing up black and gay. Johnnie Ray Rousseau is a high school student upset over losing the lead role in the school staging of Romeo and Juliet. As if that weren't enough, his best …

A memoir about fathers and sons, breaking out of gender norms, and reconciling with a dangerous childhood.

Lambda Literary Award finalist

Michael V. Smith is a multihyphenate force of nature: a novelist, poet, improv comic, filmmaker, drag queen, performance artist, and occasional clown. In this, his first work of nonfiction, Michael traces his ear …

A bold and beautiful retelling of the Peter Pan story.

Sassafras Lowrey's gorgeously subversive queer punk novel reimagines the classic Peter Pan story. Prepare to be swept overboard into a world of orphaned, abandoned, and runaway bois who have sworn allegiance and service to Pan, the fearless leader of Neverland, and to the newly corrupted Mommy …

The first full-length poetry book by the Lambda Literary and Vancouver Book Award Winner.

Finalist, Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

Award-winning writer Amber Dawn reveals a gutsy lyrical sensibility in her debut poetry collection: a suite of glosa poems written as an homage to and an interaction with queer poets, such as the legendary Gertrude Stein, C …

A down-to-earth cookbook that proves you don't need a lot of money to create nutritious, beautiful meals at home.

In this winsome cookbook, blogger Emily Wight offers fantastic recipes, ideas, and advice on how to prepare imaginative, nutritious, and delectable meals without breaking the bank. Perfect for students, families, and anyone on a budget, …

On the morning of July 12, 2012, Mandy Bath left her picturesque home and garden in Johnson's Landing, BC, for a day trip to nearby Kaslo. She had no forewarning of what the placid summer day would bring. But just over an hour later, a massive landslide tore into the community, destroying her home and killing four people: Valentine Webber, aged 60, …

A Queer Film Classic on Canadian director Patricia Rozema's I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, her quirky and hopeful first feature film which made its premiere at Cannes and won its Prix de la jeunesse. Presented as a "videotaped confession," it tells the story of Polly Vandersma, an unpretentious and introverted young woman who takes photographs as …

A Queer Film Classic on two groundbreaking gay films from the early 1970s, both of which exemplify the growing liberalization of social attitudes toward sex and homosexuality in post-Stonewall America. L.A. Plays Itself and Boys in the Sand were both gay art house porn films released within months of each other at a theatre in New York in 1972. L …

A bittersweet graphic novel about a nerdy teenaged boy who falls in love with the cool kid at school.

Adrian isn't very happy these days. He lives in a small town and goes to a Catholic high school. He wears glasses, secretly reads philosophy books, and wishes he had more muscles. He's dogged by a strict mother, bullied by fellow players on the socc …

By the author of Blue Is the Warmest Color: a stunning graphic novel on the downfall of a rock legend.

Jul Maroh burst onto the scene in 2013 with Blue Is the Warmest Color, a tender, bittersweet graphic novel about lesbian love, in which a young woman named Clementine becomes infatuated with Emma, a girl with blue hair. The book spawned a controver …

The art of storytelling through textiles, exploring the many ways in which narrative can be expressed through cloth and needle.

Strange Material explores the relationship between handmade textiles and storytelling. Through text, the act of weaving a tale or dropping a thread takes on new meaning for those who previously have seen textiles--quilts, b …

A book of recipes and gardening tips for living and eating sustainably and responsibly all year round.

Randy Shore's father and grandfather grew up on farms, yet he didn't even know how to grow a radish. Author of "The Green Man" column in the Vancouver Sun, he spent five years teaching himself how to grow food for his family, and then how to use th …

Surveying Southern British Columbia, Jay Sherwood's fourth and final book about prominent BC surveyor Frank Swannell, covers the years from 1901 to 1907, before Swannell began surveying for the BC government. Gore & McGregor, one of the leading surveying companies in the province, hired Swannell to work on projects throughout southern British Colum …

Quick, inventive, stylish recipes featuring all manners of canned seafood.

As an ingredient, canned seafood often gets short shrift; it's often considered a mundane filler for salads, casseroles, and sandwiches by those in a hurry or on a budget. But while fresh is always best, there's no reason why canned seafood has to be boring.

Discover how to tr …

City of Vancouver Book Award Winner

In his debut story collection, poet Wayde Compton explores the concept of place and identity in which characters and space merge to make narrative. These interconnected stories, imbued with the colour of speculative fiction, are towering in their conceits. As much as characters are revealed by what they do and say …

On January 22, 1979, an eleven-year-old Native girl died of a ruptured appendix in an Alert Bay, B.C. hospital. The events that followed are chronicled here by Dara Culhane Speck, a member by marriage of the Nimpkish Indian Band in Alert Bay. She has relied mainly on interviews, anecdotes and public records to describe how this small, isolated Nati …

Sharp-eyed tales about outsiders, non-conformists, and iconoclasts.

In Nothing Looks Familiar, Shawn Syms' debut story collection, characters from a wide swath of society chart paths from places of danger or unhappiness into the great unknown, each grappling with a central and sometimes unanswerable question: if you fight to change your circumstance …

Angie Abdou's latest: a novel on the complexities of class, gender, parenthood, and desire.

Vero and her husband Shane have moved out of the sweet suite above his parents' garage and found themselves smack in the middle of adulthood--two kids, two cars, two jobs. They are not coping well. In response to their looming domestic breakdown, Vero and Sha …

A "Globe 100" Best Book of the Year (The Globe and Mail)

Lambda Literary Award finalist

In the beginning, there is no he. There is no she.

Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our o …