This collection of west-coast fables combines the approach of Aesop with the oral tradition of First Nations storytellers. Woodpecker shows how to be a true friend. Beaver demonstrates how to achieve dreams through hard work. Rainbow Trout finds that all things in nature have a purpose.

Parents, grandparents and teachers will embrace Robert James C …

Silence Descends: The End of the Information Age, 2000-2500 is not as much a novel as it is an imaginary book of non-fiction: a history of the future, written in the year 2500--a look back at where we have yet to go. Silence Descends is a cautionary tale; it is a critique of "the Microsoft mentality"--the belief in the power of technology to save …

Set in the internment camps of the British Columbia interior during World War II, Terry Watada's Daruma Days captures the Japanese Canadian experience of imprisonment. Watada draws on the accounts of people who lived through the camps, often speaking with the voices of the issei and nisei, to portray the camps as haunted by demonic forces, the inha …

This charming story is based on a true-life lovable onion peddler from France who sells chain-onions from his bicycle in London. In this story, Quizz, the cat, steals the onions and everyone in the neighbourhood joins a search to find them.

Queer View Mirror 2 is a second volume of lesbian and gay short short fiction: snapshots of queer life that articulate, in one thousand words or less, different ways of the world. One hundred and one stories from writers in eight different countries make up Queer View Mirror 2. Their subject matter ranges the wide spectrum of gay experience, from …

Chinese Opera looks at Chinese society through an exciting series of photographs of operatic performances from many regions of the country. The book introduces the reader to this unique theatrical form and tells the traditional stories that are its narrative foundation. Siu Wang-Ngai's extraordinary images, taken in natural light during performanc …

A wonderful hybrid of post-modern genre-bending and conventional narrative - an exploration of a state of mind rather than a description of events. This work deals with subjects as varied as memory; rewriting notions of history; erotic latitude; the blurred border between sleep, dream and reality; isolation; loss; pleasure and change.

Praise for Sub …

The Derrick Humphreys Story is a superb biography, a life of adventure that begins in Dickensian England before World War I, then moves to the Western Australian mining frontier of the 1930s and '40s, with excursions into the New Guinea campaign in World War II, the De Beers' South African diamond empire, a foreign aid project in Brazil and the reb …

Autobiography of a Tattoo is an investigative literary work about the education and pursuit of homosexual desire. Its mixture of serial stories and modernist meditations invites readers on a journey that rangers from post?Wall Berlin to Plato's Athens. Stan Persky, the author of Buddy's and Then We Take Breaks, here breaks through the current impas …

According to Joan MacLeod, her play 2000 grew out of a story she read about a cougar that had wandered into a sports arena in Vancouver, BC: “I was intrigued by the notion of the wild invading the city and the city invading the wild, by the idea of things being not quite right in nature and the approach of the millennium.”
In the play, the cou …

From Mary Meigs, the celebrated author of In the Company of Strangers, comes an autobiographical novel, The Time Being. An affair born of a correspondence with a distant admirer leads the lovers to an arranged meeting in Australia. With a lifetime of relationships already behind them, the two women approach each other cautiously, each filled with t …

Poems that tell stories on many different levels: through sound, visual images, political insights, non-narrative fusion and linguistic music.

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4 kleerances uv ko dependenseez n help

th selvs being plural storeez sound

vizual politikul non narrativ fuseyn

linguisteek mewsik letting go uv th

rashyunalizasyuns irrashyuna …

Born in the tumbling, oxygen-rich waters of a Pacific Coast stream, Salgair quickly learns about survival of the fittest. Follow Salgair, a steelhead trout, as he grows from a small fry in a river to a trophy fish in the ocean, and experience the dangers, both man-made and natural, that he faces during his life. This story is presented to the young …

Born in the tumbling, oxygen-rich waters of a Pacific Coast stream, Salgair quickly learns about survival of the fittest. Follow Salgair, a steelhead trout, as he grows from a small fry in a river to a trophy fish in the ocean, and experience the dangers, both man-made and natural, that he faces during his life. This story is presented to the young …

These short stories, written from BC's north coast, unfold mostly at home, and mostly in the family. A woman writes to her sisters, remembering their weddings and her own; a little boy comes home from his paper route early, looking a bit pale; a mother takes her children to Prince George on the train, to stay with their musician dad in a seedy hote …

This print-on-demand title is available by request from most booksellers.

Explore the legends and lore connected with the wildflowers of the west. Does the lotus bloom in Lotusland? Why does a clover leaf adorn the suit of clubs in a deck of cards? What do Roman soldiers shaving their legs have to do with wildflowers? Author Brenan Simpson answers these and other questions in Flowers at my Feet. Simpson roots around in l …

Fictional juvenile story about Sasquatch.

A story of the ill-fated romance between a wandering musician-social-idealist and a Cape Breton coal miner’s daughter, whose dreams are reawakened by their passion. The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum is a play in which the all-consuming brightness of dreams and memory are overshadowed by absentee greed, callousness and exploitation. It is a tragedy t …

A powerful coming-of-age story -- edgy, stark, and at times, darkly funny that centers around Larry, a Native teenager trying to cope with a painful past and find his place in a confusing and stressful modern world.

Larry is a Dogrib Indian growing up in the small northern town of Fort Simmer. His tongue, his hallucinations and his fantasies are ho …

Everything But the Truth is a stunning debut of short fiction by Christopher McPherson, a carpenter by trade, who constructs, with disarming detail, stories of desire and loss, and the thin line between truth and fiction in people's lives.
These are confessionals by characters whose emotional lives are laid bare, from a lovelorn hippo-keeper at th …

BC's favourite bush poet unwraps his second novel, a noirish mystery tour through unfamiliar and dangerous terrain.

Dead Man's Ticket is part logger's story, part thriller, and all page-turner: Terry Belshaw, the protagonist of Trower's acclaimed first novel Grogan's Cafe, makes his way through the seamy world of Vancouver's tenderloin district of t …

John Wilson came to Canada from Scotland in 1912, leaving his wife and family with the promise to return in a year. In 1914 he joined the Mounties, and while stationed in Saskatchewan village, he caught TB and fell hopelessly in love with the young woman who took care of him. He would do anything for her, anything at all.

Winner of the 1995 Arthur …

The second volume of Gordon Davies' collection of stories features the rivers of British Columbia and the Yukon. Travelling from the turbulent Yukon in the far north to the streams flowing into Washington State, Davies acts as a guide to fisher and non-fisher alike.

The avid fisherman will find information about the types of fish in each river as we …

Once again Linda Rogers and Rick Van Krugel have teamed up to create a zany adventure story. Molly Brown's mum is a clown, but Molly longs desperately for normalcy, including ordinary dinners and regular hours. And most of all, Molly longs for her vanished father.

Molly's frenetic search for her missing father draws her Chinese-Canadian friend Troup …

A first hand account of the trials, tribulations and hardships of Riverboat men and their families lives in the Yukon. Many books have been written about the Klondike gold rush of 1898, and the paddlewheelers that piled the waters of the mighty Yukon and its tributaries. Much less attention has been paid to the folks who lived along the shores of t …

This is the story of Dr. Eldon Lee and his first practice in Hazelton, BC. Lee was the region's first obstetrician, and he delivered more than 4,500 babies. In an era of corporate medicine and malpractice insurance, Lee's story is a refreshing reminder of what doctoring is all about.

In the 1940s, Eldon left the family ranch to join the air forc …

Spare and incisive, these stories present a voyeuristic glimpse into imperfect lives rooted in philosophies and deities, imbued with love, humour, and irony. Davey Bryant is an aging gay man who, while his lover sleeps, embarks on electronic odysseys with strangers surfing the Internet--from a lonely widow, to a cross-dressing naval officer, to a t …

In this delightful collection of animal fables, Robin Skelton transports young readers back to long long ago - an ancient and fabulous time. These humorous stories offer solutions to such difficult questions as "Why does the ostrich bury its head in the ground?" and "Why does the rabbit have no voice?" These are stories that will take children into …

Benet Davetian's starkly moving stories portray individuals enmeshed in social and political upheavals not of their own choosing: an innocent Somali farmer struggles to survive famine and war; a Serb sniper faces a bizarre opportunity to redeem himself; a Rwandan Hutu is forced to choose between his own life and those of his Tutsi in-laws; and an i …

Winner of the 1995 3-Day Novel-Writing Contest

Body Speaking Words is a novel about - what else - writing a novel in three days, at the same time offering insights into family, friendship, growing up female, and delighting in strange foods; a poignant, funny and sexy account of one woman's attempt to understand what drives us to document the essenti …

This collection of short stories is based on traditional values important to us all—respect, cooperation and kindness. Robert James Challenger's illustrations and tales reveal a world of magical birds, fish and other wildlife, who teach readers lessons about life and the world.

Seal shows us why we should not let fear of failing stop us from tryi …

In a series of short stories based in her native Britain, as well as in her adopted country of Canada, Margaret Thompson delights us with her pictures of ordinary life... or is it so ordinary? Sometimes brittle, sometimes gentle, she delivers telling shots at individuals and society's foibles.

After moving in with her grandparents in the small close-knit community of Dearing Bay, on the east coast of Newfoundland, Patience discovers what really is the key to happiness. Patience of Dearing Bay is a poignant story of growing up in rural Canada which offers a fond portrayal of a vanishing way of life.

The extraordinary life story of Clayton Mack (1910-1993), a legendary hunting guide from the Nuxalk Nation (Bella Coola), is told in his own words. To Clayton Mack, who loved the wilderness and whose most precious memories were of the days when people got around without roads, told time without watches, and took planks from giant cedars without axe …

One morning it starts raining in Cassidy's house, and nobody can get it to stop. Like everyone else, Cassidy figures it's just a problem with the pipes. She doesn't know that she's about to embark on the ride of her life. She doesn't know that before the year is out, she will have wound up in hospital with every bruise and welt from her twenty-year …

Founder/Editor Howard White predicts that Raincoast Chronicles 17 will come to be known as the "bad medicine" issue. From the queasy feeling that pioneer medicine inspires in Margaret McKirdy's "The Doctor Book" to Robin Ward's profile of Francis Rattenbury - British Columbia's favourite architect - whose chequered career ended in a classic "Agatha …

Honest, offbeat, and very funny, Tom Henry's stories about living in the country have been broadcast weekly on CBC Radio in British Columbia and have become favourites among listeners in the city, the country, and everywhere in between. This cassette collects some of the best of Henry's anecdotes from Metchosin, a rural area on southern Vancouver I …

Skeptical and feminist, funny and disturbing, Barbara Parkin's stories expose the truth about her characters' lives: some rugged, some pastoral, all humming with danger and beauty. Philipa struggles to define herself outside her mother's fantasy that she will marry royalty; Lena confronts the women who tormented her when they were girls; Joy looks …

He's baaaaack! Get ready for another batch of smart, funny, bang-on stories of the ups and downs of country living.

Ever wondered how to discipline an unruly chicken? How to kill a mouse with a hardcover book? How to survive the pettifogging bureaucrats at your daughter's school? How to save your own butt when a tough guy outside the convenience sto …

A sea serpent silently appears on a sunny spring day; a shrieking "devil thing" wreaks havoc in a logging camp cookhouse; a wandering blind priest travels miles by boat, accompanied only by a young mute companion with an unearthly talent for throwing stones. These are the stories of a lost civilization. Its ruins peek out from alder thickets around …

Summertime, and moving time. A bittersweet time for "Lots of Boxes." But as he pragmatically tells his mother, all their belongings will fit inside his box collection, and the moving will be easy. The hard part will be to see if the new house with three apple trees will be a home like the old house with twin plum trees.

Over 10 Mondays, "Lots of Box …

For centuries, man has passed down stories about strange, unknown creatures inhabiting the forests, lakes and oceans of North America. Witnesses have come forth to sign sworn testimonies as to the truth of their reports. Films have been offered to authorities as the real thing. And yet, no carcasses or live specimens have been found--the search for …

In a warm-hearted novel with over 40 illustrations, Linda Rogers and Rick Van Krugel have created a magical children's book that will appeal especially to young readers aged 6 to 13. The story tells of Jen and Odie who discover that their First Nations friend Frankie Zapper possesses magic, shamanistic powers. When their teacher, Mr. Smith, hurts O …

From 1910 to 1975, superb coastal liners of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and, later, the Canadian National Railway plied the waters of coastal BC, connecting Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle to Prince Rupert and southeastern Alaska. Here is the little-known story of these ships, brought to life by BC's foremost marine historian and well illustrated w …

An unsettling study of two tragic events at an Indian residential school in British Columbia which serve as a microcosm of the profound impact the residential school system had on Aboriginal communities in Canada throughout this century. The book's focal points are the death of a runaway boy and the suicide of another while they were students at th …

These Canadian war bride stories recount one of the great untold epics of World War II. Approximately 48,000 British and European women married Canadian servicemen during the war and made the adventurous crossing from "blackouts to bright lights." In time for the 50th anniversary of the end of war, Barbara Ladouceur and Phyllis Spence interviewed o …

It is rare for a single work of sculpture to become the subject of a book at any time, much less at the moment of its installation. But Bill Reid's Spirit of Haida Gwaii is no ordinary sculpture. Commissioned for the courtyard of the new Canadian chancery in Washington, DC, it sits directly across the street from the National Gallery and is destine …

Taking Control is a critical ethnography of the Native Education Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. It presents an intimate view of the centre, focusing on the ways that people who work there – First Nations students, board members, teachers, and non-Native teachers – talk about and put into practice their beliefs about First Nations contro …