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Murder by Milkshake
Finalist for Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Prize (BC Book Prizes); Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award; City of Vancouver Book Award
When forty-year-old Esther Castellani died a slow and agonizing death in Vancouver in 1965, the official cause was at first undetermined. The day after Esther's funeral, her husband, Rene, packed up his girlfr …
The Woo-Woo
2019 CANADA READS FINALIST
Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Nonfiction; Winner, Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize; Longlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family who blame their woes on ghosts and demons when t …
The Scent of Pomegranates and Rose Water
The traditions of Syrian cooking, which go back hundreds of years, are notable for their sensory components, in which aroma and texture are as important as taste and nutrition. Over the centuries, the unique dishes of Greater Syria (bilaad al-shaam) were preserved by those who cooked them. For cooks in imperial households, family homes, or on simpl …
Care Work
Finalist, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
In their new, long-awaited collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime disability justice activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centres the lives and leadership of sick an …
Chinatown Ghosts
Jim Wong-Chu is a legend in the Asian Canadian writing community. As founder of the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (and its magazine Ricepaper), he constantly encouraged and inspired writers across the country to get their work published and acknowledged, from Paul Yee and Evelyn Lau to Madeleine Thien and Catherine Hernandez. When Jim passed awa …
The Antifa Comic Book
The shocking images of neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017 linger, but so do those of the passionate anti-fascist protestors who risked their lives to do the right thing. In this stirring graphic non-fiction book by the author of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, Gord Hill looks at the history of fascism ove …
The Tiger Flu
WINNER, Lambda Literary Award
In this visionary novel by Larissa Lai -- her first in sixteen years -- a community of parthenogenic women, sent into exile by patriarchal and corporate Salt Water City, go to war against disease, technology, and an economic system that threatens them with extinction.
Kirilow is a doctor apprentice whose lover, Peristrop …
Forward
American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book
A moving and intimate LGBTQ graphic novel about two women, both of whom are trying to put the pieces of their lives back together.
Still smarting years after a horrible breakup, Rayanne diligently buries herself in her work. Aside from work, she has her cat. And other than her cat, she has her crushes …
Property Values
The worlds of urban gentrification, overpriced real estate, and gang violence collide in this wry and sardonic crime novel by author and comedian Charles Demers (Vancouver Special, The Horrors).
As a shaky truce between suburban gangsters starts to unravel, schlubby civilian Scott Clark has other things on his mind: if he can't afford to buy out his …
Jonny Appleseed
2021 CANADA READS WINNER
WINNER, Lambda Literary Award; Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction
Finalist, Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction; Amazon Canada First Novel Award; Indigenous Voices Award; Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award; Firecracker Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize
A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
A to …
Little Fish
WINNER, Amazon Canada First Novel Award; Lambda Literary Award; Firecracker Award for Fiction
Finalist, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award
A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
It's the dead of winter in Winnipeg and Wendy Reimer, a thirty-year-old trans woman, feels like her life is frozen in place. When her Oma passes away Wendy receives an unexpect …
The Plague
A modern retelling of the Camus classic that posits its story of infectious disease and quarantine in our contemporary age of social justice and rising inequity.
At first it's the dead rats; they start dying in cataclysmic numbers, followed by other city creatures. Then people begin experiencing flu-like symptoms as well as swellings in their lymph …
Sodom Road Exit
Lambda Literary Award and Sunburst Award finalist; a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year
It's the summer of 1990, and Crystal Beach in Ontario has lost its beloved, long-running amusement park, leaving the lakeside village a virtual ghost town. It is back to this fallen community Starla Mia Martin must return to live with her overbearing mother aft …
Manila by Night
A Queer Film Classic on a controversial 1980 film by queer Filipino filmmaker Ishmael Bernal.
A Queer Film Classic on Ishmael Bernal's 1980 film that follows a dozen characters, all denizens of Manila's sordid yet exuberant underworld, as they pursue life, love, and pleasure. Bernal cited Robert Altman's Nashville as one of the influences on his epi …
Body Music
From the author of Blue Is the Warmest Color: a beautiful, bittersweet graphic novel on the complexities of love.
Jul Maroh's first book, Blue Is the Warmest Color, was a graphic novel phenomenon; it was a New York Times bestseller, and the controversial film adaptation by French director Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Fes …
From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea
A magical gender variant child brings transformation and change to the world around them thanks to their mother's enduring love.
In the magical time between night and day, when both the sun and the moon are in the sky, a child is born in a little blue house on a hill. And Miu Lan is not just any child, but one who can change into any shape they can …
Oracle Bone
A magic-realist novel set in seventh-century China featuring ghosts, martial arts, and the transformative oracle bone.
Life in seventh-century China teems with magic, fox spirits, and demons; there is a fervent belief that the extraordinary resides within the lives of both commoners and royalty. During the years when the empress Wu Zhao gains ascend …
Saigon Calling
A sequel to the acclaimed Such a Lovely Little War: growing up Vietnamese in swinging London as the Vietnam war intensifies.
Marcelino Truong's first book about the early years of the Vietnam war, the graphic memoir Such a Lovely Little War (2016), received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews and was named "one the season's best …
Liquor, Lust, and the Law
A new edition of the colourful history of Vancouver's Penthouse Nightclub, which celebrates its seventieth anniversary in 2017.
The after-hours watering hole for the famous and infamous, the Penthouse was opened in 1947 by brothers Joe, Ross, Mickey, and Jimmy Filippone and soon became the place to see and be seen in Vancouver in the 1950s and '60s. …
What I Think Happened
A wickedly funny book in which the author recasts historical events and personalities from her own feminist perspective.
What I Think Happened, the debut book by comedian Evany Rosen, is really two books: a savvy, no-holds-barred romp through the history of the western world, and the personal story of a self-described "failed academic" who recasts …
Fighting for Space
Winner, George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature
Finalist, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (BC Book Prizes)
Finalist, Vancouver Book Award
North America is in the grips of a drug epidemic. While deaths across the continent soar, Travis Lupick's Fighting for Space explains the concept of harm reduction as a crucial component of a city' …
Dutch Feast
Taste Canada Award finalist
A modern take on Dutch cuisine that highlights the ways that simple meals bring joy and comfort.
In the same way that British, Scandinavian, and German food have undergone a renaissance in recent years, Dutch cuisine is going to be the next big thing, according to writer and blogger Emily Wight. Her new cookbook reimagines …
Tarry This Night
A powerful dystopian novel set during a new American civil war, about a polygamist cult leader and his followers.
In this eerily relevant, cautionary novel, a civil war is brewing in America. Below ground, a cult led by the deluded and narcissistic Father Ernst is ensconced in an underground bunker, waiting out the conflict. When the "Family" runs o …
Dead Reckoning
Finalist, Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction
A Globe 100 Best Book of the Year
Finalist, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)
When Carys Cragg was eleven, her father, a respected doctor, was brutally murdered in his own home by an intruder. Twenty years later, and despite the reservations of her family and friends, she decid …
In Case I Go
The latest by Angie Abdou: young Eli invokes the spirit, and the mistakes, of his great-great-grandfather.
In Canada Reads finalist Angie Abdou's fifth work of fiction, Eli and his parents have returned to their family home in Coalton, a small mountain town. The parents, Nicholas and Lucy, hope that by escaping their hectic city lives, they will res …
Don't Tell Me What to Do
An offbeat story collection about strange, imperfect people doing strange, imperfect things.
In poet Dina Del Bucchia's debut story collection, an older woman becomes obsessed with the state of her lawn, a pet architect jeopardizes her relationship with her wife over a wild bird, a cement mixer helps a woman fulfill her dreams, a former model become …
Female Trouble
A Queer Film Classic on John Waters' 1974 dark comedy.
The first title in the Queer Film Classic series to focus on the work of legendary director and cinematic camp icon John Waters, best known for the underground classic Pink Flamingos and his later more commercial works such as Crybaby, starring Johnny Depp, and Hairspray, which was also made int …
Blood, Sweat, and Fear
Finalist, Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award
During his forty-two-year-career he helped detectives in Vancouver, Victoria, and throughout BC solve hit-and-runs, safe-crackings, and some of the most sensational murder cases of the 20th century. Vance was constantly called to crime scenes and to testify in court because of his skills in serolo …
Scarborough
SHORTLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2022
NOW A MOTION PICTURE directed by Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson; screenplay by Catherine Hernandez
Trillium Book Award and City of Toronto Book Award finalist; Edmund White Debut Fiction Award finalist; A Globe 100, National Post and Quill and Quire Best Book of the Year
Scarborough is a low-income, culturally dive …
Home and Away
A cookbook inspired by how food from around the world not only connects us all, but also reminds us of home.
Cooking outside one's comfort zone is now easier than ever: ingredients once considered exotic are available at supermarkets across the country, and we're more open to exploring the far reaches of the world through food. This tantalizing cook …
Everything Is Awful and You're a Terrible Person
Winner, ReLit Award; Finalist, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize (BC Book Prizes)
A YouTube star becomes famous after he documents his breakup online. An anxious, lactose-intolerant office worker obsesses over a stranger who says "Nice shorts, bro" to him in passing. A couple wants to open up their relationship to a ghost. A monster just wants to find love …
a place called No Homeland
Winner, Writers' Trust of Canada's Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers; American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book; Finalist, Lambda Literary Award and Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender Variant Literature
This extraordinary poetry collection is a vivid, beautifully wrought journey to the place where forgotten ancestors …
Rough Patch
A YA novel about Keira, a figure skater just entering high school who's intrigued about kissing both boys and girls.
In this compelling novel for young adults, Keira is a quirky but shy teen entering her first year of high school; she navigates her growing interest in kissing both girls and boys, while not alienating her BFF, boy-crazy Sita. As the …
Arabian Nights
A Queer Film Classic on 1974's Arabian Nights by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the controversial Italian director who was murdered under mysterious circumstances in 1975.
Already internationally distinguished as a poet, novelist, and outspoken social critic of the postwar period, Pasolini turned to filmmaking around 1960. In little more than a decade, he pro …
Chowgirls Killer Party Food
With an eye for style and appreciation for seasonal ingredients, the proprietors of Chowgirls Killer Catering, one of the Midwest's leading catering companies, share their inspired ideas for delicious appetizers, small plates, and cocktails that are perfect for home entertaining. Amy and Heidi were early adopters of the local, organic, sustainable, …
Conflict Is Not Abuse
From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a continuum: that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces persona …
The Remedy
Lambda Literary Award winner
To remedy means to heal, to cure, to set right, to make reparations.
The Remedy invites writers and readers to imagine what we need to create healthy, resilient, and thriving LGBTQ communities. This anthology is a diverse collection of real-life stories from queer and trans people on their own health-care experiences and …
Such a Lovely Little War
This riveting, beautifully produced graphic memoir tells the story of the early years of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a young boy named Marco, the son of a Vietnamese diplomat and his French wife. The book opens in America, where the boy's father works for the South Vietnamese embassy; there the boy is made to feel self-conscious abo …
The Dad Dialogues
Charles Demers is a thirtysomething comedian and the author of three books; George Bowering is eighty, Canada's first poet laureate, and the author of more than eighty books. Charlie and George are also the best of friends. And the fathers of daughters.
In this unique book of correspondence, these two men from different generations write to each oth …
Tomboy Survival Guide
Shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Nonfiction; Longlisted for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction; Stonewall Book Award Honor Book winner; Longlisted for Canada Reads
Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of ten previous books, including Gender Failure (with Rae Spoon) and One in Every C …
The Last Gang in Town
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 …
Niagara Motel
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 …
Becoming Unbecoming
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 …
Candyass
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 …
The Case of Alan Turing
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 …
The Boy & the Bindi
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 …
Weekend
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 …
Thicker than Blood
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 …
Yves Saint Laurent Coloring Book
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 …
Jean Cocteau Coloring Book
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 …