“... without a doubt the greatest poet English Canada has ever produced.”

—Dennis Lee

“A hundred years from now, one of the few Canadian poets whose work will still be read will be Al Purdy.”

—Maclean’s

Al Purdy (1918–2000), known as Canada’s unofficial poet laureate, wrote poetry that anyone could read. Having come from working-class …

What do you do when you decide you no longer want to be responsible for anyone but yourself? When faced with that moment, Donna Kane leaves her twenty-five-year marriage for life with a conservationist and wilderness guide who is so certain of the path he is on that she thinks she’s just along for the ride.

A few days before Kane’s new husband l …

David Zieroth's Albrecht Dürer and me, an autobiographical travelogue spanning the author's journeys through central Europe, explores the transformative effect of dislocation. Inspired by and responding to art and music, history and war, architecture and place, this collection unearths knowledge that can only be realized by leaving home.

Throughout …

"Lane is a poet more of the individual, hard-hitting poem; like physical blows, he wields his pieces like small threats of intense beauty."
--Globe and Mail

Following the success of his award-winning memoir There is a Season (2004) and his bestselling novel Red Dog, Red Dog (2008), Patrick Lane felt his celebrated poetry career might be at an end an …

Diane Tucker's Bonsai Love is an eloquent book of poems about the sensual delicacy of love. Carefully pruned, intricate in design, and sensitive to intrusion, these poems create an image of intimacy through reflection and in relation to nature, the universe, music, literature and art.

The voice that comes forth is one of self-doubt seeking reassura …

The poems in crawlspace, John Pass's first volume of poetry since he won the Governor General's Literary Award in 2006, work within the narrowing passages imposed upon us by the inevitable strictures and limitations of living and experience: aging, love and loss, tightening or unraveling family ties. Close to home as always, in one instance literal …

Mike McCardell's bestselling books about finding rays of pure sunshine among the dark byways of the big city have a full measure of heartwarming tales but this time he declares, "I have found the answer to enjoying an incredible life, no matter who you are or where you are or what you are doing or how much you weigh."

In his 2008 book, Getting to th …

Dahlia Cassidy was so angry with herself that if she weren't busy driving her '57 Chev back from Tofino, she'd have used both feet to boot herself in the arse. She figured she was just about ready to swear off sex altogether, probably forever. She had let herself get talked into leaving her kids with a babysitter and spending a wild weekend at Long …

Another west coast classic is back in print with Harbour Publishing! In this prequel to the bestselling Saltwater Summer, renowned outdoor author Roderick Haig-Brown writes about two boys on the verge of manhood and their attempts to make their own living.

Don Morgan is sixteen and ready to earn his keep. His family expects him to take a job at the …

Crows Do Not Have Retirement, David Zieroth's sixth book of poems, explores the many lives of the spirit and the flesh: lives that challenge, bewilder and excite. With the fluidity of language and sharpness of image that he is known for, Zieroth voyages through the conflicting worlds of dream and everyday life, exploring feelings of extreme self-ir …

In April 1999, the Inuit dream of a self-governing territory in the eastern Arctic - Nunavut (Our Land) - became a reality. In celebration of this historic event comes a new edition of Inuit Journey, a firsthand account of another turning point in Inuit history: the establishment in the early 1960s of member-owned, member-run Inuit co-operatives, w …

in 1984, when Sharon Brown's mother Betty became terminally ill with bone cancer, Sharon and her husband (writer Andreas Schroeder) brought Betty home to live her last weeks with them and their two young daughters. With the help of her family, trusted professionals and close-knit community of friends, Brown helped her mother die with dignity, surro …

In his introduction to this provocative collection of essays, George Woodcock describes his response to a recent question about national unity. "I remarked impatiently that what interested me was not the achievement of 'national unity, but the accomplishment of creative anti-national disunity."

Woodcock argues that if Canadians are angry about their …

Sixty stunning duotone photographs by Wakayama, documenting the history of the Powell Street Festival, are interwoven here with the voices of some eighty people involved with the Festival - people of Japanese descent and many other ethnic backgrounds.

The Festival is an annual Vancouver event celebrating the history and culture of Japanese people in …

Peter Trower is a poet known for what he writes about: the lives of west coast loggers, the rural culture of the B.C. Coast, skidroad life in Vancouver, and his personal love of the western landscape. He has established himself as a unique voice, lyircal and regional, a Canadian original. Goosequill Snags is the first major collection of poems sinc …