A poignant bilingual YA graphic novel about a teenage girl's harrowing experience crossing the Mexico-US border.

This compelling young adult graphic memoir, based on real events, tells the story of Gricelda, a fifteen-year-old Mexican girl who attempts to cross the border into America with her mother and younger brother in search of a better life. T …

A wildly disarming memoir by comedian Alex Wood on how he overcame his multiple addictions.

As an alcoholic, drug-addicted comedian with tendencies to over-indulge and under-achieve since he was a teenager, Alex Wood was on track for to achieve his greatest goals: to die young and drunk. At the age of twenty-eight, feeling desperate in the face of a …

Shortlisted for a 2021 Taste Canada Award

A book of recipes from the author of the Grape Series memoirs that will transport you to a rustic French cottage surrounded by vineyards, no matter where in the world your kitchen might be.

For years readers of Laura Bradbury's bestselling Grape Series memoirs have been clamouring for the secrets behind all t …

For many, the Doukhobor story is a sensational one: arson, nudity and civil disobedience once made headlines. But it isn't the whole story. Our Backs Warmed by the Sun: Memories of a Doukhobor Life is an intricately woven, richly textured memoir of a family's determination to live in peace and community in the face of controversy and unrest.

When au …

As the daughter of Mormon leader Winston Blackmore, Mary Jayne Blackmore grew up within the closed-off polygamist community of Bountiful, BC. She spent her younger years riding ponies, raising pet lambs and playing in the hay in the Old Barn. Her family's staunch Fundamentalist Mormon faith imposed fanatical doomsday preparation and carried an inst …

When Cathy Sosnowsky, her husband Woldy, and their little boy Alex first joined the Hemming Bay Community, a cooperative formed to preserve a large piece of wilderness on a remote coastal island of British Columbia, she found the idea of owning part of an island appealing. But the paradise she envisioned reveals itself as a harsh and hostile enviro …

A deeply personal travel memoir that combines alpine adventure, family connections, and spiritual encounters in two very different worlds: a Himalayan village and Vancouver, Canada.

In 2012, Michael Schauch and his wife, Chantal, undertook an expedition deep in the Himalaya of northern Nepal, into a remote valley that had been closed off to outsider …

World-renowned ice climber Margo Talbot shares her compelling story of healing and self-discovery amid the frozen landscapes of the planet.

Born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Margo Talbot grew up with a distant mother who “ruled the household with her eyes”; a father who opted to spend much of his time away from home; and four siblin …

A sharp, funny, heartfelt memoir by a career-driven baby boomer who enters semi-retirement and explores the joys, challenges, and never-ending surprises of being a "young" granddad.

One summer, shortly after taking a step back from an illustrious journalism career, Ian Haysom found himself in charge of his first grandchild, Mayana, who was three at …

Tall tales of coastal adventures, colourful locals, privileged tourists, and elusive fish abound in this hilariously offbeat sequel to The Codfish Dream.

"David Giblin is a marvellous storyteller."—Ian Ferguson, author of The Survival Guide to British Columbia

David Giblin's stint as a seasonal salmon fishing guide on Stuart Island provides a seemi …

A spirited 1950s travelogue that takes the reader around the world during a time when two independent young women travelling alone was considered almost revolutionary.

Renate Belczyk was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1932. When she was three years old her family moved to Berlin, where they settled into a small apartment building on the outskirts of t …

An unparalleled memoir that grapples with the complex relationships that exist within the mountaineering community and how personal choices can have deep and tragic consequences.

On January 20, 2003, at 10:45 a.m., a massive avalanche released from Tumbledown Mountain in the Selkirk Range of British Columbia. Tonnes of snow carried 13 members of two …

Rarely do we know what life will hold. When starting the adoption process, Jane Byers and her wife could not have predicted the illuminating and challenging experience of living for two weeks with the Evangelical Christian foster parents of their soon-to-be adopted twins. Parenthood becomes even more daunting when homophobia threatens their beginni …

As a child, Claire's big brother Ray was always bright and inquisitive, but as the two became teenagers, Ray struggled to acquire the social skills that came more easily to others. Claire tried to help, pointing out (after Ray's many "bloopers") what he should or shouldn't have said or done. Ray insisted that he wasn't the problem--"On my planet... …

A moving and honest graphic memoir about the unexpected cancer journey of a young, queer, mixed-race woman.

At the age of twenty-five, Kimiko Tobimatsu was a young, queer, mixed-race woman with no history of health problems whose world was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In an instant, she became immersed in a new and c …

Governor General's Literary Award finalist

Searing, intimate poems that render a history of trauma, addiction, and recovery through dreams and waking experience.

Render (v.tr.): to submit, as for consideration; to give or make available; to give what is due or owed; to give in return, or retribution; to surrender; to yield. To represent; to perform a …

The German word zugunruhe translates as the “stirring before moving.” It’s used to describe birds and herds of animals, like wildebeests, before the great migration. Though Jules Torti is neither German nor a wildebeest, she understands this marrow-deep anxiousness all too well; she is just someone looking for a home.

Free to a Good Home is ev …

Wild Fierce Life is a heart-stopping collection of true stories from the Pacific Coast that build a vivid portrait of life on the continental edge and one woman’s evolving place within it.

Author Joanna Streetly arrived on the west coast of Vancouver Island when she was nineteen, and soon adapted to the challenges of working on boats of all sorts, …

For more than four decades, Hugh Segal has been one of the leading voices of progressive conservatism in Canada. A self-described Red Tory warrior who disdains “bootstrap” approaches to poverty, he has always promoted policies, especially a basic annual income, to help the most economically vulnerable. Why would a life-long Tory support somethi …

A lighthearted, self-deprecating account of one fledgling beekeeper’s misadventures. With wit and warning in equal measure, this informative, refreshingly honest narrative will resonate with any new beekeeper.

When Dave Doroghy’s sister gave him 15,000 honey bees as a Christmas gift, his practical knowledge of beekeeping would have fit on the pr …

From the author of What Species of Creatures, Sharon Kirsch, comes The Smallest Objective, an intricate and melancholy personal memoir about a daughter's last days with her mother, the hidden recesses of family history, and the treasures that the past can bring in the face of a difficult present.

Having moved her elderly mother into a care home, the …

The devastating diagnosis of an incurable, debilitating disease does not ordinarily form the starting point of a triumphant story. This, however, is a triumphant story. Heidi Redl was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2004 and immediately chose to fight the disease with the only tools available to her: sheer stubbornness and courage.

Growing up o …

In writing Itineraries, Philip Resnick has focused on a number of influences and currents that have shaped his intellectual life. It begins with his early years, growing up Jewish in Montreal and his subsequent break with organized religion. This is followed by his encounters with nationalism - Québécois, Canadian, Catalan, and that of a number o …

A moving, honest memoir about a man who returns to his rural hometown to take care of his cranky elderly father.

George K. Ilsley explores his complex relationship with his aging father in this candid memoir full of sharp emotion and disarming humour. George's father is ninety-one years old, a widower, and fiercely independent; an avid gardener, he' …

At the age of seventeen, an Anishinabe boy who was raised in the south joined a James Bay Cree family in a one-room hunting cabin in the isolated wilderness of northern Quebec. Reflecting on his search for his own personal identity, that kid – Duncan McCue – takes us on an evocative exploration of the teenage years and the culture shock he expe …

When underachieving writer Larry Mann is granted the lucrative opportunity to ghostwrite the memoirs of the notorious and eccentric businessman-turned-politician Maxime Montblanc, he accepts immediately, tantalized by the financial benefits he’s promised. However, as the two men begin to learn about and confide in one another, hints of their past …

By the creator/co-creator of the podcasts The Black Tapes and The Big Loop: reading between the lines of the hilarious conversations between a teacher and his students.

Before he became a famous stand-up comedian and podcast creator, Paul Bae taught English in Vancouver's largest public school. One day during his student-teaching practicum, he assig …

This mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghetti’s unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica learns the intimacy of the dinner table and the ritual of meals, along with the requirements of conformity both at the …

After plans to live in Africa shatter, young journalist Laurie Sarkadi moves to the Subarctic city of Yellowknife seeking wilderness and adventure. She covers the changing socio-political worlds of Dene and Inuit in the late ‘80s—catching glimpses of their traditional, animal-dependent ways—before settling into her own off-grid existence in t …

Imprint is a profound and courageous exploration of trauma, family, and the importance of breaking silence and telling stories. This book is a fresh and startling combination of history and personal revelation.

When her son almost died at birth and her grandmother passed away, something inside of Claire Sicherman snapped. Her body, which had always …

In the follow-up to her BC Book Prize-winning book of poetry, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes, Mercedes Eng continues her poetic investigation of racism and colonialism in Canada, weaponizing the language of the nation-state against itself in the service of social justice. my yt mama is a collection of poems that considers historic and contempor …

BC Bestseller! From its Coast Mountain skyline to its seedy waterfront tattoo parlors, from the private downtown booze-cans of the city's business elite and the Faux Chateau enclave of Whistler, to the riot-shaken streets of the early Sixties and the history of pipe bomb attacks in the city, Moore has been there, done that. He's been a graveyard sh …

Finalist, Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes

In her novels, poetry, and prose, Amber Dawn has written eloquently on queer femme sexuality, individual and systemic trauma, and sex work justice, themes drawn from her own lived experience and revealed most notably in her award-winning memoir How Poetry Saved My Life.

In this, her second poetry col …

This honest, uplifting and painfully funny memoir is about love, soapboxes and why you should never lie on national TV. It's the story of how the Beast, a BMW E30 M3 Sport Evolution, almost killed Robert but ended up saving his life.
From his father, Robert developed a passion for all things automotive as he grew up in Dublin, a painfully shy, lo …

In 1974, Terry Milos moved to rural northern Canada to pursue her dream of homesteading. Following the seventies trend of the back-to-the-landers, she and her partner left the city life for what they imagined would be a simpler existence. Sometimes humorous and often insightful, North of Familiar is the story of a woman who learned to hunt, fish an …

Andrea Hejlskov was certain of one thing: life could not continue as it was. She and her husband had become disillusioned with their jobs and the pressures of urban living, their four children were spending too much time in their bedrooms with their computers, and conversations had become as elusive as their connection to a meaningful existence. Fo …

Ice melt; sea level rise; catastrophic weather; flooding; drought; fire; infestation; species extinction and adaptation; water shortage and contamination; intensified social inequity, migration and cultural collapse. These are but some of the changes that are not only predicted for climate changing futures, but already part of our lives in Canada. …

A profoundly honest and intensely personal story of a woman who cares for her husband after the devastating terminal diagnosis of ALS.

Marty, age 57, was given a preliminary diagnosis of ALS by his family doctor. Seven weeks later, the diagnosis was confirmed by a neurologist. Ten months and ten days later, Marty passed away.

From day one, Alison, Ma …