Search results for ""Dundurn Group""

Suite as Sugar is a testimony to the unseen forces, always vigilant, ever ready, imbuing the characters in this collection with both resilience and trauma.From Winnipeg winterscapes to Toronto’s condo culture, from Havana’s haunted streets to Trinidad’s calamitous environs, the stories in Suite as Sugar are permeated with the violence of colonial histories, personal and intimate, reflecting legacies of abandonment and loss. The veil between the living and the dead is obscured, chaos becomes panacea, and characters take drastic measures into their own hands.Survivors of all kinds seek strategy and solace: a group of homeless people organize an occupation of vacant condos, a new resident to a disturbing neighbourhood tries to make sense of madness, a dog investigates the sudden disappearance of his owner. The five intertwined vignettes in the title story are set in a Caribbean country where the spectre of the sugar plantation haunts everyone. Tying this collection together is the casual brutality of our everyday lives, whether seen through the eyes of animal, spirit, or human being.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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Famous for a Time celebrates Canadian athletes and sporting history.The cultural impact of sport on a nation is not slight. Famous for a Time explores a number of important, if not well remembered Canadian athletes and the sports they played to help explain the nation’s complicated history, sporting and otherwise. It is an exploration that reveals the socio-cultural trends that have shaped Canada since Confederation. Through the prism of some exceptional athletes, the prevailing attitudes of many Canadians toward issues such as class, race, memory, manliness, femininity, and national identity are laid bare. Here, from the sidelines, we find how these attitudes have changed — or not, as the case may be — over time.From team sports such as lacrosse, baseball, and cricket, to Canada's cycling craze, track and field, and boxing, each chapter offers insight to an important aspect of the nation’s narrative. The winners and losers of Canada’s games simply mirror the larger questions that have faced Canadian society across three centuries.

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The story of the audacious showman who built the greatest carnival dynasty in North America.Enter the realm of the carnie king, Patty Conklin, the flamboyant founder of what would become the world's largest carnival company. Patty started on the mean streets of New York selling peanuts before becoming a a small-time operator. Willing to try anything to promote his show, he established himself as a carnie celebrity. Winning the midway contract for the Canadian National Exhibition in 1937, he made it his personal world's fair. It became the foundation for his son and grandson to expand Conklin Shows until they were playing the biggest fairs and exhibitions throughout North America. Carnie King begins with the birth of Joseph Renker to German immigrant parents, tells of his personal transformation into Patty Conklin, and follows his incredible life through to his death in 1970. It covers his company''s history after Jim Conklin took over, expanded it beyo

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Jackie Ronne reclaims her rightful place in polar history as the first American woman in Antarctica. Jackie was an ordinary American woman whose life changed after a blind date with rugged Antarctic explorer Finn Ronne. After marrying, they began planning the 1946–1948 Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition. Her participation was not welcomed by the expedition team of red-blooded males eager to prove themselves in the frozen, hostile environment of Antarctica.On March 12, 1947, Jackie Ronne became the first American woman in Antarctica and, months later, one of the first women to overwinter there.The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition secured its place in Antarctic history, but its scientific contributions have been overshadowed by conflicts and the dangerous accidents that occurred. Jackie dedicated her life to Antarctica: she promoted the achievements of the expedition and was a pioneer in polar tourism and an early supporter of the Antarctic Treaty. In doing so, she helped shape the narrative of twentieth-century Antarctic exploration.

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An intimate yet wide-sweeping story of a marine biologist working to save ocean ecosystems from climate change.With the world’s oceans ravaged by climate change, Émeraude, a young marine biologist, works to preserve aquatic ecosystems by recreating them for zoos. When her work earns her a spot aboard a research vessel with an extended mission in the Arctic, it is the inescapable draw of the ocean that will save her when the world she leaves behind is irrevocably changed.Stories of Émeraude’s ancestors — a young sailor abandoned at birth, a conjuror who mixes potions for her neighbours, a violent young man who hides in the woods to escape an even more violent war, and a talented young singer born to a mother who cannot speak — weave their way through her intimate reflections on a modest life, unknowingly shaped by those who came before.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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In the strict dictatorship of Eritrea, a young reporter co-founds the first independent newspaper, publishes stories that anger the president, and then has to escape to save his life and his loved ones.An idealistic journalist with a young family starts the first independent newspaper in the notorious police state of Eritrea — one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. When the paper is shut down, he flees arrest and begins a dangerous journey to freedom, first across a desert, at night, into Sudan, pursued by Eritrean secret police, then into secret safe houses in Kenya. With the help of the United Nations, he finds sanctuary in Canada — a place he knows nothing about. Meanwhile, his wife and young children are stuck back home, in constant danger of reprisal. Berhane’s story is one of bravery amid complicated international geopolitics, of spies, guns, and betrayal, and — ultimately — of triumph and the piecing together of family in a cold new country.

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For pro hockey goon Shane Bronkovsky, things are going south.Disgraced pro-hockey enforcer Shane “Bronco” Bronkovsky crashes his motorcycle in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico. Injured, helpless, and robbed by mysterious passersby, he is eventually rescued by one of the locals, Tammy DeWitt, who takes Shane to the hardscrabble ranch she runs. While shocked to discover the ranch raises rattlesnakes, Shane comes to relish the honest work and peace he finds there. His life quickly becomes entangled with those of the local denizens, including the ranch’s children, as he and Tammy grow closer. Through the lives he touches and the people he helps, Shane strives for redemption. Yet, as he struggles to tame the demons within and adjust to life away from the spotlight of professional sports, his past and present collide in an explosive climax.

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Rebecca Eckler’s newest book chronicles the hard truth of what it’s really like to make a blended family. Blissfully Blended Bullshit is a witty, engaging, refreshingly candid chronicle of a modern family’s journey as they blend households. We follow Eckler as her partner and his two children move in with her and her daughter. Then, thanks to a reverse vasectomy, they add a baby to the mix. Readers go along for the ride in this poignant, often hilarious tale, as everyone attempts to navigate their new roles: the children, the in-laws, the exes, the ex-in-laws, and even the dog. Lighthearted and intimate, this is an indispensable story about a family determined to make blended splendid, and the juicy truth of what it’s really like behind closed doors in what is rapidly becoming a typical family makeup. Still, if Eckler had to blend again, would she?

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Things quickly go from bad to worse as Emily, Captain Fly Austen, and young Magpie each find themselves in treacherous waters. In late September 1813, Fly Austen is ordered back to the American coast, as England’s Royal Navy has suffered a series of humiliating defeats. Forced to return to sea with a skeleton crew, Fly persuades a reluctant Leander Braden to accompany him one last time. Emily, fearing she will be left behind in Portsmouth, disguises herself as a man and steals aboard Fly’s frigate. Meanwhile, young Magpie is captured by a press gang and hustled aboard a hostile ship, only to find himself in the dangerous company of the English traitor Thomas Trevelyan.A shipwreck, a mutiny, and a bloody encounter with American ships on the Atlantic inflict devastating consequences on all.

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A collection of ghost stories, eerie encounters, and gruesome tales from one of Canada’s most interesting cities. Montreal is a city steeped in history and culture, but just beneath the pristine surface of this world-class city lie unsettling tales of uncanny phenomena, dark deeds, haunted buildings, and forgotten graveyards. The dark of night reveals buried secrets, alleyways that echo with the footsteps of ghostly spectres, and memories of ghastly murders and unspeakable acts that will make your blood run cold. Read, if you dare, about the ghost that wanders Griffintown in search of her missing head, top-secret experiments conducted on unwitting subjects at McGill University, and the mysterious gunshot deaths of a mother and son in their mansion, among other terrifying stories.

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Jenny Willson finds more than she bargains for when she travels to Namibia to save local wildlife from poachers.Parks Canada warden Jenny Willson has left Canada to join an American colleague on a secondment to assist Namibian authorities trying to stem the loss of the country’s rhinos to illegal hunting. But the plan takes a dramatic turn when Willson finds herself in the crosshairs of a conspiracy involving wildlife poachers backed by a shadowy network of international buyers prepared to eliminate any obstacles in their way, including Willson and her new team.While the Namibian assignment allows Willson to sidestep personal and professional questions that remain unanswered back home, she quickly recognizes that her decision to leave the Canadian Rockies could have deadly ramifications.

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Tour North America’s greatest museums and galleries in the company of two incomparable guides.This lively companion highlights the essential paintings, by some of the world’s greatest painters, from Giotto to Picasso, on display in North American museums and galleries. Julian Porter has had a life-long passion for art. He worked for seven years as a student tour guide in Europe and since has conducted countless gallery tours in Europe and North America. His co-author, Stephen Grant, brings a wealth of expertise in twentieth-century artists, and presents them within the framework of a North American–led, sustained burst of originality and shock. Presented with wit and irreverence, here is the best that North American galleries have to offer. Focused and curated to give you everything you need to enjoy the greatest works of art in the best company and save you the sore feet and superfluous information.

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A definitive compendium of Canada’s mass murderers and spree killers. Rampage: a state of anger or agitation resulting in violent, reckless, and destructive behaviour. In 1989, Marc Lépine mercilessly executed 14 female students at Montreal’s École Polytechnique to become Canada’s most notorious mass murderer. The following year spree killer Peter John Peters roamed from London, Ontario, to Thunder Bay, leaving a trail of bloodied bodies, broken dreams, and stolen vehicles. Both men experienced the same devastating destiny – they embarked on homicidal rampages that shook their nation to the core. Lee Mellor has gathered more than 25 of Canada’s most lethal mass and spree killers into a single work. Rampage details their grisly crimes, delves into their twisted psyches, and dissects their motivations to answer the question every true crime lover yearns to know: why? If you think serial killers are dangerous, prepare for something deadlier …

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A writing couple searches for answers when Alzheimer's causes one of them to lose the place where stories come from — memory. At the age of fifty-three, Tony walks away from a life of journalism and into an unknown future. June is forty-eight, a writer and teacher, and over the following decade watches as her husband changes — in interests, goals, and behaviour — until Tony has a fall, ending the life they had known. A diagnosis is seven years away, yet the signs of Alzheimer’s are all around. A suitcase Tony packs for a trip is jammed with four umbrellas, a visual symbol of cognitive looping. But how far back do these signs go? The couple starts probing the past and finding answers. This is not an old person’s disease.

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The first-ever comprehensive book written on early English immigration to Canada, Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers introduces a series of three titles on The English in Canada. Focusing on factors that brought the English to Atlantic Canada, it traces the English arrivals to their various settlements in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, and considers their reasons for leaving their homeland. Who were they? When did they arrive? Were they successful? What was their lasting impact? Drawing on wide-ranging documentary sources, including passenger lists, newspaper shipping reports, and the wealth of material to be found in English county record offices and in Canadian national and provincial archives, the book provides extensive details of the immigrants and their settlements and gives details of more than 700 Atlantic crossings — essential reading for individuals wishing to trace English and Canadian family links or to deepen understanding of the emigration process.

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When murder stalks a family over Christmas, Detective Kala Stonechild trusts her intuition to get results.“Sneaks up on you with its grit and promise.” — National Post It’s a week before Christmas when wealthy businessman Tom Underwood disappears into thin air — with more than enough people wanting him dead. Officer Kala Stonechild, who has left her Northern Ontario detachment to join a specialized Ottawa crime unit, is tasked with returning Underwood home in time for the holidays. Stonechild is a lone wolf who is used to surviving by her wits. Her new boss, Detective Jacques Rouleau, has his hands full controlling her, his team, and an investigation that keeps threatening to go off track. Old betrayals and complicated family relationships brutally collide when love turns to hate and murder stalks a family.Finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best Novel

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A powerful memoir about how one woman resurrects her life and career in the glamorous but sexist wine industry.Natalie MacLean, a bestselling wine writer, is shocked when her husband of twenty years, a high-powered CEO, demands a divorce. Then an online mob of rivals comes for her career.Wavering between despair and determination, she must fight for her son, rebuild her career, and salvage her self-worth using her superpowers: heart, humour, and an uncanny ability to pair wine and food.Natalie questions her insider role in the slick marketing that encourages women to drink too much while she battles the wine world’s veiled misogyny. Facing the worst vintage of her life, she reconnects with the vineyards that once brought her joy, the friends who sustain her, and her own belief in second chances.This true coming-of-middle-age story is about transforming your life and finding love along the way.

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A dark, satiric novel about a woman whose attempt to escape crises in her health and marriage ends up causing more chaos.Cat's career has stalled, her marriage has gone flat, and being a stay-at-home mom for two young kids has become a grind. When she finds out, all within a few days, that she is pregnant, that a lump in her breast is the worst thing it could be, and that her husband has done something unforgivably repulsive, she responds by running away from her marriage and her life — a life that, on the outside, looks like middle-class success. Her actions send waves of chaos through the lives of multiple characters, including a struggling house cleaner, a rich and charismatic yoga guru, and even an ailing dog. What follows is a dark comedy about marriage, motherhood, privilege, and power.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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Journalists hate the term fake news, but there’s a troubling reality: spin doctors routinely try to dupe them into reporting misleading and distorted stories.Check the news on any given day and here’s what you’ll find: Governments routinely lie. Companies tout products and practices that put lives at risk. Think tanks release studies with misleading data meant to deceive. Police departments, infected by systemic racism, downplay crimes against Indigenous and racialized people.The public depends on the media to help them understand the world, but are journalists catching all the daily lies, omissions, and distortions? Shrinking newsrooms and an army of spin doctors mean journalists can get duped. Despite valiant efforts by a handful of investigative journalists, the truth is routinely left behind.Award-winning journalist Cecil Rosner insists there is something we can do about this. We can pressure news organizations to stop blindly regurgitating the firehose of press releases and focus instead on determining what is actually true. Rosner empowers readers by sharing his techniques for detecting misinformation and disinformation.

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Now you can cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs every day of the year, even when they’re out of the NHL playoffs.Get your hockey fix every day of the year with Leafs 365. From the franchise’s early beginning as the Arenas and the St. Patricks to Auston Matthews scoring 60 goals in 2022, Leafs 365 will remind you why you still cheer for the blue and white year after year. Even if you don’t root for the Toronto Maple Leafs, there are plenty of stories in this book that you can use to torment the Toronto fans in your life, like the trade that sent Tuukka Rask to the Boston Bruins (Commito is still not over that one).Even when the Leafs aren’t playing, you can relive some of the greatest moments in franchise history with Leafs 365.

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Explore the remnants of vanished villages across Ontario’s cottage country.Crumbling foundations lost in the forest, weathered buildings leaning wearily with age, cracked tombstones jutting from the ground — all serve as haunting reminders of once thriving villages that have since been abandoned. Each of these locales has a distinct story to tell, stories that until now were confined to fading memories and grainy photographs.From the northern shores of Georgian Bay to the eastern reaches of the Kawarthas, Ontario’s cottage country is littered with vanished villages, including settlementera farm communities, railway whistlestops, and logging hamlets. Within these pages, readers will venture into Ontario’s past to learn how these communities lived and died and to meet the people who invested their hopes and dreams in them. Dozens of photographs, many historical and never before published, bring these ghost towns back to life.Join Andrew Hind in exploring over a dozen villages across the districts of Parry Sound and Nipissing,Muskoka, and the Haliburton Highlands.

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The untold story of Point Frederick, where early nineteenth-century Canadians built warships that stopped invasion and brought peace.Warriors and Warships brings to life a much neglected part of Canada’s military history, covering the warships and the people who built them at Point Frederick from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Opposite Kingston, Point Frederick was the 1789 dockyard home of the Provincial Marine on Lake Ontario and the headquarters of Britain’s Royal Navy from 1813 to 1853. Today, it is the home of the Royal Military College of Canada. In this detailed narrative, with over one hundred colour archival maps, aerial views, photographs, and 3D reconstructions, Banks recounts Point Frederick’s building of great sail and steam warships and the roles these vessels played in conflict on Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and Niagara. Among the conflicts is the War of 1812, when French Canadian and British shipwrights made warships that forced the U.S. Navy into port and led to the American withdrawal from Canada. Banks also covers the role of the ships in the settlement of Upper Canada, the rebellion of 1837, the early planning of the Rideau Canal, and the beginning of the undefended border. Along the way, Banks introduces an array of people from Upper Canada, such as Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma; Governor General Lord Dorchester; General Isaac Brock; Sir James Yeo, and even Charles Dickens. He also describes the day-to-day activities at Point Frederick, beyond shipbuilding and military campaigns, such as skating parties, sleigh rides, theatricals, disease and death, and crime and punishment. Banks shares the moments of hardship, triumph, and tragedy of both the warriors and the warships in this important contribution to Canadian history.

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A young writer on the cusp of adulthood is faced with cancer that keeps coming back.Doctors used to tell him he was cured. That was a long time ago. Ever since he first left home, writer Jason Jobin has had cancer. Every five years, like clockwork, it relapses, and yet he always pulls through. Chemotherapy, surgeries, radiation; these are the milestones of his adulthood, of being “a special case.” It seems like every time he gets balanced — new writing, love, a job paying more than minimum wage — he’s back in hospital. And he lives. Again and again, he is cured. It is miraculous. A great gift. But never enough. Told in short glimpses, this story redefines what it means to survive. Jobin brings together the illuminated moments of loss and joy as he navigates chronic illness and builds from it something new and wildly unexpected.

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A GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 100 BEST BOOKS OF 2022“Freedman grips right out of the gate with dual timeline narratives that weave together more and more tightly until they meld into a mind-bending twist of a climax.” — LORETH ANNE WHITE, bestselling author of The Patient’s SecretIn a riveting psychological thriller for readers of Lisa Unger and Karin Slaughter, Grace’s healing solitude is shattered when she becomes a suspect in a gruesome series of murders. Grace DeRoche escaped the fundamentalist Mormon compound of Brigham and worked to prosecute its leaders. But when loyalists, including her own family, commit mass suicide to avoid jail, Grace retreats into solitude. Racked with guilt and suffering from dissociative identity disorder brought on by childhood abuse, Grace’s life is fragmented and full of blind spots. Dissociative triggers are everywhere, and she never knows when an alter personality will take the reins.When other Brigham escapees die under suspicious circumstances, Grace’s tenuous hold on reality crumbles. Notes left at each scene quote scripture and accuse the deceased of committing sins so grievous that atonement can only be achieved through the spilling of blood. As evidence mounts against her and one of her alter personalities becomes the prime suspect, Grace must determine if she’s a murderer … or the next victim.

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A father reflects on the rich life of his son, who died suddenly at twenty-six after living with schizophrenia. On the morning of Boxing Day 2009, the poet Fraser Sutherland and his wife found their son, Malcolm, dead in his bedroom in their house. He was twenty-six and had died from a seizure of unknown cause. Malcolm had been living with schizophrenia since the age of seventeen.Fraser’s respectful narration of Malcolm’s life — his happiness as well as his sufferings, his heroic efforts to calm his troubled mind, his readings, his writings, his experiments with religious thought — is a master writer’s attempt to give shape and dignity to his son’s life, to memorialize it as more than an illness. And in writing about his son’s life, Fraser creates his own self-effacing memoir — the memoir of a parent’s resilience through years of stressful care.Fraser Sutherland, one of Canada’s finest poetry critics and essayists, died shortly after completing this book.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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A brisk, humorous collection of essays that redefines the mythos of fatherhood depicted in film, television, and video games.What do dads tell us about the world? Not your real dad, but dads in general. Dads are everywhere. Lurking in our movies, television shows, and video games. Spouting homespun wisdom and atrocious jokes, wallowing in might-have-beens and back-in-my-days, or rigidly defending the status quo. These fictional dads fuel a myth of fatherhood. What is that myth trying to tell us? And what is it trying to sell us? Dad Bod is a clever, riveting collection of essays about father figures in popular culture. From Gandalf to Homer Simpson, Die Hard to The Mandalorian, these essays unpack the tropes that inform our collective image of fatherhood. Follow Cian Cruise, newly minted dad, as he riffs on the stereotypes and lore of fatherhood, traces a contemporary art history of dads in popular culture, and journeys to the heart of dadness to become a better father.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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A mid-level drug trafficker and self-proclaimed low-life with a big vocabulary comes to terms with his actions and his mental health. Andrew Brobyn’s relationship was in shambles before he took the terrible acid that sent him on an almost decade-long journey seeking redemption. His immediate plans following university were to liquidate his illicit assets, sell his client list, pack up shop, and retire to his parents’ home in Toronto while he figured out what to do with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a quarter million in cash. As his drug use and bipolar disorder spiral, his situation gets stranger and stranger, taking him from his university campus to strip clubs, psych wards, and the slammer.Equal parts hilarious and terrifying, Babble On is a psycho-philosophical memoir that tracks Brobyn as he navigates the consequences of his eccentric choices and struggles with profound ambivalence toward his own health and well-being.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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A collaboration exploring the importance of the Ojibway-Anishinabe worldview, use of ceremony, and language in living a good life, attaining true reconciliation, and resisting the notions of indigenization and colonialization inherent in Western institutions.Indigenization within the academy and the idea of truth and reconciliation within Canada have been seen as the remedy to correct the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canadian society. While honourable, these actions are difficult to achieve given the Western nature of institutions in Canada and the collective memory of its citizens, and the burden of proof has always been the responsibility of Anishinabeg.Authors Makwa Ogimaa (Jerry Fontaine) and Ka-pi-ta-aht (Don McCaskill) tell their di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan (Stories of personal experience) to provide insight into the cultural, political, social, and academic events of the past fifty years of Ojibway-Anishinabe resistance in Canada. They suggest that Ojibway-Anishinabe i-zhi-chi-gay-win zhigo kayn-dah-so-win (Ways of doing and knowing) can provide an alternative way of living and thriving in the world. This distinctive worldview — as well as Ojibway-Anishinabe values, language, and ceremonial practices — can provide an alternative to Western political and academic institutions and peel away the layers of colonialism, violence, and injustice, speaking truth and leading to true reconciliation.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZEA failed musician obsessed with avant-garde art enters a shadowy world where bohemian excess meets the avaricious interests of a real estate cabal.Alexander Otkazov is finished with Montreal. Having wasted his youth on the love of art, he’s ready for a life of anonymous condo towers and profitable boredom. But when he moves to Toronto, he is forced into a monkish existence by the unforgiving pressures of the city — until he stumbles across a story about an ambitious experimental music collective that could be his ticket to a better job and a better life.Desperate to prove himself as a journalist, Alexander chases answers that take him from Forest Hill mansions to the bottom of Halifax Harbour, moving ever deeper into a shadowy world of amorphous real estate deals, creative megalomania, and finance capitalism, where avant-garde art is simply another mask for big money. In order to unravel the threads tying everything he loves to everything he hates, he will have to confront his own most sordid desires and the lengths he is willing to go to achieve his dreams of an easy life.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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Ottawa Book Award 2022 — ShortlistedImagine a medicine that could make you live longer, healthier, happier, and stronger. What if that medicine was already right at your feet? Running is the miracle drug that can do all this and more — it is the perfect medicine.Throughout his career, Dr. Brodie Ramin has seen cases of diabetes, hypertension, and anxiety, which he has traced back to inactivity. Now more than ever, people are looking for inspiration and motivation to get fit, change their lives, and improve their overall wellness. In The Perfect Medicine, Dr. Ramin shares with us his discovery that we already have the perfect medicine to treat and prevent these common illnesses and improve our health: running. However, too few people are taking the right dose or using it at all.The Perfect Medicine explores the science of running and exercise and provides advice on how to maximize its benefits and be your best self. After rediscovering the joy of running in his early thirties, Dr. Ramin became fascinated by the activity. This book takes the reader on a personal journey of discovery, traces the evolution of running, shares strategies to get fit and run faster, and shows how exercise can even help people recover from addiction and mental health conditions.

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Shortlisted for the 2022 ReLit AwardA professor of English literature writes the autobiography of his fantasy alter-ego, wanton movie star Gloria Grahame, while his own sexual desires go frustrated.Denton Moulton — a shy, effeminate male professor — lives inside his head, where he is really a long-dead movie star: the glamorous Gloria Grahame, from the golden age of Hollywood. Professor Moulton is desperate to reveal Gloria’s shocking secret before he dies. Does he have the right to tell this woman’s story? Who, in fact, has the right to tell anyone’s story at all?A scandalous, humorous novel of taboo desires and repression, I, Gloria Grahame alternates between Gloria’s imagined life with her film-director husband, Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without a Cause, and Denton’s increasingly frustrated real-life attempts to produce his own work of art: an all-male drag production of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. The novel takes us from high-strung film sets to dark bars and the puritanical offices of government arts granting agencies, where Denton runs up against the sternest warnings that he may not, in fact, imagine himself as someone else, even in art.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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In a near future ravaged by illness, one woman and her AI companion enter a dangerous bubble of the superrich.It's 2035: a fledging synthetic consciousness “wakes up” in a lab. Jenny, the lead developer, determined to nurture this synthetic being like a child, trains it to work with people at the border of the American Protectorate of Canada. She names it Julian.Two years later, Slaton, a therapist at a university, is framed by a student for arranging an illegal abortion. She follows the student to America and is detained at the border, where she meets Julian in virtual space. After a week of interviewing, he decides to stay with her, learning about the world, the human condition, and what it means to fall in love. Meanwhile, a mysterious plague is spreading across the world. Only the far-seeing and well-connected Julian can protect Slaton from the impending societal collapse.Autonomy is an ambitious philosophical novel about the possibilities for love in a world in which human bodies are either threatened or irrelevant.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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After a traumatic head injury, Eve questions every memory and motive in this mind-bending psychological thriller.Eve Gold’s birthdays are killers, and her twenty-seventh proves to be no different. But for the up-and-coming Vancouver artist, facing death isn’t the real shock — it’s what comes after.Recovering from a near-fatal accident, Eve is determined to return to the life she’s always wanted: a successful artistic career, marriage to the man who once broke her heart, and another chance at motherhood. But brain damage leaves her forgetful, confused, and tortured by repressed memories of a deeply troubled childhood, where her innocence was stolen one lie — and one suspicious death — at a time.As the dark, twisted pages unfold, Eve must choose between clinging to the lies that helped her survive her childhood and unearthing the secrets she buried long ago.

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Rook and Gage live worlds apart — but somehow they must find a way to help one another survive.Trapped in a life she didn’t choose, Rook struggles to find meaning in her appointed role as an apprentice Keeper of ArHK. Even though her mam soothes her with legends of the Outside and her da assures her there are many interesting facts to discover in the Archives, Rook sees only endless years of tracking useless information. Then one day Rook discovers historic footage of the Chosen Ones arriving in ArHK, and she begins to realize her mam’s legends are more than bedtime stories. That’s when Rook begins her perilous and heartbreaking search for the limitless sky.Gage is also trapped. Living on the frontier line with his family, his is a life of endless moving and constant danger. As he works with the other scouts, Gage searches for the Ship of Knowledge to help his society regain the wonders of the long distant past, when machines transported people across the land, illnesses could be cured, and human structures rose high into the sky.Will Rook and Gage escape the traps and perils that await them in order to save each other’s worlds? If they don’t, it could very well mean the end of humanity.

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The true story of how one Muslim woman shaped her own fate and escaped her forced wedding.Sumaiya Matin was never sure if the story of the Shaytan Bride was truth or myth. When she moved at age six from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, recollections of this devilish bride followed her. At first, the Shaytan Bride seemed to be the monster of fairy tales, a woman possessed or seduced by a jinni. But everything changes during a family trip to Bangladesh, and in the weeks leading to Sumaiya’s own forced wedding, she discovers that the story — and the bride herself — are much closer than they seem.The Shaytan Bride is the true coming-of-age story of a girl navigating desire and faith. Through her journey into adulthood, she battles herself and her circumstances to differentiate between destiny and free will. Sumaiya Matin’s life in love and violence is a testament to one woman’s strength as she faces the complicated fallout of her decisions.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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Meet Tony Vicar: failed rockstar-turned-DJ, small-town curmudgeon, and … miracle worker?Reduced to DJing rural weddings, Tony Vicar feels the bite of failure. A frustrated and failed musician, unable to discern why he has not ascended to stardom, his only defence is to see the world through the lens of gallows humour, absurdism, and black comedy. At his lowest moment he meets former exotic dancer Jacquie O, and they begin a strange and unlikely courtship.When the pair come upon a fatal car accident, Vicar gives aid to a woman who’s barely clinging to life. His nearly miraculous ministrations succeed, and his actions become big news. But what Vicar calls luck is seen as something more magical by everyone else, rocketing him from complete unknown to massive celebrity to legend. Along the way he attracts the attention of dangerous siren Serena, who makes an outrageous play to take Vicar for her own. In this rollicking farce, Tony Vicar will finally have to face the consequences of his enduring dream of celebrity.

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“How the characters in this story are interconnected is a marvel of storytelling.” — JOHN IRVINGFate, circumstance, and the symbolism of sight collide in this modern gothic novel.On a hot June day in 1965, two six-year-old boys, Gareth and Jack, compete to see who can climb higher up a tree. When Jack falls and loses his eye on a thorn bush, the accident sets off a series of events that will bind the boys together for the rest of their lives. When the best friends meet albino twins Clara and Blanca, a shared fate unfolds. With Gareth and Jack’s help, the twins are able to reclaim their lives and leave their nightmarish past behind them. From the shores of Lake Ontario to the hustle of Berlin, from the art of oculary to punk opera, this is a story of dark secrets, suppressed desires, forgiveness, and love.

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Exploring Toronto’s history through tantalizing true tales of romance, marriage, and lust. Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache. The Toronto Book of Love brings the history of the city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary; from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform one of Canada’s first same-sex marriage ceremonies.Home to adulterous movie stars, faithful rebels, and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by crushes, jealousies, and flirtations. The Toronto Book of Love explores the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost to a booming modern metropolis through the stories of those who have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires, and skyscrapers.

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Did Louis Riel have a fair trial? The trial and conviction of Louis Riel for treason in the summer of 1885 and his execution on November 16, 1885, have been the subjects of historical comment and criticism for over one hundred years. A Rush to Judgment challenges the view held by some historians that Riel received a fair trial. Roger Salhany argues that the presiding judge allowed the prosecutors to control the proceedings, was biased in his charge to the jury, and failed to properly explain how the jury was to consider the evidence of legal insanity. He also argues that the government was anxious to ensure the execution of Riel, notwithstanding the recommendation of the jury for clemency, because of concerns that if Riel was sent to a mental hospital or prison, he would eventually be released and cause further trouble. Salhany compels readers to reconsider Canada's most famous trial in court history.

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Explore the vestiges of the hamlets and villages that have been swallowed up by Toronto’s relentless growth. Over the course of more than two centuries, Toronto has ballooned from a muddy collection of huts on a swampy waterfront to Canada’s largest and most diverse city. Amid (and sometimes underneath) this urban agglomeration are the remains of many small communities that once dotted the region now known as Toronto and the GTA. Before European settlers arrived, Indigenous Peoples established villages on the shore of Lake Ontario. With the arrival of the English, a host of farm hamlets, tollgate stopovers, mill towns, and, later, railway and cottage communities sprang up. Vestiges of some are still preserved, while others have disappeared forever. Some are remembered, though many have been forgotten. In Toronto’s Lost Villages, all of their stories are brought back to life.

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An in-depth exploration of the Don Jail from its inception through jailbreaks and overcrowding to its eventual shuttering and rebirth. Conceived as a “palace for prisoners,” the Don Jail never lived up to its promise. Although based on progressive nineteenth-century penal reform and architectural principles, the institution quickly deteriorated into a place of infamy where both inmates and staff were in constant danger of violence and death. Its mid-twentieth-century replacement, the New Don, soon became equally tainted. Along with investigating the origins and evolution of Toronto’s infamous jail, The Don presents a kaleidoscope of memorable characters — inmates, guards, governors, murderous gangs, meddlesome politicians, harried architects, and even a pair of star-crossed lovers whose doomed romance unfolded in the shadow of the gallows. This is the story of the Don’s tumultuous descent from palace to hellhole, its shuttering and lapse into decay, and its astonishing modern-day metamorphosis.Speaker's Book Award 2021 — Shortlisted | Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book 2022 — Shortlisted

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A rogue robot is terrorizing the dark underbelly of 1930s Manhattan. Can detective Elias Roche and his new Automatic partner track it down? The year is 1933. Even in a world with free energy, robot labour, and megacorporations, nothing could stop the collapse of the American Dream. As the world-spanning Great Depression rages on, the remaining New York–based mafias clash with police for control of the broken city. Elias Roche, former police officer turned Mafia enforcer, works to maintain a tenuous peace between the two parties.Accustomed to settling disputes with the business end of a gun, Roche must expand his repertoire after a violent murder is covered up by the FBI. With the Mafia insisting they’re innocent of the crime and the police powerless to help, Roche and his new Automatic partner, Allen, must root out those responsible before the situation sparks a war in the city streets.FINALIST FOR THE 2021 RAKUTEN KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE

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Amanda Doucette pursues the connection between a reclusive artist and the wealthy surfer who turned up dead on a remote island in Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim in a wilderness-infused mystery perfect for fans of Jane Harper or Louise Penny.While exploring the rugged landscape of Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim, Amanda Doucette is drawn to a reclusive old artist known only as Luke, who lives off the grid on a remote island. His vivid paintings hint at a traumatic secret from his past that brings to mind her own struggles with PTSD, and she begins to bond with him.But when the body of a surfer washes up on the beach, Luke flees deep into the interior. What is the connection between Luke and the victim, and what does it have to do with Vietnam and a hippie commune from fifty years ago? Fearing Luke might do something desperate, Amanda searches for answers and races to find him before the police or the victim’s family get to him first.

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