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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER From one of the most beloved media personalities of his generation comes a one-of-a-kind reflection on Blackness,…
faith, language, pop culture, and the challenges and rewards of finding your way in the world.Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal—for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections on the many threads that weave together into an identity. Arriving in Canada at age 12 from Sudan, Elamin's teenage years were spent trying on new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to his almost universally white peers. His is a story of yearning to belong in a time and place where expectation and assumptions around race, faith, language, and origin make such belonging extremely difficult, but it's also a story of the surprising and unexpected ways in which connection and acceptance can be found. In this extraordinary debut collection, the process of growing—of trying, failing, and trying again to fit in—is cast against the backdrop of the memory of life in a different time, and different place—a Khartoum being bombed by the United States, a nation seeking to define and understand itself against global powers of infinite reach. Taken together, these essays explore how we pick and choose from our experience and environment to help us in the ongoing project of defining who we are—how, for instance, the example of Mo Salah, the profound grief practices of Islam, the nerdy charm of The O.C.'s Seth Cohen, and the long shadow of colonialism can cohere into a new and powerful whole. With the perfect balance of relatable humor and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves, and most important, what we’re still learning.
"An urgent first novel about breaching the prisons we live inside from one of Canada's most daring literary talents. An…
unnamed narrator abandons his unfinished thesis and returns to northern Alberta in search of what eludes him: the shape of the novel he yearns to write, an autobiography of his rural hometown, the answers to existential questions about family, love, and happiness. What ensues is a series of conversations, connections, and disconnections that reveals the texture of life in a town literature has left unexplored, where the friction between possibility and constraint provides an insistent background score. Whether he's meeting with an auntie distraught over the imprisonment of her grandson, engaging in rez gossip with his cousin at a pow wow, or lingering in bed with a married man after a hotel room hookup, the narrator makes space for those in his orbit to divulge their private joys and miseries, testing the theory that storytelling can make us feel less lonely. Populated by characters as alive and vast as the boreal forest, and culminating in a breathtaking crescendo, A Minor Chorus is a novel about how deeply entangled the sayable and unsayable can become--and about how ordinary life, when pressed, can produce hauntingly beautiful music."
Dreaming is a luxury that few can afford. And yet, however inadvisedly, Iman dreams. In an unnamed African country devoured…
by rampant urbanization and haunted by the mirages of Western prosperity, where for a few CFA francs a child can be bought and sold into slavery, Toumani's earliest education is in the tolerance of suffering. He endures one master then the next, holding his survival—his very self—with open hands. For Iman, a black and white biracial boy with an elusive presence, the only viable option appears to be an escape to bountiful Europe, where everything must be easier. Obsessed with this idyllic elsewhere to the point of losing himself completely, he remains, for those close to him, an object of fascination difficult to define. When Iman reaches out his hand to rescue Toumani from certain death, he sets in motion a friendship that may satisfy their need for connection but cannot fundamentally change their circumstances. What is the point of survival without hope for a more livable future? And what happens to them when they both love the same girl? In this stunning translation of Ryad Assani-Razaki's award-winning debut novel, dreaming is a luxury that few can afford. And yet, however inadvisedly, Iman dreams
Amanda Leduc’s dazzling new novel follows two walking, talking hyenas as they interact with humans over decades. Blurring the line…
between human and animal, these strange messengers reveal what is possible when the cages that contain us are broken.In 19th-century Scotland, young Josiah is banished by his father for seeing the divine in the animals around him and sent to Siberia with a small Christian mission to purge such nonsense from his soul. Miserably scrubbing the chapel floor one night, Josiah is visited by what he thinks is God in animal form. When his saviours, a hyena and her mate, rescue him from a natural disaster that kills the other missionaries and then bring him safely home, he founds a religion based on his belief that God granted speech to the hyenas as part of a divine plan to heal and exalt the human race.The hyena pair, Barbara and Kendrith, aren't so sure that Josiah has it right. But with their beautiful strangeness, they utterly transform the people they encounter over succeeding generations. As Josiah's church gathers adherents, more and more animals start to speak to humans—from signing baby gorillas to seductive alligators. At first one or two rebellious pets make a break for freedom, but then comes a mass exodus of all animals held captive, forcing people to contend with a wildness in themselves they have spent millennia denying. The end of this remarkable fairytale is both joyful and devastating, completely dissolving the boundary between what's "human" and what's "animal."
Amanda Leduc’s dazzling new novel follows two walking, talking hyenas as they interact with humans over decades. Blurring the line…
between human and animal, these strange messengers reveal what is possible when the cages that contain us are broken.In 19th-century Scotland, young Josiah is banished by his father for seeing the divine in the animals around him and sent to Siberia with a small Christian mission to purge such nonsense from his soul. Miserably scrubbing the chapel floor one night, Josiah is visited by what he thinks is God in animal form. When his saviours, a hyena and her mate, rescue him from a natural disaster that kills the other missionaries and then bring him safely home, he founds a religion based on his belief that God granted speech to the hyenas as part of a divine plan to heal and exalt the human race.The hyena pair, Barbara and Kendrith, aren't so sure that Josiah has it right. But with their beautiful strangeness, they utterly transform the people they encounter over succeeding generations. As Josiah's church gathers adherents, more and more animals start to speak to humans—from signing baby gorillas to seductive alligators. At first one or two rebellious pets make a break for freedom, but then comes a mass exodus of all animals held captive, forcing people to contend with a wildness in themselves they have spent millennia denying. The end of this remarkable fairytale is both joyful and devastating, completely dissolving the boundary between what's "human" and what's "animal."
In this second-chance romance by a debut Canadian author, a twist of fate forces two former roommates to move back…
into their beloved New York City brownstone where they must confront the events that led to their estrangement—and the unresolved feelings lingering between them. Reeling from the cancellation of her hit TV show, June Wood has nothing left to lose when a mysterious email lures her back to the New York City brownstone she once called home before she moved to Los Angeles. Thanks to a clause in the former owner’s will, she and her old roommate, Adam Harper, now own the multi-million dollar property—or at least they will in a month, once all the paperwork is signed. Four weeks, then June can return to her life in LA and forget about New York City and everything she left behind. Sure, the fact that June and Adam are estranged and haven’t even spoken in five years, and that their friendship didn’t exactly end on good terms might complicate matters, but this is an opportunity of a lifetime. As the autumn leaves fall around them, through shared meals and late-night conversations, old wounds and long-buried sparks resurface, and it becomes strikingly clear: June and Adam have unfinished business. Confronted with the consequences of their choices years before, they must now navigate the minefield of their past the best way they know how: together. Second chances are always a risk, but maybe, if they get it right and are finally honest with each other and with themselves, it could be different this time
Talbot is the publicist at Children of the World, an international aid charity. Morally burnt out after decades working in…
reputation management, Claire is relieved to finally use her PR skills for good. Too bad the organization is on the verge of bankruptcy. In a last-ditch effort to keep them afloat, Claire arranges for an A-list actress to volunteer at one of their overseas orphanages. When the actress decides to adopt a baby and promises a massive donation, it seems as if Claire has single-handedly saved the day. But after a journalist digs into their operations and reveals a shocking crime, Claire and her colleagues must reckon with their complicity and all the ways their work abroad has harmed the very people they set out to save. Moving between Children of the World’s headquarters in Toronto and their compound in Central America, Good Guys charts the charity’s rise and fall. Scathing yet compassionate, the novel is a thought-provoking exploration of power, philanthropy, and the lengths we go to for redemption. Emotionally engrossing, tightly paced, and sharply observed, it ultimately asks: Is it possible to do good in an imperfect world?
Hey, Ghosties, this is the Ghost Queen tuning in from the most haunted place in India! Teen vlogger Malika's ghost…
hunter channel is almost popular enough to start earning money to support her family. All she needs is one viral video—and she knows exactly where she's going to get it. Bhangarh Fort is the most haunted place in India, rumoured to be home to the cursed princess Ratnavati and her wicked captor. Malika convinces her boyfriend to sneak into the fort with her after dark and record the experience for her avid fans and followers. That's when things go terribly wrong. Can the "Ghost Queen" escape, or is she doomed to spend eternity trapped with a mad magician and the princess who rejected him? This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don't like to read!
From a queer Muslim woman and artist, a generous, insightful memoir that traces her journey toward radical self-acceptance and of…
exile from her ancestral home.As the youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her early years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with its sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure. As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women’s studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In this memoir, Roza braids the narrative of her mother’s life together with her own on-going story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family’s move to Canada. All the Parts We Exile is a memoir of dualities: mother and daughter, home and away, shame and self-acceptance, conflict and peace, love and pain—and the stories that exist within and between them. In sharp, emotionally honest and funny prose, Roza tenderly explores the grief around the parts we exile and the joy of those we hold close in order to be true to our deepest selves.
The natural enemy of a Korean is another Korean. When North Korean spymaster Doha Kim is mysteriously killed in Oxford,…
his protégé, Yohan Kim, chases the only breadcrumb given to him in Doha's last breath: "Soju Club, Dr. Ryu." In the meantime, a Korean American CIA agent , Yunah Choi, races to salvage her investigation of the North Korean spy cell in the aftermath of the assassination. At the centre of it all is the Soju Club, the only Korean restaurant in Oxford, owned by Jihoon Lim, an immigrant from Seoul in search of a new life after suffering a tragedy. As different factions move in with their own agendas, their fates become entangled, resulting in a bitter struggle that will determine whose truth will triumph. Oxford Soju Club weaves a tale of how immigrants in the Korean diaspora are forced to create identities to survive, and how in the end, they must shed those masks and seek their true selves
Evocative, magical and luminously written, The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian…
historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways. Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war. Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home. Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true
A memoir based on columnist, fashion-show TV host, podcaster and MS advocate Ardra Shephard's award-winning blog, Tripping on Air. Twenty-three-year-old…
Ardra Shephard is sleeping with the wrong guy, living in a crappy apartment, and spending money she doesn't have on designer shoes, boozy brunches and weekends in NYC. She hates her office job, but it pays for the lessons she needs to make it as an opera singer. She isn't thrilled about her current situation, but she isn't panicked. She knows she's got time! Making mistakes while you figure stuff out is what your twenties are all about. But then when a doctor tells Ardra she has MS, those two letters split her life into a Before and After. While over a million people in Canada and the United States live with Multiple Sclerosis, there is no certainty when it comes to the progression of the disease. By her mid-thirties, Ardra is struggling to walk, and it's terrifying. When she starts using mobility aids, she faces feelings of otherness and not belonging like never before. As Ardra's deepest fears keep coming true, she starts to learn the most important lesson: She's been sold a lie about disability--it isn't a fate worse than death. Having so far survived all of her worst-case scenarios, she begins to realize that a difficult life doesn't have to be a joyless life. Today, twenty years after her diagnosis, Ardra's journey isn't over. MS will always be a force to be reckoned with, but the woman Ardra is, day after day, is no longer negotiable. Fallosophy serves up wisdom like a seasoned bartender who's seen it all, and doesn't try to sugarcoat what it's really like to live with a progressive, disabling illness in a world that would rather not build a ramp.
Jesse is a sneakerhead without the sneakers. After his parents were killed in an accident three years ago, Jesse went…
to live with his grandfather, and it wasn't long before the insurance money ran out. That meant no money for new threads or fresh kicks. Now with summer in swing, Jesse has been saving for new sneakers. He'll finally be able to keep up with the rest of the kids at his school, especially his best friend, Tay Matthews, whose sneaker collection could be housed in a museum. But then his grandpa's WiFi is cut off and Jesse has to hand over his savings to pay the bill. It looks like Jesse's plan for new shoes is trashed. That's until nineteen-year-old smooth-talking Derick rolls into town. With new threads and a fresh ride, Derick shows the boys there's more than one way to get what you want. And Jesse must decide how much he is willing to pay. This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don't like to read!
What if we considered motherhood an organizing principle instead of a genre or subject?In her debut book of essays, Chantal…
Braganza considers the limits of understanding motherhood as identity or action alone, while reflecting on her upbringing as a daughter of Mexican and Indian immigrants and the first years of raising her two children. Inspired by the thinking of Dionne Brand, Maggie Nelson and Jacqueline Rose, she explores what shapes the things we reach for as we search for our family's place in the world. How do we tell our children who they are when we're still struggling to find that language to describe ourselves?Braganza weaves dreamlike memoir sections of her childhood—some memories, some myths passed down from her family in Vallarta, Mombasa, London, and Toronto—with urgent essays about migration, identity, and speech. She wrangles with the limits of language—finding that even fluency doesn't guarantee the ability to translate something for your children. She engages with the physicality of motherhood and loss, nourishment and violence. The questions that emerge are: Can we believe the people who have given us the story of who we are? And how do we craft that story for our own children?
In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin&’s influencer life, only to discover dark…
secrets hidden behind her social media façade. Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse. Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe&’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she&’s always envied. Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe&’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe&’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but. Haunted by Chloe&’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe&’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister&’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.
From a queer Muslim woman and artist, a generous, heartfelt and insightful memoir about family and finding the path to…
one's truest self.The youngest of three daughters, and the only one born in Canada soon after her parents' emigration from Iran, Roza Nozari began her life hungry for a sense of belonging. From her earliest years, she shared a passion for Iranian cuisine with her mother and craved stories of their ancestral home. Eventually they visited and she fell in love with Iran's sights and smells, and with the warm embrace of their extended family. Yet Roza sensed something was amiss with her mother's happy, well-rehearsed story of their original departure. As Roza grew older, this longing for home transformed into a desire for inner understanding and liberation. She was lit up by the feminist texts in her women's studies courses, and shared radical ideas with her mother—who in turn shared more of her past, from protesting for the Islamic revolution to her ambivalence about getting married. In All the Parts We Exile, Roza braids a tender narrative of her mother's life together with her own ongoing story of self, as she arrives at, then rejects, her queer identity, eventually finds belonging in queer spaces and within queer Iranian histories, and learns the truth about her family's move to Canada.
A powerful debut collection from an award-winning artist, public speaker, and poet.With propulsive, intimate stylings and an eye toward Black liberations,…
pop culture, sports, and familial fractures, Wires that Sputter meets the world with the posture of a portraitist and the deftness of a poet-as-acrobat, as seeker. Here in these wondrous poems is an attentiveness toward that which harrows as well as that which heals, toward the power of space-giving and fragmentation. Rupture and recovery, tribute and tribulation, a revivifying musicality, and room to breathe—all dapple these pages, where electricity manifests in every line.
For fans of American War and Cloud Atlas, a hauntingly beautiful and prescient debut novel set in a future where…
a renamed China is the sole global superpower and citizens can record and transfer memories between minds.When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers . . . In a far-off future ruled by the Qin Empire, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of recording and transmitting memories between minds. This technology gives birth to Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation: memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain. After the sudden passing of his mother, an unnamed narrator inherits a collection of banned memories from her Mindbank so dangerous that even possessing them places his freedom in jeopardy. Traversing genres, empires, and millennia, these memories once belonged to sumo wrestlers and social activists, armless swimmers and watchmakers, all struggling to survive amid the backdrop of Qin&’s ascent toward global dominance. Determined to release his mother's memories to the world before they are destroyed forever, the narrator will risk everything—even if the cost is his own life. Powerful and provocative, These Memories Do Not Belong to Us masterfully explores how governments and media manipulate history to control the collective imagination. It inspires us to see beyond the sheen of convenient truths, revealing stories of sacrifice and love that refuse to be eradicated.
Queenie meets Frying Plantain in this courageous coming-of-age story, set in the 1990s, about a mixed-race Black girl fighting for…
recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate.On the rain-swollen banks of the River Etsi in South Carolina, Ophelia Blue Rivers—six years old in 1992—catches frogs and stretches to reach the swaying sunflowers. She&’s an orphan raised in a rustic cabin by her Grandma Blue, a descendent of the Black Cherokee Freedmen. Caught in deep currents of history that she doesn&’t understand, she is, as her grandma says: &“half Black, half Cherokee, and all mixed up.&” While Ophelia may not always understand where she came from, there&’s no mistaking where she&’d rather be: caught in the warmth of Grandma Blue&’s cabin, listening to bedtime Cherokee legends as collard greens hiss in the frying pan. But one day, a tall stranger with a black denim jacket and a charming smile appears, and his arrival shatters Ophelia&’s world. She finds herself whisked away from all she knows to live with her Auntie Oba, the boisterous woman she had only met in rumours. So begins Ophelia&’s spirited, at times harrowing, search for home and family—a journey that takes her from a majority-white high school to the inner sanctum of a Black evangelical church to the throbbing dance floors of underground Southern clubs and to a final, devastating encounter with the scion of a wealthy, white family. She must ask herself: What does it mean to belong when the terms of that belonging come at such a high price? With dazzling language, keen insight, and an unforgettable voice, Black Cherokee is not only an astonishing novel but a profound meditation on race, identity, and coming of age from a major literary talent.
From bestselling author of the Misewa Saga series David A. Robertson, this is the essential guide for all Canadians to…
understand how small and attainable acts towards reconciliation can make an enormous difference in our collective efforts to build a reconciled country.52 Ways to Reconcile is an accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country. As much as non-Indigenous people want to walk the path of reconciliation, they often aren&’t quite sure what to do, and they&’re afraid of making mistakes. This book is the answer and the long overdue guide.The idea of this book is simple: 52 small acts of reconciliation to consider, one per week, for an entire year. They&’re all doable, and they&’re all meaningful. All 52 steps take readers in the right direction, towards a healthier relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and a time when we are past trauma. By following these steps, we can live in stronger and healthier communities equally, and respectfully, together.