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Fiction | Non-Fiction | Poetry

Fiction

The Story of Bobby O’Malley
Wayne Johnston

This is the best first novel to come out of the Atlantic Provinces since David Adams Richards published The Coming of Winter in 1974. Bobby O’Malley grew up as a Catholic in Newfoundland, in the small town of Kellies, the only son of the local weatherman and a schoolteacher. His memories cluster around the houses they lived in, the schools he went to, the uncles and aunts and cousins he knew as a boy. This is an extremely funny book and the account of how Ted O’Malley repaired the plumbing is likely to become a classic of its kind. It is also a warm and touching book. As a picture of its time, it is clear, true and absolutely unforgettable. Twentieth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 192 pages, cover by Herzl Kashetsky
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 610 9  


The Story of Bobby O’Malley


Related Titles:
The Time of their Lives




Dance Me Outside
W.P. Kinsella

Dance Me OutsideThis is the book that inspired the motion-picture directed by Bruce McDonald and produced by Norman Jewison, starring Ryan Black and Adam Beach. When it first came out, Dance Me Outside broke entirely new ground and it’s as fresh today as the day it was written. Kinsella refuses to take a tragic (he would call it sentimental) view of native life. His view is unrepentantly comic and his stories are extremely funny. Not that he laughs at the expense of the natives. On the contrary, it is the white man and his civilization that are seen to be absurd. Kinsella is known all over the country for books like Scars and Born Indian and for the classic film, Field of Dreams. But Dance Me Outside is still his best, a classic of its kind, chaste, infectious, irresistible. Now in its seventieth printing.

8 by 5 by 158 pages, cover by Kent Munkman
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 224 8  




Related Titles:
Born Indian
Scars
Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa




Chokecherry
Norma Hawkins

Chokecherry is the quintessential Prairie novel. Becky arrives as a young bride with her newly-ordained husband to take over the parish. This is their story. They learn to cope with outside plumbing and a car they drive with one hand on the horn. Becky learns to play the organ, with one finger at first. She turns out the parish newsletter on a rickety mimeograph machine. She pours tea at every bazaar and rummage sale. She deals as well as she can with the pastoral visits of the bishop. Norma Hawkins is herself the wife of a clergyman, but she thinks of this delightful book as her first novel. Eleventh printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 144 pages
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1040 1  

Currently out of stock.
Chokecherry





The Time of their Lives
Wayne Johnston

The Time of their LivesReaders of The Story of Bobby O’Malley waited eagerly for the appearance of a second novel by Wayne Johnston. The Time of their Lives is that novel: the chronicle of three generations in the life of a pioneer family in Newfoundland. Born in Harbour Deep, Grandfather Dad and Grandmother Mom were married and moved to the meadows, where they built a homestead and cleared the land. Children came, grew up and left. Grandchildren moved to the cities and finally Dad is left alone on his abandoned farm. The colours are darker here than they were in Bobby O’Malley, but The Time of their Lives has all the richness of humour and force of imagination that have made Wayne Johnston one of Canada’s best-known writers.

8.5 by 5.5 by 194 pages, cover by Janet Moore
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 692 5  

Currently out of stock.


Related Titles:
The Story of Bobby O’Malley




Road to the Stilt House
David Adams Richards

In this, the fourth of David Adams Richards’ classic Miramichi novels, the dense, recurring rhythms of his prose perfectly match the dark strong colours of his vision. In Richards’ fiction poverty, hatred and despair become something quite different: transformed and transfigured by an extraordinary imagination, they acquire a meaning and beauty of their own. David Adams Richards has won both the Governor General’s Award (twice) and the Giller Prize.


$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 575 1  

Currently out of stock.
Road to the Stilt House





The Elizabeth Stories
Isabel Huggan

The Elizabeth StoriesElizabeth grows up in a small town, perhaps in Ontario, a banker’s daughter living but not living in the world of split- levels and two-car garages. If she is to survive, as she does, she must not only find but also assert herself. “Small pockets,” she remembers long afterwards, “small pockets of defiance multiplied beneath my surface … preparing me for that final escape.” The struggle is dark and desperate, but there’s also much to laugh at in Garten. If growing up is painful, it’s also extremely funny. Thirteenth printing, also now published in the USA, the UK, France and Spain.

8 by 5 by 192 pages, cover by Aline Martineau
$21.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 520 1  







Scars
W.P. Kinsella

We’ve heard more than enough about the white man’s guilt, the rape of the West by wheat farmers and oilmen, more than enough about the red man’s innocence, his love for the earth and all its fruits. Kinsella’s stories aren’t like that. He has no illusions about Indians, and none about white men either. His favourite characters—Frank Fencepost, Sadie One-wound, Rufus Firstrider, Mad Etta—all come from the Hobbema reserve near Edmonton: no Eden this, but a place of birth and death, a place of truth and laughter. Now in its thirty-eighth printing.

8.5 by 4.5 by 154 pages
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 286 6  


Scars


Related Titles:
Born Indian
Dance Me Outside
Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa




Born Indian
W.P. Kinsella

Born IndianIt’s hard to believe that only twenty-odd years ago the name of W.P. Kinsella meant little or nothing to readers of Canadian fiction. Dance Me Outside, a collection of stories about the Indian reserve near Hobbema in central Alberta, changed all that. Then came Scars and then Born Indian, a third collection of stories about such old friends as Silas Ermineskin, Frank Fencepost and Mad Etta. Comedy is rare in Canadian writing and Kinsella is treasured above all for his sense of humour. He also knows how to tell a story, which makes him a delightful companion in any season. Thirty-eighth printing.

8 by 5 by 163 pages, cover by Allen Sapp
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 381 8  




Related Titles:
Dance Me Outside
Scars
Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa




Halfway Man
Wayland Drew

“My name is Travis Niskigwun. I belong in the north—on the shore of Lake Superior and in the Shield beyond. I belong where lakes are still eyes of the earth, and where the shadows of invisible beings move on the snow in moonlight. I belong where there are spirits still.” This gentle, moving novel is about the northern wilderness: what it holds to be most real, what happens when the white man moves in and what remains when he leaves. Wayland Drew is a cool, beautiful writer who cares deeply about words and the world they help to shape. Fifteenth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 219 pages, cover by Michael Robinson
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 741 0  


Halfway Man





Black Madonna
F.G. Paci

Black MadonnaThe story begins with the death of Babbo, whom readers will remember from The Italians (now out of print), and ends with the death of his widow, the black madonna. Joey and his sister are left alone, without a past or a future, naked in a world to which neither of them quite belongs. Widely used as a school and college text. Twelfth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 208 pages
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 420 4  

Currently out of stock.


Related Titles:
Losers
The Son




Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa
W.P. Kinsella

Twenty-five years ago W.P Kinsella brought us the manuscript that became Dance Me Outside, sad, funny, true-to-life stories about what it’s like to be an Indian in a white man’s world. The book delighted readers everywhere, as did Scars, which came out a year later. In this third collection Kinsella shows that he can work equally well in a variety of forms. There are funny stories, mysterious stories, stories about ballplayers, stories about lovers (one day at a time)—stories of all kinds united only by Kinsella’s easy, natural style and graceful good humour. Sixteenth printing.

8 by 5 by 153 pages, cover by Joseph Devellano
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 343 6  


Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa


Related Titles:
Born Indian
Dance Me Outside
Scars




Candyman
Simone Poirier-Bures

CandymanCandyman is the story of an Acadian family living in Halifax in the nineteen-fifties. This was an innocent time, a time of corner stores, a time of penny candy, a time when a girl could be proud of being known as the Candyman’s daughter. Times change, girls grow up, innocence gives way to experience. But the family survives and so does the love that holds it together. “A timeless and memorable story”— Atlantic Books Today. “Beautifully written”— Fredericton Daily Gleaner. Tenth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 157 pages, cover by Mendelson Joe
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 978 0  

Currently out of stock.





Bloodflowers
W.D. Valgardson

Until W.D. Valgardson won the President’s Medal for “Bloodflowers” thirty-odd years ago he wasn’t widely known for his fiction. This collection appeared soon after and in the next two years it went through three consecutive printings. In 1973, Valgardson published a second volume of stories, God Is Not a Fish Inspector, and five years later a third, Red Dust. All three were remarkably successful. An Icelander by birth, he writes of the primitive realities that determine the issue of survival. The title story is set in Newfoundland, the others in northern Manitoba. Valgardson’s prose is bare and straightforward, but there’s nothing naïve about his evocation of the themes of violence, hatred and fear. Valgardson has no water in his whisky. “This collection should quickly establish Valgardson as an important new voice on the Canadian literary scene” — Edmonton Journal. “A very remarkable talent” — Canadian Forum. Seventeenth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 124 pages, cover by Alfred Pellan
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 086 2  

Currently out of stock.
Bloodflowers





New Orleans is Sinking
Mark Anthony Jarman

New Orleans is SinkingA collection from the author of Salvage King Ya! Stories the reviewers have called “dizzyingly energetic” and “wonderfully fierce and funny.” Stories that reflect a mind that travels in unexpected, provocative ways, conjuring up dark, rich images. Jarman has been nominated for the Journey Prize six times. His narrative voice “is a kind of North American poetry, fueled by booze, drugs, sex, landscape and violence . . . and raving with lyrical desire, despair and, above all, humour. At its best, this is rich in comic moments”— Saturday Review. Third printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 122 pages, cover by Janet Moore
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1090 6  
$39.95  (cloth)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1089 0  




Related Titles:
Coming Attractions 02
Coming Attractions 03
Coming Attractions 04
Coming Attractions 05
Coming Attractions 06
Coming Attractions 07
Coming Attractions 08
Coming Attractions 09
Coming Attractions 10
Coming Attractions 11
Coming Attractions 12
Coming Attractions 13
Coming Attractions 14
Coming Attractions 15
Coming Attractions 16




Non-Fiction

Death in the Barren Ground:
The Diary of Edgar Christian
Edited by George Whalley

The diary of Edgar Christian is a Canadian classic, reissued here in a completely new edition almost 30 years after its first Oberon publication. Edgar Christian was one of a party of three—the others were John Hornby and Harold Adlard—who spent the winter of 1926-27 in a cabin on the Thelon River, living off the land. All three died of starvation. Hornby died first, then Adlard, leaving Christian, a boy of eighteen, alone in the wilderness. When RCMP constables reached the site more than two years later, they found three bodies and a message reading LOOK IN STOVE. There they found a notebook containing the diary of Edgar Christian. The diary was later published in England, but never available in Canada. The present version has been transcribed from the original and presented exactly as it was written, with an introduction by George Whalley, author of a biography of John Hornby. It makes an unforgettable story. Edgar Christian begins as an English schoolboy, looking for adventure and a chance to prove his courage. In the end he has become a man, alone, like the rest of us, in the presence of death.

8.5 by 5.5, cover by Robert Sinclair
$24.95  (paper)  192 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1350 1  

Currently out of stock.
Death in the Barren Ground





A Fly on the Curtain
Fred Euringer

A Fly on the CurtainThe early years of the Stratford Festival, summer stock at its craziest in the nineteen-fifties, the Canadian theatre coming to life. Fred Euringer saw all these things with a sharp eye, and his new book looks back at them with delight. His accounts of Tyrone Guthrie, Michael Langham, Christopher Plummer and Donald Sutherland, as they were known to a working actor and director, are both amusing and acute. This is what the great days were really like.

8.5 by 5.5 by 219 pages, cover by Egon Schiele
$24.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1142 2  
$45.95  (cloth)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1141 5  




Related Titles:
Night Noises




Notes Home from a Prodigal Son
Douglas Glover

This is a book of essays, lectures, dialogues and memoirs. They’re about “writers and writing I love,” as Douglas Glover himself puts it, “about history and an imaginary country called Canada—and about myself. In a sense, this book is the story of my life: my Loyalist ancestors, the tobacco farm where I grew up, my career as a newspaperman and later as an expatriate writer. In these essays, I’m trying to sort things out, to explain myself. I’m like one of those mediaeval mystics who believed that the world was the word of God made flesh.” Big words. Big ideas. Third printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 172 pages
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1135 4  
$39.95  (cloth)  ISBN 978 0 7780 1134 7  


Notes Home from a Prodigal Son


Related Titles:
01: Best Canadian Stories
03: Best Canadian Stories
04: Best Canadian Stories
05: Best Canadian Stories
06: Best Canadian Stories
The Enamoured Knight




One Who Came Back
Anita Mayer

One Who Came BackThousands of readers know the story of Anne Frank. Like Anne Frank, Anita Mayer spent several months in hiding from the Nazis. Her story begins where Anne Frank’s left off, with the arrest of her family by the Germans in August of 1944. She met Anne Frank in a Dutch concentration camp and later travelled with her to Auschwitz. But Anita Mayer survived to marry, raise a family and write this book. What is most impressive and moving about her story is not the horror of the camps, though that is vividly recalled, but her courage, her humour and her enduring love for her companions in suffering. Anita Mayer has waited many years to tell this story. She never forgives what was done to her and her family, but in the depth of her acceptance she finally triumphs over it. Fifth printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 110 pages, cover by Bedrich Fritta
$19.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 383 2  







The Trial of Louis Riel
John Coulter

Louis Riel was tried for treason and hanged in 1885. Since then he has never been forgotten by the Prairie settlers he led or by the French-Canadians who saw him as a symbol of their oppression. John Coulter’s play, based on the surviving records of the court, recreates with startling directness and candour the trial of Louis Riel as it took place in 1885. Widely used as a school and college text. Now in its twentieth printing. Almost 30,000 copies sold.

7.25 by 4.5 by 72 pages
$16.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 007 7  

Currently out of stock.
The Trial of Louis Riel





Poetry

Common Magic
Bronwen Wallace

Common MagicThe work of Bronwen Wallace begins with childhood, with the inherited past of family and farmland. Where does she come from, the poet asks, and where does she belong? Growing up doesn’t answer these questions, nor does love or marriage. Affirmation comes in action, and in Common Magic the poet is concerned above all with the politics of sex. Identity, for a woman, begins with the fact that she is a woman. Widely used as a school and college text. Eleventh printing.

8.5 by 5.5 by 87 pages, cover by Herzl Kashetsky
$18.95  (paper)  ISBN 978 0 88750 571 3  







Collected Poems
Raymond Souster

Raymond Souster has been in the thick of Canadian poetry for almost fifty years. His career began in a basement in the nineteen-fifties, printing poems on a mimeograph machine to give away to his friends. By 1964 he had won the Governor General’s Award for The Colour of the Times. By the turn of the millennium his poems were on the buses and taught in every Canadian school, and he was known to a whole new generation of readers. Many poems have been revised by the author for these editions. When completed, the series will demonstrate beyond question the depth and power of his total achievement.

8.5 by 5.5
Volume 1: $27.95  (paper)  328 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 345 0  
Volume 2: $27.95  (paper)  340 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 385 6  
Volume 3: $27.95  (paper)  360 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 425 9  
Volume 4: $27.95  (paper)  280 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 460 0  
Volume 5: $27.95  (paper)  317 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 517 1  
Volume 6: $27.95  (paper)  296 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 746 5  
Volume 7: $27.95  (paper)  291 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 887 5  
Volume 7: $49.95  (cloth)  291 pages  ISBN 978 0 88750 886 8  
Volume 8: $49.95  (cloth)  247 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1110 1  
Volume 9: $24.95  (paper)  184 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1241 2  
Volume 9: $45.95  (cloth)  184 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1240 5  
Volume 10: $27.95  (paper)  240 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1265 8  
Volume 10: $49.95  (cloth)  240 pages  ISBN 978 0 7780 1264 1  


Collected Poems

“This series should find a place on the shelves of every Canadian library”—Quill & Quire
“Souster’s importance to Canadian poetry cannot be overestimated”—Malahat Review
“A huge and impressive body of work”—Books in Canada

Related Titles:
Collected Poems Volume Nine: 1993-95
Collected Poems Volume Ten: 1996-00
Of Time & Toronto
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
Twenty-Three New Poems





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