Defying Expectations: The Case of UFCW Local 401 By Jason Foster Athabasca University Press, $34.95 Defying Expectations: The Case of UFCW Local 401 is a book about success. In it, Edmonton’s Jason Foster, an associate professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University and former director of policy analysis at the Alberta Federation […] More »

This Will Be Good By Mallory Tater Book*hug, $18.00 Praise for This Will Be Good, written by Mallory Tater—a writer from the Algonquin Anishnaabeg Nation (Ottawa)—is thanks to flowing prose that evokes strong emotions. Unabashedly covering topics such as eating disorders, sexuality, and death, Tater’s stylistic voice paints a vivid portrait of a child growing […] More »

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures By Jen Neale ECW Press, $18.95 Despite the title of Jen Neale’s debut magic realist novel, it’s the Birds who dominate this story. Julie Bird returns to her coastal B.C. hometown to prevent her father, Marty—struggling with PTSD—from his long-desired self-destruction. When a stranger from Marty’s past arrives the day […] More »

On June 15, 1983, Dr. Henry Morgentaler opened an illegal abortion clinic in Toronto. The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) had chosen a spot on the second floor of a lovely Victorian house on Harbord Street, a quiet downtown thoroughfare lined with bookstores and cafés near the University of Toronto. With the Toronto Women’s […] More »

“Your address?” she asks. We’re talking on the telephone. “Post Office Box 3, McCallum, Newfoundland, A0H 2J0,” I reply. “Would you like me to spell McCallum for you?” “I need your street address, sir.” “I’m sorry, I don’t have one.” “I need the street name and number on the building you want us to send […] More »

Little Fish By Casey Plett Arsenal Pulp Press, $19.95 In her debut novel, Little Fish, Lambda Literary Award-winner Casey Plett tells a heartbreaking but hopeful story about time, identity, and the intricate relationships that tie people together. The events of Little Fish take place during a Winnipeg winter, and Plett does an extraordinary job of […] More »

The next morning, which is really just hours later, we arrive at Monte’s county hospital room which is located in the prison wing. He is being guarded by two members of the Los Angeles Police Department. Before we enter the room they nonchalantly tell me pieces of my brother’s story: We thought he was on […] More »

The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History By Aida Edemariam Knopf Canada, $34.00 The Wife’s Tale is an uncommon memoir that reads more like an epic, spanning decades of Ethiopia’s rich and tumultuous history, as well as one woman’s journey. It’s written by Aida Edemariam, a Canadian-Ethiopian journalist and the granddaughter of the book’s protagonist, who collected years’ […] More »

Liminal By Jordan Tannahill House of Anansi Press, $22.95 Destabilizing from its opening pages, Liminal by Jordan Tannahill places readers firmly between life and death, fact and fiction, consciousness and unconsciousness. A quasi-fictional version of the author’s own life, the main character, Jordan, finds his mother in bed. Unsure if she is dead or asleep, […] More »

Floating City  By Kerri Sakamoto Knopf Canada, $29.95 Floating City by Kerri Sakamoto—who was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for The Electrical Field—gives a voice to Japanese-Canadians during post-WWII. Loosely inspired by Richard Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao’s plans for Project Toronto, Sakomoto takes readers on Frankie’s journey from the coasts of B.C. […] More »

Most of all, though, the girl in the photos made me long for beauty. All we think we know of Palestine is its ugliness. Palestine is a place of despairing grey broken only by the red of blood and flame. But the girl in Gaza was beautiful in the way all children are beautiful, and more […] More »