Ronnie Riley learned through social media that their first novel was facing censorship. Riley was scrolling late one evening when they saw what appeared to be a leaked school memo. Their middle-grade book about a non-binary pre-teen named Jude was one of four 2SLGBTQIA+ books that Ontario’s Waterloo Catholic District School Board was trying to […] More »

…Everything Remains Raw: Photographing Toronto’s hip hop culture from analogue to digital By Mark V. Campbell Goose Lane Editions, $35.00 Mark V. Campbell’s …Everything Remains Raw is an in-depth look at Toronto’s burgeoning hip-hop scene from the 1980s until present day. It also explores how the city helped mold hip-hop culture. The book is a collection of […] More »

The Femme Playlist & I Cannot Lie to the Stars That Made Me Catherine Hernandez Playwrights Canada Press, $18.95 Catherine Hernandez is an award-winning author and activist who has dedicated her career to promoting, capturing, and performing the stories of women of colour. The Femme Playlist & I Cannot Lie to The Stars That Made […] More »

An Ocean of Minutes By Thea Lim Viking, $24.95 In Thea Lim’s An Ocean of Minutes, Polly Nader time-travels to the future to work off medical debts for her boyfriend, Frank, who needs a life-saving treatment. She plans to reunite with him after her work as a bonded labourer is done. However, Polly is rerouted […] More »

The Showrunner By Kim Moritsugu Dundurn Press, $17.99 In Kim Moritsugu’s seventh novel, she introduces us to three fearless, ambitious women who will do just about anything to stay relevant in a capricious industry. The dialogue between the characters is quick, playful, and biting, and Moritsugu has a knack for making a story feel like […] More »

In this excerpt, Colleen Cardinal tells her story of being a child of the Sixties Scoop when she and 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their homes to be placed in foster care or were adopted. There was a huge disparity between how us girls and our adoptive brother were treated. As a […] More »

Adjacentland By Rabindranath Maharaj Buckrider Books, $22.00 “Today is a new day but yesterday was the same day.” Adjacentland is a twisted story of a man’s journey to discover who he is after waking up in an institution with no memory and only odd clues within letters and drawings to guide his way. As each […] More »

Shrewed By Elizabeth Renzetti House of Anansi, $22.95 In Shrewed, Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti asks the questions many of us ask as women: Why are there so few women in politics? Why must we feel unsafe in public spaces? Will things always be this way? However, the collection of essays really shines when […] More »

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 »