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 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 »

Prepare your bookshelves! This year, This contributors past and present have been working hard to publish some incredible reads, including non-fiction, fiction, and poetry collections. Here’s what in store for 2018 from our friends at This—and you won’t want to miss any of them! Marry, Bang, Kill Andrew Battershill Goose Lane Editions, March 6, 2018 Our fiction editor’s […] More »

The Amateurs By Liz Harmer Knopf Canada, $32.95 In The Amateurs, the first novel by Liz Harmer, a space travel device called “Port” has been created by PINA, the world’s largest tech company. Urged by nostalgia and longing, consumers are quick to use the portal to revisit their youth or to explore their futures; however, […] More »

Hard to Do: The Surprising, Feminist History of Breaking Up By Kelli María Korducki Coach House, $13.95 Hard To Do: The Surprising, Feminist History of Breaking Up, by National Magazine Award-nominated journalist Kelli María Korducki, is a lifeline for women navigating expectations, standards, and break-ups in today’s liberated, but uncharted, relationships. Using examples from history, […] More »

Sodom Road Exit By Amber Dawn Arsenal Pulp Press, $21.95 Returning to Ontario’s Crystal Beach after dropping out of university and accumulating a fair amount of debt in Toronto, Starla Mia Martin doesn’t plan on sticking around her birthplace forever. Her viewpoint quickly changes when she encounters Etta, the paranormal product of a tragic death […] More »