A note to US-based customers: All Lit Up is pausing print orders to the USA until further notice. Read more
All Books
All Books in this Collection
Showing 1953–1968 of 9492 results
-
Dead Salmon Dialectics
$16.95Drawing on scientific studies of salmon recycling in perhumid rainforests, Dead Salmon Dialectics follows the dark and often humorous trial of a young biologist at work in the wildest estuaries of the rainiest place on earth. Written for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the historic Lyell Island logging blockades on Xaaydaa Gwaay, these poems form a musicolous bricolage out of a mesothermal wordstream, sampling ideas of unequal value toward a cohesion of ecological and ecoliterary integrity. Filled with thousands of rotting carcasses, rain, swirls of phosphorescent algae, rain, night-fishing bears, local sledneck debutantes, the marvel of raven song, rain and near misses by giant falling trees, Dead Salmon Dialectics is an interdisciplinary experiment for the senses and the synapses. While they challenge passive readers to activate and participate, the poems set the visceral beauty of coastal rainforest music to the unavoidable slippery realities of hard science, technology and philosophy.
-
Dead White Men
$18.95A vital collection that interrogates the stories of the dead white men that litter our histories and landscapes.
Juxtaposing the seemingly benign names of Europeans that permeate our geographies with the details of their so-called discoveries and conquests, Dead White Men turns ideas of exploration, discovery, finding and keeping back upon themselves. Engaging with exploration and scientific texts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries – texts wrapped up in the history and ongoing present of colonization – this collection builds a fascinating poetry of memory out of histories that are largely forgotten.
‘A provocative and galvanizing read … Riveting and dazzling invention is visible on almost every page: fonts shift size, language cascades and cleaves, and images disrupt order. Dead White Men should be widely read and taught.’
– Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning
‘Dead White Men is not only a searing indictment of colonialism but also a painful reminder of the violence that underpins the logic of exploration. Each poem strikes at the heart of the issue: there are often unarticulated, unacknowledged Indigenous presences here that have been flattened over by the lies and mirages of empty landscapes. Dead White Men is a stinging and difficult journey, and one that continues to remind us that stolen land has always been the most pressing concern for Indigenous peoples and settlers. This is an absolutely essential book.’
– Jordan Abel, author of Injun
-
Dead White Writer on the Floor
$17.95Dead White Writer on the Floor uses two literary conventions—theatre of the absurd and mystery novels—to create one of the funniest and thought-provoking plays ever about identity politics. In Act One, six “savages”; noble, innocent, ignorant, fearless, wise and gay, respectively; find themselves in a locked room with the body of a white writer, which they stash in a closet. None of them can figure out how he died or which of them might have killed him. They realize as they point fingers at each other, however, that they are all profoundly unhappy with their lives as they’ve been constructed over the past four hundred years: Old Lodge Skins wants to know what it feels like to be a young man; Billy Jack wonders what spreading healing rather than pain would feel like; Injun Joe is desperate for an education; Kills Many Enemies is exhausted by his deadly seriousness and yearns for a sense of humour; Pocahontas seeks to feel respected as a woman rather than lusted after as a child sex object; and Tonto wants to “come out of the canyon” and be the one wearing the mask for a change. Gradually, they figure out that the latest iteration of Gutenberg’s invention buzzing like a beehive on the dead writer’s desk is actually a dream-catcher, which they can use to rewrite their lives in the image of their own inner beings.
Imagine their surprise when they reappear in the same locked room in Act Two as Mike, Jim, Bill, John, Sally and Fred—attending an A.A. meeting and bickering among themselves about reserve politics, unmanageable family relationships and whether Bingo has a place in their new air-conditioned casino—and realize the white writer must still be very much alive in their community; his body in the closet is still warm!
-
Dead Writers
$23.95In this collaborative omnibus-style fiction project, four writers navigate the protean concept of the “bargain” in novella-length stories. The lives of a biographer surveying the career of a “haunted” literary figure, a lovelorn journalist entering into a diabolic covenant, a tourist attempting to stay sober through her holiday travels, and a doctor’s complicity in a colonial scandal, stand side to side within this macro-narrative of interlocking themes.
These horror-inflected offerings of existential dread, tainted pasts, and uncertain futures serve as an unbalancing reminder that there is always a high price to pay for the corruption of the soul. -
Deadly Frontiers
$18.95Disaster can strike without notice. In a split-second the forces of nature, human intervention, or a simple twist of fate can place lives in jeopardy. A ship sinks, a plane crashes, a child wanders deep into the forest. Death is imminent, except for the bravery and persistence of small groups of men and women who enter these dark frontiers as rescuers. Of course they fail sometimes — but often they return with the near dead, plucking them from the hungry jaws of disaster. Written by veteran newsman Dean Beeby, Deadly Frontiers: Disaster and Rescue on Canada’s Atlantic Seaboard tells the stories of real-life heroes, and of the bureaucracy and bungling that threaten their lives and those they have sworn to save.
In Deadly Frontiers, Dean Beeby deals with the chilling question of Canada’s preparedness for disaster, as he investigates the most significant events in the contemporary history of search and rescue. Canada occupies a unique position in the rarified world of search and rescue. The second-largest country on the planet, Canada has three jagged coastlines, an immense internal wilderness, and a vast Arctic to swallow hapless travellers. Since the Second World War, Canada’s East Coast has been the crucible for modern search-and-rescue techniques and equipment. This hard-won experience has been driven mostly by disaster, from the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig off Newfoundland to numerous cargo-vessel disappearances in the 1990s, including the Protektor, Gold Bond Conveyor, Marika, and Vanessa. Ground search and rescue, a special branch of this culture, was reborn in 1986 during the protracted search for a lost child in the forests north of Halifax. Swissair Flight 111 plunged into waters off Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia in 1998, triggering a massive search-and-recovery effort, as well as a fundamental rethinking of emergency response. The worst disaster within the search-and-rescue community itself was the 1998 crash in Quebec of a Labrador helicopter from Greenwood, Nova Scotia, leaving six rescue specialists dead among the charred wreckage.
In Deadly Frontiers, author Dean Beeby examines official documents, forensic evidence, and the personal histories of those involved in these cases and more. His book is a frank examination of how Canada’s tragedies and triumphs have helped forge a professional search-and-rescue culture that is second to none.
-
Deadly Loyalties
$16.95Blaise is a fairly average Native girl growing up in Winnipeg and dealing with the normal triggers of teenage angst?parents, school, friends. Then her best friend is murdered by the Reds, a local gang, and she is the only witness. For protection, she turns to a rival gang called the West Bloods and her life changes forever. She must quickly learn to navigate the violent and often volatile world of street gangs to survive or succumb to the same fate as her friend. An engrossing and compelling coming of age story depicting the gritty and often gruesome realities of life on the streets, Deadly Loyalties is an open and honest look at the violence and pressures teenagers face when trying to belong.
-
Deadly Neighbours
$26.00On a cold night in February, 1884, just metres north of the border on Sumas Prairie, BC, an Indigenous boy named Louie Sam was lynched by a mob of mounted vigilantes. The vigilantes had ridden up from Nooksack Valley in Washington Territory, hell-bent on avenging the murder of one of their neighbours, which they had pinned on Sam. The American origin of the mob, and the fact that Sam’s murder was one of only two recorded lynchings in Canadian history, have led historians and writers to represent it as an isolated and foreign incident–disconnected from people and events north of the border and an aberration from the norm of Canadian history.
When placed within the historical context of that time and place, the vigilante murder of Sam no longer appears to be an isolated and foreign incident. Rather, it emerges as the result of a series of events and causes on both sides of the border, with the active participation of locals in both BC and Washington Territory. Deadly Neighbours takes a closer look at the lynching, and in so doing reveals a more complex and disturbing chronicle of the deadly grip the leading White settlers in Nooksack and Sumas held over the area–and most notably, over their Indigenous neighbours.
-
Dear Black Girls
$17.95Dear Black girls all around the world, this one is for you — for us.
Dear Black Girls is a letter to all Black girls. Every single day poet and educator Shanice Nicole is reminded of how special Black girls are and of how lucky she is to be one. Illustrations by Kezna Dalz support the book’s message that no two Black girls are the same but they are all special–that to be a Black girl is a true gift. In this celebratory poem, Kezna and Shanice remind young readers that despite differences, they all deserve to be loved just the way they are.
-
Dear Evelyn
$19.95WINNER OF THE 2018 ROGERS WRITERS’ TRUST FICTION PRIZE • WINNER OF THE 2019 CITY OF VICTORIA BUTLER BOOK PRIZE • A 2018 KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2018 • A TORONTO STAR TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A QUILL & QUIRE BEST BOOK OF 2018
Inspired by the author’s family history, this forthright love story unflinchingly portrays the trials and tensions of a lifelong marriage.
Born between the wars on a working-class street in London, Harry Miles wins a scholarship to an exclusive school and with it a chance to escape his station. Instead he falls in love with poetry, and though his teachers encourage him to attend university, he’s tired of scholarship’s dull routines. He takes an entry-level job and spends his free time among the poetry volumes at Battersea Public Library
One afternoon on his way up the stairs, Harry encounters the enigmatic Evelyn Hill. The daughter of an alcoholic layabout, the young woman chafes against the idea of marriage—but during a summer spent wandering the commons and taking in plays with Harry, their relationship begins to bloom in the shadow of the Second World War. Before they know it, Harry is headed into battle and the couple faces the first of many challenges in what will become a lifetime spent together.
Drawing on original wartime letters written by the author’s father, Dear Evelyn reckons with the shifting tides of marriage, exploring how two people shape one another over the course of a lifetime. This compelling account that will leave its mark on any reader who has ever loved.
-
Dear Ghost,
$18.00Catherine Owen’s latest collection is an extended love letter to her poetic influences and to the real-world objects, people, places and situations that fascinate her. Inspired by the work of John Ashbery, among others, in Dear Ghost, Owen returns to the kooky imagery and humorous style she last visited with her award-winning collection Frenzy. These poems entertain immensities of sound while plumbing the depths of the psyche’s surrealities, content to enter a dreamlike realm where meaning is found in the nonsensical, the utterly human and the everyday. While Owen gathers her subjects from the mundane?work, sex, acquaintances and art?she imbues them with the extraordinary quirks and uncertainties that only language can create, and the effects are dizzying.
-
Dear Hearts
$22.95Finalist, 2021 High Plains Book Award for Short Stories
Dear Hearts is a collection of character-driven stories that are whimsical, sometimes magical, unsentimental yet poignant, and focus on the ways in which girls and women who were teenagers in the 1960s experienced the changing cultural values shaped by feminism. Many of them are about the experiences of young women in high school and university, and explore their response to changing sexual mores. The characters are hearts of longing caught in the irony of the times, transitioning from the sixties right up to the present. Stories are presented in five parts: Tender Hearts, Geneva Stories, Surreal Hearts, Janet Stories and Sorry Hearts and reveal characters with a sense of longing and poignancy yet strength and quirkiness, too.
-
Dear Humans
$18.95The Earth is changing fast. Polar Bear’s ice is melting. Gazelle’s savanna is turning into a desert. Sea Turtle’s waters are poisoned. How bad is it? The animals gather to talk. When they realize that humans are behind the destruction, they must act quickly. Could they send them to another planet? Maybe the humans need their help? The animals write a letter to remind humans how they were meant to live on this Earth. And how to turn things around before it’s too late.
-
Dear Humans
$23.95Dear Humans brings together an intriguing cast of characters, ranging from a disgruntled recent PhD graduate to a young woman growing a unicorn horn. With her signature dry wit, Hollie Adams shines as the fantastic meets the hyper realistic in this brand new collection of short stories.
-
Dear Johnny Deere
$18.95WINNER OF THE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A MUSICAL AND OUTSTANDING DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL AT THE 2015 BETTY MITCHELL AWARDS!
“When he met her she was a beauty queenWho wanted something more.Now she’s hanging out with himIn front of the liquor store.”
It’s hard enough for Johnny and his wife Caroline to keep their farm afloat when the banks, the government, technology, and nature itself all seem in collusion against them. But when an old high school classmate–now a handsome land speculator–returns to town, Johnny and Caroline’s marriage is at stake as well.
In the short time since its premiere at the Blyth Festival in 2012, Ken Cameron’s Dear Johnny Deere has established itself as a new Canadian musical-theatre classic. With more than a dozen songs by alt-country singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith woven through the action, Dear Johnny Deere is a warm-hearted, tough-minded piece of entertainment that will appeal to theatregoers and Fredheads alike.
Praise for Dear Johnny Deere:
“Dear Johnny Deere will resonate with many. The soul of the songs will certainly captivate. The comedy will tickle. And the underlying issues that inform the plot may even make some people take pause.”
–Lennie MacPherson, The Guardian (Charlottetown)
“Hauntin’, heartwarmin’, heartbreakin’, and just plain funny. An outstanding new play.”
–Joe Belanger, London Free Press -
Dear Leader
$17.95I’m ill-equipped
  for this. I sit
    by a fake fireplacethat frames a real flame.
  I’ve been crossed
    by two crows today.‘Multi-vectored, Rogers’s poems hum with life and tension, their speaker poised as mother, seer, reporter and daughter. They speak of loss and cold realities (misplaced charms of luck, a tour of an assisted-living facility, coins thrown into Niagara Falls). They also interweave dreams and visions: “O Lion, I am / an old handmaiden; I will not lay the pretty baby in the lap / of the imposter.?* Simple but evocative, at once strange and plain, Rogers’s poems of address ricochet off the familiar “Dear Reader?* or Dickinson’s “Dear Master?* … Rogers’s poems provide instructions for what to leave, what to take and what to fight. They act as selvage between the vast mother-ocean — the mem of memory — and the fabric we make of the uncertain in-between.’
— Hoa Nguyen, The Boston Review
‘How can we live with the kind of pain that worsens each day? Dear Leader explains through bold endurance, enumerated blessings and the artistic imagination. By pasting stark truths over, or under, images of strange, compelling beauty, Rogers creates a collage, a simulation of the human heart underassault, bleeding but unbroken. Part Orpheus, part pop-heroine who can “paint the daytime black,?* all, an original act of aesthetic violence and pure, dauntless, love.’
— Lynn Crosbie
’In Dear Leader, Damian Rogers re-invents the same-old poetic lyric to offers us one-of-a-kind insights on childbirth and party bars, rolling blackouts and old rock standards. Here, what looks at first like familiar language always reveals itself to be a rare mineral. And that’s the magic: this is a poetry that refuses to be staged or to succumb to cliché or mannerism, insisting on celebration and condemnation, caution and cosmic vibrations. “Say you’re a poet,?* Rogers advises us, tongue-in-cheek, “Maybe you mean / Hi, I have a lot of feelings.?* Striking that balance between one-liners and mourning is no small feat.‘
—Trillium Award Jury Citation
Praise for Paper Radio:
‘Paper Radio jumped out at me and I can’t say why, but that’s what you want poetry to do, and I never want to say why. Because it’s real and talking to me. Because it’s bloody and horrifying beauty. It’s the Clash and Buckminster Fuller, Auden and Bowie.’
— Bob Holman
-
Death and the Intern
$19.95Shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize
Scrubs meets The Maltese Falcon and The Crying of Lot 49
Janwar Gupta, a brilliant but neurotic medical student intern, has a patient die under suspicious circumstances during his placement at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. Certain of his innocence, Janwar bumbles his way through an amateur investigation of two feuding groups of anaesthesiologists and navigates a romance with journalism student and barista Susan Jonestown, who is investigating a drug trafficking conspiracy involving the Hells Angels and a network of dog walkers that leads back to Janwar’s colleagues at the hospital.
Featuring an ensemble cast of unscrupulous, high-strung, and hilarious characters, Death and the Intern twists and subverts the hospital drama and hard-boiled detective genres with equal parts humour and pathos.
“It’s a page-turning crime novel with a shot of dark comedy and enough medical jargon to keep things interesting… A successful first novel from Jeremy Hanson-Finger and great summer beach read.”—Winnipeg Review