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

  • That Gun In Your Hand

    That Gun In Your Hand

    $22.00

    This is the story of a song. Yet, it is a song that binds nearly every strand of 20th Century American popular music. “Hey Joe” was written sometime in the early 1960s by a man named Billy Roberts, an obscure singer and guitarist from South Carolina who moved to New York City, drawn by the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village. It was a time when new, original material was scarce, leading other singers to quickly adapt songs of quality in the spirit of folk music’s oral traditions. Thus began the long journey of “Hey Joe” from New York coffeehouses to the bars on L.A.’s Sunset Strip to the ears of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix who launched his career with his radical, electrified interpretation.

    Extensively researched, That Gun In Your Hand also presents previously unpublished information about the life of Billy Roberts, a shadowy figure whose 2017 death went unreported by all news outlets.

  • That House in Manawaka

    That House in Manawaka

    $14.95

    Canadian Fiction Studies are an answer to every librarian’s, student’s, and teacher’s wishes. Each book contains clear information on a major Canadian novel. Attractively produced, they contain a chronology of the author’s life, information on the importance of the book and its critical reception, an in-depth reading of the text, and a selected list of works cited. This volume examines A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence.

  • That Other Beauty

    That Other Beauty

    $19.00

    An exquisitely musical and meditative new voice in Canadian poetry.

    In her debut collection, Karen Enns’ focus is the beauty present to us in almost every moment, however mundane or apparently lost. Her argument is that the act of attention itself is the most fundamental of these beauties.

    And when the rooms were bare and windowless,
    and the winds came with their black rain and the darkness

    and the coats on nails like frameless men,
    the pockets hollow-mouthed, I wanted this:

    to see the shape of things completely,
    every darkness, every rise and fall, small breath.
    — from “Confession”

    That Other Beauty ranges across memories of a farm childhood, and further back, to the Mennonite exodus from Russia. We encounter immigrants, furnace repairmen and grocers, dead cats, a raven lifting into “the clear, bright density of rain.” Enns meditates on Bach, on solitude, and on exile both accidental and imposed, weaving darkness and light with great fidelity and authority.

  • That Singing You Hear at the Edges

    That Singing You Hear at the Edges

    $14.95

    This is a collection in which the unexpected is commonplace: “the” and “an” attend a 12-step group for co-dependents; the human tongue is exposed as “old amphibian”; and The Angel of You Made this Mess, Lie Down rises from tangled bedsheets. MacLeod works intimately, intricately, with the power of nuance, of detail. The dividing walls of time and place remain intact but approach transparency because of what turns visible — and audible — when we become still enough to hear the singing at the edges.

    Rooted in a particular life but looking outward, these poems express a full range of emotion. In the linked section, the gathering up of each wave before its breaking, a mother, a daughter and a Cape Breton village form a story that is both personal and archetypal: a blueprint for growing up — for “learning long/ division” in a vast and changing world.

    Two of the poems in this book have won national prizes: Arc’s Poem of the Year award, and Second Prize in the LCP’s National Poetry Contest. When the final poem, “Especially for a woman, reading,” was broadcast, listeners responded from across the country, asking: where can I get a copy? This book is the reply.

  • That Summer

    That Summer

    $17.95

    It’s Memorial Day, 1990, and Margaret Ryan has returned from Vermont to the Ontario cottage country where, thirty-two years before, she had vacationed with her disintegrating family at a lakeside resort. For herself and her sister Daisy, it was a time of awakening, a time of discovery.

    Both of the girls fall in love with two of the local boys. Daisy, on the lookout for action, cruising the dances at the resort, can’t deal with what she initiates, and falls victim to her own confusion and naiveté. Not even the neighbour, the eccentric, bourbon-drinking, cigar-smoking Mrs. Crump, who knows all the fairy-tale spells to capture the heart of a lover, can save Daisy from drowning in her own misadventure.

    At the same time, Margaret, bookish and withdrawn, inhabiting a universe defined by poets and novelists, is seduced in spite of herself.

    As Margaret, the narrator, watches Maggie, her younger self, relive the innocence and beauty of that summer, the play moves inexorably back to the heartbreak of a headlong surrender to experience, both won and lost in a single day.

    Cinematic in its feel and pacing, recalling the 1950s genre of Dirty Dancing and My American Cousin, That Summer is a meditation on what endures of fleeting moments over time.

    Cast of 5 women and 2 men.

  • That Summer in Provincetown

    That Summer in Provincetown

    $20.00

    Daniel, a young French-Vietnamese man, lies dying in a Montreal hospital. Spurned by his family for contracting AIDS in Provincetown, Daniel spends his last months in despair. Only his cousin Mai stays by his side to record the darkest of family secrets. From French Indochina to present day North America, this novel follows three generations of a Vietnamese family as they endure their own folly and the whims of history.

  • That Tune Clutches My Heart

    That Tune Clutches My Heart

    $24.95

    On the eve of her first day of senior high, May Sutherland’s mother gives her a diary in which to record her experiences. It’s 1948 and the entire student body at Magee High in Vancouver is divided according to their preference for Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. After losing her two best friends overnight, May struggles between her disdain for the debate and her loneliness as one of only a handful of neutrals.

    At home her parents, both university professors, are absorbed in their own work while maintaining the semblance of a happy household. Parked in front of the living-room console, May conducts an extensive comparison of the two singers, only to find her questions one day answered by a different kind of music altogether.

    The diary entries reveal May’s commitment to being genuine and truthful, and her attempts to match her parents’ poise while passing for a normal teenager in the process. In the often hilariously rigid turns of phrase with which May records her misunderstandings and attempts at maturity, Headrick captures the inner life of a good girl coming of age.

    “The mother of a friend of mine remembers a bitter conflict from her high-school days in the late forties,” says Headrick. “Apparently, the hostilities in those days between the young fans of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra make later battles between mods and rockers or punks and metalheads look like, well, kid stuff. I’m tempted to dismiss such conflicts; it’s easy for me to think of them as nothing more than expressions of an out-of-control will to belong and exclude. The story of the rivalry between the fans of the Crooner and the Swooner, however, got me thinking. One of my impulses in writing That Tune Clutches My Heart was to explore the idea that in some cases there is important substance behind what might seem like meaningless though very deeply felt antagonisms. May comes to believe that something complicated and crucial is involved, at least in the case of the battle between the Bingites and Frankians. The theories she comes up with, leading from music, to sex, to family, are for me a key part of the novel, and part of what makes me think of May as a hero.”

    This book is a smyth-sewn paperback. The text is typeset in Electra and printed offset on laid-finish paper making 160 pages trimmed to 4.5 by 7 inches, bound into a paper cover and enfolded in a letterpress-printed jacket. The jacket features an original illustration by Wesley Bates.

    Finalist for the 2009 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

  • That Woman

    That Woman

    $15.95

    The story of a woman (her name is never given), sent away from her family by her brother, the Bishop, after she is found exploring her sexuality at age seventeen. In a series of twenty-four “snapshots,” That Woman is a devastating Judeo-Christian allegory where voyeurism, fantasy, masturbation, seduction, violence and loss are revealed in fugue-like monologues by the three characters present on stage: a woman who was thirsty, her son who liked to laugh, and an old man who watched them. It is a play which makes the literal “patriarchal gaze” emanating from three fisheye holes into the most private rooms of the woman’s apartment the searing light which withers every impulse to joy and creation, and in which the Mary-Eve schizophrenia of the feminine archetype “wastes” the seed of the equally schizophrenic, celibate/dreamer-rapist/destroyer, male archetype of the patriarchal Catholic tradition.

  • That’ll Never Work Here

    That’ll Never Work Here

    $19.95

    Patty Wiens brings her inspiring story to the page with as much life and zest as she does in person. It’s impossible to read her improbable journey of finding her passion for cycling and her voice for change without getting drawn into her vortex of positive energy and hope. After reading this book you may wind up thinking, “Hey, maybe I can do this too.” — Tom Babin, author of Frostbike and founder of the YouTube channel, Shifter

    After 32 years of living in the sprawling winter city of Winnipeg and, like most Winnipeggers, relying on her personal vehicle to get around, Brazillian-Canadian Patty Wiens took a fateful bike ride one winter day. After that experience, Patty embraced cycling year-round, uncovering a wealth of unexpected benefits. Inspired by these experiences, she becomes a passionate advocate for safer streets and more transportation options for everyone. And before she knew it, she was named her city’s first Bicycle Mayor.

    Patty dreams of using active transportation as a tool to make Winnipeg a more equitable and safer city for all. With her global experience and open mind, she challenges the idea that what works elsewhere in the world could never work here. So jump on the bicyclewagon– she could use your help!

    That’ll Never Work Here is part of The City Project, a series edited by Emma and Michel Durand-Wood.

  • That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles

    That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles

    $17.95

    The bestselling popular science author reveals “the connections between what we teach in chemistry courses and the world in which . . . [we] live” (ChemEd X)

    Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from fiction, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners, and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are also discussed. Mythbusters include the fact that Edison did not invent the light bulb and that walking on hot coals does not require paranormal powers. The secret life of bagels is revealed, and airbags, beer, and soap yield their mysteries. These and many more surprising, educational, and entertaining commentaries show the relevance of science to everyday life.

    “A delightful and informative read. Dr. Schwarcz tells it like it is, whether the subject is light at heart or as weighty as death.” —The Cosmic Chemist

  • That’s Where You Were, Then

    That’s Where You Were, Then

    $22.95

    Jen begins life as a solitary and somewhat diabolical child growing up in a rural Nova Scotia, who comes up with – at best – unusual ways of dealing with an annoying baby brother, a depressed mother, a disappearing father, and frogs that should be toads. Through the linked stories of this collection, we follow Jen from the dilapidated and overstuffed house of her childhood to her adult life in Calgary as an addictions counselor, each story introducing a new dimension of her mystifying, wry, occasionally heartbreaking, and often funny journey through life. In prose rich in characterization and insight, That’s Where You Were, Then explores the places we’ve been and the baffling absurdities we encounter along the way.

  • The  Children’s War

    The Children’s War

    $22.95

    In his fourth collection, C. P. Boyko turnshis keen eye to the question of power—in schools and on campuses, in doctor’s offices and boardrooms, in triage tents and on the battlefield. A high-school math teacher tries too hard to be liked; childhood friends grow up and go to war for very different reasons; for purposes not entirely medical, a dentist hypnotizes a patient; management and workers struggle for control of a faltering factory; infantries comprised exclusively of women meet in battle; and undergraduates occupy a university president’s offfice, rallying beneath the flag of moral outrage.

    Moving effortlessly through a range of styles, from contemporary realist fiction and episodic adventures to three-act plays and polyvocal narratives, Boyko’s chameleon talents reveal the thread that binds his disparate characters and plots: the hunger to hold power and all the ways we are consumed by it. Clear-eyed but not cynical, satirical without being sarcastic, The Children’s War is as entertaining as it is insightful.

  • The “Mr. Big” Sting

    The “Mr. Big” Sting

    $24.95

    How the police create an imaginary criminal gang to trick homicide suspects into a confession and a prison cell

    There are people in prison who got away with murder until they told the boss of a powerful criminal gang all about it. When the handcuffs were snapped on, the killers learned they’d been duped — that “Mr. Big” was actually an undercover police officer. These killers ended up with lots of time to think about how tricky police can be.

    In this captivating book, we learn why Mr. Big is so good at getting killers to confess — and why he occasionally gets confessions from the innocent as well. We meet murderers such as Michael Bridges, who strangled his girlfriend and buried her in another person’s grave. Bridges remained free until he told Mr. Big where the body was buried. We also meet people like Kyle Unger, who lied while confessing to Mr. Big and went to prison for a crime he did not commit.

    The “Mr. Big” Sting is essential reading for anyone interested in unorthodox approaches to justice, including their successes and failures. It sheds light on how homicide investigators might catch and punish the guilty while avoiding convicting the innocent.

  • The (Post) Mistress

    The (Post) Mistress

    $16.95

    Canada’s most famous Indigenous playwright, Tomson Highway, sets his latest theatrical achievement, The (Post) Mistress, in a not-so-distant past, when sending letters through the mail was still vital to communicating with friends and loved ones, and the small-town post office was often the only connection to faraway places longed-for or imagined.

    Born and raised in Lovely, Ontario, a small French-Canadian farming village near Lake Huron, Marie-Louise Painchaud has never had occasion to venture much farther than the nearest community – Complexity, a copper-mining town and a somewhat larger dot on the map of the Georgia Bay area. For thirty years, Marie-Louise has worked at the local post office, and, through the many letters she sorts when they arrive and the ones that she stamps before they go out, she has come to know the lives of everyone in town and vicariously experience their various loves, losses, and personal dramas.

    In this one-woman musical tour de force, Marie-Louise confides in us the interwoven stories sealed in the envelopes she handles every day. A samba beat offers the soundtrack for the tale of a local woman’s passion- ate but doomed affair with a man from Rio de Janeiro; a rhythmic tango plays as Marie-Louise divulges a friend’s steamy tryst in Argentina. All together, twelve unique musical pieces, ranging from Berlin cabaret to French café chanson to smooth bossa nova, accompany a multilingual French, Cree, and English libretto.

    In The (Post) Mistress, Tomson Highway creates not only a rural comedy but also a sublime parody of small-town life – the northern Ontario version of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town or Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

    Cast of 1 woman.

    Music from The (Post) Mistress is available at http://goo.gl/ivtwqA

  • The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen

    The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen

    $19.95

    Richard Crouse, film critic and host of television’s award-winning Reel to Real takes you on a journey through 70 years of cinema history, choosing his favorite overlooked films.

    From the sublime – Monsoon Wedding – to the ridiculous – Eegah! The Name Written in BloodThe 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen covers a wide spectrum of films from the 1930s through to 2000s. Complementing the reviews are detailed descriptions of the movie’s plots, trivia, and interviews with the actors and filmmakers. Featured interviews include Bill Wyman discussing a little known Rolling Stones documentary, schlockmeister Lloyd Kaufman detailing the history of his most famous character, The Toxic Avenger, reclusive writer/director Hampton Fancher on his film The Minus Man and B-movie hero Bruce Campbell on playing Elvis Presley in Bubba Ho-Tep. Crouse also includes sidebars of top 10 lists, including favorite legal disclaimers (“All characters portrayed in this film are entirely fictitious and bare resemblance to anyone living or dead, except for one”) and favorite quotes (“I once thought I had mono for an entire year. Turns out I was just really bored.”)

    If you’re a fan of off-beat cinema, or just looking for something different to rent the next time you go to the video store, The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen is the perfect book for you.

  • The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812

    The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812

    $18.95

    A long-awaited history of this important Canadian regiment, The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 looks at this military unit from its beginnings in the early days of the 19th century to its disbanding in 1817. Best known for its perilous Winter March through the wilderness of New Brunswick to the battlefields of Upper Canada, the 104th was a British unit whose early role in the War of 1812 was to defend the Maritimes. In 1813, it was ordered to Upper Canada and took part in a raid on the American naval base at Sackets Harbor, New York. From there, they were sent to the Niagara Peninsula and fought in the Battle of Beaver Dams. Returning to Kingston, parts of the regiment fought in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and took part in the siege of Fort Erie, during which their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel William Drummond, was killed. The 104th fought its last action at Lyon’s Creek in October 1815. The end of the war in 1815 saw the regiment in Montreal, where it disbanded in 1817.

    Although styled as a New Brunswick regiment, it drew its members from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Upper and Lower Canada, England, Scotland, and Ireland. The story of the 104th can be seen as a truly national endeavour, whereby “British Americans” in British North America, and Britons alike, defended those colonies from foreign aggression. After the war, many of the veterans remained in British North America and helped to build what would eventually become Canada. Today there are a few memorials, a bridge named in the regiment’s honour, and a few artifacts, but the story of the 104th has largely been forgotten. The bicentenary of the War of 1812 has revived interest in this regiment — the only regular regiment of the British Army to be raised and employed on this continent during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. This history of the 104th relies upon period correspondence, reports, diaries, and journals to describe the exploits of this famous unit.

    The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 is volume 21 of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.