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 7265–7280 of 9492 results
-
The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard
$25.00The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard is a contemporary story of obsessive love, sexual transgression and tragic loss. Bachelor and professional accountant Joseph Blanchard has led a socially active though emotionally cautious life into his late thirties. When he discovers that his beautiful nineteen-year-old cousin Sophie, a talented concert pianist, is in love with him, he finds he is helpless to resist her youthful charms, and against his better judgment embarks upon a passionate affair. As a safeguard against causing pain to her parents, the two lovers conspire to keep their relationship secret. For a while they are happy. But Sophie’s performing career compels her to spend time in the company of other musicians, many of them young men. Consumed by jealousy, Joseph allows rage to seize control, with tragic results. Grieving, he sets about to destroy all evidence of the affair. But when a family secret is exposed, it reveals the past in a new light. In the end, his health in decline and with nothing left but memories, he discloses his secret to a confidant.
-
The Conjoined
$18.95Longlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award
A masterful and gripping novel from “an undeniably talented writer” — Globe and Mail
On a sunny May morning, social worker Jessica Campbell sorts through her mother’s belongings after her recent funeral. In the basement, she makes a shocking discovery — two dead girls curled into the bottom of her mother’s chest freezers. She remembers a pair of foster children who lived with the family in 1988: Casey and Jamie Cheng — troubled, beautiful, and wild teenaged sisters from Vancouver’s Chinatown. After six weeks, they disappeared; social workers, police officers, and Jessica herself assumed they had run away.
As Jessica learns more about Casey, Jamie, and their troubled immigrant Chinese parents, she also unearths dark stories about Donna, whom she had always thought of as the perfect mother. The complicated truths she uncovers force her to take stock of own life.
Moving between present and past, this riveting novel unflinchingly examines the myth of social heroism and traces the often-hidden fractures that divide our diverse cities.
-
The Convict Lover
$22.95A new edition of the beloved and bestselling classic work of creative nonfiction
It is 1919. Joseph Cleroux, a handsome young man who escaped the Great War and the flu epidemic, is incarcerated in Kingston Penitentiary, determined that jail will not break him. Phyllis Halliday is a 17-year-old schoolgirl who finds his letter in the quarry where he is doing hard time. As “Peggy” and “Dady-Long-Legs,” they exchange a clandestine correspondence that frees them both from the confines of their lives, although the risk entailed increases as Joseph asks more and more of Phyllis and conditions inside Canada’s most notorious prison deteriorate.
Based on letters the author found in the attic of her home, The Convict Lover is a blend of historical detective work and imaginative recreation — a haunting, unforgettable journey through the world of Canada’s first and oldest penitentiary and portrait of the people who lived in its shadow, both inside and outside its walls. Played out against the backdrop of a war-scarred society, a vicious battle for penitentiary reform, and the first riot in Canada’s prison history, The Convict Lover is a story of human resilience and desire.
This edition includes a new introduction and epilogue.
-
The Corner Shop
$9.50World-renowned cartoonist Seth returns with three new ghost stories for 2022.
Peter Wood enters a charming antiques shop owned by two young women one stormy evening. But after he returns a second time to a strange old man and a far gloomier atmosphere, and leaves with an unusual jade frog, Peter soon discovers that his purchase was worth more than he paid.
-
The Coronation Voyage
$17.95May 1953. The Empress of France sets sail from Montreal. On the pretext of attending the celebrations marking the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, an important mafioso leaves for England where he secretly plans to live in exile with his two sons. Aboard this floating palace in the middle of the ocean, the petty lord of the Montreal underworld must face the most important decision of his dubious career: will he sacrifice his youngest son for a safe-conduct?
Le Voyage du couronnement, co-produced by Theatre du Nouveau Monde in Montreal and Théatre du Trident in Québec City, was nominated in the Best New Play category at the 1996 ‘Soirée des Masques’ presented by the Académie québécoise du théatre.
-
the correct fury of your why is a mountain
$20.00Poet-critic Jim Johnstone has described Kevin Heslop’s the correct fury of your why is a mountain as among “the most promising poetic projects to come out of Canada in recent years.” This debut collection communicates Heslop’s sense of balance as a visual artist, curator, and poet who weights the page with visual harmony. By turns experiment, lyric, and incantation, the book nods to its author’s training as an actor, combining a command of language, form, character, and polyphony to make something performatively unique.
-
The Cottage, the Spider Brooch, and the Second Wife
$19.95This is the story of Alfred Hilroy, a recently widowed, 68-year-old man who believes that estate and money matters should be kept private. It is also the story of Alfred’s three grown children, Bev, Michael, and Judy, who love their father dearly but worry that he is going to squander away his retirement savings — and their inheritance. Alfred believes his affairs are in order. He has part-time work at the pharmacy he co-owns and runs, reasonably good health, and a modest but steady amount of retirement income. However, he misses his late wife terribly and does not look forward to navigating through old age alone. Then “The Bolt” hits. Mary Beth Cain, twenty-five years Alfred’s junior, is an athletic, confident, outgoing woman who knows what she wants. Within weeks there is talk of a future life together. Bev, Michael, and Judy are soon swept up into a sea of conflicting emotions as their new step-mother moves into — and redecorates — the beloved Hilroy home, appears at Alfred’s birthday party wearing their late mother’s spider brooch, and vacations with the family at the cottage. Will Alfred leave everything to this newcomer to the family? Will cherished family belongings suddenly disappear? The Hilroys’ struggles are becoming more and more common as baby boomers confront their parents’, and their own, mortality. As Bev, Michael, and Judy screw up their courage and begin discussions with their father about his estate, we learn about, Powers of Attorney, capital gains tax, probating a will, US estate and gift tax, trusts, joint ownership, cottage inheritances, communicating with aging people, and more — all in an intriguing, suspenseful, and ultimately liberating story.
-
The Counting House
$20.00Akin to a bookkeeper’s accounting of what’s given and taken in a fraught, uncertain exchange, The Counting House goes on to record the pageantry and pedantry of courtly affection gone awry. Symbols and origins of traditional rhymes involving kings and queens serve as inventory, alongside elements of Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. In forensic sequences of inquisition, scrutiny, and reckoning, Ridley reveals the maiden as muse as modern darling � unhoused and exacting � in “all of her violet forms.”
-
The Country of Toó
$22.95A Crime Reads Best International Crime Fiction of 2023 • One of Crime Reads most anticipated LatinX Horror and Crime Fiction of 2023
This sumptuously written thriller asks probing questions about how we live with each other and with our planet.
Raised on his wits on the streets of Central America, the Cobra, a young debt collector and gang enforcer, has never had the chance to discern between right and wrong, until he’s assigned the murder of Polo, a prominent human rights activist—and his friend. When his conscience gives him pause and his patrón catches on, a remote Mayan community offers the Cobra a potential refuge, but the people there are up against predatory mining companies. With danger encroaching, the Cobra is forced to confront his violent past and make a decision about what he’s willing to risk in the future, and who it will be for.
Following the Cobra, Polo, a faction of drug-dealing oligarchs, and Jacobo, a child caught in the crosshairs, Rey Rosa maps an extensive web of corruption upheld by decades of political oppression. A scathing indictment of exploitation in all its forms, The Country of Toó is a gripping account of what it means to consider societal change under the constant threat of violence.
-
The Country Will Bring Us No Peace
$19.95ONE OF BOOK RIOT‘S “20 MUST-READ HORROR BOOKS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF”
Simon and Marie can’t seem to have a baby. And so they flee the city for an idyllic village, where things will certainly be better. But the town is gloomy, even hostile — things haven’t been the same since the factory closed down and a broadcast antenna was erected. Now there are no birds singing, and people have started disappearing.
-
The Courier and Other Plays
$19.95Back to Berlin
“Thiessen’s script is rhythmically sophisticated… There are so many riches here that even analyzing the faults is a pleasure.” —The Georgia Straight
“Back to Berlin reminds us that our stories are not only about wars won and lost but also of love and forgiveness.” —Vancouver CourierThe Courier
“Terrific Theatre” —Winnipeg Free Press
“Intelligent, well-crafted, and highly entertaining.” —The Globe and MailThe Resurrection of John Frum
“This is the rarest of creature: a play about religion without an obvious agenda.” —The Edmonton Sun
“Thiessen has written with compassion and considerable insight about faith and the human need to believe.” —Winnipeg Free PressValentine
“After a hard working but rich life with his wife, Victor finds himself unprepared for the domestic duty of raising his teenage son alone… (Thiessen) has crafted intricate, believable characters whom we love and hate all at once…” —Dr. Ruth Dyck Fehderau, University of Alberta -
The Cowboy and the Cross
$22.95In The Cowboy and the Cross, Bill Watts takes us from his stormy upbringing and his tumultuous years at the University of Oklahoma, to his days in the wrestling business, sparing nothing in his details about football coaching legend Bud Wilkinson, ugly encounters with some of the top names in wrestling in the 1960s, and frightening stories about skirting tragedy and the law in violent altercations.
Watts talks about all the top stars of his legendary Mid-South Wrestling promotion. He explores the oil crunch that killed his company and the problems that killed his marriage. His personal tribulations coincided with his reawakened spirituality, and Watts gives readers a lot to think about as he narrates the story of the profound change God made in his life. Wrestling Observer newsletter editor Dave Meltzer calls this book a “must-read” for anyone in the wrestling business.
-
The Crackwalker
$16.95Teresa is sexy, seductive, and mentally challenged. Worshipped by her boyfriend, she turns tricks at $5, is addicted to Tim Hortons’ doughnuts, lies without thinking, and overflows with endless kindness, but she continues to hold on to her limitless innocence. The Crackwalker captures the music, the dialect, and the unpretty realities of the inner city. First produced thirty years ago, Thompson’s striking portrayal of the discarded class in Canada continues to move audiences today.
-
The Crane
$24.95The Crane follows the difficult choices confronting someone who cannot go on being lied to and explores how they carry on in the face of hardship.
It’s 1968 and James Anderson’s twin brother Dave has just been killed in the Vietnam war. Knowing his turn is next, James turns his back on his family’s military legacy, evading the draft and travelling to Newfoundland to fulfill a promise his brother made to a fellow soldier. Unwittingly swept into an intergenerational family secret while on assignment for a St. John’s newspaper, James finds something in Newfoundland that could just save his life.
-
The Creative Instigator’s Handbook
$27.95From the co-creator of the seminal craftivism book Yarn Bombing: a guide for creatives to making impactful, socially engaged art projects.
Flash mobs come and go, but purposeful creativity can change communities. Are you a creative (aspiring or otherwise) who is curious about how you can apply your skills to activist, socially engaged art projects? Whether you paint, sew, sing, build, weld, or rhyme, The Creative Instigator’s Handbook explores how to take that big project you’ve been dreaming about and actually make it happen.
In response to the challenging times that we live in, The Creative Instigator’s Handbook will inspire readers to use their creativity to spur change in the world around them. Guiding readers through the various aspects of a project from ideation to final documentation, the book examines the relationship between creative leadership, community art projects, and social justice, and includes the perspectives of 23 creative instigators who have stretched the boundaries of what “art” should or shouldn’t do.
The Creative Instigator’s Handbook will appeal to creatives willing to expand their comfort zones by jumping into the fray and doing some outrageous, inspired rabble-rousing of their very own.
Full-colour throughout.
-
The Crimes of Hector Tomas
$21.95Enrique Tomás lives a quiet life with a large, loving family in an unnamed South American country. But Enrique has secrets. When his second eldest son, Hector, and Hector’s beloved friend Nadia uncover one of Enrique’s secrets, the course of Hector’s life is irrevocably altered. Exiled by his parents to the isolated countryside, Hector is accused of terrorism—a crime of which he is innocent, yet ruthlessly punished. As he struggles to extricate himself from the clutches of a brutal and paranoid military regime, he learns that freedom comes at a terrible price.
The Crimes of Hector Tomás is an epic novel about disappearance and deception, family and nation. Enrique, Hector, and Nadia are trapped in a nightmare world where innocence counts for nothing and justice is a dream. Once they make their choices, they can never go back.