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 7937–7952 of 9481 results
-
The Perils of Geography
$14.00In her third book of poetry The Perils of Geography, Helen Humphreys charts a world that opens under the prodding and promise of language. With the wit and eye for evocative detail which gained readers for both Gods and Other Mortals and Nuns Looking Anxious, Listening to Radios, Humphreys probes the immediacy of now, the intensity of this, the residue of then. Don’t be deceived by the spare appearance; her poems are resonant and full, “all angles and confidence.” Light falls slant across them. She maps “what surrounds not what’s made still” – “the moving line.” The line she traces connects the pull of memory and moment, open roads and winter aconite, transcendental basements and ornamental shrubbery. In “Singing to the Bees,” the ten poem sequence which makes up the second of three sections in Perils, she slips inside folk wisdoms, wears them with an easy grace, all flesh and wit and possibility: dancing shoes, gifted pigs, swarming bees, airplane nuns and spectre ships. These poems make superstition delicious.
-
the pet radish, shrunken
$18.00In this post-lyrical era, poems can be stories, or they can just as easily be exuberant laughter set to words, an experiment in language, or an incidental collation of plays on a Scrabble board.
the pet radish, shrunken, the third full collection of poetry from the inimitable Pearl Pirie, deals in the poetics of sound, language, and play. In true Pirie style, this fresh, quirky, and clear-seeing collection speaks in a range of styles and voices: From a military convoy of turtles, to a Kafkaesque conversation with a housefly, to the dissection of a fruit machine, Pirie offers oulipo found speech as it integrates and disintegrates, plays with and tumbles through language.
Earning comparisons to Jenny Sampirisi’s Croak and Leigh Kostilidis’s Hypotheticals for their shared sense of linguistic playfulness and curiosity, the pet radish, shrunken will appeal to exploring minds who are ready to question language, society, and self while not minding a taint of grief and comedy that necessarily creeps in around the edges.
-
The Philosopher Stories
$22.95The dozen stories in this collection chronicle the life of Karl Pringle, a wannabe philosopher who had once been enrolled in the graduate Philosophy program at the University of Toronto where he imagined himself as an Ubermensch, a Superman derived from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche. But he was summarily dismissed from the program after punching out his academic supervisor. Now Karl lives in a decrepit apartment above a butcher shop in Toronto’s Kensington Market, is unemployed and very much rootless. The stories in The Philosopher Stories follow Karl as he moves from one strange episode to another, none of which end well. Although Karl likes to think of himself as an Ubermensch, in the bleakest moments following his many mishaps, he seems to know better, that perhaps he is only fooling himself with his grandiose dreams. That he is nothing more than one of life’s rejects, an out-and-out failure. Nuanced and multilayered, funny and yet achingly sad, these stories depict a young man grappling with life’s big questions, including love, finding a place for oneself in an uncaring world, morality, success, and fate.
-
The Philosophy of Gardening
$21.95For philosophizing gardeners and anyone who likes to pick up a spade and get their hands dirty
Gardeners discover a new world every year—whether they’re cultivating heirloom vegetables, foraging for wild herbs, creating a small permaculture garden on a city balcony, or maintaining a plot for self-sufficiency.
But why garden at all? These personal essays by writers, designers, and master gardeners dig into gardening’s philosophical dimensions and tend to the aesthetic, cultural, political, and sociological implications of gardens and the people who keep them.
Originally published in German, this delightful volume addresses gardening’s most deep-rooted questions and highlights the magic that, year after year, makes us pick up a shovel and get back into the garden.
Awarded the German Garden Book Prize in the Best Garden Prose Category
“What is remarkable is that the publication project is something very individual… the spectrum ranges from the ‘plea for weeds’ to the ‘metaphysics’ of the garden to urban gardening and garden shows, and the realization that gardens are ‘hopelessly ambivalent’—all in all a very interesting volume.” – Jury Citation
-
The Photographer’s Last Picture
$29.95Sean Howard has written twenty poems inspired by photographs he discovered in a tattered copy of Collier’s Photographic History of the European War (1916), although ‘inspired’ is hardly an adequate word for it. For Howard, each photograph introduces a cascade of associations and ideas about history and memory, about the events and implications of the First World War, and about our ongoing relationship with global conflict. The resulting poems have the economy and energy of a stark, high-contrast print, yet what is perhaps most striking about the book is the way Howard’s prose passages chronicle the development of each photograph into a poem, like images slowly taking form in the chemistry of a darkroom tray. Following a method that is “precariously dependent on attentiveness, memory and chance encounters, personal and cultural associations followed as broadly, deeply, and unsystematically as possible,” The Photographer’s Last Picture assembles observation, description, quotation and amplification into an episodic text capable of transmitting a range of uncertain truths unavailable to conventional History.
-
The Physics of Relationships
$20.00A highly readable, intimate story about loss, aging, female friendship, family, and renewal…told with grit and humor.
Lexi is a sixty-year-old widow whose solitary life is thrown into turmoil when a desperate young woman moves in with her, soon followed by the unexpected arrival of her best friend, who has separated from her husband of forty years. The mix of these three very different personalities – a powerful omnivore seeking to live life to the fullest; a sweet, self-denying vegan; and Lexi, a thoughtful, still grieving widow – leads to some surprising (sometimes humorous) situations that force Lexi to re-examine her life. In the physics of relationships, Lexi observes that nature abhors a vacuum. She begins to wonder if she herself has somehow manipulated her circumstances to fill that vacuum…simply to imitate the life she had before the death of her husband.
“[The Physics of Relationships] was a joy to read. I loved the flow of the writing, the profundity of the observations, and the humor. You have truly sketched a very accurate, forgiving, and endearing picture of a woman at this stage of life. Thank you for writing this book.” -Kaiya Cade Smith Blackburn
“You did an amazing job writing so truly in the voice of an older woman…. I found Lexi’s character appealing from the first page, and her consistent voice made her a very sympathetic, fully realized character. I particularly enjoyed her reflections on all she observed about human nature and the realities and absurdities of aging. She is kind, funny, curious, thoughtful, eager to puzzle out relationships. …. I enjoyed the twists and turns and tensions of the plot, three women living together, and the extra complication of Tasha [her daughter], and romantic partners, and the suspense of whether a myriad of small/large issues will get resolved.” – Rosalyn Art
-
The Pierre Bonga Loops
$22.00A documentary poem that lays bare the black presence in the northwest, it is also about fathers and sons, now and then. Born in the 1780’s Bonga was the son of freed slaves who worked for J. Sayer & Co. in 1795 at Fond du Lac. He was employed by the North West Co., the South West Co. & the American Fur Co. in their Fond du Lac Departments. Using images and text from documentary sources including the Hudson’s Bay Company Archive Bailey has constructed an important, innovative and exciting book.
-
The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper
$32.95Drawing from the various facets of Stephen Harper’s life, Lloyd Mackey provides indicators on what to expect from a Harper prime ministership. It takes into account the kinds of strategies he will be required to adopt, depending on whether his Liberal opponent in the next election is the aging Paul Martin or someone else — perhaps more similar in age or demeanor.
Stephen Harper would be the first economist to serve as a prime minister. Those who mentored him on his way see his strong grasp of economic issues as pivotal to a truly conservative approach to Canadian freedom, prosperity, and social wellness.
Any look at Harper and the new Conservative party he leads requires an examination of the substantive evangelical Christian legacies coming out of both the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. Harper handles this legacy both gingerly and thoughtfully. The writings of such religious icons as C. S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge have helped shape his world view. The measure of his success in handling this legacy will be determined by the respective roles that the social and progressive conservatives play in any government he leads.
Laureen Teskey, his wife, and their two children, Benjamin and Rachel, have turned Harper into a warmer and more compassionate human being. Teskey is a strong figure not only in her own right, but also as a sounding board and a reminder of reality. They are a strong partnership in most ways, at once complementary and contrasting.
The viewpoints in this book will provide a few clues to whether Harper’s carefully-crafted conservatism can carry the day in the 21st century’s third federal election.
-
The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa
$17.95Here is the diary of a court lady of Japan from the golden age of Nara, more than a thousand years ago. The Naran age, characterized by hierarchy, rigid adherence to tradition and the performance of ritual, was a sophisticated urban society as different from ours as can be imagined. But what is The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa? Is it a legitimate historical document or a flight of invention by a melancholy archaeologist, fatally infected by his own sad past? Either way, The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa strays painfully, touchingly close to the source of its own artifice. In his first novel, Barrie Sherwood weaves a lyrical mystery of two times, making a history that is transformed by fiction but which is no less real for the invention. Either way, The Pillow Book of Lady Kasa strays painfully, touchingly close to the source of its own artifice. In his first novel, Barrie Sherwood weaves a lyrical mystery of two times, making a history that is transformed by fiction but which is no less real for the invention.
-
The Pineapples of Wrath
$22.95Set in the heart of Trois-Rivières’ world-famous (and perfectly fictitious) Hawaiian district, The Pineapples of Wrath follows amateur detective Marie-Plum as she investigates the suspicious death of her next-door neighbour. While the local police believe the former limbo champion was the victim of a fatal piña colada overdose, Marie-Plum is convinced there’s more to the case than meets the eye. A funny, loving tribute to tiki kitsch and old Agatha Christie novels.
-
The Pious Robber
$18.95The Pious Robber
-
The Pit
$18.95Set in a small-town, sub-Arctic dive bar, this debut poetry collection explores the complexities of addiction and the person beneath, and the possibility of finding home and community in unexpected places. Among Borin’s poems are portraits of the bar’s regular customers and employees—recurring characters, like those who might appear in a dark and unconventional sitcom. The religious night janitor catalogues the day’s sins; the retired barmaid gussies up at the mirror; the regular customers and their regular habits are described to a new employee: “R has a two-drink limit. A likes a coaster. Remember, / Mrs. O takes a chilled pilsner glass / with her bottle of Blue.”In the melancholy atmosphere of the bar and the rooms upstairs, the speakers of Borin’s poems find unexpected solace and belonging. The habits, the routine, the regulars, the predictability of it all brings some kind of chaotic order to chaotic life: We drink without even having to think about it, because it feels good to lose control, feels like regaining it.
-
The Places Where Names Vanish
$10.95The Places Where Names Vanish explores the frightening, encoded, and potentially explosive realities of Quebec and Montreal as seen by Ecuadorean expatriates. Marta longs for escape from her impoverished village, where she is pulled between traditionalism, spiritualism, Catholicism, and a dirty, brutal reality. The Places Where Names Vanish is a wonderfully evocative, subtle and heartfelt novel, which concentrates on one brave human spirit, but raises more questions than any sociological expose.
-
The Plague
$19.95A modern retelling of the Camus classic that posits its story of infectious disease and quarantine in our contemporary age of social justice and rising inequity.
At first it’s the dead rats; they start dying in cataclysmic numbers, followed by other city creatures. Then people begin experiencing flu-like symptoms as well as swellings in their lymph nodes. The masses react in disbelief when the official diagnosis comes in and later, when a quarantine is imposed on the increasingly terrified city.
Inspired by Albert Camus’ classic 1947 novel, Kevin Chong’s The Plague follows Dr Bernard Rieux’s attempts to fight the treatment-resistant disease and find meaning in suffering. His efforts are aided by Megan Tso, an American writer who is trapped in the city while on a book tour, and Raymond Siddhu, a city hall reporter at a daily newspaper on its last legs from the latest round of job cuts.
Told with dark humour and an eye trained on the frailties of human behaviour, Chong’s novel explores themes in keeping with Camus’ original vision–heroism in the face of futility, the psychological strain of quarantine–but fraught with the political and cultural anxieties of our present day.
-
The Plains of Abraham
$24.95The fate of North America was sealed on the Plains of Abraham in a battle that has gone down in history. France and England, historical enemies, faced off in September 1759 in the Capital of New France, Quebec. France then controlled large swaths of North America in three colonies with a total population of 80,000 people of European and mixed origin, while England’s influence was limited to the much more populous Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.
The story of that famous battle began much earlier. Tensions rose in early 18th-Century Europe. France lost Acadia to the British in 1713, who deported the Acadians in 1755. They then laid siege to Louisbourg, entry way to the Capital of New France. The lead up also included conflict in 1753 in Ohio between the English/American troops led by George Washington and “Canadien” and French troops, and the Jumonville Afffair in 1754.
New France was of tremendous strategic interest for France. Its military force included a standing army, a militia comprising troops raised among the “Canadiens” and many allied Indigenous nations, which explains why the Seven Years’ War is known in the United States as the “French and Indian War.” The English had naval superiority and could count on more numerous troops raised in North America.
This beautifully illustrated album casts new light on the events preceding the battles in 1759 and 1760, and their legacy following the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
-
The Plate
$39.95The Queen’s Plate was inaugurated, with royal blessing, on Wednesday, June 27, 1860, at the Carleton track in Toronto, located in bucolic surroundings near what is now the traffic-strangled southwestern corner of Keele and Dundas streets.
There is no reason to believe that Queen Victoria was a wild-eyed devotee of horse racing. However, Her Majesty granted the petition of the little turf club in the boisterous Upper Canada community (the population of Toronto was 44,425) and offered as an annual prize, “a plate to the value of Fifty Guineas.” And thus Canadian horse racing was established as “the sport of royalty.”
Today, the Queen’s Plate is the first jewel in Canada’s Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing and the longest continuously run stakes race in North America. It takes place every June, and the first-place purse is $1 million. The Plate is unquestionably Canada’s most famous, one-day social and sporting event.
This book explores the colourful history of the Queen’s Plate through words and archival photographs.