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Showing 8161–8176 of 9267 results
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The World Is a Heartbreaker
$15.95The World Is a Heartbreaker inaugurates a new subgenre: imposter poetry. This collection is a set of 1600 pseudohaikus, bite-sized chunks of poetic goodness shotgunned at the distracted masses.
What’s a pseudohaiku? It’s the poetry of pure indulgence, a three-liner without the constraint, the pretension or the 5–7–5 syllable form. The subject matter? Relationships, cats, insecurities – themes recur and build into a kind of non-linear narrative.
These micropoems are easily digestible yet remarkably acute, a catalogue of scattered thoughts and pointed observations that go down like potato chips – betcha can’t read just one.
Sometimes sexy, sometimes scandalous, sometimes sentimental, but always three lines long, these pseudohaikus are the future of poetry in a world awash with sound bites, news clips, catchphrases. There are no pleasures like the guilty ones.
About Tjia’s earlier books:
‘Gentle Fictions is a tender, playful and inspiring poetry collection … Tjia’s poems are often silly, cute and irreverent, but artfully so.’
– Matrix
‘[Pedigree Girls] is hilarious. It’s also filled with raw, biting social criticism. [It’s] the weirdest comix you’ll read all year … discover the seductiveness of nihilism by way of an author with a sharp sense of humour.’
– NOW
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The World Is But a Broken Heart
$19.95The eleven interconnected stories in The World is But a Broken Heart follow the Fitzpatricks, a blue-collar family constantly followed by bad luck. Dale, Kenny, and Patrick are tied to each other as only brothers can be. They antagonize each other, fight and argue. More importantly, they look out one for another in a sometimes-violent household. These stories do not shy away from difficult truths: parents who struggle to be parents; a mother who falls into despair; a father numbed by killing for a living; a family torn asunder by a violent death during a strike at a meatpacking plant; a life insurance salesman who preys on the recently bereaved; a grieving student who finds comfort in a relationship with a teacher; and finally, a grown man who makes amends with his estranged–and dying–brother. This coming-of-age collection of stories is a testament to the human spirit and the unbreakable bond between brothers.
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The World of After
$24.95When Kevin, an Irish Montrealer, attends graduate school at Oxford University in the early 1990s, he meets Leon, a London Jew from a Communist family, and Alex, a Soviet defector’s son raised in Toronto. As the trio begins to form a complex and conflicted friendship, Alex pulls away and spends more of his time tutoring a charming, yet troubled, upper-class undergraduate and less of it with Kevin and Leon. In a fit of jealousy, Kevin and Leon play a prank on Alex and the undergrad, a prank with dire consequences.Ultimately, the three young men go their separate ways, but what happened that night binds them together and helps lead them to freedom and self-discovery in a post-Cold War world.
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The World So Wide
$24.95Felicity Alexander should be charming audiences at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, not under house arrest in Grenada in October 1983, as rumours swirl that United States troops are preparing to invade.
Born and raised in Winnipeg, the daughter of a Grenadian woman and an absent white father, Felicity is blessed with enviable beauty and an extraordinary singing voice. Arriving in London to study opera in 1965, she finds early success and joy on stage, as well as a sense of belonging in the arms of the charming Claude Buckingham. Members of the West Indian Students Association, Claude and his friends are law students and activists. They plan to return to Grenada to overthrow the corrupt dictator, “Uncle” Percy Tibbs.
Felicity and Claude’s intense affair cannot survive their diverging destinies. Claude brings revolution to Grenada and becomes a minister in the new Black Pearls of Freedom government; Felicity devotes herself to music, conquering the racism and sexism of the opera world to rise to international stardom. The brighter she shines, the more she struggles to find her place and purpose in life.
Her career in ascendance, Felicity accepts an invitation to perform in Grenada. The red sky of revolution calls to her almost as much as the hope of Claude’s embrace. But their reunion is interrupted by a coup. Surrounded by soldiers and guns, Felicity’s voice is born anew.
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The World, the Lizard and Me
$19.95Claude Tremblay works as a political analyst at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. But when the Congolese warlord Kabanga, accused of crimes against humanity, is released from trial due to a procedural error, Claude resigns his post and follows the accused back to his home country in search of justice. In The World, the Lizard, and Me, Gil Courtemanche writes a stirring and contemporary Heart of Darkness, utterly compelling in its portrayal of Western ideals submerged in the global politics of poverty and violence.
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The Wrestlecrap Book of Lists!
$21.95Ever wanted to know the worst career choices pro wrestlers made upon retirement? Or which kung fu chop-socky wrestlers would make Bruce Lee do a backflip in his grave?
The WrestleCrap Book of Lists! has all that — and much more. The gloves are off as best-selling author RD Reynolds and his co-author Blade Braxton pull no punches in looking at some of wrestling’s biggest mistakes, most comical mishaps and most egotistical performers. Among the lists included in this cornucopia of wrestling nonsense are:
- Sights Wrestling Fans Should Never Be Forced To See Again!
- The Greatest Mullets in the History of the Game?!
- Porn Stars Who Moonlighted in Wrestling!
- The Proof that DX is really, REALLY Gay!
- The Greatest Mugshots — Featuring Your Favourite Wrestlers!
- The Pieces of Definitive Evidence that WCW May Have Been Run By Nazis!
- Pro Wrestling’s Stupidest Hometowns!
- The Things That Vince McMahon Always Wants to Talk About (Half of Which Involve His Genitalia)!
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the book’s craptastic main event: the 25 Worst Gimmicks of All Time.
Irreverent, off-kilter, and certain to be offensive to all, The WrestleCrap Book of Lists! is pro wrestling’s very worst of the worst!
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The Wrestlers’ Wrestlers
$23.95A walk-through wrestling history, starting with the founding fathers such as Ed “Strangler” Lewis and the incomparable Lou Thesz, to modern-day masters such as Daniel Bryan and Kurt Angle.
The Wrestlers’ Wrestlers spotlights elite performers and analyzes exactly what made them your favorite wrestler’s favorite wrestlers. Authors Dan Murphy and Brian Young interviewed more than 40 in-ring veterans, historians, referees, and promoters to get a unique insider’s look at the people who have made a lasting impact on the world of professional wrestling. It offers a special peek “behind the curtain” and a rare look into the top stars’ thoughts on their peers, their influences, and their personal favorites.
The Wrestlers’ Wrestlers is a history of professional wrestling but also a tribute to the frequently misunderstood art itself. Featuring stars of the 1920s to today, this essential read deserves a prominent spot on the bookcase of every fan and historian.
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The Writer
$15.95Donald Wellner knew success when he wrote a hit play thirty-five years ago, but now he’s recently separated, living in a small apartment, and promising that he’s trying to start a new script. His fortysomething son Blake is a travel writer with commitment issues who pops by between trips to try to hold his family together and prove his worth. Over seven years, Donald experiences the onset of dementia, and father and son become both closer and farther apart. This story of familial bonds provides delightfully comical and satisfyingly sentimental clarity in those small moments that will last forever.
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The Writing on the Wind’s Wall
$22.00The Writing on the Wind?s Wall listens at length to the voices of those affected by ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’ in the city of London, Ontario, a national healthcare hub: a death doula, a sound-healer, a psychiatrist, a scholar, a doctor, a medium, an ethicist, a prospective recipient, a politician, a reverend, and several recipients’ survivors. Facilitated by Kevin Andrew Heslop, these dialogues are informed by the work of a wide variety of cultural leaders, including Paolo Freire, John Cage, Li-Young Lee, Thích Nh?t H?nh, and Robert Hass. The collection documents how euthanasia, while in the spirit of individual liberty, increases proportional to the world?s socioeconomic, ideological, and (therefore) ecological unsustainability. The Writing on the Wind?s Wall is a testament to what a community felt and believed in the 2020s about living, and dying, together.
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The Wrong Bashir
$18.95Bashir Ladha, a bohemian philosophy podcaster, finds himself
unwittingly thrust into the spotlight when he is chosen to assume a
distinguished religious position that his parents have eagerly accepted on his
behalf. Before Bashir can object, two committee representatives are at his door
to congratulate him. As the representatives start to suspect a
mistake has been made, Bashir’s jubilant grandparents and relatives arrive to
commemorate the honour. A charming farce ensues, prompting questions around
whether the seemingly wrong Bashir may, in fact, be the right one.Fast-paced, original, and laugh-out-loud funny, this delightful debut
by Zahida Rahemtulla invites us to look at values passed down through generations, the
ties of community, individualism, and how we are
shaped by those who love us most. The
Wrong Bashir is a hilarious romp that affectionately portrays an
intergenerational family caught up in much more than a case of mistaken
identity. -
The Xenotext: Book 1
$19.95The first work of ‘living poetry’ in the world, by the author of the bestselling book Eunoia
Shortlisted for the 2016 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry (Alberta Literary Awards)
Internationally renowned poet Christian Bok has encoded a poem (called ‘Orpheus’) into the genome of a germ so that, in reply, the cell builds a protein that encodesyet another poem (called ‘Eurydice’). After having illustrated this idea in E. coli, Bok is planning to insert his poem into a deathless bacterium (D. radiodurans), thereby writing a text able to outlive every apocalypse, enduring till the Sun itself expires.
Book 1 of The Xenotext is an ‘infernal grimoire’ that introduces readers to the conceptual groundwork for this project. The book offers a primer in genetics, even as it revisits the pastoral heritage of poetry, updating the orphic idylls of Virgil for a new age of mythic danger – be it in the beauty of artful biogenesis, if not in the terror of global extinction.
‘The cellular “rules* that govern this extraordinary text allow Bok to create one of the most beautiful poems of our time – a poem in which the georgics of Virgil join forces with the double helix of Watson and Crick.’ – Marjorie Perloff
‘If Human reverence was slanted more toward Nature and less toward the exaltation of gods, our scriptures might have looked something like The Xenotext.’ – Peter Watts
‘Many artists seek to attain immortality through their art, but few would expect their work to outlast the human race and live on for billions of years. As Canadian poet Christian Bok has realized, it all comes down to the durability of your materials.’ – The Guardian
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The Xenotext: Book 2
$24.95It lives! The bestselling author of Eunoia writes a death-defying poem in DNA
In The Xenotext: Book 1, Christian Bök outlined his plan to insert his poem, written as DNA, into a deathless bacterium, thereby writing a text able to outlive every apocalypse, enduring till the Sun itself expires. Now that the experiment has finally succeeded, Book 2 of The Xenotext situates that poem within the deep time of the cosmos.
Our civilization has only very limited methods for preserving its cultural heritage against a potential planetary disaster (be it thermonuclear warfare or astrophysical barrage); however, this experiment rehearses some of the techniques likely to be used in the future to preserve our archives against such annihilation.
Writing in his signature poetics, Bök speculates that, buried within the biochemistry of Life itself, there really does exist an innate beauty, if not a hidden poetry – a literal message that we might read, if we deign to seek it.
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The Y Chromosome
$19.95The Y Chromosome challenges the reader to meet an all-woman society of the future. The few remaining men live in hiding. When one of these men is discovered, the resulting conflict threatens both worlds.
The futurist society was developed by necessity and is far from perfect, but it now abhors its male-dominated past, where violence escalated to an extreme. The journals of a man who lived during The Change reveal the desperate turmoil and anger of a world facing the extinction of half its members. The journals are now part of university history courses, leading to assessments of the past that are both ironic and disturbing.
Despite its striking differences to our world today, there are uncomfortable similarities. Taut and gripping, a page turner at its very best, the novel asks important and fundamental questions about who we are as women and men and what we will do to survive.
Originally written and published thirty years ago to enthusiastic reviews, The Y Chromosome is even more relevant today.In an all-woman society of the future, the few remaining men live in hiding. The futuristic society was developed by necessity and is far from perfect, but it now abhors its male-dominated past, where violence escalated to an extreme. The journals of a man who lived during The Change reveal the desperate turmoil and anger of a world facing the extinction of half its members. The journals are now part of university history courses, leading to assessments of the past that are both ironic and disturbing. When one of the living men is discovered, the resulting conflict threatens both worlds. -
The Year of No Summer
$19.95On April 10th, 1815, Indonesia’s Mount Tambora erupted. Th e resulting build-up of ash in the stratosphere altered weather pat-terns and led, in 1816, to a year without summer. Instead, there were June snowstorms, food shortages, epidemics, inventions, and the proliferation of new cults and religious revivals.
Hauntingly meaningful in today’s climate crisis, Lebowitz’s lyric essay charts the events and eff ects of that apocalyptic year. Weaving together history, mythology, and memoir, The Year of No Summer ruminates on weather, war, and our search for God and meaning in times of disaster.
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The Year One
$19.95In 12 long poems, spanning January through December, David Helwig combines the gradually changing seasons with daily goings-on and memories. The Year One charts 12 months populated with birds, Shakespeare, kitchen utensils, foliage, slugs, dead poets, neighbours, weather and friends. He incorporates snatches of song, plays, dialogue and onomatopoeia to create distinct place and mood.
Helwig has arrived at an unusual form that fuses the detail and scope of fiction with the musicality of lyric verse, showing a gift for characterizing time and place, fitting old memories into the present tense with ease. Demonstrating a distinctly Canadian fascination with weather, he expresses awe at the changing seasons, recalling winter storms in the height of summer, deliberating over times past whilst headily engaged in present surroundings.
Throughout The Year One, Helwig suspends immediate and remote, present and past, individual and collective on the page together. Certain verses are as much about the process and mentality of describing as they are about the descriptions themselves. This creates a potency and level of comprehension for the reader that is at once tenuous and thoroughly engaging.
Layered thick upon one another, these verses are both personal and universal. The collective effect of the whole is something like perusing a desk drawer in which grocery lists curl up next to dramatic monologues and old letters rest between the pages of this year’s almanac. With this book, Helwig opens the drawer and invites us to join him as he sorts.
This 5.75 by 8.25 inch book is a Smyth-sewn paperback with cover flaps. The cover is printed on Graphica! Celadon Vellum paper, with bio wraps printed on Rolland Zephyr Laid paper. The text was typeset in Rod McDonald’s Cartier Book by Andrew Steeves and is printed on Zephyr.
Winner of the 2005 Atlantic Poetry Prize.
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The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits
$24.00A gorgeously complex work of literary speculative fiction that spans centuries The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits starts in 2014 with a winged alien sowing the seeds of a strange forest on the moon. The novel then moves through humanity’s colonization of the moon and its consequences, onto a war with alien beings within a spacefaring whale, a cyborg mind that sleeps for hundreds of years after sheltering the city of Toronto from the worst of the war and finally a recreation of humanity. Ghan poses thoughtful questions about artificial intelligence, humanity’s quest for the stars and ecological destruction in this wide-ranging story, which is held together equally by beautiful writing and deft characterization. The end result is an ambitious debut that leaves the reader contemplating many amazing possibilities for the future of our world.