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 8529–8544 of 9248 results
-
Twenty-Four Teddy Bears
$19.95Twenty-four Teddy Bears: A Christmas Journey chronicles twenty-four of Santa’s most memorable visits over the past thirty-eight years. These have taken him from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to Senior’s Homes, and Santa has left the bears with tiny newborns, people who’ve passed their 100th birthday, and all kinds of children, adults, Christmas doubters, and Christmas believers in-between. These stories will make you laugh and cry, but most importantly they will make you appreciate the true meaning of the holiday season.
-
Twenty-One Cardinals
$19.95From the author and translator of And the Birds Rained Down, a 2015 CBC Canada Reads selection
Winner of the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for French-to-English Translation
An abandoned mine. A large family driven by honour. And a source of pain, buried deep in the ground.
We’re nothing like other families. We are self-made. We are an essence unto ourselves, unique and dissonant, the only members of our species. Livers of humdrum lives who flitted around us got their wings burned. We’re not mean, but we can bare our teeth. People didn’t hang around when a band of Cardinals made its presence known.
With twenty-one kids, the Cardinal family is a force of nature. And now, after not being in the same room for decades, they’re congregating to celebrate their father, a prospector who discovered the zinc mine their now-deserted hometown in northern Quebec was built around. But as the siblings tell the tales of their feral childhood, we discover that Angèle, the only Cardinal with a penchant for happiness, has gone missing – although everyone has pretended not to notice for years. Why the silence? What secrets does the mine hold?
‘Rhonda Mullins’ translation of Twenty-One Cardinals expertly embodies the multiple voices in Jocelyne Saucier’s complex novel. More than inhabiting the world of one writer, Mullins single-handedly performs the roles of an entire cast of characters. As a translator, her virtuosic deftness is in the restrained power of her writing.’
– GG jury citation
Praise for the French edition of Twenty-One Cardinals:
‘With its explosive, poignant, funny and tragicstory and memorable characters, Les héritiers de la mine is an important novel … Through the destiny of this large family, the author talks about Abitibi, where she lives, and of its broken dreams and cheated workers, the blind power of multinationals, the disappearance of villages and families decimated. Her protagonists have the makings of heroes, the stuff to withstand adversity; they may be local heroes, but their fight is universal.’
– Voir (translated from the French)
-
Twin Tongues
$14.95Mining bilong dispela stori: Exploring the power imbalance between English and Tok Pisin, Twin Tongues transforms the English Language into a character who encounters her own foreignness in Papua New Guinea. This text struggles with the ethics of appropriation, language use and second language teaching, questioning the subjective position of the author, the teacher, the speaker of English. The poetry scrapes away the veneer of objectivity assumed by historical descriptions of Tok Pisin. Twin Tongues tests the flexibility of language, and asks, “What does language sound like to unfamiliar ears? And what is English anyway?”
“A deeply engrossing collection.”—Broken Pencil
-
Twist of the Blade
$19.99The power of Excalibur is changing Ariane in scary ways. As she and Rex Major race for the second shard, Wally’s no longer sure whose side he should be on . . .
When Ariane seriously hurts Wally’s sister, Flish, his belief in her is shaken. Meanwhile, the second shard is in France, and Rex Major already knows it’s there. Ariane’s powers from the Lady of the Lake enable her to travel magically through freshwater, but now there’s a saltwater ocean in the way . . .
As Major uses Wally’s doubts to cause a rift between the friends, Ariane takes the chance to go it alone. But if the first shard’s power is barely controllable, how will she fare when two shards are united?
Twist of the Blade is an exciting modern-day young-adult fantasy by award-winning author Edward Willett, perfect for anyone who thrills to stories of modern-day magic and tales of King Arthur.
Adventure awaits high in the clouds and deep underground in this second installment of the five-book Shards of Excalibur series.
-
Twisted
$17.95Growing up, Nancy believed in magic despite a hand-me-down life in a small town. So it’s no wonder the buzzing excitement of Toronto and its allure of freedom was a likely choice for her new home, the place she finds herself years later selling her body for drugs. Nancy is further from freedom than ever under the wings of Sikes, a drug dealer and pimp. When she meets Oliver, a seventeen-year-old who lands at Sikes’s feet after a life of foster care and shelters, the two find unlikely solace in each other. As text messages are exchanged by the instant, and truths are revealed, Nancy and Oliver form an unbreakable bond in order to write a new story together.
A fresh collaboration between Charlotte Corbeil–Coleman and Joseph Jomo Pierre, and in a style that’s part Dickens, part Drake, Twisted samples from Oliver Twist to create a vivid, urban story about disenfranchised youth in Toronto.
-
Twisted by Lisa Harrington
$14.95 -
Twistical Nature of Spoons, The
$23.95Blisse has guarded the family secret for her entire childhood. No one can know the origin of her unconventional birthday gifts Her mother, Ina, has insisted that Blisse never tell a soul – believing it’s the only way to keep her daughter safe from a dire fate. Together, mother and daughter must sift through their own versions of events to understand how the secret has led to the unravelling of their lives. Chock-full of masks and curses, art and magic, seduction and spoons, their stories are both fraught with misdirection and awash in whimsy. Can their revelations negate a tragic prediction? Or is the dissolution of love and family inevitable?
-
Twists of Fate
$19.95Michel Tremblay’s Twists of Fate gathers volumes 6 and 7 of the critically acclaimed Desrosiers Diaspora series of novels, If by Chance and Destination Paradise. In If by Chance, set in 1925, the great Ti-Lou, the famous She-Wolf of Ottawa, returns to Montréal. After a fruitful career at the Château Laurier, in the royal suite where she welcomed diplomats and men of the world, politicians and ministers of worship, she packs up and sneaks off, her suitcases replete with savings acquired at the cost of her body. Unrepentant, always whimsical, a damsel in distress, Louise Wilson-Desrosiers was a proud, free, exemplary courtesan … When she arrives in the hall of the Windsor station, she wonders what surprises life may have in store for her. Five possible fates await her, each with their share of risks and opportunities, of good and less good fortune. But in each of these lives, Ti-Lou will have to deal with more than mere chance, because awaiting her at the crossroads are the blade of loneliness and, worse still, the fear of allowing herself to be loved. In Destination Paradise, we enter the Paradise Club, on 1930s Montréal’s Main Street, one of the few places that caters to old boys, in a spot dubbed the Ringside. It’s where Édouard Tremblay made his entry into the “big world,” shortly after becoming a shoe seller on the avenue du Mont-Royal. Precocious despite his eighteen years of age, he is carried away by his double, the Duchess of Langeais, whose story he has just read in Balzac’s eponymous novel. Of course, we already know that Édouard will become the Main’s undisputed queen of the Montréal drag scene, associated with the spectacular Acapulco nights; but we knew less about Édouard’s beginning in life, the childhood of his stage character. Destination Paradise tenderly exposes Édouard’s rite of passage.
-
Two Blackbirds
$19.95The fires of the Second World War are beginning to burn down, but legendary Canadian aviatrix Sharon Lacey is not out of danger just yet. Complications enter the young ace’s life as deep-seated racial and class prejudice, potential fifth columnists and even her own killer code of honour threaten her hard-fought reputation, while a new and wonderful secret might just prove to be her undoing.
Meanwhile, across the Channel in Fortress Europe, new weapons have started rolling off Nazi production lines, and the characteristic buzz of the deadly V-1 flying bomb fills the air.
In the second act of his Calgary Herald-bestselling Blackbirds trilogy, Garry Ryan pits his intrepid heroine against an array of deadly new foes and challenges, proving that in war the enemy may wear the same uniform as your own.
-
Two for the Tablelands
$22.95***THE HOWARD ENGEL AWARD FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL SET IN CANADA – SHORTLIST***
Sebastian Synard is back. It’s the off-season, and the Newfoundland tour guide introduced in One for the Rock has crossed the island with his spirited teenage son for a weekend exploring the wonders of Gros Morne National Park. But on a hike across the spectacular rockscape of The Tablelands, they discover the half-buried body of a murder victim. Life as a tour guide had its twists and turns, but now Sebastian—with his offhand, Scotch-enriched nature—is crossing a more dangerous landscape, on a path that will leave him face-to-face with a killer.
-
Two Gun & Sun
$22.95In 1922 a lone woman arrives in a filthy frontier mining town in the Pacific Northwest. Her goal: to resurrect her dead uncle’s newspaper. Within two days a naked man is shot dead, a famous man is rumoured to be heading their way and the only man capable of fixing her broken-down press so that she might spread this news is a Chinese printer from the nearby forbidden settlement of Lousetown.
Over the next month, Lila Sinclair will take even bigger risks to see her business thrive-from her questionable news reporting to her negotiations with a partner who’s a liar and a gambler. Reckless, stubborn and with a maddening tendency to shed tears when provoked, Lila works long hours next to her printer to see her dream through, only to discover all that she could lose.
Inspired by the historical figures Morris “Two Gun” Cohen and Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whose joint pursuits would later bolster a revolution that ushered in the modern era for China, and further informed by Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, with its themes of intercultural love in the Old West, June Hutton blends fact with fiction in a dramatic tale that is part historical novel, part steampunk opera and part otherworldly Western.
Brutally beautiful, at times playful and absurd and then swiftly tragic, Two Gun & Sun explores themes of truth, love and independence.
-
Two Hands Clapping
$24.95Two Hands Clapping is a goldmine for actors seeking two-person plays. This volume features full-length, one act, and short scripts for two actors. The playwrights are Canadian and are working from coast to coast and most regions in between. Established writers appear in this collection, as well as voices that are just beginning to make their mark in Canadian theatre.
The plays in Two Hands Clapping have appeared on the main stage, in alternative theatres or non-traditional theatre spaces, at the fringe, and/or in professional workshops. Some of the plays have toured nationally and internationally.
This volume also includes in-depth interviews with playwrights, focusing on the challenges and satisfactions of writing a play for two actors. Two Hands Clapping is a valuable source book for theatre students and teachers seeking new plays of varying lengths for production in festivals or other performance opportunities. It is also an excellent place to find two-actor scene work and — of course — to discover new voices, as well as new work by some of your favourite Canadian playwrights.
Includes:
Poochwater by Mike McPhaden
The Dinner Party by Rose Cullis
3… 2… 1 by Nathan Cuckow and Chris Craddock
Jane’s Thumb by Kelley Jo Burke
The File by Greg Nelson
Lola Shuffles the Cards by Kit Brennan
The House Wife by Sherry White and Ruth Lawrence
Afterglow by Peter Boychuk -
Two Hemispheres
$18.00Imagining the lives of nineteenth-century women asylum patients, Nadine McInnis charts her descent into, and recovery from, depression.
In the afterword to Two Hemispheres, McInnis describes her first encounter with the remarkable photographs that illustrate this moving volume. Patients of the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, these women’s names and stories are lost to history. McInnis imagines their experiences of mental illness as she explores her own journey through clinical depression, and finds in these haunting photographs solace and community.
“In the medical world, the body is often described metaphorically as a machine. Physician-poet William Carlos Williams invoked a similar metaphor when he noted that a poem is a machine made of words. What intrigues me about Nadine McInnis’s insightful collection of poems is how the mechanics of poetry serve to explore what can happen when we as human machines break down. Equally captivating in these evocative and sometimes disturbing poems is the historical impetus for their creationVictorian medical photographs. Two Hemispheres truly acts as a causeway between past and present, health and illness, and the supposed vastly different worlds of arts and biomedicine.” — Dr. J.T.H. Connor, John Clinch Professor of Medical Humanities and History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland
-
Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand
$29.95A vital collection of writings about First Nations people and culture as it existed on the island coasts of the Depression-era Pacific Northwest and originally published in the pages of Victoria’s oldest newspaper, the Daily Colonist, the sixty stories included here are the result of a unique collaboration between a middle-aged woman, Beryl Cryer, of upper-class British ancestry, and well-known Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking cultural elders, keenly aware of the punitive anti-land claims legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1927, and therefore eager to have their stories told and published.
Mary Rice from Kuper Island, who lived next door to the Cryer family home in Chemainus, BC, is well remembered even today for her storytelling abilities; she taught Beryl Cryer, with whom she became close friends, countless aspects of indigenous culture, particularly as experienced by women. An elder in a thriving native culture, she introduced Cryer to the many other authorities from whom these stories were gathered for the newspaper.
Although she was not a trained anthropologist, Beryl Cryer was an honest observer and careful recorder. She embellished the material she collected with minor anecdotal introductions that give the reader a vivid sense of the person telling the story. The accounts themselves are valuable documents of Coast Salish oral traditions dealing with a wide range of subject matter from known sources, almost all of whom were well-versed in English.
-
Two Letters … And Counting!
$25.00Although he has won plaudits and awards for work in film, television, and on stage, Tony Nardi’s most recent headlines have been earned by his TWO LETTERS … And Counting!. Two Letters is based on two actual letters sent to “middle-men” of the Canadian cultural scene: a film/television producer and two theatre critics. Letter One articulates an actor/writer’s struggle with cultural stereotypes in Canadian theatre/film/TV. Letter Two challenges misconceptions about commedia dell’arte by present-day theatre critics and directors. It explores a history of an ‘actor-less’ theatre culture in Canada at the hands of ‘director’s theatre,’ in which, increasingly, a tradition of over-trained actors and under-trained directors is encouraged. “…And Counting!” (Letter Three) is a postmortem of Two Letters, and a journey into the present state of theatre, culture (and funding).
-
Two of the Best In the Neighbourhood
$25.95Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a backstage account of the creation and continued life of the smash hit play 2 Pianos 4 Hands. (This volume also includes the full script of the play.) With contributions from the principal players of this story, including many from co-creator Ted Dykstra, Greenblatt takes us from the genesis of the idea to the blockbuster cross-Canada tour and to productions in the US, England, and Japan. A highly personal and subjective tale filled with anecdotes that span almost three decades, Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a glimpse into a fascinating chapter of Canadian theatre history.
2 Pianos 4 Hands tells the story of Ted and Richard, who grow up as “piano nerds,” dealing with pushy parents, eccentric teachers, hours of repetitive practice, stage fright, the agony of competitions and exams, and the dream of greatness. As they mature, they become more aware of the gap between the merely very good and the great, and they come to the humbling realization that although concert stardom may be out of reach, they just might be two of the best piano players in the neighbourhood–and that in itself is worth celebrating.