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 929–944 of 9481 results
-
Before Combustion
$23.95Arriving at a point in mid-life where stability throws up more questions than answers, the agreeable routines of work, chores and parenthood can both define and disquiet us. As the steady stream of anxieties and distractions—of screens, traffic, information overload, existential dread—sets the day-to-day human world adrift, what meaningful relationship remains possible with the natural world? In these poems, Nicholas Bradley writes of the challenges of living with attentiveness and curiosity in a time of atmospheric rivers and forest fires, of heat domes and landslides, and of the struggle to reconnect our domestic worlds to greater cycles of place and time.
-
Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being
$20.00In that moment, I felt closer to whiteness than not. I was completely complicit and didn?t think twice about entering a space that could cover their walls with images of contemporary Indigenous perspectives, but exclude their physical bodies from entering and experiencing. In that moment, I felt like a real Canadian.
Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being is the debut collection of nonfiction essays by Amy Fung. In it, Fung takes a closer examination at Canada’s mythologies of multiculturalism, settler colonialism, and identity through the lens of a national art critic.
Following the tangents of a foreign-born perspective and the complexities and complicities in participating in ongoing acts of colonial violence, the book as a whole takes the form of a very long land acknowledgement. Taken individually, each essay roots itself in the learning and unlearning process of a first generation settler immigrant as she unfurls each region’s sense of place and identity
-
Before the Usual Time
$20.00A collection of words and imagery from diverse voices grounded in the land that explore community in relation to time. Filmmaker/writer, Darlene Naponse, curates a gathering of expression about time that has passed, time that is now and time that comes.
-
Before We Lost the Lake
$24.95For thousands of years, the broad expanse between Sumas and Vedder Mountains east of Vancouver lay under water, forming the bed of Sumas Lake. As recently as a century ago, the lake’s shores stood four miles across and six miles long. During yearly high water, the lake spilled onto the surrounding prairies; during high flood years, it reached from Chilliwack into Washington State. Then, through the 1920s, a network of dykes, canals, dams and pumphouses was erected and the lake drained–“reclaimed” in the words of projects supporters. A new landscape was created, a seemingly ‘natural’ prairie carved up into productive farmland.
Today, few people are aware that Sumas Lake ever existed. The only reminder is a plaque erected on the old lakeshore, at a rest-stop along the Trans-Canada Highway just east of Whatcom Road, on the historic trail blazed to BC’s gold fields. Yet for millenniums, Sumas Lake was a dynamic, integral part of the region’s natural and human landscape.
In his new book, Before We Lost the Lake, Chad Reimer sets out to truly reclaim Sumas Lake, to restore it to its proper place in the history of the Fraser Valley, BC and the Northwest Coast. Drawing on extensive primary material, Reimer reconstructs the life history of Sumas Lake from the glacial age through the lake’s demise and after. Before We Lost the Lake examines the lake’s natural history and ecology, its occupation and use by the Sema:th and other First Nations, its colonization by White immigrants, the environmental changes brought about by introduced plants and animals, and the campaign to drain it. Drainage proponents had their way and gradually the promised benefits were realized. But these benefits came at a heavy cost to the environment and for the Sema:th, whose traditional way of life was irretrievably lost.
-
Beforelife
$19.95It’s okay if you don’t believe in the afterlife. The people who live there don’t believe in you, either.
What if you went to heaven and no one there believed in Earth? This is the question at the heart of Beforelife, a satirical novel that follows the post-mortem adventures of widower Ian Brown, a man who dies on the book’s first page and finds himself in an afterlife where no one else believes in “pre-incarnation.” The other residents of the afterlife have mysteriously forgotten their pre-mortem lives and think that anyone who remembers a mortal life is suffering from a mental disorder called the “Beforelife Delusion.”
None of that really matters to Ian. All he wants to do is reunite with Penelope, his wife. Scouring the afterlife for any sign of her, Ian accidentally winds up on a quest to prove that the beforelife is real. This puts him squarely into the crosshairs of some of history’s greatest heroes and villains, all of whom seem unhealthily obsessed with erasing Ian’s memories and preventing him from reminding anyone of their pre-mortem lives. Only by staying a step ahead of his enemies can Ian hope to keep his much-needed marbles, find Penelope, and restore the public’s memories of the beforelife.
-
Begin by Telling
$20.00Never forget /
to connect the dots /
This book is an attempt to connect a couple.In Begin by Telling, experimental pop sensation Meg Remy (U.S. Girls) spins a web out from her body to myriad corners of American hyper-culture. Through illustrated lyric essays depicting visceral memories from early childhood to present day, Remy paints a stark portrait of a spectacle-driven country.
As though channel surfing, we catch glimpses of Desert Storm, the Oklahoma City Bombing, random street violence, the petrochemical industry, small town Deadheads, a toilet with uterus lining in it, the county STD clinic, and missionaries at the front door. Each is shared through language of the body; the sensation of experiencing many of the defining events and moments of a country.
Immersive and utterly compelling, the threads in Begin by Telling nimbly interweave with probing quotes and statistics, demonstrating the importance of personal storytelling, radical empathy, and the necessity of reflecting on society and one’s self within that construct.
-
Begin With the End in Mind
$12.95Residing on the border between poetry and prose, Emma Healey masterfully navigates the tension and balance between the two forms. Her writing examines the animate qualities of seemingly inanimate things and explores personal relationships, collective and individual human experiences, as they are distilled through our encounters with such things as the CBC, chain bookstores, the contents of a kitchen, or the expanse of a whole city. Begin With the End in Mind tests the capabilities of the prose poem–the specific rhythmic, lyrical, and syntactic possibilities of the form, and the opportunities for play, renegotiating the more traditional/technical elements of lyric and line that are afforded the prose poet.
-
Beginnings
$12.95Twice winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, Livesay was a founding member of the League of Canadian Poets and writer-in-residence at many universities. She considered Beginnings “essentially autobiographical.”
-
Behind Closed Doors
$26.95Behind Closed Doors features written testimonials from thirty-two individuals who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The school was one of many infamous residential schools that operated from 1893 to 1979. The storytellers remember and share with us their stolen time at the school; many stories are told through courageous tears.
-
Behind the Door
$23.95While finishing her PhD on folklore and fairy tales Anna takes a last minute house sitting job in a sleepy town in England. In return for free board, she is asked to work at the landlord’s odd bookstore and take care of his two black cats. The only thing he’s asked her not to do is to open the locked door of a room on the second floor. A mysterious pacing man in the field outside the house, a clingy new boyfriend and creepy sounds in the night make Anna suspect that something isn’t quite right here. And after her visiting sister suddenly disappears Anna discovers life in this bucolic village isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. A psychological twist on the Bluebeard Tale, Behind the Door is fraught with suspense and fear. Will Anna and her sister make it through this disturbing summer?
-
Behind The Eyes We Meet
$24.95Why must one man perish while another survives? How does losing a sibling at birth affect life? And what are the chances that a fish lost and a cat found will bring our two protagonists together? This sweeping tale of intertwined destinies takes the reader from present-day Montreal to war-torn Italy and back again, with a gruelling march through the frozen Eastern Front of World War II along the way. All the while, secrets burn behind every pair of eyes we meet.
-
Behind the Face of Winter
$22.95A coming-of-age novel set in a Montreal in which immigrant youth totter on the edge of self-destruction and oblivion, in the face of brutal and racist police, an insensitive education system, and few prospects for the future. Thomas’s language is spare, and his crackling dialogue and use of patois can compare with the best in Caribbean literature.
-
Behind the Lens
$39.95A one-of-a-kind collection including some never-before-seen photographs of the wild and unforgettable WHA from legendary sports photographer Steve Babineau
On October 12, 1972, legendary Boston sports photographer, Steve Babineau, was in attendance for the debut of the New England Whalers. They were taking on the Philadelphia Blazers at the old Boston Garden — and Babs was shooting the action. Fifty years later, he’s still photographing big-league sports events — but this lovingly curated collection documents both his earliest published (and unseen) works and the wild emergence of the colorful, revolutionary, wild, and unforgettable WHA.
In an era when rolls of film still had to be changed by hand and cameras were focused manually, when arena lighting was questionable and images had to be captured through the haze produced by smoking fans, Babineau captured it all: the timeless legends who were finally getting paid, the journeymen who finally got a shot at the pros, the 17-year-old who would go on to rewrite record books, the brawls and goals, the glorious ’staches and flows, the highs and the lows …
Behind the Lens: The World Hockey Association 50 Years Later has the Golden Jet and the Howes, the teams that seemed to change names and cities as often as some players changed wooden sticks, and even the true origin story of that Wayne Gretzky photo that’s become the million-dollar holy grail for sports card collectors.
-
Behind the Moon
A new play from award-winning playwright and novelist Anosh Irani
In a Mughlai restaurant in Toronto, a late-night visit from a mysterious stranger rattles the cage and shatters the peace. Now the restaurant’s employee Ayub must face reality, the family he’s left behind, and the dreams he’s abandoned, all while keeping the restaurant shiningly clean.
From the award-winning playwright and novelist Anosh Irani, Behind the Moon is a story of love and loss, freedom and faith, the meaning of brotherhood, and how we begin a new life.
Cast of 3 South Asian men
-
Behind the Orchestra
$7.95This book presents the revelatory nature of Trujillo’s English poetry. In the simplicity of these lines unfolds the mood and emotion divined by one who sees this country-made-home with the eyes and memory of one from away.
-
Behold Things Beautiful
$19.95After twelve years in exile, living and teaching in the safety of Montreal, Alma Alvarez has been persuaded to return to Luscano by her old friend Flaco, who has invited her to give a lecture at his university on the tragic Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini, a writer with a cult-like following known for her erotic poetry and film noir demise.
Having been arrested herself after the publication of a poem which offended the military regime, Alma knows how influential and dangerous poetry can be. But her mother is dying, and her return to Luscano feels inevitable. She soon discovers that life in Luscano is still rife with secrecy and duplicity. And Flaco turns out to have a hidden agenda as well. As Alma attempts to readapt to a country that, despite its seductive charms, may not have broke free of its brutal past, she catches sight of the man whose actions prompted her exile and begins to follow him in secret.
The imaginary country of Luscano, an amalgam of Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, is vibrantly brought to life with a nod to the region’s literary tradition of magic realism.