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 1537–1552 of 9494 results
-
Cheating Fate
$12.95Cheating Fate is the charged story of four teens, all best friends, who have grown up together in a small town in the BC interior. Loyal, compassionate, and trusting they accept their friendship bonds with a resoluteness that only another teen could understand. But when they survive a serious snowmobile accident and discover they share remarkable and frightening memories of their near-death experience, they fear that their fates are sealed and that they will die at some unknown time – together. The action is paced through four distinct voices Sukhwinder, a laidback Indo-Canadian teenager who loves his friends but gets lured into illegal activity with his urban cousins; Kyle, a restless teen wanting to conquer the motocross world with extreme riding; Jeremy, a sensitive teenager craving attention from a busy single father and absentee mother; and Cassidy, the only girl in the group of friends who fears for the boys and their flawed sense of invincibility.
Tension builds as the teens decide they must separate into pairs to cheat fate rather than tempt it. But in their separate realities, and vulnerable delusions, they surrender to the idea that life without each other is not worth living. In coming to terms with their emerging spiritualities and recklessly challenging their own mortalities, they learn that there are no human powers to alter fate.
-
Checkout Girl, The
$19.95It’s 1970, and the optimism of Trudeaumania is giving way to fears of wage and price controls. In Varnum, Ontario, where the smell of industry is the smell of money, a lot of that money’s heading south just like Bobby Orr.The Checkout Girl is the story of Kathy Rausch, whose life these days is something that just seems to happen to her. After sneaking out on her boyfriend in Vancouver, Kathy moves back to Varnum and hides out in a room in the basement of her high school buddy, Penny Lehman. When Kathy isn’t checking out groceries, she skates. And when she isn’t skating, she’s sharing her room with a skittish boa constrictor named Freddy, warding off advances from fellow basement dweller “Little” Barry Bender, ignoring her well-meaning mother, Connie, hanging out with her best friend, champion baton twirler Darlyn Smola, and dealing a bit of marijuana for Penny’s husband Pete. But when Kathy stumbles upon a brutal murder, she is finally driven to put her hockey stick where her heart is: on the ice.
-
Cheeseburger Subversive
$15.95We have all been there: those sublime and ordinary moments in growing up that create the evolution of change, or as Cheeseburger Subversive’s Dak Sifter would call it, a "shifting of gears". Scarsbrook’s novel captures the weird logic of self discovery that marks the explorations of boy becoming man, and in its noise and thrashing, explodes the maturity myth. Short listed for the 2004 Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Canadian Book Award!
-
Cherry Beach
$24.95A brutal murder exposes secret real estate deals, a corrupt police force, and the dark heart of a city simmering with unrest.
When two girls are found murdered in a rundown Toronto highrise, Jamieson Abel and his partner are first on the scene. Abel is 52, a law school dropout turned police detective, chronically at odds with his colleagues and perpetually on the brink of being terminated. Davis, 35, is the department’s only female officer of colour not currently suing the city and the police force for systemic racism and sexual harassment. Both understand their being partnered as a form of banishment, but when the details of the murder go public at the start of an excruciatingly hot summer, they find themselves thrust into the centre of a headline investigation that will bring to a head the city’s long history of shady real estate deals and racist disenfranchisement.
Intricately plotted and brilliantly layered, Cherry Beach is a gripping literary detective novel about an increasingly unhinged world in which the rich manipulate racial and economic tensions for their own benefit, with little regard for the damage caused by their mercenary callousness.
-
Cherry Bites
$16.95On a summer afternoon in 1954 a jealous four-year-old girl named Cherry Ring bites her baby brother Pete on the cheek. She bites him so hard that little Pete needs a skin graft to repair the damage and will have a scar for the rest of his life. Cherry knows what’s she’s done is wrong, and she really is sorry. But sorry isn’t going to be good enough. The bite marks the beginning of a troubled relationship between the siblings that will last a lifetime.
As Pete gets older he perfects an ability to completely ignore his sister. It scares Cherry, the way he looks right through her, and she chooses to leave him alone. Cherry can’t seem to find her way into her mother’s affections either. Her father is the only one who seems able to love her, but when she is only nine years old he dies suddenly, leaving her to manage as best she can in her dysfunctional little family. Cherry is in university when her mother decides to remarry and move away, taking Pete with her. Cherry isn’t sorry to see them go. She finally starts to feel like her life is going somewhere.
But on a sultry summer night in 1995, disturbing incidents begin to occur around her house and Cherry realizes she has not managed to leave her past behind.
Luckily that nice police inspector Frank Foote lives in the neighbourhood. Maybe he can help her. The story unfolds in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of Norwood Flats, which readers have come to know in Preston’s previous mysteries, The Rain Barrel Baby and The Geranium Girls.
-
Chewing Water
$17.00Chewing Water continues Nelson Ball’s fascinating forays into the social, into communities of humans, after spending decades writing almost exclusively about nature. While mourning, loss, and decay are featuring more heavily than ever in his poetry, friendship, hope, and love are gaining on those themes. Nelson’s poems concentrate on the tiniest things, the tiniest moments: a letter of the alphabet, an expired fly, a crack in a friend’s wall, the tone of a friend’s voice. While these poems are brief, the spirit behind them is expansive. This book is a landmark in the growing oeuvre of a Canadian poet whose influence has only grown over the decades.
-
Chicago Blues
$24.95A stunning collection of photographs from Chicago’s foremost blues photographer. When Raeburn Flerlage was asked to take a picture of Memphis Slim in 1959, he began a career that would produce some of the most fascinating and important photos ever taken of blues musicians. By shooting concert performances, studio sessions, interviews, and club shows, he became a fixture of the Chicago blues scene during the 1960s and early 70s, and captured some of America’s greatest blues artists at the pinnacle of their careers: Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Spann, James Cotton, John Lee Hooker, Son House, and many more. Here, for the first time, are Raeburn’s greatest photos, reproduced in a beautiful format. From Howlin’ Wolf performing at legendary Pepper’s lounge to Otis Spann and James Cotton playing in Muddy Waters’ basement, these pictures bring to life one of the most incredible periods in American musical history, and will make you feel like you’re right there in that smoky bar, listening.
-
Chicago Folk
$24.95Chicago Folk includes over 150 of Raeburn Flerlages’s photographs of folk musicians during the 1960s. No other book has presented a portrait of such a vibrant urban folk milieu, featuring popular performers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, and so many others, but also a large number of traditional musicians, old and new, such as the New Lost City Ramblers, the Reverend Gary Davis, Booker White, Son House, Dock Boggs, the Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Mother Maybelle Carter, and many other blues, bluegrass, old-time, Cajun, and gospel performers who appeared in Chicago and at the University of Chicago Folk Festival. These images capture the broad scope of folk musicians who were part and parcel of the 1960s folk music revival in Chicago and throughout the country.
Raeburn Flerlage was well known as Chicago’s foremost blues photographer. The concert performances, studio sessions, interviews and club shows he shot through the 1960s and early ‘70s captured some of America’s greatest blues artists at the pinnacle of their careers. While these images are now famous, the rest of his thousands of images are virtually unknown, and Chicago Folk brings these photos to light.
Chicago Folk is a follow-up to Chicago Blues (ECW Press, 2000), the first published collection of Flerlage’s photographs.
-
Chicken Soup & Goji Berries
$19.99The kids of the Yang family have spent most of their lives in Canada. Having their Nainai from China move in with the family is a big change for them. From having to turn down the volume of their cartoons, to being awakened by the soy milk machine at 7 AM, Jeannie, Ethan, and Cindy have much to get used to. But it’s not just the day-to-day routine that’s changed now that Nainai is in their lives — there’s something different in the air, something magical. Chicken Soup and Goji Berries is a graphic novel by Naomi Cui and Janice Liu exploring the connections across languages, cultures, and generations that can exist within one Chinese-Canadian family. Utilizing some of the unique tool set available in the comics medium, the story code-switches fluidly between English and Chinese, while preserving understanding for readers of both languages. You can read it in English, you can read it in Chinese, or you can feel like a member of the Yang family and read it in both.
-
Chilcotin Chronicles
$26.95A collection of historical stories about the early indigenous people, settlers, trappers, and adventurers of BC’s Cariboo Chilcotin. A compilation of stories that meld both culture and bloodlines, Chilcotin Chronicles by Sage Birchwater is set in the wild and untamed country of central British Columbia’s Chilcotin Plateau. West of the Fraser River, this high country is contained by an arc of impenetrable mountain ranges that separates it from the Pacific Coast. The first inhabitants of this region were fiercely independent, molded by the land itself. Those who came later were drawn to this landscape with its mysterious aura of freedom, where time stood still and where a person could find solace in the wilderness and never be found.
Birchwater reaches back to first European contact in British Columbia when the indigenous population spoke forty of Canada’s fifty-four languages and seventy of Canada’s one hundred dialects. The land known today as the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast was already an entity when Alexander Mackenzie arrived in 1793. Bonds of friendship, mutual support and family ties had long been established between the Dakelh, Tsilhqot’in and Nuxalk, giving cohesiveness to the region. Chilcotin Chronicles is about the men and women caught in the interface of cultures and the changing landscape. Indigenous inhabitants and white newcomers brought together by the fur brigades, then later by the gold rush, forged a path together, uncharted and unpredictable. Birchwater discovers that their stories, seemingly disconnected, are intrinsically linked together to create a human eco-system with very deep roots. The lives of these early inhabitants give substance to the landscape. They give meaning to the people who live there today.
-
Children in the Morning
$26.95Winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.
“Emery’s first novel won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2007 and it is clear why. Her writing is fast-paced and exciting, and the book is difficult to put down.” — Scene Magazine
Hotshot lawyer Beau Delaney is charged with the murder of his wife Peggy. The Delaney family dynamics and the appearance of a mysterious child complicate Monty Collins’s defence of Delaney, and convince him that his client is harbouring secrets.
Beau Delaney is a bit of a showboat, a prominent lawyer whose exploits have become the subject of a Hollywood film. He’s also the father of ten children (many adopted). Now he’s charged with the murder of his wife, Peggy. It’s another hard case for lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins. His client is keeping secrets; a mysterious eleventh child turns up and demands to take part in the trial; and the last words anyone heard from Peggy were “the Hells Angels!”
Monty isn’t alone in trying to save Delaney from life in prison and save his sprawling family from breaking up. Monty’s pal, Father Brennan Burke, has a hand in the investigation, too. But Burke is also lending a hand to Monty’s estranged wife, Maura. And the priest finds himself burdened with unwelcome secrets of his own when Maura’s old flame arrives on the scene and threatens to turn her world upside down.
Watching all this through the eyes of a child is Monty and Maura’s little girl, Normie. Like her spooky grandmother in Cape Breton, Normie has the gift of second sight. When she starts having visions that seem to involve Beau Delaney, she can’t tell whether they reflect something he’s done in the past, or something he might do in the future. We hear the story from two points of view, experience and innocence, Monty and Normie, and ask ourselves which of them will be first to uncover the truth about Beau Delaney.
About the Collins-Burke Mysteries
This multi-award-winning series is centred around two main characters who have been described as endearingly flawed: Monty Collins, a criminal defence lawyer who has seen and heard it all, and Father Brennan Burke, a worldly, hard-drinking Irish-born priest. The priest and the lawyer solve mysteries together, but sometimes find themselves at cross-purposes, with secrets they cannot share: secrets of the confessional, and matters covered by solicitor-client confidentiality. The books are notable for their wit and humour, and their depiction of the darker side of human nature ? characteristics that are sometimes combined in the same person, be it a lawyer, a witness on the stand, or an Irish ballad singer who doubles as a guerrilla fighter in the Troubles in war-torn Belfast. In addition to their memorable characters, the books have been credited with a strong sense of place and culture, meticulous research, crisp and authentic dialogue, and intriguing plots. The novels are set in Nova Scotia, Ireland, England, Italy, New York, and Germany. The series begins with Sign of the Cross (2006) and continues to the most recent installment, Postmark Berlin (2020).
-
Children in the Morning
$14.95Winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.
“Emery’s first novel won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2007 and it is clear why. Her writing is fast-paced and exciting, and the book is difficult to put down.” — Scene Magazine
Hotshot lawyer Beau Delaney is charged with the murder of his wife Peggy. The Delaney family dynamics and the appearance of a mysterious child complicate Monty Collins’s defence of Delaney, and convince him that his client is harbouring secrets.
Beau Delaney is a bit of a showboat, a prominent lawyer whose exploits have become the subject of a Hollywood film. He’s also the father of ten children (many adopted). Now he’s charged with the murder of his wife, Peggy. It’s another hard case for lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins. His client is keeping secrets; a mysterious eleventh child turns up and demands to take part in the trial; and the last words anyone heard from Peggy were “the Hells Angels!”
Monty isn’t alone in trying to save Delaney from life in prison and save his sprawling family from breaking up. Monty’s pal, Father Brennan Burke, has a hand in the investigation, too. But Burke is also lending a hand to Monty’s estranged wife, Maura. And the priest finds himself burdened with unwelcome secrets of his own when Maura’s old flame arrives on the scene and threatens to turn her world upside down.
Watching all this through the eyes of a child is Monty and Maura’s little girl, Normie. Like her spooky grandmother in Cape Breton, Normie has the gift of second sight. When she starts having visions that seem to involve Beau Delaney, she can’t tell whether they reflect something he’s done in the past, or something he might do in the future. We hear the story from two points of view, experience and innocence, Monty and Normie, and ask ourselves which of them will be first to uncover the truth about Beau Delaney.
About the Collins-Burke Mysteries
This multi-award-winning series is centred around two main characters who have been described as endearingly flawed: Monty Collins, a criminal defence lawyer who has seen and heard it all, and Father Brennan Burke, a worldly, hard-drinking Irish-born priest. The priest and the lawyer solve mysteries together, but sometimes find themselves at cross-purposes, with secrets they cannot share: secrets of the confessional, and matters covered by solicitor-client confidentiality. The books are notable for their wit and humour, and their depiction of the darker side of human nature ? characteristics that are sometimes combined in the same person, be it a lawyer, a witness on the stand, or an Irish ballad singer who doubles as a guerrilla fighter in the Troubles in war-torn Belfast. In addition to their memorable characters, the books have been credited with a strong sense of place and culture, meticulous research, crisp and authentic dialogue, and intriguing plots. The novels are set in Nova Scotia, Ireland, England, Italy, New York, and Germany. The series begins with Sign of the Cross (2006) and continues to the most recent installment, Postmark Berlin (2020).
-
Children of Fire
$24.95In 2018, Shahrzad Arshadi and Anna Chatterton travelled to the Qandil Mountains of Kurdistan, where they were hosted by a group of Kurdish female freedom fighters. After living with and gathering accounts of these extraordinary women, they returned home to create a searing piece of theatre that not only amplifies their voices but also deftly examines privilege, feminism, and the nature of courage. With contributions from the authors and the resistance fighters, Children of Fire is a unique, genre-blurring collection that includes the original play script, an interview, photographs, candid personal essays, letters, poems, and testimonials.
This vital hybrid work examines how the freedom fighters’ struggle is in aid of peace and the protection of the environment, as well as the Kurdish people and women everywhere. During these anxious and turbulent times, it can feel easy to give up hope. Children of Fire offers a wake-up call to connection and change, emphasizing that we are all part of this critical fight, and that together, we can create a better world for everyone.
-
Children of Mary, The
$19.95The Children of Mary follows the lives of three generations of Ukranian women on the prairies, focusing on the relationship between two sisters, Sonya and Kat, and the mysterious events of their childhood. As teenagers in the ’70s, Sonya and Kat are trying desperately to be hip in the Ukrainian ghetto of North End Winnipeg. They experiment with everything from religion to marijuana, against a backbeat of Abba songs, Olivia Newton ballads, and endless reciting of the rosary. After her sister dies under mysterious circumstances, Sonya spends the next decade trying to figure out why. As she relocates to Toronto and creates a new identity for herself, her grandmother, Maria, moves backwards into memories of the Depression, her husband’s radical politics and her own attempts to heal the scars of immigration and poverty through herbal remedies and the occasional clumsy attempt at witchcraft. Moving back and forth in time from the 1930s to the 1990s, the novel traces a family’s journey from the old world to the new, from the Manitoba prairies to the queer feminist underground of Toronto, amid a complex web of secrets, half-truths and magic spells.
-
Children of the Bloodlands
$22.95The dazzling second book in S.M. Beiko’s Realms of Ancient seriesThree months after the battle of Zabor, the five friends that came together to defeat her have been separated. Burdened with the Calamity Stone she acquired in Scion of the Fox, Roan has gone to Scotland to retrace her grandmother’s steps in an attempt to stop further evil from entering the world.Meanwhile, a wicked monster called Seela has risen from the ashy Bloodlands and is wreaking havoc on the world while children in Edinburgh are afflicted by a strange plague; Eli travels to Seoul to face judgment and is nearly murdered; Natti endures a taxing journey with two polar bears; Phae tries desperately to obtain the key to the Underworld; and Barton joins a Family-wide coalition as the last defense against an enemy that will stop at nothing to undo Ancient’s influence on Earth — before there is no longer an Earth to fight for.Darkness, death, and the ancient powers that shape the world will collide as our heroes discover that some children collapse under their dark inheritance, and those who don’t are haunted by blood.
-
Children of the Bloodlands
$15.95Now in paperback! “This action-packed Canadian animal fantasy trilogy is recommended for its unique mythology and diverse characters.” — School Library JournalThree months after the battle of Zabor, the five friends that came together to defeat her have been separated. Burdened with the Calamity Stone she acquired in Scion of the Fox, Roan has gone to Scotland to retrace her grandmother’s steps in an attempt to stop further evil from entering the world.Meanwhile, a wicked monster called Seela has risen from the ashy Bloodlands and is wreaking havoc on the world while children in Edinburgh are afflicted by a strange plague; Eli travels to Seoul to face judgment and is nearly murdered; Natti endures a taxing journey with two polar bears; Phae tries desperately to obtain the key to the Underworld; and Barton joins a Family-wide coalition as the last defense against an enemy that will stop at nothing to undo Ancient’s influence on Earth — before there is no longer an Earth to fight for.Darkness, death, and the ancient powers that shape the world will collide as our heroes discover that some children collapse under their dark inheritance, and those who don’t are haunted by blood.