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Buying on Time Again

By (author): Antanas Sileika

“A moving and entertaining collection of short stories… that has the unified feel and trajectory of a novel.” (Quill & Quire)

Narrated by the middle child of an East European family who fled to a Toronto suburb after the war, Antanas Sileika’s esteemed collection could be about any Canadian family in the ’50s and ’60s — if they had an outhouse on their suburban lot and lived underground while plotting revenge on their English-speaking neighbours. Together, these touching, hilarious stories make up a powerful chronicle of a place and a time, a close-knit community, and most of all, a family: three boys, a long-suffering mother, and a strangely lovable pipe-smoking, English-mangling father.

First published in 1997, when it was a finalist for the Leacock Medal for Humour and the Toronto Book Award, Buying on Time has become a favourite of Canadian readers and a staple of this country’s immigrant fiction. Now updated and featuring a previously uncollected story, Buying on Time Again is sure to move and delight a whole new generation.

AUTHOR

Antanas Sileika

Antanas Sileika is a Canadian author of five previous books of fiction as well as a memoir. Working as a Canadian journalist of Lithuanian descent, he became involved with the movement to restore Lithuania’s independence from the Soviet Union. His collection of short stories, Buying on Time, was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour and the Toronto Book Award and long-listed for CBC’s Canada Reads in 2016. His books have repeatedly received starred reviews from Quill & Quire and been listed as among the one hundred best books of the year in the Globe and Mail. He has reviewed books for print, radio, and television and he served as the director of the Humber School for Writers until retiring in 2017. He currently lives in Toronto, ON.

Reviews

The stories are funny discerning sharply observed and unobtrusively wellwritten Reading them is as easy as breathing
The Montreal Gazette

Welds humour tragedy and personal embarrassments we all live through in a colourful and memorable way
The Globe and Mail

All 13 stories coalesce around the kernel of a strong anecdote which is related in spare lively prose rich in observed detail of attitudes gestures objects
Toronto Star

Buying on Timewas shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and the Leacock Medal for Humour It was anthologized in a fifteenpart series by CBCs Between the Covers and longlisted for CBCs Canada Reads


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Details

Dimensions:

306 Pages
8.5in * 5.5in * 0.73in
0.85lb

Published:

September 15, 2025

Publisher:

Stonehewer Books

ISBN:

9781738993369

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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