Alexander, orphaned as a child by a horrific tragedy, has nevertheless gained some success in the world. Even his older brother, Calum, a nearly destitute alcoholic living on Toronto's skid row, has been scarred by another tragedy. But, like all his clansman, Alexander is sustained by a family history that seems to run through his veins. And through these lovingly recounted stories-wildly comic or heartbreakingly tragic-we discover the hope against hope upon which every family must sometimes rely.

    Lizzy is the steadfast grandmother; crazy, red-haired Josie, the mother; and Kit, the 14-year-old daughter who tells their story. Like a maritime cutter, the narrative sails along smoothly, and much of the dialogue is in the distinctive argot of that windy Atlantic island: "When it's clear like ice and ribbed on the bottom--that's the killin' frost. Your berries are dead. Good for moose and caribou pickin's. Now, there's them that picks 'em anyway, and that's why their jam is as tart as a whore's arse." With its partridgeberry patches, moose stew, and endless cups of tea, this is quintessential Newfoundland. After Lizzy dies, the nasty local pastor wants to put Kit in an orphanage and Josie in an appropriate institution. The compassionate Doctor Hodgins becomes their staunch defender against both do-gooders and those plotting Kit's downfall. This first novel is a female coming-of-age story of the rural variety, replete with endemic poverty, good-hearted and downright evil village people, and the constant irritant of Newfoundland's raw, nasty weather. It is also the touching story of Kit's first love, and it reads like a breeze. --Mark Frutkin

    From the author of Fugitive Pieces, this work provides a collection of poems, meditations on how love changes in order to survive and how we move from obsolete science to new perceptions.

    Of his latest novel, Newsday wrote, "Thomas King has quietly and gorgeously done it again." Truth and Bright Water tells of a summer in the life of Tecumseh and Lum, young Native-American cousins coming of age in the Montana town of Truth, and the Bright Water Reserve across the river in Alberta. It opens with a mysterious woman with a suitcase, throwing things into the river -- then jumping in herself. Tecumseh and Lum go to help, but she and her truck have disappeared. Other mysteries puzzle Tecumseh: whether his mom will take his dad back; if his rolling-stone aunt is home to stay; why no one protects Lum from his father's rages. Then Tecumseh gets a job helping an artist -- Bright Water's most famous son -- with the project of a lifetime. As Truth and Bright Water prepare for the Indian Days festival, their secrets come together in a climax of tragedy, reconciliation, and love.

    Now, in this exciting publishing event, there is further cause for celebration with the publication of his selected letters. This volume for the first time gathers together previously unpublished letters that Davies wrote while at the height of his illustrious career.In these lively and provocative letters readers will find affectionate letters to his daughter, witty barbs to hostile critics, as well as amusing and profound observations on the creative life. Correspondence with famous figures like Sir John Gielgud and Margaret Atwood offers fascinating pieces of gossip: "... and Salvador Dali, at the next table, raised his eyebrows and popped his eyes to such a degree that I feared they might leave their moorings and bounce about the floor".Poignant, sometimes devilish, and always entertaining, these wonderful letters give a rarely seen portrait of the private Davies.

    In pieces like the collection’s centerpiece, the long-poem “Sitting by the Judas Hole,” the poet continues to challenge our perceptions of everyday banalities. Unique and entertaining, this compelling collection offers a true surrealistic treat.

    This posthumous treasury of brilliant essays shines with Davies' unmistakablewit, erudition, and magic.

    Genuine political poetry is immensely difficult. Moritz succeeds, not because his list of atrocities is longer or more shocking, but because his vision is underwritten-not whitewashed-by an ecstatic lyricism that knows evanescence is the only enduring truth.

    A song of poverty and of desire, of the reach forward and the relentless backward glance. With stark images and subtle, tensile strength, her poems touch that rare interval between presence and absence, echo and answer, between wall and window and sky-that gap in which we live, the space words make.SHORTLISTED for the 2000 Pat Lowther Award for best book of poetry by a woman published in 1999. WINNER of the 2000 Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry.

    Canada is a most spectacular example of such a glorious marriage. In this sweeping look at the country he knows so well, Pierre Berton has compiled the stories of twenty-five people who have shaped our history or been shaped and influenced by the geography they found themselves contending with. He sees genius and madness in characters from all parts of the country: from Maquinna, the emperor of the rainforest who battled fellow chieftains and European invaders alike, to Robert Service, who loathed the poem that made him rich, to Mina Hubbard, the widow who raced across Labrador in long skirts to carry out her late husband's dream. Pierre Berton's Canada visits every region, adding daubs of color to our vast map. And the stunning photos that fill the book complement the stories, and explain the hardships and joys that motivated Berton's cast of characters.