You watch three seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians in two days. You get a pet turtle. You absent-mindedly paint what ends up looking like your high school’s football coach, but naked. You go backpacking in Australia for a few months. You try speaking with a New York accent in public, just to see if people like that version of you better. The comment still haunts you. An “indoor kind of girl.” You feel like you’re that person, but you’re not that person. In Frankie Barnet’s exquisite and funny debut collection of stories, characters stumble through their daily existence, frequently feeling confused, rejected, bored, disillusioned or misunderstood. Metatron is proud to present these five stunningly imaginative tales, which signal the arrival of a gifted writer. Frankie Barnet is a Montreal- based writer. Her work has appeared in publications such as Joyland, Lemonhound and Papirmasse, and she is the author of the 2012 chapbook Something Disgusting Happening. She is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at Concordia University.“An Indoor Kind Of Girl veers from fading friendships to scheming call centres with an occasional sense of absurdity and also a kind of hyper-real real. Barnet’s narrators have a sharp eye for all that goes around them and they judge their own actions and others’ with a combination of ruthless honesty and vulnerability.”– MELISSA BULL, AUTHOR OF RUE “As I read, everything hit me at once; the quick prose and real characters, the humour of it, and this sort of sadness, loneliness.”– SOLILOQUIES ANTHOLOGY “A very powerful writer”– THE LINK

    The role reversal involved is emotionally and intellectually demanding, and many caregivers find themselves unprepared to undertake such a difficult task. In Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother, author Sandra Bullock Smith shares her personal experiences spending ten years caring for her ailing mother. This heartfelt look at the trials and tribulations of that decade offers powerful insight and encouragement for anyone entering into a similar period of life. Smith’s touching stories share the heartbreaking, and sometimes comical, moments she experienced while providing assistance to her aging parent—and how they mirrored similar events from her own childhood. In a very real sense, the two women traded places. Smith found herself uttering phrases she heard all too often as a child, such as, “Don’t give your food to the dog” and, “You’ve had enough sugar today.” Smith began jotting down the things she said, and thus this charming book was born. Filled with respect, compassion, and love, this uplifting and amusing memoir is for anyone involved in elder care or who may face the role in the future.

    It also contains one story from the Vampire's Prey series and one unique story called The Body Farm.Deadlocked : Broken Pieces Vol 1 contains the following short stories.Dial Tone: This story picks up from the beginning of the outbreak and tells Laura's story. In this short story, you'll learn about what she and the girls went through that forced them onto the roof of their house, waiting for David to come home.Just a Secretary: This story is about Gloria and Jerry from David's office building. They try to escape the building, but get caught by a character that plays a big part in Deadlocked 3.The Getaway: When David leapt from the billboard into the Everland River, he emerged only to be smacked on the head by a boat that was being chased by the police in the pontoon. This story explains who that was, and why he was running.Batting Average: William and his son, Billy, have been protecting their salvage yard ever since the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. Moments before they discover David on their beach, William sits back and enjoys a soda with his son who he is afraid he'll lose soon.Love Letter: A note that Laura wrote to David after the events at the end of Deadlocked. This letter technically should be part of Deadlocked Broken Pieces Volume 2, but I thought it fit better here.Also included in Broken Pieces are a couple of short stories that are not from the Deadlocked Universe. The first, The Summoner and the Prey, is from the Vampire's Prey series and is a unique story to this book. Also in this volume is The Body Farm. This is a wholly original story about… well, you'll just have to wait and see! Let me just say that it has a couple of my own personal favorite horror scenes that I've ever written.

    The novel is at once a compassionate portrait of innocence and idealism, and an emphatic condemnation of a society where the lines between good and evil are essentially blurred.Such Is My Beloved is widely considered to be Morley Callaghan’s finest novel.From the Paperback edition.

    England has declared war on Germany, and Canada will march beside her. Soon the lives of five young friends living in rugged, pristine Cape Breton will be changed forever. Fiddler Benny Doucet, prospective med student Calum MacPherson, and fisherman Hector MacDonald all decide to enlist. But Calum's handicapped brother Hamish is stuck at home, while Alex MacGreggor, in love with the postmistress, hides in his mother's attic. The fate of these devoted friends, during and after the war, hinges on forces beyond their control in this lyrical, vibrant novel by an award-winning writer.

    Poetry for those wishing to know someone special while seeking the greater challenge to know themselves.

    Today's music owes much to her innovation and inspiration. This complete collection of her poetry and song lyrics reads like a poem cycle that finds unexpected meaning and beauty on the page. Mitchell expands her already remarkable talent as she continues to produce miraculous work, in words, in music, and on canvas. The importance of Joni Mitchell's entire oeuvre is unequivocal when seen as a lifetime of accomplished writing. The Complete Poems and Lyrics gives us the first opportunity to reconsider Mitchell's written work and her place among the great poets and lyricists of our time.

    As one of the greatest NHL players of all time, he reflects on his 2005-06 rookie season with the Pittsburgh Penguins. From a Canadian phenom dubbed "the next Gretzky" to an 18-year-old carrying the burden of a struggling franchise, he talks candidly about the intense pressure he was under, the surreal experience of lacing up alongside his childhood idol Mario Lemieux and the truth about his rivalry with Alex Ovechkin. Sidney Crosby, with the help of his family, coaches and former teammates, gives listeners an all-access pass to one of the most scrutinized and tumultuous rookie seasons in the history of professional hockey. Hosted by Pittsburgh native and Penguins fan Joe Manganiello.

    Both athletes are nearing the end of their athletic careers, and are forced to confront the question: what happens to athletes when their bodies are too old and injured to compete? The blossoming relationship between Digger and Sadie is tested in the all-important months leading up to the Olympics, as intense training schedules, divided loyalties, and unpredicted obstacles take their draining toll. The Olympics, as both of them are painfully aware, will be the realization or the end of a life's dream. The Bone Cage captures the physicality, sensuality, and euphoric highs of amateur sport, and the darker, cruel side of sport programs that wear athletes down and spit them out at the end of their bloom. With realism and humour, author Angie Abdou captures athletes on the brink of that transition--the lead-up to that looming redefinition of self--and explores how people deal with the loss of their dream.

    But things turned out worse than expected, and in her forties, the gifted artist found herself shoveling coal and cleaning up other people's messes. The House of All Sorts is a collection of forty-one stories of those hard-working days and the parade of tenants -- young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders. Carr is at her most rueful, but filled with energy and an inextinguishable hope.Carr also ran a small kennel and bred bobtails to help out her meagre income. In an additional twenty-five stories, she lovingly describes the mutual bonds of affection and companionship between her and her dogs.Her writing is vital and direct, aware and poignant, and as well regarded today as when The House of All Sorts was first published in 1944 to critical and popular acclaim.

    They were there for each other. He wasn't prepared for Lily to come along and enchant his father with her giggles and shy glances. Devon has a bad feeling about this new woman who seems endearing one minute, ice cold the next, but his dad is hooked, and Lily moves in. When Devon's father suddenly falls ill, and doctors can't find the problem, Lily insists that they travel to her native Vietnam, where her uncle can treat him. Once in her family's tiny apartment, Lily forces Devon away from his father, and makes him drink some musky tea that is supposed to calm him. It is only when Devon wakes up in a locked room that he begins to realize his suspicions about Lily weren't nearly as horrific as who she really is, and what she has done. Within days, Devon finds himself locked up in a different location, with three other boys. Through hushed conversations in broken English and Vietnamese, Devon learns that he is now the property of a restaurant-owner named Long, and that he has been transported to Cambodia. As the nightmare worsens, the reality that this restaurant doubles as a brothel sets in. Because of his fiery red hair and freckles, Long is able to demand a higher price for him, and her customers start a bidding war. With the memory of his father and his old life keeping him from complete despair, Devon manages to hope for escape or rescue. Back home, those close to Devon refuse to believe Lily's lies about him "running away" in Vietnam, and an international search effort begins. Once found, the challenges continue, as Devon faces a new life without his father, and a new identity molded by unspeakable memories.

    

    But as she plans her escape to New York City, turmoil erupts and the demands of family stand between her and her suitcase. Darla must, for the first time in her life, cast an unflinching eye on the hard-to-accept truths regarding love, responsibility, and survival. The Bingo Queens of Paradise lyrically blends a powerful comic voice with a poignant tale of a woman who longs to pursue her dreams.

    D. A. Powell What is it about the poems in Red Sugar, Jan Beatty's astonishing third collection, that brings to mind the incomparable music of Miles Davis? 'It's just that I can't play like anybody else... I can't do anything like anybody else, ' Davis insisted. These poems go their own sure way, making their own fierce music, charting 'the fluid stages of / empire & slavery' in the human body, yours and mine, as we rehearse our sometimes sorry but always necessary seductions. Jan Beatty is the author of Boneshaker and Mad River, winner of the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts

    Together, they share a single, magical week before Hannah leaves for Jerusalem, where she is to spend nine months at an orthodox yeshiva learning Torah among students who disapprove of intermarriage. Raymond, a graduate student researching love in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, struggles with his loneliness and Hannah’s increasing religiosity.As their separation comes to an end, Hannah questions whether she can live with a man who is not of her people, and Raymond’s hunger for human intimacy reaches a crisis point. He cheats on her; she begins to practice the Commandments. Still, neither can tolerate the other’s absence. Unable to make a clean break, they’re forced to try their insoluble problems in the city without solution, Jerusalem.Acute and closely observed, Raymond and Hannah captures with gripping precision the thrill of new romance, the bitter doubt of longing, the inescapable urgings of love.Excerpt from Raymond and HannahPreliminaries“What are you here for?” Hannah asks Raymond.“What am I here for? I was invited.”“You know Paul.”He nods. “And you?”Hannah sips her champagne. “I’m here to meet men.”A moment’s pause, while he casts a critical gaze across the offerings of the room. “What about Jim?”“Which one’s Jim?”He points to a hippie leaning on the radiator across the room, a large-bearded man in jeans and a check flannel shirt whose laughter drunkenly booms like dropped tympani over the light chatter. “I realize that I’ve just ruined it by pointing, but maybe it’s all for the best. It wouldn’t have worked out with Jim anyway. He’s married or something. How about Roger?” He bugs his eyes in the direction of a man in overalls. Hannah looks, arching her elegant neck to see the scruffy poseur affecting boredom beside the refrigerator. “The one in overalls. His name’s Roger. Actually I have no idea who he is. I made up the name.”She frowns. “That one’s not bad. Excuse me.” She reaches over to the table for the champagne and refills their cups.“My name’s Raymond,” he says.“Hannah,” she replies.They touch cups, and Raymond again scans the room, apparently displeased with its contents. “The pickings here really are a bit slim. I suggest we inspect the other rooms to see if this is all the night has to offer.”From the Hardcover edition.