NEW BOOKS
Canada’s strength as a figure skating nation is as a result of not only exceptional talent but a group of skaters and coaches who have been willing to take risks and to be part of the continuous re-definition of the sport and what is thought of as possible. From the creation of innovative moves and styles to the re-vamping of a judging system, Canada has paved the way. This book is about some of the sport’s mavericks.
“This book brings figure skating fans closer to the action than they've ever been before. Pj Kwong makes you feel like a figure skating insider. She makes the sport accessible and fascinating at the same time while giving you a behind-the-scenes look.”
- Randy Starkman, Toronto Star
“Pj Kwong has turned her passion and understanding of the sport of figure skating into a way of life. She has become a clear and credible voice in the sport. One that people seek out when they want to know what is really happening. And one they will stop and listen to, or read, if they love skating.”
- Chris Irwin, Executive Producer, CBC Sports
The Philosophy Of As If concerns "fictions," ideas that may not correspond directly with reality but help us to interact with reality better. Fiction writers often say that they tell a higher truth, but poets like to pretend that what they write is sincere, direct truth-telling. But poems are also fictions, and deal with what might be. Poets behave "as if" the world matches their models. Fraser Sutherland's poems play on this tension between desire and disillusion, between actuality and fantasy. The real yields what might be: the actual becomes the imaginary. In this book, the poet's motto is: "I would like a different mind, a different body, a different life. Is that too much to ask?"
“Throughout [the book], Sutherland is witty, his poetic persona endearingly self-deprecating ... on the whole, these are competent poems that are enjoyable to read and contemplate.”
- Quill & Quire
“Sutherland's strength is this deceptive simplicity, a verbal clarity and concision that come from his long practice of observation, a life well inked.”
- The Globe and Mail
Adventures with Camera and Pen is a collection of tales from Anthony Dalton’s nomadic life as an adventurer and photo-journalist. The stories run the gamut from searching for Polar bears on the shores of Hudson Bay through mountain climbing in Western Canada to tracking Royal Bengal tigers in Bangladesh jungle. They depict Dalton’s often hilarious encounters with an eclectic variety of wildlife in Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa. As an expedition leader, he documents a difficult journey to remote salt mines in the Sahara north of Timbuktu with a CBC-TV film crew. This is a book for all those who yearn for far away places: the adventurers and the armchair travellers.
“Be warned! Once you open this book you’ll be transported to a world of escapes and escapades through the nib of Anthony Dalton’s adventurous pen. Laugh with him. Escape with him. It’s all here along with more than a few characters, chills and thrills that you’ll never forget.”
- Steve Crowhurst
Columnist for Canadian Traveller
A cobra flies in through an open window. Wives form a pact against their bigamous, abusive husband. A mother and son battle over eagles' eggs. A homeless guest with a secret. An elephant protests on a highway. A woman marries a pumpkin. This is the teeming, hectic world of India. Diverse people – one country!
“Spiced with insight and charm ... Jasmine D'Costa's collection of short tales adds to the rich library of Indo-Canadian storytelling.”
- The Globe and Mail
“Corrupt politicians, idol worship, folklore — in her remarkable debut collection of short stories, Jasmine D'Costa traverses a wide spectrum of regional and religious flavours of India. Light and crisp, D'Costa's art of visual imagery is to be commended. Be it Mumbai, Goa or Mangalore, D'Costa deftly maneuvers the reader through different fragments of Indian society and its idiosyncrasies.”
- Toronto Star
Foreword by Giller Prize and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winner Austin Clarke
The poems in The Serenity of Stone emerge from places as disparate as Fraser's childhood in Grenada, adolescence in Edmonton, and teenage years and adulthood in Toronto. They span the themes of diasporadic life, themes ranging from landscape and family history, romance and love, crime and racism to kindness and abuse, squalor and education. Stylistically the poems fall into many camps. The work is rooted in many traditions, from hip hop to the English canon. Fraser skillfully combines a hip street element with the attention to high standards of detail and style.
"Michael Fraser's expansive, generous poems, odes to being alive, recall Pablo Neruda's sensual language, alive with metaphor. Fraser takes us from the intimate all the way to the greater political world. As his poems move from the landscape of the body to the city-scapes of Edmonton, Toronto, Havana and Paris, The Serenity of Stone unfolds the progress of the making of a son and lover, a lover of the universe and universals as well as of the galaxies of words that describe them."
- Molly Peacock, Poetry Editor
The Literary Review of Canada
"A new, exciting voice has emerged in Canada’s poetry scene. The poet blends his unique heritage – birth in Grenada, boyhood in Edmonton and teaching high school in Toronto – with an unerring eye and ear for contrast and detail. All of Fraser’s lines crackle with an energy fuelled by deep empathy and the ability to take language to the edge. Unique parallels and concretes clothed in surprising abstracts challenge and delight."
- Canadian Bookseller Magazine