The novel was inspired in part by Levine's own experiences and knowledge of technical diving — in which people undertake dangerous, extremely deep SCUBA expeditions.Risk-addiction plays a central role in the book.Though tense and at times horrifying (in the fashion of Brian Evenson's work), the book is character-driven.

Set in the hip urban core of Toronto and in the city’s outlying areas, this is the story of an unlikely family – held together by love and longing, pain and regret – and what happens when the ties that bind them begin to unravel. There is Walker, a tender but rough-edged horse dealer trying to do the right thing; his fading lounge-singer girlfriend, Mimi; his sister, Joy, who cleans at the golf club nearby; and Joy’s teenage daughter, Tanis, self-sufficient, nervy, wise, locked in conflict...

A Globe 100 Best Book of 2025 • A Globe and Mail Fall Book of 2025In these nine stories, Elise Levine illuminates the aspirations of women and men (and one sassy millennia-old being) as they sift through the midden of their regrets, friendships, and marriages, and seek fresher ways of inhabiting older selves.Two young women hitchhike around Europe, a lurid secret between them. A team in space is left reeling after a collea...

Akin to a darker Joy Williams or Karen Russell, this book is a short, quick, and strongly emotional collection of stories that range from a sniping couple on a road trip through the Mojave Desert to a cantankerous divinity-school candidate with a foul bedside manner. Levine, considered by many a Canadian Lorrie Moore, lives in Baltimore. Likely blurb from Man Booker-shortlisted Alison Moore, author of The Lighthouse. A slim, attractive collection.

Two crystalline novellas linked by one devastating crime: Say This is an immersive meditation on the interplay between memory, trauma, and narrative.It’s a cold spring in Baltimore, 2018, when the email arrives: the celebrity journalist hopes Eva will tell him everything about the sexual affair she had as a teen with her older cousin, a man now in federal prison for murder. Thirteen years earlier, Lenore-May answers the phone to the nightmare news that her...

Editor John Metcalf has inspired, challenged, and championed countless writers over his long career. In Off the Record, he encourages six to reveal what one rarely discusses in polite society: how they became writers instead of radio announcers or cabinet makers. The essays collected here, each accompanied by a short story, offer fascinating insight into the relationships between writers, their editors, and their fiction.Off the Record brings together work ...

Newbery Honor-winning author Gail Carson Levine shares a story of family, prejudice, faith, and unlikely friendship in medieval England, for every child who is more perceptive than they seem, and braver than they know.Chera, Lummie, and Joan are unusual in medieval Winchester, England. Two girls and a boy, and two Jews and a Christian are not supposed to be friends. Most days, after their studies with Rabbi Baruch, they enjoy scaring themselves in the greatly feare...

“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet's ear.” –Oprah.comThe New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of Mary Karr’s hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation.The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in...

A stunning debut novel with an intriguing literary hook: written in part as a letter from a victim to her abductor. Sensitive, sharp, captivating! Gemma, 16, is on layover at Bangkok Airport, en route with her parents to a vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second, to get a cup of coffee. Ty--rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar--pays for Gemma's drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. Steals her away. The unknow...

Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’s debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. With a new introduction by Joshua Ferris and a new author’s note by Saunders himself, this edition is essential reading for those seeking to disco...

A wife harbors suspicions about her husband's image as a hero cop in this suspenseful novel, a winner of the Toronto Book Award.Back in 1954, Hurricane Hazel barreled through Toronto, killing eighty-one people. Ray and Mary Townes were a young married couple, and while Mary, a nurse, performed her own small miracles that night, her police officer husband was celebrated for his heroism as the newspapers reported on his lifesaving rescues.As the two tried to ...

Now a major film starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland, a novel "like life itself: joyous, painful, moving, tragic, mysterious, and not to be missed" ( Booklist, starred review).The Robinas have shared a wonderful life for more than sixty years. Now in their eighties, Ella suffers from cancer and John has Alzheimer's. Yearning for one last adventure, the self-proclaimed "down-on-their-luck geezers" kidnap themselves from the adult children and doctors...