a stellar line-up of well-known contributorsa perfect introduction for readers unfamiliar with Chin's workan instant classic of LGBT literaturean essential work of Asian-American literature

This vibrant collection of expat essays from legendary humorist David Sedaris is a cause for jubiliation.Sedaris's move to Paris in the early aughts inspired hilarious pieces, such as "Me Talk Pretty One Day", about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration—"You Cant Kill the Rooster" is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as r...

From an emerging master of short fiction and one of Canada's most distinctive voices, a collection of stories as heartbreaking as those of Lorrie Moore and as hilariously off-kilter as something out of McSweeney's.In Better Living through Plastic Explosives, Zsuzsi Gartner delivers a powerful second dose of the lacerating satire that marked her acclaimed debut, All the Anxious Girls on Earth, but with even greater depth and darker humour. Whether she casts her eye...

From the author of the wildly controversial books Liar and Paul's Case comes one of the most anticipated — and perhaps, in some quarters, feared — books of the year. This is author Lynn Crosbie at her most honest, most cutting, most hilarious, and most heartbreaking. The stories told here are at once a cache, a repository, of a seven-year period in the author's life; and, too, a gymnasium, a place where she can flex her prodigious wit and her dazzling stash of literary tricks Deft with mat...

I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow is the story of Jonathan Goldstein's journey to find some great truth on his road to forty. In a series of wonderfully funny stories, the host of CBC's WireTap recounts the highs and lows of his last year in his thirties. Throughout the year, Goldstein asks weighty questions that would stump a person less seasoned. For example: What is it about a McRib that drives people crazy? Can we replace extending an olive leaf with extending an olive jar? How much wisdom c...

The bestselling, wonderfully unconventional, “warmly conspiratorial…seriously good” (The New York Times) memoir-in-letters from the Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award–winning actress that has received fabulous and wide praise. “There is no one else quite like Mary-Louise Parker…Funny, heartbreaking and profound” (ELLE).An extraordinary literary memoir, Dear Mr. You renders the singular arc of a woman’s life through letters Mary-Louise Par...

“Annabelle Gurwitch is the child prodigy of the literature on aging. The only downside of this book is that it is bound to deepen your laugh lines.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and DimedActor and humorist Annabelle Gurwitch returns with a wickedly funny book of essays about the indignities faced by femmes d’un certain âge. Whether she is falling in lust at the Genius Bar, coping with her best friend’s assisted suicide, or navigating the extensive—and treacherously...

Shane Koyczan: Our Deathbeds will be Thirsty (2011) Featuring “To This Day” viral success with over 14 million Youtube views. Award-winning author, performer, and artist Shane.L.Koyczan’s long-awaited collection, Our Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty.  Please note: This is not a young adult title. Some works include language not suitable for some readers.  Also available for purchase is his novel in verse...

City of Victoria Butler Book Prize: M.A.C. Farrant, The World Afloat (Winner)In The World Afloat, a series of seventy-five “miniatures” that melds narrative with elements of prose poem and farce, master of the absurd and expert observer M.A.C. Farrant peers into the complexities of human experience – through the rear window.Inside the linoleum-lined kitchens and lace-trimmed living rooms that drift through these stories, Farrant interrupts the daily routine...

Marge Piercy, a writer who is highly praised as both a poet and a novelist, turns her gaze inward as she shares her thoughts on life and explores her development as a woman and writer. She pays tribute to the one loving constant that has offered her comfort and meaning even as the faces and events in her life have changed -- her beloved cats.With searing honesty, Piercy tells of her strained childhood growing up in a religiously split, working-class family in Detroit. She examines ...

If reading most short story collections is like canoeing gently down a tranquil and picturesque river, then reading Spencer Gordon's Cosmo is like riding a jetski over Niagara Falls with Leonard Cohen whispering in your ear. You'll join Matthew McConaughey as he drives naked across the desert in a surreal dark night of the soul. You'll meet a young wrestling fan half-nelsoned by circumstances and a sister's best intentions. You'll hear a Miley Cyrus admirer defend his passion in a 3,000-wo...

Evocative and superbly rakish, these essays are a generous diagnosis of the often offbeat worlds of family, writing, travel, sex and death as interpreted through the real life adventures of Susan Musgrave. Equally at home recounting the lore of her outlaw husband Stephen Reid, or interpreting the arcane rituals of her teenage girls, Musgrave brings to her literary essays that same invigorating freshness for which he has become known in her fiction and poetry. In settings ranging from the a...