What happens when an English teacher goes into labour during a high school lockdown?High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant and trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students during a lockdown. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha’s suicide attempt. Maria, the school’s counsellor, is second-guessing her decis...

Kleptomaniacs, convicts, roof-walkers and homicidal hippies: here are children and adults, men and women, all struggling to define themselves. The stories in I know you are but what am I? are like snow domes – perfect little self-contained worlds that you can hold in your hand, turn upside down, shake until meaning settles in a hundred different ways.Young Misha learns about the complexities of grownup love when his mother is bitten by a stingray. Oldrick must come to term...

In the stories of Mad Hope, Journey Prize winner Heather Birrell finds the heart of her characters and lets them lead us into worlds both recognizable and alarming. A science teacher and former doctor is forced to re-examine the role he played in Ceau?escu’s Romania after a student makes a shocking request; a tragic plane crash becomes the basis for a meditation on motherhood and its discontents; women in an online chat group share (and overshare) their anxieties and personal histories; an...

In the stories of Mad Hope, Heather Birrell finds the heart of her characters and lets them lead us into worlds both unrecognizable and alarming. We think we know these people but discover we don't-they are more alive, more real, and more complex than we first imagined. A high school science teacher is forced to re-examine the role he played in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania after a student makes a shocking request. The uncertainty, anxiety, and anticipation of pregnancy are examined through ...

What happens when an English teacher goes into labour during a Toronto high school lockdown?High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant. She’s trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students during a lockdown. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha, who is in peril. Maria, the school's counselor, is second-guessing ...

In 'Frogs,' a short story from Heather Birrell's Mad Hope, a science teacher and former doctor is forced to re-examine the role he played in Ceaușescu’s Romania after a student makes a shocking request. A free e-book single from the Journey-Prize-winning short story author.

Winner of the The Believer Book Award (2012) Shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award (2013) 'Maidenhead is a mesmerizing and important novel, lying somewhere between the wilds of Judy Blume, Girls Gone Wild, and Michel Foucault. It's a thrilling, brilliant, and really hot place to be.' -- Sheila Heti, Globe and Mail On a mangy beach in Key West, sixteen-year-old Myra meets Elijah, a Tanzanian musician twice her age. Trapped on a Spring Break family vacation, Myra longs to lose her virginit...

A fully realized portrait of one woman's life in all its complexity, by the National Book Award–winning authorAn ordinary life—its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections—of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age—come together in thi...

A collection of David Foster Wallace’s witty and deeply observant essays exploring everything from lobster festivals and politics to the nature of human suffering, from the bestselling author of Infinite Jest**.****"brilliantly entertaining...**Consider the Lobster **proves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" —**Cleveland Plain DealerDo...

A New York Times Notable BookAcclaimed author Ann Patchett's debut novel, hailed as ""beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion” (Boston Herald)St. Elizabeth’s, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregna...

Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada • Commonwealth Writers Prize, Caribbean and CanadaWhen Mary-Mathilda, one of the most respected women of the island of Bimshire (also known as Barbados) calls the police to confess to a crime, the result is a shattering all-night vigil that brings together elements of the island's African past and the tragic legacy of colonialism in one epic sweep.Set in the West Indies in the period following World War II, The Polished H...

Joanne Kilbourn is as feisty as ever in the 14th book of the series that bears her name. This time, Jo and Zack's young daughter Taylor's precocious talent as a painter has drawn the attention of people who may not be at all what they seem . . .Jo and Zack are both proud and a little concerned when their youngest daughter Taylor -- whose birth mother was a brilliant but notoriously promiscuous artist -- has two paintings chosen for a high-level fund-raising auction. One they've seen; the o...