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SCOTIABANK GILLER SHORT & LONGLISTS

How to Pronounce Knife: Stories

By Souvankham Thammavongsa

In the store

Congratulations to Souvankham Thammavongsa for winning this year's Scotia Giller Prize!! These poignant and deceptively quiet stories are powerhouses of feeling and depth; How to Pronounce Knife is an artful blend of simplicity and sophistication.

Here the Dark

By David Bergen

In the store

MADE THE SHORTLIST! Several short stories and an extraordinary novella makes Giller Prize Winner David Bergen's newest book unforgettable.

Polar Vortex

By Shani Mootoo

In the store

MADE THE SHORTLIST! Some secrets never die...Priya and Alexandra have moved from the city to a picturesque countryside town. What Alex doesn't know is that in moving, Priya is running from her past-from a fraught relationship with an old friend...

Ridgerunner

By Gil Adamson

In the store

Just won the Roger's Trust Fiction Prize - Ridgerunner is part literary Western and part historical mystery, and a follow-up to Gil Adamson's award-winning and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander.

The Glass Hotel: A Novel

By Emily St. John Mandel

In the store

MADE THE SHORTLIST! Both fascinating and prophetic.

All I Ask

By Eva Crocker

In the store

Like Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends and Eileen Myles's Chelsea Girls, All I Ask by the award-winning and highly acclaimed author Eva Crocker is a defining novel of a generation.

Indians on Vacation: A Novel

By Thomas King

In the store

WE HAVE AUTOGRAPHED COPIES!!! Nominated for the Rogers Trust Fiction Prize, you're sure to enjoy Tom's latest book, inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years ago. Any book by Tom is always a reason to celebrate!!!

The Pull of the Stars: A Novel

By Emma Donoghue

In the store

Pull of the Stars is a meticulously researched and timely novel! Dublin, 1918: three days in a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu. A small world of work, risk, death and unlooked-for love largely rendered.

Dominoes at the Crossroads: Short Stories

By Kaie Kellough

In the store

In Dominoes at the Crossroads Kaie Kellough maps an alternate nation--one populated by Caribbean Canadians who hopscotch across the country.

Five Little Indians: A Novel

By Michelle Good

In the store

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Consent

By Annabel Lyon

In the store

A smart, mysterious and heartbreaking novel centred on two sets of sisters whose lives are braided together when tragedy changes them forever.

Clyde Fans

By Seth

In the store

Congratulations to Guelph's own sweet Seth on this first nomination of a graphic novel for the Giller longlist.

Watching You Without Me

By Lynn Coady

In the store

After her mother's sudden death, Karen finds herself back in her childhood home in Nova Scotia for the first time in a decade, acting as full-time caregiver to Kelli, her older sister.

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YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THESE NOVELS!

Normal People

By Sally Rooney

In the store

BARB - Normal People won last year's Man Booker and also was the bestselling book in Britain. It's all well deserved as she understands the zeitgeist of the young, no matter what age they grew up in!

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

By Charlie Mackesy

In the store

From the revered British illustrator, a modern fable for all ages that explores life's universal lessons, featuring 100 color and black-and-white drawings."What do you want to be when you grow up?" asked the mole."Kind," said the boy."

The Innocents

By Michael Crummey

In the store

Beautiful but dark. The language is biblical and captures and awakens you to the trials of living. A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Very powerful writing!

The Testaments: A Novel

By Margaret Atwood

In the store

Let's sing a hymn of praise to Margaret Atwood and all of the important work that she continues to do! Co-winner of the Mann Booker Prize this year!

Station Eleven

By Emily St John Mandel

In the store

An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse. Kind of flying off the shelf right now!

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

By Amor Towles

In the store

What underpins this fantastic novel is scrupulous attention to detail!

The Dutch House: A Novel

By Ann Patchett

In the store

Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go.

Literary

The Free World ?

Article By Hannah Minett

Date: 28 Apr 2011

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The Free World
Bossypants

"Should I? No! I want to. I can't. I must. Of course not. I should try immediately."excerpted from Bossypants

Tina Fey offers up her latenight decision making process that eventually culminated in getting ready for baby # 2 after 40. Why is it so difficult for people to make decisions!?  Supposedly we all are a central actor in the lives we lead, and yet our heels cool as they dangle. The larger question of "what the hell do I want out of life?" dances close and then slips away - on repeat - until change becomes the only option left. Books abound on the subject these days, a mix of scientific acknowedgment of why it is so difficult to cut out new, invigorating paths, and also, "how to" take that information and become the "master of your own destiny". The range and sophistication is broad, from manifest destiny to brain plasticity. If you are interested, it's out there! Watching how decisions or non-decisions play out is one of the reaons I love fiction.

Like the riff Tina Fey confided , the neurotic overtures characters make to themselves may be lost even to those closest to them. Samuil Kransnansky, a feature voice in David Bezmozgis AWESOME new novel, The Free World, is a perfect example of this. This wonderful book is set in the purgatory of Ladispoli Rome, as a family of Lativan Soviet emigres wait to see which country will accept them. Throughout the book family members explore their new reality, dealings in the black market, infidelities,  playing around with being "Jewish". While this is happening, Samuil walks the coasts wondering what the hell happened to his life. A commited communist who gave everything to forge a life of "soviet virture", abandoned, to follow his children and wife, who according to Samuil have little virture and even less sense. A touching memory series unfolds Samuil to the reader, while to the rest of his family, he is doomed to remain the quiet, pissed off old soviet out for a stroll. I champion people's courage to pick up books to better help themselves navigate the world. I champion fiction for underscoring, that perhaps it ain't that simple.

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