Bird is the word

Global watch

As we were wrapping up the final details on this issue

Cold comfort

With her latest novel, Lauren B. Davis uses Hans Christian Andersen as a basis for her fairy tale about addiction and family

Origin stories

How Indigenous voices became the driving force behind Canadian Geographic’s groundbreaking new atlas

Loan stars

EACH MONTH, Canadian library staff vote for their favourite

Lost for words

There are plenty of ways to get back your reading mojo that don’t involve books

A true everythingist

Friends and colleagues recall the joy and accomplishments of Priscila Uppal

Lavender linguistics

A queer ABC book nods to the long history of coded language in the LGBTQ community

something to believe in

B.C. activist press New Society Publishers proves well positioned in the volatile Trump era

Lighting fires

Powerful, diverse writers strike a literary reckoning in Refuse: CanLit in Ruins

Shock to the system

Video games like the Bioshock series have much to teach us about our past, present, and future, writes

World building

With her first novel in 16 years, Calgary’s Larissa Lai returns to the realm of speculative fiction

Canadian Gothic

Chadwick Ginther brings urban fantasy to the Prairies

Never-ending stories

Vancouver’s genre bookstore White Dwarf Books celebrates its 40th anniversary

Cracks in the viewscreen

Sci-fineeds to overcome its poor history with disabled people

Unconventional narrative

In her literary debut, lauded Inuit musician Tanya Tagaq melds fiction, memoir, and poetry

Starting out

First novels from Andrew Wilmot and Melanie Hobson offer psychological case studies of troubled characters

Metaphor and metonymy

Three new collections examine the contemporary world and experiment with linguistic and technical approaches

Skimming the surface

William Steele’s biography of controversial writer W.P. Kinsella provides a good overview but does not critically engage with its subject

Confrontation and avoidance

New books by Katherena Vermette, Jenna Lyn Albert, and Julie Bruck combine the personal and the political

children of the night

In Whitney Gardner’s latest novel, average-guy AJ hopes to impress his crush by turning himself into a vampire

In jeopardy

Susin Nielsen’s story of a game-show loving tween who is struggling with homelessness is charming and affecting

Fleeing Vietnam

Two books give tender and chilling portraits of children living in and leaving Vietnam after the war

The incredible drinking women

Jennifer Croll’s Free the Tipple celebrates female icons with personalized cocktails