The Way We Connect

Set in a dark near-future where overconsumption and the climate crisis have come to a chaotic head, Ali Bryan’s young adult novel The Hill tells the story of Wren, the newly chosen leader of a secret clan of girls taught to survive by their own wits. Their home? A reclaimed garbage dump in the middle of the ocean called the Hill. Their bible? The Manual, which tells the girls everything they need to know about the world – or so they think. The gospel? Men and boys are dangerous. 

When Wren makes the fateful decision to leave the Hill in search of a missing girl, she encounters boys for the first time in her life. What’s worse, they’ve been living on the other side of the island this whole time. Forced to question everything she’s ever been taught, Wren must sort fact from fiction, ally from enemy, and opportunity from threat in order to survive and lead the girls to safety – even if safety is an illusion.  

The Hill explores gender, power, and access to truth in a world defined by scarcity and distrust and the consequences of consumerism and environmental neglect, while reminding us just what it takes to be a girl in this world.

Bertrand Bickersteth’s debut poetry collection explores what it means to be Black and Albertan through a variety of prisms: historical, biographical, and essentially, geographical. The Response of Weeds offers a much-needed window on often overlooked contributions to the province’s character and provides personal perspectives on the question of Black identity on the prairies. Through these rousing and evocative poems, Bickersteth uses language to call up the contours of the land itself, land that is at once mesmerizing as it is dismissively effacing. Such is Black identity here on this paradoxical land, too. Named a 2020 CBC Poetry Book of the Year, The Response of Weeds won the 2021 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award from the League of Canadian Poets; the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry; and the 2021 High Plains Book Award for First Book.

The world is filled with wonders, lost objects – all real – all still out there, waiting to be found:

· the missing Fabergé eggs of the Romanov dynasty, worth millions
· the last reel of Alfred Hitchcock’s first film
· Buddy Holly’s iconic glasses
· Muhammad Ali’s Olympic gold medal

How can such cherished objects simply vanish? Where are they hiding? And who on earth might be compelled to uncover them? Will Ferguson takes readers on a heroic, imaginative journey across continents, from the seas of southern Japan, to the arid Australian Outback, to the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, after the earthquake. Prepare to meet Gaddy Rhodes, a brittle Interpol agent obsessed with tracking “The Finder” – a shadowy figure she believes is collecting lost objects; Thomas Rafferty, a burnt-out travel writer whose path crosses that of The Finder, to devastating effect; and Tamsin Greene, a swaggering war photographer who is hiding secrets of her own.

The Finder is a beguiling and wildly original tale about the people, places, and things that are lost and found in our world. Both an epic literary adventure and an escape into a darkly thrilling world of deceit and its rewards, this novel asks: How far would you be willing to go to recover the things you’ve left behind?

Iron Goddess of Mercy is a long poem that captures the vengeful yet hopeful movement of the Furies mid-whirl and dance with them through the horror of the long now. Inspired by the tumultuous history of Hong Kong, from the Japanese and British occupations to the ongoing pro-democracy protests, the poem interrogates the complicated notion of identity, offering a prism through which the term “Asian” can be understood to make sense of a complex set of relations. The self crystallizes in moments of solidity, only to dissolve and whirl away again. The poet is a windsock, catching all the affect that blows at her and ballooning to fullness, only to empty again when the wind changes direction. Iron Goddess of Mercy is a game of mah jong played deep into the night, an endless gamble. Presented in sixty-four fragments to honour the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching, Iron Goddess of Mercy also borrows from haibun, a traditional Japanese form of travel writing in which each diary entry closes with a haiku. The poem dizzies, turns on itself. It rants, it curses, it writes love letters, but as the Iron Goddess is ever changing, so is the object of her address: a maenad, Kool-Aid, Chiang Kai-shek, the economy, a clown, freedom of speech, a brother, a bother, a typist, a monster, a machine, Iris Chang, Hannah Arendt, the Greek warrior Achilles, or a deer caught in the headlights.

Finally, a balm to the poem's devastating passion and fury, Iron Goddess of Mercy is also a type of oolong tea, a most fragrant infusion said to have been a gift from the compassionate bodhisattva Guan Yin.

Summoning the ghosts of history and politics, Iron Goddess of Mercy explores the complexities of identity through the lens of rage and empowerment.

In Praying to the West, acclaimed journalist Omar Mouallem explores the unknown history of Islam across the Americas, traveling to thirteen unique mosques in search of an answer to how this religion has survived and thrived so far from the place of its origin. From California to Quebec, Brazil to Canada’s icy north, he meets the members of fascinating communities, all of whom provide different perspectives on what it means to be Muslim. Along this journey he comes to understand that Islam has played a fascinating role in how the Americas were shaped – from industrialization to the changing winds of politics. And he also discovers that there may be a place for Islam in his own life, particularly as a father, even if he will never be a true believer.

Original, insightful, and beautifully told, Praying to the West reveals a secret history of home and the struggle for belonging taking place in towns and cities across the Americas and points to a better, more inclusive future for everyone.

An intriguing exhibition of documentary photography and micro-essays highlighting the growth and evolution of one of Canada’s most interesting, and complicated, cities.

Shortly after completing university and starting work in 1975, a young George Webber borrowed a camera and took a stroll in downtown Calgary. From that point on, he discovered how his affection for the city could be transformed and harnessed through photography.

For 45 years now, Webber has documented the theatre of the street: people playing, arguing, flirting, celebrating, regretting, eating, praying, and hugging. Through his sensitive and masterful lens, he has thoughtfully preserved images of men and women, wrestlers, businessmen, cowboys, waitresses, truckers, street performers, priests, and night clerks. Set against ephemeral backdrops of newspaper boxes, gas stations, trailer parks, billboards, hand-painted signs, abandoned streets, motels, bulletin boards, and pawn shops, Webber’s latest portfolio preserves much of Calgary’s recent past and immediate present through a colourful kaleidoscope of intimate glimpses that will endure for decades to come. With an introduction by Will Ferguson.

In this intimate and moving graphic memoir, Teresa Wong writes and illustrates the story of her struggle with postpartum depression in the form of a letter to her daughter Scarlet. Equal parts heartbreaking and funny, Dear Scarlet perfectly captures the quiet desperation of those suffering from PPD and the profound feelings of inadequacy and loss. As Wong grapples with her fears and anxieties and grasps at potential remedies, coping mechanisms, and her mother's Chinese elixirs, we come to understand one woman's battle against the cruel dynamics of postpartum depression.

Dear Scarlet is a poignant and deeply personal journey through the complexities of new motherhood, offering hope to those affected by PPD, as well as reassurance that they are not alone.