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A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents.In 2023, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata spent two weeks in Canada, meeting with representatives from federal and provincial governments and human rights commissions, trade unions, civil society organizations, and academics—as well as migrants working in agriculture, caregiving, food processing, and sex work. His conclusion: the country’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” “I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” Obotaka said in a statement. Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being denied access to health care, language courses, and other social services; of being physically abused, intimidated, sexually harassed; of the overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. In response, some farm owners and their advocates, angry at Obokata’s comparison to slavery, defended the program, citing long standing relationships with workers who returned to their operations year after year. “If the program is so damned bad,” one farmer advocate asked, “why do these guys keep coming back?”In Precarious: the Secret Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio seeks the answers to both the question and illuminates the charges that compelled it, researching the history of Canada’s migrant labour program and speaking with migrant workers across industries and across the country to understand who, in this global elaborate enterprise, stands to gain, who to lose, and how a system that depends on the vulnerability of its most disenfranchised actors can—or can’t—become more just.

A lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages.The freedom to read is under attack. There are, today, more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before. The supposed "dangers" posed by books including The Handmaid's Tale, Gender Queer, Huckleberry Finn, and the works of Dr. Seuss—leading children down a path of sexual deviance, or harming them with racist language or non-inclusive narratives—fuel the puritanical zeal of De Santis Republicans and progressive educators alike. On Book Banning argues that today's culture warriors proceed from a misunderstanding of literature as instrumental to the pursuit of their ideological agendas. In treating libraries as sites of contagion and exposure, censors are warping our children's relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is cancellation or outright expurgation.On Book Banning provides a lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages—from the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome, to the Catholic Church's attempts to tamp down religious dissent and scientific innovation, to state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ literature in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout, Ira Wells demonstrates how today's book bans stem from the ineradicable human impulse toward social control. In a whistle-stop tour of landmark legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, we discover that the freedom to read and publish is the aberration in human history, and that censorship and restriction have been the rule. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who reject the conflation of art and propaganda, for whom books remain sacred vessels of our shared humanity, and who will always insist upon reading for ourselves.

This is what comes of taking dreams / off the horizon. It is the sun / or nothing else, you would scream / if you weren't caught up in the chorus.Leaning deliberately on the imagined while scrutinizing reality and hoping for the as-yet-unseen, Unmet is a poetry collection that explores themes of frustration, justice, and thwarted rescue from a perspective that is Black-Latinx, Canadian, immigrant, and female. Drawing on a wide range of poetics, from Wallace Stevens to Tony Hoagland and Diane Seuss, roberts's musically-driven narrative surrealism confronts such timely issues as police brutality, respectability politics, intimate partner, and ecological crisis, and considers the might-have-been alongside the what could be, negotiating the past without losing hope for the future.

“Robertson offers the whole picture, warts and all. In doing so, he honors the music of artists who have enriched his life—and opens the door for his readers to experience the same magic.”—Blues Blast MagazineDust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) is a collection of a dozen biographical and critical portraits of some of the twentieth century’s most innovative, influential, and fascinating musicians. From rock to folk, blues to gospel, country to the unclassifiable; from the famous, to the forgotten, to the barely known, Ray Robertson combines a novelist’s eye for dramatic detail with an unapologetic fanboy’s appreciation for and awe at the lives and lasting artistic achievements of twelve of his musical heroes, among them Alex Chilton, Duane Allman, Nick Drake, and Muddy Waters.

"Steven Heighton had this stunning range of voice in his stories. He would go anywhere. He always surprised you."—Michael OndaatjeFollowing his New Yorker Best of 2023 collection, Instructions for the Drowning, Sacred Rage selects stories spanning the range of the late Steven Heighton’s career as a fiction writer.

Selected by editor Emily Urquhart, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Essays showcases the best Canadian nonfiction writing published in 2023.Featuring:Katherine Ashenburg • James Cairns • Mitchell Consky • Michelle Cyca • Sadiqa de Meijer • Ariel Gordon • Lana Hall • Helen Humphreys • Rebecca Kempe • Jiin Kim • Christine Lai • Jessica Moore • Tom Rachman • Leanne Betasamosake Simpson • Vance Wright

World-renowned cartoonist Seth returns with three new ghost stories for 2024.When a group of tourists visits the deserted island of Podolo, one wants to rescue a feral cat they find there, and the others reluctantly agree. Unfortunately, the rescue proves more difficult than they expect—and they soon discover they’re not alone on Podolo.

Selected by editor Aislinn Hunter, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Poetry showcases the best Canadian poetry writing published in 2023.Featuring:Hollie Adams • George Amabile • Erin Bedford • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Bertrand Bickersteth • Elisabeth Blair • Ronna Bloom • Alison Braid-Fernandez • Robert Bringhurst • Emily Cann • Anne Carson • Molly Cross-Blanchard • Lorna Crozier • Kayla Czaga • Evelyna Ekoko-Kay • Kate Genevieve • Susan Gillis • Sue Goyette • Catherine Graham • Henry Heavyshield • Gerald Hill • Alexander Hollenberg • Kim June Johnson • Eve Joseph • Evelyn Lau • Y. S. Lee • D. A. Lockhart • Fareh Malik • David Martin • Domenica Martinello • Cassidy McFadzean • Carmelita McGrath • Erín Moure • Tolu Oloruntoba • Catherine Owen • Molly Peacock • Miranda Pearson • Pauline Peters • Amanda Proctor • Shannon Quinn • Armand Garnet Ruffo • Anne Simpson • Carolyn Smart • Karen Solie • Catherine St. Denis • Owen Torrey • Michael Trussler • Sara Truuvert • Rob Winger • Jaeyun Yoo

An unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity, race, and censorship.In 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write, in first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner. The Confessions of Nat Turner was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community.Decades later, the controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In Baldwin, Styron, and Me, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers' surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and the often contentious public debates about these topics, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement.

Selected by editor Steven W. Beattie, the 2025 edition of Best Canadian Stories showcases the best Canadian fiction writing published in 2023.Featuring:Chris Bailey • Christine Birbalsingh • Cody Caetano • Kate Cayley • Lynn Coady • Caitlin Galway • Marcel Goh • Beth Goobie • Mark Anthony Jarman • Saad Omar Khan • Chelsea Peters • Kawai Shen • Liz Stewart • Glenna Turnbull • Catriona Wright • Clea Young

"After the death of his wife in childbirth, Captain Dalgety has grown distant from his estate and young daughter. But during his walk home one afternoon, a sudden thunderstorm causes a series of revelations, and the captain's life takes an unexpected turn"--

Philosopher Mark Kingwell thinks about thinking for yourself in an era of radical know-it-all-ism.“Question authority,” the popular 1960s slogan commanded. “Think for yourself.” But what started as a counter-cultural catchphrase, playful in logic but serious in intent, has become a practical paradox. Yesterday’s social critics are the tone-policing tyrants of today, while those who claim “colourblindness” see no need to engage with critical theory at all. The resulting crisis of authority, made worse by rival political factions and chaotic public discourse, has exposed cracks in every facet of shared social life. Politics, academia, journalism, medicine, religion, science—every kind of institutional claim is now routinely subject to objection, investigation, and outright disbelief. A recurring feature of this comprehensive distrust of authority is the firm, often unshakeable, belief in personal righteousness and superiority: what Mark Kingwell calls our “addiction to conviction.”In this critical survey of the predicament of contemporary authority, Kingwell draws on philosophical argument, personal reflection, and details from the headlines in an attempt to reclaim the democratic spirit of questioning authority and thinking for oneself. Defending a program of compassionate skepticism, Question Authority is a fascinating survey of the role of individual humility in public life and illuminates how we might each do our part in the infinite project of justice.

"When Margaret finds a cottage to rent in the moorlands for her visiting Aunt Dorothea, she pays no mind to its rumored dark history. But when Dorothea goes missing only days after her arrival, a haunting tale of greed and murder soon comes to light"--

An electric examination of women and men, sex and love, self-loathing and twenty-first century loneliness.Between Daily Self Care, the weekly column she writes for the website The Hype Report, and managing her mood stabilizers, Gloria navigates her quasi-relationship with Florian and commiserates with Isabel, her best friend, about dating apps and dick pics, married men and questionable boundaries. But when she makes a glib pass at Darin, a stranger wearing a sad face pin on a subway platform crowded with young male protestors leaving an anti-immigration rally, and finds him waiting for her outside her health club the next day, curiosity leads her not to consider a restraining order, but to talk to him. Claiming she wants to interview him for an article she’s writing on the incel movement, Gloria meets Darin for coffee and soon invites him back to her apartment—where his strange earnestness and painfully restrained desire inspire her to dominate him sexually. As their sexual relationship intensifies, so does their emotional connection, and Gloria can’t shake her sense that she’s headed in a dangerous direction. An electric examination of women and men, sex and love, self-loathing and twenty-first century loneliness, Self-Care is a devastating novel about all the ways we try to cope—with ourselves, and with each other.

A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024From the bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre Esprit-RadissonThis is the story of the collision of two worlds. In the early 1600s, the Jesuits—the Catholic Church’s most ferocious warriors for Christ—tried to create their own nation on the Great Lakes and turn the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy into a model Jesuit state. At the centre of their campaign was missionary Jean de Brébeuf, a mystic who sought to die a martyr's death. He lived among a proud people who valued kindness and rights for all, especially women. In the end, Huronia was destroyed. Brébeuf became a Catholic saint, and the Jesuit's "martyrdom" became one of the founding myths of Canada.In this first secular biography of Brébeuf, historian Mark Bourrie, bestselling author of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson, recounts the missionary's fascinating life and tells the tragic story of the remarkable people he lived among. Drawing on the letters and documents of the time—including Brébeuf's accounts of his bizarre spirituality—and modern studies of the Jesuits, Bourrie shows how Huron leaders tried to navigate this new world and the people struggled to cope as their nation came apart. Riveting, clearly told, and deeply researched, Crosses in the Sky is an essential addition to—and expansion of—Canadian history.

A Walrus Best Book of Fall 2024 • A Globe 100 Best Book of 2024 • A CBC Best Fiction Book of the Year • Winner of the 2023 Prix Médicis, Prix Décembre, and Prix RinguetCéline Wachowski, internationally renowned architect and accidental digital-culture icon, unveils her plans for the Webuy Complex, her first megaproject in Montreal, her hometown. But instead of the triumph she anticipates in finally bringing her reputation to bear in her own city, the project is excoriated by critics, who accuse her of callously destroying the social fabric of neighborhoods, ushering in a new era of gentrification, and many even deadlier sins. When she is deposed as CEO of her firm, Céline must make sense of the charges against herself and the people in her elite circle. For the first time in danger of losing their footing, what fictions must they tell themselves to justify their privilege and maintain their position in the world that they themselves have built?Moving fluidly between Céline’s perspective and the perspectives of her critics, and revealing both the ruthlessness of her methods and the brilliance of her aesthetic vision, May Our Joy Endure is a shrewd examination of the microcosm of the ultra-privileged and a dazzling social novel that depicts with razor-sharp acuity the terrible beauty of wealth, influence, and art.