ISLAND OF WINGS
by Karin Altenberg

". . . stunning: a historical document turned into lyrical fiction." -- Guardian

July, 1830. On the ten-hour sail west from the Hebrides to the islands of St. Kilda, everything lies ahead for Lizzie and Neil McKenzie. Neil is to become the minister to the small community of islanders, and Lizzie, his new wife, is pregnant with their first child. For Lizzie, this is an adventure, a voyage into the unknown -- but everything that happens from now on will challenge all her certainties.

Exquisitely written and profoundly moving, Island of Wings is more than just an account of a marriage in peril -- it is also a richly imagined novel about two people struggling to keep their love, and their family, alive in a place of terrible hardship and tumultuous beauty.

THE GREAT LEADER
by Jim Harrison

"You can feel the excitement every time [Jim Harrison] pulls something new out of his ear, which happens on pretty much every page he writes . . . very close to magic." -- New York Times

From the bestselling author of Returning to Earth and Legends of the Fall comes The Great Leader, an enthralling and witty yarn that pits Detective Sunderson -- retired, recently divorced, and rarely sober -- against a hedonistic cult in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Harrison offers a unique take on the culture of "Yoopers" (what folks from the rest of Michigan and the Midwest call people from the Upper Peninsula) and cops in a novel that is wonderfully clever, darkly comic, and always entertaining.

by Diana Athill

"I loved loved loved these short stories. They're like many-faceted gems, understated, deceptively simple and even off-hand, yet so filled with insights and real beauty." -- Nancy Pearl

"I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958." So begins literary legend Diana Athill in the preface to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a long-overdue collection of her short fiction, originally published in the 1950s to the 1970s. Beautifully written, perceptive, touching, and funny, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is Diana Athill at her best.

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by Iain Reid

Winner of the CBC Bookies: Best Nonfiction Book

". . . gentle but hilarious humour that had me chortling without a break." -- Montreal Gazette

Meet Iain Reid: an overeducated, underemployed twenty-something. When Iain lands a job at a radio station near his childhood home, he decides to take it. But the work is only part time, so he is forced to move back in with his lovable but eccentric parents on their hobby farm. A hilarious and heartwarming comic memoir about food, family, and finally growing up, One Bird's Choice marks the arrival of a funny, original, and fresh new voice.

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