This magical new novel by Governor General and Trillium Prize nominee Mark Frutkin, set in 13th century Venice and Cathay, is a dazzling fresco of shimmering language, brimming with golden tableaus of arid deserts and cobblestone alleys, the wafting scent of cardomin and the mystical trill of a praying friar. It is the story of Marco Polo as he is about to set sail on an arduous and lengthy pilgrimage with his father, uncle and faithful guide across the sun-soaked silk route, the rich path...

In geology an erratic is a "boulder or rock formation transported some distance from its original source, as by a glacier." In award-winning novelist Mark Frutkin’s case, his movement from his native Cleveland. Ohio, was instigated by his wish to protest and resist the U.S. military draft during the Vietnam War, and his destination was Canada.An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 American Vietnam War draft resisters sought sanctuary in Canada. Many of these men stayed, became Canadian cit...

From Istanbul to New Delhi to Boulder, Colorado, through Venice, Paris, Rome, and points betweenAs travellers, we are always walking backwards, forever on the verge of stepping into the unknown, never knowing what waits around the next corner.You could be lost, forget your passport, fall ill. You could be served a bowl of food and not know whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral. Even flushing the toilet can be an adventure.You are a child again, innocen...

Of one of Mark Frutkin’s previous books of verse, Poetry Canada Review said it provided "a supernatural fusion of the earthbound with the heavenly to forge the lightning of poetry." Divided into two sections, one inspired by ancient Chinese art, the other limning the ambiguities and incongruities of the contemporary human condition, Frutkin’s new volume of poetry, Iron Mountain, often presents human beings wandering in the wilderness between two abysses while still appreciating th...

Short-listed for the 1988 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, Ottawa-Carleton Book Award and Trillium Book AwardParis, the City of Light, was once the scene of a brilliant magnesium flare, host to the belle epoque from 1900 to 1914. Tempting poets, painters, writers, and composers from across Europe, the city relied on one man to move among them all-Guillaume Apollinaire. His contemporaries called him brilliant, mad, whimsical. He was the bastard son of an Itali...

A brilliant novel packed with delights: grand romance, alchemical potions, violins to make you weep, commedia dell’arte theatre, reappearing comets, rambling skeletons and cracks in time.It is 1682 in Cremona, Italy. With his manservant, an insolent dwarf named Omero, Fabrizio Cambiati, a priest, climbs the town clocktower to await the return of a comet that is said to reappear in the skies every 76 years. He has a new invention called a telescope with which to scour the night. As ...

This is a unique novel of old China, the traditional landscape of mountains and rivers without end, and life in an imperial city rife with plots, intrigues, culture, sensuality and wealth. Li Wen, a landscape painter of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), is on a journey to deliver a message to the Chinese Emperor. His teacher has instructed him to paint four landscapes, one for each season, during the year it will take him to travel across China to the Emperor’s Court where he is to present t...

The Walled Garden is a unique collection of short essays addressing a wide variety of subjects. From an exploration of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Federico Fellini to an update on the linguistic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, from a look into the true nature of time and the present moment to a discussion of 'psychic birthplaces', from reflections on Paleolithic caves, poetry and art, The Walled Garden includes the wild, the tamed and the stunningly unusual.

The author of the Stephen Leacock Medal-winning The Best Laid Plans brings his trademark humour and sharp storytelling to a new novel set in the high-stakes world of a global public relations agency.On his first day at Turner King, David Stewart quickly realizes that the world of international PR (affectionately, perhaps ironically, known as "the dark side") is a far cry from his previous job on Parliament Hill. For one, he missed the office memo on the all-black dress cod...

*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World ...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century**At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, sh...

The CBC Literary Award–winning title story from Claire Battershill’s debut collection, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award, and a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award and the PEN International / New Voices Award.For as long as Susan can remember, the circus has been part of her family’s DNA – her mother was a gifted contortionist, and her grandfather played the role of a man-wrestling bear. Coming from suc...