Celebrated cartoonist Kate Beaton vividly presents the untold story of Canada. Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can't find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates. Arriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. Her wounds may never heal. Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full-length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.

Authentic and humorous first person account of one worker’s daily life in the huge system that is the Chinese gig economy. The system could crush you unless you, as the author, have a slightly philosophical look on everyday life. A bestseller in China in 2023 with over 160, 000 copies sold, 400,000 ebooks read, and 1,360,000 audio versions downloaded. Also sold for local publications in 15 territories.In 2023, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing became a literary sensation of the year in China. The story of a worker doing odd jobs in various anonymous mega-cities, Hu AnYan’s voice hit a nerve with a generation of young Chinese who feel at odds with an ever growing pressure to perform and succeed.Hu started posting essays about his experiences online during COVID lockdowns. His recollection of night shifts in a huge logistics center in the South of China went nights so hot that even drinking three liters of water does not require a toilet break; colleagues going for KTV instead of trying to get a few hours' sleep; where are the affordable rooms with proper air conditioning, and what is the best amount of alcohol in order to sleep but not feel drowsy a few hours later? The work is brutal, and there is no real sense of future in sight. But Hu is armed with a deadpan sense of humor and a strong idea of self, he moves on when he feels from logistics in the South to delivering parcels in Beijing, over to other odd jobs, all the while also discovering the power of reading and writing.A unique first person portrait of a society we never hear from but everyone has opinions about and benefits from.

Then, in 2022, I have a standalone book called Rialto (Clarion) that’s set near an abandoned amusement park. In tone, it’s very much like Greenglass House, but it also has some interesting connections to The Boneshaker.

Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe. But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return. Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.

It’s been a year since Oasis stumbled away from Blessed Falls with wings carved into her back and too many scars to count. A year spent razing delusions of being an angel's vessel, proving to her brother that she doesn’t belong in a psych ward, and mourning the loss of her mother's vinyl pressed ashes. A year spent struggling to feel human again. Enter Laura, the mesmerizing stranger who claims to hear Oasis’ heartbeat, who reads her hand-written memoir like scripture, who makes her feel closer to found than lost. Laura is the most recent face of the eternal Count Dracula, ruler of the shadows, chimera of the Devil, and embittered victim of libel. The Van Helsing Institute have been waiting for a glimpse of the dragon’s underbelly, and eagerly approach Oasis for her help in a ploy to kill Dracula for good. But not every wound from Blessed Falls has cicatrized, and Oasis realizes she may be a danger to Laura—and to herself. Yet no one is as dangerous as Laura—the first vampire, the Devil's plaything, and the person with whom Oasis finally feels human. Oceans of time have passed since she last had a drink, and she will not let Oasis go easily.

Rune Saint John, last child of the fallen Sun Court, is hired to search for Lady Judgment's missing son, Addam, on New Atlantis, the island city where the Atlanteans moved after ordinary humans destroyed their original home. With his companion and bodyguard, Brand, he questions Addam's relatives and business contacts through the highest ranks of the nobles of New Atlantis. But as they investigate, they uncover more than a missing man: a legendary creature connected to the secret of the massacre of Rune's Court. In looking for Addam, can Rune find the truth behind his family's death and the torments of his past?

A powerful act of remembrance and resistance, 70,000 transforms cultural erasure into a living, breathing archive of grief, memory, and hope.70,000 is a visceral and inventive collection of poetry rooted in the theft of 70,000 books from Palestinian homes and private libraries by Zionist forces before and during the Nakba of 1948. Of those books, most have vanished; just 6,000 remain, locked in the Israeli National Archives—unreachable by Palestinians.In response to this loss of knowledge and memory, Lenna Jawdat began handwriting the numbers one to 70,000, willing herself to think of every number as a book. Trained as a trauma therapist, she documented the emotional and physical experience of this ritual, giving shape to the grief, rage, and reverence that emerged. The book unfolds in three interwoven the numbers themselves, reflections on the writing process, and a personal and familial poetic narrative. Together, they form a fragmented but powerful archive—one that blends poetry, memoir, maps, documents, and collage.70,000 is a deeply embodied meditation on cultural erasure and the resilience of memory. What begins as a personal act of reckoning becomes a collective gesture of hope, resistance, and the radical possibility of healing.

'I know about the visions. I have your camera. Call me. Please.' When Michael is uprooted to his mum’s hometown of Belfast, he isn’t just hoping for a fresh start. He’s determined to discover the truth about his dad’s mysterious absence. But from the moment he arrives, he’s plagued with visions of the city’s troubled past. Michael begins settling into his new life and even meets a boy who helps erase the painful memories of his ex. But as the visions grow stronger and more intense, the only person he can really confide in is his new friend Meg. As Meg delves into the supernatural source of the visions, Michael begins to question whether events of the past are linked to his dad’s disappearance. Can he use his powers to find his dad before he’s gone forever?

Castles traded places sometimes. Everyone knew that. It was always something that might happen, except that it never had. It was one of those unlikelihoods, like finding treasure, or being eaten by a wolf, or having a handsome, powerful stranger turn up to right all your wrongs. It could happen, except it didn’t. Until all of a sudden it did. Far above the valleys and villages of the Kingdom of Thaletal, a Great Game is played. Players move castles around the realm like chess pieces - and the ordinary villagers are mere pawns at the whim of their tactics. When 16-year-old Burr's peaceful village is disrupted by the arrival of an ominous new castle, he decides he's had enough. But what starts as a plucky coup soon escalates - and soon the castle is wrenched away to a far-flung corner of the kingdom, where whispers mount of a mysterious ancient maiden whose magpies collect her debts at dangerous prices. Here, the stakes are higher than the tallest turrets, and every move counts. Burr must work with his sisters and friends - and rely on the unexpected help of a strange and intriguing heiress - to unravel the secrets of the Magpie Maiden and the origins of the Great Game before he becomes just another casualty of the Players' deadly contest.