Most Circulated Titles

Pluto : Urasawa X Tezuka

Urasawa, Naoki, 1960-


Published in Japanese right-to-left format. Based on Astro boy by Osamu Tezuka.
Date Published:2008

Crooked teeth : a queer Syrian refugee memoir

Ramadan, Ahmad Danny.


A queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place. Writing this memoir is a betrayal. So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he'd rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family's humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city's underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria's LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that's not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love. What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative.
Date Published:2024

A queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place. Writing this memoir is a betrayal. So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he'd rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family's humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city's underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria's LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that's not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love. What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative.

Date Published:2024

Roxy

Shusterman, Neal,


Title on cover and title page have the R styled as the symbol for medical prescriptions. Isaac and Ivy Ramsey are the victims of the bet between two manufactured gods: the seductive and lethal Roxy (Oxycontin), and the smart, high-achieving Addison (Adderall). The wager: a contest to see who can bring their mark to a rave that has raged since the beginning of time. Drawn by what the drugs offer, tempted to take that step past helpful to harmful are Isaac, a soccer player thrown into Roxy's orbit by a bad fall; and Ivy, his sister, whose increasing frustration with her untreated ADHD leads her to renew her acquaintance with Addy. One will land on their feel; the other will be lost to the rave. The question is: which one?
Date Published:2021

Title on cover and title page have the R styled as the symbol for medical prescriptions. Isaac and Ivy Ramsey are the victims of the bet between two manufactured gods: the seductive and lethal Roxy (Oxycontin), and the smart, high-achieving Addison (Adderall). The wager: a contest to see who can bring their mark to a rave that has raged since the beginning of time. Drawn by what the drugs offer, tempted to take that step past helpful to harmful are Isaac, a soccer player thrown into Roxy's orbit by a bad fall; and Ivy, his sister, whose increasing frustration with her untreated ADHD leads her to renew her acquaintance with Addy. One will land on their feel; the other will be lost to the rave. The question is: which one?

Date Published:2021

Interesting facts about space : a novel

Austin, Emily R.


Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she's not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she's serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps.
Date Published:2024

Jujutsu kaisen. 17, Perfect preparation /

Akutami, Gege, 1992-


Manga format; reads from back to front, right to left. "First published in Japan in 2018 by SHUEISHA Inc., Tokyo"--Title page verso. To gain the power he needs to save his friend from a cursed spirit, Yuji Itadori swallows a piece of a demon, only to find himself caught in the midst of a horrific war of the supernatural! In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryomen Sukuna were lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna's body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of jujutsu sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Hunted down by Okkotsu and on the brink of death, Itadori recalls a troubling family scene from his past. But why is the former form of Noritoshi Kamo there? As the sorcerers begin to take action toward suppressing the lethal culling game, Maki pays the Zen'in clan a visit...
Date Published:2022

Manga format; reads from back to front, right to left. "First published in Japan in 2018 by SHUEISHA Inc., Tokyo"--Title page verso. To gain the power he needs to save his friend from a cursed spirit, Yuji Itadori swallows a piece of a demon, only to find himself caught in the midst of a horrific war of the supernatural! In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryomen Sukuna were lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna's body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of jujutsu sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Hunted down by Okkotsu and on the brink of death, Itadori recalls a troubling family scene from his past. But why is the former form of Noritoshi Kamo there? As the sorcerers begin to take action toward suppressing the lethal culling game, Maki pays the Zen'in clan a visit...

Date Published:2022

The history of everything

Evans, Victoria,


Daisy and Agnes have always had each other. And that's all they've ever needed--or wanted, at least. So when Agnes's mom drops the bombshell that she and Agnes are moving at the end of the summer, the girls are crushed. All seems lost until the pair unearth "The History of Everything," an old friendship scrapbook with the ultimate bucket list to make their last summer together unforgettable. But when Daisy starts dating a charming drummer, her social calendar suddenly has less room for her best friend. Insecurities bubble to the surface, and Daisy and Agnes begin to question if their friendship is meant to last the summer, much less forever. In this tender graphic novel debut, Victoria Evans delves into the heart of a best friendship and explores what it means to grow up without growing apart.
Date Published:2025

Daisy and Agnes have always had each other. And that's all they've ever needed--or wanted, at least. So when Agnes's mom drops the bombshell that she and Agnes are moving at the end of the summer, the girls are crushed. All seems lost until the pair unearth "The History of Everything," an old friendship scrapbook with the ultimate bucket list to make their last summer together unforgettable. But when Daisy starts dating a charming drummer, her social calendar suddenly has less room for her best friend. Insecurities bubble to the surface, and Daisy and Agnes begin to question if their friendship is meant to last the summer, much less forever. In this tender graphic novel debut, Victoria Evans delves into the heart of a best friendship and explores what it means to grow up without growing apart.

Date Published:2025

Songs for ghosts

Kumagai, Clara,


Seventeen-year-old Adam has just broken up with his boyfriend Evan and is not looking forward to the excruciating awkwardness at school for the rest of term or a whole summer stuck at home with his dad, stepmom and baby brother, Benji. But then Adam discovers a diary in some boxes in the attic and is quickly enthralled by their poignant story. They were written by a young woman living in Nagasaki in 1911. Adam is enraptured by her life and loves, becoming totally absorbed in her story. And then he starts to be haunted by her ghostly presence.
Date Published:2025

Seventeen-year-old Adam has just broken up with his boyfriend Evan and is not looking forward to the excruciating awkwardness at school for the rest of term or a whole summer stuck at home with his dad, stepmom and baby brother, Benji. But then Adam discovers a diary in some boxes in the attic and is quickly enthralled by their poignant story. They were written by a young woman living in Nagasaki in 1911. Adam is enraptured by her life and loves, becoming totally absorbed in her story. And then he starts to be haunted by her ghostly presence.

Date Published:2025

A drop in the ocean : a novel

Taranto, Léa,


Sixteen-year-old Mira Durand has just been checked into the Residency Adolescent Treatment Centre for obsessive compulsive and comorbid disorders. Four years of being passed around different psych wards like a hot potato have only worsened her OCD and anorexia. Her brutal, religious compulsions, which she believes keep her mom safe, make her less of a clean freak and more of a freak freak. No wonder her only friend is her journal. At the Residency's Ward Two, Mira discovers that her shrink is a fellow fantasy nerd and that her wardmates have enough of their own high-risk behaviours to tolerate hers. The complex friendships she forms with them, including a first love, the slow trust she builds with her treatment team, and the outside and family visits she earns give her things to look forward to beyond the drudgery of her compulsions. But it takes visiting Gung-Gung, her dying maternal grandfather, for her to realize that to truly live, she must fight the cognitive distortions at the heart of her compulsions.
Date Published:2025

Sixteen-year-old Mira Durand has just been checked into the Residency Adolescent Treatment Centre for obsessive compulsive and comorbid disorders. Four years of being passed around different psych wards like a hot potato have only worsened her OCD and anorexia. Her brutal, religious compulsions, which she believes keep her mom safe, make her less of a clean freak and more of a freak freak. No wonder her only friend is her journal. At the Residency's Ward Two, Mira discovers that her shrink is a fellow fantasy nerd and that her wardmates have enough of their own high-risk behaviours to tolerate hers. The complex friendships she forms with them, including a first love, the slow trust she builds with her treatment team, and the outside and family visits she earns give her things to look forward to beyond the drudgery of her compulsions. But it takes visiting Gung-Gung, her dying maternal grandfather, for her to realize that to truly live, she must fight the cognitive distortions at the heart of her compulsions.

Date Published:2025

Messy perfect

Boteju, Tanya,


When a former friend reenrolls at their Catholic high school a few years after a homophobic bullying incident, Cassie decides to start an underground Gender and Sexuality Alliance, exploring her own sexuality in the process.
Date Published:2025

Dandelion

Liew, Jamie Chai Yun.


When Lily was eleven years old, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family, never to be seen or heard from again. Now a new mother herself, Lily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Swee Hua. She recalls the spring of 1987, growing up in a small British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families; Lily's previously stateless father wanted to blend seamlessly into Canadian life, while her mother, alienated and isolated, longed to return to Brunei. Years later, still affected by Swee Hua's disappearance, Lily's family is stubbornly silent to her questioning. But eventually, an old family friend provides a clue that sends Lily to Southeast Asia to find out the truth. Dandelion is a beautifully written and affecting novel about motherhood, family secrets, migration, isolation, and mental illness. With clarity and care, it delves into the many ways we define home, identity, and above all, belonging.
Date Published:2022

When Lily was eleven years old, her mother, Swee Hua, walked away from the family, never to be seen or heard from again. Now a new mother herself, Lily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Swee Hua. She recalls the spring of 1987, growing up in a small British Columbia mining town where there were only a handful of Asian families; Lily's previously stateless father wanted to blend seamlessly into Canadian life, while her mother, alienated and isolated, longed to return to Brunei. Years later, still affected by Swee Hua's disappearance, Lily's family is stubbornly silent to her questioning. But eventually, an old family friend provides a clue that sends Lily to Southeast Asia to find out the truth. Dandelion is a beautifully written and affecting novel about motherhood, family secrets, migration, isolation, and mental illness. With clarity and care, it delves into the many ways we define home, identity, and above all, belonging.

Date Published:2022

Jujutsu kaisen. 14, The Shibuya incident--right and wrong /

Akutami, Gege, 1992-


Read from right to left. Translated from the Japanese. In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryomen Sukuna were lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna's body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of Jujutsu Sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Sukuna, unleashed, is wrecking Shibuya, and Fushiguro has suffered a serious injury from a curse user's surprise attack. Fushiguro comes up with a desperate plan to deal with both the rampaging Sukuna and the curse user, but the cost will be grave.
Date Published:2022

Read from right to left. Translated from the Japanese. In a world where cursed spirits feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryomen Sukuna were lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna's body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of Jujutsu Sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the supernatural! Sukuna, unleashed, is wrecking Shibuya, and Fushiguro has suffered a serious injury from a curse user's surprise attack. Fushiguro comes up with a desperate plan to deal with both the rampaging Sukuna and the curse user, but the cost will be grave.

Date Published:2022

Jujutsu kaisen. 18, Fever /

Akutami, Gege, 1992-


Reads from right to left. In order to thwart the culling game, Itadori needs the help of Kinji Hakari, a third-year who is currently suspended from Jujutsu High, so he decides to participate in an underground fight club where Hakari works as a bookie. Meanwhile, Fushiguro infiltrates the fight club and heads for Hakari's base of operations, but another Jujutsu High third-year is using their cursed technique to block his way.
Date Published:2022

Reads from right to left. In order to thwart the culling game, Itadori needs the help of Kinji Hakari, a third-year who is currently suspended from Jujutsu High, so he decides to participate in an underground fight club where Hakari works as a bookie. Meanwhile, Fushiguro infiltrates the fight club and heads for Hakari's base of operations, but another Jujutsu High third-year is using their cursed technique to block his way.

Date Published:2022

Well-behaved Indian women

Dave, Saumya,


"Readers Guide Included"--page 4 of cover. This is a mother-daughter tale about three generations of women, Simran, Nandini, and Mimi, who strive to find their identities while pursuing their dreams. Simran, feeling judged by her mother Nandini, starts questioning her future when a journalist enters her life. Nandini, having endured much for her children, realizes she’s lost herself in trying to be the perfect woman. Mimi, regretful of her past mistakes with Nandini, seeks to support Simran and keep the family connected.
Date Published:2020

"Readers Guide Included"--page 4 of cover. This is a mother-daughter tale about three generations of women, Simran, Nandini, and Mimi, who strive to find their identities while pursuing their dreams. Simran, feeling judged by her mother Nandini, starts questioning her future when a journalist enters her life. Nandini, having endured much for her children, realizes she’s lost herself in trying to be the perfect woman. Mimi, regretful of her past mistakes with Nandini, seeks to support Simran and keep the family connected.

Date Published:2020

Prairie Edge : a novel

Kerr, Conor.


Meet Isidore "Ezzy" Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey's uncle's old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.
Date Published:2024

Meet Isidore "Ezzy" Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey's uncle's old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.

Date Published:2024

Death by a thousand cuts : stories

Bhat, Shashi 1983-


In this dazzling collection of stories, characters confront the painful absurdities and everyday horrors that come with being a woman. A writer discovers that her ex-boyfriend has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love. A Reddit post about a man's habit of grabbing his girlfriend's breasts prompts a dark confession. A teenager contends with an unsettling shift at home after her beautiful mother has a disfiguring accident. A child-free woman goes on a date with a man who tests her boundaries. A college student vows to end things with her aspiring geneticist boyfriend, who wishes she had blue eyes. And when a woman unexpectedly begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. The characters in Death by a Thousand Cuts seek connection while facing longing, fear, rage, and the impossible expectations placed on women. With bracing honesty and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with themes of illness, pain, desire, bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman's relationships with others and with herself.
Date Published:2024

In this dazzling collection of stories, characters confront the painful absurdities and everyday horrors that come with being a woman. A writer discovers that her ex-boyfriend has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love. A Reddit post about a man's habit of grabbing his girlfriend's breasts prompts a dark confession. A teenager contends with an unsettling shift at home after her beautiful mother has a disfiguring accident. A child-free woman goes on a date with a man who tests her boundaries. A college student vows to end things with her aspiring geneticist boyfriend, who wishes she had blue eyes. And when a woman unexpectedly begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. The characters in Death by a Thousand Cuts seek connection while facing longing, fear, rage, and the impossible expectations placed on women. With bracing honesty and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with themes of illness, pain, desire, bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman's relationships with others and with herself.

Date Published:2024

Jennie's boy : a Newfoundland childhood

Johnston, Wayne,


For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly, unable to keep food down, unable to sleep, plagued with a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose. To the community he was known as "Jennie's boy," and his mother felt judged for Wayne's condition at the same time as worried he might not grow up to be his own man. Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne's childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, and only one of them lived to tell the tale. Jennie's Boy is Wayne's tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him.
Date Published:2024

For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly, unable to keep food down, unable to sleep, plagued with a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose. To the community he was known as "Jennie's boy," and his mother felt judged for Wayne's condition at the same time as worried he might not grow up to be his own man. Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne's childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, and only one of them lived to tell the tale. Jennie's Boy is Wayne's tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him.

Date Published:2024

The perks of being a wallflower

Chbosky, Stephen


A coming of age novel about Charlie, a freshman in high school who is a wallflower, shy and introspective, and very intelligent. He deals with the usual teen problems, but also with the suicide of his best friend.
Date Published:1999

Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Hooper, Emma,


Embarking on a more than 3,000-kilometer walking journey from rural Canada to the East coast so that she can see the ocean for the first time in her life, an octogenarian woman has experiences that blur her perspectives between illusion, memory and reality.
Date Published:2015

On a sunbeam

Walden, Tillie, 1996-,


In two interwoven timelines, a ragtag crew travels to the deepest reaches of space, rebuilding beautiful, broken structures to piece the past together; and two girls meet in boarding school and fall deeply in love, only to learn the pain of loss.
Date Published:2018

A two-spirit journey : the autobiography of a lesbian Ojibwa-Cree elder

Chacaby, Ma-Nee, 1950-,


"A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby's story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism. As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual abuse by different adults, and in her teen years became alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby moved to Thunder Bay with her children to escape an abusive marriage. Abuse, compounded by racism, continued, but Chacaby found supports to help herself and others. Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety; trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor; raised her children and fostered many others; learned to live with visual impairment; and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay. Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, humour, and resilience. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people."--
Date Published:2016

"A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby's story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism. As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual abuse by different adults, and in her teen years became alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby moved to Thunder Bay with her children to escape an abusive marriage. Abuse, compounded by racism, continued, but Chacaby found supports to help herself and others. Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety; trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor; raised her children and fostered many others; learned to live with visual impairment; and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay. Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, humour, and resilience. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people."--

Date Published:2016