Enter for a Chance to Win Free Books!
49th Shelf members can enter to win a copy of any of the books listed here (please sign up here if you haven’t already). At the end of the giveaway period, we do a random draw, and the publishers ship copies directly to the winners. Good luck!
Play
Paul (Paulina) Hayes loves her cousin Adrian. Inseparable from a young age, they play The Lighted City, an imaginary world where they pretend to live together and can escape a childhood that seems both too sad and too grown-up. But The Lighted City isn’t without danger. Years later, Paul is struggling with PTSD after a season of turmoil—one in which Adrian is dead, and radio and television are filled with reports of missing children. Just as stability is settling into her life and relationships, Paul is dragged back into the fate that Adrian seems to have scripted for them. And so she finds herself journeying across the country, down into a ravine, and back to The Lighted City, where so much of her childhood played out. Only by doing so can she begin to come to terms with “the day everything happened”—and what has unfolded since then. With a unique blend of contemporary storytelling and psychological fiction, Play is a haunting, riveting novel that reminds us of both the beauty and danger of imagination.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 53
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Sugar Kids
A Novel
Baby’s a skater girl trying to get through high school like everyone else. Except she loves Victorian gothic fiction, experiences violent tremors, and gets visits from the ghost of her twin. Ravi never really died for her, not like her mom did last year. When Baby gets kicked out of the house for not conforming with her Indo-Canadian family’s gender expectations, everything changes. Her new, glamorous friend Delilah introduces her to all-night parties held in exclusive clubs, abandoned warehouses, and magical cornfields — the underground rave scene in 1990s Vancouver. But how will Baby fit into this new world?
Join Baby on her wild search for belonging through the landscape of acid house, complete with extraordinary music, retro fashion, and copious substance use. Alongside eccentric DJs, misanthropic skaters, and denim-clad ghosts, Baby explores her sexual and cultural identity. A coming-of-age tale, Sugar Kids is an homage to the subcultures animating the nineties.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 49
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Autokrator
Driven by a Machiavellian mind and ego, Tiresius has risen through the ranks of the Autokracy to become Imperial Treasurer, has won over the trust of the Autokrator himself, and yet, has broken the society’s most scared rules: She has posed as a male for many years. In the eyes of the Autokracy, this gender crime is one of the most heinous a person can commit, and punishable by death.
In this deeply etched speculative world, women — Unmales — have been relegated to non-person status with their reproduction strictly controlled. Their only role is to serve men, and to do so from the shadows.
Tiresius’s rebellion against the Autokracy coincides with that of a Domestic — a female labourer — named Cera. Cera’s son, who was taken from her at birth as demanded by tradition, is the successor to the Autokracy. She is desperate to be part of his life and takes dangerous steps toward revealing herself to him, becoming a gender criminal herself.
The fates of both women become intertwined as they are driven to discover what cost gender and power exact.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 41
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Ocean Drive
A Novel
Paroled killer Cameron Shaw and small-town cop Staff Sgt. Meghan Quick find themselves on a collision course when the murder-by-arson of a college student sparks off gang violence along the forty-ninth parallel.
In his masterful new crime novel, award-winning author Sam Wiebe juxtaposes small town life with multinational criminal operations. With the threat of a gang war looming, and long-buried secrets coming to light, Ocean Drive is a riveting exploration of the shadows cast by development and the harrowing choices individuals make when faced with the allure of easy money.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 53
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Who by Fire
Haunted by a childhood of picking locks and tailing suspects with her private-eye dad, Dame Polara desperately wants to leave the mysteries behind and lead an average life with average ambitions: to preserve heritage buildings through her job at City Hall, to care for her father’s mounting health complications, and to one day raise a family of her own.
But when her landlord serves her an eviction notice, and Dame agrees to investigate his wife’s infidelity in exchange for keeping the apartment. A simple domestic case, or so Dame believes, until her investigation uncovers a serial arsonist targeting the very buildings she’s fighting to preserve.
When this new mystery reopens old wounds, Dame must use every trick her father taught her to discover the truth and protect those she loves — lest the dangers of the job catch up to her and burn her whole life to the ground.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 59
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The Old Moon in Her Arms
Women I Have Known and Been
A powerful, lyrical collection of essays from the award-winning author of Following the River, exploring the pivotal moments in her life, and how art and nature have shaped her.
Like both memory and the moon, what's written here aims to shed what light it can, bringing it home to now.
How does a woman compose a life? The Old Moon in Her Arms is a hybrid book of fragments, pivotal moments and images in the phases of a woman's life, turning points rendered in Lorri Neilsen Glenn's lyrical prose.
Like the shifting images in a kaleidoscope, these glimpses into the life of an ordinary woman lay bare the ways family, landscape, loss, and a lifelong pursuit of knowledge have forced the author in her later years to examine what really matters. Here, readers bear witness to the making of a daughter, a student, a wife, a friend, a teacher, a mother, a feminist, an award-winning scholar and writer. Neilsen Glenn's artistry weaves personal history, philosophy, pop culture, and contemporary thought to examine moments and people who've inhabited her life. "Over time and circumstance," she says, "haven't we all been various?"
Guiding her exploration are the Cree concept of wahkohtowin, the kinship in all of creation, and the elliptical path of the moon.
This hybrid collection of singular moments celebrates connection, wonder and endless curiosity.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 39
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Mitji-Let's Eat!
Mi'kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk
An intergenerational source of wisdom and knowledge, Mitji combines a cultural history of Mi'kmaw cuisine with a practical cookbook.
The welcome call of "Mitji" can be heard by Mi'kmaw children, hungry workers, family, and friends when dinner is ready. This book, too, is an invitation to celebrate and practice Mi'kmaq foodways: the recipes passed down from one generation to the next; the way traditional foods and medicines are gathered, hunted, and cooked; and the lived experience of ancestors and Elders about how to nourish the spirit and body through Mi'kmaw culture and knowledge.
Mitji—Let's Eat! Mi'kmaq Recipes from Sikniktuk offers over 30 traditional and popular Mi'kmaq recipes, arranged seasonally—like Fish Cakes and Eel Stew in spring; Blueberry "Poor Man's Cake" and Stuffed Salmon in summer; Swiss Steak with Moose Meat and Apple Pie in fall; and Molasses Cake and Wiusey Petaqn in winter.
Each recipe is contextualized with its origins, contributor information, food stories, and detailed preparation instructions, and throughout the book are short essays on Mi'kmaw cuisine, drawing a picture of how Mi'kmaq foodways were influenced by colonization, on the one hand, and how food became and remains a significant vehicle of resistance, on the other. Whether a novice or well-seasoned cook, Mitji is a feast for the reader: a bountiful introduction to, and celebration of, Mi'kmaw cuisine.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 39
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In the Capital City of Autumn
Tim Bowling is in top form in his latest collection of poetry, In the Capital City of Autumn. Threading through autumnal themes such as the loss of his mother and the demolition of his childhood home, his children growing and the inevitable passage of time, Bowling writes with rich lyricism and imagery. Sweet William and loosely woven woollen mitts for his mother, the moon as “an egg in the pocket of a running thief” for time, salmon for eternity. In the Capital City of Autumn, the characters of The Great Gatsby come to life, and three a.m. brings wisdom. These are masterful poems, lightened with a touch of whimsy, poems to sink into on a quiet evening.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 32
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The Art of Floating
Melanie Marttila captures the solace and healing she has found in the terrestrial landscapes, flora, and fauna of northeastern and southwestern Ontario while balancing the ebbs and flows of her mental health. There is similar reprieve in looking skyward as she shares in beautifully crafted poems the reflections of celestial patterns on moods, perceptions and relationships. Through the often insignificant and mildly miniscule moments in life, Marttila demonstrates the truth and hope that lie within each, whether connecting with land or sky. The Art of Floating is dedicated to the poet's father, who taught her how to surrender to and survive the rough waters of mental illness.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 3
- Members entered
- 37
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The Knot of My Tongue
Poems and Prose
Get ready for the 4 spectacular books in McClelland &Stewart Spring Poetry Collection, including The Knot of My Tongue, by Zehra Naqvi; Empires of the Everyday, by Anna Lee-Popham; The Seventh Town of Ghosts, by Faith Arkorful; and shima, by sho yamagushiku.
- Giveaway period ends
- Apr 30, 2024
- Copies available
- 1
- Members entered
- 36
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