When We Were Ashes is one of the great books we've got up for giveaway until the end of January.

Head to our Giveaways Page for your chance to win and to check out everything we've got on offer.

*****

Fifteen Dogs, by André Alexis

The premise is just brilliant. Over drinks at a local Toronto bar, Hermes and Apollo (yes, those fickle Greek gods of an eternal yesteryear) decide to settle a bet by granting human consciousness and language to 15 dogs staying at a nearby veterinary clinic. The pack escapes the clinic to High Park and sets up a new dog society, based on their newfound abilities. As the gods watch on, the pack struggles with their newfound values and what these mean for the old doggy ways. It's a stunning exploration of old metaphysical questions in the streets and kennels of Toronto. A marvel and a favourite.

*

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, by Mordecai Richler

Speaking of strange wagers, many years ago I once wondered out loud to a mostly sober friend who would win a fight between J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield and Richler’s Duddy Kravitz. “Hands down, Duddy Kravitz,” said my friend. Duddy is a St. Urbain con man and shyster and not someone you’d invite to dinner and expect to keep the deed to your house. When he was young, Duddy’s grandfather told him that "a man without land is nobody" and so Duddy sets his sights on acquiring property in the Laurentian mountains. Of course, to get the land Duddy cheats just about everyone around him and drives away almost everyone in his life. What is so compelling here is how Richler makes Duddy despicable and lovable at the same time. A darkly comic novel and a deserved Canadian classic well worth reading and re-reading. 

*

Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies

I first read Fifth Business in university and have felt haunted by Davies’ novel ever since. It begins ordinarily enough: protagonist Dunstan Ramsay takes offence to his retirement notice in the College Chronicle and vows to prove that he has led an interesting life. What follows next is anything but ordinary: equal parts Jungian psychology, enigma and the miraculous all rendered in Davies’ luminous prose.  His novel left me with the same sense of vertigo I felt after reading The Magus, by John Fowles. Wear a parachute.

*

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, by Zsuzsi Gartner

The exuberance of Gartner’s short story collection is equally matched by her exquisite sense of literary craft.  If you’re learning to write short fiction, I highly recommend studying her stories after you’ve devoured their rich fare: you’ll not only be thoroughly entertained, but you can also learn so much about story structure, sentence-craft and character development. This collection is wickedly funny, darkly satirical and exemplifies Gartner at her best. Think Lorrie Moorie meets George Saunders with a healthy dose of East Van flare.

*

See You Later Maybe Never, by Lenore Rowntree

Rowntree deserves to be more widely known on the Canadian literary scene. While she’s better known for her 2016 novel, Cluck (which was a finalist for the Great BC Novel Prize), it’s her short stories where she really shines. In this collection of linked stories, See You Later Maybe Never, captures what it means to be aging in an increasingly strange world. Rowntree’s  main character, Vanessa, propels us through these carefully-crafted stories: from being done with aging, to getting pushed out of her high fashion job to a hilarious retreat on a Gulf Island, Vanessa isn’t only compelling but someone we’re sure that we probably met. Intelligent, sharp and definitely recommended.

*

Do Not Say We Have Nothing, by Madeleine Thien

Thien’s 2016 novel deservedly earned the Giller and the Governor’s General’s Award, among other major accolades. It’s not only brilliantly-crafted (there’s something utterly compelling and transfixing about Thien’s prose style)—but also her historical research is beyond meticulous. Thien immerses us in the lives of two generations of an extended family in China: one having lived through the Cultural Revolution under Mao and, later, their children who later protest in Tiananmen Square. We’re witnesses to how historical events can have such enduring consequences not only for an entire culture, but also on our closest, most private selves. Heaps of praise for this beautiful, complex, subtle novel.

*

The Tinsmith, by Tim Bowling

I was about to write that I regret that this is Bowling’s only novel, but I just came across a new one: The Marvels of Youth.  While he’s best known for his many fine collections of poetry, I absolutely loved The Tinsmith. It moves effortlessly from the front lines of the American Civil War’s Battle of Antietam to the Fraser River in British Columbia, twenty years later, where corruption taints the salmon canning business. The through line is the intense bond between army surgeon Anson Baird and a mysterious soldier, John, who helps him tend to casualties and who later makes a move to Canada’s West Coast. Bowling’s expertise with a poetic line clearly informs his beautiful, compelling prose.

*

Salamander, by Thomas Wharton

From an early age, I was drawn to Argentinian writer Jorge Borges. Borges stories of labyrinths, mirrors, mythology and infinite libraries utterly transfixed me and somehow let me imagine my world was richer and more complex than our perceptions let us believe. It’s that Borgesian magic realist sense of the infinite that Wharton captures so well in his own unique style. An 18th-century printer, Nicholas Flood, is challenged by an eccentric nobleman to create "a book without end.” Or beginning, for that matter. As a result, Flood goes on a quest that spans the globe and, along the way, he gathers up fascinating stories from across cultures. The nature of reading, narrative and the book as a physical object are the key themes. Required reading if you’re a book-lover and keen on magic realist quests.

*

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

A favourite novel of one of our possible apocalyptic futures and should be read alongside Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Doris Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor. In Atwood’s dystopian novel, her character, Snowman, who was known as Jimmy before a bioengineered plague wiped most of humanity out, may be the last of us alive. Snowman’s grief remains unaltered by the plague: he mourns the loss of Crake, his childhood friend, and the mysterious Oryx whom they both loved.  Half-starved, he travels through the wilderness in search of answers with creatures called Crakers and by turns we learn what befell the three friends and the world we know. Highly recommended.

*

Soucoyant, by David Chariandy   

In Caribbean folklore, a soucoyant appears by day as a wrinkled old woman (or man). By night, she sheds her skin and goes in search of victims. Chariandy’s beautifully-told novel isn’t horror—it’s much more subtle and poignant. A young man returns home in suburban Toronto to care for his aging mother who now suffers from dementia. Chariandy’s protagonist not only helps his mother, but he becomes the keeper of her life’s stories before they vanish with the remains of her memory. An outstanding and powerful first novel. If you like Soucoyant, I also highly recommend Chariandy’s award-winning second novel, Brother.

*

Learn more about When We Were Ashes:

When the grey bus came to take Rainor Schacht and his friends in the ward for disabled children to a remote hospital called Trutzburg, they had no idea what dark reality awaited them.

No one would tell them what to expect—not Nurse Hilde; not Peter Berger, the kind bus driver; not Dr. Lutz, who ran the Nazi hospital with ruthless efficiency.

Years later, with Berger’s coded diary in hand, Rainor sets out to find Emmi, a fellow survivor of Trutzburg, who looked past Rainor’s disfigurement and elicited the magic that gave purpose to Rainor and solace to Emmi and the other children.

Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, Andrew Boden’s When We Were Ashes takes us to the chilling depths of Aktion T4, one of the darkest chapters in the history of Nazi Germany. In this hauntingly poignant novel, Rainor is led on an illuminating journey to learn the truth about his past and the even more extraordinary truth about his present.