Shut Up You Re Pretty

Winner, Trillium Book Award In Téa Mutonji’s disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides on shaving her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic. These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator’s experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humor, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed. Shut Up You’re Pretty is the first book to be published under VS. Books, a series of books curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of color. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

From the author of Happy Birthday or Whatever, an outright hilarious and heartfelt collection of personal essays about everything from underwear to musical theater. ANNIE CHOI HATES MUSICAL THEATER. SHE THINKS SANDWICHES ARE BORING. She likes camping, except for the outdoors part. At fifteen, her father made her read the entire car manual before allowing her to sit in the driver’s seat. Her neighbor, who has no cur­tains, is always naked. And she once chased down a man who stole her handbag. All this is to say that Choi is one part badass and one part curmudgeon, with a soft spot for savage bears. Mostly she wants to ask the world: WTF?! Written in Choi’s strikingly original and indignant voice, Shut Up, You’re Welcome paints a revealing portrait of Annie in all her quirky, compelling, riotous glory. Each of Choi’s personal essays begins with an open letter to someone (babies) or something (the San Fernando Valley) she has a beef with. From the time her family ditched her on Christmas to her father’s attach­ment to the World's Ugliest Table, Choi weaves together deeply personal experiences with laugh-out-loud observations, all of which will delight and entertain you.

Coconut Dreams explores the lives of the Pinto family through seventeen linked short stories. Starting with a ghost story set in Goa, India in the 1950s, the collection weaves through various timelines and perspectives to focus on two children, Aiden and Ally Pinto. These siblings tackle their adventures in a predominantly white suburb with innocence, intelligence and a timid foot in two distinct cultures. In these stories, Derek Mascarenhas takes a fresh look at the world of the new immigrant and the South Asian experience in Canada, as a daughter questions her father's love at an IKEA grand opening; an aunt remembers a safari-gone-wrong in Kenya; an uncle's unrequited love is confronted at a Goan Association picnic; a boy tests his faith amidst a school-yard brawl; and a childhood love letter is exchanged during the building of a backyard deck. Singularly and collectively, these stories will move the reader with their engaging narratives and authentic voices. "This charming collection of stories resides between a suburban childhood in Canada and inherited, often mythic, tales from Goa that belong to the elders. Characters decide on love with rings lost at sea and soothe babies with stories of elephants in mountains. The voices in these stories are from people who seem far away and yet are inside us. Prepare to be delighted." --Kim Echlin, author of Under the Visible Life "The stories in Derek Mascarenhas's Coconut Dreams remind one of the high stakes in a child's world, the way that danger looms just fractionally outside safety. Like all proper enchantments, these vignettes are dark, light, strange, and vivid such that they delight and charm in equal portions." --Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of All the Broken Things, Perfecting, and The Nettle Spinner. "In this evocative collection, Derek Mascarenhas takes up the fictional Pinto family and turns it gently in his hands, revealing new truths--and new questions--with every shift in point of view. A moving, multifaceted debut." --Alissa York, author of The Naturalist

Shut Up/Look Pretty is an anthology featuring Lauren Becker, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale and Amber Sparks. This book will be released in January 2012 and is available for pre-order now.Things About Me and You, a collection from Lauren Becker, is about a mailman who buries the mail, young girls with more bravado than self-awareness, a wrong daughter in a right family, uneven relationships, and beginnings and ends of friendships, with a singular theme of connectedness its presence, its absence, and the inevitability of both.Erin Fitzgerald's This Morning Will Be Different features a car salesman, a high school senior, a failed dictator, a ghost, an army of undead, a Rapture-ready televangelist, a hoarder, an identity thief, a dead elf, several frustrated suburban parents, and Lindsay Lohan--everything you wanted to be when you grow up.Kirsty Logan's novella Local God is sort-of love story about four boys in a terrible punk band at Stirling University. Local God has a bit of queer lust, a bit of sex and a lot of swearing.What Passes For Normal, by Michelle Reale, is filled with stories and prose poems that exemplify the difficulty of being human. Whether here or abroad, these characters feel the shaky ground beneath their feet , holding on as best they can. Vulnerability, dysfunction and disappointment inform these pieces, for sure, but hope, tenacity and defiance can be found there, too.The five stories in A Great Dark Sleep: Stories for the Next World explore death and what follows. These stories are by turns gothic, sweet, funny, fanciful, tragic, playful, and even gruesome. Whatever the tone, whatever the tune, these stories are all written in the language of loss: that ancient tongue the dead have left their loved ones to make sense of.

This volume aims to introduce undergraduates, graduates, and general readers to the diversity and richness of Canadian short story writing and to the narrative potential of short fiction in general. Addressing a wide spectrum of forms and themes, the book will familiarise readers with the development and cultural significance of Canadian short fiction from the early 19th century to the present. A strong focus will be on the rich reservoir of short fiction produced in the past four decades and the way in which it has responded to the anxieties and crises of our time. Drawing on current critical debates, each chapter will highlight the interrelations between Canadian short fiction and historical and socio-cultural developments. Case studies will zoom in on specific thematic or aesthetic issues in an exemplary manner. The Routledge Introduction to the Canadian Short Story will provide an accessible and comprehensive overview ideal for students and general readers interested in the multifaceted and thriving medium of the short story in Canada.

THE STORY: Married couples David and Cathy Larson and Brad and Beth Youngquist live with their children in the relatively peaceful town of Pine City, Minnesota. David and Beth, after years of maintaining a platonic friendship, begin an adulterous a

'Hugely original and heartbreakingly real' Rosie Walsh, Sunday Times bestselling author of 'The Man Who Didn't Call' ***** Two people. Two lives. One chance to see the same world differently. Louis and Louise are the same person born in two different lives. One was born female, and one male. They have the same best friends, the same red hair, the same dream of being a writer, the same excellent whistle. They both suffer one catastrophic night, with life-changing consequences. Thirteen years later, they are both coming home . . . A tender, insightful and timely novel about the things that bring us together - and those which separate us, from the author of Richard & Judy recommended book Together ***** A NOVEL PEOPLE CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT... 'It's BRILLIANT. I enjoyed it hugely' Marian Keyes 'Not often does a story remind us of what beautifully complex creatures we are. Julie Cohen has given us that rare gift' Christina Dalcher, author of VOX 'Louis and Louise is Julie Cohen at her absolute best. So cleverly done and authentic, and you feel as if you live in the town with the characters and have been in the story with them.' A J Pearce 'Louis & Louise is moving and beautiful, but it will also make you wonder and question, and it will stretch out your thinking so very beautifully' Joanna Cannon 'Elegant, thoughtful and powerful' Daisy Buchanan 'Fierce, intricate and intriguing' Fanny Blake 'A timely read that will stay with you long after you put it down' Libby Page 'What a brave, warm and wise book this is. I loved it' Tamar Cohen 'Beautifully written and thought-provoking' Kate Eberlen 'A cobweb of a book: beautifully intricate and delicate' Veronica Henry 'Wow. What a beautiful, ballsy and brilliant book' Sinead Moriarty 'A beautifully written, heartbreaking and important novel about gender, self, family and, ultimately, love' Claire Frost, reviewer 'A powerful and memorable story of small town secrets, family dynamics and the sense that some things are just meant to be' Sunday Express 'Emotional and seriously powerful' Fabulous 'An engaging, moving novel, at its most arresting in the pivotal scenes when she explores the personal fallout of industrial and class conflict in Louis/Louise's beleaguered hometown' Sunday Times 'A modern take told with heart' Grazia 'The premise here is radical, but worth the effort... this elegantly written novel also examines much that is universal' Daily Mail ***** * Fabulous pick for 2019's Best Books * * Woman & Home Pick of the Month * * Good Housekeeping Book of the Month * * Emerald Street January's Best Books * * Stylist 2019's Hottest Books * * THE POOL Recommended Books 2019 *

What could be worse than a dragon? Madelyn has always greeted her adventures with sword, stone, and smile. This time is different, though. She doesn't need to fight Prince Aralane. She needs to impress him. His kingdom borders her floating Island in the sky, and she needs an ally. Which means his visit to the Island is a terrible time for a dragon to attack. And it's an even worse time for something more dangerous than a dragon to threaten them. It'll take everything Madelyn has to face this danger and protect the visiting prince!