The Sudden Weight Of Snow

This virtuoso first novel weaves stories and decades into a tightly knit, haunting narrative, as it sets into relief two generations marked by the 1960s – those who lived through them, and those who came after. Seventeen-year-old Sylvia (Harper) Kostak is caught between her mother’s regrets and the strictures of small-town life in the interior of British Columbia. When Harper meets Gabe, an intense and enigmatic young man living on the ’60s-style arts commune outside of town, she is transfixed. Gradually we learn Gabe’s story and what led him to join his estranged mother on the commune, where, in a bid for freedom, Harper eventually finds herself, setting in motion a series of events leading to tragedy. Resonant with longing and a sense of isolation, the novel brings alive the agonies and ecstasies of growing up, sexual discovery, and how the need to belong can shape both decisions and destinies.

After surviving a major accident, a man is trapped in a village buried in the snow and cut off from the world by a nationwide power failure. He is entrusted to Matthias, a taciturn old man who agrees to heal his wounds in exchange for wood, food, and eventual escape from the village. Will they manage to stand up against external threats and intimate pitfalls?

What does it mean to be Ukrainian in contemporary Canada? The Ukrainian Canadian writers in Unbound challenge the conventions of genre - memoir, fiction, poetry, biography, essay - and the boundaries that separate ethnic and authorial identities and fictional and non-fictional narratives. These intersections become the sites of new, thought-provoking and poignant creative writing by some of Canada's best-known Ukrainian Canadian authors. To complement the creative writing, editors Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski offer an overview of the history of Ukrainian settlement in Canada and an extensive bibliography of Ukrainian Canadian literature in English. Unbound is the first such exploration of Ukrainian Canadian literature and a book that should be on the shelves of Canadian literature fans and those interested in the study of ethnic, postcolonial, and diasporic literature.

Imagine being a very tiny person in a world of giants? What if the first bug you ever meet wants you for dinner? A scratching noise attracts Aydens attention. He turns his head just as a huge thing crawls up around the side of the branch, sees him, and quickens its pace. Ayden screams! He tries to crawl away, but the creature moves a lot faster than he does. Its survival time! The monstrous bug is more than five times his size! The world outside Maple Community is not what Ayden & Jayden expect. The twins learn that a major secret has been kept from them. Actually, more than one secret exists. Will they survive outside the tree? Join Ayden & Jayden as they face the many dangers in the outside world and begin to live the secret.

2023 Canada Reads Longlist Selection National Bestseller Winner of the 2019 OLA Forest of Reading Evergreen Award Shortlisted for the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award Shortlisted for the 2019/20 First Nation Communities READ Indigenous Literature Award 2020 Burlington Library Selection; 2020 Hamilton Reads One Book One Community Selection; 2020 Region of Waterloo One Book One Community Selection; 2019 Ontario Library Association Ontario Together We Read Program Selection; 2019 Women’s National Book Association’s Great Group Reads; 2019 Amnesty International Book Club Pick January 2020 Reddit r/bookclub pick of the month “This slow-burning thriller is also a powerful story of survival and will leave readers breathless.” — Publishers Weekly “Rice seamlessly injects Anishinaabe language into the dialogue and creates a beautiful rendering of the natural world … This title will appeal to fans of literary science-fiction akin to Cormac McCarthy as well as to readers looking for a fresh voice in indigenous fiction.” — Booklist A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.

A Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Book of 2014 • Recommended by The New Yorker, The New York Public Library, Alan Cheuse of NPR, Grantland • Shortlisted for the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Prize • Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award A "ruminative...lovely...accomplished" (The New York Times Book Review) and "touching" (The Seattle Times) debut collection of stories that "sparkles with the brilliance and charm of Chekhov." (Simon Van Booy, award-winning author of Love Begins in Winter and The Illusion of Separateness) Kseniya Melnik's Snow in May introduces a cast of characters bound by their relationship to the port town of Magadan in Russia's Far East, a former gateway for prisoners assigned to Stalin's forced-labor camps. Comprised of a surprising mix of newly minted professionals, ex-prisoners, intellectuals, musicians, and faithful Party workers, the community is vibrant and resilient and life in Magadan thrives even under the cover of near-perpetual snow. By blending history and fable, each of Melnik's stories transports us somewhere completely new: a married Magadan woman considers a proposition from an Italian footballer in '70s Moscow; an ailing young girl visits a witch doctor's house where nothing is as it seems; a middle-aged dance teacher is entranced by a new student's raw talent; a former Soviet boss tells his granddaughter the story of a thorny friendship; and a woman in 1958 jumps into a marriage with an army officer far too soon. Weaving in and out of the last half of the twentieth century, Snow in May is an inventive, gorgeously rendered, and touching portrait of lives lived on the periphery where, despite their isolation—and perhaps because of it—the most seemingly insignificant moments can be beautiful, haunting, and effervescent.a

Jean Little's poignant novel about an abandoned girl, and the dog who helps teach her how to trust again. Ten-year-old Min has had a long history of foster care since she was abandoned at age three. Now, let go by yet another foster family, Min continues to build a protective wall around herself. Her newest caregiver, a former Children's Aid doctor, sees past Min's hardened shell and tries to find a way to reach her...and does, finally, by taking in a sick, neglected dog that has escaped from a puppy mill. While watching the dog recover and open its heart to its new owners, Min comes out of her own shell. Readers will rejoice as Min opens her heart and allows herself to be a part of a loving family, to make friends and to finally stand up to the taunts of a bully, whose hurtful words have contributed to her lack of self-esteem.

The Geomorphological Hazards of Europe contains an excellent balance of authoritative statements on the range and causes of natural hazards in Europe. Written in a clear and unpretentious style, it removes myths and concentrates on the basic facts. The book looks at the known distributions, processes and the underlying principles and focuses on the need for a true understanding of the scientific details so that a real contribution to hazard management can be made. A comprehensive treatment of scientific and management issues of hazards in Europe caused by natural or sometimes human induced earth surface processes are covered including floods, landslides, avalanches, glacier-, coastal-, karstic-, and volcanic hazards, soil erosion and subsidence. Leading researchers in the field of natural hazards and their mitigation have contributed to this nation by nation account covering 20 European countries. The individual chapters deal with the distribution of natural hazards within specific countries (quite often the first synthesis of the information available) and • provide a review of current research in the field • discuss the economic, engineering and policy responses in national hazard management • are complemented by an extensive bibliography. The volume is well illustrated with 207 figures of which 66 are photos and has an extensive general index and a complete index of place names. It is a major European contribution to the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction. The book will appeal to practitioners, managers, academicians, researchers, as well as graduate students in geomorphlogy, natural hazards research and environmental management.