Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Jack Chalmers Poetry Award (2005) "It's high time [Trower] was recognized more widely as the gifted and versatile force in Canadian poetry that he is. If this fine selection can't garner such recognition, it's hard to imagine what will." -Zach Wells, The Danforth Review

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE “Absolutely spellbinding.” —The New York Times The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place. FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging—the most dangerous land-based job in North America.

Ornithologies of Desire develops ecocritical reading strategies that engage scientific texts, field guides, and observation. Focusing on poetry about birds and birdwatching, this book argues that attending to specific details about the physical world when reading environmentally conscious poetry invites a critical humility in the face of environmental crises and evolutionary history. The poetry and poetics of Don McKay provide Ornithologies of Desire with its primary subject matter, which is predicated on attention to ornithological knowledge and avian metaphors. This focus on birds enables a consideration of more broadly ecological relations and concerns, since an awareness of birds in their habitats insists on awareness of plants, insects, mammals, rocks, and all else that constitutes place. The book’s chapters are organized according to: apparatus (that is, science as ecocritical tool), flight, and song. Reading McKay’s work alongside ecology and ornithology, through flight and birdsong, both challenges assumptions regarding humans’ place in the earth system and celebrates the sheer virtuosity of lyric poetry rich with associative as well as scientific details. The resulting chapters, interchapter, and concordance of birds that appear in McKay’s poetry encourage amateurs and specialists, birdwatchers and poetry readers, to reconsider birds in English literature on the page and in the field.

“... without a doubt the greatest poet English Canada has ever produced.” —Dennis Lee “A hundred years from now, one of the few Canadian poets whose work will still be read will be Al Purdy.” —Maclean’s Al Purdy (1918–2000), known as Canada’s unofficial poet laureate, wrote poetry that anyone could read. Having come from working-class roots with little in terms of formal education, he wrote in a colloquial style and with a rowdy yet sensitive poetic persona that has captured the hearts of many. Purdy was exceptional in the attention he paid to the geography and history of Canada; rather than using his Canada Council grant to write from Europe like many of his contemporaries, he took a trip to Canada’s Arctic where he wrote some of his most well-loved poems. His self-built A-frame in the Ontario township of Ameliasburgh also connected him to the land and history of that place, a literary legacy that lives on through the A-frame writer-in-residence program. Purdy wrote over three dozen collections of poems, two memoirs, a novel, a number of collections of his correspondence and anthologies. He was awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry twice, first in 1965 for The Cariboo Horses and then in 1986 for The Collected Poems of Al Purdy. He was an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario. The League of Canadian Poets honoured him with the Voice of the Land Award, created specifically to recognize his tremendous contribution to Canadian poetry. This collection, created in honour of the poet’s upcoming 100th birthday on December 30, 2018, gathers voices old and new in celebration of the life and work of Al Purdy. Featuring poems by F.R. Scott, Earle Birney, Milton Acorn, Russell Thornton, David Zieroth, Lorna Crozier, Tom Wayman, Phil Hall, George Bowering, Peter Trower, Howard White, Cornelia Hoogland, Doug Beardsley, Patrick Lane, Susan Musgrave, Bruce Cockburn, Rodney DeCroo, Steven Heighton, James Arthur, Sadiqa de Meijer, Nicholas Bradley, Doug Paisley, Autumn Richardson and many more, Beyond Forgetting is guaranteed to move each and every Canadian poetry buff who grazes its pages.

By turns celebratory and sceptical, Career Limiting Moves is a selection of essays and reviews drawn from a decade of immersion in Canadian poetry. Inhabiting a milieu in which unfriendly remarks are typically spoken sotto voce—if at all—Wells has consistently said what he thinks aloud. The pieces in this collection comprise revisionist assessments of some big names in Canadian Poetry (Margaret Atwood, Lorna Crozier, Don McKay and Patrick Lane, among others); satirical ripostes parrying others' critical views (Andre Alexis, Erin Moure, Jan Zwicky); substantial appraisals of underrated or near-forgotten poets (Charles Bruce, Kenneth Leslie, Peter Sanger, John Smith, Peter Trower, Peter Van Toorn); assessments of promising debuts (Suzanne Buffam, Pino Coluccio, Thomas Heise, Peter Norman) and much else besides—including a few surprises for anyone who thinks they have Wells's taste figured out. Zachariah Wells is the editor of Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets and the author of two collections of poetry.

The author of Wicked Charlotte roots out the spirited secrets of two small towns deep in the Appalachian Mountains. When the sun slips behind the trees and shadows lengthen near dusk, the mountains and valleys of Highlands and Cashiers whisper their tales of lost loves, deals gone bad, and ghosts who walk the night. This tourist destination is rich in folklore and legend—from rumors of a magical mountain volcano to the ghost of a white owl. Learn the stories and firsthand accounts of hauntings and the hard to explain. Listen to the voices winding through the hemlocks, or is it just the wind? Includes photos!

Ghosts & Hauntings Occult & Paranormal Supernatural