The Porcupine's Quill "Reader" celebrates and promotes the work of a small publishing house in the village of Erin, Ontario. The fact that authors published here have had four Governor General Award nominations in four years suggest that editor John Metcalf and publisher Tim Inkster must be doing something right. The "Reader" contains 20 short stories and assorted gossipy anecdotes and photographs of the authors giving readings and socializing. (And yes, this creates a feeling of being the voyeur at the family picnic, and yes, you might wonder why you would want to be a voyeur there of all places.) Inkster has long been known for quality book design and treats readers to brief arcane chats about typeface selection and paper size. Interesting if you like knowing why some books look and feel so much better than others, easy to skip if you don't.'

Describes and illustrates technique in an attempt to bring about an appreciation of the complexity of the art of porcupine-quill work.

"Long and sympathetic watching, radio tracking, chemical analysis are all part of this naturalist's ingenious and peaceable arsenal of inquiry into the lives of porcupines."--Scientific American

Gather round for soup fit for the king in this vibrant twist on a classic fable. With brightly colored art and engaging characters, this retelling of the well-known Stone Soup story will captivate young readers. Noko the traveling porcupine arrives in a village. He's denied food and a place to sleep by all the animals he meets. Finally he's granted a fire and a large pot of water. He adds a few of his quills to make his famous quill soup, which he says the king loves! Slowly but surely, everyone contributes ingredients--carrots, beans, and more. Will the soup feed them all?

Rome, 1600. In the shadowed cellars of Cardinal Del Monte’s palazzo, a shaft of light illuminates the face of Luca Passarelli. Across the room, behind an enormous canvas, the brilliant, mercurial artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio paints with sure brushstrokes Luca’s likeness into a new masterpiece. Caravaggio is both revered and reviled by his patrons as well as his fellow artists. His innovative paintings and his blazing temper have made him powerful friends, but also powerful enemies—enemies who are determined to quench the flame of his talent. What Caravaggio does not know is that Luca is a professional assassin, a bitter and spiteful man who, in his dark past, has ‘breathed in death’ and has committed murder on multiple occasions. What the artist does not know is that when next they meet it will not be a canvas that brings them together, but rather revenge ... and death.

Location exerts one very important influence on our lives. The specific landscape, structure, weather and people of a cityscape combine to create a unique culture of place; a place' that can define us as succinctly as we might like to think we control our own definitions of self. Aviation allows many of us to live, almost simultaneously, in distant places and to indulge in the complexities of multiple lives. "Back + Forth" examines the attendant possibility of entrapment, between two such distant places and two, very different, times. "Back + Forth" examines what it means to belong, to assimilate, to be distant, and to challenge the constraints of time and space in the juggling act that we all call life. Series editor George A. Walker is renowned as an illustrator (for American novelist Neil Gaiman, and others), a wood engraver, and a private press printer and publisher. Walker is also senior designer at Firefly Books, and moonlights teaching at the Ontario College of Art and Design.