{"title":"Best Quebec Books of 2025","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"true-colors-1","title":"True Colors","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eGrowing up is always just a little too much for a kid to handle, but taking your time is all it takes\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTweeny-bopper Elise knows she’s different, but kind of just chalks it up to being a weirdo. And in the 90s, who isn’t? Other girls might be shifting their attention to boys, but Elise is putting the freeze on all that adult stuff to get lost in play with her besties and pour her energy into making her art. Besides, what’s the point in rushing when being a kid is such a blast?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eTrue Colors: Growing Up Weird in the 90s\u003c\/i\u003e, Elise invites readers into the pages of her diary and takes them back to a radically different time before smartphones and home computers. It’s a world where fun means going to the mall and making mix tapes on cassette, and where imagination reigns supreme! It’s also a world where making new friends can be confusing, nerve-wracking, and utterly mind-boggling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCreative and curious kids, anybody dealing with anything from not fitting in, to anxiety—or even an ADHD diagnosis—will see themselves in the pages. And through it all, Gravel shows the power of art and creativity to transform, as we see Elise turning her differences into her superpower in this funny and encouraging artistic origin story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Kobo eBook (2025 B)","offer_id":46168549458097,"sku":"6e048daf-4d3b-3dbe-aba2-9c55561ff6ef","price":11.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kobo eBook (2025 A)","offer_id":46168549490865,"sku":"1cd7916d-b923-3c77-96f2-0d21258590db","price":13.59,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_68916514-76cf-4780-9f12-880ac21ea1c7.jpg?v=1763716736"},{"product_id":"sentence-1","title":"Sentence: Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eSentence\u003c\/i\u003e, Mikhail Iossel performs a remarkable juggling act between genres and countries. Can you write a \"Russian\" sentence in English? The author has found a perfect syntactical solution to the opposition of past and present in this groundbreaking collection of one-sentence stories: everything is simultaneous, breathless, in a dizzying spin of memory and imagination. The past and the present are inseparable-but the sentence is here, as a celebration of linguistic freedom and virtuosity.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46168581832881,"sku":"9781773901749","price":24.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kobo eBook","offer_id":46168581865649,"sku":"eaadef38-df41-3c28-a888-5921f488155b","price":13.59,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_54ec8276-dc24-40d6-874f-c249f6c2829c.jpg?v=1763684335"},{"product_id":"breakaway-2","title":"Breakaway: The PWHL and the Women Who Changed the Game","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eShortlisted, NB Book Award (Non-Fiction) \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen the first puck dropped in the Professional Women’s Hockey League in January 2024, it had been a long time coming. Women have been playing hockey since at least 1890 and playing professionally for decades. But until 2024, even the highest-level female players had never been compensated as professionals: some paid for their own gear and worked second jobs, earning a pittance, if anything, from their chosen profession. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBreakaway\u003c\/i\u003e, Karissa Donkin tells the story of the players’ efforts to create the PWHL, long before the first full season in 2024. Following the unnamed 2024 Montreal PWHL team, with some of the best players in the sport, like Marie-Philip Poulin and Erin Ambrose, Donkin takes readers through the League’s founding, the draft process, the practices, and the dramatic arc of the first season. Defying all expectations, with larger crowds and higher revenues than anticipated, this first season was a gamechanger for professional women’s sports leagues. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46175983108273,"sku":"9781773104362","price":26.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kobo eBook","offer_id":46175983141041,"sku":"ced9c763-2d6a-3a72-91d4-4ec2f908e72f","price":15.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_3aaf6ca1-5cf2-4905-9947-226ac91374df.jpg?v=1763715741"},{"product_id":"cannon","title":"Cannon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA LAMBDA Award winner and breakout fiction sensation returns with a darkly funny slice of friendship strife\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe arrive to wreckage—a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is where we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in little beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, well, she destroyed it. The mess feels a bit like a horror-scape—not unlike the horror films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror films on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their rote relationship. In high school, they were each other's lifeline—two queer second-generation Chinese nerds trapped in the suburbs. Now, on the uncool side of their twenties, the essentialness of one another feels harder to pin down. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet, when our stoic and unbendingly well-behaved Cannon finds herself—\u003ci\u003every uncharacteristically\u003c\/i\u003e—surrounded by smashed plates, it is Trish who shows up to pull her the hell outta there. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eCannon\u003c\/i\u003e, Lee Lai’s much anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed and award-winning \u003ci\u003eStone Fruit,\u003c\/i\u003e the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a slice of what Lai has on offer. As Cannon’s shoulders bend under the weight of an aging Gung-gung and an avoidant mother, Lai’s sharp sense of humor and sensitive eye produce a story that will hit readers with a smash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46258010751186,"sku":"9781770468023","price":39.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Kobo eBook","offer_id":46258010783954,"sku":"a61584e8-5b18-3b34-821a-f518e7344bc6","price":15.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_0b4695ce-9c92-442d-ab80-e599078387c3.jpg?v=1763633843"},{"product_id":"baldwin-styron-and-me","title":"Baldwin, Styron, and Me","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Finalist for the 2025 Governor General's Literary Award in Translation • Finalist for the 2025 John Glassco Translation Prize • Finalist for the 2026 French American Foundation Translation Prize • A \u003cem\u003eGlobe\u003c\/em\u003e 100 Best Book of 2025 • A CBC Books Best Canadian Nonfiction Book of 2025 • A \u003cem\u003eQuill \u0026amp; Quire\u003c\/em\u003e Notable Book of 2025\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn unlikely literary friendship from the past sheds light on the radicalization of public debate around identity, race, and censorship.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1961, James Baldwin spent several months in William Styron’s guest house. The two wrote during the day, then spent evenings confiding in each other and talking about race in America. During one of those conversations, Baldwin is said to have convinced his friend to write, in first person, the story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Confessions of Nat Turner\u003c\/em\u003e was published to critical acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and also creating outrage in part of the African American community.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDecades later, the controversy around cultural appropriation, identity, and the rights and responsibilities of the writer still resonates. In \u003cem\u003eBaldwin, Styron, and Me\u003c\/em\u003e, Mélikah Abdelmoumen considers the writers' surprising yet vital friendship from her standpoint as a racialized woman torn by the often unidimensional versions of her identity put forth by today’s politics and media. Considering questions of identity, race, equity, and the often contentious public debates about these topics, Abdelmoumen works to create a space where the answers are found by first learning how to listen—even in disagreement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46314763780306,"sku":"9781771966269","price":22.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_f3d22682-5b40-4680-b2a1-5638bc5f098b.jpg?v=1763719721"},{"product_id":"quietly-loving-everyone","title":"Quietly, Loving Everyone","description":"A striking debut collection by one of Montreal’s brightest young writers.Quietly, Loving Everyone, Curtis John McRae’s debut collection of stories, assembles a meditative and often profound cycle of portraits pulled from everyday Canadian life. A young boy raises James Dean from the dead, only to find out the cult icon is not the playmate he’d hoped for. A university student riddled with ulcers silently spirals after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. A young girl takes a road trip with her older sister to Cape Cod, and years later reconstructs the tragic circumstances behind what she remembers. A couple goes on a date at an old porn theatre that is the last remaining vestige of a neighbourhood that has moved on. McRae plays witness to characters at those crucial beginnings or ends of relationships, with lovers, friends, family, and most importantly themselves.","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46363567784146,"sku":"9781550656756","price":22.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_66fd49e8-c569-4d6b-9b64-c992b95e08fc.jpg?v=1757486033"},{"product_id":"6-40-to-montreal-2","title":"6:40 to Montreal: A Novel","description":"C-format\r\n\u003cb\u003eFrom international bestselling author Eva Jurczyk, 6:40 TO MONTREAL is a claustrophobic, deceivingly bloody thriller that follows Agatha as she uses one day on the famous six-hour morning train from Toronto to Montreal as a mini writing retreat to finish her novel. No WiFi, no distractions. And no way out...\u003c\/b\u003e\r\n\r\nAgatha's husband has bought her a first-class ticket on the scenic six-hour train from Toronto to Montreal as a gift - a one-day writing retreat so she can get some serious work done on her new book, a highly-anticipated follow-up to Agatha's runaway bestseller debut novel. The first-class car is the perfect place to be productive, with only a handful of other passengers, plenty of snacks and drinks, and beautiful views flying by outside the window.\r\n\r\nBut Agatha has other plans for her day out. . . plans that are unexpectedly derailed when the train breaks down in the middle of the frigid Canadian woods and one of Agatha's fellow passengers dies quietly in his seat. Soon, a pleasant morning in transit turns into a fight for survival against an unknown and unseen enemy. Will Agatha--or any of the passengers--make it out alive?\r\n\r\nFrom international bestselling author Eva Jurczyk, \u003ci\u003e6:40 to Montreal\u003c\/i\u003e is a claustrophobic, deceivingly bloody thriller that twists and turns until the very last page.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46363864236242,"sku":"9781464266737","price":26.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_5d334ca5-d7db-4c00-9563-8a32839c1b22.jpg?v=1764397308"},{"product_id":"valentine-in-montreal","title":"Valentine in Montreal: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Montreal adventure comes to life when a lonely girl at the metro station convenience store spots her mysterious doppelganger, in this playful and surprising novel by the inimitable Heather O’Neill, beautifully illustrated by Arizona O’Neill\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the tradition of the serialized novels of Charles Dickens, Heather O’Neill brings us \u003cem\u003eValentine in Montreal\u003c\/em\u003e. Originally published in weekly instalments in the Montreal \u003cem\u003eGazette\u003c\/em\u003e, this is the unforgettable story of Valentine, a lonely orphan working in a depanneur at a Montreal metro station, who spots her look-alike. As Valentine follows this seeming twin onto the subway and out into the city, her world is changed—she meets gangsters, composers, ballet dancers, and a cricket playing a mournful tune, and she experiences the city in all its teeming energy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eValentine in Montreal\u003c\/em\u003e is the playful, moving, and surprising story of a young woman who finds connection and the courage to break free of what has been holding her back. It’s also a celebration of Montreal and its artistry and vibrancy, both above and below ground. 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The 1930-31 season finds Morenz at the peak of his powers. His Canadiens dominate the NHL and Morenz is leading the league in scoring while earning his second Hart trophy as most valuable player in hockey. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"OYPEnA font-feature-liga-off font-feature-clig-off font-feature-calt-off text-decoration-none text-strikethrough-none\"\u003eFollowing him game by game through this remarkable season, author Donald Murray weaves in the backstory of how Morenz became the most exciting and successful hockey player of professional hockey's first half century. With keen insight and gripping prose, he describes Morenz's unparalleled agility, his ferocious will, and brilliant leadership, among other elements of what made him the league's most extraordinary talent - one the whole hockey world would mourn when he died at age 34 of a broken leg suffered in his final game.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46392770691282,"sku":"9781998365791","price":28.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_70dc78a7-a3b4-4296-be04-ee868c92febc.jpg?v=1763681498"},{"product_id":"why-fish-piss-matters","title":"Why Fish Piss Matters: On the Last Authentic Bohemia","description":"Called Canada’s most influential zine, Fish Piss ran for 11 issues, from 1996 to 2006. It began as a bilingual mash-up of the Montreal anglophone spoken word scene and the comics scene. Edited by Montrealer Louis Rastelli, and rooted in the DIY punk ethos, Fish Piss was a contact zone of literary material, comics, essays, interviews, politics, and music. Eventually the publication went from a scrappy photocopied zine to a 160-page publication with advertising and worldwide distribution through Tower Records. By the time it folded, Fish Piss was a calling card to a true bohemian community, and, due to timing, post-Referendum and pre-social media, perhaps the last of its kind.In Why Fish Piss Matters, Andy Brown does a deep dive into the zine, highlighting the unique way it bridged its French and English influences, creating an exciting space for creative exchange. Some of its early contributors who went on to illustrious careers include Kid Koala, Genevieve Castrée, Catherine Kidd, Heather O’Neill, and Jonathan Goldstein. Brown, who lived in Montreal during this period, offers an insider's reflection on the cultural significance of the zine and its lasting legacy. He explores the history of various bohemian communities over the past 200 years, and Fish Piss’s singular role in that history.","brand":"None","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46401949728978,"sku":"9781550656862","price":22.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0655\/8980\/5233\/files\/1_ee044777-50bf-48a8-b0fa-9212a74cf8b8.jpg?v=1757486036"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.indigo.ca\/collections\/best-quebec-books-of-2025.oembed","provider":"Indigo","version":"1.0","type":"link"}