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1. August Staff Picks
2. August new music
3. August new books

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi. Pantheon, $16.95. Now in paperback!
Further adventures in Satrapi's black-and-white world where nothing - love, politics, family - is ever black and white. From her teenage experiments with Western punk culture in Austria to her return to the repressive Iranian regime, Satrapi offers an unflinching, but always good-humoured, look at her life.

Transnational America : Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms by Inderpal Grewal. Duke University Press, $30.95.
Focusing on India , Inderpal Grewal offers a subtle analysis of the collusion of America 's consumer products and its ideal of democratic citizenship in influencing individual, cultural, and political decision-making outside the US. In looking at the work on Indian emigré novelists in the US , she suggests the ways in which America as a global brand can be redesigned by global citizens.

Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts edited by Ayana Bird and Akiba Solomon. Perigee, $15.95.
Want to know what Kelis thinks of her milkshake? Or how Jill Scott dresses to take a long walk? This is the book for you. Spiced with beautiful photos of black women young and old in all shapes and sizes, Naked is a revelation and a revolution, including heartfelt writing from Sonia Sanchez and asha bandele.

Life Mask by Emma Donoghue. Virago, $18.50. From the author of the bestselling Slammerskin, comes a gripping historical novel about three famous Londoners, an artist, an actress and an aristocrat, based on the true story of a love triangle that scandalized late eighteenth century London . Compellingly plotted and exuberantly written.

Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. Raincoast, $41.00. Harry Potter will continue at 25% off for the month of August. Don't miss the opportunity to join Harry and friends in their latest adventures.

2. August New Music

Your Trailer Door by Rae Spoon. $19.95.

Canada 's girl-loving honky-tonk angel tears the heart out of ballads, blues, work songs, and Friday night dances. “If you're as empty as a honky-tonk / in Toronto every night / And you don't want to line dance alone / Hold on” for the soulful Ms. Spoon.

Forty Days by The Wailin' Jennys. Jericho Beach , $19.95. Three women. Three voices. A handful of traditional instruments (bodhrán, cajone, dobro, harmonica). Gorgeous harmonies swooping through thirteen songs new and old. Thirteen reasons why the Juno went to three women (none of whom are called Jenny).

3. August new books

Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power by Elizabeth Grosz. Duke University Press, $30.95.
Known for the astonishing range and brilliance of her thinking, as well as for her pointed interest in broadening conceptions of gender and sexuality, Elizabeth Grosz here turns her mind to time. Making unlikely and exacting connections, Grosz demonstrates the links between feminist concepts of futurity and the future of feminism.

Learning to Dance: Advancing Women's Reproductive Health and Well-Being from the Perspectives of Public Health and Human Rights edited by Alicia Ely Yamin. Harvard School of Public Health, $26.95. Working through six case studies, this innovative book argues that public health and human rights, although they speak the same language, have much to learn from each other in terms of addressing the implications of a given situation, especially for women's reproductive health.

Unbecoming Mothers: The Social Production of Maternal Absence edited by Diane Gustafson. Haworth Press, $38.95. Highly recommended by Margrit Eichler, this book examines both perspectives on mothers who are perceived as having given up, surrendered, or abandoned their birth children, those of the mothers, and of the children left behind, in order to formulate an empathetic experiential account of a complex issue.

From Oslo to Iraq & the Road Map (Essays) by Edward W. Said. Vintage Books, $21.00.
Completed shortly before his death, Edward W. Said offers impassioned pleas for the Palestinian cause. These previously published essays take us from the Oslo Accords through the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq , and present information and perspectives too rarely visible in America .

Trafficking & Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work & Human Rights edited by Kamala Kempadoo, Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik. Paradigm Publishers, $27.95. This reflective volume provides a much needed evaluation of one of the most volatile intersections of contemporary social issues: human trafficking, sex work, and human rights. The contributors offer a sharp critique of mainstream trafficking frameworks which all too often end up re-victimizing those vulnerable individuals who are caught in the global labour schemes and endure unsafe migration experiences.

Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life & Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society by Inga Muscio. Seal, $21.50. You've read her on the C-word that was once taboo, now read her on the R-word that still is: racism. With her customary sharp-witted no-holds-barred take on the ridiculousness of the world and the simplicity of the things that can be done to improve it, Ms. Muscio rewrites the standard for contemporary memoirs with a vengeance.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Contributions of Aboriginal Peoples to Canadian Identity & Culture edited by David R. Newhouse, Cora J. Voyageur and Dan Beavon. University of Toronto Press, $35.00. Hidden in Plain Sight adds a new dimension to the story of Aboriginal people, showing extraordinary contributions that Aboriginal peoples have made, and continue to make, to the Canadian experience. Divided into several main sections, including Treaties, Arts and Media, Literature, Justice, Culture and Identity, Sports, and Military this is a landmark work that will greatly enhance our understanding and appreciation of the heritage of Canada 's Aboriginal people.

Bodies in Commotion: Disability & Performance edited by Carrie Sandahl and Philip Auslander. University of Michigan Press, $36.50. This groundbreaking collection explores the lively intersection of performance studies and disability studies, provoking new ways of looking at body, space, spectatorship, and identity. Leading critics, artists and activists take on topics that range from theatre and dance to multimedia performance art, agit-prop, American Sign Language theatre and wheelchair sports.

Palestine , Israel , and the Politics of Popular Culture edited by Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg. Duke University Press, $33.50. From the possibility of a Palestinian cinema to the question of a regional popular musicology, the essays in this collection investigate the oft-neglected identity formations, resistance, and memorials found in popular culture relating to Palestine and Israel . Whether you are interested in the alarming success of the evangelist Left Behind novels (Bush is a big fan) or of Joe Sacco's thoughtful graphic novel Palestine , you will find something to satisfy - and challenge - in this book.

Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak edited by Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur. Beacon, $21.95. Including writers such as Asra Nomani, this timely collection leaves no subject untouched, from the mosque to the bedroom and beyond. Identity, family, love, and belief all find a voice in the diversity of autobiographical writing selected by Abdul-Ghafur, who co-organised the historic women-led prayer in New York City this year.

The Genius of Language: Fifteen Authors Reflect on Their Mother Tongues edited by Wendy Lesser. Anchor Press, $21.00. Under globalisation, few of us exist in only one language. Whether we speak one language at home and another at work, or dream in one tongue but order food in another, choosing between languages shapes the way we think - and write. Fifteen writers, including Amy Tan, Bharati Mukherjee and Ariel Dorfman, muse on the problems and possibilities of being polylingual.

Desperately Seeking Paradise : Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim by Ziauddin Sardar. Granta, $21.95. Travelling in the spirit of Muslim literary tradition, Sardar ostensibly sets off for Mecca but finds that the journey itself, in which he encounters the many faces of the Muslim world and their many stories, is itself the destination in his spiritual and political search, carried out with grace and incisive humour.

Echoing Song: Contemporary Korean Women Poets edited by Peter H. Lee. White Pine Press, $24.25 The first ever anthology of contemporary Korean women's poetry in any language, this book includes twenty poets from the last thirty years, each represented by a substantial selection of her work and a headnote talking about her practice, as well as an in-depth introduction to the richness of these poets' attention to the subconscious, and their critique of the soulless commercialism of the modern world.

This Body by Tessa Mcwatt. Harper Perennial, $19.95. A Globe 100 Best Book of the Year, McWatt's third novel introduces us to Victoria, a Guyanese woman living in North London caught between raising her recently diseased sister's son and struggling with a disappeared lover and a new friend/lover whom she should hold most dear. But who chooses where love will go?

Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys. Harper Perennial, $16.95. Helen Humphreys has a genius for time and place - and the people they produce. Six people in a small town, ostracised from family and friends, find solace with each other as they look for their missing dogs. A tale of unlikely community and deep emotion.

Sky Bridge by Laura Pritchett. Milkweed, $29.95. In a tradition of women writing the West that includes Willa Cather and Barbara Kingsolver, Laura Pritchett's voice stands out: dreamy and pragmatic at once, her characters face familiar problems (abortion, low-paid jobs, immigration) surrounded by and drawing strength from an astounding landscape that permeates her every sentence.

A Carnivore's Inquiry by Sabina Murray. Grove Press, $17.95. A pacy Gothic murder mystery wrapped in a quirky, disturbing tale of the horrors of colonialism as they resurface in the life of one young American woman with a hunger for knowledge that may conceal more disturbing hungers.

Best of Best Women's Erotica edited by Marcy Sheiner. Cleis Press, $26.95. Isabelle Allende, Cecilia Tan, Alison Tyler, and Carole Queen snuggle together under the covers of this choice selection from the ladies of Cleis Press. The women in these stories live and love in suburbia, in downtown walkups, in prison, in sex clubs. Read it to learn “how a quasi-Marxist blowhard led me back to my womanhood after nine hundred seventy nights…” (Marianne Cherry).

Off to the Sweet Shores of Africa & Other Talking Drum Rhymes by Uzo Unobagha, illustrated by Julia Cairns. Chronicle Books, $10.95. This colourful collection of original African-inspired nursery rhymes conjures West African life, its fields and markets, dances and songs, skies and seasons, folktales and festivals. The watercolour illustrations burst with energy, absolutely beautiful!

An African Princess by Lyra Edmonds, illustrated by Anne Wilson. Random House, $11.95. A beautifully illustrated story of young Lyra, a mixed-race little girl whose mother tells her she is an African princess, but Lyra is not so sure. Do real princesses live in the city and have freckles? A wonderful story about being proud of who you are.