March New Releases
The First Five Books Are 25% Off in March:

A Banker For All Seasons (Bank Of Crooks And Cheats Incorporated), by Tariq Ali, Berg Publishing, $27.95.
During the late Seventies and Eighties a new logo began to jostle for space with the more traditional landmarks on high streets throughout Britain. It was the badge of a remarkable Third World Bank...the BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International). BCCI soon become a global corporate empire with former US Presidents, ex-British Prime Ministers and a range of dictators on its payroll, all helping with promoting the company. Tariq Ali was the first public voice to warn that the Bank was not all it seemed to be. Indeed, many of its own employees called BCCI the "Bank of Crooks and Cheats Incorporated". Some political analysts also predicted the company's collapse. The Bank finally imploded amidst a welter of scandal.

The Letter Opener, by Kyo Maclear, Harper Collins, $17.95.
It is 1989 and Naiko is working in the Undeliverable Mail Office, a cavernous space that resembles a giant, congested pawnshop. Immersed in things lost and missing, she searches for clues to match undeliverable mail with addresses, a job that allows her to achieve a semblance of order in a disorderly world. It is a shock, then, when Naiko’s co-worker Andrei, an enigmatic Romanian refugee who has become the unlikely object of Naiko’s fascination, suddenly vanishes. As the novel reveals itself in exquisitely wrought layers that drift through time from the Second World War to the fall of communism, Andrei’s story of his past life in communist Romania becomes an opaque reflection of Naiko’s own existence, and objects—from the pens hoarded by Naiko’s mother in her retirement home to the personal effects of Jewish women that Andrei’s grandmother sorts through at Birkenau—become touchstones for memories and meaning, loss and love. A luminous debut novel from a rising talent of the new generation of Canadian writers, The Letter Opener is a compelling work of literary fiction that glows with truth.

Razing Africville: A Geography of Racism, by Jennifer J. Nelson, University of Toronto Press, $39.95.
Razing Africville provides a much-needed exploration into the 1960’s demolition of the black community of Africville, in Halifax as part of a program of urban renewal and ‘slum clearance.’ Using spatial theory as a methodology, Nelson convincingly argues that the ongoing measures taken to regulate black bodies and spaces contribute to a ‘geography of racism.’ She analyses ways in which space is tied to racial identity and domination and how the control of space is a necessary component of delineating and regulating populations.

Working Sex: New Voices from a Changing Industry, by Annie Oakley, Seal Press, $17.50.
From the founder of the Sex Workers Art Show, this collection showcases people who dare to take their jobs out of the shadows and into the public consciousness. With contributions from out and proud sex workers such as Juba Kalamka, Michelle Tea, and Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore, Working Sex offers critical insights into class, race, gender, labour, and sexuality.

City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare, Simon & Schuster, $11.50.
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Clary knows she should call the police, but it’s hard to explain a murder when the body disappears into thin air and the murderers are invisible to everyone but Clary. The first book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments trilogy is a gripping young adult urban fantasy that is frequently described as “Buffy-esque”. The second book, City of Ashes, is due out at the end of March.

Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas. St. Martins Press, $15.50.
During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers, the interlopers, the strangers. This is Tallgrass as Rennie Stroud has never seen it before. She has just turned thirteen and, until this time, life has pretty much been what her father told her it should be: predictable and fair. But now the winds of change are coming and, with them, a shift in her perspective. And Rennie will discover secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things.
Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass is a riveting exploration of the darkest--and best--parts of the human heart.

Conception, by Kalisha Buckhanon. St. Martin’s Press, $23.95.
Buckhanon takes us to Chicago, 1992, and into the life of fifteen-year-old Shivana Montgomery, who believes all Black women wind up the same: single and raising children alone, like her mother. Until the sudden visit of her beautiful and free-spirited Aunt Jewel, Shivana spends her days desperately struggling to understand life and the growing pains of her environment. When she accidentally becomes pregnant by an older man and must decide what to do, she begins a journey towards adulthood with only a mysterious voice inside to guide her. When she falls in love with Rasul, a teenager with problems of his own, together they fight to rise above their circumstances and move toward a more positive future. Through the voice of the unborn child and a narrative sweeping from slavery onward, Buckhanon narrates Shivana’s connection to a past history of Black women who found themselves at the mercy of tragic circumstances.

The Boys in the Trees, by Mary Swan, Holt Reinhart & Winston, $15.50.
Newly arrived to the countryside, William Heath, his wife, and two daughters appear the picture of a devoted family. But when accusations of embezzlement spur William to commit an unthinkable crime, those who witnessed this affectionate, attentive father go about his routine of work and family must reconcile action with character. A doctor who has cared for one daughter, encouraging her trust, examines the finer details of his brief interactions with William, searching for clues that might penetrate the mystery of his motivation. Meanwhile the other daughter’s teacher grapples with guilt over a moment when fate wove her into a succession of events that will haunt her dreams.

The First Man-Made Man, by Pagan Kennedy, Bloomsbury, $16.95.
In 1950, Michael Dillon guarded an astonishing secret about himself. Born Laura Dillon, he had endured the world's first female-to-male sex change. Now bearded and broad-shouldered, he could saunter into any gentleman's club without drawing a second glance. But Dillon lived in terror of discovery - if word got out, his story would be trumpeted by tabloid newspapers all over the world.