National Network for Equitable Library Service

Can anyone be a hero in an age where the lines are so blurred? Sexy, racy, hilarious, and even moving, The Indifference League is a story of what happens when the starry-eyed optimism of the Greatest Generation crashes into the obsessions and fears of the New Lost Generation. Under the faded banner of Superman, Wonder Woman, and other heroes past steps the Indifference League: The Statistician, Time Bomb, Hippie Avenger, SuperKen, SuperBarbie, Miss Demeanour, Mr. Nice Guy, Psycho Superstar, The Drifter, and The Stunner.

A cheating spouse sparks the creation of a monthly dinner club as the heroine attempts to have an affair of her own. After Mary Ann’s husband cheats on her, the suburban mom decides to have her own affair. She starts up a neighbourhood dinner club as a cover and invites three men she has earmarked as potential lovers. Along for the ride is her best friend, Alice, who has recently returned with her young daughter to Oakdale, the cozy bedroom community where the two women grew up and briefly shared a telepathic past.

Jim Kearns, a career manual labourer, struggles to overcome stifling cynicism brought on by missed opportunities and mid-life discord - then he loses his job for punching out a Hollywood action star in a bizarre job-site confrontation. In an effort to salvage not only Jim’s sanity but also their unravelling family, his wife, Maddy, assigns him a series of life-affirming tasks to complete while he suffers through unemployment and his fifteen minutes of fame.

Architect and single mother Emily Harada has structured a well-ordered existence around her work restoring historic houses and the parenting of her teenage son, Jesse. But her carefully laid foundation cracks when she develops a nagging ache in her shoulder, has her architectural integrity questioned, and feels shut out by Jesse's assertions of independence. What she doesn't need right now - or does she? - are the romantic attentions of a former student, an attractive but much younger man.

A hilarious fairytale for adults facing a complicated world.

What does it take to squeeze into a second skin you think you want? And when you find you can't breathe, who's going to help you peel it off? In a celebrity-obsessed culture, when media images of women (and women themselves) appear to be driven by unreasonable expectations and demands, how does a 29-year-old woman fill that perfect little black dress? These questions are posed and answered in Roxane Ward's debut novel, Fits Like a Rubber Dress, a hybrid of satire, social commentary, and tragedy.

The life of a naive, born-again teen can sometimes seem God-awful, as Gideon discovers at Overcomer Bible Institute. Having given himself over to religion, Gideon quickly finds his newfound faith challenged by sexually aggressive women, a disturbed student armed with a power drill, and Siamese-twin evangelists. A satiric look at the religious and secular worlds, Anxious Gravity succeeds at the daunting task of being both thoughtful and wildly entertaining. "Jeff Wells is the most consistently funny humorist in Canada today." -Michael Bate, Editor-in-Chief, Frank

With exceptional power, Robinson exposes both the gravity and levity of relationships — formed in duty, in fear, in need — and the subtle ways we attempt to escape their persistent pull. At turns humourous, chilling and tender, Robinson's fiction displays a versatility in tone and subject that mirrors the stories of our lives, real or imagined, domestic or exotic. His writing elevates the "What If?" to new imaginary heights.

What’s in a name? Personal misfortune, or so it would appear if your name happens to be "Flam Grub." This touching contemporary novel shows how our lives are entwined with our names and how our destinies are never certain. Full of humour and sadness, quirky wit, and quiet moments of beauty, Flam Grub tells the tale of a young man’s misadventures and his retreat to the security of reading books, work in a bookstore, and a career as an undertaker until fame unexpectedly comes his way.

Aaron Cordic and Samantha Riske are a couple of twenty-something hypochondriacs living in east-end Toronto. While Aaron works part-time at a bathroom supply store, donning surgical masks, plastic gloves, and a backpack full of sanitary products, Samantha hides herself away in their apartment, tip-toeing around naked and spying on the neighbours. Between paranoid trips to the doctor and extremely intimate examinations of each other's bodies, they’ve managed to eke out an isolated and highly sterilized existence.