National Network for Equitable Library Service

Franz Kafka's writings are characterized by an extreme sensitivity manifested in absurdity, alienation, and gallows humor. These two particular collections of short pieces, A Country Doctor (1919) and A Hunger Artist (1924), newly translated by Thor Polson, represent later works in the corpus. Poems and Songs of Love is a translation of the collection Piyyutim ve-Shirei Yedidot by Georg Mordechai Langer. Published in Prague in 1929, it contains an elegy to Langer's friend and mentor Franz Kafka, and other openly homo-romantic poems.

Critics Who Know Jack: Urban Myths, Media and Rock & Roll is a collection of essays, memoirs and critiques on subjects ranging from TV programming, film and literature to rock journalism, with commentary on the interpretation of artistic expression across conventional and social media. From Feng-Shui to conspiracy theory, Maviglia debunks the rise of faddishness and new age trends that undervalue primary sources in music, literature, theatre, film, and urban living.

This collection of essays looks at the body of work of Quebec writer Dany Laferrière, including his notorious first novel, Comment faire l'amour avec un Nègre sans se fatiguer, through a variety of critical and analytic lenses. Issues such as identity, privilege, memory, exile and return are examined in relation to his writing. Among the contributors are: Ng'ang'a wa Muchiri, Gabrielle Parker, Lucy Brisley, Lynn Penrod, Amy J. Ransom, and Lee Skallerup Bessette.

Born near Park Valley, Saskatchewan, on Crown land, often referred to by locals as a road allowance community, Maria Campbell is the oldest of 8 children. Much of her early years are revealed in Halfbreed, the book which would ultimately ensure that Campbell's life would take a path as a writer, an artist, a community worker and social rights advocate.

This collection features essays on Nova Scotia-born poet, playwright and literary critic George Elliott Clarke. Instrumental in promoting the writing of Canadian writers of African descent, Clarke's work has won awards including the Governor General’s Award for poetry, a National Magazine Gold Medal Award for Poetry, the prestigious Trudeau Fellowship Prize, the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Achievement Award, and The Premiul Poesis (Romania).

In a provocative and thoughtful essay, Estonia's preeminent poet and cultural critic, Jüri alvet, investigates the role of culture in the postmodern world. Against the large background of historical values in western and world culture, Talvet inveighs against monologues and grand narratives launched by Western centers, envisaging instead a cultural symbiosis that would create a new and fertile dialogue between the centers, borders, and peripheries of the world, enrich cultural sensibility, and broaden concern for the Other.

What is the best way to tell a story? In this anthology, the first-ever collection of essays by innovative, cutting-edge writers on the theme of narration, forty of the continent's top experimental writers describe their engagement with language, storytelling and the world.

If a city is its people, and its people are what they eat, then shouldn’t food play a larger role in our dialogue about how and where we live? The food of a metropolis is essential to its character. Native plants, proximity to farmland, the locations of supermarkets, immigration, the role chefs can and should play in society - how a city nourishes itself makes a statement about the kind of city it is. With a cornucopia of essays on comestibles, The Edible City considers how one city eats.

Since the election of Mayor David Miller in November 2003, Toronto has experienced a wave of civic pride and enthusiasm not felt in decades. At long last, Torontonians see their city as a place of possibility and potential. Visions of a truly workable, liveable and world-class city are once again dancing in citizens’ heads.

How do we build cities where we aren't just living within the same urban space, but living together? Greater Toronto is now home to a larger proportion of foreign-born residents than any other major global metropolis. Not surprisingly, city officials rarely miss an opportunity to tout the region’s ethno-cultural neighbourhoods. Yet there’s strong evidence that the GTA is experiencing widening socio-economic disparities that have produced worrisome divisions.