Showing results by publisher "McClelland & Stewart" in Comedy & Humor

Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal—for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections on the many threads that weave together into an identity.

Jack McMaster seemingly has it all. A beautiful house, a loving son of many talents (including cooking, which is great news for Jack, if not for his waistline), even a special bond with his buddies in his ball hockey league. But he’s also learning to live with loss, leaving a gaping hole in his life—a life that will never be the same as before. Jack passes his days knowing he has the support of his family and his friends, but he can’t shake the feeling that his life has gone gray, and that time is passing so quickly.

Adam Coryell is your average high-school student—well, except for that obsession with fountain pens—when his life changes forever. Based on a study by a quirky Swedish professor that claims that every human being, regardless of athletic inclination, has a body that is suited to excel in at least one sport, it turns out that Adam is good—very good, in fact—at golf

Campbell Flynn, art historian and biographer of Vermeer, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public―yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much. Entangled with a brilliant student, he begins to see trouble brewing for his family and friends. All his worlds collide―the art scene and academia, fashion and the English aristocracy, journalism and the internet―as dangerous forces enter his life and Caledonian Road gives up its secrets.

Mitchell’s novel follows Brian O’Connal, a young boy growing up in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Curious and eager to explore the impossibly vast Canadian prairie, Brian guides the listener through the inner workings of his small, rural town and its quirky characters. As Brian grows up, navigating faith, loss, and his relationships with his grandmother and his friends, we see him evolve alongside the changing landscape of small-town Canadian life.

Angus McLintock, accidental Member of Parliament, has won re-election and is now the Minister of State for International Relations—or, in other words, he's the junior global affairs minister. In this new post, he and his trusty Chief of Staff, Daniel Addison, are in London to meet with their international counterparts to discuss the upcoming G8 Summit in Washington. Unfortunately, Angus is not in charge of Canada's involvement in the summit—that task falls to the actual Global Affairs Minister, not the junior one.

In a unique listening experience from the unforgettable writer and public speaker W.O. Mitchell, An Evening with W.O. Mitchell is a curated, abridged selection of nine remarkable pieces from Mitchell’s lifetime of public readings, read by the author himself. Featuring both a wide variety of recognizable characters from his novels as well as new, never-before-published work, the collection revives Mitchell’s distinctive voice and comedic perspective on universal subjects.

For fans of Yellowface and American Fiction, A Hero of Our Time is a vicious takedown of superficial diversity initiatives and tech culture, with a beating heart of broken sincerity that the Toronto Star calls "a powerful, unexpected reading experience."

Benedict is an inventor whose life’s work is a clean energy machine. It has just made him an overnight sensation and his family is suddenly wealthy. Benedict’s wife, Karen, and his teenage daughters, Charlotte and Poppy, are proud of him. But there are problems Benedict is too busy to see: Karen is deeply unhappy in the marriage and contemplating an affair, Charlotte, who is dealing with a chronic illness, is growing more and more distant, and Poppy is cracking under the pressures of her social circle. And there’s another problem.

Veteran reporter David Lang reluctantly arrives on assignment to the small prairie town of Shelby, Alberta, to write a piece on the 111st birthday of Daddy Sherry, the town’s oldest resident. Uptight, jaded, and eager to return to Toronto, David plans to file a simple story and leave Shelby as quickly as possible - but David’s plan is thwarted when the curmudgeonly, elusive Daddy Sherry sends him on a wild goose chase that leads David to an entirely different story than he first expected - as well as his own journey to happiness and self-acceptance.

Jenlena and Daphne are two aimless humanities grads living in a crumbling Montreal when animals besiege cities and towns across the world, terrorizing their human residents. Though shocking, the threat is quickly neutralized when the animals are killed en masse for the safety of humanity. In the post-fauna world, Jenlena is transformed, shaking off her characteristic passivity to capitalize on other people’s heartbreak and grief by selling plants that have come to replace pets, and impersonating dogs for pay.

Ferociously in love and in their own universe, Lydie and Nico’s first year together was so beautiful that they've been recreating it, day by day, ever since. The anniversaries, sometimes elaborate, sometimes small, become the couples' own internal logic, tethering them to a reality they've built together. But the real world is starting to creep in. As the people around them start to get married, get pregnant, get serious, Lydie wonders what it is they're really doing—and why it leaves her so little time to focus on what she moved to the city for: creating art.