{"title":"Queer Book Club Shortlist","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"john-of-john","title":"John of John","description":"\u003ch2\u003eDouglas Stuart\u003c\/h2\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cb\u003eNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by \u003ci\u003eGQ \u003c\/i\u003e• \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times • The Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e • \u003ci\u003eEsquire \u003c\/i\u003e• \u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books • The Sydney Morning Herald • Time • Oprah Daily • Vogue • ELLE • Kirkus Reviews • Los Angeles Times • Literary Hub • Washington Post •\u003c\/i\u003e Goodreads\u003ci\u003e • Publishers Weekly • USA Today • \u003c\/i\u003eService95\u003ci\u003e • \u003c\/i\u003eA\u003ci\u003e Globe and Mail \u003c\/i\u003eSpring 2026 Read\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFrom the Booker-winning author of \u003ci\u003eShuggie Bain \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eYoung Mungo\u003c\/i\u003e comes a vivid, moving, and beautifully crafted novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a close-knit community and a fraying family, of a father’s expectations and a son’s desires.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Douglas Stuart's \u003ci\u003eJohn of John \u003c\/i\u003ehas the emotional range and sense of sympathy of his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed.\" \u003cb\u003e—Colm Tóibín\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"To read \u003ci\u003eJohn of John\u003c\/i\u003e is to move to the Isle of Harris and take up residence in the family croft. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt like I was living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and rare.\" \u003cb\u003e—Ann Patchett\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOut of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJohn of John \u003c\/i\u003eis a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that shows Douglas Stuart working at an even higher level of artistic creation.","brand":"PRH","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":51807947653406,"sku":"9781039059276","price":38.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/3584\/9246\/files\/9781039059276.jpg?v=1777671194"},{"product_id":"cannon","title":"Cannon","description":"\u003ch2\u003eLee Lai\u003c\/h2\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA LAMBDA Award winner and breakout fiction sensation returns with a darkly funny slice of friendship strife\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe arrive to wreckage—a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is where we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in little beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, well, she destroyed it. The mess feels a bit like a horror-scape—not unlike the horror films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror films on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their rote relationship. In high school, they were each other's lifeline—two queer second-generation Chinese nerds trapped in the suburbs. Now, on the uncool side of their twenties, the essentialness of one another feels harder to pin down. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet, when our stoic and unbendingly well-behaved Cannon finds herself—\u003ci\u003every uncharacteristically\u003c\/i\u003e—surrounded by smashed plates, it is Trish who shows up to pull her the hell outta there. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eCannon\u003c\/i\u003e, Lee Lai’s much anticipated follow-up to the critically acclaimed and award-winning \u003ci\u003eStone Fruit,\u003c\/i\u003e the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a slice of what Lai has on offer. As Cannon’s shoulders bend under the weight of an aging Gung-gung and an avoidant mother, Lai’s sharp sense of humor and sensitive eye produce a story that will hit readers with a smash.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"UTP","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":51883172921630,"sku":"9781770468023","price":39.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/3584\/9246\/files\/9781770468023.jpg?v=1779465268"},{"product_id":"the-disappearers","title":"The Disappearers","description":"\u003ch2\u003eMarlon James\u003c\/h2\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cb\u003eFrom Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning \u003ci\u003eA Brief History of Seven Killings\u003c\/i\u003e, a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play, a modern masterpiece titled \u003ci\u003eFortune and Men's Eyes \u003c\/i\u003eby Canadian playwright John Herbert. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gay—a \"batty man\" in Jamaican argot—and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne night when the men are together a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical: As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack unearthed, while others double down on retribution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Disappearers\u003c\/i\u003e, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive that the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.","brand":"PRH","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":59748400693534,"sku":"9780385698450","price":40.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/3584\/9246\/files\/9780385698450.jpg?v=1786113530"},{"product_id":"all-them-dogs","title":"All Them Dogs","description":"\u003ch2\u003eDjamel White\u003c\/h2\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cb\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eAll Them Dogs\u003c\/i\u003e is \u003ci\u003eall that\u003c\/i\u003e—a book you inhale, devour, grapple with, and reel from more than read.” – Booker Prize winner Marlon James\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A fast-paced tale of underworld revenge and star-crossed love that never waits for readers to catch their breath.” – NPR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In the best Irish style, Djamel White uses a local voice to blast through language and make it new.\u003ci\u003e All Them Dogs\u003c\/i\u003e is a stylish, adroit, and gritty debut.” – Booker Prize winner Anne Enright\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA young Irish gangster is caught in a brutal dance between desire and loyalty\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTony Ward is back in Dublin. After five years in England, where he fled after murdering a rival gang member, he returns to find that his mentor is dead and his best friend has gone straight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKeen to reestablish himself, he jumps at the chance to work for the enforcer of a local crime boss. But Flute Walsh is a far cry from the boy Tony once knew. Drawn to Flute in ways he never expected, Tony finds that the boundaries he thought he understood are breaking down in a world where nothing stays buried and where retribution is just a bullet away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy turns savage, erotic, and unexpectedly tender, \u003ci\u003eAll Them Dogs\u003c\/i\u003e is a gripping story of violence, lust, and greed that explores one man’s struggles to find balance in an unsparing world.","brand":"PRH","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":59748400857374,"sku":"9798217046676","price":39.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/3584\/9246\/files\/9798217046676.jpg?v=1786113537"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.cedarcanoebooks.com\/collections\/queer-book-club-shortlist.oembed","provider":"Cedar Canoe Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}