David Staines: 5 books

There is a door that lies between the worlds of men and angels. When orphans Joshua and Lucy are summoned by their grandfather, who has disowned them, they feel convinced that his intentions are far from charitable, Sure enough, they soon find themselves each on a dangerous quest - one in...

This original NCL collection brings together Leacock’s comic masterpieces, the many varieties of his remarkable humour. In one story a young man is seized by fear as he attempts to open his first bank account. In another, Lord Ronald, the beloved of Gertrude the Governess, “flung himself upon...

This dazzling collection of short stories, originally published in 1985, marks the brilliant debut of Neil Bissoondath, a major voice in Canadian fiction. Focusing on contemporary themes of cultural dislocation, revolution, and the shifting politics of the Third World, the stories resonate with Bissoondath’s compassion for people threatened by circumstances beyond their control.

Set in the early 1950s in Montreal, this is the story of enigmatic Peggy Sanderson—a woman who has become a socially awkward presence due to her open and casual association with black musicians in Lower Town nightclubs. White and black men assume she must be involved sexually with the musicians,...

As the principal narrative poem of nineteenth-century England, Tennyson's Idylls of the King is an ambitious and widely influential reworking of the Arthurian legends of the Middle Ages, which have provided a great body of myth and symbol to writers, painters, and composers for the past hundred years....