Our COVID-19 Response

Nothing is more important to us than the communities we are a part of, however during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic we must of course reimagine ourselves for the health and well-being of our friends and neighbours. McNally Robinson has always been a place of gathering, but as that potentially becomes a problem rather than a benefit we feel the need to change some of the ways you are accustomed to us functioning.

We are still here to provide you with books, music, and all of the items we normally sell, just at a safe distance. In both Winnipeg and Saskatoon we're offering curbside pickup for online orders or requests made by phone, and we ship all across the globe.

Otherwise we have unfortunately had to cancel or postpone our events and Community Classroom programs for the foreseeable future.

For more information on our response to the COVID-19 crisis, including details on how you can still shop with us, please see this page.

April's Author of the Month: VIVEK SHRAYA

Vivek Shraya is a Canadian musician, writer, and visual artist. She currently lives in Calgary where she is an assistant professor at the University of Calgary and a director on the board of The Tegan and Sara Foundation, which fights for the rights of LGBTQ women.

In 2010, Shraya published her first book, God Loves Hair, an illustrated collection of linked short stories about a brown, genderqueer child growing up in an immigrant family in Alberta. Her second book, She of the Mountains, a lyrical novel consisting of two intertwined love stories, was named one of The Globe and Mail's Best 100 Books of 2014.

Shraya released her debut poetry collection entitled even this page is white. It’s an incisive exploration of the effects of everyday racism and colonialism in Canada that won a 2017 Publishing Triangle award and was longlisted for CBC's Canada Reads. The Boy & The Bindi, a children's picture book about a young boy's fascination with the dot on his mother's forehead, was also published that year. Shraya's first non-fiction book, I’m Afraid of Men, was released in 2018.

Everyone talks about falling in love, but falling in friendship can be just as captivating. In The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya, when Neela Devaki’s song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini, the two musicians meet and a transformative friendship begins. But as Rukmini’s star rises and Neela’s stagnates, jealousy and self-doubt creep in. With a single tweet, their friendship implodes, one career is destroyed, and the two women find themselves at the centre of an internet firestorm. (Softcover. $21.95. RRC Price $19.75. ECW Press. April)

In Winnipeg, join us for An Evening with Vivek Shraya on April 25 at 7:00 PM!

What To Read: March & April 2020

A collection of recent books particularly recommended by Chris Hall. Look for our in-store What To Read display tables.

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. Softcover. $22.95. RRC Price $20.65. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula of Russia, two young sisters go missing. In the ensuing months, the investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across the community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year, this novel enters this community, its citizens all connected by the crime. We are transported into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. (Vintage. April)

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. Softcover. $22.95. RRC Price $20.65. Keefe's book on the conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath details a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only the populace but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish. (Anchor. March)

See more What To Read picks after the jump...

Read More...

March's Author of the Month: REBECCA SOLNIT

American writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books. Solnit has worked on environmental and human rights campaigns since the 1980s. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including The Guardian newspaper and Harper's Magazine.

In 2003, she wrote River of Shadows about motion picture pioneer Eadweard Muybridge, for which she received a Guggenheim, the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award. In 2014, she published Men Explain Things to Me, a collection of short essays written about instances of "mansplaining." Solnit has been credited with paving the way for the coining of the term, though she didn’t actually use it in the original essay. Last year, Solnit rewrote a new version of Cinderella, called Cinderella Liberator. In this feminist revision, Solnit reclaims Ella from the cinders and gives both the prince and Ella new futures that involve thinking for themselves, acting out of free will, starting businesses, and becoming friends rather than dependent lovers.

In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher; of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself; of how punk rock gave form and voice to her own fury and explosive energy. (Hardcover. $35.00. RRC Price $31.50. Viking. March)