Mark Ambrose Harris

The title of Michael DeForge’s new book, Leaving Richard’s Valley, hints at the deft mix of whimsical and sinister themes within: four animal friends must leave their home in an idyllic, cult-like community and face a Toronto mired in condo construction and gentrification. This is DeForge’s latest Drawn & Quarterly title, and it’s obvious why NPR calls the author “one of the comic-book industry’s most exciting, unpredictable talents.” Leaving Richard’s Valley dissects community, public space, and the dubious line between adventure and exile.

This is the fourth Pick-A-Plot book from Conundrum Press written and illustrated by Tjia, and it’s the first in the series to feature a protagonist that isn’t a feline. Instead, as the title makes obvious, you are the mother of Alice Liddell, the reputed inspiration behind Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Dominique Fortier's novel, The Island of Books, translated into English by Rhonda Mullins, undulates between present and past, fact and fiction, faith and the fantastical.