TOO MUCH HAPPINESS By Alice Munro, Penguin, 303 pages, $20
This collection from Munro, Canada's pre-eminent writer of short stories, was winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize. Also newly reissued in Penguin's Modern Classics series are Runaway, the 2004 collection, and The View from Castle Rock, Munro's fictionalized look at her own family roots and her childhood.
THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY: Canada and Her People By Bruce Hutchison, Oxford University Press, 386 pages, $19.95
Legendary political journalist Hutchison (1901-1992) won one of his three Governor-General's Awards for this work, which was published in 1942 as Canada was engaging in the Second World War, for the first time as an independent nation. Thoughtful and filled with anecdotes, this book remains one of the most evocative portraits of Canada ever written.
HOW TO BE A MENTSH (And Not a Shmuck) By Michael Wex, Vintage Canada, 192 pages, $19.95
Wex made his reputation for his promotion of Yiddish, and is credited with contributing significantly to the language's revival. But this book, though it leans heavily on Jewish culture, is mostly about how to be a good human being.
PERSONA NON GRATA By Ruth Downie, Bloomsbury, 346 pages, $15 U.S.
Medical officer Gaius Petreius Ruso and his companion Tilla return from Britannia to Ruso's family estate in Gaul, but Tilla is treated badly by the family, one in-law has died at sea in mysterious circumstances, and the estate is on the verge of bankruptcy. Then the family's main creditor dies, apparently poisoned, in the Ruso villa.