Steeple Green Books

02/02/2025

Is there anyone cooler than Grace Jones?

The iconic music and film legend gives an in-depth account of her stellar career, professional and personal life, and the signature look that catapulted her into the stardom stratosphere.

Grace Jones, a veritable “triple-threat” as acclaimed actress, singer, and model, has dominated the entertainment industry since her emergence as a model in New York City in 1968. Quickly discovered for her obvious talent and cutting-edge style, Grace signed her first record deal in 1977 and became one of the more unforgettable characters to emerge from the Studio 54 disco scene, releasing the all-time favorite hits, “Pull Up to the Bumper,” “Slave to the Rhythm,” and “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You).” And with her s*xually charged, outrageous live shows in the New York City nightclub circuit, Grace soon earned the title of “Queen of the Gay Discos.”

But with the dawn of the ’80s came a massive anti-disco movement across the US, leading Grace to focus on experimental-based work and put her two-and-a-half-octave voice to good use. It was also around this time that she changed her look to suit the times with a detached, androgynous image. In this first-ever memoir, Grace gives an exclusive look into the transformation to her signature style and discusses how she expanded her musical triumph to success in the acting world, beginning in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, and later in Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang.

Featuring sixteen pages of stunning full-color photographs, Miss Grace Jones takes us on a journey from Grace’s religious upbringing in Jamaica to her heyday in Paris and New York in the ’70s and ’80s, all the way to present-day London, in what promises to be a no holds barred tell-all for the ages.

$10

02/01/2025

Snowday snowbooks.

02/01/2025

We just got a sweet stack of cookbooks, all under $25. Have a candlelit dinner with yourself. Make a nice meal for someone you love. Or just put one of these on your shelf so people think you know how to cook.

01/31/2025

From the acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr, the first full portrait of the q***r icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling.

The Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world.

Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and q***r, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York’s early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max’s Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play.

Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: “I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me.” Candy died at twenty-nine in 1974, just as conversations about gender and identity were beginning to enter the broader culture. She never knew it, but she changed the world.

Brimming with all the fizz and wildness of New York in the 1960s and ’70s, this is the first biography of this extraordinary figure—an unintentional pioneer who became an icon. Cynthia Carr’s Candy Darling is packed with tales of luminaries, gossip, and meticulous research, laced with Candy’s words and her friends’ recollections, and signals Candy’s long-overdue return to the spotlight.

$15

01/30/2025

For the bird nerds. A brand new edition.

01/27/2025

If you're able, the Musqui Comfort Centre is accepting donations. Blankets, toiletries, socks, stuffed animals, stationery... info below!

Send a message to learn more

01/26/2025

Alan Syliboy, author of The Thundermaker, showcases his vibrant artwork in this baby board book. Colourful images depicting Canadian animals like moose, whales, and caribou, makes this vibrant book a perfect introduction to the Mi'kmaw language. With English and Mi'kmaw translations for the animal names on every page, babies will enjoy the vivid paintings while they learn new words and discover a bit of Mi'kmaw culture.

$14.95

01/26/2025

Frank is getting a good sniff of some sweet treats from Martinique Desserterie. Don't forget you can get a free coffee or tea with the purchase of a book, a 25% off a book with the purchase of a drink or treat! Wowowow.

01/26/2025

A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Overstory.

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while singlehandedly raising his unusual nine-year-old son, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is funny, loving, and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures of the endangered animals he loves. He is also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face.

What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his troubled son is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction?

With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing visions of life beyond and its account of a father and son's ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers's most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperilled planet?

$15

01/25/2025

Some top shelf books from our used book corner. All under $10. Can you even believe it? 😎

01/24/2025

From poet and painter Frieda Hughes, an intimate, charming, and humorous memoir recounting her experience rescuing and raising an abandoned baby magpie in the Welsh countryside.

When Frieda Hughes moved to a ramshackle estate in the wilds of Wales, she was expecting to take on a few projects: planting a garden, painting, writing her poetry column for The Times (London), and possibly even breathing new life into her ailing marriage. But instead, she found herself rescuing a baby magpie, the sole survivor of a nest destroyed in a storm—and embarking on an obsession that would change the course of her life.

As the magpie, George, grows from a shrieking scrap of feathers and bones into an intelligent, unruly companion, Frieda finds herself captivated—and apprehensive of what will happen when the time comes to finally set him free.

With irresistible humour and heart, Frieda invites us along on her unlikely journey toward joy and connection in the wake of sadness and loss; a journey that began with saving a tiny wild creature and ended with her being saved in return.

$15

01/23/2025

We've got some sweet new neighbours coming! Can't wait. 🍻

01/23/2025

Groundbreaking solutions to the climate crisis from scientists, engineers, civic leaders, entrepreneurs and activists, offering hope to all readers concerned about our planet's future.

Offers practical actions that reflect technological and economic advances with an introduction by former United States senator Russ Feingold.

Solving the Climate Crisis is a hopeful and critical resource that makes a convincing and detailed case that there is a path forward to save our environment. Illustrating the power of committed individuals and the necessity for collaborative government and private-sector climate action, the book focuses on three essential areas:

The technological dimension: move to 100% clean renewable energy as fast as we possibly can through innovations like clean-steel, “green” cement, and carbon-reuse companies;

The ecological dimension: enhance and protect natural ecosystems, forests, and agricultural lands to safely store greenhouse gases and restore soils, transforming how we grow, process, and consume food;

The social dimension: update and create new laws, policies and economic measures to recenter human values and reduce environmental and social injustice.

Based on more than 6 years of research, Berger traveled the nation and abroad to interview governors, mayors, ranchers, scientists, engineers, business leaders, energy experts, and financiers as well as carbon farmers, solar and wind innovators, forest protectors, non-profit leaders, and activists.

With real world examples, an explanation of cutting-edge technologies in solar and wind, and political organizing tactics, Solving the Climate Crisis provides a practical road map for how we effectively combat climate change. Replacing the fossil-fuel system with a newly invigorated, modernized, clean-energy economy will produce tens of millions of new jobs and save trillions of dollars. Protecting the climate is thus potentially the greatest economic opportunity of our time.

$15

01/22/2025

What’s the perfect winter pairing? A hot drink and a book, of course.

This winter Martinique Desserterie and Steeple Green Books want to bring you both. Until the end of March, buy a coffee, tea, or a treat and get a same-day 25% discount off a book. OR buy a book, and pop around the corner to claim a free coffee or tea. What could be better?

Wishing you all a warm, caffeinated, and literary winter,

Martinique Desserterie & Steeple Green Books

01/22/2025

01/22/2025

“What is the nature of the search? you ask. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”
- Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

Winner of the 1962 National Book Award and one of Time magazine’s 100 Best English-Language Novels, Walker Percy’s debut The Moviegoer is an American masterpiece and a classic of Southern literature. Insightful, romantic, and humorous, it is the story of a young man’s search for meaning amid a shallow consumerist landscape.

Binx Bolling, a young New Orleans stockbroker, fills his days with movies and casual s*x. His life offers him nothing worth retaining; what he treasures are scenes from The Third Man or Stagecoach, not the personal experiences he knows other people hold dear. On the cusp of turning thirty, however, something changes: At Mardi Gras, he embarks on a quest for some form of authentic experience. The consequences of Binx’s quest, on both himself and his unstable cousin Kate, prove outrageous, absurd, moving, and indelible.

$10

01/19/2025

“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
- Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tomorrow is inauguration day in the US, but it is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Here's to finding continued hope, inspiration, and wisdom in King, and maybe even giving this book to someone you suspect of being a Trump apologist.

✌💚

01/19/2025

Can we do better in space than we’ve done here on Earth?

We’ve pinpointed the destination, refined the technology, designed the habitat, outfitted our space residents. Are we forgetting something? A timely reminder that it’s not just rocket science, this thought-provoking book explores the all-too-human issues raised by the prospect of settling in outer space. It’s worth remembering, Erika Nesvold suggests, that in making new worlds, we don’t necessarily leave our earthly problems behind. Accordingly, her work highlights the complex ethical challenges that accompany any other-worldly venture—questions about the environment, labor rights, and medical ethics, among others.

Any such venture, Nesvold contends, must be made on behalf of all humanity, with global input and collaboration. Off-Earth thus includes historical and contemporary examples from outside the dominant Western/US, abled, and privileged narrative of the space industry. Nesvold calls on experts in ethics, sociology, history, social justice, and law to launch a hopeful conversation about the potential ethical pitfalls of becoming a multi-planet species—and, ideally, to shed light on similar problems we presently face here on Earth.

Space settlement is rapidly becoming ever more likely. Will it look like the utopian vision of Star Trek? Or the dark future of Star Wars? Nesvold challenges us to decide.

$15