Friction Books

It's the cinema, you know

Happy to say we have a few copies of the 9th edition of Paragon Press, a student run literary journal from Memorial University and across Canada.

Come and grab a copy, and hey — they take submissions.

A soldier fights nothing for nobody in a decades long dream of meaning and purpose. On an island in the Philippines, unaware the war is long over, he awaits a more direct sign than a literal message falling from the heavens above.

Does this absurd determination sound like something out of a Herzog film? It should! He wrote the book.

Fans of describing spiders as being “like diabolical harpists plucking irresistible melodies from their strings” are sure to find much to enjoy.

In the jungle, spiders come very easily - Werner Herzog

At Friction Books, enjoying myself comes very easily - You

Who's the man behind the books? Could be the secret to the central mystery that is your life. I can tell you this one clue... he loves buying detective novels!!! So you'd be wise to come sn**ch some choice Chandler paperbacks before they've all disappeared.

Get hard boiled down here at Friction.

A good poem for a September day even if the afternoons are 30 degrees hot

From 'Meditations in an Emergency' a collection of poems by Frank O'Hara.

Buy poems at Friction!

"Dreaming was easy, he thought. Being dreamed was the problem.”

Born again or maybe alive forever? At the very least, cursed. In a world where violence explodes out of the little corners in every room, Zebulon Shook traverses across the limbo of American heroism. In this case we'll define heroism as; "living inside the scripts of hazy acid westerns" or, "the lyrics of 1970s Bob Dylan songs".

Rudolph Wurlitzer's The Drop Edge of Yonder is available at Friction Books. And in this humble caption writer's opinion - it rules.

Certain to delight fans of bizarre folklore AND enjoyers of a meat-only diet, The Man Who Spoke Snakish -- Estonian author Andrus Kivirähk's epic adventure, is about many things. Some of those things include; bonding with your grandfather with whom you share genetic fangs, the realities of dating a brown bear, creating gliding wings from the bones of your enemies, enjoying your sweet mother's "deer haunch only" style cooking, watching in dismay as your homies leave the bountiful woods to cultivate grain in joyless chastity and penance, being a peeping tom, and hanging out with your animal pals over whom you can exert psychic dominance with magical language.

A joy to read!

Available at Friction Books

What's in your bag? What does your bag look like? Because it could be this kind of bag and look like this and be filled with these kinds of things.

Did you know you can grab a copy of at the shop? Here are the authors, who you'll be pleased to hear are big fans of coffee, records, and books.

"Mixing tender and rigorous research into a largely hidden archive with lyrical and polemical close readings of everything from silents to slashers, this wonderful book excavates the history of the moving image to discover its potential future."

Mark Asch, author of Close-Ups: New York Movies

"Mixing tender and rigorous research into a largely hidden archive with lyrical and polemical close readings of everything from silents to slashers, this wonderful book

All non-fiction, photo, and art books are 20% off till the end of August!
(Excludes books from our Heart/mind/spirit section)

With school looming just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to stuff your noggin full of knowledge!

Till the end of August, all non-fiction, photo, and art books will be 20% off

With back to school looming just around the corner, it’s a perfect time to stuff your noggin full of knowledge!

Ángel Bonomini’s The Novices of Lerna includes the titular story, a favorite among the likes of Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, as well as fifteen other absurd and tender stories that are sure to inspire.

Fresh paperbacks in this week to help you get your sci-fi fantasy fix!

Wild Houses:

Colin Barrett’s long awaited debut novel is a fast-paced tale of a small town feud gone sour, pulling semi-innocent bystanders into a violent, chaotic whirlwind.

Jonny Trunk’s Audio Erotica:
A celebration of Hi-Fi ads and brochures from days gone by (1950s-80s, to be exact). The eye-catching graphics in this funky tome paint a technicolor picture of the ever-changing technology of listening, both at home and on the go!

Lauren Elkin’s Art Monsters is a study of bodies as an art form - q***r bodies, sick bodies, racialised bodies, female bodies - and the ongoing battle to tell the truth of their experiences.

special delivery from !
All of these fresh goodies plus a restock of Gushy and Gooey 😌✨🐛🌈

“What if you had the chance to rewrite the course of your relationship, again and again, in the hopes that it would work out?“

Myriam LaCroix’s How it Works Out depicts a love story in every possible timeline.

Beautiful new editions of three James Baldwin classics featuring artwork by Beaufort Delaney.

Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and If Beale Street Could Talk are in the shop now.

Jack Hilton’s Caliban Shrieks was originally published in 1935 and dug up from the archives of the Salford Working Class Movement Library in 2022.
Hilton was 35 and unemployed when he wrote his anti-war, anti-capitalist autobiography. His story is one of the working man, and it remains as poignant and relevant today as it was 90 years ago.

We’ve just received lots of fun new titles and oodles of great restocks! Pop by the shop this week and get cracking on your summer reading list 😎⛱️

Boris Vian was a jack of all trades: writer, poet, playwright, and musician, among other things. He died at 39 after writing ten novels and 500 songs.

Trouble in the Swaths was published posthumously in 1966. It’s an outrageous adventure that parodies spy novel tropes through slapstick humour, clever wordplay, and comic book style escapades.

We’re proud to announce that we’re now carrying esteemed literary journal The Paris Review!
The Summer 2024 issue is now available at the shop, and includes interviews with Mary Robison and Elaine Scarry, prose by Nancy Lemann, K Patrick, and Banu Mushtaq, poetry by Kim Hyesoon and Douglas Kearney, art by G. Peter Jemison and Lauren Halsey, and much more!