Familiar Face - Michael DeForge 

DeForge is back with another intellectually unsettling, visually stunning exploration of near-future technodystopia (familiar territory for those lucky enough to get their hands on his 2017 comic Placeholders). In a world where everything is constantly automatically updating, even one’s body, is true connection still possible? DeForge’s narrator, the sole human in the government’s department of complaints, is perhaps best placed to find out. 

The Fire Never Goes Out - Noelle Stevenson

Best known for her YA offerings Nimona and The Lumberjanes (not to mention acting as showrunner for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), Stevenson here presents a collection of personal comics. Charting the big and small moments of living a creative life with equal care, The Fire Never Goes Out invites readers to follow a rising star.  

No More Nice Girls - Lauren McKeon

An antidote to 21st century #GirlBoss-style feminism, No More Nice Girls is an attempt to right the balance and leave behind male-centered visions of power in order to build a more equitable world for everyone. A thoughtful examination of the many ways the system is rigged against women and marginalized genders, McKeon has written something for everyone left behind by a Lean In-inspired ethos. 

Postcolonial Love Poem - Natalie Diaz

MacArthur fellow Natalie Diaz has, with this second poetry collection, chosen desire over erasure, radical love over the continued pain of colonization. With words lush and wanting, she traces the bodies of water, of lovers, of language, and finds in them beauty and tenderness. With the final words “I come good too,” Diaz is declaring herself present, deserving of pleasure, and impossible to ignore.  

Deacon King Kong - James McBride 

In his new novel, Musician and National Book Award-winning author Jame McBride tells the story of the fallout following the shooting of a Brooklyn drug dealer. Interested in as many points of view as possible--that of the victim, the deacon who shoots him at point-blank range, the witnesses, white neighbours, and investigating officers--Deacon King Kong is a deep, meticulous portrait of 1960s New York, richly delivered.