February Spotlight: Love in All Its Forms

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February has a way of turning our attention toward love – not just romance, but love as devotion, longing, community, identity, and even our relationship to the natural world. This month’s new acquisitions explore connection in all its forms: the people who change us, the art that brings us back to ourselves, and the stories that remind us we’re never truly alone. You can find these titles on display at the New Books cart near the library entrance before they move to the Stacks or the Popular Reading Room downstairs. All Spotlight Picks are also available to browse and request through our library catalogue.

Our February Spotlight Picks:

Heated Rivalry, by Rachel Reid:

Popular Reading: PS8635 .E355 H43 2024
Pro hockey rivals Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov dominate the ice and despise each other publicly, but off it their rivalry turns into a dangerous attraction they can’t ignore. As captaincy, reputations, and careers hang in the balance, keeping their relationship secret becomes harder than winning the game itself.

Valentine in Montreal: A Novel, by Heather O’Neill:

Popular Reading: PS8579 .N387 V35 2025
A lonely young woman drifting through Montreal’s underground notices a stranger who looks exactly like her and impulsively follows her into the city. What unfolds is a strange, tender, and vivid journey through chance encounters, shifting identities, and the quiet ache of wanting to be seen.

Art Is: A Journey into the Light, by Makoto Fujimura

Popular Reading: ND237 .F79 A78 2025
Artist Makoto Fujimura reflects on creativity as an act of faith, healing, and attention in a fractured world. Moving between memoir, philosophy, and art history, he shows how beauty and making can open new ways of seeing, caring, and living with tenderness.

A Steady Brightness of Being, edited by Sara Sinclair and Stephanie Sinclair

Popular Reading: E78 .C2 S67 2025
This powerful collection of letters brings together Indigenous writers, artists, and activists sharing hard-earned wisdom about love, truth-telling, and survival. Across generations and nations, their voices speak to resilience, responsibility, and the enduring strength of community.

Heart the Lover: A Novel, by Lily King

Popular Reading: PS3561 .I4814 H43 2025
A love triangle that begins in college follows three people into adulthood, shaping their lives through longing, betrayal, and unresolved desire. As time passes, Lily King examines how memory, regret, and emotional truth refuse to stay buried.

A Love Story from the End of the World: Stories, by Juhea Kim

Popular Reading: PS3611 .I454535 L68 2025:
Set against climate collapse and environmental disaster, these ten luminous stories explore how love persists in uncertain futures. From near-future cities to ruined coastlines, Juhea Kim traces the fragile choices that define intimacy when the world itself is breaking.

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

Stacks: QL761 .K34 2025
Blending science, storytelling, and cultural critique, this book reveals the abundant queerness of the natural world. By challenging rigid ideas of sex and gender, it invites readers to see nature as fluid, diverse, and joyfully resistant to binaries.

Big of You, by Elise Levine

Popular Reading: PS8573 .E9647 B54 2025
This bold and emotionally sharp story collection explores marriage, friendship, aging, and the quiet reckonings of everyday life. With humor and insight, Elise Levine captures the strange beauty of regret and the difficult work of becoming someone new.

General Collection:

Fiction, Short Stories, and Literary Imagination

Innovative novels and story collections that experiment with form, voice, and perspective to explore identity, memory, power, and the future.

Poetry, Essays, and Anthologies

Works that distill experience into language, offering lyric insight, critical reflection, and collective voices shaped by place, politics, and feeling.

Canadian Society, Culture, and Public Life

Books that examine democracy, inequality, and national identity, tracing how power and public life are evolving in Canada and beyond.

Memoir, Biography, and Lived Experience

Personal narratives that bear witness to grief, resilience, family, and survival, grounding larger social questions in individual lives.

History, Politics, and the Making of the Modern World

Global histories that unpack how war, diplomacy, capitalism, and political movements have shaped the world we live in today.

International Relations, Security, and Global Affairs

Analyses of conflict, alliances, and global power that illuminate today’s shifting geopolitical landscape.

Climate, Environment, and Planetary Futures

Version 1.0.0

Urgent and imaginative works exploring climate science, environmental justice, and humanity’s responsibility to a changing planet.

Health, Medicine, and Human Well-Being

Interdisciplinary perspectives on illness, care, and public health that connect biology, society, and lived experience.

Theology Collection

Biblical Studies and Christian Ethics

Studies that interpret scripture through ethical, historical, and ecological lenses, asking how ancient texts speak today.

Theology, Doctrine, and the Life of the Church

Reflections on worship, teaching, and Christian practice that explore how belief is lived, taught, and embodied in community.

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