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LATEST FICTION

WhateverLolaWants_lgWhatever Lola Wants is George Szanto’s latest novel, a tale of family, stories, and memory.  Order a copy today.

“Stories of desire, chance, promise, brought from the down below. Against the rules of heaven, what hope is there?”

Ted tells stories. High on a cloud above Mount Washington, he peers down at the earth, listening to the memories of the mortal folk he watches. Lola, once a famous Hollywood bombshell, now a god, listens to his stories. Ted’s words capture her heart, just as she captured the hearts of her fans.

Down on Earth, three families experience joy, tragedy, hope, and loss. Milton and Theresa are activists, conservationists, parents, lovers, fighters. Johnnie Cochan is a self-styled ecological leader, haunted by sadness and fear. And Carney is a disaster recovery specialist who can quench an oil-platform fire but finds love hard to hold onto. Through their attractions and battles, their futures become bound, just as Cochan’s vision for a new utopia, a massive construction project, threatens to rupture everything.

Whatever Lola Wants is story about stories—those we tell others, and those that fill us up. It is also about the stories we tell ourselves and the ways they make us who we are—admired artists, despised monsters, adored immortals.

“Szanto has created a fictional world of remarkable scope and depth, exploring family, science, poetry and the nature of storytelling itself. He casts a wide net, but his joy in the undertaking is palpable and infectious, making an epic journey feel like light lifting.”
—The Coastal Spectator
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LATEST NON-FICTION

A year of living beside a wetland, a lifetime of personal stories.

“A dazzling meditation on history and nature.”   —Alberto Manguel

“Beautifully written, deeply felt without succumbing to cheap sentiment . . . a celebration of finding one’s place in the world.”   —Times-Colonist

“Genuinely heartbreaking. . . . Vividly described. . . . Szanto is acutely, almost painfully, sensitive to the world outside his front door.   —National Post

“Lushly rendered. . . . An earthy, homespun and voyeuristically satisfying book.”   —Kirkus Reviews

“A moving and very thoughtful memoir of George Szanto’s lifelong dance between literature and adventure, wanderlust and home.”   —Ronald Wright

“Watching his bogland on Gabriola Island as its life revolves around the circuit of seasons has put George Szanto at the perfect vantage point for reflection and story-telling.”   —Myrna Kostash

“Szanto writes with wonderful lucidity, never leaving the reader, always circling back to the essence of things.”   —Susan Crean

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