Coach House Books

Coach House Books Tucked away on Toronto's bpNichol Lane, Coach House has been printing & publishing innovative poetry, fiction, drama & nonfiction since 1965. It’s true.

https://linktr.ee/chbooks There’s a laneway in downtown Toronto named after a poet: bpNichol Lane. Tucked away on that back alley is a crumbling old garage—a coach house—and inside it are two Heidelberg printing presses, an Autominabinda binder, and a big guillotine-like cutter. Passing through those machines is a gorgeous, antique-colored laid paper called Zephyr. And on that paper sits some of t

he most intriguing lines and sentences you’ll ever encounter.

“To say that Coach House ‘publishes’ books would be to diminish the magic of what really happens within the old brick walls on bpNichol Lane,” says The Globe and Mail of our publishing program. Our books are handsome, but they’ve got personality and wit too—they are, like our building, a little off the beaten path: innovative poetry, brazen fiction, provocative nonfiction. Every one of our books is a little portable piece of bpNichol Lane’s magic. For a taste, try out Christian Bök’s bestselling, Griffin Prize–winning EUNOIA, or a New York Times’ Top 100 selection, LISA ROBERTSON'S MAGENTA SOUL WHIP. Or the internationally acclaimed ALL MY FRIENDS ARE SUPERHEROES by Andrew Kaufman. Or MY WINNIPEG, by visionary filmmaker Guy Maddin. We’ve got a swath of award nominations to our name—Griffins, Trilliums, Commonwealths, Lambdas, and more—and a stockpile of laudatory press, like NewPages’ claim that our books offer “a reason to read. A reason to write. A reason to believe in poetry.” Heck, Bookforum called us “the most esteemed literary house in Canada.” But we don’t let it go to our heads; we, and our Heidelbergs, just keep on beavering away in our little coach house to bring you the most unexpected, delicious, carnival-ride-like books we can find. Visit us at www.chbooks.com.

A very cute reminder that if you are a dog person, have read and loved Fifteen Dogs, or are interested in seeing what th...
10/03/2025

A very cute reminder that if you are a dog person, have read and loved Fifteen Dogs, or are interested in seeing what the signatures of two acclaimed writers look like on a beautiful hardcover book, you should sign up for the COACH HOUSE BOOKS NEWSLETTER! 💌

Tomorrow morning we'll be sending out a giveaway only to newsletter subscribers: and yes, it will be for a VERY limited version of the Fifteen Dogs: Tenth Anniversary Edition. Winners will receive a hardcover signed by the author, André Alexis, as well as Eileen Myles, who wrote a new introduction for the anniversary. Don't miss out!

PROPERTY, by Kate Cayley, officially releases next week on Tuesday, October 7! Celebrate its launch with us  from 7 to 1...
10/03/2025

PROPERTY, by Kate Cayley, officially releases next week on Tuesday, October 7! Celebrate its launch with us from 7 to 10 PM. Kate Cayley will be in conversation with Steven Beattie.

Books will be available for sale and drinks for purchase. This is a fully accessible venue, with accessible washrooms. Please head to the link in our bio (or chbooks.com/events) to RSVP!

🏠

A spring day in a gentrifying neighbourhood begins unremarkably enough; by evening someone has died.

Nat, a middle-aged q***r mother of two, feigns normalcy as she worries about her taciturn, loner son locked in his room. Her friend Maddy, a failed actress and fellow parent, frets over her missed opportunities and considers leaving her marriage. Next door, Ilya, a young construction worker, struggles to renovate a fixer-upper, but a buried stream threatens to flood the basement.  An old woman eyes the street through the gap in her curtains. A lonely man wanders. 

As the troubled residents stumble through their errands, navigating the thorniness of class and privilege, of q***r respectability and friendship in an overstretched city, each seemingly inconsequential exchange tightens in around the neighbourhood, until finally tragedy strikes, leaving it forever changed.

Heather Birrell and Ben Ladouceur at the Coach House! Join us TONIGHT (Oct. 2), from 5 to 7 PM, at 80 bpNichol Lane to h...
10/02/2025

Heather Birrell and Ben Ladouceur at the Coach House! Join us TONIGHT (Oct. 2), from 5 to 7 PM, at 80 bpNichol Lane to hear brief readings from these two authors.

Heather Birrell is the author of two poetry collections with Coach House Books (I know you are but what am I? and Mad Hope), as well as her debut novel, Born.

With Coach House Books, Ben Ladouceur has published the poetry collections Otter and Mad Long Emotion. Recently, Ben has published his first novel, I Remember Lights, with our friends !

10/01/2025

The Booksellers’ List is Canada’s newest way to discover must-read books, chosen by the people who know them best—independent booksellers. The independent presses featured on the List this season are excited to team up and present you with ✨your favourite indie’s favourite indies✨

📕 21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government by Bob Joseph (Page Two)
📘 Bad Indians Book Club by Patty Krawec (Goose Lane Editions)
📙 Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way by Elaine Feeney (Biblioasis)
📗 Precarious by Marcello Di Cintio (Biblioasis)
📕 Property by Kate Cayley (Coach House Books)
📘 Starry Starry Night by Shani Mootoo (Bookhug Press)
📙 The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed (ECW Press)
📗 The Witch of Willow Sound by Vanessa F. Penney (ECW Press)

Head to IndieBookstores.ca to learn more about The Booksellers’ List and the fantastic titles resonating with book lovers across Canada.

👀 Are you signed up for our newsletter? This weekend, we'll be hosting a very special, very secret giveaway in celebrati...
10/01/2025

👀 Are you signed up for our newsletter? This weekend, we'll be hosting a very special, very secret giveaway in celebration of the official publication of André Alexis's Fifteen Dogs: 10th Anniversary Edition, available only to newsletter subscribers! 👀

Swipe for some moments from André Alexis's fantastic book signing this weekend at . Thanks to everyone who came out and bought an anniversary copy, which now features a foreword from Eileen Myles and a new afterword by André Alexis. 🐕✨

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER HERE: https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/1910224/1909307/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BPbpNichol was born on September 30, 1944, and was the author of numerous books of poetry, as well as fo...
09/30/2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BP

bpNichol was born on September 30, 1944, and was the author of numerous books of poetry, as well as four novels, several books for children and one collection of short fiction. His cutout can be seen celebrating Coach House's 50th anniversary (ten years ago!), above, alongside Stan and Alana - and swipe to view more photographs of bp from the CH anniversary slideshow that played during our big 60th party this summer.

A founding member of the sound poetry quartet The Four Horsemen, Nichol was recognized internationally as one of the majoravant-garde writers of his time. Besides his small press and magazine editorial activities (including Ganglia, grOnk and Underwhich Editions), he was a great collaborator with many artists in the areas of writing, sound poetry performance, and linguistic research.

We celebrate and read bp all year long, and encourage you to do the same. We have several books in publication today from bpNichol, including Some Lines of Poetry, Nights on Prose Mountain, a book of variations, Konfessions of an Elizabethan Fan Dancer, Ad Sanctos, The Alphabet Game, and The Martyrology. And if you’re heading to the Coach House for an event (like this week’s 5 à 7 on Thursday eve), make sure to read his laneway poetry on your way over.

💌💌💌

One week of the tenth anniversary edition of Rosanna Deerchild's CALLING DOWN THE SKY out in the world! In this new edit...
09/30/2025

One week of the tenth anniversary edition of Rosanna Deerchild's CALLING DOWN THE SKY out in the world! In this new edition, Rosanna Deerchild's English poetry is set alongside Solomon Ratt's translation into Cree.

Today on Truth and Reconciliation Day (September 30), Cree Literacy Network has put together a post featuring Solomon Ratt reading – in th-dialect Cree – from his translation of “Mama’s Testament: Truth and Reconciliation," the opening poem of Rosanna Deerchild’s Calling Down the Sky: 10th Anniversary Edition: https://creeliteracy.org/2025/09/28/for-truth-and-reconciliation-day-2025/

Arden Ogg, Founding Director of Cree Literacy Network, writes: "This new edition is fully bilingual in English and Cree, presented in parallel on facing pages: a literal and figurative gesture “restoration” of stolen language, and a reminder of the significance of Cree âhkamêyimowin / persistance." We encourage you to listen to this reading today, as well as to read Arden Ogg's full reflection on the significance of Solomon Ratt's translation for Cree Language Reclamation, as a starting point for your Truth and Reconciliation Day work: https://creeliteracy.org/2025/09/18/calling-down-the-sky-10th-anniversary-cree-english-edition-th-dialect/ 🧡

Tomorrow at Queen Books, celebrate Messy Cities: Why We Can't Plan Everything with editors Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo, an...
09/29/2025

Tomorrow at Queen Books, celebrate Messy Cities: Why We Can't Plan Everything with editors Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo, and John Lorinc, who will be in conversation with contributors Tura Cousins Wilson and Shane Laptiste!

RSVP to this event here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/talk-messy-to-me-tickets-1731019378559?aff=oddtdtcreator

On Tuesday, September 30, join us at Queen Books for a conversation between MESSY CITIES editors Zahra Ebrahim, Dylan Reid, and Leslie Woo and contributors Tura Cousins Wilson and Shane Laptiste about what makes a city messy and why messy can be so great.

🔗 RSVP at the link in our bio. 6:30 PM start at Queen Books (914 Queen St. E., Toronto).

Tura Cousins Wilson and Shane Laptiste authored the chapter “Conjay’s First Walk Home,” which explores Little Jamaica in Toronto’s historic Caribbean community, and traces its history from the 1960’s to its imagined future in 2035.

09/29/2025

Every Booksellers’ List selection is testament to the diverse range of great books available in a given season, as read by the experts. Martha Sharpe, a bookseller from Flying Books, shared with us why Property earned their nomination to The Booksellers’ List for fall:

[I've heard Property described as a modern, class-conscious Mrs. Dalloway — I'm in! Kate Cayley's writing here also reminds me of Doris Lessing. What a graceful and charged book.]

About the book:

A spring day in an average gentrifying neighbourhood begins unremarkably enough; by evening someone has died.

The local residents go about their daily routines: Nat, a middle-aged q***r mother of two, feigns normalcy as she worries about her daughter and her taciturn, loner son locked in his room upstairs. Her friend Maddy, a failed actress and fellow parent, and her husband plan to go to Nat's for dinner. Next door, Ilya, still recovering from a gruesome industrial accident, is struggling to renovate a fixer-upper, but a buried stream keeps threatening to flood the basement. The troubled residents stumble through their errands and to-do lists, but each seemingly inconsequential exchange tightens in around the neighbourhood, until finally tragedy strikes, leaving it forever changed.

With crystalline prose that balances emotional complexity and a hint of satire, Property explores the thorniness of class and privilege in a city stretched to the breaking point. The novel shows the complicated politics of q***r respectability, friendship, the real and imaginary perils of raising children, and the ways that we hurt one another without meaning to.

Visit our website at indiebookstores.ca to find this selection and more at an indie bookstore near you.

Coach House Books

Good morning on this first day post-WOTS! We had such a blast meeting everyone that came out to  and picked up a book (o...
09/29/2025

Good morning on this first day post-WOTS! We had such a blast meeting everyone that came out to and picked up a book (or a few!) from us.

In case you missed our mailing sign-up sheet over the weekend, make sure to sign up for our newsletter on our site! We have a ton of events coming up, and a very special giveaway later this week that you don't want to miss. 💌

Catch us at WOTS today and tomorrow! André Alexis will be at our table from 3 - 3:30 PM TODAY to sign copies of Fifteen ...
09/27/2025

Catch us at WOTS today and tomorrow! André Alexis will be at our table from 3 - 3:30 PM TODAY to sign copies of Fifteen Dogs! We have the brand new hardcover edition before its publication with us, just for you. 📚📚📚

Days by Moonlight, published in 2019, is one of the five novels in André Alexis's acclaimed Quincunx, is a kind of Gulli...
09/27/2025

Days by Moonlight, published in 2019, is one of the five novels in André Alexis's acclaimed Quincunx, is a kind of Gulliver's Travels of Southwestern Ontario: a hallucinogenic road trip taken by a botanist and a professor researching a missing poet. Linda Watson's drawings of increasingly implausible plants underscore the question of what's real. A botanic frolic through the world of the imagination!

Catch André Alexis at WOTS this afternoon(!), Saturday, September 27, at our booth B6, where he’ll be signing copies of the brand new tenth anniversary editions of Fifteen Dogs. You can also pre-order these anniversary editions, featuring a foreword by Eileen Myles and a new afterword by the author, now from your favourite independent bookstore.

Address

80 BpNichol Lane
Toronto, ON
M5S3J4

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+14169792217

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Coach House Books posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Coach House Books:

Featured

Share

Category