Salamander

"… the sort of book every reader hopes to find, earnestly passes along to friends, and returns to in their dreams..." NATIONAL POST

Nicholas Flood, an unassuming eighteenth-century London printer, specializes in novelty books -- books that nestle into one another, books comprised of one spare sentence, books that emit the sounds of crashing waves. When his work captures the attention of an eccentric Slovakian count, Flood is summoned to a faraway castle -- a moving labyrinth that embodies the count's obsession with puzzles -- where he is commissioned to create the infinite book, the ultimate never-ending story. Probing the nature of books, the human thirst for knowledge, and the pursuit of immortality, Salamander careens through myth and metaphor as Flood travels the globe in search of materials for the elusive book without end.

First published by McClelland & Stewart, 2001.

    Shortlisted for the 2001 Governor-General’s Award for Fiction.

    Shortlisted for the Sunburst Award for Canadian Fantasy

    Winner, Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, Alberta Book Awards, 2002.

    Shortlisted for the Grant MacEwan Author’s Award, 2002.

    Finalist for the Roger’s Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, 2001.

    Feature articles appeared in Quill & Quire and Maclean’s.

    Published in Quebec as Un jardin de papier by Alto, 2005.

   Foreign Editions:

U.K: HarperCollins 2001.

U.S.A: Washington Square Press, 2002.

Germany: DTV, 2003.

Netherlands: Querido, 2003.

Hungary: Palatinus, 2003.

Poland: Rebis, 2003.

Italy: Sperling & Kupfer, 2003

Japan: Hayakawa, 2003.