August is here! And you know what that means, right? New books! We’ve got five new additions to the A List releasing this month, plus a new work of fiction from Gillian Best. Check them all out below:

Made for Happiness by Jean Vanier

Available August 26

In Made for Happiness, Jean Vanier examines the basis for modern moral philosophy and its role in our lives today. Having discovered through his work with the intellectually disabled the degree to which our society is divided, and our values misplaced, Vanier invites us to read with fresh eyes theories of happiness written 2,400 years ago.

The book follows the links between psychology, spirituality, and morality: psychology helps us face our fears and limitations; spirituality gives us strength; and morality helps us to choose the best actions, those that will make us happier, and thus more human. The combination of these paths to knowledge and wisdom gives meaning to our lives and allows us to make the best use of our freedom on our way to happiness.

Lucidly written, Made for Happiness links classical thought to contemporary challenges, and nourishes the heart and mind.

This new edition includes an introduction by Ian Brown.

Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada by Mark Satin

Available August 26

First published in 1968 by House of Anansi Press, the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada was a handbook for Americans who refused to serve as draftees in the Vietnam War and were considering immigrating to Canada. Conceived as a practical guide with information on the process, the Manual also features information on aspects of Canadian society, touching on topics like history, politics, culture, geography and climate, jobs, housing, and universities.

The Manual went through several editions from 1968–71. Today, as Americans are taking up the discussion of immigration to Canada once again, it is an invaluable record of a moment in our recent history.

Mermaids and Ikons by Gwendolyn MacEwen

Available August 26

In her first work of nonfiction, Mermaids and Ikons: A Greek Summer, originally published in 1978, beloved poet and novelist Gwendolyn MacEwen explores her strongly personal responses to a complex civilization. Partly written during a trip to Greece in 1971, MacEwen moves from the urban tumult of Athens to the radiant simplicity of an island in the Aegean.

In this intimate and exquisitely written travel diary, she evokes the very spirit of Greece — the exuberance of the people, the sun-drenched landscape, and the shaping power of ancient traditions and myths in modern Mediterranean life.

This edition features a new introduction by the award-winning biographer Rosemary Sullivan.

Passing Ceremony by Helen Weinzweig

Available August 26

In this brilliant debut novel by Helen Weinzweig, the award-winning author of Basic Black With Pearls, a wedding reception becomes a gothic dream in which the bride, groom, family, and guests struggle with private obsessions, guilty fantasies of sex and power, and the constant failure of love. The bride is not all she seems and there is something ambiguous about the groom — and about everyone else at the surreal and strangely moving wedding.

Like a piece of music, Passing Ceremony is composed of brief, suggestive fragments that grow into a tightly integrated whole. There are bits of real and imagined conversation; polite dialogues that slide into mad comic banality; and scenes that could be quiet nightmares out of Borges.

A satire and a rueful mediation on the ways people hurt one another, Weinzweig gives us a world suspended in time, an uneasy territory of the soul, which we all inhabit.

This edition features a new introduction by Jim Polk.

The Bush Garden by Northrop Frye

Available August 26

Originally published by Anansi in 1971, The Bush Garden features Northrop Frye’s timeless essays on Canadian literature and painting.

In this cogent collection of essays written between 1943 and 1969, formidable literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye explores the Canadian imagination through the lens of the country’s artistic output: prose, poetry, and paintings. In the collection, Frye offers insightful commentary on the works that shaped a “Canadian sensibility,” and includes a comprehensive survey of the landscape of Canadian poetry throughout the 1950s, including astute criticism of the work of E. J. Pratt, Robert Service, Irving Layton, and many others.

Written with clarity and precision, The Bush Garden is a significant cache of literary criticism that traces a pivotal moment in the country’s cultural history, and the evolution of Frye’s thinking at various stages of his career. These essays are evidence of Frye’s brilliance, and cemented his reputation as Canada’s — and the world’s — foremost literary critic.

The Last Wave by Gillian Best

Available August 26

A beautifully rendered family drama set in Dover, England, between the 1940s and the present day, The Last Wave follows the life of Martha, a woman who has swum the English Channel ten times, and the complex relationships she has with her husband, her children, and her close friends. The one constant in Martha’s life is the sea, from her first accidental baptism to her final crossing of the channel. The sea is an escape from her responsibilities as a wife and a mother; it consoles her when she is diagnosed with cancer; and it comforts her when her husband’s mind begins to unravel.

An intergenerational saga spanning six decades, The Last Wave is a wholly authentic portrait of a family buffeted by illness, intolerance, anger, failure, and regret. Gillian Best is a mature, accomplished, and compelling new voice in fiction.