Non-Fiction
ISBN-13: 978-1-997508151
$21.95 CDN / $19.95 US | Trade Paperback
June 2026
Pulling from twenty-five years of essays, articles, and reviews, Alex Boyd’s Take This for the Pain is a curious look at art and culture in a rapidly changing world. Boldly tackling topics ranging from faith to aging to work in factories and bookshops, Boyd’s work finds inspiration in the philosophies of writers like George Orwell, William Stafford, and Charlotte Brontë. If you’ve ever wondered about the value of poetry in the 21st century, or whether graffiti is a valid art form, Take This for the Pain reveals how art can reinforce selfhood and galvanize social change. Moreover, it includes a range of reviews that covers a number of overlooked, deeply worthy books that will prove interesting to any book lover.
Alex Boyd is a writer who has embraced befuddlement—at the world, and the weirdoes inside it, at the systems under which we labour and lament. These essays are wise, full of wit, and—most important—a blast to read. Some of the fun is in watching a guy stumble through the seasons of life, learning, unlearning, considering, reconsidering. Some of it’s in seeing him hold on, heroically, to unhip ideas like the power of books to set our minds right. Reading Take This for the Pain is like eavesdropping on a chat between brilliant disembodied brains—the author, the progenitors who fed and watered his writing, and his cohort, with whose work he so energetically wrestles. You’ll want to chime in, pile on—agree, disagree, nod your head, frown—and that’s part of the fun too.—David Whitton, author of Seven Down
