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The woo-woo: how I survived ice hockey, drug raids, demons, and my crazy Chinese family
By Lindsay Wong. 2018
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Biography, Family biography, Women biography, Canadian biography, Canadian authors (Non-fiction), Bestsellers (Non-fiction), Award winning non-fiction
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
A young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family whose members blamed their woes on ghosts and demons…
when in fact they should have been on anti-psychotic meds. Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the "woo-woo"-Chinese ghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessed the woo-woo's sinister effects; at the age of six, she found herself living in the food court of her suburban mall, which her mother saw as a safe haven because they could hide there from dead people, and on a camping trip, her mother tried to light Lindsay's foot on fire to rid her of the woo-woo. The eccentricities take a dark turn, however, when her aunt, suffering from a psychotic breakdown, holds the city of Vancouver hostage for eight hours when she threatens to jump off a bridge. And when Lindsay herself starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family. On one hand a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience, and on the other a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, 'The Woo-Woo' is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself. Bestseller. Canada Reads 2019. Winner of the 2019 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize. 2018.
Ayesha at last: a novel
By Uzma Jalaluddin. 2018
Braille (Contracted), Electronic braille (Contracted), DAISY audio (Direct to player), DAISY audio (Zip)
Canadian fiction, Canadian authors (Fiction), Multi-cultural fiction
Human-narrated audio, Human-transcribed braille
Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching…
job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn't want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and dresses like he belongs in the seventh century. When a surprise engagement between Khalid and Hafsa is announced, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and his family, and the truth she realizes about herself. But Khalid is also wrestling with what he believes and what he wants. And he just can't get this beautiful, outspoken woman out of his mind. 2018.