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Georgetown University professor George O'Brien provides the biographical background of the four masters of Irish literature and an in-depth analysis…
of their greatest works. O'Brien discusses the very qualities that set these works apart and the "Irishness" that characterizes each of them. 2006.
Catherine Cookson's first novel, "Kate Hannigan", was published in 1950. The novel represented the author's triumph over unhappiness - within…
its pages she was exorcising her own demons. Piers Dudgeon unlocks her complex character using her many books as a key and explores with Catherine herself the tortured drama of her personal life and its resolution. 1997.
In 1997, when a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an Alaskan island north of the Canadian border,…
they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. The author braids together the strands of this mystery and brings to life the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida and the harrowing world of logging. Canada Reads 2012. Winner of the 2005 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Bestseller. 2005.
Dual biographies of playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005) and actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962). Traces the couple's disparate family backgrounds and 1956…
marriage. Describes Monroe's role as Miller's muse but posits that her psychological problems and feelings of inadequacy led to their divorce after five years. Some descriptions of sex. 2009.
The true story of author Gilmour's decision to let his 16-year-old son drop out of high school, on the condition…
that the boy agree to watch three films a week with him. Examines how those years changed both their lives. From French New Wave and Kurosawa to De Palma, film noir, and Billy Wilder, Gilmour describes key moments in each film, as he teaches his son about life and the vagaries of growing up through the power of the movies. Strong language and descriptions of sex. Canada Reads 2012. 2007.
Jaber, a Lebanese-British foreign correspondent, describes covering the Gulf War and her personal engagement with an Iraqi family caught in…
the crossfire. Reporting on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jaber took up the cause of hospitalized children wounded in the bombing, and helped start a fund to provide them with better medical attention and supplies. In particular, she learned the extraordinary story of two orphans and decided to adopt them. Some descriptions of violence. 2009.
This is the 1970s autobiography of the journalist and historian whose life and writing influenced many Canadians. British Columbia-raised, his…
life spanned some formative years of the province's political history. As a journalist he met and wrote about many prime ministers, and became recognized as an influential thinker. 1976.
The "Feather Men," so named because of their light touch, were a group of Englishmen recruited to stop an organization…
of contract killers from murdering former members of the Special Air Service. This true story of their vigilante activities during the 1980s is set mainly in Oman and is told in chilling detail with action-packed narrative. Includes violence. 1991.
The Fence documents the true story of a Boston police incident during which an undercover officer was brutally beaten by…
fellow officers who mistook him for a murder suspect. Some strong language and some descriptions of violence. c2009.
Oscar Wilde was a central figure of the fin de siecle, and, in his own words, "a man who stood…
in symbolic relation to his times." He rose to fame in the 1880s and had the world at his feet in the 1890s. It all went wrong when following his love-affair with Lord Alfred Douglas he was persecuted by Douglas' father and sentenced to two years in jail for homosexuality. He spent the last years of his life surrounded by a handful of loyal friends in France but shunned by those who had been his followers in his days of glory. 1997.
This personal history of 27 years, 1959 to 1986, of Afrikaner domination in South Africa charts the response of novelist…
Nadine Gordimer to the crisis of apartheid and the struggle of the blacks to free themselves. 1988.
Drawing on detailed reporting and extensive evidence, English reveals how an entire generation of political exiles, refugees, racketeers, corrupt cops,…
hitmen, and their wives and girlfriends became caught up in an American saga of desperation and empire building, set against the larger backdrop of revolution, exile, and ethnicity. 2018.
Traces the author's journey from the painful deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the United States, where…
she endured five jobs, crime, and a painful marriage before the birth of a daughter inspired her writing career. 2013.
The fourth part of an autobiography of Maya Angelou. Maya becomes immersed in the world of black writers and artists…
in Harlem, working in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King. Sequel to “Singin’ and swingin’ and gettin’ merry like Christmas”, followed by “All God’s children need travelling shoes“. 1986.
When Jean Baird's daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean's instinct was to turn to books. Although she found that the thoughts…
of counsellors, psychologists, and self-help gurus were some help, the works that truly did were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Jean and her husband George Bowering found little from Canadian writers on the subject, and this anthology of original pieces attempts to fill that gap. c2009.
Drawn from reports, letters, witnesses, and the Nobel Prize winner's own 11-year incarceration at Archipelago. This is an intense portrayal…
of the history of the Soviet prison system. Bestseller. 1973. Uniform title: Arkhipelag GULag, 1918-1956.
During his 60 year career, George Woodcock published nearly 150 books, including "Anarchism" and "The crystal spirit," a study of…
George Orwell. He arrived in Canada from Britain in his late thirties and eventually settled in Vancouver. Here his motivation for immigrating, and for giving himself a new personality when he did, are explained in depth using his own papers and interviews with his associates and colleagues. 1998.