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If I Knew Then: Finding wisdom in failure and power in aging
By Jann Arden. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLERJann Arden--bestselling author, recording artist and late-blooming TV star--is back with this funny, heartfelt and fierce memoir on becoming…
a woman of a certain age. The power, gravity and freedom she's found at fifty-seven are superpowers she believes all of us can unleash.Digging deep into her strengths, her failures and her losses, Jann Arden brings us an inspiring account of how she has surprised herself, in her fifties, by at last becoming completely her own person. Like many women, it took Jann a long time to realize that trying to be pleasing and likeable and beautiful in the eyes of others was a loser's game. Letting it rip, and damning the consequences, is not only liberating, it's a hell of a lot of fun: "Being the age I am--that so many women are--is just the best time of my life." Jann weaves her own story together with tales of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, and the father she came close to hating, to show her younger self--and all of us--that fear and avoidance is no way to live. "What I'm thinking about now aren't all the ways I can try to hang on to my youth or all the seconds ticking by in some kind of morbid countdown to death," she writes, "but rather how I keep becoming someone I always hoped I could be. If I'm lucky one day a very old face will look back at me from the mirror, a face I once shied away from. I will love that old woman ferociously, because she has finally figured out how to live a life of purpose--not in spite of but because of all her mistakes and failures."Dad Up!: Long-Time Comedian. First-Time Father.
By Steve Patterson. 2021
From one of the country's most beloved comedians and host of CBC Radio's incredibly popular program The Debaters comes a…
funny, poignant, and at times unexpectedly wise look at what it means to be a dad in this day and age.Steve Patterson has been thinking about dad-dom for quite a while. In Dad Up! he gives his all to be the best father possible to two young girls while imparting his hard-won wisdom and insights to readers everywhere.The youngest of five boys growing up in an Irish Catholic household, Patterson mines his childhood for any sage advice he might have picked up from his own dad. He talks with candour about the difficulty he and his wife, Nancy, had conceiving, finding humour in their experiences with the fertility clinic's automated phone calls (which Patterson calls "RoboPimp") informing them when Nancy was ovulating. He chronicles the disappointment of failing to get pregnant, only to have the miracle conception take place in Regina during Grey Cup Week, under the guiding spirit of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and comedian Brent Butt (don't ask).From that point on, Steve Patterson assumes full dad-mode, riffing on the biohazard that is changing a diaper, the absolute futility of stuffed animals, becoming a public breastfeeding warrior in the most unexpected of places, and how growing up a little boy in no way prepares you to being a father to little girls.Most importantly, Dad Up! charts the awesome experience of watching tiny infants that you somehow had a hand in creating evolve into confident and crafty little people, and the lessons that they teach along the way.Talking to Canadians: A Memoir
By Rick Mercer. 2021
INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERCanada's beloved comic genius tells his own story for the first time. What is Rick Mercer going…
to do now? That was the question on everyone's lips when the beloved comedian retired his hugely successful TV show after 15 seasons—and at the peak of its popularity. The answer came not long after, when he roared back in a new role as stand-up-comedian, playing to sold-out houses wherever he appeared. And then Covid-19 struck. And his legions of fans began asking again: What is Rick Mercer going to do now? Well, for one thing, he's been writing a comic masterpiece. For the first time, this most private of public figures has turned the spotlight on himself, in a memoir that's as revealing as it is hilarious. In riveting anecdotal style, Rick charts his rise from highly unpromising schoolboy (in his reports "the word 'disappointment' appeared a fair bit") to the heights of TV fame. Along the way came an amazing break when, not long out of his teens, his one-man show Show Me the Button, I'll Push It. Or, Charles Lynch Must Die, became an overnight sensation—thanks in part to a bizarre ambush by its target, Charles Lynch himself. That's one story you won’t soon forget, and this book is full of them. There's a tale of how little Rick helped himself to a tree from the neighbours' garden that's set to become a new Christmas classic. There's Rick the aspiring actor, braving "the scariest thing I have ever done in my life" by performing with the Newfoundland Shakespeare Company; unforgettable scenes with politicians of every variety, from Jean Chretien to George W. Bush to Stockwell Day; and a wealth of behind-the-scenes revelations about the origins and making of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Made in Canada, and Talking to Americans. All leading of course to the greenlighting of that mega-hit, Rick Mercer Report . . . It's a life so packed with incident (did we mention Bosnia and Kabul?) and laughter we can only hope that a future answer to "What is Rick Mercer going to do now?" is: "Write volume two."Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces
By Elamin Abdelmahmoud. 2022
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER From one of the most beloved media personalities of his generation comes a one-of-a-kind reflection on Blackness,…
faith, language, pop culture, and the challenges and rewards of finding your way in the world.Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal—for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections on the many threads that weave together into an identity. Arriving in Canada at age 12 from Sudan, Elamin's teenage years were spent trying on new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to his almost universally white peers. His is a story of yearning to belong in a time and place where expectation and assumptions around race, faith, language, and origin make such belonging extremely difficult, but it's also a story of the surprising and unexpected ways in which connection and acceptance can be found. In this extraordinary debut collection, the process of growing—of trying, failing, and trying again to fit in—is cast against the backdrop of the memory of life in a different time, and different place—a Khartoum being bombed by the United States, a nation seeking to define and understand itself against global powers of infinite reach. Taken together, these essays explore how we pick and choose from our experience and environment to help us in the ongoing project of defining who we are—how, for instance, the example of Mo Salah, the profound grief practices of Islam, the nerdy charm of The O.C.'s Seth Cohen, and the long shadow of colonialism can cohere into a new and powerful whole. With the perfect balance of relatable humor and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves, and most important, what we’re still learning.Who By Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen
By Matti Friedman. 2022
The incredible never-before-told story of Leonard Cohen's 1973 tour of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. "Who by Fire is…
a stunning resurrection of a moment in the life of Leonard Cohen and the history of Israel. It’s the story of a young artist in crisis and a young country at war, and the powerful resonance of the chord struck between them. A beautiful, haunting book full of feeling." —Nicole Krauss, author of To Be a Man In October, 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen – 39 years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end – traveled to the Sinai desert and inserted himself into the chaos and bloodshed of the Yom Kippur War. Moving around the front with a guitar and a pick-up team of local musicians, Cohen dived headlong into the midst of a global crisis and met hundreds of fighting men and women at the worst moment of their lives. His audiences heard him knowing it might be the last thing they heard, and those who survived never forgot what they heard. Cohen’s war tour was an electric cultural moment, one that still echoes today, and one that inspired some of his greatest songs – but a moment that only few knew about, until now. In Who By Fire, Canadian-Israeli journalist Matti Friedman gives us a riveting account of what happened during those weeks in Israel in October, 1973. With access to amazing and never-before-seen material written by Cohen himself, along with dozens of interviews and rare photographs, Friedman revives this fraught and stunning time, presenting an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the artist, and of the young people who heard him sing in the midst of combat. Who By Fire brings us close to one the greatest, most brilliant and charismatic voices of our times, and gives us a rare glimpse of war, faith, and belonging.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.Invites newly independent readers to explore the world of science and ideas with topics that really appeal to kids: What…
makes wind? Where do colors come from? Were pirates real? Filled with lively, well-written articles, vivid graphics, activities, cartoons, and plenty of humor. Grades 2-4.