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Showing 1 - 16 of 16 items
Sophia Tolstoy: a biography
By Alexandra Popoff. 2010
As Leo Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Tolstoy experienced both glory and condemnation during their forty-eight-year marriage. Drawing on newly available archival…
material, including Sophia's unpublished memoir, Alexandra Popoff presents a dramatically different and accurate portrait of the woman and the marriage. Some descriptions of sex. c2010.Profit is not the cure: a citizen's guide to saving medicare
By Maude Barlow. 2002
Activist Maude Barlow traces the history of medicare in Canada, which began in 1966. She compares it with both public…
and private systems in other parts of the world, and describes the proponents of privatization in Canada. Barlow argues against the notion that medicare is a luxury that Canadians can no longer afford. 2002.Mises au jeu: les sports féminins à Montréal, 1919-1961
By Élise Detellier. 2015
" À Montréal au début du siècle dernier, des bourgeoises anglo-protestantes montaient à bicyclette, en dépit des diktats et des…
réticences de certains médecins craignant que cette activité puisse mener à l'orgasme. Les risques qu'encouraient les nouvelles sportives étaient multiples: attiser les passions de la chair, nuire à leur vertu, s'éloigner du foyer ou, pire, devenir masculines. Pour les Canadiennes françaises, l'accès au sport se fit plus tard, à la faveur de l'ouverture en 1919 de la Palestre nationale rue Cherrier. La toute-puissante Église catholique, avec ses idées bien arrêtées sur la vocation d'épouse et de mère, est-elle seule responsable de ce délai? Le nationalisme canadien-français qui imprégnait la Palestre nationale aurait-il freiné l'essor des sports féminins? Et parallèlement, la non-mixité au YWCA aura-t-elle permis aux anglophones d'exceller? Si le sport est le lieu par excellence où se définit l'identité masculine, la participation des femmes ne s'est pas faite sans heurts. Ce livre révèle l'histoire méconnue et foisonnante des sports féminins à Montréal durant la première moitié du 20e siècle. En plus d'analyser les discours des médecins, des professeur.e.s d'éducation physique, des clercs de l'Église catholique et des sportives, Mises au jeu fait revivre les pratiques d'une autre époque et nous fait découvrir des figures marquantes dont Myrtle Cook et Cécile Grenier. " -- 4e de couv.Minerva's stepchild (Autobiography ; #3)
By Helen Forrester. 1979
The Forrester family are slowly winning their fight for survival, but for 14 year old Helen, the battle is with…
her parents: to be allowed to lead her own life, after the years of neglect and inadequate schooling while she cared for her six younger siblings. She struggles against illness, caused by severe malnutrition and dirt, and the selfish demands of her parents, with amazing courage and perseverance. Sequel to "By the waters of Liverpool" (DC29720), followed by "Lime Street at two" (DC29719). 1979. (Autobiography ; 3)I saw three Chinas: one Canadian's experience in China, 1909-1989
By Molly Phillips. 1990
Born in Hong Kong in 1909, the author has witnessed the three modern eras of Chinese history: the final days…
of the Imperial Ching dynasty; the republican rule of Chiang Kai-Shek; and Communist rule since 1949. She describes the people, culture, and history of China as she experienced them. 1990.Bobbi Lee, Indian rebel: Indian Rebel
By Lee Maracle. 1990
The majority of this book, originally published in the 1970s, is an account of the author's early years as a…
native woman in Vancouver, California and Toronto. Filled with anger, pain and apathy, she found the strength to turn her life around.Another winter, another spring: a love remembered
By Louise de Kiriline Lawrence. 1987
Louise de Kiriline Lawrence describes her aristocratic Swedish childhood during the 1890s, her gruelling experiences as a Red Cross nurse,…
her passionate marriage to a Russian army officer, and her heartbreak during the Russian Revolution. 1987.An accidental Canadian: reflections on my home and (not) native land
By Margaret Wente. 2004
Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente traces her true-life coming-of-age as an expatriate American in suburban Toronto. She also comments,…
often comically, on such topics as Google, day spas, obesity, building your own home, and so-called Canadian royalty, chiefly Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul and Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel. 2004.A war bride's story: risking it all for love after World War II (Amazing stories)
By Cynthia J Faryon. 2004
Gwendolyn Cramer was one of 48,000 war brides transported to Canada between 1942 and 1947. Many of them were escorted…
across the ocean and handed over to their husbands with nothing more than a handshake and a cookbook. Following her heart to rural Saskatchewan, Gwen felt like a fish out of water, unable to milk a cow or cook on a wood stove, and then she had her in-laws to contend with. Some descriptions of violence. 2004.The sleeping buddha: the story of Afghanistan through the eyes of one family
By Hamida Ghafour. 2007
In 2003, journalist Ghafour was sent to Afghanistan, which she had fled in 1981, to cover the country's reconstruction. In…
a place totally changed from the world her parents had described, she discovered a school which teaches women a new kind of independence, her cousin's determined parliamentary campaign, and the archaeologist digging for his country's lost civilization in the form of a giant sleeping Buddha. Some descriptions of violence. 2007.Too close to the falls
By Catherine Gildiner. 1999
A coming of age memoir about growing up in Lewiston, New York, in the 1950's. Though told with humour, the…
author underscores the dark side of what at first seems a Norman Rockwell existence. Her reminiscences include stories about her mother - with her intellectual preoccupations and aversion to housework and visiting neighbours, she is an emblem of prefeminist frustration, and Hollywood - Gildiner delivered sleeping pills to Marilyn Monroe on the set of Niagara. Strong language. Canada Reads 2012. 1999.In search of pure lust: a memoir
By Lise Weil. 2018
When Lise Weil came out in 1976, lesbian desire was the pulsing center of an entire way of life, a…
culture, a movement. The air throbbed with possibility. But after fifteen years of torrid but ultimately failed relationships, Weil had to admit that desire was also a conduit for childhood wounds--and it tended to trump love, over and over again. When a friend invited her to attend a Zen retreat in the mid-'80s, she was desperate enough to say yes. Her first day of sitting zazen was mostly hell--but, smitten with the (female) roshi, she stuck with it. Ultimately, the dive into Zen practice became a turning point in her quest for love. 2018.Red land, Yellow River: a story from the Cultural Revolution
By Ange Zhang. 2004
In 1966, Zhang was a teen in Beijing when Mao Zedong began the Cultural Revolution. Though he was the son…
of a "bad guy" (a famous writer), he became swept up in the revolution, until the violence and his father's arrest made him question its goals. In 1968 was sent to a small village to learn how to farm, where he discovered his true calling - art. Some descriptions of violence. Grades 2-4 and older readers. 2004.Les cahiers noirs de l'aliéniste: 1, Dans le quartier des agités (GF (Alire (Firme)))
By Jacques Côté. 2010
« Paris, juillet 1889... À vingt-sept ans, Georges Villeneuve a terminé ses études en médecine. Désireux de se spécialiser en…
médecine légale des aliénés, il quitte le Québec pour se rendre à Paris où il aura la chance d’étudier avec les plus grands aliénistes de l’époque, Valentin Magnan à l’asile Sainte-Anne et Jean-Martin Charcot à la Salpêtrière... Mais dès la première journée du Congrès international de médecine mentale de Paris, qui se tient à l’asile Sainte-Anne, Villeneuve est témoin de l’admission dramatique d’un patient atteint d’une sévère intoxication à l’absinthe. Quand Magnan apprend que la police croit ce malade dangereux et veut s’en emparer pour l’accuser de meurtre – ce serait le fameux « coupeur de nattes » dont la presse parle tant depuis des mois –, il demande à son jeune élève de veiller sur lui, mais aussi de mener sa propre enquête... » -- 4e de couvAu nord de nos vies: récits (Étoiles variables)
By Jean Désy. 2006
Au nord de nos vies présente un tableau sans complaisance de la vie et de la mentalité des Nordiques. C'est…
un recueil à la fois simple et infiniment touchant. On y rencontre des enfants, des adolescents, des vieillards. On y parle de la maladie, des suicides, du désespoir. Et pourtant il se dégage de ces textes quelque chose qui ressemble au souffle de la vie. -- 4e de couvLe morveux: roman (Hamac)
By Guildor Michaud. 2006
"Coincé entre un père colérique et une mère inquiète, le jeune Simon Francœur est pauvre, il le sait. Dans leur…
taudis d'un petit village blotti au fond du Nouveau-Brunswick, il affronte la misère, les quolibets. Il est le morveux. Seule Stéphanie lui offre sa complicité. Il se réfugie dans la lecture, moyen d'apprendre et de s'évader. Sa famille déménage, il découvre une autre école, une autre façon d'apprendre. De fil en aiguille, il affronte son avenir et marche à la rencontre de son destin. Le creuset de son indigence n'a pas raison de ses ambitions. Le Morveux n'est pas que l'histoire d'un homme qui, à force de volonté, réussit à s'affranchir de la médiocrité. C'est aussi une grande et belle histoire d'amour qui franchit toutes les frontières, même celle de la mort." -- 4e de couv