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Showing 1 - 20 of 52 items
By Stephanie Danler. 2020
From the bestselling author of Sweetbitter , a memoir of growing up in a family shattered by lies and addiction,…
and of one woman's attempts to find a life beyond the limits of her past. Stray is a moving, sometimes devastating, brilliantly written and ultimately inspiring exploration of the landscapes of damage and survival. After selling her first novel—a dream she'd worked long and hard for—Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery. After years in New York City she's pulled home to Southern California by forces she doesn't totally understand, haunted by questions of legacy and trauma. Here, she works toward answers, uncovering hard truths about her parents and herself as she explores whether it's possible to change the course of her history. Lucid and honest, heart-breaking and full of hope, Stray is an examination of what we inherit and what we don't have to, of what we have to face in ourselves to move forward, and what it's like to let go of one's parents in order to find a peace—and family—of one's ownBy Louie Anderson. 1989
Stand-up comic Louie Anderson's letters to his deceased father are an effort to exorcize the demons of a childhood spent…
with an alcoholic father. For Anderson, a member of Adult Children of Alcoholics, his letters were a journey of self-discovery in which he came to understand that his own addiction to food stemmed from his father's addiction to alcohol. Some strong languageBy Herbert Mitgang. 1988
A correspondent for the "New York Times," with a background in Army Air Corps counterintelligence during World War II, brings…
to light the policies and procedures by which the FBI developed dossiers on authors thought to be subversive. His purpose is to demonstrate how dangerous the practice is--damaging not only to individual freedom, but also to national valuesBy Eleanor Agnew. 1999
The authors share their personal accounts along with the memories and experiences of hundreds of women who are the daughters…
of alcoholic mothers. Co-author is Sharon Robideaux, foreword by Dr. Robert J. Ackerman. 1999By Ebele Oseye, Ellease Southerland. 2004
Young African American Abeba Williams moves from rural North Carolina to Brooklyn to live with her mother, who dreams of…
a better life. Abeba begins to develop a promising musical talent but soon becomes distracted by marriage and children. Despite economic and social hardships, Abeba perseveres with dignity. 1979By Petie Kladstrup. 2002
Les vignobles faisaient partie des grandes richesses de la France et furent d'abondance pillées par les troupes allemandes d'occupation. L'ouvrage…
raconte comment les vignerons tentèrent de protéger leurs trésors des convoitises nazies. Élaboré à partir de nombreux témoignages, le récit d'épisodes dramatiques dans l'histoire du vin et de sa production. [SDMBy Jean-Pierre Denis. 2002
Hameau de Massip, hiver 1942 : sur le voeu du cardinal Saliège, des enfants juifs pourchassés trouvent refuge dans le…
pensionnat dirigé par deux religieuses, Denise Bergon et Marguerite Roques. Pendant plus de deux ans, près de 80 personnes partageront la vie de cette minuscule école de la campagne aveyronnaise, à l'insu des élèves catholiques et bien sûr de l'occupant. En dépit de multiples alertes, Massip tiendra jusqu'au bout. Durant une commune traversée du siècle, Denise Bergon et Marguerite Roques resteront volontairement dans l'ombre. Elles confient aujourd'hui le plus intime de leur vocation et de leurs combats. Pourquoi avoir choisi de résister à l'heure où tant d'autres se taisaient ? Que reste-t-il de la mémoire alors que disparaissent les derniers témoins ? Comment raconter cette histoire d'amour entre deux religions que l'histoire déchire ? L'auteur est journaliste dans un hebdomadaire catholique. Sa mère faisait partie des enfants juifs cachés à MassipBy Maurice Rajsfus. 2002
Un récit en deux temps: le port obligatoire de l'étoile jaune, imposé en 1942 aux Juifs de la zone occupée…
par la Gestapo mais appliqué par les policiers français; l'arrestation de l'auteur et de sa famille et leur déportation à AuschwitzBy Lori Chambers, Jenny Roth, Minnie Smith. 2011
Minnie Smith's (ca. 1874-1933) feminist domestic novel, Is It Just?, is a harsh critique of the injustices perpetuated by male-dominated…
society and law. Published in 1911, it tells the tragic story of Mary Pierce, who, through the actions of her selfish and lazy husband, loses her land, her social standing, and ultimately her life.In Is It Just?, the conventions of the domestic novel - episodic presentation, stock characters, contrived plots, and romantic conclusions - illustrate the superiority of female values and argue for expanded social, political, and legal rights for women. A critical introduction by Jenny Roth and Lori Chambers frames Smith's specific references to the laws and social geography of British Columbia, situating the novel in relation to its historic and literary importance. This unique work of domestic literature adds to our limited library of Canadian feminist writings of the first wave.By Hilda Glynn-Ward, Patricia Roy. 1974
With tales of a gruesome murder, a typhoid epidemic, corrupt politicians, and a Japanese invasion, The Writing on the Wall…
was intended to shock its readers when it was published in 1921. Thinly disguised as a novel, it is a propaganda tract exhorting white British Columbians to greater vigilance to prevent greedy politicians from selling out to the Chinese and Japanese. It was also designed to convince eastern Canada of British Columbia's need for protections against an onslaught of the 'yellow peril.'This novel is not exceptional in its extreme racism; it reiterates almost every anti-oriental cliché circulating in British Columbia at the time of its publication. While modern readers will find the story horrifying and unbelievable, it is in fact based on real incidents. Many of the views expressed were only exaggerated versions of ideas held throughout the country about non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants. The Writing on the Wall is a vivid illustration of the fear and prejudice with which immigrants were regarded in the early twentieth century.By Robert Barr, Douglas Lochhead. 1973
By Dalya Bilu, Gail Hareven. 2008
From the 2010 winner of the Best Translated Book Award comes a harrowing, controversial novel about a woman's revenge, Jewish…
identity, and how to talk about Adolf Hitler in today's world.Elinor's comfortable life--popular newspaper column, stable marriage, well-adjusted kids--is totally upended when she finds out that her estranged uncle is coming to Jerusalem to give a speech asking forgiveness for his decades-old book, Hitler, First Person.A shocking novel that galvanized the Jewish diaspora, Hitler, First Person was Aaron Gotthilf's attempt to understand--and explain--what it would have been like to be Hitler. As if that wasn't disturbing enough, while writing this controversial novel, Gotthilf stayed in Elinor's parent's house and sexually assaulted her "slow" sister.In the time leading up to Gotthilf's visit, Elinor will relive the reprehensible events of that time so long ago, over and over, compulsively, while building up the courage--and plan--to avenge her sister in the most conclusive way possible: by murdering Gotthilf, her own personal Hilter.Along the way to the inevitable confrontation, Gail Hareven uses an obsessive, circular writing style to raise questions about Elinor's mental state, which in turn makes the reader question the veracity of the supposed memoir that they're reading. Is it possible that Elinor is following in her uncle's writerly footpaths, using a first-person narrative to manipulate the reader into forgiving a horrific crime?Gail Hareven is the author of eleven novels, including The Confessions of Noa Weber, which won both the Sapir Prize for Literature and the Best Translated Book Award.Dalya Bilu is the translator of A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, and many others.By Jane Bradley. 1995
Little Shirley lives in a bewildering home inhabited by her mother, her sister, a younger brother, relatives, a number of…
"Daddies" and an assortment of people who pass through her house. Retreating from this world of exploitation and pain, she pretends that she is a living doll, a perfect Shirley Temple. She carefully constructs an inner life of Barbie dolls, pet cemeteries, and a constant winning smile. But as the years progress, Shirley yearns for a better and different world, and with courage and determination begins to take the first unsettling and painful steps that lead to a re-invention of herself.By Douglas Lochhead, Margaret A. Brown. 1973
This work cannot be fully understood unless the reader is aware of the writer's motives. The book has a twofold…
meaning -- that of a political novel, and that of the portrayal of a great love and a religious drama. As Disraeli in his novels portrayed the political and social conditions of certain eras of his country, in a simple way this work is intended to portray the conditions existing in Canada at an era when the country was in a state of transition, with the idealistic conception of what the government of a country should be, the conception being based upon a knowledge of the inherent principles of Divine Right and upon Plato's Republic of Justice. The scene is laid prior to the last election during Sir John A. Macdonald's administration. There are no great questions at issue, politics are seen in their lowest form; the protective tariff had been adopted, and with the advent of machinery the old order of things was passing away; the new order had not yet brought any great issues before the people, and the election, commonly called the "Old Flag" election, was run merely on a sentiment of loyalty to the motherland. "My Lady of the Snows" is a woman who has been born "great," and one who has based her life on principles rather than the emotions, or Plato's theory that the emotions should remain subservient to the will.By Douglas Lochhead, Alexander Begg. 1973
By Michael Gnarowski, Patrick Slater. 2008
Folktale, memoir, fiction, literary hoax, The Yellow Briar is all of these. Ostensibly the charming remembrance of an Irish orphan…
who escapes the Great Famine of 1840s Ireland and comes to the New World to seek a fresh start on the streets of Toronto and in the pioneer hinterland of Canada West (Ontario), the book was actually a fictional humbug perpetrated by John Mitchell, a Toronto lawyer, who first published the tale in 1933. Patrick Slater, the protagonist of the "memoir," is said to have died in 1924 but not before setting his saga down on paper. And what an account it is! The Globe and Mail felt that the book "gives a picture of Ontario to be found in no other work of fiction we know and has won for itself a permanent place in Canadian literature." If nothing else, Slater/Mitchell captures perfectly the lilt of the Irish and the wry wisdom of an old soul to paint an affecting portrait of trials and tribulations in a long-ago time.By John Bell. 2006
Short-listed for the 2007 CBA Libris Awards for Book Design of the Year What do Superman, Prince Valiant, Cerebus the…
Aardvark, and Spawn have in common? Their creators Joe Shuster, Harold Foster, Dave Sim, and Todd McFarlane are Canadians. And while many of the cutting-edge talents of contemporary comix and graphic novels are also from Canada artists such as Chester Brown, Seth, Dave Cooper, and Julie Doucet far too few Canadians realize their country had a remarkable involvement with the "funnies" long before. Invaders from the North profiles past and present comic geniuses, sheds light on unjustly neglected chapters in Canadas pop history, and demonstrates how this nation has vaulted to the forefront of international comic art, successfully challenging the long-established boundaries between high and low culture. Generously illustrated with black-and-white and colour comic covers and panels, Invaders from the North serves up a cheeky, brash cavalcade of flamboyant and outrageous personalities and characters that graphically attest to Canadas verve and invention in the world of visual storytelling.By Peggy Webb. 2014
Following in the footsteps of her tiger-taming grandmother, a woman flees her abusive husband to join the circus in this…
masterful, heartfelt work of women's fiction.Peggy Webb won raves for her debut novel, The Tender Mercy of Roses*, with novelist Pat Conroy calling her "a truly gifted writer." Now Webb has crafted a poignant portrayal of a woman on the edge seeking solace in the past.Nobody in the family talks about Ellen's grandmother Lola, who was swallowed up by the circus and emerged as a woman who tamed tigers and got away scot-free for killing her husband. When Ellen's husband, Wayne, beats her nearly to death, she runs to the only place she knows where a woman can completely disappear--the same Big Top that once sheltered her grandmother. Though the circus moves from one town to the next, Wayne tracks it, and Ellen, relentlessly. At the same time, Ellen learns more about her feisty, fiery relative, and the heritage that is hers for the taking--if she dares. With her violent husband hot on her trail, Ellen must learn to stand up and fight for herself, to break the cycle of abuse, and pass down a story of love and redemption to her children.*writing as Anna MichaelsBy Sharon Dennis Wyeth. 2002
Corey and his family have escaped from slavery and the South and are now living in Canada. They own their…
own land, have made new friends, and Corey gets to go to school. But danger still remains across the river in Ohio, where slave-catchers lurk, waiting to capture escaped slaves to bring them back to their former masters.By Lori Chambers, Jenny Roth, Minnie Smith. 2011
Minnie Smith's (ca. 1874-1933) feminist domestic novel, Is It Just?, is a harsh critique of the injustices perpetuated by male-dominated…
society and law. Published in 1911, it tells the tragic story of Mary Pierce, who, through the actions of her selfish and lazy husband, loses her land, her social standing, and ultimately her life.In Is It Just?, the conventions of the domestic novel - episodic presentation, stock characters, contrived plots, and romantic conclusions - illustrate the superiority of female values and argue for expanded social, political, and legal rights for women. A critical introduction by Jenny Roth and Lori Chambers frames Smith's specific references to the laws and social geography of British Columbia, situating the novel in relation to its historic and literary importance. This unique work of domestic literature adds to our limited library of Canadian feminist writings of the first wave.