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The blind mechanic: the amazing story of Eric Davidson, survivor of the 1917 Halifax Explosion
By Marilyn Elliott, Janet Kitz. 2018
Eric Davidson was a beautiful, fair-haired toddler when the Halifax Explosion struck, killing almost 2,000 people and seriously injuring thousands…
of others. Eric lost both eyes-a tragedy that his mother never fully recovered from. Eric, however, was positive and energetic. He also developed a fascination with cars and how they worked, and he later decided, against all likelihood, to become a mechanic. Assisted by his brothers who read to him from manuals, he worked hard, passed examinations, and carved out a decades-long career. Once the subject of a National Film Board documentary, Eric Davidson was, until his death, a much-admired figure in Halifax. Written by his daughter Marilyn, this book gives new insights into the story of the 1917 Halifax Explosion and contains never-before-seen documents and photographs. Winner of the 2019 The Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction). 2018.Voice: Adam Pottle on writing with deafness. (Writers on writing #2)
By Adam Pottle. 2019
In Voice, Adam Pottle explores the crucial role deafness has played in the growth of his imagination, and in doing…
so presents a unique perspective on a writer's development. Born deaf in both ears, Pottle recounts what it was like growing up in a world of muted sound, and how his deafness has influenced virtually everything about his writing, from his use of language to character and plot choices. Salty, bold, and relentlessly honest, Voice makes us think about writing in entirely new ways and expands our understanding of deafness and the gifts that it can offer. 2019.The Art of Leaving: A Memoir
By Ayelet Tsabari. 2019
WINNER OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH LITERARY AWARD FOR MEMOIRFINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTIONAn unforgettable memoir…
about a young woman who tries to outrun loss, but eventually finds a way home. Ayelet Tsabari was 21 years old the first time she left Tel Aviv with no plans to return. Restless after two turbulent mandatory years in the Israel Defense Forces, Tsabari longed to get away. It was not the never-ending conflict that drove her, but the grief that had shaken the foundations of her home. The loss of Tsabari’s beloved father in years past had left her alienated and exiled within her own large Yemeni family and at odds with her Mizrahi identity. By leaving, she would be free to reinvent herself and to rewrite her own story. For nearly a decade, Tsabari travelled, through India, Europe, the US and Canada, as though her life might go stagnant without perpetual motion. She moved fast and often because—as in the Intifada—it was safer to keep going than to stand still. Soon the act of leaving—jobs, friends and relationships—came to feel most like home. But a series of dramatic events forced Tsabari to examine her choices and her feelings of longing and displacement. By periodically returning to Israel, Tsabari began to examine her Jewish-Yemeni background and the Mizrahi identity she had once rejected, as well as unearthing a family history that had been untold for years. What she found resonated deeply with her own immigrant experience and struggles with new motherhood.Beautifully written, frank and poignant, The Art of Leaving is a courageous coming-of-age story that reflects on identity and belonging and that explores themes of family and home—both inherited and chosen.Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person
By Anna Mehler Paperny. 2019
NATIONAL BESTSELLERAward-winning journalist Anna Mehler Paperny's stunning memoir chronicles with courageous honesty and uncommon eloquence her experience of depression and…
her quest to explore what we know and don't know about this disease that afflicts almost a fifth of the population--providing an invaluable guide to a system struggling to find solutions. As fascinating as it is heartrending, as outrageously funny as it is serious, it is a must-read for anyone impacted by depression--and that's pretty much everybody. Depression is a havoc-wreaking illness that masquerades as personal failing and hijacks your life. After a major suicide attempt in her early twenties, Anna Mehler Paperny resolved to put her reporter's skills to use to get to know her enemy, setting off on a journey to understand her condition, the dizzying array of medical treatments on offer and a medical profession in search of answers. Charting the way depression wrecks so many, she maps competing schools of therapy, pharmacology, cutting-edge medicine, the pill-popping pitfalls of long-term treatment, the glaring unknowns and the institutional shortcomings that both patients and practitioners are up against. She interviews leading medical experts across Canada and the US, from psychiatrists to neurologists, brain-mapping pioneers to family practitioners, and others dabbling in strange hypotheses--and shares compassionate conversations with fellow sufferers.Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me tracks Anna's quest for knowledge and her desire to get well. Impeccably reported, it is a profoundly compelling story about the human spirit and the myriad ways we treat (and fail to treat) the disease that accounts for more years swallowed up by disability than any other in the world.Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)
By Lorna Crozier. 2020
A deeply affecting portrait of a long partnership and a clear-eyed account of the impact of a serious illness, writing…
as consolation, and the enduring significance of poetry from one of Canada's most celebrated voices.When we ran off together in 1978, abandoning our marriages and leaving wreckage in our wake, I was a "promising writer," Patrick had just won the Governor General's Award. I was so happy for him, and I've continued to be every time an honour comes his way, but I knew if I didn't grow, if I remained merely someone who showed potential, we wouldn't last. I swore I wouldn't play the dutiful wife, cheerleader, and muse of the great male writer, and he didn't envision a partner like that. We aspired to flourish together and thrive in words and books and gardens.When Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane met at a poetry workshop in 1976, they had no idea that they would go on to write more than forty books between them, balancing their careers with their devotion to each other, and to their beloved cats, for decades. Then, in January 2017, their life together changed unexpectedly when Patrick became seriously ill. Despite tests and the opinions of many specialists, doctors remained baffled. There was no diagnosis and no effective treatment plan. The illness devastated them both.During this time, Lorna turned to her writing as a way of making sense of her grief and for consolation. She revisited her poems, tracing her own path as a poet along with the evolution of her relationship with Patrick. The result is an intimate and intensely moving memoir about the difficulties and joys of creating a life with someone and the risks and immense rewards of partnership. At once a spirited account of the past and a poignant reckoning with the present, it is, above all, an extraordinary and unforgettable love story. Told with unflinching honesty and fierce tenderness, Through the Garden is a candid, clear-eyed portrait of a long partnership and an acknowledgement, a tribute, and a gift.Soap and Water & Common Sense: The Definitive Guide to Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites, and Disease
By Dr Bonnie Henry. 2020
The definitive guide to fighting coronaviruses, colds, flus, pandemics, and deadly diseases, from one of North America’s leading public health…
authorities, now updated with a new introduction on protecting yourself and others from COVID-19.Dr. Bonnie Henry, a leading epidemiologist (microbe hunter) and public health doctor at the forefront of the fight against the worldwide COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, has spent the better part of the last three decades chasing bugs all over the world — from Ebola in Uganda to polio in Pakistan, SARS in Toronto, and the H1N1 influenza outbreak across North America. Now she offers three simple rules to live by: wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and stay at home when you have a fever.From viruses to bacteria to parasites and fungi, Dr. Henry takes us on a tour through the halls of Microbes Inc., providing up-to-date and accurate information on everything from the bugs we breathe, to the bugs we eat and drink, the bugs in our backyard, and beyond. Urgent and informative, Soap and Water & Common Sense is the definitive guide to staying healthy in a germ-filled world.What Kids Did: Stories of Kindness and Invention In the Time of COVID-19
By Erin Silver. 2020
In the spring of 2020, the Covid-19 virus changed the world and made daily life much more challenging. We had…
to stay apart, away from work, school, and our normal routines. But, all around the world, kids came up with creative and thoughtful ways to help others. From making 3-D printed medical equipment to food bank fundraising to a neighbourhood joke stand, to creating a semi-automatic hand-washing machine, kids made a difference in their communities. Let's celebrate and take inspiration from their stories.Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks that Shaped a Pandemic
By Lynn Henry, Dr Bonnie Henry. 2021
NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom the BC doctor who has become a household name for leading the response to the pandemic, a personal…
account of the first weeks of COVID, for readers of Sam Nutt's Damned Nations and James Maskalyk's Life on the Ground Floor.Dr. Bonnie Henry has been called "one of the most effective public health figures in the world" by The New York Times. She has been called "a calming voice in a sea of coronavirus madness," and "our hero" in national newspapers. But in the waning days of 2019, when the first rumours of a strange respiratory ailment in Wuhan, China began to trickle into her office in British Columbia, these accolades lay in a barely imaginable future.Only weeks later, the whole world would look back on the previous year with the kind of nostalgia usually reserved for the distant past. With a staggering suddenness, our livelihoods, our closest relationships, our habits and our homes had all been transformed.In a moment when half-truths threatened to drown out the truth, when recklessness all too often exposed those around us to very real danger, and when it was difficult to tell paranoia from healthy respect for an invisible threat, Dr. Henry's transparency, humility, and humanity became a beacon for millions of Canadians. And her trademark enjoinder to be kind, be calm, and be safe became words for us all to live by.Coincidentally, Dr. Henry's sister, Lynn, arrived in BC for a long-planned visit on March 12, just as the virus revealed itself as a pandemic. For the four ensuing weeks, Lynn had rare insight into the whirlwind of Bonnie's daily life, with its moments of agony and gravity as well as its occasional episodes of levity and grace. Both a global story and a family story, Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe combines Lynn's observations and knowledge of Bonnie's personal and professional background with Bonnie's recollections of how and why decisions were made, to tell in a vivid way the dramatic tale of the four weeks that changed all our lives.Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe is about communication, leadership, and public trust; about the balance between politics and policy; and, at heart, about what and who we value, as individuals and a society.The authors' advance from the publisher has been donated to charities with a focus on alleviating communities hit particularly hard by the pandemic: True North Aid with its Covid-19 response in Northern Indigenous communities, and First Book Canada, with its focus on reading and literacy for underserved, marginalized youth.Halifax and Me
By Harry Bruce. 2020
In 1971, Harry Bruce, recognized as one of Canada's top non-fiction writers, lost his mind—according to his peers—when he left…
bustling, lucrative Toronto and moved his family to the tough little seaport of Halifax. For the past fifty years, Harry Bruce has been working as what The Concise Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature calls "an impassioned advocate for the Maritimes and an essayist of great charm and perception." Here, writing more charmingly and perceptively than ever, he celebrates the blossoming of Halifax as "A City to Dance In."Lucy Maud Montgomery: Canada's Literary Treasure
By Stan Sauerwein. 2019
Quarantine, What is Old is New
By Ian Arthur Cameron. 2007
Quarantine, What is Old is New by Ian Arthur Cameron, MD, Historian and medical doctor Cameron has produced a gripping…
history of quarantine in Canada, the forgotten story of the men and women who worked to save lives and protect the citizens of this land.A story of the early years of immigration to Canada, and of marine transportation with wooden ships sailing reluctantly into the age of steam. It also details significant aspects of the history of Canada, Nova Scotia and Halifax, and recounts the story of contagious disease in the 19th-20th Centuries. But it is much more than the past, dealing with the future of dread diseases we face today, including SARS, West Nile fever, and the feared influenza pandemics, such as those possible with the latest swine flu (H1N1) or potential bird flu (H5N1). Also contains extensive appendices, medical definitions, and is indexed for history and medicineThe bestselling biography of renowned Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables is available in English for the first time.The…
name Hanako Muraoka is revered in Japan. Her Japanese translation of L. M. Montgomery’s beloved children’s classic Anne of Green Gables, Akage no An (Redhaired Anne) was the catalyst for the book’s massive and enduring popularity in Japan. A book that has since spawned countless interpretations, from manga to a long-running television series, and has remained on Japanese curriculum for half a century. For the first time, the bestselling biography of Hanako Muraoka written by her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka, and translated by the award-winning Cathy Hirano (The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up), is available in English. Born into an impoverished family of tea merchants in rural Japan at the end of the nineteenth century, Hanako Muraoka’s fortunes change dramatically when she is offered a place at an illustrious girls’ school in Tokyo founded by the Methodist Church of Canada. Nurtured by the Canadian missionaries who teach her, she falls in love with English poetry and literature. This love of the written word develops into a passion for writing and translating children’s literature that sustains Hanako through devastating personal tragedies and the tumult of the twentieth century. In 1941, after Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hanako abruptly resigns from her role of reading children’s news over the radio — for which she is known and loved throughout Japan as “Radio Auntie”. Branded as “enemies”, the peace-loving missionaries who nurtured Hanako in her youth and with whom she later worked have been forced to leave the country. But Hanako finds solace in a gift received from a Canadian friend: a copy of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Although it is a book from an “enemy nation”, the story of Anne Shirley brings back vivid memories of precious friends in distant lands, giving Hanako courage and hope for the future. Amidst the wail of air-raid sirens, she begins translating her copy into Japanese in 1943, fully aware that she risks imprisonment and even death if caught. Although she completes the majority of the work by the end of the war, it is only much later that a publisher decides to take a chance on a Canadian author previously unknown in Japan, unwittingly launching a cross-cultural literary legacy that continues to this day. Anne’s Cradle tells the complex and captivating story of a woman who risked her freedom and devoted her life to bringing quality children’s literature to her people during a period of tumultuous change in Japan. Through the gift of Hanako Muraoka’s translations, generations of Japanese readers have fallen in love with a plucky redhead from Prince Edward Island.Nothing Ordinary: The Story of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine
By Larry Krotz. 2021
This is the story of how 800,000 citizens created their own school of medicine, and what it has meant for…
the region and its people.Northern Ontario is a vast territory — almost as big as France and Germany combined — with a widely scattered population the size of only 10% of the rest of the province. Rich in forests, minerals, scenery and brilliant, hardy people, Ontario’s north, like many other rural and remote areas, had difficulties attracting and keeping doctors. The solution, they decided, was to train their own. An astonishing percentage of graduates remain to serve the unique needs of their home communities, from rural, to Indigenous, to Francophone. Over the course of twenty years, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine has transformed healthcare and created a legacy of a school that is far from ordinary.Spílexm: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence
By Nicola I. Campbell. 2021
Captivating and deeply moving, this story basket of memories tells one Indigenous woman’s journey of overcoming adversity and colonial trauma…
to find strength through creative works and traditional perspectives of healing, transformation, and resurgence.This Strange Visible Air: Essays on Aging and the Writing Life
By Sharon Butala. 2021
A collection of essays on women and aging from Canadian legend Sharon Butala "What I didn't have a clue about…
was that I was soon to be old, or what being old would mean to my dreams and desires. While dreading old age with every fibre, I was at the same time in full denial that it would ever happen to me, and so, was shocked down to the soles of my feet when it did." In this incisive collection, Sharon Butala reflects on the ways her life has changed as she's grown old. She knows that society fails the elderly massively, and so she tackles ageism and loneliness, friendship and companionship. She writes with pointed wit and acerbic humour about dinner parties and health challenges and forgetfulness and complicated family relationships and the pandemic -- and lettuce. And she tells her story with the tremendous skill and beauty of a writer who has masterfully honed her craft over the course of her storied four-decade career. Butala gives us a book to be cherished -- an elegant and expansive look at the complexities and desires of aging and the aged, standing in stark contrast to the stereotyped, simplistic portrayals of the elderly in our culture. This Strange Visible Air is a true gift.Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country (Reflections)
By James H. Marsh. 2022
In Know It All: Finding the Impossible Country, James Marsh tells of his evolution from a troubled childhood to a…
career in publishing that culminated in the creation of The Canadian Encyclopedia. Through friendships, curiosity, the insights of a psychiatrist, and the intimate encounters with the authors he met, he championed a diverse and inclusive view of Canada, which was used to draw the great minds of an impossible nation together in a common enterprise.A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré
By John Le Carré. 2022
An archive of letters written by the late John le Carré, giving readers access to the intimate thoughts of one…
of the greatest writers of our time.The never-before-seen correspondence of John le Carré, one of the most important novelists of our generation, are collected in this beautiful volume. During his lifetime, le Carré wrote numerous letters to writers, spies, politicians, artists, actors, and public figures. This collection is a treasure trove, revealing the late author's humour, generosity, and wit—a side of him many readers have not previously seen.The long-awaited sequel to Grant Lawrence’s bestselling memoir Adventures in Solitude. It’s been over a decade since renowned broadcaster and…
indie rock musician Grant Lawrence launched his writing career with the award-winning Adventures in Solitude, yet some things never change—including the winding Sunshine Coast Highway, close calls at the BC Ferries ticket office and carsick children. But this time, Lawrence returns as a husband and father, not as the vomiting and nerdy kid dragged along by his athletic and unflappable parents. In his inimitable, high-voltage style, Lawrence interweaves the rich and harrowing history of the Desolation Sound area with his own experiences of life on the coast. This lively book recounts the life and times of the legendary Cougar Lady, tracks a phantom-like squatter known as the Spaghetti Bandit, and details the bizarre exit and even more bizarre death of Bernard the German. Here too are many of the beloved personalities introduced in Lawrence’s first book, including hippie recluse Russell the Hermit, plus the continued voyages of Big Buck$, the decrepit family boat, and the incredible return of large ocean mammals to Desolation Sound. From a hilarious, heartfelt and slightly wiser voice comes a momentous story of time, family and place whirling around one increasingly ramshackle cabin on a beautiful and not-at-all-desolate coast.Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004-2021
By Margaret Atwood. 2022
NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom cultural icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of essays--funny, erudite, endlessly curious, uncannily prescient--which seek answers to…
Burning Questions such as:Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?How can we live on our planet?Is it true? And is it fair?What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?In over fifty pieces Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humour at the world, and reports back to us on what she finds. This roller-coaster period brought the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump, and a pandemic. From debt to tech, the climate crisis to freedom; from when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to how to define granola, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.Above the Fold: A Personal History of the Toronto Star
By John Honderich. 2022
A remarkable memoir and journalistic history of the Toronto Star, the newspaper that has shaped and continues to shape the…
issues most important to Canadians.Don't let them ruin the newspaper. . . These were the dying words of Beland Honderich to his son, John. The newspaper was the Toronto Star, founded in 1892 by Joseph E. (Holy Joe) Atkinson and, to this day, one of the world’s leading and most respected socially liberal broadsheets. For the second half of its legendary—and sometimes controversial—history, both John and his father, as successive editors, publishers, and family owners, made it into the newspaper we know today. The Star has been, at different times, home base to the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Morley Callaghan, Pierre Berton, June Callwood, Peter C. Newman, Gary Lautens, Robert Fulford, Richard Gwyn, Christie Blatchford, Michele Landsberg, Chantal Hébert, Joey Slinger, and many more. It also brandishes a corporate history unlike any other. In an extraordinary exercise of arbitrary power, the Ontario government held veto power over all of the Star's operations until the paper eventually evolved to the five families of the Torstar Voting Trust, one of which were the Honderichs. And in that process, those families committed in court to observe and promote the intellectual and spiritual basis on which the Star has always operated. Completed just weeks before the author’s untimely death, Above the Fold gives us an on-the-ground account of how the Star, once known primarily for its tabloid sensationalism and screaming headlines, transformed into a bastion of journalistic quality that routinely wins the industry’s highest honours and accolades. Honderich writes about the paper he loved and the challenges it faced over the years, including crippling strikes, boardroom battles, soaring egos, the vicious newspaper wars with various competitors, and, most recently, the shift away from print. He also delves deeply into his relationship with his father, who could be remarkably cold and unfeeling toward his son and others, earning the nickname ”The Beast.” There was great love between the two men but it came at a cost both professionally and, of course, personally. Always worried about accusations of nepotism as he rose to the top job at the paper, John felt he needed to prove himself that much more, which he did—and then some. Honest, frank, generous, and highly informative, Above the Fold is a personal history of one of the most storied and successful newspapers of our time, told through the lives of the father and son who ran it for close to half-a-century.