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The merry heart: selections 1980-1995
By Robertson Davies. 1996
A collection of Robertson Davies' reflections on books, reading, and writing. These essays, book reviews, and other writings, taken from…
a selection which he had planned to publish before his death, reveal Davies at his vintage best. 1996.The library at night
By Alberto Manguel. 2006
An account of Manguel's astonishment at the variety, beauty and persistence of our efforts to shape the world and our…
lives, most notably through something almost as old as reading itself: libraries. The result is both personal and wide-ranging: a study of the mysteries of libraries, a thorough analysis of their history throughout the world, and an esoteric celebration of reading. 2006.Writers talking
By John Metcalf, Claire Wilkshire. 2003
Includes interviews with and commentaries from eight Canadian writers. Listen in to Terry Griggs on where stories come from, Michael…
Winter on writing Newfoundland, and K.D. Miller on being 'an actor who writes'. Also features short stories by these authors. Some descriptions of sex and some strong language. 2003.Translating Montreal: episodes in the life of a divided city
By Sherry Simon. 2006
Taking the perspective of a walker moving through a landscape of neighbourhoods and eras, Simon experiences Montreal as a voyage…
across languages. Using literary passages from the colonial era till today, she traces a history of crossings and intersections around the familiar sites and symbols of the city, describing the development of social relations between linguistic communities, through translations. 2006.The joy of writing: a guide for writers, disguised as a literary memoir
By Pierre Berton. 2003
Pierre Berton shares his own experiences in learning to write and in improving during his writing career. Includes information about…
editors, tips for writer's block, and story development through many drafts. 2003.BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom (Semaphore #15)
By Rinaldo Walcott, Idil Abdillahi. 2019
What does it mean in the era of Black Lives Matter to continue to ignore and deny the violence that…
is the foundation of the Canadian nation state? BlackLife discloses the ongoing destruction of Black people as enacted not simply by state structures, but beneath them in the foundational modernist ideology that underlies thinking around migration and movement, as Black erasure and death are unveiled as horrifically acceptable throughout western culture. With exactitude and celerity, Idil Abdillahi and Rinaldo Walcott pull from local history, literature, theory, music, and public policy around everything from arts funding, to crime and mental health--presenting a convincing call to challenge pervasive thought on dominant culture's conception of Black personhood. They argue that artists, theorists, activists, and scholars offer us the opportunity to rethink and expose flawed thought, providing us new avenues into potential new lives and a more livable reality of BlackLife.No More Nice Girls: Gender, Power, and Why It’s Time to Stop Playing by the Rules
By Lauren McKeon. 2020
A groundbreaking, insightful book about women and power from award-winning journalist Lauren McKeon, which shows how women are disrupting the…
standard (very male) vision of power, ditching convention, and building a more equitable world for everyone.In the age of girl bosses, Beyoncé, and Black Widow, we like to tell our little girls they can be anything they want when they grow up, except they’ll have to work twice as hard, be told to “play nice,” and face countless double standards that curb their personal, political, and economic power. Women today remain a surprisingly, depressingly long way from gender and racial equality. It’s worth asking: Why do we keep playing a game we were never meant to win?Award-winning journalist and author of F-Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism, Lauren McKeon examines the many ways in which our institutions are designed to keep women and other marginalized genders at a disadvantage. In doing so, she reveals why we need more than parity, visible diversity, and lone female CEOs to change this power game. She talks to people doing power differently in a variety of sectors and uncovers new models of power. And as the toxic, divisive, and hyper-masculine style of leadership gains ground, she underscores why it’s time to stop playing by the rules of a rigged game.Resilience Is Futile: The Life and Death and Life of Julie Lalonde
By Julie S. Lalonde. 2020
For over a decade, Julie Lalonde, an award-winning advocate for women’s rights, kept a secret. She crisscrossed the country, denouncing…
violence against women and giving hundreds of media interviews along the way. Her work made national headlines for challenging universities and taking on Canada’s top military brass. Appearing fearless on the surface, Julie met every interview and event with the same fear in her gut: was he there?Fleeing intimate partner violence at age 20, Julie was stalked by her ex-partner for over ten years, rarely mentioning it to friends, let alone addressing it publicly. The contrast between her public career as a brave champion for women with her own private life of violence and fear meant a shaky and exhausting balancing act.Resilience sounds like a positive thing, so why do we often use it against women? Tenacity and bravery might help us survive unimaginable horrors, but where are the spaces for anger and vulnerability?Resilience is Futile is a story of survival, courage and ultimately, hope. But it’s also a challenge to the ways we understand trauma and resilience. It’s the story of one survivor who won’t give up and refuses to shut up.Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture under Late Capitalism
By Daphne B., Alex Manley. 2021
A nuanced, feminist, and deeply personal take on beauty culture and YouTube consumerism, in the tradition of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets…
As Daphné B. obsessively watches YouTube makeup tutorials and haunts Sephora’s website, she’s increasingly troubled by the ways in which this obsession contradicts her anti-capitalist and intersectional feminist politics. In this poetic treatise, she rejects the false binaries of traditional beauty standards and delves into the celebrities and influencers, from Kylie to Grimes, and the poets and philosophers, from Anne Boyer to Audre Lorde, who have shaped the reflection she sees in the mirror. At once confessional and essayistic, Made-Up is a meditation on the makeup that colours, that obscures, that highlights who we are and who we wish we could be. The original French-language edition was a cult hit in Quebec. Translated by Alex Manley—like Daphné, a Montreal poet and essayist—the book’s English-language text crackles with life, retaining the flair and verve of the original, and ensuring that a book on beauty is no less beautiful than its subject matter. “The most radical book of 2020 talks about makeup. Radical in the intransigence with which Daphne B hunts down the parts of her imagination that capitalism has phagocytized. Radical also in its rejection of false binaries (the authentic and the fake, the futile and the essential) through the lens of which such a subject is generally considered. With the help of a heady combination of pop cultural criticism and autobiography, a poet scrutinizes her contradictions. They are also ours.” —Dominic Tardif, Le Devoir “[Made-Up] is a delight. I read it in one go. And when, out of necessity, I had to put it down, it was with regret and with the feeling that I was giving up what could save me from a catastrophe.” —Laurence Fournier, Lettres Québécoises, five stars "Made-Up is a radiant, shimmering blend of memoir and cultural criticism that uses beauty culture as an entry point to interrogating the ugly contradictions of late capitalism. In short, urgent chapters laced with humor and wide-ranging references, Daphné B. plumbs the depths of a rich topic that’s typically dismissed as shallow. I imagine her writing it in eye pencil, using makeup to tell the story of her life, as so many women do." —Amy Berkowitz, author of Tender Points "A companion through the thicket of late stage capitalism, a lucid and poetic mirror for anyone whose image exists on a screen." —Rachel Kauder Nalebuff "Made-Up is anything but—committed to the grit of our current realities, Daphné B directs her piercing eye on capitalism in an intimate portrayal of what it means to love, and how to paint ourselves in the process. Alex Manley has gifted English audiences with a nuanced translation of a critical feminist text, exploring love and make-up as a transformative social tool." —Sruti Islam "The book will leave you both laughing in recognition and wincing at the reality of the beauty world’s impact on our collective psyche." —Chatelaine d"[Made-Up] examines the intersection of beauty culture and consumer culture... Aided by the work of writers like Anne Carson, Anne Boyer, Amanda Hess, and Arabelle Sicardi... B. makes sharp observations about the ideologies behind both beauty [...] and consumerism." —Bitch Media "Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture under Late Capitalism is well worth reading." —Literary Review of Canada "[Made-Up], newly translated by writer/poet Alex Manley from its original French, puts an iTelling stories specific to Columbia Plateau farmers and farmland, this journalist puts the lives and difficulties of individual farmers into…
national and global contexts. He interweaves family narratives, historical episodes and his own experience as a young harvest hand to illuminate the transformation of rural America from the 19th to 21st centuryStranger faces (Undelivered Lectures)
By Namwali Serpell. 2020
Professor of English at Harvard University presents five essays--intended for lectures--meditating on faces, the presentation of self in physical and…
digital spaces, and perceptions of meaning. Topics include Joseph Merrick, Hannah Crafts, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Grizzly Man, and the term e-faced. Some violence and some strong language. 2020American originality: essays on poetry
By Louise Glück. 2017
Collection of twenty essays by the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of Poems 1962-2012 (DB…
79850). Essays examine poetry and poets. The title essay deconstructs the relationship between creativity and white America's myth of itself. Some strong language. Nobel Prize. 2017Midnight assassin: a murder in America's heartland
By Thomas Wolf, Patricia L. Bryan. 2005
In December 1900, a prosperous Iowa farmer was murdered in his bed--killed by two blows of an ax to his…
head. Four days later, the victim's wife, Margaret Hossack, was arrested and charged with the crime. The community was split by the trial which was covered by young journalist Susan Glaspell, later an acclaimed writer. Co-author is Thomas Wolf. Unrated. 2005Laugh-out-loud jokes for kids: 3 Books (Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids)
By Rob Elliott, Gearbox. 2017
Three joke books, written between 2017 and 2019, each featuring a different theme. Includes Laugh-Out-Loud Awesome Jokes for Kids, Laugh-Out-Loud…
Road Trip Jokes for Kids, and Laugh-Out-Loud Springtime Jokes for Kids. For grades 2-4. 2019The selected works of Audre Lorde
By Audre Lorde, Roxane Gay. 2020
Collection of essays and poems by the author of A Burst of Light (DB 91119) exploring being black, a woman,…
a lesbian, and the intersection of those identities. Edited by and includes an introduction from Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist (DB 80463). Violence and strong language. 2020Deck the halls, we're off the walls!: A Christmas Holiday Book For Kids (My Weird School Special)
By Dan Gutman, Jim Paillot. 2013
The condition of secrecy: selected essays
By Susanna Nied, Inger Christensen. 2018
Collection of eighteen essays originally published in Danish between 1964 and 1994. In "Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity in the Summer…
Cottage," Christensen (1935-2009) reflects on spending summers at her family's cottage--which was in a community controlled by her father's union--during World War II. 2018Letterman: the last giant of late night
By Jason Zinoman. 2017
A comedy critic for the New York Times examines the career of comedian and TV host David Letterman, especially his…
many years as host of two consecutive groundbreaking late-night TV shows. Includes interviews with Letterman and his collaborators. Some strong language. 2017Age of anger: a history of the present
By Pankaj Mishra. 2017
The author of From the Ruins of Empire (DB 76629) and The Romantics (DB 52514) explores the origins of the…
great waves of paranoid hatred that persist throughout the world in the early twenty-first century. Also discusses historical periods in which similar trends occurred. 2017Double bind: women on ambition
By Robin Romm. 2017
A collection of twenty-four essays examining perceptions of ambitious women and the ways that many societies discourage women from having…
ambition. Includes essays from Pam Houston, Roxane Gay, Francine Prose, Molly Ringwald, and others. Some strong language. 2017