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The crack in the teacup: the life of an old woman steeped in stories
By Joan Bodger. 2000
Gestalt therapist, story-teller, teacher, writer, children's book editor, director of the first Headstart Program in New York State, Joan Bodger…
is a woman whose life has always been intertwined with stories. Her biography depicts how a life -- and a century -- can be shaped and given meaning by personal mythology, how the power of stories can repair a shattered life. While describing her own life she also includes sharp observations of the nuances of class, racial prejudice, and regional and national differences. Some strong language. 2000.The book of revenge: a blues for Yugoslavia
By Dragan Todorović. 2006
Serb Dragan Todorovic goes to Belgrade as the editor of a cultural magazine, but his constant clashes with the system…
end in his being drafted into the army. Dragan survives his tour of duty, but his return to Belgrade is unsettling - everything is changing, friendships are collapsing, conversations are guarded, and bit by bit, the country he knows and loves is being torn apart. Some strong language. 2006.The bookseller of Kabul
By Åsne Seierstad. 2003
Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict there. In the…
following spring she returned to live with an Afghan family for several months. For more than 20 years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they Communist or Taliban - in order to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the Communists, and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. 2003.Stolen continents: the new world through Indian eyes since 1492
By Ronald Wright. 1992
Shadow maker: the life of Gwendolyn MacEwen
By Rosemary Sullivan. 1995
Using the personal impressions of the poet's intimate friends, Rosemary Sullivan builds a composite portrait of Gwendolyn MacEwan, the Toronto…
poet who died in 1987 at the age of 46. The daughter of an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother, MacEwen's story is a painful one, yet the richness of her art and inner life redeemed the pain. Winner of the 1995 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction.Remembering Peter Gzowski: a book of tributes
By Edna Barker. 2002
This book is a celebration of Peter Gzowski's life and of the enormous role he played in Canadian life. It…
collects tributes from friends and colleagues, and from grieving strangers who had been touched by him in one of the roles that provide us with the chapters in this book: as a writer in newspapers, magazines, or books; as a radio broadcaster; on camera; as a lover of Canada; and as a father, relative, or trusted friend. 2002.Raymond Chandler: a biography
By Tom Hiney. 1997
Chandler created the famous fictional detective Philip Marlowe, whose many investigations in print also made it to the big screen.…
Chandler's own life was centred around his wife Cissy, 18 years his senior. After she died, he embarked on a manic globe-trotting spree that was risky and peppered with chance encounters. 1997.Randy Bachman: takin' care of business
By John Einarson, Randy Bachman. 2000
A biography of rock guitarist Randy Bachman, from his early days in Winnipeg, to his years with the Guess Who…
and BTO. A songwriter, producer, guitarist, and session player, Bachman has played an integral role in the evolution and growth of the Canadian music industry. Some strong language. 2000.Paper shadows: a Chinatown childhood
By Wayson Choy. 1999
This is a memoir of the author's childhood days in Vancouver's Chinatown, during the 1930s and 1940s. He is able…
to piece together deeply held family secrets that came from China in the form of "paper shadows." With an engaging style, he reveals the link between these secrets and his own life. Some strong language. Canada Reads 2012. 1999.One dead Indian: the premier, the police, and the Ipperwash crisis
By Peter Edwards. 2001
On September 4, 1995, several Stoney Point Natives entered Ipperwash Provincial Park, near Sarnia, Ontario, and began a peaceful protest…
aimed at reclaiming a traditional burial ground. Within 72 hours, one of the protestors was dead, shot by an OPP officer. Six years later, Peter Edwards investigates the event. 2001.Lives of mothers & daughters: growing up with Alice Munro
By Sheila Munro. 2001
An intimate biography of Alice Munro. It describes in a way that only a close relative could, the details of…
her family background, from the Laidlaws who left Scotland in the early 19th century, to Alice Munro's birth in 1931, her early years and marriage all the way to the current family. The constant echoes of settings, situations, and characters that occur in her fiction make this an informative commentary to Munro's works.L. M. Montgomery, the creator of Anne of Green Gables and author of more than 20 books, is a household…
name the world over. "Anne of Green Gables" has been translated into 40 different languages and immortalized on film. Montgomery was determined to be a writer, despite the loss of her mother at an early age, her strict and lonely upbringing, and years of doubt and rejection. 2004.Lake of the prairies: a story of belonging
By Warren Cariou. 2002
Cariou's memoir on growing up in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, where he witnessed the discrimination, anger and fear directed at the…
town's Cree and Métis populations by the European settlers. While he has absorbed these prejudices as his own, he is forced to confront the politics of race as an adult. Then, he discovers secrets that his family had kept hidden for generations, secrets that would alter forever his sense of identity and belonging in Meadow Lake. Winner of the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize of the 2003 Writers' Trust of Canada Awards. 2002.Jane Austen (A Penguin life)
By Carol Shields. 2001
In this literary biography, writer Carol Shields throws light on the works of the nineteenth-century English novelist, Jane Austen. Discusses…
the private woman, describing the quiet personal life of a "stern moralist" who wrote "marriage novels" but never married. Canada Reads 2012.Inside memory: pages from a writer's workbook
By Timothy Findley. 1990
This collection of essays, journalistic pieces and diary entries provides a glimpse into the mind of author Timothy Findley. He…
describes his unusual research methods and gives his impressions and thoughts about other literary figures. Includes a portion of "Famous last words" which was removed before publication. Some strong language. Bestseller 1991. Nominated for the 1993 Talking Book of the Year Torgi Award.Byron, the flawed angel: The Flawed Angel
By Phyllis Grosskurth. 1997
The first full-scale biography of Lord Byron published in over forty years. Grosskurth portrays the fascinating, complex, and extraordinary figure…
who, during his life, was the most notorious man in Europe and remains one of the greatest and most entertaining poets of any age. 1997.Charles Dickens: his life and his work
By Stephen Leacock. 1933
Stephen Leacock's biography of the great novelist was, not surprisingly, the first to explore the humour as well as the…
morality of Dickens' novels. Readable, entertaining, and insightful, this biography is a classic work, admirable for both its subject and author. 2004, c1933.Here be dragons: telling tales of people, passions and power
By Peter C Newman. 2005
Peter C. Newman's autobiography, from his youth as a pampered child in a Czech chateau; to the Jewish kid in…
short pants being machine-gunned by Nazi fighter planes on the beach at Biarritz, en route to the last ship to escape France in 1940; to a refugee in Canada. He became a journalist and author, writing about Canadian politics, history and business while working as an editor at the Toronto Star and Maclean's. Seeing himself as the perennial outsider, Newman discusses his marriages, enthusiasms, and the controversies that constantly embroil him. 2005.From Stone Orchard: a collection of memories
By Timothy Findley. 1998
In the 1960s, Timothy Findley and his partner, William Whitehead, moved to a gently tumbling-down 19th-century farmhouse in southern Ontario.…
It was here that Findley wrote some of his most well known novels. Findley presents reflections on their home, Stone Orchard, some published before, others new. 1998.Flowers on my grave: how an Ojibwa boy's death helped break the silence on child abuse
By Ruth Teichroeb. 1997
In 1988, a 13-year-old Ojibwa boy named Lester Desjarlais committed suicide. Journalist Ruth Teichroeb covered the inquest into his death,…
which was scheduled for one day, but which lasted three months. She relates what happened to Lester as he left the Sandy Bay First Nations reserve and found himself in a maze of foster homes, mental hospitals, and treatment centres. Sexual content and descriptions of violence. 1997.