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Showing 1 - 17 of 17 items
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.Northrop Frye: a biography
By John Ayre. 1989
Northrop Frye authored three of the most influential books of literary criticism and his revolutionary theories established his international fame.…
In this biography, Ayre describes Frye's impoverished childhood and traces the progression of his work. Nominated for the City of Toronto and Trillium Awards.Molière
By Roger Duchêne. 1998
Molière n'a pas laissé de confidences. Pas une lettre, pas un mot. Il a près de quarante ans quand il…
commence à faire parler de lui. Sa vie et son oeuvre font scandale. On l'accuse de ruiner la religion, la famille, la morale. Et d'avoir épousé la fille de sa maîtresse, sa propre fille... Qui ne se priverait pas de le cocufier abondamment. Ses ennemis forgent sa légende noire, ses amis une légende dorée. Cette biographie les replace enfin dans leur contexte. En les prenant au sérieux, sans les tenir pour vraies, en les présentant au lecteur pour qu'il puisse juger à son tour. 1998.Life on the Mississippi (Modern Library)
By Mark Twain. 1994
Memoir of Twain's career as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River in his youth before the Civil War. Twenty-one…
years later he returns for a trip from St. Louis to New Orleans, reminiscing about the changes and the cities he encounters. Includes a history of the river. Originally published in 1883. 1994.Eat, pray, love: one woman's search for everything
By Elizabeth Gilbert. 2007
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her thirties, settles into a large a house with a husband who wants to start a family.…
But she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and determined to find what she's missing. So she begins her quest. In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she finds enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally in Bali, a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to love again. 2007.Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson
By Mitch Albom. 1997
Some twenty years after college, Mitch Albom rekindles his relationship with a former professor who is terminally ill. His weekly…
visits with his dying mentor become a colloquium on the meaning of life, and Albom gains insight into "love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death." Bestseller. 1997.The year of magical thinking
By Joan Didion. 2005
Writer reflects on her emotional response to the unexpected death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, after a visit to…
their comatose daughter. Discusses the shock of suddenly facing a crisis, the memory of their time together as a family, and the meaning of marriage. National Book Award. Bestseller. 2005.With Borges
By Alberto Manguel. 2004
During the 1960s, Manguel, then a teenager, spent many evenings reading to Jorge Luis Borges, a giant of modern literature,…
because Borges had gradually become blind. As the author describes his visits to Borges in his dark, modest apartment, reading out loud and talking about books, we have a privileged look into the inner world of a literary legend, a window into the private life of one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. Winner of the Prix du Livre en Poitou-Charentes 2003.Willie, the life of W. Somerset Maugham: The Life Of W. Somerset Maugham
By Robert Calder. 1989
An examination of writer Maugham's homosexuality and unhappy marriage, his Victorian sense of propriety, his wanderlust, his verbal and financial…
generosity, and his turbulent relationship with his daughter. Winner of the 1989 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 1989.War
By Sebastian Junger. 2010
For one year, in 2007-2008, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the storied 2nd battalion of…
the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he can count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. War is a narrative about combat: the fear of dying, the trauma of killing and the love between platoon-mates who would rather die than let each other down. Violence and strong language. Bestseller. 2010.An "oral biography" consisting of interviews with people who recall Capote's work and personality, beginning with his childhood in Monroeville,…
Alabama. Discussions of his nonfiction "novel" "In cold blood," the social event dubbed the "black-and-white ball," and his whirl on the celebrity circuit. Some strong language. 1997.The right cheek: an autobiography (The French writers of Canada series)
By Claire Martin. 1968
In the second part of her autobiography, the author describes her adolescence and early womanhood in her father's house, one…
of gloom and oppressive brutality. The attitudes of the times towards sex and women are bitterly attacked and ridiculed. Sequel to "In an iron glove" (DC00901). 1975, c1968. Uniform title: Dans un gant de fer, v. 2, La joue droite.The "Oxford English Dictionary" took seventy years to complete and drew upon the minds of thousands of scholars for its…
content. One of its most prolific contributors was Dr. William Chester Minor, an American surgeon who had served in the civil war. The fact that Dr. Minor was insane, and a murderer, was not known to the editor of the dictionary for almost twenty years. 1998.The invisible woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
By Claire Tomalin. 1991
From 1857 until his death in 1870, Charles Dickens had a close relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan. The author…
looks at this and other aspects of the affair and her book aims to show that Ellen was a fascinating person in her own right. 1991.Margin released: a writer's reminiscences and reflections
By J. B Priestley. 1962
Out of Africa (The Modern library of the world's best books)
By Isak Dinesen. 1952
An account of the author's life on a Kenyan coffee plantation, of the natives and their festivals, of big game,…
and of Lulu, the gazelle who came to live on the farm. 1952.This boy's life: a memoir
By Tobias Wolff. 1989