Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 35212 items
Girls need not apply: field notes from the Forces /
By Kelly S. Thompson. 2019
At eighteen years old, Kelly Thompson enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. Despite growing up in a military family --…
she would, in fact, be a fourth-generation soldier -- she couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't belong. From the moment she arrives for basic training at a Quebec military base, a young woman more interested in writing than weaponry, she quickly realizes that her conception of what being a soldier means, forged from a desire to serve her country after the 9/11 attacks, isn't entirely accurate. A career as a female officer will involve navigating a masculinized culture and coming to grips with her burgeoning feminism. In this compulsively readable memoir, Thompson writes with wit and honesty about her own development as a woman and a soldier, unsparingly highlighting truths about her time in the military. In sharply crafted prose, she chronicles the frequent sexism and misogyny she encounters both in training and later in the workplace, and explores her own feelings of pride and loyalty to the Forces, and a family legacy of PTSD, all while searching for an artistic identity in a career that demands conformity. When she sustains a career-altering injury, Thompson fearlessly re-examines her identity as a soldier. 2019.Talk Money to Me: Save Well, Spend Some, and Feel Good About Your Money
By Kelley Keehn. 2019
Learn how to save and spend wisely, feel good about money, and start living a more balanced life. No matter…
your age, salary, social or relationship status, money is an important part of your life. Yet, somehow, talking about your money situation is hard. Why is it that you know more about what goes on in your friend’s bedroom than with their bank account? Do you know if your parents have a will or or if they’ll leave a legacy? How many of your colleagues are still paying off student debt but are jet-setting around the globe on multiple credit cards? Since no one is talking about it, you can’t be expected to learn how to manage your money on your own. With years of experience as a personal finance advisor and educator, Kelley Keehn will answer your most burning questions about money and will talk you through how to avoid mistakes along the way. You can gain control of your debt, learn to save for your future, have a life, and feel good about money all at the same time. And—spoiler alert—you don’t need a budget to do any of this! You’ll learn: -How to build good credit (and get rid of bad credit—especially credit card debt) -What all these dreaded acronyms mean and how they can work for you—TFSA, RRSP, RESP, CFP, CPP -How and when to invest for your future -How to talk about money with your partner—and everyone else in your life -How to save for a mortgage and then work towards being mortgage-free -How to have fun, splurge once in a while, and still save money With her unique blend of empathy and no-nonsense candor, Kelley takes you through the basics of personal finance with relatable anecdotes that expose the most common money pitfalls—and how to avoid them—so you can make financial decisions that are right for you.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.The Answer Is . . .: Reflections on My Life
By Alex Trebek. 2020
A RECOMMENDED SUMMER READ BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, TIME, AND NEWSWEEK Longtime Jeopardy! host and television icon…
Alex Trebek reflects on his life and career.Since debuting as the host of Jeopardy! in 1984, Alex Trebek has been something like a family member to millions of television viewers, bringing entertainment and education into their homes five nights a week. Last year, he made the stunning announcement that he had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. What followed was an incredible outpouring of love and kindness. Social media was flooded with messages of support, and the Jeopardy! studio received boxes of cards and letters offering guidance, encouragement, and prayers. For over three decades, Trebek had resisted countless appeals to write a book about his life. Yet he was moved so much by all the goodwill, he felt compelled to finally share his story. “I want people to know a little more about the person they have been cheering on for the past year,” he writes in The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life. The book combines illuminating personal anecdotes with Trebek’s thoughts on a range of topics, including marriage, parenthood, education, success, spirituality, and philanthropy. Trebek also addresses the questions he gets asked most often by Jeopardy! fans, such as what prompted him to shave his signature mustache, his insights on legendary players like Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, and his opinion of Will Ferrell’s Saturday Night Live impersonation. The book uses a novel structure inspired by Jeopardy!, with each chapter title in the form of a question, and features dozens of never-before-seen photos that candidly capture Trebek over the years. This wise, charming, and inspiring book is further evidence why Trebek has long been considered one of the most beloved and respected figures in entertainment. Bestseller.Little Leaders: Bold Women In Black History (Vashti Harrison)
By Vashti Harrison. 2017
This beautifully illustrated board book edition of instant bestseller Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History showcases women who changed…
the world and is the perfect goodnight book to inspire big dreams. Featuring 18 trailblazing black women in American history, Dream Big, Little One is the irresistible board book adaptation of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. Among these women, you'll find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn't always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come.If I Knew Then: Finding wisdom in failure and power in aging
By Jann Arden. 2020
NATIONAL BESTSELLERJann Arden--bestselling author, recording artist and late-blooming TV star--is back with this funny, heartfelt and fierce memoir on becoming…
a woman of a certain age. The power, gravity and freedom she's found at fifty-seven are superpowers she believes all of us can unleash.Digging deep into her strengths, her failures and her losses, Jann Arden brings us an inspiring account of how she has surprised herself, in her fifties, by at last becoming completely her own person. Like many women, it took Jann a long time to realize that trying to be pleasing and likeable and beautiful in the eyes of others was a loser's game. Letting it rip, and damning the consequences, is not only liberating, it's a hell of a lot of fun: "Being the age I am--that so many women are--is just the best time of my life." Jann weaves her own story together with tales of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, and the father she came close to hating, to show her younger self--and all of us--that fear and avoidance is no way to live. "What I'm thinking about now aren't all the ways I can try to hang on to my youth or all the seconds ticking by in some kind of morbid countdown to death," she writes, "but rather how I keep becoming someone I always hoped I could be. If I'm lucky one day a very old face will look back at me from the mirror, a face I once shied away from. I will love that old woman ferociously, because she has finally figured out how to live a life of purpose--not in spite of but because of all her mistakes and failures."Discover the Transformative Effects of Being Kind to Yourself“This brilliant book offers us both the science and practice of how…
self-kindness is the secret sauce of fulfillment, transformation, and joy.” —Lorin Roche, meditation teacher and author ofThe Radiance SutrasMany of us yearn to feel a greater sense of inner calm, ease, joy, and purpose. We have tried meditation and found it too difficult. We judge ourselves for being no good at emptying our minds (as if one ever could) or compare ourselves with yogis who seem to have it all together. We live in a steady state of “not good enough.” It does not have to be this way.InGood Morning, I Love You, Dr. Shauna Shapiro brings alive the brain science behind why we feel the way we do—about ourselves, each other, and the world—and explains why we get stuck in thinking that doesn’t serve us. It turns out that we are hardwired to be self-critical and negative! And this negativity is constantly undermining our experience of life.“It is never too late to rewire your brain for positivity—for calm, clarity, and joy,” writes Dr. Shapiro. “I know this is possible because I experienced it. Best of all, you can begin wherever you are.” In short, lively chapters laced with science, wisdom, and story, Shapiro, one of the leading scientists studying the effects of mindfulness on the brain, shows us that acting with kindness and compassion toward ourselves is the key.With her roadmap to guide you, including her signature “Good Morning, I Love You” practice, in which you deliberately greet yourself each day with these simple words, you can change your brain’s circuitry and steady yourself in feelings of deep calm, clarity, and joy. For good.Crossroads: My Story of Tragedy and Resilience as a Humboldt Bronco
By Kaleb Dahlgren. 2021
An inspiring story of hope and resiliency On April 6, 2018, sixteen people died and thirteen others were injured after…
a bus taking the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team to a playoff game collided with a transport truck in a rural intersection. The tragedy moved millions of people to leave hockey sticks by their front door to show sympathy and support for the Broncos. People from more than eighty countries pledged millions of dollars to families whose relatives had been directly involved in the accident. Crossroads is the story of Kaleb Dahlgren, a young man who survived the bus crash and faced life after the tragedy with resiliency and positivity. In this chronicle of his time with the Broncos and the loving community of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Dahlgren takes a hard look at his experience of unprecedented loss, but also revels in the overwhelming response and outpouring of love from across Canada and around the world. But this book also goes much deeper, revealing the adversity Dahlgren faced long before his time in Humboldt and his inspiring journey since the accident. From a childhood spent learning to live with type 1 diabetes to his remarkable recovery from severe brain trauma that astounded medical professionals, Dahlgren documents a life of perseverance, gratitude and hope in the wake of enormous obstacles and life-altering tragedy. The author will donate a portion of his proceeds from this book to STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service).Victory at Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9-12, 1917
By Ted Barris. 2007
National BestsellerAt the height of the First World War, on Easter Monday April 9, 1917, in early morning sleet, sixteen…
battalions of the Canadian Corps rose along a six-kilometre line of trenches in northern France against the occupying Germans. All four Canadian divisions advanced in a line behind a well-rehearsed creeping barrage of artillery fire. By nightfall, the Germans had suffered a major setback. The Ridge, which other Allied troops had assaulted previously and failed to take, was firmly in Canadian hands. The Canadian Corps had achieved perhaps the greatest lightning strike in Canadian military history. One Paris newspaper called it "Canada’s Easter gift to France." Of the 40,000 Canadians who fought at Vimy, nearly 10,000 became casualties. Many of their names are engraved on the famous monument that now stands on the ridge to commemorate the battle. It was the first time Canadians had fought as a distinct national army, and in many ways, it was a coming of age for the nation. The achievement of the Canadians on those April days in 1917 has become one of our lasting myths. Based on first-hand accounts, including archival photographs and maps, it is the voices of the soldiers who experienced the battle that comprise the thrust of the book. Like JUNO: Canadians at D-Day, Ted Barris paints a compelling and surprising human picture of what it was like to have stormed and taken Vimy Ridge.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
The 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.Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
By James Clear. 2018
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 3 million copies sold!Tiny Changes, Remarkable ResultsNo matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers…
a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.Learn how to: • make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy); • overcome a lack of motivation and willpower; • design your environment to make success easier; • get back on track when you fall off course;...and much more.Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.In Praise of Retreat: Finding Sanctuary in the Modern World
By Kirsteen MacLeod. 2021
Two Pieces of Cloth: One Family's Story of the Holocaust
By Joe Gold. 2021
Torn apart by war. Reunited through faith. In this remarkable true story of the Holocaust, we follow David Goldberger from…
the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, back to Budapest where his wife, Aurelia, and infant son are hiding under false Christian identities. By the time he is liberated by the allies, Goldberger weighs a skeletal sixty-five pounds and is told to wait for the Slovakian legion to rescue him. With the threat of typhus looming, Goldberger instead escapes with a group of men to Hannover. There, he is given two pieces of wool cloth-the key to rebuilding his future as he searches for his wife and child. Drawn from survivor testimony, personal conversations, and archival documents, and vividly brought to life by Goldberger's son Joe Gold, Two Pieces of Cloth bears witness to the horrors of the Holocaust, while serving as a testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit.All We Want: Building the Life We Cannot Buy
By Michael Harris. 2021
Our lives are defined by a story of endless growth and consumption. Now a climate crisis demands that we change.…
Can we write new stories? In All We Want, award-winning author Michael Harris dismantles our untenable consumer culture and delivers surprising, heartwarming alternatives. Drawing on the wisdom of philosophers, scientists, and artists, Harris uncovers three realms where humans have always found deeper meaning: the worlds of Craft, the Sublime, and Care. Past attempts to blunt our impact on the environment have simply redirected our consumption—we bought fuel-efficient cars and canvas tote bags. We cannot, however, buy our way out of this crisis. We need, instead, compelling new stories about life's purpose. Part meditation and part manifesto, All We Want is a blazing inquest into the destructive and unfulfilling promise of our consumer society, and a roadmap toward a more humane future.On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times
By Michael Ignatieff. 2021
Timely and profound philosophical meditations on how great figures in history, literature, music, and art searched for solace while facing…
tragedies and crises, from the internationally renowned historian of ideas and Booker Prize-finalist Michael Ignatieff.When someone we love dies, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes--war, famine, pandemic--we go in search of consolation. Once the province of priests and philosophers, the language of consolation has largely vanished from our modern vocabulary, and the places where it was offered, houses of religion, are often empty. Rejecting the solace of ancient religious texts, humanity since the sixteenth century has increasingly placed its faith in science, ideology, and the therapeutic.How do we console each other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? In a series of lapidary meditations on writers, artists, musicians, and their works--from the books of Job and Psalms to Albert Camus, Anna Akhmatova, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Primo Levi--esteemed writer and historian Michael Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience. Recreating the moments when great figures found the courage to confront their fate and the determination to continue unafraid, On Consolation takes those stories into the present, movingly contending that we can revive these traditions of consolation to meet the anguish and uncertainties of our precarious twenty-first century.Welcome Back! is your wellness partner, guiding you from languishing to thriving. This book puts the power of achieving optimal…
health into your hands. With do-it-yourself diagnostics grounded in personalized medicine, Welcome Back! will boost your sense of health, fortify your immunity and put an end to pandemic fears and anxiety. As a trustworthy and credible voice across North America, Dr. Chin combines scientific evidence and a compassionate approach to support her clients in repairing and recovering from health setbacks and renew their health resiliency. Wellness isn’t a luxury – it’s the foundation for enjoying all of life’s offerings and something we just simply must prioritize. In Welcome Back!, Dr. Chin shares actionable insights and strategies to reclaim your physical stamina and mental fitness in this post-pandemic world.