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Showing 21 - 40 of 12849 items
By Lynn Crosbie. 2017
A sustained, confessional new collection of poems that tells the story of Crosbie's father’s battle with frontotemporal dementia and blindness,…
following a stroke. The poems chronologically recount the poet’s conversations and time with her father, and capture his still-astonishing means of communicating. The book’s title is his sardonic remark. Crosbie considers dementia to be a symbolic language and as such, similar to poetry. The author’s attempts to understand her father’s distress, pain, fear, and brave love are assisted by her understanding of the “negative capability” required of readers of poetry. 2017.By Rajiv Surendra. 2016
Actor Rajiv Surendra read "Life of Pi", discovered it was being adapted into a major motion picture, and embarked on…
a ten-year journey to land the role of a lifetime. But this is not a journey of goals and victories, this is a story of obsessively pursuing a dream, overcoming failure, and finding meaning in life. 2016.By Erik Nielsen. 1989
Erik Nielsen was elected a Member of Parliament for Yukon in 1957 and has spent the last 30 years in…
politics, rising from a backbencher to deputy prime minister. Nielsen describes the events and the politicians of this period, and airs his opinions of public policy, party politics, and the leaders he served. 1989.By George Bowering, Jean Baird. 2009
When Jean Baird's daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean's instinct was to turn to books. Although she found that the thoughts…
of counsellors, psychologists, and self-help gurus were some help, the works that truly did were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Jean and her husband George Bowering found little from Canadian writers on the subject, and this anthology of original pieces attempts to fill that gap. c2009.By Elise Gravel. 2016
He weighed as much as a horse; he once wrestled a bear; he could devour twenty-five chickens in one sitting.…
This whimsical book tells the story of Antonio Barichievich, the larger-than-life strongman who had muscles as big as his heart. Grades K-3. 2016.The author began a quest to find out more about an artist from the Cariboo named Sonia Cornwall (1919-2006). Through…
interviews, letters, original artworks, articles, exhibition catalogues, imaginings of conversations and occurrences, along with her own reflections on the experience, she pieced together a story of pioneering, love and the pursuit of art. But in searching for Sonia, the author found an unanticipated new friend in Sonia's mother, Vivien Cowan (1893-1990), who became a larger part of the story than she could possibly have imagined. 2013.By Ashis Gupta. 2007
Crafted as a long poem, a libretto for stage presentations, this book is less about Clarence Thomas than it is…
about the devastating reign of the Bush administration. The central idea of the book is: ‘War is an Evil product of Evil/Hypocritical Minds’. The ‘Chorus of the Homeless’ occupies a central role in the poem, performing a function much like the Chorus in Greek Tragedies, providing a reasonably objective commentary. In a sense, the central story is a tragedy too – George Bush is a tragic figure. And, towards the end, he is conceived as a tragic hero, a Samson-like figure who pulls down the temple over his head to crush the Philistines. 2007.By Anne Newlands. 1995
By George Fetherling. 1998
During his 60 year career, George Woodcock published nearly 150 books, including "Anarchism" and "The crystal spirit," a study of…
George Orwell. He arrived in Canada from Britain in his late thirties and eventually settled in Vancouver. Here his motivation for immigrating, and for giving himself a new personality when he did, are explained in depth using his own papers and interviews with his associates and colleagues. 1998.By Anne Kingston. 1994
Chronicles the rise of Dave Nichol, whose work with private label products helped revolutionize the supermarket industry. First brought into…
Loblaws by Galen Weston in 1971, Nichol became president in 1976, but was moved to a smaller arm of Loblaws in 1984. Here, he met his great success, developing President's Choice into a retail phenomenon. Kingston discusses Nichol's work at Loblaws, his aggressive and sometimes abusive personality, and his departure from Loblaws in 1993. 1994.By David Carpenter, Joseph Auguste Merasty. 2015
Joseph (Augie) Merasty was one of 150,000 children taken from their families and sent to residential schools. Merasty takes readers…
inside his time at residential school, where he was taught to be ashamed of his family and his culture and where he experienced emotional and physical abuse. But even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty’s sense of humour and warm voice shine through. 2015.By Rod McQueen. 1998
A revealing look at how the Eaton dynasty was created over four generations and almost destroyed in one. It discusses…
the private and business lives of a colourful cast of characters who have touched the lives of Canadians from coast to coast. 1998.By Northrop Frye, Robert D Denham. 2001
Frye's entries contain self-analysis and self-revelation, as well as humour, dark moods and claustrophobia, and some self-congratulating. They also serve…
as a chronicle of Frye's life, as we watch him teach classes, plan his career, record his dreams, register his reactions to the people he meets, and reflect on books, music, movies, and religious and political issues. Some strong language. 2001.By Pierre Berton. 1977
In 1934, Canada hit the international headlines when Elzire Dionne gave birth to five identical baby girls in northern Ontario.…
Berton examines the exploitation of the famous five by the media, commercial interests and government which created a rift in the Dionne family. 1977. (Reissue)By Margaret Atwood. 2007
A collection of fifty poems, ranging in subject from the personal to the political. They investigate the mysterious writing of…
poetry itself, as well as the passage of time and our shared sense of mortality. 2007.By Fouad Ajami. 1998
Examines the concepts of secular nationalism and modernity as conceived by Arab intellectuals of Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. Provides…
insights into the Middle East from Arabic sources: fiction, poetry, memoirs, and political commentaries. c1998.By Michael Pond, Maureen Palmer. 2014
After two decades of helping clients battle addictions, Michael Pond, a successful therapist, succumbs to one himself. He loses his…
practice, his home and his family to alcoholism. Pond’s harrowing two-year journey to sobriety takes stops in abandoned sheds, dumpsters, ditches, emergency wards, intensive care, and finally, prison. His account crackles with raw energy and black humour as he plunges readers into a world few will ever have the misfortune to experience. c2014.By Jan Andrews. 1981
By Hans Werner. 2013
A unique account of a life shaped by Stalinism, Nazism, migration, famine, and war. John Werner was a survivor. Born…
in the Soviet Union just after the Bolshevik Revolution, he was named Hans and grew up in a German-speaking Mennonite community in Siberia. As a young man in Stalinist Russia, he became Ivan and fought as a Red Army soldier in the Second World War. Captured by Germans, he was resettled in occupied Poland where he became Johann, was naturalized and drafted into Hitler’s German army where he served until captured and placed in an American POW camp. Eventually he was released and immigrated to Canada, where he became John. 2013.By F. R Scott. 1981
Scott was a historian and lawyer, but foremost a poet. This collection, which was organized by Scott himself, shows both…
a reflective man and a public figure committed to human progress. Winner of the 1981 Governor General's Award for Poetry. 1981. Uniform title: Poems