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Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers,… cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, but their tough-love attitudes meant conflicts became commonplace. And the ghost of Jesse's drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. One day, he finally realized he would die unless he turned his life around. 2019.
Canadians are very divided about their chameleon prime minister. Is Justin Trudeau a transformative prime minister, or does he just… play one on television? When he entered politics, he came across as a frivolous person with no fixed principles. Now, he presents himself as a conviction politician. Is he real or phony? What motivated his metamorphosis--belief or opportunism? More prosaically, he appears a man of good intentions but in 2019, he will be judged on results. And those results have been disappointing for many, even in his own party. The ballooning deficit, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, his disastrous trip to India, the carbon tax, and many other miscalculations have done him and his party no favours. And while the Liberals concluded a new trade deal with the United States and Mexico, there are still many Canadians dissatisfied with the terms. As political columnist for the National Post since 2003 and Ottawa bureau chief for Postmedia for the past three years, John Ivison has watched Trudeau evolve as a politician and leader at home and abroad. He first interviewed him in 2006 and has sat down on a number of occasions since. It has been a fascinating transition that has not been fully captured by any writer. This book will trace the palimpsest of the man, now barely visible beneath the talking points, virtue signalling, and polished trappings of office. Ivison concludes that he has always been manipulative--good at understanding the feelings of others and playing on them. It has made him a formidable politician but one who may yet be undone by raising the bar too high; by promising to transform a country that was designed to withstand change. 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.
High School is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Sara and Tegan Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, growing… up in the height of grunge and rave culture in the 90s, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today. While grappling with their identity and sexuality, often alone, they also faced academic meltdown, their parents' divorce, and the looming pressure of what might come after high school. Written in alternating chapters from both Tegan's point of view and Sara's, the book is a raw account of the drugs, alcohol, love, music, and friendship they explored in their formative years. A transcendent story of first loves and first songs, it captures the tangle of discordant and parallel memories of two sisters who grew up in distinct ways even as they lived just down the hall from one another. 2019.
Born with congenital anomalies in both feet, then called birth defects, Dorothy Ellen Palmer was adopted as a toddler by… a wounded 1950s family who had no idea how to handle the tangled complexities of adoption and disability. From repeated childhood surgeries to an activist awakening at university to decades as a feminist teacher, mom, improv coach and unionist, she tried to hide being different. But now, standing proud with her walker, she's sharing her journey. Navigating abandonment, abuse and ableism, she finds her birth parents and a new chosen family in the disability community. 2019.
Denise Filiatrault n'a assurément besoin d'aucune présentation, puisqu'elle marque le paysage culturel québécois depuis sept décennies. Très longtemps chanteuse dans… les cabarets, comédienne à la télévision et au cinéma, actrice au théâtre, metteure en scène, travailleuse acharnée et femme de tête créative à la personnalité flamboyante, elle raconte enfin son histoire, écrite en collaboration avec sa fille Danièle. Elle nous offre un regard privilégié sur l'univers du show-business au Québec, à travers les différentes étapes de sa carrière et surtout à travers les époques. 2017.
Ce livre donne la parole à une femme authentique, sereine, pétillante et attachante qui sait son privilège de s'appeler Dion,… tout en portant fièrement son prénom. Avec humour et tendresse, elle révèle ce que c'est que d'être la soeur de... Entre une mère très médiatisée et une petite soeur devenue mégastar, au milieu de treize frères et soeurs, Claudette a su trouver sa place au soleil. 2017.
Cette biographie vous invite à la découverte du petit bum de la rue Sanguinet, fasciné par Anthony Quinn et le… docteur Chénier, qui décide à sept ans d'être chanteur. Ces pages vous entraînent sous les néons de la polyvalente Gérard-Filion, où la créativité de l'adolescent se déploie, puis au Patriote, dont il devient le chansonnier attitré à dix-sept ans. A Paris avec ses chansonniers, à Los Angeles et ses couleurs psychédéliques, à Londres et ses Wailers, où le hippie aux cheveux longs vit, intense et libre, au rythme de ses rêves, mais longtemps déchiré entre partir et rester, révolte et amour, poésie et rock. Ce livre est un hymne au " réchappé " du Bas de la ville, au " Ti-Claude " du trucker, au Dubois de tous les Québécois. 2017.
" Anna et Jane McGarrigle, les sœurs de Kate, tantes de Rufus et de Martha Wainwright, racontent l'histoire de la… famille de musiciens la plus talentueuse qui soit : un clan qui rythme nos vies depuis cinquante ans. Évoquant les aventures de leurs ancêtres entre Saint John (N.-B.) et Montréal, elles se remémorent leur enfance à Saint-Sauveur et leur adolescence tumultueuse dans le Québec des années 1950. Elles nous entraînent à Montréal, New York, San Francisco, sur les scènes bigarrées de la musique folk des années 1960 ; pour aboutir à l'inoubliable duo formé par Kate et Anna. Aussi hommage à Kate, décédée en 2010, l'ouvrage permet de cerner la personnalité de cette artiste exceptionnelle. Émaillé de chansons et de photos, ce récit prolonge l'œuvre de ces femmes libres. " -- 4e de couv. Titre uniforme: Mountain city girls.
Avec 'Le Temps des seigneurs', Dan Bigras offre le récit cru, touchant et passionnant de ces vues sur le monde… qui ont fait de lui le porte-parole des oubliés, des brisés. Façonné dans la violence et la douleur, mais aussi dans l'amour, c'est avec tendresse qu'il retrace le fil de son long chemin vers la réconciliation. 2017.
The story of Ami McKay's connection to a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome begins over seventy years before she was… born and long before scientists discovered DNA. In 1895 her great-great aunt, Pauline Gross, a seamstress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, confided to a pathology professor at the local university that she expected to die young, like so many others in her family. Rather than dismiss her fears, the pathologist chose to enlist Pauline in the careful tracking of those in her family tree who had died of cancer. Pauline's premonition proved true--she died at 46--but because of her efforts, her family (who the pathologist dubbed 'Family G') would become the longest and most detailed cancer genealogy ever studied in the world. A century after Pauline's confession, researchers would identify the genetic mutation responsible for the family's woes. Now known as Lynch syndrome, the genetic condition predisposes its carriers to several types of cancer, including colorectal, endometrial, ovarian and pancreatic. In 2001, as a young mother with two sons and a keen interest in survival, Ami McKay was among the first to be tested for Lynch syndrome. She had a feeling she'd test positive: her mother's side of the family was riddled with early deaths and her own mother was being treated for the disease. When the test proved her fears true, she began living in "an unsettling state between wellness and cancer," and she's been there ever since. 2019.
On an island paradise in 1943, Sir Harry Oakes, gold mining tycoon, philanthropist and "richest man in the Empire," was… murdered. The news of his death surged across the English-speaking world, from London, the Imperial centre, to the remote Canadian mining town of Kirkland Lake, in the Northern Ontario bush. The murder became celebrated as "the crime of the century." The layers of mystery deepened as the involvement of Oakes' son-in-law, Count Alfred de Marigny, came quickly to be questioned, as did the odd machinations of the Governor of the Bahamas, the former King Edward VIII. Despite a sensational trial, no murderer was ever convicted. Rumours were unrelenting about Oakes' missing fortune, and fascination with the Oakes story has persisted for decades. Award-winning biographer and popular historian Charlotte Gray explores, for the first time, the life of the man behind the scandal, a man who was both reviled and admired - from his early, hardscrabble days of mining exploration, to his explosion of wealth, to his grandiose gestures of philanthropy. And Gray brings fresh eyes to the bungled investigation and shocking trial in the remote colonial island streets, proposing an overlooked suspect in this long cold case. 2019.
Dubbed "the Jesse James of Canada," Norman "Red" Ryan was infamous in the 1920s and '30s until he was gunned… down in an attempted robbery in Sarnia, Ontario. Ernest Hemingway wrote about Ryan's escape from Kingston Penitentiary for the Toronto Star, Morley Callaghan based a novel on him and stories of Ryan and his crimes filled newspapers and airwaves. One of the first Canadians to be granted parole, he was held up by Prime Minister R.B. Bennett as a model of rehabilitation and became a regular guest at Toronto police picnics. All the while, however, Ryan was continuing a crime spree on the side. Jim Brown, filmmaker and CBC Radio host, tells the incredible true story of "Red" Ryan, a larger-than-life criminal whose fame and legend were much encouraged by the media--he was the "Kardashian" of the time--and whose story endures.
Eric Davidson was a beautiful, fair-haired toddler when the Halifax Explosion struck, killing almost 2,000 people and seriously injuring thousands… of others. Eric lost both eyes-a tragedy that his mother never fully recovered from. Eric, however, was positive and energetic. He also developed a fascination with cars and how they worked, and he later decided, against all likelihood, to become a mechanic. Assisted by his brothers who read to him from manuals, he worked hard, passed examinations, and carved out a decades-long career. Once the subject of a National Film Board documentary, Eric Davidson was, until his death, a much-admired figure in Halifax. Written by his daughter Marilyn, this book gives new insights into the story of the 1917 Halifax Explosion and contains never-before-seen documents and photographs. Winner of the 2019 The Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award (Non-Fiction). 2018.
Many of us grew up scoring a thousand glorious NHL goals in our minds, and on our streets and corner… rinks. We won the Stanley Cup over and over in our imaginations. What happened to those childhood heroics? We packed them in a box with our hockey cards and forgot them. Growing Up Hockey uses the heartwarming and comical exploits of a house-league third-liner to prompt us to re-live our memories of hockey glory. It shows that for those who love it, the game is never far away. Bobby Hull, Frank Mahovlich, Wayne Gretzky they're all here. But equally large are the neighbourhood rink bullies, the Pee Wee league super-starts and the obsessed NHL aficionados. Together, they create a hockey myth as grand as ever existed and as unique as each of us. 2007.
Stella Bowles was a Grade 6 Nova Scotia student when she turned environmental activist to campaign against sewage pipes draining… straight into the LaHave River. This is the inspirational first person account of Stella's Grade 6 science fair project which caught the eyes of the media, the public and government leaders propelling her into the limelight. Stella details her two and a half year fight to clean up the river, winning numerous awards for her environmental activism along the way. She succeeds in shaming three levels of government and rallying supporters into funding a $$15.7 million cleanup. Today, she continues to campaign for cleaner water and demonstrates to other children how to test water quality in their own backyards, and how to take action if they find their water is polluted too. Grades 3-6.
Growing up in Pakistan, Samra Habib lacks a blueprint for the life she wants. She has a mother who gave… up everything to be a pious, dutiful wife and an overprotective father who seems to conspire against a life of any adventure. Plus, she has to hide the fact that she's Ahmadi to avoid persecution from religious extremists. As the threats against her family increase, they seek refuge in Canada, where new financial and cultural obstacles await them. When Samra discovers that her mother has arranged her marriage, she must again hide a part of herself--the fun-loving, feminist teenager that has begun to bloom--until she simply can't any longer. So begins a journey of self-discovery that takes her to Tokyo, where she comes to terms with her sexuality, and to a queer-friendly mosque in Toronto, where she returns to her faith in the same neighbourhood where she attended her first drag show. Along the way, she learns that the facets of her identity aren't as incompatible as she was led to believe, and that her people had always been there--the world just wasn't ready for them yet. 2019.