Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 58 items
The collected works of Billy the Kid (Vintage International)
By Michael Ondaatje. 2009
William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid," killed his first man when he was twelve, and by the time he was…
twenty-one he had slain nineteen more. Drawing on contemporary accounts, period photographs, dime novels and his own imagination, Ondaatje imagines Billy's passage across the blasted landscape of 1880s New Mexico and the collective unconscious of his country. A synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth. Winner of the 1970 Governor General's Award for Poetry. 2009.The concubine's children: portrait of a family divided
By Denise Chong. 1994
Chong traces her family's history from China to Canada. Her grandfather left his wife and emigrated to Canada, accompanied by…
the concubine he bought in 1924. In Canada, they stinted and sacrificed to support his family in China. Chong tells of her grandparents and parents, and the visits she made to China to try to unite the strands of her family's past. Winner of the 1995 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1994.The beak of the finch: a story of evolution in our time
By Jonathan Weiner. 1994
Discusses the work of Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spent more than twenty years in the Galapagos Islands researching Charles…
Darwin's finches to confront Darwin's notion of evolution as a time-suspended process. Weiner incorporates research from other scientists to assert that evolution is dynamic, involving constant, even observable, change. L.A. Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. Winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. 1994.Ten green bottles: the true story of one family's journey from war-torn Austria to the ghettos of Shanghai
By Vivian Jeanette Kaplan. 2002
For a brief period between 1938 and 1941, roughly 20,000 Jews found refuge from the Nazis in the one place…
not requiring visas, police certificates or proofs of financial independence: Shanghai. In 1939, the author's family made a month-long, 7,000-mile journey to Shanghai, struggling with heat, disease, poverty, and fear. With the war's end came the shock of learning what became of family and friends left behind in Europe. Descriptions of violence. 2002.Stumbling in the bloom
By John Pass. 2005
A celebration of the enticements and entanglements of wilderness, along with poems about a wry excursion to the chiropractor, a…
fanciful flight from a student driver's parallel parking practice, and a moving Canadian journey towards and away from the "ground zero" of the 9/11 tragedy. 2006 Governor General's Award winner for Poetry. 2005.Shake hands with the devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda
By Roméo A Dallaire, Brent Beardsley. 2003
As former head of the 1993 U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Canadian general Dallaire's initial proposal called for 5,000 soldiers,…
to permit orderly elections and the return of the refugees. Nothing like this number was supplied, and the result was an outright attempt at genocide against the Tutsis that nearly succeeded, with 800,000 dead over three months. Dallaire's argument that Rwanda-like situations are fires that can be put out with a small force if caught early enough will certainly draw debate, but the book documents in horrifying detail what happens when no serious effort is made. Explicit descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Canada Reads 2012. 2003.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.Sand dance: by camel across Arabia's great southern desert
By Bruce Kirkby. 2000
In the winter of 1999, three Canadians and three Omani Bedu set out across Arabia's great southern desert in an…
attempt to authentically recreate the 1947 crossing by Sir Wilfred Thesiger. Here they share the adventures and misadventures they experienced while crossing the vast, desolate desert. Winner of the 2001 Torgi Talking Book of the Year Award.Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's war against big oil
By Andrew Nikiforuk. 2002
Dutch-born Wiebo Ludwig, former leader of a Christian Reformed Church in Goderich, Ontario, and his entourage, which consisted of his…
ever-growing family and a few sympathizers, decamped for Alberta in 1985 and bought a place called Trickle Creek - in oil country. What ensued was a long, nasty, and often violent conflict between Ludwig and the oil and gas industry over its legal right to drill on private land, regardless of landowners' concerns over the contamination of air and water by the pollutants that spew out of the wells. Some strong language and descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2002 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 2002.Sailors, slackers, and blind pigs: Halifax at war
By Stephen Kimber. 2002
In May 1945, the city of Halifax erupted in a riot - a two-day orgy or boozing, looting, window-smashing, dancing…
in the streets, public fornication, and mindless mayhem to 'celebrate' the end of the war. The paternalism, privations, overcrowding, and tensions of a city at war created a situation waiting to explode, and an admiral's pride provided the match that set it off. Includes interviews with the people who lived through it - sailors, slackers (civilians), street urchins, prohibitionists, spies, profiteers, reporters, and just plain local folks. Some strong language. Winner of the 2004 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 2002.L'intolérance: une problématique générale
By Lise Noël. 1989
L'intolérance et l'oppression peuvent prendre des visages multiples. On n'avait pas encore tente jusqu'ici de dresser un tableau d'ensemble qui…
montre comment s'articulent les rapports dominants/dominés autour des paramètres que sont l'âge, le sexe, la condition physique et mentale, l'appartenance ethnique, la langue ou l'orientation sexuelle. C'est ce que l'on trouve dans ce livre. 1989.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.Les artisans de la paix: comment Lloyd George, Clemenceau et Wilson ont redessiné la carte du monde
By Margaret MacMillan. 2006
Paris, 1919 : après la " guerre qui devait mettre fin à toutes les guerres ", des hommes et des…
femmes de tous les pays convergent vers la capitale pour la conférence de la Paix où va se redessiner la carte du monde. Outre les représentants des plus grandes puissances victorieuses - Wilson, Lloyd George et Clemenceau -, affluent journalistes, ambassadeurs et porte-parole de cent causes différentes - de T.E. Lawrence à la reine Marie de Roumanie, en passant par J.M. Keynes et Hô Chi Minh. Paris est alors le centre du monde, le lieu où se liquident les empires, où naissent de nouveaux pays, et où vont se nouer drames et malentendus. Quelques descriptions de violence. 2006. Titre uniforme: The peacemakers.Canadian Tire was founded by A.J. and John Billes in 1922 and grew to become a national institution. In 1986,…
one of A.J.'s sons decided to sell his company shares to a group of Canadian Tire dealers, sparking a feud with his sister, Martha. 1990 winner of the National Business Book Award. Strong language.De Kooning: an American master
By Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan, Willem De Kooning. 2004
Biography of Dutch-born artist Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), who became a major figure in the mid-twentieth-century New York abstract expressionism…
scene. Explores de Kooning's bohemian habits, friendship with Gorky, financial backing from Hirshhorn and Fourcade, only marriage, and passion for painting. Some descriptions of sex. Pulitzer Prize. 2004.Canada: a story of challenge
By J. M. S Careless. 1991
A brief history of Canada, covering the period from Cartier and Champlain to the arrival of Pierre Elliott Trudeau on…
the political scene. It covers the major historical events and the forces which have shaped our country. Originally written in 1953, this is the updated 1970 version. Winner of the 1953 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction.A short history of nearly everything
By Bill Bryson. 2004
This book is Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization…
- how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? Some strong language. 2004.A good place to come from
By Morley Torgov. 1974
An account of life in a small town community in Sault Ste. Marie in the late 1930's and early 1940's.…
Winner of the 1975 Stephen Leacock Award for humour. Strong language. 1974.100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka: a memoir
By Arthur Schaller. 1998
Arthur Schaller was eleven years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a time when the reward for turning in…
a Jew was 100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. Separated from his family in the Warsaw Ghetto, Arthur managed to escape to the other side of the Ghetto wall, and posed until the end of the war as a Catholic orphan. Winner of the 1999 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1998.The private capital: ambition and love in the age of Macdonald and Laurier
By Sandra Gwyn. 1984
A compelling account of private life in the age of Macdonald and Laurier. The author has used personal letters, diaries,…
scrapbooks, memoirs and social columns. 1984 Governor General's Award winner. c1984.