Book picks similar to
Of Human Bondage by Vern Thiessen
canada
canadian-theatre
plays
Basketball
John Hareas - 2003
This history of basketball is presented with amazing photographs and accessible text to tell the whole story, from James Naismith's nailing a peach basket to the wall of a local gym for the first informal game to the incredible feats of basketball's super-size stars of today.
Shadows on the Road: Life at the Heart of the Peloton, from US Postal to Team Sky
Michael Barry - 2014
Weeks later he testified against his former team mate Lance Armstrong, as part of the USADA investigation.In a stunning piece of writing, Barry explores the dreams and passion of a young, idealistic cycling fan from Toronto - what it was then like to ride as a teammate alongside such giants of the sport as Lance Armstrong, Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, and how those dreams were tainted early on in his career by a sport in crisis.But it's also the story of his eleven years riding clean, before and after his time in the notorious American Postal Team. What was it like to head for Europe at such a young age, and what was it like to escape the environment of doping, to try and start again, all the time aware that past actions may one day catch up with him?Offering a unique and elegiac insight into the life and mind of a professional sportsman - the pressures, sacrifices, fears, crashes, injuries and neuroses - Cycles of the Heart is a classic, must-read book for cycling and sports fans alike.
Harlem Duet
Djanet Sears - 1997
Winner of the Chalmers Play Award. A rhapsodic blues tragedy. Harlem Duet could be the prelude to Shakepeare's Othello, and recounts the tale of Othello and his first wife Billie (yes, before Desdemona). Set in contemporary Harlem at the corner of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X boulevards, the play explores the space where race and sex intersect. Harlem Duet is Billie's story.
Certain Woman of an Age
Margaret Trudeau - 2020
Through vividly told public and private anecdotes, the Audible Original weaves a raw and revealing journey of motherhood, loss, mental illness, and feminism. Co-written with Alix Sobler and directed by Kimberly Senior, Certain Woman of an Age is "fearless and vulnerable" (Chicago Tribune).International mental health advocate Margaret Trudeau brought her intimate solo performance, Certain Woman of an Age, to the Minetta Lane Theatre, where it was recorded live for Audible Theater.
The First Noël at the Villa des Violettes
Patricia Sands - 2018
Everything was going so well in Kat and Philippe’s life together. Then suddenly it wasn’t. Roman ruins delayed the work on the Villa des Violettes. The Russian drug gang might be back in the neighbourhood. On top of that, Kat had worked herself into what Molly classified as a full blown “Christmas conundrum.” Kat wanted the holidays to work perfectly as she blended a Canadian Christmas with a Provençal Fête de Noêl for the first time in their new home. Now she’d lost her confidence and, with it, the holiday spirit. Philippe hoped a weekend trip to the famous Christmas markets of Strasbourg would solve everything. As it happened, things were about to get worse.
Consent (NHB Modern Plays) (Nick Hern Books)
Nina Raine - 2017
The key witness is a woman whose life seems a world away from theirs. At home, their own lives begin to unravel as every version of the truth is challenged.Consent, Nina Raine’s powerful, painful, funny play, sifts the evidence from every side and puts Justice herself in the dock. It premiered as a co-production between the National Theatre and Out of Joint, directed by Roger Michell at the National Theatre in 2017.
The Second Scroll
A.M. Klein - 1951
Klein’s most innovative and visionary work. The five “books” of the novel are a modern testament of Jewish experience to which are appended “glosses” or commentaries in the form of drama, epistle, poetry, and psalm. The action centres on a young writer from Montreal, whose search for his legendary Uncle Melech becomes a journey of revelation through Italy, Morocco, and the Holy Land. Dissident and exile, reformer and scholar, Melech is a messianic figure who enacts the destiny of his people and embodies the spiritual yearnings of everyman.The Second Scroll, Klein’s only novel, combines the lyric genius of his poetic works with compelling reportage to create one of the most eloquent and original works in Canadian fiction.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache
Louise Penny - 2017
Featuring Chief Inspector of Homicide Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, these extraordinary novels are here together for the first time in a fabulous ebook bundle. Still Life Gamache and his team are called to the scene of a suspicious death in Three Pines. The locals are certain it's a tragic hunting accident, but Gamache smells something foul this Thanksgiving season. A Fatal Grace When CC de Poitiers is found dead the day after Christmas, electrocuted in the middle of a curling match, Gamache digs beneath the surface to find where the real secrets are buried. But it seems he has enemies of his own, and with the coming of the winter winds, something far more chilling is in store. The Cruelest Month A group of Three Pines villagers celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, hoping to rid the town of its evil-until one of their party dies of fright. Was it a natural death, or murder? As Gamache investigates, he will face his own ghosts as well as those residing in this seemingly idyllic town. A Rule Against Murder Gamache and his wife are celebrating their anniversary at the luxurious, isolated Manoir Bellechasse. When a dead body turns up in the midst of a family reunion, Gamache learns that the lodge is a place where visitors come to escape their past, until that past catches up with them. The Brutal Telling A stranger is found murdered in Olivier's Bistro in Three Pines, and Gamache is dismayed to find Olivier's story full of holes. Gamache follows a trail of clues into the woods and across the continent before returning to Three Pines to confront the truth and the final, brutal telling. Bury Your Dead It's Winter Carnival in Quebec City, when Gamache is called to investigate a dead body at the Literary and Historical Society. Meanwhile, Gamache is receiving disquieting letters from Three Pines. A Trick of the Light When Three Pines artist Clara Morrow's former friend is found dead in her garden, Gamache finds the art world is one of shading and nuance, shadow and light. Even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light. The Beautiful Mystery Outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, where the monks are world-famous for their glorious chants. But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Gamache. How the Light Gets In As Christmas approaches, Gamache travels to Three Pines as a favor to the bookshop owner Myrna Landers, whose friend has gone missing. With mounting crises in his own homicide department, Gamache finds himself not only investigating a murder, but also seeking refuge for himself and his still-loyal colleagues--if such a refuge exists. The Long Way Home Happily retired in Three Pines, Gamache has finally found peace. But when Clara Morrow's artist husband, Peter, fails to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation, Gamache agrees to join her on a journey far from Three Pines in search of him. The Nature of the Beast When a boy prone to tall tales disappears from Three Pines, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his stories might have been true. So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth, sending Gamache deep in the forest and setting off a sequence of events leading to murder, an old crime, and a betrayal. A monster once visited Three Pines, and put down deep roots. Now it is back. A Great Reckoning When an intricate old map, which was given to Armand Gamache on the first day if his new job, is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity.
Humble Boy
Charlotte Jones - 2001
Thirty-five-year-old Felix Humble is a Cambridge astro-physicist in search of a unified field theory. Following the sudden death of his father, Felix returns to his middle England home and his difficult and demanding mother, where he soon realises that his search for unity must include his own chaotic home life.Humble Boy premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London, in August 2001, and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre, London, in 2002. The play was the winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2001, the Critics' Circle Best New Play Award 2002, and the People's Choice Best New Play Award 2002.
The Real Inspector Hound & After Magritte
Tom Stoppard - 1969
The first of the plays, The Real Inspector Hound, is the longer of the two; here the author has created a looking glass comedy of great suspense and intrigue about two drama critics. The second play, After Magritte, is 'a surrealist comedy in detective form-or is it a comedy in surrealist form? A husband and wife argue whether the figure they saw in the street was a one-legged football player with the ball under his arm, or a man in pajamas with a tortoise under his arm. The play shows that Stoppard is as amusing and clever as always.'
Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World
Louis de Bernières - 2001
Taking his inspiration from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Louis de Bernières chose to celebrate his ten years of life in the south London suburb, living above a small shop that had been by turns an outlet for oversized naughty clothes for transvestites, a West Indian hairdressers and a junk shop, by writing of the people that he had known and come to love in his time there.Brilliantly capturing the myriad voices of modern Britain, with their different rhythms of speech and accents, their humour and their tragedy, jokes and gossip, de Bernières' tour de force takes us to the heart of a community and its spirit - the lives and loves, the tears and the laughter of its people.
Girls Like That
Evan Placey - 2013
But while rumors run wild and everyone forms an opinion, Scarlett just stays silent.With roles for up to twenty-four young female actors (though it can also be performed by a smaller cast), the play is perfect for any schools, youth theatres or drama groups looking to tackle a contemporary subject in a theatrically exciting way.Specially commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Girls Like That was developed through work with young people from the three theatres and first performed by their youth theatre companies in 2013."[Tackles] strong, relevant issues... a well-written, immaculately crafted and brave piece of energetic theatre." - A Younger Theatre"An urgent, powerful and haunting examination... I can see this play becoming a very popular resource for 16+ groups and that will be no bad thing." National Drama MagazineEvan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright. His other work includes Mother of Him, Holloway Jones, which won the Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People, and Pronoun, commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival.
Long Ride Home: Guts and Guns and Grizzlies, 800 Days Through the Americas in a Saddle (Journey America Book 1)
Filipe Masetti Leite - 2018
Two years. Three magnificent horses. Ten countries. A thousand stories of drug cartels, mass migration, the glorious wilderness, the old cowboy ways, the kindness of strangers and the powerful connection between man and beast. This is a tale of grit and inspiration, of Filipe and Frenchie, Bruiser and Dude chasing a dream, one hoof at a time. Please scroll up to grab your copy today!
The Pitchfork Disney
Philip Ridley - 1991
Manifesting Ridley's vivid and visionary imagination and the dark beauty of his outlook, the play resonates with his trademark themes: East London, storytelling, moments of shocking violence, memories of the past, fantastical monologues, and that strange mix of the barbaric and the beautiful he has made all his own.The Pitchfork Disney was Ridley's first play and is now seen as launching a new generation of playwrights who were unafraid to shock and court controversy. This unsettling, dreamlike piece has surreal undertones and thematically explores fear, dreams and story-telling. First produced in 1991, it has gone on to be recognised as the annunciation of Ridley's dark and seductive world.