Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars


Francesca Wade - 2020
    "I like this London life . . . the street-sauntering and square-haunting."--Virginia Woolf, diary, 1925In the early twentieth century, Mecklenburgh Square--a hidden architectural gem in London's Bloomsbury--was a radical address, home to students, struggling artists, and revolutionaries. And in the pivotal era between the two world wars, the lives of five remarkable women intertwined around this one address: the modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf. In an era when women's freedoms were fast expanding, they each sought a space where they could live, love, and--above all--work independently.With sparkling insight and a novelistic style, Francesca Wade sheds new light on a group of artists and thinkers whose pioneering work would enrich the possibilities of women's lives for generations to come.

How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change


Joe Clark - 2013
    In the world that is taking shape, the unique combination of Canada's success at home as a diverse society and its reputation internationally as a sympathetic and respected partner consititute national assets that are at least as valuable as its natural resource wealth. As the world becomes more competitive and complex, and the chances of deadly conflict grow, the example and the initiative of Canada can become more important than they have ever been. That depends on its people: assets have no value if Canadians don't recognize or use them, or worse, if they waste them. A more effective Canada is not only a benefit to itself, but to its friends and neighbours. And in this compelling examination of what it as a nation has been, what it has become and what it can yet be to the world, Joe Clark takes the reader beyond formal foreign policy and looks at the contributions and leadership offered by Canada's most successful individuals and organizations who are already putting these uniquely Canadian assets to work internationally.

Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty From Victorian Times to the Present Day (Women with Style)


Medeleine Marsh - 2009
    In this fascinating book, vintage accessories’ expert, Madeleine Marsh, discusses just what makes compacts so desirable and reveals their hidden secrets from cameras to cigarettes. Madeleine shows what to buy and where, what to spot when buying and how to make the most of your compacts, vintage cosmetics or beauty accessories.

Operation Medusa: The Furious Battle That Saved Afghanistan from the Taliban


David Fraser - 2018
    Birthplace of the Taliban decades earlier, this fertile region had since become Afghanistan's most deadly turf. It would soon turn deadlier still. Advised in the night by his intelligence officers that the Taliban had secretly amassed for a full-scale military assault, Fraser knew it would fall to him, his Canadians and their allies to avoid the wholesale slaughter of NATO troops, keep the Taliban from laying siege to Kandahar and restore control of the south of the country to a newly formed, democratic Afghan government.     The odds were solidy against Fraser's forces. The Taliban knew every millimetre of their own terrain. During the months of secret manoeuvres they had stocked every farmhouse, school, grape hut and tunnel with weapons and ammunition. They had drilled Soviet-era landmines into all of the marijuana and poppy fields, and dug IEDs into every roadway. Protected from detection by corrupt officials, their sophisticated warfare schools had successfully readied an army of zealous fighters to attack and fight to the death. And now their top commanders were poised to launch decisive military operations against freshly arrived troops who had never seen combat.     The bloodiest battle in NATO's history was about to begin.

Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers


Ed Nyland - 2015
    Its essence is sharing. Therefore, Bill W. and Dr. Bob are always referred to within the Fellowship as the co-founders. So far, among the majority of A.A. members, the Ohio surgeon has been less well known than his partner. He died in 1950, when A.A. was only 15 years old. But his influence on the whole A.A. program is permanent and profound. This book gives a portrait of Dr. Bob as full-sale and balanced as possible—for the most part, in the words of those who knew him personally. The young man who grew up in Vermont became a hard-drinking college boy, then a medical student fighting the onset of his own alcoholism, a respected physician, a loving but increasingly unreliable family man, and at last a desperately ill drunk. He was without hope until he met a stockbroker from New York—Bill W., who urgently needed a fellow alcoholic to help him maintain his own sobriety. His story then becomes inextricably entwined with that of Alcoholics Anonymous: from a fledgling Fellowship to a powerful spiritual movement with a worldwide reach. Dr. Bob’s story remains instructional and inspiring to those who read it today.

Mosquito Point Road: Monroe County Murder & Mayhem


Michael Benson - 2020
    There’s Killer of the Cloth, The Baby in the Convent, Mosquito Point Road, Death of a First Baseman, The Blue Gardenia, and Pure/Evil. Three of the killers are female.

The Making of the October Crisis: Canada's Long Nightmare of Terrorism at the Hands of the Flq


D'Arcy Jenish - 2018
    The perpetrators were members of the Front de lib�ration du Qu�bec, dedicated to establishing a sovereign and socialist Quebec. Half a century on, we should have reached some clear understanding of what led to the October Crisis. Instead, too much attention has been paid to the Crisis and not enough to the years preceding it.Most of those who have written about the FLQ have been ardent nationalists, committed sovereigntists or former terrorists. They tell us that the authorities should have negotiated with the kidnappers and contend that Jean Drapeau's administration and the governments of Robert Bourassa and Pierre Trudeau created the October Crisis by invoking the War Measures Act. Using new research and interviews, D'Arcy Jenish tells for the first time the complete story--starting from the spring of 1963. This gripping narrative by a veteran journalist and master storyteller will change forever the way we view this dark chapter in Canadian history.

The Feckin' Book of Irish History


Colin Murphy - 2009
    The Feckin’ Book of Irish History serves up a gansey-load of Irish history in a pint-sized, pithy, and entertaining package. Invasions, emergencies, and all sorts of Troubles. The Sieges of Limerick, the Big Fella, the Long Fella, and lots of English Fellas. And let’s not forget the IRB, IRA, EEC, GAA, BC, AD, ITGWU, and all them other initials. The Feckin’ Book of Irish History is with hilarious illustrations, “Interesting Stuff” sidebars that will educate you quickly and painlessly, and quotes from Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Oscar Wilde, and other sons o’ the sod. So grab your Guinness and get into some authentic Irish history. You don’t want to have to read this stuff in a boring ol’ run-o’-the mill book, now do ya?

Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire


Eric Berkowitz - 2012
    However, that's not to say that the Sumerians, Victorians, and every civilization in between and beyond have not tried, wielding their most formidable weapon: the law. At any given point in time, some forms of sex were condoned while others were punished mercilessly. Jump forward or backward a century or two (and often far less than that), and the harmless fun of one time period becomes the gravest crime in another. Sex and Punishment tells the story of the struggle throughout the millennia to regulate the most powerful engine of human behavior.Writer and lawyer Eric Berkowitz uses flesh-and-blood cases—much flesh and even more blood—to evoke the entire sweep of Western sex law, from the savage impalement of an Ancient Mesopotamian adulteress to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in 1895 for "gross indecency." The cast of Sex and Punishment is as varied as the forms taken by human desire itself: royal mistresses, gay charioteers, medieval transvestites, lonely goat-lovers, prostitutes of all stripes, London rent boys. Each of them had forbidden sex, and each was judged—and justice, as Berkowitz shows, rarely had much to do with it. With the light touch of a natural storyteller, Berkowitz spins these tales and more, going behind closed doors to reveal the essential history of human desire.

Feminisms: A Global History


Lucy Delap - 2020
    Despite being repeatedly written off as a political movement that has achieved its aim of female liberation, it has been continually redefined as new generations of women campaign against the gender inequity of their age.In this absorbing book, historian Lucy Delap challenges the simplistic narrative of 'feminist waves' - a sequence of ever more progressive updates ­- showing instead that feminists have been motivated by the specific concerns of their historical moment. Drawing on an extraordinary range of examples from Japan to Russia, Egypt to Germany, Delap explores different feminist projects to show that those who are part of this movement have not always agreed on a single programme. This diverse history of feminism, she argues, can help us better navigate current debates and controversies.A tour de force from an award-winning expert, Feminisms shows that a rich relationship to the past can infuse today's activism with a sense possibility and inspiration.

Mayor Rob Ford: Uncontrollable How I Tried to Help the World's Most Notorious Mayor


Mark Towhey - 2015
    Weeks later, he was accused of groping a campaign rival. In March, he was asked to leave a gala for being too intoxicated; in May fired as the coach of a high school football team. The events were part of a stream of Rob Ford “mishaps,” which include DUIs, accusations of domestic violence, and a trial where the Toronto City Council stripped him of his powers.Through it all, Ford’s former chief of staff, Mark Towhey, stood by his side. Towhey was part of Ford’s inner circle; he’d joined Ford’s mayoral campaign in 2010 and quickly became one of his closest advisors. He responded to media questions regarding Ford’s drug and alcohol additions, his anger management problems, and, of course, the video of Ford smoking crack. In May 2013, Mark Towhey had a confidential conversation with Ford. It was shortly after the video was made public and also followed rumors of Ford's involvement in the murder of Anthony Smith, who stands beside Ford in the video. Thus far, the public only knows two words from that conversation; Towhey told Ford to “get help.” They also know what happened next, Towhey was fired. In Uncontrollable: My Life with Mayor Rob Ford, Towhey gives an insider account of working with Ford, covering for him, managing a man who people see as a joke, who trips over himself in videos; who throws candy at children instead of handing it to them; who rants and raves, and gets belligerent in meetings and at private events.This is a must-read for Canadians voting in the mayoral election, as well as fans of Ford—and his antics—all over the world. It’s an unparalleled tell-all and perhaps what’s most amazing is that Towhey bears no ill will toward the mayor. This is not the account of a man eager to get revenge. It’s simply an up-close look at the mayor—and what goes on behind the scenes.

REPORTS OF THEIR DEMISE


William Peter Grasso - 2021
    

FIRSTS: Women Who Are Changing the World


TIME Magazine - 2017
    A companion to TIME's multi-platform documentary, the book includes 15 first person deep-dives into the lives of influential women such as General Lori Robinson, the first woman to lead troops into combat, Kathryn Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, and Aretha Franklin, the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many others, including Oprah Winfrey, Madeline Albright, and Sheryl Sandburg offer their own personal reflections, thematic quotes and perspectives on balance, perseverance and strength.Each first-person piece or quote is accompanied by a distinctive portrait by photographer Luisa Dorr ― set up and taken on her iPhone. Others included in this unforgettable volume: Serena Williams, Ellen Degeneres, Loretta Lynch, Shonda Rimes, Nancy Pelosi, Rita Moreno, Cindy Sherman and Mo’Ne Davis.With a stirring introduction by Nancy Gibbs, herself a pioneer as the first female editor of TIME magazine, this is an inspirational book for all women and men.

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History


Laurel Thatcher Ulrich - 2007
    And then she added a phrase that has since gained widespread currency: Well-behaved women seldom make history.Today those words appear almost everywhere on T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers, plaques, greeting cards, and more. But what do they really mean? In this engrossing volume, Laurel Ulrich goes far beyond the slogan she inadvertently created and explores what it means to make history.Her volume ranges over centuries and cultures, from the fifteenth-century writer Christine de Pizan, who imagined a world in which women achieved power and influence, to the writings of nineteenth-century suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and twentieth-century novelist Virginia Woolf. Ulrich updates de Pizan's Amazons with stories about women warriors from other times and places. She contrasts Woolf's imagined story about Shakespeare's sister with biographies of actual women who were Shakespeare's contemporaries. She turns Stanton's encounter with a runaway slave upside down, asking how the story would change if the slave rather than the white suffragist were at the center. She uses daybook illustrations to look at women who weren't trying to make history, but did. Throughout, she shows how the feminist wave of the 1970s created a generation of historians who by challenging traditional accounts of both men's and women's histories stimulated more vibrant and better-documented accounts of the past. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History celebrates a renaissance in history inspired by amateurs, activists, and professional historians. It is a tribute to history and to those who make it.

War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women and the Consequences of Conflict


Ann Jones - 2010
    Answers came through the point and click of a digital camera. On behalf of the IRC, Ann Jones spent two years traveling through Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East, giving cameras to women who had no other means of telling the world what war had done to their lives. The photography project—which moved from Liberia to Syria and points in between—quickly broadened to encompass the full consequences of modern warfare for the most vulnerable. Even after the definitive moments of military victory, women and children remain blighted by injury and displacement and are the most affected by the destruction of communities and social institutions. And along with peace often comes worsening violence against women, both domestic and sexual.Dramatic and compelling, animated by the voices of brave and resourceful women, War Is Not Over When It's Over shines a powerful light on a phenomenon that has long been cast in shadow.