Book picks similar to
What I Learned About Politics: Inside the Rise-and Collapse-of Nova Scotia's NDP Government by Graham Steele
politics
canada
non-fiction
nonfiction
Wolf Willow
Wallace Stegner - 1962
Set in Cypress Hills in southern Saskatchewan, where Stegner's family homesteaded from 1914 to 1920, Wolf Willow: A History, a Story & a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier brings to life both the pioneer community and the magnificent landscape that surrounds it. This Twentieth-Century Classics edition includes a new introductory essay by Page Stegner.
I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank the Irishman Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa
Charles Brandt - 2004
The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that is destined to become a true crime classic.
Obasan
Joy Kogawa - 1981
Winner of the American Book AwardBased on the author's own experiences, this award-winning novel was the first to tell the story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.
Your Heart Is the Size of Your Fist: A Doctor Reflects on Ten Years at a Refugee Clinic
Martina Scholtens - 2017
A Congolese woman refuses antiretroviral treatment for her new HIV diagnosis, and instead places her trust in Jesus. Two conservative Muslim Iraqi women are inadvertently exposed to pornography when a doctor uses Google Images to supplement a medical discussion. By turns humorous, distressing, and moving, these stories offer insight into the people seeking a new life while navigating poverty, language barriers, and neighbours who aren’t always friendly.This riveting collection of true stories from Dr. Martina Scholtens is filled with hope and humour, and together make up a deeply moving portrait of how one doctor attempts to provide quality care and advocacy for patients while remaining culturally sensitive, even as she wrestles with guilt, awareness of her own privilege, the faith she was raised with, and vicarious trauma after hearing countless stories of brutality and suffering.In the spirit of Louise Aronson and Atul Gawande, Scholtens’ writing is based on her personal experiences and explores the transformative moments in which a clinical doctor-patient relationship becomes a profound human-human connection.
Causeway: A Passage From Innocence
Linden MacIntyre - 2006
At once a vibrant coming-of-age story, a portrait of a vanishing way of life and a reflection on fathers and sons, the narrative revolves around the construction of the Canso Causeway that would link the small Cape Breton village of MacIntyre's childhood to the wide world of the mainland. Shot through with humour, humanity and vivid characters, Causeway is an extraordinary book, a memoir that has set a new standard for the genre.
The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada
Patrick Malcolmson - 2001
By explaining the inner logic of parliamentary government, as well as the underlying rationale for its institutions and processes, the authors demystify what might appear to be a relatively complex political system. Urging readers to consider the organic nature of the political system--in which change in one area inevitably ripples through the rest of the system--the authors provide much more than just a description of the features of government.The fourth edition has been updated to include analysis of the 2008 Canadian federal election. Discussions of responsible government and the role of the Governor General have been revised and expanded. Coalition government, the Single Transferable Vote, and the emergence of the Green Party are explained and new developments in Senate reform and Supreme Court appointments are also covered.
Missing from the Village: The Story of Serial Killer Bruce McArthur, the Search for Justice, and the System That Failed Toronto's Queer Community
Justin Ling - 2020
On paper, an investigation continued for a year, but remained "open but suspended." By 2015, investigative journalist Justin Ling had begun to put in multiple requests to speak to the investigators on the case. Meanwhile, more men would go missing, and police would continue to deny that there might be a serial killer. On January 18, 2018, Bruce McArthur, a landscaper, would be charged with three counts of first-degree murder. In February 2019, he was convicted of eight counts of first-degree murder.This extraordinary book tells the complete story of the McArthur murders. Based on more than five years of in-depth reporting, this is also a story of police failure, of how the gay community failed its own, and the story of the eight men who went missing and the lives they left behind. In telling that story, Justin Ling uncovers the latent homophobia and racism that kept this case unsolved and unseen. This gripping book reveals how police agencies across the country fail to treat missing persons cases seriously, and how policies and laws, written at every level of government, pushed McArthur's victims out of the light and into the shadows.
Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think
Chris Matthews - 2001
From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and top aide to Tip O'Neill, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. As one of the most honest, brash, and in-your-face journalists on TV, he has finally gotten the chance. The host of television's Hardball and bestselling author of such classics as Hardball and Kennedy & Nixon, Matthews is a political cop who insists on the truth and nothing but. In this latest work, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best. From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia complete with Cold War air-raid drills and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures: two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics. Matthews has made his name as a razor-sharp journalist who cross-examines the politicians in Washington and takes on the Los Angeles and New York elite who view America's heartland as "fly-over country." In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Matthews rallies those who "work hard and play by the rules" and celebrates the wisdom learned from a U.S. Capitol policeman more than twenty years ago, "The little man loves his country, because it's all he's got." A hard-to-categorize maverick with an uncool love for his country, Matthews gives an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.
The Stone Thrower: A Daughter's Lessons, a Father's Life
Jael Ealey Richardson - 2012
Knowing very little about her father's past, Richardson was searching for the story behind her father's move from the projects of Portsmouth, Ohio to Canada's professional football league in the early 1970s. At the railroad tracks where her father first learned to throw with stones, Jael begins an unexpected journey into her family's past.In this engaging father-daughter memoir, Richardson records some her father's never-before told stories: his relationship with his absentee father, memories of his high school and college football victories--including a winning record that remains unbroken to this day--and his up-and-down relationship with the woman he would one day marry.As Richardson begins unravelling the story of her father's life, she begins to compare her own childhood growing up in Canada, with her father's US civil rights era upbringing. Along the way, she also discovers the real reason--despite his athletic accomplishments--her father was never drafted into the National Football League.The Stone Thrower is a moving story about race and destiny written by a daughter looking for answers about her own black history. Using insightful interviews, archival records and her personal reflections, Richardson's journey to learn about her father's past leads her to her own important discoveries about herself, and what it really means to be black in Canada.
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
Hyeonseo Lee - 2014
Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.She could not return, since rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit.
Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of)
Elaine Lui - 2014
fans of Elaine Lui’s site know, her mother, aka The Squawking Chicken, is a huge factor in Elaine’s life. She pulls no punches, especially with her only child. “Where’s my money?” she asks every time she sees Elaine. “You’ll never be Miss Hong Kong,” she informed her daughter when she was a girl. Listen to the Squawking Chicken lays bare the playbook of unusual advice, warnings, and unwavering love that has guided Elaine throughout her life. Using the nine principles that her mother used to raise her, Elaine tells us the story of the Squawking Chicken’s life—in which she walked an unusual path to parent with tough love, humor, and, through it all, a mother’s unyielding devotion to her daughter. This is a love letter to mothers everywhere.
Lightfoot
Nicholas Jennings - 2017
Beloved by a devoted Canadian audience, Lightfoot's work has been performed and admired by musicians from around the world, including Joni Mitchell, Nico, Ronnie Hawkins and Robbie Robertson. Nobel Prize-winner Bob Dylan once listed Sundown and If You Could Read My Mind among his favourite Lightfoot songs, before adding, I can't think of any I don't like. In addition to winning nearly every Canadian music award, in 2012, Lightfoot was inducted into the American Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside such luminaries as Leonard Cohen, Kris Kristoffersen, and Dylan; it honoured Lightfoot as a singer who helped "define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and '70s."Biographer Nick Jennings has had unprecedented access to the notoriously reticent musician. He chronicles Lightfoot's early efforts--his school principal recorded a disc of "Gordie" singing at age 9--to his beginnings as a songwriter to his heyday in concert halls around the globe. Possessed of a strong work ethic and a perfectionist bent, Lightfoot brought discipline to his craft and performances. But he partied just as hard in that rock 'n' roll era, and alcoholism began to take its toll. Lightfoot toured relentlessly and his personal life suffered as marriages and relationships unravelled. At 63, he suffered an aortic aneurysm that nearly killed him and kept him in a coma for six weeks. But his amazing stamina helped him survive and miraculously saw him on stage once again, resuming his touring and yearly sold-out show at Massey Hall.Jennings paints an unforgettable portrait of an artist in the making, set against the turbulent era of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll. Voices from the music industry mix with loyal fans to illustrate how the boy from small-town Ontario became the legendary bard of Canada. Stuffed with anecdotes and the singer's own reminisences, Lightfoot is an exhilarating read.
A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea
Richard Phillips - 2010
His courage is a model for all Americans."--President Barack Obama It was just another day on the job for fifty-three-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, the United States-flagged cargo ship which was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship. The pirates didn't expect the crew to fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew. Thus began the tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue when U.S. Navy SEALs opened fire and picked off three of the captors. "It never ends like this," Captain Phillips said. And he's right. A Captain's Duty tells the life-and-death drama of the Vermont native who was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores. A story of adventure and courage, it provides the intimate details of this high-seas hostage-taking--the unbearable heat, the death threats, the mock executions, and the escape attempt. When the pirates boarded his ship, Captain Phillips put his experience into action, doing everything he could to safeguard his crew. And when he was held captive by the pirates, he marshaled all his resources to ensure his own survival, withstanding intense physical hardship and an escalating battle of wills with the pirates. This was it: the moment where training meets instinct and where character is everything. Richard Phillips was ready.
Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum
Michael McCreary - 2019
Like many others on the autism spectrum, 20-something stand-up comic Michael McCreary has been told by more than a few well-meaning folks that he doesn't "look" autistic. But, as he's quick to point out in this memoir, autism "looks" different for just about everyone with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Diagnosed with ASD at age five, McCreary got hit with the performance bug not much later. During a difficult time in junior high, he started journaling, eventually turning his pain e into something empowering--and funny. He scored his first stand-up gig at age 14, and hasn't looked back. An #OwnVoices memoir breaks down what it's like to live with autism for readers on and off the spectrum.
Dirty Work: My Gruelling, Glorious, Life-Changing Summer in the Wilderness
Anna Maxymiw - 2019
At twenty-three, she has decided to step away from her master’s degree and city life to board a floatplane bound for the remote boreal forest.For sixty-seven days, Anna will be working and living alongside twelve strangers. Together this group of young men and women will keep the lodge running. While the male fishing guides head out on the water with the fishermen who are the lodge’s guests, the women stay on land to clean and serve. Against the backdrop of a vast lake, wild storms, and hot days and eerily still nights, Anna encounters bears, bugs, and the lore surrounding the lake’s legendary pike. As the summer progresses, complex (and sometimes fraught) bonds form between the men and women who work at the lodge and the tension builds. Anna notices a shift in her outlook, too: she finds herself letting go of fears and insecurities and welcoming surprises and possibilities, both good and bad, with a willingness to be changed by them.Warm, funny, vulnerable, and wise, Dirty Work offers a singular perspective on the age-old impulse to leave familiar surroundings behind. It’s for anyone who has ever felt the urge to test themselves and wondered how they’d fare and who they’d be when they came out on the other side.