Book picks similar to
Christie Pits by Jamie Michaels
historical-fiction
toronto
canada
canadian-history
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth
Ken Krimstein - 2018
This was a woman who endured Nazi persecution firsthand, survived harrowing "escapes" from country to country in Europe, and befriended such luminaries as Walter Benjamin and Mary McCarthy, in a world inhabited by everyone from Marc Chagall and Marlene Dietrich to Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. A woman who finally had to give up her unique genius for philosophy, and her love of a very compromised man--the philosopher and Nazi-sympathizer Martin Heidegger--for what she called "love of the world."Compassionate and enlightening, playful and page-turning, New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein's The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt is a strikingly illustrated portrait of a complex, controversial, deeply flawed, and irrefutably courageous woman whose intelligence and "virulent truth telling" led her to breathtaking insights into the human condition, and whose experience continues to shine a light on how to live as an individual and a public citizen in troubled times.
Citizen 13660
Mine Okubo - 1946
Citizen 13660, Okubo's illustrated memoir of life in relocation centers in California and Utah, illuminates this experience with poignant drawings and witty, candid text.This classic in Asian American literature and American history, with a new introduction by Christine Hong, is available for the first time in both a traditional paperback format and an artist's edition, oversize and in hardcover to better illustrate the innovative artwork as originally envisioned by Okubo."[Mine Okubo] took her months of life in the concentration camp and made it the material for this amusing, heartbreaking book. . . . The moral is never expressed, but the wry pictures and the scanty words make the reader laugh - and if he is an American too - blush." - Pearl Buck"A remarkably objective and vivid and even humorous account. . . . In dramatic and detailed drawings and brief text, [Okubo] documents the whole episode . . . all that she saw, objectively, yet with a warmth of understanding." " - New York Times Book Review"
The Patrol: Seven Days In The Life Of A Canadian Soldier In Afghanistan
Ryan Flavelle - 2011
. . . Those who like war are aptly named warriors. Some, like me, are fated never to be warriors, as we are more afraid of war than fascinated by it. But I have the consolation that I have walked with warriors and know what kind of men and women they are. I will never be a warrior, but I have known war.” (The Patrol)In 2008, Ryan Flavelle, a reservist in the Canadian Army and a student at the University of Calgary, volunteered to serve in Afghanistan. For seven months, twenty-four-year-old Flavelle, a signaller attached to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, endured the extreme heat, the long hours and the occasional absurdity of life as a Canadian soldier in this new war so far from home. Flavelle spent much of his time at a Canadian Forward Operating Base (FOB), living among his fellow soldiers and occasionally going outside the wire. For one seven-day period, Flavelle went into Taliban country, always walking in the footsteps of the man ahead of him, meeting Afghans and watching behind every mud wall for a sign of an enemy combatant.The Patrol is a gritty, boots-on-the-ground memoir of a soldier’s experience in the Canadian Forces in the twenty-first century. In the tradition of Farley Mowat’s The Regiment and James Jones’ The Thin Red Line, this book isn’t merely about the guns and the glory—it is about why we fight, why men and women choose such a dangerous and demanding job and what their lives are like when they find themselves back in our ordinary world.
Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories
Alan MooreJoe Orlando - 2003
In this fantastic tome, the creator of the major motion pictures, From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, uses masterful storytelling to present thought provoking and profound adventures of the world's greatest heroes. Featuring Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Swamp Thing, Black Canary, the Phantom Stranger, and Vigilante this book acts as an extraordinary anthology of Alan Moore's groundbreaking work.
The Goddamned, Vol. 1: Before the Flood
Jason Aaron - 2016
It's 1,655 years after Eden, and life on earth has already gone to hell. The world of man is a place of wanton cruelty and wickedness. Prehistoric monsters and stone-age marauders roam the land. Murder and destruction are the rule of the day. This is life before the Flood. The story of man on the verge of his first apocalypse. Welcome to the world of the Goddamned. Collects THE GODDAMNED #1-5
Dante's Inferno: The Graphic Novel
Joseph Lanzara - 2012
Now you can experience this major work of world literature in a simplified adaptation. This graphic novel pulls no punches. Dante’s harrowing journey through Hell is not for the squeamish. It is a powerful, but ultimately inspiring story of sin, punishment, self-sacrifice, and redemption.
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Sydney Padua - 2015
. . in which Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures. Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)
The Massey Murder: A Maid, Her Master and the Trial that Shocked a Nation
Charlotte Gray - 2013
Carrie Davies, an 18-year-old domestic servant, quickly confessed. But who was the victim here? Charles “Bert” Massey, a scion of a famous family, or the frightened, perhaps mentally unstable Carrie, a penniless British immigrant? When the brilliant lawyer Hartley Dewart, QC, took on her case, his grudge against the powerful Masseys would fuel a dramatic trial that pitted the old order against the new, wealth and privilege against virtue and honest hard work. Set against a backdrop of the Great War in Europe and the changing faceof a nation, this sensational crime is brought to vivid life for the first time.As in her previous bestselling book, Gold Diggers—now in production as a Discovery Television miniseries—multi-award-winning historian and biographer Charlotte Gray has created a captivating narrative rich in detail and brimming with larger-than-life personalities, as she shines a light on a central moment in our past.
Bannock, Beans and Black Tea: Memories of a Prince Edward Island Childhood in the Great Depression
John Gallant - 2004
This is a gripping and poignant memoir recounting one boy's experiences of deprivation and poverty growing up in a rural farming village during the Great Depression. The short stories are written by John Gallant and illustrated by his son Seth, better know to many as the New Yorker illustrator and award-winning D+Q cartoonist behind the books It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken and the sumptuous Vernacular Drawings. Written with a concise honesty and clarity, the stories reveal the sad reality of a boy growing up in brutal social and economic conditions.
King David
Kyle Baker - 2002
But Kyle Baker's comic book version of King David renders that classic confrontation in 17 wordless pages, comprising one of the freshest, most suspenseful and thrilling descriptions of its subject that you are likely to find. King David is a biblically accurate, freewheeling, color-saturated biography of the boy who rose to become king of Israel. David begins the book as a scruffyDennis-the-Menace-like kid and ends the book as a vain, hunky womanizer; King Saul is a glam-rock tyrant; his son Jonathan is a skinny punk rebel. (When he asks to borrow Saul's chariot and the king asks, "Where are you going, Jonathan?" he shoots back, "Out.") Many parents will deem the book's bloody battle scenes inappropriate for young readers. King David's candor, however, is a virtue. This is real religious literature: it describes David's relationship with God in a style that's fully alive for readers today. --Paul Power
X
Ilyasah Shabazz - 2015
I am my father’s son. But to be my father’s son means that they will always come for me. They will always come for me, and I will always succumb.Malcolm Little’s parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that's nothing but a pack of lies—after all, his father's been murdered, his mother's been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school. There’s no point in trying, he figures, and lured by the nightlife of Boston and New York, he escapes into a world of fancy suits, jazz, girls, and reefer.But Malcolm’s efforts to leave the past behind lead him into increasingly dangerous territory when what starts as some small-time hustling quickly spins out of control. Deep down, he knows that the freedom he’s found is only an illusion—and that he can't run forever.X follows Malcolm from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age twenty, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today.
Maria M.: Book One
Gilbert Hernández - 2013
from Latin America to escape her shady past, only to fall into a new shady life. After a go at the adult entertainment business, Maria marries a drug lord and her dangerous past is nothing compared to her new life in America. The drug lord's son, Gorgo, secretly falls in love with her and he watches over her like a guardian angel. Danger and corruption (and of course sex) drive the first half of this love story. Long-time Love and Rockets readers will find the storyline familiar... and that's because, in an Adaptation-style meta twist, Maria M. is actually the B-movie film adaptation of the life story of Luba's mother Maria, as previously seen in its "real" version in the classic graphic novel Poison River (available in the Beyond Palomar collection) -- starring Maria's own daughter playing her own mother. Confused? Don't be! Maria M. will work perfectly on its own terms as the kind of violent, sexy pulp tale that Gilbert Hernandez has proven so adept at these past several years, and the "source material" for the story will just provide an extra layer of delight for the cognoscenti. Part two of Maria M. will be released in 2014.
Black Heroes of the Wild West
James Otis Smith - 2020
Born into slavery in Tennessee, Mary Fields became famous as “Stagecoach Mary,” a cigar-chomping, cardplaying coach driver who never missed a delivery. Bass Reeves, the first black Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi, was one of the wiliest lawmen in the territories, bringing thousands of outlaws to justice with his smarts. Bob Lemmons lived to be 99 years old and was so good with horses that the wild mustangs on the plains of Texas took him for one of their own.
The Mad Trapper
Rudy Wiebe - 1980
When it ended, he was the most notorious criminal in North America, the object of the largest manhunt in RCMP history.This is the story of Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper, a silent man of superhuman strength and endurance, who defied capture for fifty days in the bitter cold of winter, north of the Arctic Circle. He was a man who crossed hundreds of miles of frozen tundra on foot, who survived dynamite blasts and the pursuit of police, trappers and the army, and who became the first man to cross the Richardson Mountains in a blizzard.
Unaccountable: Truth and Lies on Parliament Hill
Kevin Page - 2015
The move fulfilled a Tory campaign promise to deliver greater government transparency and accountability. He was later denounced by the same people who appointed him to scrutinize their spending. When he challenged the government on several issues--most notably about the true costs of the F-35 fighter planes--and publicly claimed the government was misleading Canadians, Page was vilified. He was called "unbelievable, unreliable and incredible" by then-Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Page's term was not extended and he retired from the civil service. Page's assessment of the F-35 procurement was proven right, a major embarrassment to the Harper government. But Page's overriding concern is that Parliament does not get the information and analysis it needs to hold the executive (the prime minister and cabinet) to account. Parliament, he argues, is broken, with power centralized in the PMO. The civil service appears cowed, and members of parliament almost never see enough financial analysis to support the policy decisions they make. That was true at various times on the tough-on-crime legislation, new military procurement as well as changes to the Canada Health Transfer and Old Age Security. In this shocking insider's account, Page argues that democracy is being undermined by an increasingly autocratic government that does not respect facts that run counter to its political agenda. Elected officials need accurate, independently verified data to support the implementation of policies and programs. In Unaccountable, Page tells all Canadians why we should be concerned.