Book picks similar to
Wakeful Nights Stephan G. Stephansson: Icelandic-Canadian Poet by Viðar Hreinsson
poetry
biography
canada
favourite-non-fiction
Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders
Rob Tripp - 2012
A father, mother and son convicted of murder. The shocking truth about the “ honourless crime” that stunned a nation.On the morning of June 30, 2009, police in a small eastern Ontario city made a ghastly discovery: four females dead in a car submerged in a shallow canal. Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar Shafia, 17, Geeti Shafia, 13, and Rona Mohammad Amir, 50, floated serenely inside the car, seemingly the victims of a terrible accident. That morning, Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba and their son, Hamed, arrived at the Kingston police station to report the four missing. In a sweeping covert investigation that spanned three continents, police uncovered layers of lies in the Shafias’ story and they developed a horrifying theory: Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona had been the victims of a meticulously plotted family murder � Canada’ s first mass honour killing.In Without Honour, award-winning journalist Rob Tripp draws on three years of exhaustive research and exclusive interviews to make sense of a senseless crime in a way no other writer could. His unprecedented access tells a story beyond anything the jury heard: a story about a patriarch who fled war and strife in Afghanistan but who did not leave behind his devotion to repressive tradition. Tripp was the first journalist on the scene as the news broke and the only reporter to attend every day of court sessions, through to the convictions of Shafia, Tooba and Hamed on four counts each of first-degree murder, fuelled by what Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger called a “ twisted notion of honour.” In this gripping and compassionate account, Tripp reveals the heartbreaking and stunning truth about the desperate lives of four women who died in the pursuit of freedom.
The Boat That Wouldn't Float (Illustrated Edition)
Mowat - 1976
No Quarter: The Three Lives of Jimmy Page
Martin J. Power - 2015
Starting with the early Sixties session scene when the teenage Page contributed to recordings by The Who, The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones and many more, the author goes on to explore Page's time in The Yardbirds, the band that would metamorphose into the legendary Led Zeppelin.Supported by album reviews, rare photographs, a full discography and candid conversations with Page's friends, managers and musical collaborators, author Martin Power's No Quarter: The Three Lives Of Jimmy Page represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography yet written about Jimmy Page—a "one man guitar army" and true music legend.
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.
Home Game
Paul Quarrington - 1983
Nathanael "Crybaby" Isbister was once the greatest baseball player in the world, but now he's a down-on-his-luck drifter on the road to oblivion. That is until he wanders into a circus sideshow troupe stranded in a tiny Michigan town dominated by a hellfire-and brimstone religious sect. The sect vows to drive the troupe out, but give them one unlikely chance to remain--the baseball game to end all baseball games.A funny, moving novel, Home Game walks the straight but delicate line between absurdity and compassion with dazzling style and expertise.
Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Three Words and Four Weeks that shaped a pandemic
Bonnie Henry - 2021
Bonnie Henry has been called one of the most effective public health figures in the world by The New York Times. She has been called a calming voice in a sea of coronavirus madness, and our hero in national newspapers. But in the waning days of 2019, when the first rumours of a strange respiratory ailment in Wuhan, China began to trickle into her office in British Colombia, these accolades lay in a barely imaginable future.Only weeks later, the whole world would look back on the previous year with the kind of nostalgia usually reserved for the distant past. With a staggering suddenness, our livelihoods, our closest relationships, our habits and our homes had all been transformed.In a moment when half-truths threatened to drown out the truth, when recklessness all too often exposed those around us to very real danger, and when it was difficult to tell paranoia from healthy respect for an invisible threat, Dr. Henry's transparency, humility, and humanity became a beacon for millions of Canadians.And her trademark enjoinder to be kind, be calm, and be safe became words for us all to live by.Coincidentally, Dr. Henry's sister, Lynn, arrived in BC for a long-planned visit on March 12, just as the virus revealed itself as a pandemic. For the four ensuing weeks, Lynn had rare insight into the whirlwind of Bonnie's daily life, with its moments of agony and gravity as well as its occasional episodes of levity and grace. Both a global story and a family story, Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe combines Lynn's observations and knowledge of Bonnie's personal and professional background with Bonnie's recollections of how and why decisions were made, to tell in a vivid way the dramatic tale of the four weeks that changed all our lives.Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe is about communication, leadership, and public trust; about the balance between politics and policy; and, at heart, about what and who we value, as individuals and a society.The authors' advance from the publisher will be donated to charities with a focus on alleviating communities hit particularly hard by the pandemic: True North Aid with its Covid-19 response in Northern Indigenous communities, and First Book Canada, with its focus on reading and literacy for underserved, marginalized youth.
The Story of Beatrix Potter
Sarah Gristwood - 2016
Finally, she traces the last 30 years of Potter's life, when she abandoned books to become a working farmer and pioneer of the conservation movement in the early days of the National Trust. Special features throughout the book will show how Beatrix Potter developed many of her most famous characters, including Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, and Jemima Puddleduck.
Blackened White
Brian W. Foster - 2012
Foster makes his entrance into the literary world with "Blackened White", a first person account of life, love, faith, and pain. In this collection of poems, essays, and short stories, Foster offers a series of brutally honest, often humorous, and profoundly ironic writings chronicling a journey into his own human condition. Using his unique style of prose and storytelling, we observe a young man wrestling with his faith in the midst of relationships, addictions, sexuality and the unending, relentless desire to be whole. Author and Grammy award winning singer Kevin Max says Blackened White "Prods the flesh with electrodes of hyper emotion, dangerous subtlety and purposefully mannered archaism". Likening it to an "Open House flier", Foster invites the reader along the journey with him through this thought-provoking collection, which is sure to leave an indelible mark on the soul.
Sea Legs: One Family's Year on the Ocean
Guy Grieve - 2013
Sick of the weather, perennial colds and their increasingly routine lifestyle, they’d all been getting restless. Finally, Guy and Juliet broke in spectacular style – they re-mortgaged their house and bought a yacht. Her name was Forever.The plan? To pick up Forever from her mooring in the Leeward Antilles off the coast of Venezuela, and sail around the West Indies before crossing the Atlantic back to Scotland. This was despite the fact that Guy, skipper of the expedition, had almost no sailing experience.Travelling around the lush tropical islands of the Caribbean and up the waterways of America, the family had countless sublime moments as they discovered the freedoms of sailing – anchoring in deserted bays, night passages under star-studded skies, and entering New York by water, greeted by the Statue of Liberty. But there were also testing times as they grappled with seasickness and bad weather, coping with young children at sea and learning to run a large, complex boat. Far from being the idyllic escape they’d envisaged, the journey forced Guy and Juliet to draw on reserves of courage and endurance they never knew they had.Wry, funny and buccaneering, this is a compelling tale of bravery and endeavour, out on the open sea.
Once Upon an Island
David Conover - 1969
The book retells their adventures and misadventures, their comic failures and satisfying successes.
Dude, Where's my Stethoscope
Donovan Gray - 2012
The adventure begins during the author's formative years in medical school and takes the reader through two decades of thought-provoking rural and urban-based ER and family practice experiences. Humorously written in an engaging mash-up of formal prose and informal medical slang with a nod to pop culture and ancient mythology, Dude is a powerful book that is certain to please readers of all stripes.
True Red
Tuhoe 'Bruno' Isaac - 2007
"Because all levels of society hated us we created a new society of hatred symbolised by the bulldog. Its ferocious habits were engraved on our hearts," Tuhoe says, "If you weren't a mobster you weren't worth knowing." He lived this way for 17 years.However, constantly living for the bash, beer, prison and the possibility of dying in a pool of blood eventually saw Tuhoe search for another way of doing life. Leaving the Mob was hard. Not only did he face the rejection of his own and the fierce judgemental prejudices of mainstream society, but with the awakening of his conscience came the realisation of a past filled with inflicting pain on others besides himself, and of a life devoid of any sense of love or hope. This led him down a path of confession, forgiveness and reconciliation.True Red is the essential biography of one man's fascinating journey from the realm of darkness into the world of light.
Kennedy
Brett Harper - 2015
Kennedy glimmers through history as the young, idealistic president whose Camelot administration promised a new dawn for America. He did a great deal in his thousand-day presidency, from embracing civil rights and starting the Peace Corps to negotiating a nuclear test ban and facing down the Soviets on the brink of nuclear war. But fifty years after he was murdered, it's hard to separate the real JFK, with all his faults, from the many myths about him. This is his story - and why he mattered.
The Binman Chronicles. Neville Southall
Neville Southall - 2012
Life of Brine
Phil Jarratt - 2017
Jarratt, who has often courted controversy in his long career as a journalist, editor and documentarian, pulls no punches as he rides an exhilarating wave of nostalgia from the Sixties up until now, through the heady days of drugs, alcohol and excess from Bali to Biarritz, Morocco to Malibu, and other exotic locations in between. Filled with the carefree, sometimes reckless enthusiasm of youth, yet balanced by reflection and insight, this is a book that will be devoured by surfers young and old, and by free spirits of all kinds and all ages. About the authorPhil Jarratt has worked in surf publishing and the surf industry for more than forty years, and is regarded as one of the sport’s foremost authorities. The editor of Tracks and Australian Surfer’s Journal and an associate editor of Surfer, Phil has received the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Media Award four times and has won numerous other awards for his work. He has authored thirty-five books including award-winning surf histories and bestselling biographies.