Book picks similar to
Black Star by Maureen Medved
canadian
feminism
fiction
gave-up-on
The Beothuk Saga
Bernard Assiniwi - 1999
It begins a thousand years ago in the time of the Vikings in Newfoundland. It is crammed with incidents of war and peace, with fights to the death and long nights of lovemaking, and with accounts of the rise of local clan chiefs and the silent fall of great distant empires. Out of the mists of the past it sweeps forward eight hundred years, to the lonely death of the last of the Beothuk.The Beothuk, of course, were the original native people of Newfoundland, and thus the first North American natives encountered by European sailors. Noticing the red ochre they used as protection against mosquitoes, the sailors called them "Red-skins," a name that was to affect an entire continent. As a people, they were never understood.Until now. By adding his novelist's imagination to his knowledge as an anthropologist and a historian, Bernard Assiniwi has written a convincing account of the Beothuk people through the ages. To do so he has given us a mirror image of the history rendered by Europeans. For example, we know from the Norse Sagas that four slaves escaped from the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows. What happened to them? Bernard Assiniwi supplies a plausible answer, just as he perhaps solves the mystery of the Portuguese ships that sailed west in 1501 to catch more Beothuk, and disappeared from the paper records forever.The story of the Beothuk people is told in three parts. "The Initiate" tells of Anin, who made a voyage by canoe around the entire island a thousand years ago, encountering the strange Vikings with their "cutting sticks" and their hair "the colour of dried grass." His encounters with whales, bears, raiding Inuit and other dangers, and his survival skills on this epic journey make for fascinating reading, as does his eventual return to his home where, with the help of his strong and active wives, he becomes a legendary chief, the father of his people.
Men in the Off Hours
Anne Carson - 2000
In a recent profile, The New York Times Magazine paid tribute to her amazing ability to combine the classical and the modern, the mundane and the surreal, in a body of work that is sure to endure.In Men in the Off Hours, Carson offers further proof of her tantalizing gifts. Reinventing figures as diverse as Oedipus, Emily Dickinson, and Audubon, Carson sets up startling juxtapositions: Lazarus among video paraphernalia, Virginia Woolf and Thucydides discussing war, Edward Hopper paintings illuminated by St. Augustine. And in a final prose poem, she meditates movingly on the recent death of her mother. With its quiet, acute spirituality and its fearless wit and sensuality, Men in the Off Hours shows us a fiercely individual poet at her best.
The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies - 1979
last year, this updated collection contains the best of Robertson Davies' newspaper and magazine articles written over the past 50 years. "Each piece is entertaining and enlightening. . . ".--Publishers Weekly.
Stranded
Eric Walters - 1998
Gordo) Stevens is at a new school, trying to make friends and struggling to come to terms with his parents' divorce -- and his father's new girlfriend. (Her name is Amie and she's a lot younger than Gord's dad.) It's not surprising that Gord is in no mood for a week-long school trip to a remote island marine teaching station, especially when his new "friends" plot to catch him in the old "hand-in-warm-water-pee-the-bed" trick and his mom packs his old teddy bear. But there are bigger problems on the horizon for Gord -- like the fact that the marine biologist who runs the school suddenly has to leave the island. Or the fact that their radio, the only link to the mainland, expires. Or that a pod of pilot whales is beached on the island and about to die -- unless someone can help them get back to sea.In a story that weaves action, adventure, an environmental mystery, a ghost tale, and a budding romance into one terrific read, Eric Walters also addresses with subtlety and savvy the important pre-teen issues of belonging and self-confidence, friendship and change. With its natural, realistic dialogue, believably drawn characters and exciting -- and plausible -- climax, Stranded is another kid-pleasing story from an author whose career is on a dizzying ascent.
End of Men
Suzanne Strobel - 2020
All girls. Why?In a dark and divided dystopian America, an ambitious reporter must risk her life and reputation to find out why only females are being born.Twenty-eight-year-old Charley Tennyson has battled PTSD ever since surviving a violent attack that killed her father. Four months later, she returns to her job as a reporter, only to be thrust into a high-profile investigation that forces her to choose between her own safety and the nation’s future.For the last two days, only females have been born in America. If the trend continues, males could become extinct within the next century. Charley's investigation leads to a deep conspiracy that raises unexpected questions about gender roles, violence, government power, and her father’s death.The story of one woman’s journey to find courage in a world full of fear, End of Men is a reminder of what binds us together when everything is falling apart."End of Men is a smart, evocative page-turner set in an unnervingly plausible future. Strobel's plot unfolds at a furious pace, seamlessly weaving in scientific, technological and social details that will convince you her dystopian vision is right around the corner." —Doug Kurtz, The Story Coach, dougkurtz.com"Suzanne Strobel has woven a narrative that holds up to the best of the top-tier dystopian writers. The heroine, Charley Tennyson, embarks on a journey where she uncovers the truth to a scientific mystery, has to build trust with others and ultimately finds hope. I couldn’t put this book down. You’re not going to want to pass up this gem, in fact you’re going to want to bring it to your book club." —Tamara Palmer, Author of Finding Lancelot and Missing Tyler
Stats Canada: Satire On A National Scale
Stats Canada - 2013
While outrageously false, these hilarious “facts” unearth deep truths about Canadians and their culture. For the over 200,000 people already following on Twitter, @stats_canada is a daily source of the funniest Canadian parody. Now, in their first book, Stats Canada satirizes everything from history, culture, and language to sports, entertainment, politics, weather, and much more. With all-new features, graphs, maps, and other illustrations, Stats Canada has all the laughter you’ve come to expect, with only 10% recycled content! 35% of advice given in any Home Hardware does not come from an actual employee 67% of Canadians own summer snow pants 32% of Canadians can’t spell “tuque” but own at least four 56% of Manitobans are convinced they’ve travelled to the future when visiting other provinces 79% of Canadian teens don’t want to wear their winter coat, it’s not even that cold out 100% of Canadian hockey players give it 110% every game 65% of Canadian Instagram accounts include an artsy photo of a Tim Hortons cup Disclaimer: The official Statistics Canada has taken no issue with the content of this book. They were too polite to object.
The Juliet Stories
Carrie Snyder - 2012
It is 1984, the height of Nicaragua's post-revolutionary war, and the peace-activist Friesens have come to protest American involvement. In the midst of this tumult, Juliet's family lives outside of the boundaries of ordinary life. They've escaped, and the ordinary rules don't apply. Threat is pervasive, danger is real, but the extremity of the situation also produces a kind of euphoria, protecting Juliet's family from its own cracks and conflicts.When Juliet's younger brother becomes sick with cancer, their adventure ends abruptly. The Friesens return to Canada only to find that their lives beyond Nicaragua have become the war zone. One by one, they drift from each other, and Juliet grows to adulthood, pulled between her desire to live a free life like the one she remembers in Nicaragua, and her desire to build for her own children a life more settled than her parents could provide.With laser-sharp prose and breathtaking insight, these stories herald Carrie Snyder as one of Canada's most prodigiously talented writers.
Forgiving The Unforgivable
Sherry Johnson - 2013
Pregnant and married at the age of 11 to cover-up this horrible tragedy she shares how she overcame it all to be a successful business woman, mother and friend. This is a must read for anyone who suffer with forgiven people who have abused you as well as stopping the cycle of abuse in your life.
Road Trip! (SpongeBob SquarePants)
Adam Beechen - 2011
SpongeBob and Patrick are on the ultimate road trip when they set out in the Krusty Krab Patty Wagon to save King Neptune's crown from Shell City! They will travel through a cavernous trench and meet a monstrous frogfish, see a stampede of sea horses, and meet a giant Cyclops!
Beach Strip
John Lawrence Reynolds - 2012
Everyone calls it suicide. Josie knows it isn’t . . . but fears it could be. After all, she had provided Gabe with a motive. The clues are so strong that even Josie begins to believe Gabe shot himself. But when a horrific slaying occurs literally at her feet, she knows Gabe was murdered, and her determination to prove it carries her toward dark corners of the beach strip and exposes the darker sides of its residents. Fending off her fears with humour and outrage, she encounters a drug-crazed drifter, an organized-crime boss with romance on his mind, a woman with a murderous past and a pervert who’s been frequenting her garden shed. When a chance remark leads Josie to the astonishing truth of Gabe’s death, her story takes a shocking turn that no one could have seen coming.
We Want What We Want
Alix Ohlin - 2021
Unable to reconcile the girl she went to dances with in the eighth grade and the woman in her father's bed, Vanessa turns to a different old friendship for her own, unique diversion.In the subversive The Brooks Brothers Guru, Amanda drives to upstate New York to rescue her gawky cousin from a cult, only to discover clean-cut, well-dressed men living in a beautiful home, discussing the classics, and drinking sophisticated cocktails, moving her to wonder what freedoms she might willingly trade away for a life of such elegant comfort.And in The Universal Particular, Tamar welcomes her husband's young stepcousin into their home, imagining they are saving this young woman from Somalia by way of Stockholm, only to find their cool suburban life of potlucks and air-conditioning knocked askew in ways they cannot quite understand.Populated with imperfect families, burned potential, and inescapable old flames, the thirteen stories in We Want What We Want are, each one, diamond-sharp--sparkling with pain, humor, and beauty.
Liberty Street
Dianne Warren - 2015
The reverberations drive her back to the past and her mother’s old rental property, the lone house in a failed subdivision called Liberty Street.There, memories are ghosts: Frances’s mother on her way to Nashville to become a country singer; her father determined to run his farm despite his failing eyesight; the town’s bad apple, Dooley Sullivan; a string of renters including the December bride, Esme Bigalow, and a man who met a tragic end, Silas Chance.When a domestic mishap and a torrential hailstorm send Frances to the questionable safety of an eccentric neighbour’s kitchen, she learns just how unreliable memory is, and that she was not the only one whose life after Elliot, Saskatchewan was determined by half-truths and bad decisions.With depth, insight and the subtle humour for which she is known, Dianne Warren gives us an engrossing and touching new novel about disappointment, anger and the redemptive power of kindness.
Being Mary Ro
Ida Linehan Young - 2018
When a series of dramatic events brings a strange man to her door, Mary emerges from the comfortable isolation that she knows to follow her dreams in Boston. Those desires do not come without sacrifice and hard choices. When her past comes back to haunt her, Mary must decide whether there is room for both her aspirations and her heart—or if she must surrender one to have the other.
Amerika
Paul Lally - 2015
Washington D.C. and Manhattan disappear beneath nuclear mushroom clouds. Stripped of its congress, judicial and executive branches, the United States is a fractured, frantic shell of its former self; each state, a world unto its own. Germany’s threat of further attacks on major American cities like Chicago, Miami and Pittsburgh compels Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, sole survivor of the executive branch and now president, to bend to Hitler’s demand of neutrality. Powerless and impotent, America watches from the sidelines while Europe and Asia go up in flames. In search of a cause to unite America once again as a nation, the “Sons of Liberty,” a distant echo of our nation’s revolutionary war volunteers, secretly band together again, in the South this time, led by take-no-prisoners, General George S. Patton himself. And in doing so, he calls upon a group of ordinary citizens, including ex-Pan Am pilot Sam Carter and Hollywood actress Ava James, to embark on a series of missions that, if successful, will deliver America from its darkest hour and set it on a path toward the bright light of victory. The odds are impossible, the missions dangerous, and with an unknown spy in their midst threatening to wreck their intricate plans, everything seems doomed from the start as they struggle to bring America back into the fight for liberty and justice for all.