Book picks similar to
Remembering Forever: A Journey of Darkness and Light by Eva Olsson


canadian-author
holocaust
literature-jewish
biographies-and-memoirs

Alaska Man: A Memoir of Growing Up and Living in the Wilds of Alaska


George Davis - 2017
    He survives this perilous wheel of fortune, and thrives in the face of danger! I would like to add to why my book is important, is that we are true authentic Alaskans that live life off of the grid and that we have been entrepreneurs, making our living off of the land and sea. We are wilderness and off the grid consultants if that is important. On our website we have a variety of things we consult on from sport fishing, hunting, adventures, lodges/outfitters, developing or improving remote properties, and much more.

Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography


Tommy Chong - 2008
    Over the course of their decades-long partnership, Cheech and Chong performed to sold-out crowds across the country, made nine hit albums, starred in eight blockbuster movies, and created memorable and iconic characters that still resonate with fans today.But the good life didn't just appear in a haze of smoke. It all started during the late 1960s in a strip club in the fragile heart of Vancouver's Chinatown, where Tommy was winding down his career as a Motown recording artist and starting an improv comedy troupe, and Cheech was a draft-dodging, pottery-throwing, underground music reviewer. Together they came to define the hippie-era counterculture, and theircelebrated movie debut, "Up in Smoke," remains one of the highest-grossing Warner Bros. films ever.In his very own unauthorized autobiography, "New York Times" bestselling author and pop culture hero Chong reveals his unique relationship with Cheech and recalls the inspiration for their most beloved bits. He introduces famous guest stars like Peter Sellers, John Belushi, Jimi Hendrix, Dan Aykroyd, John Lennon, Diana Ross, and Jack Nicholson, and examines the influences that had the greatest impact on his comedy -- from R&B musicians and Redd Foxx to Lenny Bruce and (of course) marijuana. Finally, with keen insight and utter candor, he explores the rift that has separated the legendary comedy team for more than twenty years.From pot smoking to politics to the universe at large, "Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography" is the closestyou'll ever get to sitting in a van made entirely of marijuana, trading stories with an unlikely legend, and feeling...well...funny.

Alone Against the North: An Expedition into the Unknown


Adam Shoalts - 2015
    What he discovered surprised even him, and made him a media sensation.     Shoalts was no stranger to the wilderness. He had hacked his way through jungles and muskeg, had stared down polar bears and climbed mountains. But one spot on the map called out to him irresistibly: the Hudson Bay Lowlands, a trackless waste of muskeg and lonely rivers, moose and wolf, much bigger than the Amazon. Little of it has ever been explored.      Cutting through this forbidding landscape is a river no hunter, no explorer, no Native guide has left any record of paddling. It is far from any important waterways, even further from any arable land, and about as far from civilization as one can get. It was this river that Shoalts was obsessively determined to explore.      It took him several attempts, years of research, and two friendships that collapsed under the strain of Adam's single-minded thirst to explore this river. But finally, alone, he found the headwaters of the Again. He believed he had discovered what he had set out to find. But the adventure had just begun.     Paddling his way back to Hudson Bay, where a float plane would pick him up, Shoalts discovered something that seemingly shouldn't exist: a towering unmapped waterfall. He also discovered edenic islands, and braved rock-strewn rapids, but the waterfall captured both his imagination and the world's.     Adam did a single interview, with The Guardian, and once the story hit, he was a celebrity. He appeared on morning TV and was made the Explorer in Residence of the Canadian Geographic Society. What struck a chord with people was the realization that the world is bigger than we think. We assume that because we have mapped it from space, it must be exhaustively known. But it is wilder, stranger, less homogenous than we assume. We hardly know it. And, contrary to popular wisdom, it is certainly not flat. In other words, the age of exploration is not over.

Unfinished Symphony


Bernard Hellreich Ingram - 2012
    This is not a book about survival in a concentration camp. It is a book about "ordinary" people, maybe like you & me, on the peripheries of the Holocaust. It is a book about an ordinary man who is a young Polish Jewish doctor & it tells of the discrimination he faced leading up to WWII. It tells how his comfortable Polish middle class life is shattered first by the 1939 Soviet invasion showing the real face of the Stalinist regime & then by the Nazis in 1941 who are bent on exterminating a people merely because of their religious background. What to do? I ask myself how I would have reacted & I asked my father how he had the courage to choose to walk the line of a Jew hiding as a Christian. How brave was he? "Not brave at all" was his reply, "I just did what I had to do". It is also the story of two brave Christians, the doctor's girlfriend & a friend of hers, & how they chose to risk their lives & those of their families to prevent the unjust murder of another human being whose only crime was his ethnic background. I ask myself could I now do the same if this situation arose. The book is priced as low as possible to encourage people to read about an amazing account of survival through the love & selflessness of others in a very dark time of man's recent history. Two of the central figures of this book, Marian Golebiowski & Irena Szumska-Ingram have been honored by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum with the Righteous Among the Nations award. See the Yom Ha’atzmaut 2010 speech by Dor Shapira of the Israeli Embassy to the Sydney NSWJBD in relation to Irena Sumska's award: http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&... It is a story of love, adventure & human values, the fugitive "Jew in a Christian skin", under constant threat of exposure, precariously maintaining his false identity in a tiny rural community. finally we see Hellreich the penniless refugee, still supported by his faithful Irena, rebuilding his shattered career in Australia - a chapter of heartbreaking difficulties & heartwarming satisfaction. "...as gripping and human a story as any told about this tragic period in the history of man's inhumanity to man. I couldn't put it down. That it is told without bitterness and rancour makes it all the more powerful ... simply yet eloquently written." - Barry Cohen (former Australian Minister for the Arts, Heritage and the Environment) "... incredible faith and courage ... one of the most amazing stories to emerge from the wreckage and despair of the Holocaust." - L E Freeman in The Newcastle Herald Publisher's Note: My father, the author, passed from this world of natural causes in 2008 after what he described as a very interesting life. My hope in publishing his story is to document what happened to one man during these dark times & let him tell his story to all of you & not let it die with him. My father did not speak of his war years until I was 8, after many requests. It took him a lot longer to agree to write his story for the public. He was a modest man & did not think his story on the Holocaust's edges would be of interest, as per his Preface. All the Holocaust books I have read are valuable not for their literary merit but for the story they tell of barbarism, heroism, selfless help by others while endangering their own lives, & the wonderful strength & purity of th

The Outport People


Claire Mowat - 1983
    There were no roads, no cars and no telephones. The tiny village that nestled among the rocky hills of Newfoundland's desolate southern coast had existed for generations with ancient customs and patterns of speech that still endured-while the modern world waited impatiently in the wings. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand experience-the Mowats lived in the outport community for five years-Claire Mowat has written a fictional memoir that beautifully recreates an almost vanished world. A world where life revolved tightly around the home and neighbours watched over one another. A world where one's kitchen was open to anyone who might drop in, day or night. A world that Claire Mowat grew to love.

The Life Of Margaret Laurence


James King - 1997
    The magnificent and long-awaited biography of the beloved writer who gave us the Manawaka novels, including The Diviners and The Stone Angel.

An Armful of Animals


Malcolm D. Welshman - 2018
    Welshman has had a lifetime filled with exciting encounters with animals. As a lad in Nigeria, he is attacked by soldier ants and terrified by a snake in his treehouse. His treasured companion, Poucher, an African bush dog, prevents him and his mother from being savaged by baboons. Once qualified as a vet Malcolm has to attempt life-saving surgery on his beloved parrot. On a road trip across the Sahara, there is a tussle with a lame camel and the operation on an Ostrich gored by an antelope. Settling back in West Sussex in England, he tackles a cow that’s got stuck in a tree, wily cats and battles with cunning badgers and baby bats. He shares all these fascinating experiences in this gently humorous memoir that will guarantee to tug at the heart strings while bringing a smile to your face. Anyone who loves animals will be enchanted and enthralled.‘A witty take on a young vet’s life that pet lovers will find endearing.’ – Bel Mooney, Daily Mail.‘A joyful read full of animals and fun.’ – Celia Haddon, author and former Daily Telegraph columnist.‘Bursting with exotic creatures and eccentric characters, this touching memoir makes for a spellbinding read where the author’s love of animals shines through.’ – Jenny Itzcovitz, editor of Sixtyplussurfers.co.uk.

Keon and Me: My Search For The Lost Soul Of The Leafs


Dave Bidini - 2013
    So it was for Dave Bidini in 1974, the last year Dave Keon played in Toronto. In a new grade in a new school, Bidini found himself the victim of a bully—a depredation he could understand only by thinking about what the Leafs dauntless captain went through game after game.Throughout his twenty-two-year career, Keon was only in one hockey fight, in his last game as a Leaf on April 22, 1974. It was on this day that the eleven-year-old Bidini decided to fight back, an occasion that the writer looks back on with breathtaking courage and honesty. But while Bidini would remain a blue-blooded Leafs fan into adulthood, Keon became estranged from the franchise with which he’d won four Stanley Cups, two Lady Byngs, and the first ever Conn Smythe Trophy in 1967.Told in two narratives—one from the point of view of the young Bidini growing up in Toronto in the early 70s and one from the perspective of the man looking for his absent hero—Keon and Me tells not only the story of a hockey icon who has haunted Toronto for decades, but of a life lived in parallel to Keon’s. It’s the story of cultural change, an account of the tribulations of the NHL’s most beloved (and most despised) franchise in the decades since Keon left under a cloud, and most of all, it is a story of growing up, with all the wisdom and sadness that imparts.Part ode to a legendary hockey player, part memoir, Keon and Me captures what we all cherish in the game we love and the importance of the innocence we cling to long after the cheers have faded.

Wayward: Fetching Tales from a Year on the Road


Tom Gates - 2012
    His travel stories have had millions of views online and are collected within for the first time. The content of Wayward was written during a yearlong trip around the world, during which the author lived in twelve countries over twelve months. Gates' writing has been described as “evocative”, “hilarious” and “brilliant.” He has been described as a “wanker”, “kind of a dipshit” and “retarded”.Wayward is a must-read for anyone who needs a shrink and likes to travel.

North To South: A man, a bear and a bicycle


James Brooman - 2014
    He was a guy who rarely cycled or had an adventure, a guy who was scared of the fairground rides as a child. But one day he changed; he became a guy with a quest. Armed with a bicycle, a toy bear and some optimism he flew to the north of Alaska and for the next two years rode it to the southern tip of South America in Argentina. This is his tale.

Shadow of Doubt: The Trial of Dennis Oland


Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon - 2016
    The brutal killing stunned the city of Saint John, and news of the crime reverberated across the country. In a shocking turn and after a two-and-half-year police investigation, Oland’s only son, Dennis, was arrested for second-degree murder.CBC reporter Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon covered the Oland case from the beginning. In Shadow of Doubt, she examines the controversial investigation: from the day Richard Oland’s battered body was discovered to the conclusion of Dennis Oland’s trial, including the hotly debated verdict and its aftermath. Meticulously examining the evidence, MacKinnon vividly reconstructs the cases for both the prosecution and the defence. She delves into Oland family history, exploring the strained relationships, infidelities, and financial problems that, according to the Crown, provided motives for murder.Shadow of Doubt is a revealing look at a sensational crime, the tribulations of a prominent family, and the inner workings of the justice system that led to Dennis Oland’s contentious conviction.

Out on a Ledge: Enduring the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Beyond


Eva Libitzky - 2010
    Despite the deepest suffering and the most profound loss, Eva was able to rebuild her life, and with her husband, also a survivor, raise a family in America – in the city, suburbs, and on the farm. Lehrhaus is proud to publish the second edition, which includes Eva’s eventful return to Poland in 2013 with 16 of her closest relatives spanning three generations.

Parking the Moose: One American's Epic Quest to Uncover His Incredible Canadian Roots


Dave Hill - 2019
    The idea that their country is the best. But this never stuck with Dave Hill, even though he was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His grandfather, you see, was from Canada (Clinton, Ontario, to be exact). And every Sunday at dinner he'd remind Dave and anyone else within earshot that it was in fact Canada, this magical and mysterious land just across the mighty Lake Erie, that was the best.It was an idea that took hold. While his peers kept busy with football, basketball and baseball, hockey became the only sport for Dave. Whenever bacon was served at home, he'd be sure to mention his preference for the Canadian variety. Likewise, if a song by Triumph came on the radio, he'd be the first to ask for it to be cranked up as loud as it would go. And he was more vocal about the vast merits of the Canadian healthcare system than any nine-year-old you'd ever want to meet. (That last part is a lie, but hopefully it makes the point that he was so into Canada that it was actually kind of weird.)In later years he even visited Canada a couple of times. But now, inspired by a publisher's payment of several hundred dollars (Canadian) in cash, he has travelled all over the country, reconnecting with his heritage in such places as Montreal, Moose Jaw, Regina, Winnipeg, Merrickville and of course Clinton, Ontario, meeting a range of Canadians, touching things he probably shouldn't and having adventures too numerous and rich in detail to be done justice in this blurb.The result, he promises, is the greatest Canada-based literary thrill ride of your lifetime.

Costa Rica Chica: Retiring Early, Simplifying My Life, & Realizing That Less is Best


Jen Beck Seymour - 2014
    Find out what made them consider this in the first place, how they did it, and why they have no regrets! Bonus chapters include Jen’s special recipe for making bite-sized éclairs and a packing list for YOUR move to Costa Rica!

Blisters and Bliss


David Foster - 1991
    And for over twelve years, this book has been the definitive guide to the world-famous trail. This fifth edition is completely up-to-date and expanded to include the latest on trail information, reservations, travel connections, and trekker tips. The illustrations are a delight, and the book now includes a special section for northbound and southbound hikers.