Solar Labyrinth: Exploring Gene Wolfe's BOOK OF THE NEW SUN


Robert Borski - 2004
    And yet at the same time, like another masterpiece of fiction, James Joyce's Ulysses, it's been deemed endlessly complex and filled with impenetrable mysteries. Now, however, in the first book-length investigation of Wolfe's literary puzzlebox, Robert Borski takes you inside the twisting corridors of the tetralogy and along the way reveals his solutions to many of the novel's conundrums and riddles, such as who really is Severian's lost twin sister (almost certainly not who you think) and why he believes the novel's main character may not even be the torturer Severian. Furthermore, and in essay after essay, Borski demonstrates how a single master key will unlock many of the book's secret relationships--all in the attempt to guide you through the labyrinth that is Gene Wolfe's BOOK OF THE NEW SUN.

The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs Are Conquering Canada


Julian Sher - 2003
    By the spring of 2002, Boucher was safely in prison but the Hells Angels had grown to 37 chapters with close to 600 members across the country. They had taken over the drug trade and continued their rapid expansion into Ontario with a recent, high-profile enlistment -- or patchover -- of 168 members from other gangs. In Winnipeg, gang warfare turned ugly as the Hells muscled out the competition and firebombed a policeman's home. In Vancouver, they secured a stranglehold on smuggling in the all-important West Coast port. The Road to Hell is the story of how the Hells have taken over the Canadian crime scene: how politicians dithered while overburdened prosecutors burned out and lost major cases; how police brass squabbled while a handful of dedicated cops worked years to amass their evidence; how a few citizens stood up the bikers and paid for that bravery with their lives. Murder plots, drug deals, money laundering and assassinations are brought to life through never-before-revealed police files, wiretaps and surveillance tapes. In gripping prose, the authors tell all about Boucher's war on the justice system; how he finally lost in Quebec, thanks in part to Danny Kane, a reluctant biker turned informer; but how across Canada the Hells have succeeded in building a national crime empire. "The RCMP and then the police in Montreal would run Danny Kane as one of the most successful -- and most secretive -- agents ever to infiltrate organized crime. Kane would climb allthe way to the top: from a lowly hangaround to a trusted confidante of the Quebec Nomads, the elite chapter led by the top Hells Angels lieutenants of Maurice "Mom" Boucher. And through his entire six-year-career as a spy, few people -- even inside the police -- would ever know about his dangerous double life. -- from" The Road to Hell

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.

Trio of Horror: Three Tales from the Holocaust


Cathlene Smith - 2009
    Each is a prize winner! Fictional short stories based on true life events. The book is approximately 100 pages. The stories, while containing fictional characters reflect the true, heroism of the time and era of the Holocaust.The uprising of the Lodz ghetto, a rare romance in a concentration camp and the Sobibor escape are captured in this book. Different perspectives and gripping horror from real life accounts. A must read.

The Education of a Lifetime


Robert Khayat - 2013
    Khayat writes about his childhood days in Moss Point, Mississippi, the state s segregationist policies that prevented his SEC championship baseball team from playing in the College World Series, and the sadness of experiencing his father s arrest and guilty plea. These seemingly disparate events worked to prepare him to battle the vestiges of racial strife that continued to haunt the university s culture as he accepted the honor of becoming the university s 15th chancellor. Khayat s story gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at how a university moved from mediocrity to excellence. We relive, along with Khayat, the courting of an eccentric donor, as well as private conversations with a sitting U.S. President, governors, coaches and celebrities. We also see how a man worked to make amends for past mistakes. The Education of a Lifetime is a funny, touching and insightful memoir. And it is proof that one man a man dedicated to respecting the dignity of every individual can make lasting change.

TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA: A Romance of the Mexican Revolution and the 20th Century West


Clifford Irving - 1982
    a high-stepping, swashbuckling romance inspired by the unassailable historical fact that in his greenhorn youth, before he became a movie-star cowboy, Tom Mix rode in the company of the peasant revolutionary Pancho Villa ... Who among us has not wished he'd grown up as romantically as Mix does here?" -- New York Times Book Review "With Tom Mix and Pancho Villa, Clifford Irving takes his place among the giants of contemporary literature, dazzling us all with this robust, rousing, rip-roaring work of art." -- Ernest Lehman "Fabulous, big, rawboned wild-blooded adventure tale that gives the sights and sounds and smells of a turn-of-the-century world real enough to touch. Clifford Irving has written a novel to make any writer proud and many readers grateful." -- Los Angeles Herald Examiner "Intelligently conceived, rapidly paced, attitudinally wry, earthy - a well-written, cannily contemporary tale about the past." -- Dallas Times Herald ----- It's 1913, and Tom Mix, young cowboy and future movie star, rides south of the border to fight at the side of the charismatic Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary leader, already a legend. In the violent beauty of war-torn Mexico a partnership is formed, and an epic is born. Caught up in this sumptuous panoramic novel are some of the most dynamic characters ever to come to life on a page: Hannah, Tom's voluptuous Jewish fiancée; Rosa, the beautiful Indian child widow who loves Tom; Elisa, the sophisticated German rancher who becomes his mistress; Rudolfo Fierro, "the butcher," who lives to kill his enemies and vows to end Tom's life; Lieutenant George S. Patton, Jr., who ceaselessly hunts both Villa and Fierro; and above all, the tempestuous Pancho Villa, a man of ungovernable emotions, a hero and, at the same time, a villain larger than life. This is a story of romance and friendship, loyalty and revenge, politics and gold - an adventure that Publishers Weekly called "grand entertainment, full of wit, charm, and zest." The Los Angeles Times wrote that "Irving spins a fantasy worthy of Mark Twain," and the Houston Chronicle said, "Irving's wonderful big new book is a rollicking, ribald tale." The Chicago Tribune concluded that "[Tom Mix's] exploits - on the battlefield, behind the lines, in bed - are told with riveting skill."

The Topline Summary of: Simon Sinek's Start with Why - Be a Great Leader and Inspire Other People to Take Action (Topline Summaries)


Gareth F. Baines - 2014
    It matters WHY you do it. “What’s good, if brief, is twice as good.” – Baltasar Gracian Don't you hate it when you've always wanted to read a book but never able to quite find the time? Or do you just want to extract the key ideas of a book without having to spend weeks and months reading through it all? Fret not! Welcome to Top Line Summaries, brought to you by BrevityBooks Publishing - encapsulating the core concepts, big ideas and best bits from all your favourite business and leadership, personal development and self-help bestselling books. In an age where personal time is more limited than ever, our core belief is that ‘being brief is best.’ Whether in business or at home, Topline Summaries will get you on the express road to success! The latest book to get the infamous 'Topline Summary Treatment' is Simon Sinek's groundbreaking book, Start with Why. “The more organizations and people who learn to start with WHY, the more people there will be who wake up being fulfilled by the work they do.” – Simon Sinek, Start with Why Have you ever wondered why some companies fail, others do average, and some - the rare few – become huge success stories? Why is it that some leaders never achieve greatness and others motivate millions? What sets apart the mundane from the masterful, the indifferent from the inspirational? Simon Sinek encapsulated the answers to all of these questions in his groundbreaking book Start with Why, following on from his hugely popular and now legendary TED talk. We have extracted the best and most pertinent parts of the book and here it now is, available just a short read away!

Tamora Pierce


Bonnie Kunzel - 2007
    This volume provides her readers and fans with additional insights into her life and work. The first section provides a biographical chapter and literary heritage. The second and third sections analyze the Tales of Tortall and the Magic Circle Sagas as a whole, providing details into the characters and settings of each. The final section of the book, Perspectives, includes both a section on literary techniques along with an interview of Tamora Pierce herself. Appendices include a section on Power Female Heroes, and Fantasy Adventures.Novels include: *The Song of the Lioness Quartet *The Immortals Quartet *The Protector of the Small Quartet *The Trickster Duology *The Magic Circle Quartet *The Circle Opens Quartet *The Will of the Empress

An Inspector Calls


John Scicluna - 1990
    York Notes author John Scicluna discusses all aspect of An Inspector Calls --a thorough run-down very helpful to anyone studying the famous Priestley play.

NOT A BOOK


NOT A BOOK - 2016
      It is also full of useful things that will help organize your year, including dates, numbers, and pictures of dogs.

D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study


Anaïs Nin - 1931
    H. Lawrence's death, a young woman wrote a book about him and presented it to a Paris publisher. She recorded the event in her diary: “It will not be published and out by tomorrow, which is what a writer would like when the book is hot out of the oven, when it is alive within oneself. He gave it to his assistant to revise.” The woman was Anaïs Nin. Nin examined Lawrence's poetry, novels, essays, and travel writing. She analyzed and explained the more important philosophical concepts contained in his writings, particularly the themes of love, death, and religion, as well as his attention to primitivism and to women. But what Anaïs Nin brought to the explication of Lawrence's writing was an understanding of the fusion of imaginative, intuitive, and intellectual elements from which he drew his characters, themes, imagery and symbolism.

How to Move to Canada: A Discontented American's Guide to Canadian Relocation


André Du Broc - 2016
    If you or someone you know is discontented, distressed, or downright disturbed, maybe the Great White North is right for you, eh. But how much do you really know about Canada? Can you do a job that Canada needs (do you play hockey, drill for oil, or make poutine?)? Can you identify the best Canadian province for your lifestyle (lots of tundra or just some tundra?)? Can you master the proper pronunciation of "sorry"? What strange wizardry is the Canadian government? Is maple syrup acceptable substitution for currency? At long last, How to Move to Canada can help make your vague threat into a cold Canadian reality. This book is also full of activities such as: Color the flag of your new homeland Match the strange Canuck dialect with their local definitions And more! PLEASE NOTE: This is a humor book. It won't really help you emigrate. Rather, it's a subversive mix of real information on the Great White North plus a hilarious look at all the reasons why you won't like it there any better — and why they probably won't have you anyway.

Offside: My Life Crossing the Line


Sean Avery - 2018
    And the most respected of these is the code of silence. For the first time, a hockey player is prepared to reveal what really goes on in the NHL, in the spirit of what Ball Four did for baseball. The money, the personalities, the adultery, and the drugs--and also the little things that make up daily life in the league. Most athletes have little to say, but Sean doesn't have that problem. Yes, he tells us about the guys he's fought and the guys he's partied with, and he tells us where to find the best cougar bars in various NHL cities and what it's like to be hounded by the media when you're dating a celebrity. But Sean's job on the ice was always to get inside the heads of the guys he played against, and that insight on human nature is on full display in Offside.What makes millionaire athletes tick? What are their weaknesses? And in the end, what makes Sean Avery--once called the most hated player in the NHL--who he is? What is it like to make people hate you for a living? Sean Avery's misdeeds on and off the ice are well-documented, and he certainly has his detractors. But on the other hand, he has a lot of supporters, in part for things like being the first North American athlete to come out in favour of marriage equality, and in part just for being an interesting guy. Love him or hate him, he is one of the best-known players of the past few decades, and certainly one of the most colourful and outspoken. In Offside, he meets his accusers head-on, and gives them something to think about.

Zaireeka


Mark Richardson - 2009
    It purposely makes the two biggest developments in end-user music in the last 30 years irrelevant. Zaireeka is not mobile. It is not personal. It is not solitary, cannot be easily controlled, and can't easily be consumed in small doses. So another way to think of Zaireeka is as a one-off piece of technology that comes in a highly inconvenient dead-end format, which is a rather extraordinary kind of thing for a rock band to make. The Flaming Lips' 1997 album Zaireeka is one of the most peculiar albums ever recorded, consisting of four CDs meant to be played simultaneously on four CD players. Approaching this powerful and complex art-rock masterpiece from multiple angles, Mark Richardson's prismatic study of Zaireeka mirrors the structure the work itself. Thoughts on communal listening and the "death of the album" are interspersed with the story of the Zaireeka's creation (with assistance from Wayne Coyne) and an in-depth analysis of the music, leading to a complete picture of a record that proved to be a watershed for both the band and adventurous music fans alike.

Jane Austen, or the Secret of Style


D.A. Miller - 2003
    Here, the stigmatized condition of a spinster; there, a writer's unequalled display of absolute, impersonal authority. In between, the secret work of Austen's style: to keep at bay the social doom that would follow if she ever wrote as the person she is.For no Jane Austen could ever appear in Jane Austen. Amid happy wives and pathetic old maids, we see no successfully unmarried woman, and, despite the multitude of girls seeking to acquire "accomplishments," no artist either. What does appear is a ghostly No One, a narrative voice unmarked by age, gender, marital status, all the particulars that make a person--and might make a person peculiar. The Austen heroine must suppress her wit to become the one and not the other, to become, that is, a person fit to be tied in a conjugal knot. But for herself, Austen refuses personhood, with all its constraints and needs, and disappears into the sourceless anonymity of her style. Though often treasured for its universality, that style marks the specific impasse of a writer whose self-representation is impossible without the prospect of shame.D.A. Miller argues this case not only through the close reading that Austen's style always demands, but also through the close writing, the slavish imitation, that it sometimes inspires.