7 Stories


Morris Panych - 1989
    These “seven stories” lead to a charming and surprising ending.Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

East of Berlin


Hannah Moscovitch - 2009
    It has been seven years since he stood in that same spot; seven years since he left his family and their history behind him.As a teenager, Rudi discovered that his father was a doctor at Auschwitz. Trying to reconcile his inherited guilt, Rudi lashed out against his family and his friends, and eventually fled to Germany. While there, he follows in his father's footsteps by studying medicine, and falls in love with Sarah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.Questioning redemption, love, guilt, and the sins of the father, East of Berlin is a tour de force that follows Rudi's emotional upheaval as he comes to terms with a frightening past that was never his own.

Catch 22: My Battles, in Hockey and Life


Rick Vaive - 2020
    He did it three years in a row (only two others have scored 50 since) before being unceremoniously stripped of his captaincy and traded out of town, and he did it for a promising team that was nonetheless largely stuck at the bottom of the standings. So why isn't his number 22 hanging from the rafters of the Leafs' rink and his name as revered in Leafs lore as Gilmour, Sundin and Clark?You could blame it on a team that lost far more than it won. You could blame Harold Ballard and his erratic ownership. You could blame the fans, the media...Rick Vaive doesn't blame anybody. Sometimes, life just doesn't go your way. He'd know. Growing up in a household plagued by alcoholism, the gifted young hockey player took shelter in the company of his grandmother and a blind and severely disabled uncle. Rick learned quickly that there are more valuable things in life than hockey. Even after his promising coaching career stopped dead when it ran into Don Cherry in Mississauga--one of the worst seasons in Ontario junior hockey history--he still doesn't point fingers. Life is too sweet for regrets, but learning that lesson can be one hell of a ride.

Concord Floral


Jordan Tannahill - 2016
    But hidden there is a secret no one wants to confront, and when they stumble upon it the friends set off an unstoppable chain of events. A supernatural thriller of suburban teenagers fleeing a mysterious plague.

The Shape of a Girl / Jewel


Joan Macleod - 2002
    MacLeod’s young protagonist enters all the bright open avenues of peer-group play and the dark blind alleys of individual and collective terror, as she discovers within herself both the capacity for and the conflict between impulses of good and evil. In thinking back on the history of her own tight-knit group of friends, she begins to see how in the excitement of belonging to a ritualized, secret collective, the self is created by the increasing dehumanization of the other—of both the bully and the victim. The Shape of a Girl goes far beyond a simple dramatization of the seemingly inexplicable code of silence and tacit complicity which surrounded the sensationalized Reena Virk murder in 1997 on which the play is based. It speaks eloquently and compassionately to a world increasingly dominated by all forms of collectivised and ritualized tribalist hatred, and offers the embrace of trust as the only way out of this circle of violence.Jewel is also based on a real-life catastrophe—the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, an oil rig off the coast of Newfoundland, on Valentine’s Day, 1982. Three years later, a widow, Marjorie Clifford, at home in her trailer in Fort St. John, British Columbia, begins to take the first step in understanding that the humanity of love, in all of its tentative frailty, uncertainty and promise, can free a life paralyzed and dominated by loss.

Mary Green


Melanie Kerr - 2016
    When she discovers that her only friend is to leave the country forever, that her confidence has been betrayed by the unfeeling youngest daughter of the family, and that her very deprivation is the object of the mockery and scorn of everyone she has sought to honour, she determines to cast them off and make her own way in the world. On her twenty-first birthday, free to choose her own destiny, she dreams of peace and tolerance, and perhaps a partner who might be noble enough to love her in all her simplicity. But when an unexpected foray into London society disrupts all her plans, she is faced with an uncharacteristic storm of feelings. Will she grow strong and happy in her independence, or will her character be lost amidst her newfound ambition? Unable to trust the whims of her own heart, Mary is forced to confront the question that has forever plagued her: Who is she and where does she come from?

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.

Chuvalo: A Fighter's Life: The Story of Boxing's Last Gladiator


George Chuvalo - 2013
    After teaching himself the basics, he turned pro as an eighteen-year-old in 1956 and over the next twenty-three years fought some of the sport's greatest names: Joe Frazier, George Foreman and, most famously, Muhammad Ali (twice). Since retiring from the ring in 1979, Chuvalo has had to come to terms with a series of crushing body blows. His youngest son, a heroin addict, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Two other sons died from heroin overdoses. His first wife, overcome with grief, took her own life. Yet Chuvalo has stoically fought back. He formed his Fight Against Drugs foundation in 1996 and has spent the past seventeen years travelling across Canada and to parts of the United States, talking to tens of thousands of students and young adults about what happened to his family.An inspirational story of a Canadian icon, Chuvalo is both a top-flight boxing memoir and a poignant, hard-hitting story of coping with unimaginable loss.

Whitewater Cooks: Pure, Simple and Real Creations from the Fresh Tracks Cafe


Shelley Adams - 2007
    Despite constant pleading from customers, recipes for dishes made famous there were as unattainable as snowflakes in July. Even the cafe staff was sworn to secrecy. Now, Whitewater Cooks opens the kitchen doors.With this eagerly anticipated book, home cooks can re-create chef Shelley Adams' signature dishes. Readers will enjoy over 70 recipes from the cafe's selection of top sellers -- from warming soups to desserts -- indulging in such culinary favorites as:Whiskey-smoked salmon chowder Ymir curry bowl Whitewater veggie burger Runaway train wrap Peppercorn, brandy and gorgonzola sauce Crackle top snowy mountain cookies Whitewater brownies.Whitewater Resort is internationally recognized for its alpine scenery and the fine quality of its food. Now home cooks everywhere can share its most celebrated dishes.

Leaving Home


David French - 1972
    The first part of what has come to be known as the Mercer Series, Leaving Home tells the story of a Newfoundland family that has emigrated and lost all sense of its place in the world.Leaving Home was named one of the "100 Most Influential Canadian Books" by the Literary Review of Canada.

Lost Geography


Charlotte Bacon - 2000
    "Lost Geography" takes the complexity of migration as its central subject: Why do landscape, work, and family lock some people in place and release others? In settings both rural and urban, these stalwart, tragically dispersed yet resilient people respond not only to new environments and experiences but to the eruption of sudden loss and change.As the settings and characters shift in this wise, resonant book, readers are invited to see how habits of survival translate from one generation to another. How are we like our forebears? How does circumstance make us alter what our heritage has told us is important? With unfailing subtlety and elegance, "Lost Geography" teaches us, in a luminous sequence of intense personal dramas, that what keeps us alive isn't so much our ability to understand the details of our past as having the luck and courage to survive the assaults of both the present and history.

The Tale of Two Nazanins


Nazanin Afshin-Jam - 2012
    In 2006, she had just signed her first record deal and, after placing as first runner-up for Miss World, was a sought-after fashion model and icon within the Iranian dissident community. But one afternoon, she received an email that would change the course of her life. The subject of that email—a Kurdish girl named Nazanin Fatehi—was facing execution in Iran, as punishment for stabbing a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to Fatehi's defence, striding into the world of international diplomacy and confronting the dark side of the country of her birth, with its honour killings, violence against women and state-sanctioned executions of children. While Fatehi languished in prison, experiencing conditions so deplorable she attempted to end her own life, Afshin-Jam worked desperately on the campaign to save her. The Tale of Two Nazanins weaves together the lives of two women—one leading a life of opportunity, the other living in abject poverty—and a fight for justice that, if only for a moment, brought the Iranian regime to its knees. An inspiring story about the bonds of sisterhood, this extraordinary book speaks to the power of every individual to foster positive change in the world.

Two Tears on the Window: An Ordinary Canadian Couple Disappears in China


Julia Garratt - 2018
    In August 2014 State Security agents grabbed them, accusing them of espionage. In shock, they were unaware of a Chinese spy arrest in Canada, giving the US “some leverage over China to bring a stop to more than a decade of rampant cybertheft” or that they’d become “bargaining chips in China’s desperate countermove”. (Graff, Garrett M. “How the US Forced China to Quit Stealing—Using a China Spy”. Wired Magazine. October 11, 2018) This compelling story of a Canadian Christian couple who spent 30 years working and raising their family in China, involved in aid, education and social enterprise is a unique parallel journey. From the early days teaching English in a decade of ration coupons and collective work units, Kevin and Julia watched with admiration as China catapulted into the modern age with unprecedented speed. Well-loved in China, the Garratt’s had always been thanked for their work in education, social welfare, social enterprises and community service. In 2007, along with two of their children, they moved to the China/North Korea border, opened a popular coffee shop and provided aid and assistance for marginalized communities in Dandong, China and North Korea. Their sudden disappearance plunged them into a journey where survival took every breath. Through their harrowing ordeal and intense suffering comes life-changing insight. They find themselves part of new community of those who’ve tasted yet overcome the pain of injustice. Courage and kindness, friendship and faith, resonates through the ordeal with the heartbeat of a love journey. Artfully written, Two Tears in the Window combines Kevin’s gifted story-telling and humour with Julia’s ability to let you see through their eyes and draw readers into deeply painful yet profoundly life-changing experiences. For more information or to contact the authors, visit www.twotearsonthewindow.com

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.

Rough Justice


Brad Smith - 2016
    Carl is determined to get justice for Kate, whatever it takes. But with few allies, he finds himself incurring the wrath of powerful enemies as he attempts to uncover the truth.