Book picks similar to
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The Tent Peg
Aritha van Herk - 1981
J.L. is on the run from an empty heart and is desperate for solitude. Yet solitude eludes her from the moment she hangs up her pots and pans in the cook tent, and the men in the camp begin to drift toward her, drawn by her silence. These men are drifters, romantics and outcasts - men who have come to the North in search of answers for questions they can't define.
Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation
Kevin Donovan - 2016
Whispers at dinner parties. Warnings about bad dates with a Canadian celebrity. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, superstar CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi revealed his interest in “rough sex” in a long Facebook post, and a scandal of unprecedented scale descended on the radio host.What the public did not know was that months before Ghomeshi’s emotional post, Canadaland podcaster Jesse Brown and Toronto Star journalist Kevin Donovan were quietly pursuing serious allegations against him. In Secret Life, Donovan takes us inside the Star’s investigation. Step by step, he explores the story as only he can: the media frenzy, his own personal and professional doubts, the women who came forward with stories about an alleged dark side of a national idol, and Ghomeshi’s ignominious firing and dramatic criminal trial. Taking us behind the scenes, Donovan sheds light on the journalistic process and the complexity of gathering information about a highly sensitive matter from named and confidential sources, including those women who feared it was their word against a beloved public figure’s.Secret Life is a thought-provoking account of the landmark Ghomeshi exposé that sparked a nation-wide discussion on sexual assault, the cult of celebrity, and the politics of power and gender in the workplace.
The Listening Walls
Margaret Millar - 1959
Now her body lies lifeless in the street outside her Mexico City hotel, but a story of blackmail, missing persons and murder, stretching all the way to San Francisco, is only just the beginning.Back in California, private detective Elmer Dodd looks for answers, but this is a mystery that grows more twisted with every turn, and blood will be spilled again before he gets to the truth.The Listening Walls is a suspenseful masterpiece about corrupted love, from a master of American noir.Margaret Millar (1915–1994) was the author of 27 books and a masterful pioneer of psychological mysteries and thrillers. Born in Kitchener, Ontario, she spent most of her life in Santa Barbara, California, with her husband Ken Millar, who is better known by his nom de plume of Ross Macdonald. Her 1956 novel Beast in View won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In 1965 Millar was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and in 1983 the Mystery Writers of America awarded her the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement. Millar's cutting wit and superb plotting have left her an enduring legacy as one of the most important crime writers of both her own and subsequent generations.
Varieties of Exile
Mavis Gallant - 2003
The irreducible complexity of the very idea of home is especially at issue in the stories Gallant has written about Montreal, where she was born, although she had lived in Paris for more than half a century.Varieties of Exile, Russell Banks's extensive new selection from Gallant's work, demonstrates anew the remarkable reach of this writer's singular art. Among its contents are three previously uncollected stories, as well as the celebrated semi-autobiographical sequence about Linnet Muir—stories that are wise, funny, and full of insight into the perils and promise of growing up and breaking loose.
Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - 2020
Mashkawaji (they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering a long-ago time of hopeless connection and now finding freedom and solace in isolated suspension. They introduce us to the seven main characters: Akiwenzii, the old man who represents the narrator’s will; Ninaatig, the maple tree who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman who represents their conscience; Sabe, the giant who represents their marrow; Adik, the caribou who represents their nervous system; Asin, the human who represents their eyes and ears; and Lucy, the human who represents their brain. Each attempts to commune with the unnatural urban-settler world, a world of SpongeBob Band-Aids, Ziploc baggies, Fjällräven Kånken backpacks, and coffee mugs emblazoned with institutional logos. And each searches out the natural world, only to discover those pockets that still exist are owned, contained, counted, and consumed. Cut off from nature, the characters are cut off from their natural selves.Noopiming is Anishinaabemowin for “in the bush,” and the title is a response to English Canadian settler and author Susanna Moodie’s 1852 memoir Roughing It in the Bush. To read Simpson’s work is an act of decolonization, degentrification, and willful resistance to the perpetuation and dissemination of centuries-old colonial myth-making. It is a lived experience. It is a breaking open of the self to a world alive with people, animals, ancestors, and spirits, who are all busy with the daily labours of healing — healing not only themselves, but their individual pieces of the network, of the web that connects them all together. Enter and be changed.
The Water Rat of Wanchai + The Dragon Head of Hong Kong: An Ava Lee Novel: Book 1
Ian Hamilton - 2014
Ava Lee is a young Chinese-Canadian forensic accountant who works for an elderly Hong Kong–based “Uncle,” who may or may not have ties to the Triads. At 115 lbs., she hardly seems a threat. But her razor sharp intellect and resourcefulness allows her to succeed where traditional methods have failed.In The Water Rat of Wanchai, Ava travels across continents to track $5 million owed by a seafood company. But it’s in Guyana where she meets her match: Captain Robbins, a huge hulk of a man and godfather-like figure who controls the police, politicians, and criminals alike. In exchange for his help, he decides he wants a piece of Ava’s $5 million action and will do whatever it takes to get his fair share . . .Featuring the Prequel: The Dragon Head of Hong Kong:Young Ava Lee is a forensic accounting who has just opened her own private firm. One of her clients, Hedrick Lo, has been swindled of more than a million dollars by a Chinese importer named Johnny Kung. Desperate, Lo persuades Ava to find and retrieve the monies owed. Ava goes to Hong Kong, where she plunges into the dangerous underground collection business and meets a man who will forever change her life . . .
Architects Are Here
Michael Winter - 2007
As the journey progresses, secrets are unveiled, a friendship is tested, and there is a run-in with the Hurley family, a family both men have feared since childhood. In The Architects Are Here, Winter’s fifth and most emotionally resonant novel to date, he explores the nature of grief and friendship in unwaveringly powerful prose, and sheds light on who we are and how we go on when the future seems uncertain.
The Canterbury Trail
Angie Abdou - 2011
In an odd pilgrimage through the mountains, the townsfolk of Coalton—from the ski bum to the urbanite—embark on a bizarre adventure that walks the line between comedy and tragedy. As the rednecks mount their sleds and the hippies snowshoe through the cedar forest, we see rivals converge for the weekend. While readers follow the characters on their voyage up and over the mountain, stereotypes of ski-town culture fall away. Loco, the ski bum, is about to start his first real job; Alison, the urbanite, is forced to learn how to wield an avalanche shovel; and Michael, the real estate developer, is high on mushroom tea.In a blend of mordant humour and heartbreak, Angie Abdou chronicles a day in the life of these industrious few as they attempt to conquer the mountain. In an avalanche of action, Angie Abdou explores the way in which people treat their fellow citizens and the landscape they love.
Dead Girls
Nancy Lee - 2002
A marriage is tested as a mother struggles to cope with the disappearance of her prostitute daughter. Two angry women in a minivan act out their frustrations as they rampage through the night. A pill-dependent nurse juggles neuroses, infatuation, and exhaustion while supervising a high school dance-a-thon. A quiet tattoo artist takes in a homeless woman, and stumbles upon the true nature of beauty, jealousy, and love. Written in taut, unflinching prose, these stories are edgy and dark, sharply observed and uniquely imagined. As provocative as it is brilliant, Dead Girls introduces Nancy Lee as an astonishing and original new literary talent.
Never Learn Anything From History
Kate Beaton - 2009
First pressing, limited to 1000.From publisher Topatoco.com:"When Kate Beaton was first asked to make a book, she said "ok, but I only have about five comics on my website, gimme a while." Now the time has come! This is a collection of comics made between late 2007 and early 2009. It is 68 pages of the ones she likes the best! It should be noted that younger self comics aren't there, but perhaps they will have a home all their own someday!"
Road
Jim Cartwright - 1986
Moving from street corner to living room, from bedroom to kitchen, we meet the inhabitants of young, middle-aged, and old, glimpsing their socially and emotionally wretched lives, in this sharp, sad, funny, and angry play.
The Second Scroll
A.M. Klein - 1951
Klein’s most innovative and visionary work. The five “books” of the novel are a modern testament of Jewish experience to which are appended “glosses” or commentaries in the form of drama, epistle, poetry, and psalm. The action centres on a young writer from Montreal, whose search for his legendary Uncle Melech becomes a journey of revelation through Italy, Morocco, and the Holy Land. Dissident and exile, reformer and scholar, Melech is a messianic figure who enacts the destiny of his people and embodies the spiritual yearnings of everyman.The Second Scroll, Klein’s only novel, combines the lyric genius of his poetic works with compelling reportage to create one of the most eloquent and original works in Canadian fiction.
In Search of April Raintree - Critical Edition
Beatrice Culleton - 1983
Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind. In the end, out of tragedy, comes an unexpected legacy of triumph and reclamation.In this Critical Edition, editor Cheryl Suzack has chosen ten critical essays to accompany one of the best-known texts by Canadian Aboriginal author Beatrice Culloden/Mosionier.
Timothy Findley's the Wars
Dennis Garnhum - 2008
Ross, who has a fondness for animals and shares a strong bond with his wheelchair-bound sister, trades his comfortable surroundings in Canada for the nightmare world of trench warfare. We watch Ross's slow unravelling as he moves from home to train to barracks and, finally, to the mud, smoke, and chlorine gas of the front line in France. With death and dying everywhere around him, Ross makes a desperate attempt to show his faith in life. Cruelty, heroism, terror and honour--"The Wars" takes us deep inside the mind of a soldier and straight onto the bloody battlefield. "The Wars" is one of Canada's most beloved novels, winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1977. This adaptation evokes the spirit, imagery, and heart of the novel, and adds the immediacy of the theatrical form.