The Man Game
Lee Henderson - 2008
Thus begins The Man Game, Lee Henderson’s epic tale of loved requited and not, that crosses the contemporary and historical in an extravagant, anarchistic retelling of the early days of a pioneer town on the edge of the known world. In 1886, out of the smouldering ashes of the great fire that destroyed much of the city,Molly Erwagen—former vaudeville performer—arrives from Toronto with her beloved husband, Samuel, to start a new life. Meanwhile, Litz and Pisk, two lumberjacks exiled after the fire, and blamed for having started it, are trying to clear their names. Before long, they’ve teamed up with Molly to invent a new sport that will change the course of that fledgling city’s history.
The Best Kind of People
Zoe Whittall - 2016
His wife, Joan, vaults between denial and rage as the community she loved turns on her. Their daughter, Sadie, a popular over-achieving high school senior, becomes a social pariah. Their son, Andrew, assists in his father’s defense, while wrestling with his own unhappy memories of his teen years. A local author tries to exploit their story, while an unlikely men’s rights activist attempts to get Sadie onside their cause. With George locked up, how do the members of his family pick up the pieces and keep living their lives? How do they defend someone they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt?With exquisite emotional precision, award-winning author Zoe Whittall explores issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.
From Where I Stand
Jody Wilson-Raybould - 2019
And she is not afraid to give Canadians what they need most – straight talk on how to deconstruct Canada's dark colonial legacy and embrace a new era of recognition and reconciliationIn this powerful book, drawn from Wilson-Raybould’s speeches and other writings, she urges all Canadians – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – to build upon the momentum already gained in the reconciliation process or risk hard-won progress being lost. The choice is stark: support Indigenous-led initiatives for Nation rebuilding or continue to allow governments to just “manage the problem.” She also argues that true reconciliation will never occur unless governments transcend barriers enshrined in the Indian Act that continue to deny Indigenous Peoples their rights. Until then, we’ll be stuck in the status quo – mired in conflicts and court cases that do nothing to improve people’s lives or heal the country.The good news is that Indigenous Nations already have the solutions. But now is time to act and build a shared postcolonial future based on the foundations of trust, cooperation, recognition, and good governance. Frank and impassioned, this book charts a course forward – one that will not only empower Indigenous Peoples but strengthen the well-being of Canada and all Canadians.From Where I Stand is indispensable reading for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the reconciliation process to know what they can do to make a difference -- ranging from engaged citizens, leaders, and policy-makers to students, educators, and academics, and to lawyers and consultants.
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.
Born into It: A Fan's Life
Jay Baruchel - 2018
He talks about the team at every opportunity, wears their gear proudly in interviews and on the street, appeared in a series of videos promoting the team, and was once named honorary captain by owner Geoff Molson and Habs tough guy Chris Nilan. As he has said publicly, “I was raised both Catholic and Jewish, but really more than anything just a Habs fan.”In Born Into It, Baruchel’s lifelong memories as a Canadiens’ fan explode on the page in a collection of hilarious, heartfelt and nostalgic stories that draw on his childhood experiences as a homer living in Montreal and the enemy living in the Maple Leaf stronghold of Oshawa, Ontario. Knuckles drawn, and with the rouge, bleu et blanc emblazoned on just about every piece of clothing he owns, Baruchel shares all in the same spirit with which he laid his soul bare in his hugely popular Goon movies. Born Into It is a memoir unlike any other, and a book not to be missed.
Carnival
Rawi Hage - 2012
Fly is a reader, too, and when he’s not in his taxi he is at home in the equally dizzying labyrinth of books that fills his tiny apartment. His best friend is Otto, a political activist who’s in and out of jails and asylums, mourning his dead wife and lost foster son. On one otherwise tawdry night Fly meets Mary, a book-loving passenger with a domineering husband. So begins a romance that is, for Fly, a brief glimmer of light amid the shadows and grit of the Carnival city.Along with Otto and Mary, Fly introduces us to madmen and revolutionaries, magicians and prostitutes as he picks them up and drops them off, traveling through a nightmarish town that is—we can’t help but notice—a parable for our own debauched, unjust world.Wildly imaginative and darkly ironic, Carnival is a magnificent achievement.
Kanata
Don Gillmor - 2009
was inspired by the life of David Thompson, a Welshman who came to the New World at the age of fifteen, and went on to become its greatest cartographer. He walked or paddled 80,000 miles and mapped 1.9 million square miles, cataloguing flora and fauna as well as the language and customs of the Natives. But though he has been described as the greatest land geographer who ever lived, he died impoverished and unknown. KanataFollowing the lives of Thompson's illegitimate son and his descendants, Kanata takes readers on a fictionalized, multi-generational journey through millennia and across a continent to examine the stories, myths, and legends of those who formed the country and who were formed by it.Kanata is the story of the invention of a nation.
Sanaaq: An Inuit Novel
Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk - 1987
Composed in 48 episodes, it recounts the daily life of Sanaaq, a strong and outspoken young widow, her daughter Qumaq, and their small semi-nomadic community in northern Quebec. Here they live their lives hunting seal, repairing their kayak, and gathering mussels under blue sea ice before the tide comes in. These are ordinary extraordinary lives: marriages are made and unmade, children are born and named, violence appears in the form of a fearful husband or a hungry polar bear. Here the spirit world is alive and relations with non-humans are never taken lightly. And under it all, the growing intrusion of the qallunaat and the battle for souls between the Catholic and Anglican missionaries threatens to forever change the way of life of Sanaaq and her young family.About the translation:In the early 1950s, Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk was asked by a priest working in Kangiqsujuaq in northern Quebec to write down some Inuttitut phrases to assist him in the study of the language. At the age of twenty-two, Nappaaluk began writing but did not stop at mere phrases. She invented a group of characters and events and, over the next twenty years, wrote the first Inuit novel, simultaneously reinventing the novel form.Due in part to the perseverance of French anthropologist Bernard Saladin d’Anglure, Sanaaq was first published in syllabic Inuttitut in 1987. His French translation appeared in 2002. This English translation now brings this cornerstone of Inuit literature to Anglophone readers and scholars.
Liar
Lynn Crosbie - 2006
From illusions of permanence and ownership to the pain of estrangement, Liar masterfully explores feelings familiar to anyone who has ever loved and lost. Crosbie also goes beyond this territory, examining the lover’s own complicity in her joy and suffering. Liar is a grotesque, beautiful meditation on the nature of love.
The Kind Of Life It's Been: A Memoir
Lloyd Robertson - 2012
The longest-serving TV news anchor in Canadian history, first on CBC and then on CTV, Robertson remains one of the most accomplished journalists of our time. His career is truly the story of Canada over the past half century, as he told us about key events like the moon landing, JFK’ s assassination, Trudeaumania, Terry Fox’ s run, the Montreal Massacre, 9/11 and the royal weddings.In The Kind of Life It’ s Been, Robertson shares the inside story and the insights he has gained over his long career, from breaking into the business in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario, to joining the CBC, to his highly public departure for CTV to his career as senior editor of CTV News. Filled with fascinating and often hilarious anecdotes about Robertson’ s career, this book captures the essential tales of our time and is a must for any Canadian interested in the inner workings of a frenetic newsroom.
This Place: 150 Years Retold
Kateri Akiwenzie-DammSonny Assu - 2019
Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through magic realism, serial killings, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.
The Elizabeth Stories
Isabel Huggan - 1987
A series of linked stories about a girl growing up in a small town.
From Stone Orchard
Timothy Findley - 1998
Both in the early stages of their writing careers, they reasoned that nothing could be more conducive to a writerly muse than a gently tumbling-down farmhouse nestled among the rolling hills of the southern Ontario countryside. And they were right. Since that first day they laid eyes upon Stone Orchard and its 50 acres of lawns, perennial gardens, fields of rippling grasses and dense, green woods, it has become much more than a home and a workplace. It has become a refuge for Tiff and Bill, an enduring haven of friendship and love for family, friends and neighbors. And, as they say, if only the walls could talk ...The walls have never talked so eloquently or endearingly as they do in From Stone Orchard, a collection of Timothy Findley's Harrowsmith columns - revised and expanded - plus new writings, all on life at a 19th-century farm just outside of Cannington, Ontario. Here are tales of the farm's past, both distant and recent: the comic coincidences leading to the naming of the swimming pool, and why Margaret Laurence would never dip her toe in it. Or the night dinner party guests went outside in the twilight, dressed like royalty, to watch a herd of majestic deer pass through the gardens.On the eve of their departure from Stone Orchard - it being time for Tiff and Bill to move on - Findley's writings achieve a new poignancy, as a piece of our literary heritage is remembered with humor, affection and magic.Beautifully designed and packaged with lovely woodcut drawings, From Stone Orchard will be a cherished keepsake for Timothy Findley's legions of loyal fans, as well as a treasured gift for anyone whose dreams transport them into the charming landscape of country life.HarperFlamingoCanada
Cargo of Orchids
Susan Musgrave - 2000
Her work as a translator draws her into an underworld of family-controlled drug cartels operating out of South America, and she falls in love with a son in one such family. Pregnant, she is kidnapped to an island off the coast of Colombia and slowly tricked into a dependence on cocaine. Her narrative - violent and bizarre, but also riveting, erotic and filled with the heady flamboyance of orchids - runs parallel to her account of life in "Death Clinic," as Death Row is called at the Heaven Valley Facility for Women. It is a moving story of friendship amongst three female inmates - portrayed with devastating wit - who share only the fact that they each have a date with the executioner.Cargo of Orchids swings through comedy and tragedy to shed a gradual, eerie light on the questions of guilt and innocence and moral ambiguity that lie at its heart.Excerpt from Cargo of Orchids:"Despite the freight of anger she carries, Rainy seems so frail it is hard to imagine her giving birth to anything heavier than tears. Rainy gave birth to twins and six months later left them on the railway tracks. She claims it prejudiced the jury. If she'd smothered them or driven them off a pier, it would have been more socially acceptable.-- But abandoning your kids on the tracks wasn't in fashion. She wishes now she'd gone out drinking for the evening instead, but she didn't have enough money to hire a babysitter and pay for the beer."
Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace
David Adams Richards - 1990
There is a disagreement over a loan, and rumours of violence in the ensuing quarrel begin to spread throughout the northern New Brunswick mill town in which they live, setting in motion a series of events and misunderstandings. As Ivan struggles to reconcile with Cindi, the community turns against him, fuelled by his father’s self-deluded lies and misguided attempts to set things right, exposing the other side of good intentions and leading to the novel’s powerful conclusion. Disturbing, tender-hearted, and at times darkly humorous, Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace reveals the strange unrecognized power in us all to shape one another’s destinies.From the Hardcover edition.