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Biographies and autobiographies

  • Auteur:
    Faubert, Marsha
    Sommaire:

    What does it mean to be exiled? For the landmarks of your past to disappear? In 1943, Wanda Gizmunt was ripped from her family home in Poland and deported to a forced labour camp in Nazi Germany. At the end of the war, she became one of millions of displaced Europeans awaiting resettlement. Unwilling to return to then-Soviet-occupied Poland, Wanda became one of 100 young Polish women brought to Canada in 1947 to address a labour shortage at a Quebec textile mill. But rather than arriving to long-awaited freedom, the women found themselves captives to their Canadian employer. Their treatment eventually became a national controversy, prompting scrutiny of Canada's utilitarian immigration policy. Wanda seized the opportunity to leave the mill in the midst of a strike in 1948. She never looked back, but she remained silent about her wartime experience. Only after her death did her daughter-in-law assemble the pieces of Wanda's life in Poland, Nazi Germany, and finally, Canada. In this masterful account of a hidden episode of history, Faubert chronicles the tragedy of exile and the meaning of silence for those whose traumas were never fully recognized.

  • Auteur:
    Bauer, Gabrielle
    Sommaire:

    Short-listed for the 2002 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction So you grow up as a member of the baby boom. You’re well-brought up, well-educated, and your parents have great expectations. And, yet, somehow, you just don’t feel you belong. Along the way, you find the right wrong boyfriends: the poet-husband, and bane of your mother’s existence, the married Japanese doctor. When love at last arrives, and the realization that it’s just not in your nature to hold down a nine-to-five, stick-with-the-program corporate job, you discover that the one thing you thought would be very easy - conception - doesn’t happen. Square peg in a round hole? Absolutely. But now it’s called Waltzing the Tango - the humorous memoir of Gabrielle Bauer. It’s a tale most women will not only identify with, but will also laugh along with - occasionally with the painful pangs of self-recognition.

  • Auteur:
    Karbiener, Karen
    Sommaire:

    In this course, professor Karbiener explores how Walt Whitman broke with the tyranny of European literary forms to establish a broad, new voice for American poetry. By examining the life of Whitman in the context of broad social and political change, we learn why the values we as contemporary Americans prize were often decided and idealized by this period of our history.

  • Auteur:
    O'Grey, Eric, Dagostino, Mark
    Sommaire:

    Eric was 150 pounds overweight, depressed, and sick. After failed diet attempts and the onset of type 2 diabetes, Eric went to a new doctor, who surprisingly prescribed a shelter dog. That's when Eric met Peety, an overweight, middle-aged, and forgotten dog who, like Eric, had seen better days. In a year of going on walks, playing together, and eating plant-based foods, Eric lost 150 pounds and Peety lost 25. As a result, Eric reversed his diabetes, got off all medication, and became happy and healthy for the first time in his life.

  • Auteur:
    Byrne, Gabriel
    Sommaire:

    A highly anticipated memoir by Gabriel Byrne, the award-winning star of over eighty films, Walking with Ghosts is an exquisite portrait of an Irish childhood and a remarkable journey to Hollywood and Broadway success As a young boy growing up on the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory laborer to get by. In his spare time, he visited the cinema where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of sixties Ireland. He reveled in the theater and poetry of Dublin's streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theater. Moving between sensual recollections of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and on Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies.

  • Auteur:
    Badkhen, Anna
    Sommaire:

    In Walking with Abel, Anna Badkhen embeds herself with a family of Fulani cowboys--nomadic herders--as they embark on their annual migration across the Sahel grasslands, accompanied by the tales that ground their past and safeguard their future.

  • Auteur:
    Cook, Marlyn
    Sommaire:

    Pinesiw Iskwew, Thunder Woman, Dr. Marlyn Cook, member of Misipawistik Cree Nation is the author of Walking the Red Road for Healing. This book is based on her life and journey as a Cree Woman, Pipe Carrier, Sundancer, Sweat Lodge Keeper, and medical doctor (graduate MD 1987). She believes the approach for healing must be holistic and that our Traditional Healers work alongside physicians in our Indigenous communities. Dr. Marlyn Cook shares her own experiences of colonialism and how this affected her, her family and her community. Through her reflections of her Indigenous Knowledge, her Traditional Teachings of Ceremonies and Medicines, she acknowledges the resilience of communities in their healing and provides ways to heal. Dr. Cook’s intention in this powerful book is to bring us together in Truth and Reconciliation. This book will resonate with health, social, and justice practitioners, educators and our community members who want to walk the Red Road for Healing.

  • Auteur:
    Wood, Levison
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    Following in the footsteps of the great explorers, Levison Wood recounts the beauty and danger he found as he trekked more than one thousand miles across the roof of the world. Walking the Himalayas is the story of one intrepid man's travels in a world poised on the edge of change.

  • Auteur:
    Cunningham, Michael H.
    Sommaire:

    Que Son Valley is actually a large area of hills and valleys just to the west of Da Nang, Viet Nam. During the 1960s, units from the United States Marines and United States Army engaged the 2nd North Vietnamese Division in heavy and close combat. Our mission was to keep the enemy from capturing the cities of Da Nang, Tam Ky and Chu Lai and to pacify the area. We did prevent the enemy from capturing these vital cities, but the area was far from pacified. Many young, brave Americans were killed or seriously wounded in these hills and valleys in the belief they were helping the Vietnamese obtain freedom and peace. Although our altruistic beliefs might have gone astray, it was my honor serving with these fine men and women. I wrote this book in honor of them and to keep their memory alive.

  • Auteur:
    Belcourt, Herb
    Sommaire:

    An updated edition of Herb Belcourt’s remarkable life story with a brand-new foreword by the author. The eldest of ten children, Belcourt grew up in a small log home near the Métis settlement of Lac Ste. Anne during the Depression. His father purchased furs from local First Nations and Métis trappers and, with arduous work, began a family fur trading business that survives to this day. When Belcourt left home at 15 to become a labourer in coal mines and sawmills, his father told him to save his money so he could work for himself. Over the next three decades, Belcourt began a number of small Alberta businesses that prospered and eventually enabled him to make significant contributions to the Métis community in Alberta.Belcourt has devoted over 30 years of his life to improving access to affordable housing and further education for Aboriginal Albertans. In 1971, he co-founded CanNative Housing Corporation, a nonprofit agency charged with providing homes for urban Aboriginal people who confronted housing discrimination in Edmonton and Calgary. In 2004, Belcourt and his colleagues established the Belcourt Brosseau Métis Awards Fund, a $13-million endowment with a mandate to support the educational dreams of Métis youth and mature students in Alberta and to make a permanent difference in the lives of Métis Albertans.

  • Auteur:
    Lewis, Jenifer
    Sommaire:

    A new offering from the author of the hugely successful Mother of Black Hollywood.Walking in My Joy is a collection of electric stories by the one and only, super hilarious Jenifer Lewis. Her commentary on what's happening in the world today, told through her outrageous real-life adventures, will have you laughing out loud, while her insightful messages touch your soul. A self-described "traveling fool and nature freak," Jenifer takes readers with her all over the world, from Cape Town to Bali; Washington, DC, to the Serengeti; Mongolia to St. Petersburg; and Argentina to Antarctica to demonstrate how she walks in her joy by seeking pleasure in everyday encounters. Every step of the way you'll be doubled over with laughter as she faints at the Obamas' holiday party; awakens to a swollen face and has to go to the hospital during the height of the Covid pandemic; an alien visitation; a successful takedown of a conman; as well as meeting a handsome Maasai warrior and being chased by a Cape buffalo. An actress, activist, and mental health advocate, Jenifer Lewis imparts ways to love yourself that will allow you to deflect negative energy and keep people who may come to take your joy in check. She stresses the importance of fully living to your greatest ambitions and taking the time to admire the world's natural gifts. She also encourages embracing each other's uniqueness as a way of finding societal healing. Walking in My Joy is a riveting and enthralling journey.

  • Auteur:
    Frutkin, Mark
    Sommaire:

    From Istanbul to New Delhi to Boulder, Colorado, through Venice, Paris, Rome, and points between. As travellers, we are always walking backwards, forever on the verge of stepping into the unknown, never knowing what waits around the next corner. You could be lost, forget your passport, fall ill. You could be served a bowl of food and not know whether it’s animal, vegetable, or mineral. Even flushing the toilet can be an adventure. You are a child again, innocent and hoping for the best, forced to trust strangers. Quite often this works out. Not always. Walking Backwards is a return to 10 cities and what happened there. Whether inadvertently smuggling cloth into Istanbul, reading poetry in New Delhi to a crowd expecting a world-famous pianist, or wandering endlessly through Mantua searching for a non-existent hotel on a street that’s fallen off the map, Mark Frutkin is a master at rediscovering the magic at the heart of all travel.

  • Auteur:
    Manning, Lauren, Manning, Jeanette
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    As a troubled teen, Lauren Manning sought refuge online in the angry world of black metal music. When she met a recruiter who offered her the acceptance she craved, the doctrine of white supremacy supplanted the values of her middle-class upbringing, and Lauren traded suburbia for a life of violence and criminality on the streets of Toronto. Told from the perspective of both mother and daughter, Walking Away from Hate chronicles Lauren’s descent into extremism, her life within the movement and her ultimate reconnection with the family she once denounced and the mother who refused to give up on her.

  • Auteur:
    Eversmann, Matt, Mooney, Chris, Patterson, James
    Sommaire:

    A powerful collection of never-before-told war stories crafted from hundreds of interviews by James Patterson and First Sergeant US Army (Ret.) Matt Eversmann.

  • Auteur:
    Thoreau, Henry David
    Sommaire:

    Walden is a classic of American philosophy that describes Thoreau's concepts of self-reliance and individualism. In "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," he develops the philosophy of nonviolent political protest.

  • Auteur:
    Poling, Sr., Jim
    Sommaire:

    A woman from Northern Ontario is buried; her earthly papers reveal a mystery. Veteran Canadian journalist Jim Poling took on the most important assignment of his career: Just who was his mother? Why did she take a lifelong secret to her grave?In his search for clues throughout his childhood years in Northern Ontario, the author goes to Chapleau, the railway town where the people he believed were his ancestors played out their roles in building the railway. It ends in the Prairie village of Innisfree, Alberta, home to Joe LaRose, convicted horse thief and father of a girl destined for trouble.A search that began in anger at his mother’s secrecy concludes with an understanding of her actions. In the process, he explores the place of families within Canadian society and reveals the shameful ongoing discrimination against Native Peoples and the abusive treatment of illegitimacy. Throughout, glimpses of working life in newsrooms add insider perspectives on the "handling" of our daily news.A former Indian Affairs reporter, Poling shares insights into the ongoing plight of Canada’s First Nations people. He observes that Canada will never realize its true potential until positive steps are taken to resolve longstanding issues.

  • Auteur:
    Strahan, Michael
    Sommaire:

    America's favorite football player turned morning talk show host Michael Strahan reads his book of motivational advice on how to turn up the heat and go from good to great in pursuit of your personal ambition. Michael Strahan spent his childhood on a military base in Europe, where community meant everything, and life, though idyllic, was different. For one, when people referenced football they meant soccer. So when Michael's father suggested he work toward a college scholarship by playing football in Texas, where tens of thousands of people show up for a weekend game, the odds were long. Yet he did, indeed, land a scholarship and from there a draft into the NFL where he scaled the league's heights, broke records, and helped his team win the Super Bowl as a result of which he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. How? By developing "Strahan's Rules"--A mix of mental discipline, positive thinking, and a sense of play. He also used the Rules to forge a successful post pro-ball career as cohost with Kelly Ripa on Live!--a position for which he was considered the longshot--and much more. In Wake Up Happy, Michael shares personal stories about how he gets and stays motivated and how you can do the same in your quest to attain your life goals. Here are a few of "Strahan's Rules": 1) Listen to other people, but don't take their opinions for fact. Have your own experiences. Draw your own conclusions. 2) You can't change other people but you can change how you act around them. Usually, that's more than enough. 3) Don't pre-judge. Help can--and will--come from the most unexpected places. Be open to everything around you. Inspiring and chock full of advice that will help you make significant strides toward pursuing your dream, Wake Up Happy is a book no one, young or old, male or female will want to miss.

  • Auteur:
    Ethari, Lamees Al
    Sommaire:

    In this memoir, Lamees Al Ethari traces her transition from an idyllic childhood in a large extended Iraqi family to the relative stability of family exilic life in Canada. Through memory fragments, clips of poetry, diary entries, and her own art, the author reveals the trauma of three senseless wars, a decade of dehumanizing sanctions on an innocent population, the blindness of a dictatorship to the suffering of its own people, and finally their resilience and the humanity they manage to preserve.

  • Auteur:
    Dallaire, Roméo
    Sommaire:

    At the heart of Waiting for First Light is a no-holds-barred self-portrait of a top political and military figure whose nights are invaded by despair, but who at first light faces the day with the renewed desire to make a difference in the world. Roméo Dallaire, traumatized by witnessing genocide on an imponderable scale in Rwanda, reflects in these pages on the nature of PTSD and the impact of that deep wound on his life since 1994, and on how he motivates himself and others to humanitarian work despite his constant struggle. Though he had been a leader in peace and in war at all levels up to deputy commander of the Canadian Army, his PTSD led to his medical dismissal from the Canadian Forces in April 2000, a blow that almost killed him. But he crawled out of the hole he fell into after he had to take off the uniform, and he has been inspiring people to give their all to multiple missions ever since, from ending genocide to eradicating the use of child soldiers to revolutionizing officer training so that our soldiers can better deal with the muddy reality of modern conflict zones and to revolutionizing our thinking about the changing nature of conflict itself.

  • Auteur:
    Young, Neil
    Sommaire:

    The perfect gift for music lovers and Neil Young fans, telling the story behind Neil Young's legendary career and his iconic, beloved songs.
    "I think I will have to use my time wisely and keep my thoughts straight if I am to succeed and deliver the cargo I so carefully have carried thus far to the outer reaches." —Neil Young, from Waging Heavy Peace

    Legendary singer and songwriter Neil Young's storied career has spanned over forty years and yielded some of the modern era's most enduring music. Now for the first time ever, Young reflects upon his life—from his Canadian childhood, to his part in the sixties rock explosion with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, through his later career with Crazy Horse and numerous private challenges. An instant classic, Waging Heavy Peace is as uncompromising and unforgettable as the man himself.

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