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Canadian nonfiction

  • Auteur:
    Good, Michelle
    Sommaire:

    #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER. FINALIST for the Writers' Trust Balsillie Prize for Public Policy. A bold, provocative collection of essays exploring the historical and contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada. With authority and insight, Truth Telling examines a wide range of Indigenous issues framed by Michelle Good's personal experience and knowledge. From racism, broken treaties, and cultural pillaging, to the value of Indigenous lives and the importance of Indigenous literature, this collection reveals facts about Indigenous life in Canada that are both devastating and enlightening. Truth Telling also demonstrates the myths underlying Canadian history and the human cost of colonialism, showing how it continues to underpin modern social institutions in Canada. Passionate and uncompromising, Michelle Good affirms that meaningful and substantive reconciliation hinges on recognition of Indigenous self-determination, the return of lands, and a just redistribution of the wealth that has been taken from those lands without regard for Indigenous peoples. Truth Telling is essential reading for those looking to acknowledge the past and understand the way forward.

  • Auteur:
    McLachlin, Beverley
    Sommaire:

    Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, offers a look at her life and shares her insights into the most pressing legal and social questions we face today. As a young girl, Beverley McLachlin's world was often full of wonder--at the expansive Prairie vistas around her, at the stories she discovered in the books at her local library, and at the diverse people who passed through her parents' door. While her family was poor, their lives were rich in the ways that mattered most. Even at a young age, she had an innate sense of justice, which was reinforced by the lessons her parents taught her: Everyone deserves dignity. All people are equal. Those who work hard reap the rewards. As a young woman, McLachlin moved to Edmonton to pursue a degree in philosophy. There, she discovered her passion lay not in the ivory towers of academia, but in the real world, solving problems directly related to the lives of the people around her. And in the law, she found the tools to do exactly that. In her early years as an articling student and lawyer, she encountered sexism, exclusion, and old boys' clubs at every turn. And outside the courtroom, personal loss and tragedies struck close to home. Nonetheless, McLachlin was determined to prove her worth, and her love of the law and the pursuit of justice pulled her through the darkest moments. McLachlin's meteoric rise through the courts soon found her serving on the highest court in the country, becoming the first woman to be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Over the next eighteen years, McLachlin presided over the most prominent cases in the country--involving Charter challenges, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. One judgment at a time, she laid down a legal legacy that proved that fairness and justice were not luxuries of the powerful but rather obligations owed to each and every one of us.

  • Auteur:
    Poitras Pratt, Yvonne
    Sommaire:

    How educators can respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action Educators have a special role in furthering truth and reconciliation in education, but many struggle to understand exactly what that means and how to accomplish it. There is no step-by-step guide to getting it right. Educators can only meaningfully accomplish truth and reconciliation in education by seeking out truth and reconciliation through education: an ongoing process of amplifying Indigenous voices and experiences, allowing oneself to be changed by them, and being guided by this learning both personally and professionally. Springing from an Indigenous education master's certificate program at the University of Calgary and written from an adult education perspective on transformative learning, this book invites educators, broadly defined, into a conversation about truth and reconciliation through education. Section I contains useful chapters on program design and concepts, while section II presents a collection of inspirational and thought provoking personal reflections from Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators who have taken deliberate, active roles in responding to the TRC's Calls to Action. This is a resource written by educators for educators wishing to embark on their own journeys of truth and reconciliation. Join the reconciliatory education community in courageously teaching, learning, and acting, just as the educators in this collected volume do.

  • Auteur:
    Marquis, Greg
    Sommaire:

    Truth and Honour explores the 2011 murder of Saint John businessman Richard Oland, of the prominent family that owns Moosehead Breweries, the ensuing police investigation and the arrest, trial, and conviction of the victim's son, Dennis Oland, for second ­degree murder. Oland's trial would be the most publicized in New Brunswick history. What the trial judge called "a family tragedy of Shakespearian proportions," this real­life murder mystery included adultery, family dysfunction, largely circumstantial evidence, allegations of police incompetence, a high-powered legal defence, and a verdict that shocked the community. Today, the Oland family maintains Dennis Oland's innocence. Author Greg Marquis, a professor of Canadian history at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, leads readers through the case, from the discovery of the crime to the conviction and sentencing of the defendant. Offering multiple perspectives, Truth and Honour explores this question: was Dennis Oland responsible for the death of his father? This updated edition features a new chapter following Dennis's imprisonment and successful 2016 appeal, and raises questions about his anticipated retrial.

  • Auteur:
    McMillan, L. Jane
    Sommaire:

    The name "Donald Marshall Jr." is synonymous with "wrongful conviction" and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan - Marshall's former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court's Marshall decision - tells the story of how Marshall's life-long battle against injustice permeated Canadian legal consciousness and revitalized Indigenous law. Marshall died in 2009, but his legacy lives on. Mi'kmaq continue to assert their rights and build justice programs grounded in customary laws and practices, key steps in the path to self-determination and reconciliation.

  • Auteur:
    Lund, Anna Jane Samis
    Sommaire:

    Trustees at Work explores the role bankruptcy trustees play in determining who qualifies as a deserving debtor under Canadian personal bankruptcy law. The idea of a deserving debtor is woven throughout bankruptcy law, with debt relief being reserved for those debtors deemed deserving. The legislation and case law invite trustees to assess debtors based on their pre-bankruptcy choices, but in practice, trustees evaluate debtors based on how cooperative the debtors are during bankruptcy proceedings. This book uses interviews and statistical data to explain how the financial and emotional pressures of trustees' work shape their decision-making process.

  • Auteur:
    Barclay, Michael , Jack, Ian A.D., Schneider, Jason
    Sommaire:

    Trust Yourself is excerpted from Have Note Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, available as a print or ebook. Published in autumn 2001, Have Not Been the Same became the first book to comprehensively document the rise of Canadian underground rock between the years 1985 and 1995. It was a tumultuous decade that saw the arrival of Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Sloan, Barenaked Ladies, Daniel Lanois, and many others who made an indelible mark not only on Canadian culture, but on the global stage as well. Have Not Been the Same tells all of their stories in rich detail through extensive first'person interviews, while at the same time capturing the spirit of Canada's homegrown music industry on the cusp of the digital age. Ten years on, the 780-page book is still regarded by critics and musicians as the definitive history of the era. To mark this milestone, the authors have updated many key areas of the book through new interviews, further illuminating the ongoing influence of this generation of artists. And with its treasure trove of rare photos intact, this revised edition of Have Not Been the Same is sure to maintain the book's status as one of the seminal works in the field of Canadian music writing, and a must'read for any Canadian music fan.

  • Auteur:
    Wilcott, Becca
    Sommaire:

    Truly, Madly, Deadly: The Unofficial True Blood Companion is at once an introductory guide to the first two seasons of HBO’s immensely popular vampire series True Blood, and an all-in-one treasure tomb for the “truest” of fans. Created by Alan Ball, the Oscar-winning writer of American Beauty and creator of HBO’s cult ensemble sensation Six Feet Under, in 2009 True Blood surpassed The Sopranos as the largest ever audience for a cable show at over 12.4 million viewers a week, relaunching the career of Oscar winner Anna Paquin, and introducing international audiences to Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgård, and Ryan Kwanten, to name only a few of the award-winning cast.

    This book offers in-depth biographies of each major cast member, along with pictures and fan quotes; guides to each episode along with a host of fun facts and behind-the-scenes anecdotes; sidebars providing additional cast or character info; full chapters, which tackle some of the greater underlying themes of True Blood such as the paranormal and the politics of race, sexuality, and gender; an overview of literary and cinematic vampires; an in-depth look at how social media has contributed to the success of the show, including interviews with the Twitter True Blood players; tributes to the supporting cast, including an interview with Kristin Bauer (Pam Ravenscroft); and an exclusive interview with, and introduction to, Charlaine Harris, author of the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse novels, on which the series is loosely based.

  • Auteur:
    Mansouri, Lotfi, Hernandez, Mark, Burnett, Carol
    Sommaire:

    An insider’s view of the opera world from one of its greatest figures. Everything about opera is larger than life, but the bigger the art form, the bigger the potential for disaster. When things go wrong at the opera house, they really go wrong. No one has a greater or more intimate knowledge of such moments than Lotfi Mansouri. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, Mansouri has directed nearly 500 productions at major opera houses around the globe. Mansouri has gathered a collection of discrete vignettes that recount unforgettable and revealing moments at the opera as personally experienced or witnessed by him. From unbelievable snafus to unfortunate mishaps to astounding coincidences, these vignettes feature some of the biggest names in opera, as well as prominent figures from politics and more. From the hilarious to the bizarre, this is a reader-friendly look at what is often thought of as an overly serious, even mysterious form of art.

  • Auteur:
    Matthews, Carolyn
    Sommaire:

    A crab boat off Newfoundland catches fire, and a rescue is undertaken by helicopter. A child goes missing in a New Brunswick forest, and a desperate hunt is mounted. A climber falls on a British Columbia mountain, and a helicopter rescue is attempted. A civilian chopper crashes in Nunavut, and a search-and-rescue team braves a savage snowstorm to find survivors. True Stories of Rescue and Survival features the above true stories and many more from across the country, past and present. Its heroes are to be found in the RCMP, city police forces, the Canadian military, and among all the rescue workers and specialists of the Canadian Coast Guard. Volunteers, too, risk injury and even death to help others. Sidebars spotlight the equipment search-and-rescue teams use, how search dogs are trained, how long-line rescues work, how navy divers are making a difference in the deserts of Afghanistan, and much more.

  • Auteur:
    Fraser, Whit
    Sommaire:

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this captivating memoir, Whit Fraser weaves scenes from more than fifty years of reporting and living in the North with fascinating portraits of the Dene and Inuit activists who successfully overturned the colonial order and politically reshaped Canada—including his wife, Mary Simon, Canada's first Indigenous governor general. "This is a huge embrace of a book, irresistible on every level. . . . I couldn't put it down." —Elizabeth Hay, Scotiabank Giller prize-winning author of Late Nights on Air In True North Rising , Whit Fraser delivers a smart, touching and astute living history of five decades that transformed the North, a span he witnessed first as a longtime CBC reporter and then through his friendships and his work with Dene and Inuit activists and leaders. Whit had a front-row seat at the MacKenzie Valley Pipeline inquiry, the constitutional conferences and the land-claims negotiations that successfully reshaped the North; he's also travelled to every village and town from Labrador to Alaska. His vivid portraits of groundbreakers such as Abe Okpik, Jose Kusugak, Stephen Kakfwi, Marie Wilson, John Amagoalik, Tagak Curley, and his own wife, Mary Simon, bring home their truly historic achievements, but they also give us a privileged glimpse of who they are, and who Whit Fraser is. He may have begun as a know-nothing reporter from the south, but he soon fell in love with the North, and his memoir is a testament to more than fifty years of commitment to its people.

  • Auteur:
    Scoones, Anny
    Sommaire:

    "Her book is a gift to all of us."— Patrick Lane, author of There is a Season. Following the lead of her earlier bestselling books, Anny Scoones once again charms and inspires readers with her insights and observations. Using her experiences on a farm as a backdrop, Anny muses on the environment, fate, time and aging. In this collection of personal memoirs, Anny reaches deeper into what nature, rural life and agriculture mean to us. She explores the thrills, joys and disasters of what really happens in the countryside and nearby towns. Stories vary from a rescued dog Anny met in the town bank, to a grand old white pine tree that was given a new purpose, to a horse who couldn’t relax without blackberries, to the joys of the garage sale—even a recipe for quince jelly. The book is illustrated by renowned Canadian artists Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak. True Home is the third and final part of the Glamorgan Farm collection, tales of one of the oldest pioneer farms on Vancouver Island.

  • Auteur:
    Raymaker, Darryl
    Sommaire:

    Trudeau appeared to enjoy the encounter. He stood his ground while escaping projectiles, including a tomato… In this insightful and lively history, Liberal insider Darryl Raymaker recalls the attempt to broker “a marriage from hell” between the federal Liberal Party and Alberta’s Social Credit government in the late 1960s. Raymaker uses his deep connections and backroom knowledge to trace the tangled political relationships that developed when charismatic statesman Pierre Trudeau confronted the forces of oil and agriculture in Canada’s west. Part memoir, part chronicle, Trudeau’s Tango provides a window into Canadian history, politics, economics and the zeitgeist of the late 1960s.

  • Auteur:
    Litt, Paul
    Sommaire:

    In 1968, Canadians dared to take a chance on a new kind of politician. Pierre Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party in April and two months later won the federal election. His meteoric rise to power was driven by Trudeaumania, an explosive mix of passion and fear fueled by media hype and nationalist ambition. This book traces what happened when the fabled spirit of the sixties met the excitement of the Centennial and Expo 67. Canadians wanted to modernize their nation, differentiate it from the US, and defuse Quebec separatism. Far from being a sixties crazy moment, Trudeaumania was a passionate quest for a new Canada that would define the values of Canadians for decades to come.

  • Auteur:
    Raymaker, Darryl
    Sommaire:

    Trudeau appeared to enjoy the encounter. He stood his ground while escaping projectiles, including a tomato… In this insightful and lively history, Liberal insider Darryl Raymaker recalls the attempt to broker “a marriage from hell” between the federal Liberal Party and Alberta’s Social Credit government in the late 1960s. Raymaker uses his deep connections and backroom knowledge to trace the tangled political relationships that developed when charismatic statesman Pierre Trudeau confronted the forces of oil and agriculture in Canada’s west. Part memoir, part chronicle, Trudeau’s Tango provides a window into Canadian history, politics, economics, and the zeitgeist of the late 1960s. Foreword by Lloyd Axworthy.

  • Auteur:
    Sommaire:

    Troubling Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Education offers a series of critical perspectives concerning reconciliation and reconciliatory efforts between Canadian and Indigenous peoples. Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars address both theoretical and practical aspects of troubling reconciliation in education across various contexts with significant diversity of thought, approach, and socio-political location. Throughout, the work challenges mainstream reconciliation discourses. This timely, unflinching analysis will be invaluable to scholars and students of Indigenous studies, sociology, and education. Contributors: Daniela Bascunan, Jennifer Brant, Liza Brechbill, Shawna Carroll, Frank Deer, George J. Sefa Dei (Nana Adusei Sefa Tweneboah), Lucy El-Sherif, Rachel George, Ruth Green, Celia Haig-Brown, Arlo Kempf, Jeannie Kerr, David Newhouse, Amy Parent, Michelle Pidgeon, Robin Quantick, Jean-Paul Restoule, Toby Rollo, Mark Sinke, Sandra D. Styres, Lynne Wiltse, Dawn Zinga.

  • Auteur:
    Micallef, Shawn
    Sommaire:

    What do your Eggs Benedict say about your notions of class? Every weekend, in cities around the world, bleary-eyed diners wait in line to be served overpriced, increasingly outré food by hungover waitstaff. For some, the ritual we call brunch is a beloved pastime; for others, a bedeviling waste of time. But what does its popularity say about shifting attitudes towards social status and leisure? In some ways, brunch and other forms of conspicuous consumption have blinded us to ever-more-precarious employment conditions. For award-winning writer and urbanist Shawn Micallef, brunch is a way to look more closely at the nature of work itself and a catalyst for solidarity among the so-called creative class. Drawing on theories from Thorstein Veblen to Richard Florida, Micallef traces his own journey from the rust belt to a cosmopolitan city where the evolving middle class he joined was oblivious to its own instability and insularity. The Trouble with Brunch is a provocative analysis of foodie obsession and status anxiety, but it's also a call to reset our class consciousness. The real trouble with brunch isn't so much bad service and outsized portions of bacon, it's that brunch could be so much more.   Praise for Shawn Micallef: ‘As Toronto grows into a more mature, more compelling city, a new group of non-academic, street-smart urbanists has emerged to appreciate it – with-it young writers, architects and men and women about town who love big cities and see things in Toronto that most of us miss. Shawn Micallef is one of the sharpest of this sharp-eyed breed.’ – Globe and Mail ‘A smart and intimate guide to the city that makes you feel like an insider from start to finish.’ – Douglas Coupland [on Stroll]

  • Auteur:
    Bjarnason, Dan
    Sommaire:

    Afghanistan is not Canada’s first war in Asia. We’ve been there before, a half century ago … in Korea. And it was a meat grinder, scarcely remembered now … a war in which on one hilltop, on one April night, freshly-minted Canadians soldiers made a desperate stand that prevented catastrophe. In all, twenty-five thousand Canadians fought in Korea. By the time the shooting stopped, more than five hundred had been killed on lonely hilltops and in desolate ravines. Five hundred … in only two years. In Canada’s war in Korea, there were no Vimy Ridges or Normandys. In Korea, Canadians were shot down in their fours and fives mostly, on patrols and in ambushes. It was largely a war at night in small groups. But not always. There were sometimes terrifying battles where outposts were swamped by Chinese human wave attacks. This is the story of one such battle … Canada’s first in Korea, in April 1951, on a barren and rocky hill near a nothing village called Kapyong on the edge of nowhere. It’s the story of 700 men, all volunteers, in the 2nd Batallion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. They’d signed up specifically to fight in Korea … and now on this April night, they found themselves surrounded by thousands of Chinese soldiers sweeping around their positions. In April 1951, the Chinese launched an offensive plunging straight for the South Korean capital, Seoul. Other allied positions collapsed around the Canadians. Only the lonely Patricias blocked the road. And now it was their turn for the Chinese treatment. The Patricias had the wrong weapons and were trained in the wrong tactics for this war. Most were utter amateurs. This was a true People’s Army -- cab drivers, lumberjacks, farm boys and adventurers. They were up against a seasoned enemy, better armed and with immense battle savvy, fresh from their victories in the Chinese Civil War. And yet in a terrifying battle in the dark that had the feel of Thermopylae … with several hundred against several thousand, with hand-to-hand fighting with bayonet’s and shovels, with foxholes lost and retaken, with calling down artillery fire on their own positions, they held. The Patricia’s that night changed the course the war could have taken. Kapyong is about what did not happen. The Canadian positions did not collapse. Kapyong did not fall. Seoul was not captured. The Chinese breakthrough went nowhere. And so, the Korean War did not end abruptly in April 1951. For the Chinese, Kapyong had simply been too much. By dawn they had abandoned the field. Incredibly, the Patricia’s casualties were ten dead and 23 wounded. Chinese dead, although unknown, must have been in the many hundreds. At no point had there been talk among the Canadians of breaking out … they had simply decided to tough it out on their hilltop. The Kapyong story sparkles with qualities that Canadians believe make up their national character: sacrifice, courage, initiative, modesty and an uncomplicated rock-solid belief in themselves. It is the story of the Patricias’ cool and cranky commander, James Stone, a World War Two veteran of the Italian campaign who applied his mountain warfare savvy to the wilds of Korea. It’s the story of Ken Barwise, who single-handedly recaptured a lost machine gun from the Chinese. It’s the story of Smiley Douglas who reached for a live grenade which landed in the midst of his platoon. It exploded just as he tossed it free, blowing off his hand. It’s the story of Michael Levy, who had fought as a teenager against the Japanese in Malaya as a guerrilla. At Kapyong he was the heroic platoon commander who called in artillery on his own position. The Patricias survived because they believed they were the best soldiers on the hill that night. They bet their lives on it. They won the bet.

  • Auteur:
    Wilson, Diana
    Sommaire:

    Rich in stories, the Crowsnest Pass region in the southern Rocky Mountains still bears evidence of its tragedies, and one monumental triumph—a railroad rammed through the pass in 18 months. Hailed as the greatest project in the Dominion, the Crow's Nest Pass Railway was built by men who toiled with horses and primitive tools to carve the way for industry. Towns and coal mines blossomed as the nourishing stem of the railroad brought abundance to British Columbia and Alberta, but with progress came disaster. The town of Frank, Alberta, was devastated when part of the legendary "Mountain That Walks" crashed down on the homes and businesses nestled at its foot. A mine explosion at nearby Hillcrest took nearly 200 men in one huge blast, and the entire town of Fernie, BC, was razed by fire. Was the relentless hand of fate responsible, or was it the Elk Valley curse? A must-read for anyone who enjoys thrilling tales of true life and real people, this book captures all the drama and spirit of a mythic land.

  • Auteur:
    Dixon, Glenn
    Sommaire:

    A fascinating journey through the world’s musical cultures. Every culture on Earth has music. Every culture that’s ever existed has had it, but we don’t exactly know why. Music is not like food, shelter, or having opposable thumbs. We don’t need it to live, and yet we can’t seem to live without it. Glenn Dixon travels the globe exploring how and why people make music. From a tour of Bob Marley’s house to sitar lessons in India, he experiences music around the world and infuses the stories with the latest in brain research, genetics, and evolutionary psychology. Why does music give us chills down the backs of our necks? What exactly are the whales singing about and why does some music stick in our minds like chewing gum? Through his adventures, Dixon uncovers the real reasons why music has such a powerful hold on us – and the answers just might surprise you.

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