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Georgetown University professor George O'Brien provides the biographical background of the four masters of Irish literature and an in-depth analysis…
of their greatest works. O'Brien discusses the very qualities that set these works apart and the "Irishness" that characterizes each of them. 2006.
Catherine Cookson's first novel, "Kate Hannigan", was published in 1950. The novel represented the author's triumph over unhappiness - within…
its pages she was exorcising her own demons. Piers Dudgeon unlocks her complex character using her many books as a key and explores with Catherine herself the tortured drama of her personal life and its resolution. 1997.
Dual biographies of playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005) and actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962). Traces the couple's disparate family backgrounds and 1956…
marriage. Describes Monroe's role as Miller's muse but posits that her psychological problems and feelings of inadequacy led to their divorce after five years. Some descriptions of sex. 2009.
Donna Thomson’s life was forever changed when her son Nicholas was born with cerebral palsy. A former actor, director, and…
teacher, Donna became his primary caregiver and embarked on a second career as a disability activist, author, and consultant. Thomson vividly describes her experience in treading delicately through daily care, emergencies, and medical bureaucracy as she and her family cope with her son’s condition while maintaining value and dignity (for Nicholas, too). She demonstrates the vital contribution that people with disabilities make to our society and addresses the ethics and economics of giving and receiving care. 2014.
The true story of author Gilmour's decision to let his 16-year-old son drop out of high school, on the condition…
that the boy agree to watch three films a week with him. Examines how those years changed both their lives. From French New Wave and Kurosawa to De Palma, film noir, and Billy Wilder, Gilmour describes key moments in each film, as he teaches his son about life and the vagaries of growing up through the power of the movies. Strong language and descriptions of sex. Canada Reads 2012. 2007.
Jaber, a Lebanese-British foreign correspondent, describes covering the Gulf War and her personal engagement with an Iraqi family caught in…
the crossfire. Reporting on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jaber took up the cause of hospitalized children wounded in the bombing, and helped start a fund to provide them with better medical attention and supplies. In particular, she learned the extraordinary story of two orphans and decided to adopt them. Some descriptions of violence. 2009.
This is the 1970s autobiography of the journalist and historian whose life and writing influenced many Canadians. British Columbia-raised, his…
life spanned some formative years of the province's political history. As a journalist he met and wrote about many prime ministers, and became recognized as an influential thinker. 1976.
Oscar Wilde was a central figure of the fin de siecle, and, in his own words, "a man who stood…
in symbolic relation to his times." He rose to fame in the 1880s and had the world at his feet in the 1890s. It all went wrong when following his love-affair with Lord Alfred Douglas he was persecuted by Douglas' father and sentenced to two years in jail for homosexuality. He spent the last years of his life surrounded by a handful of loyal friends in France but shunned by those who had been his followers in his days of glory. 1997.
This personal history of 27 years, 1959 to 1986, of Afrikaner domination in South Africa charts the response of novelist…
Nadine Gordimer to the crisis of apartheid and the struggle of the blacks to free themselves. 1988.
Traces the author's journey from the painful deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the United States, where…
she endured five jobs, crime, and a painful marriage before the birth of a daughter inspired her writing career. 2013.
The fourth part of an autobiography of Maya Angelou. Maya becomes immersed in the world of black writers and artists…
in Harlem, working in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King. Sequel to “Singin’ and swingin’ and gettin’ merry like Christmas”, followed by “All God’s children need travelling shoes“. 1986.
When Jean Baird's daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean's instinct was to turn to books. Although she found that the thoughts…
of counsellors, psychologists, and self-help gurus were some help, the works that truly did were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Jean and her husband George Bowering found little from Canadian writers on the subject, and this anthology of original pieces attempts to fill that gap. c2009.
During his 60 year career, George Woodcock published nearly 150 books, including "Anarchism" and "The crystal spirit," a study of…
George Orwell. He arrived in Canada from Britain in his late thirties and eventually settled in Vancouver. Here his motivation for immigrating, and for giving himself a new personality when he did, are explained in depth using his own papers and interviews with his associates and colleagues. 1998.
Single, thirtysomething, working as a writer in New York, Kimball was beginning to feel a sense of longing for family…
and home, and when she interviewed a dynamic young farmer, her world changed. Smitten, she moved to five hundred acres near Lake Champlain to start Essex Farm. This chronicle of the first year describes how she and her future husband grew everything needed to feed their community. Some descriptions of violence and some strong language. 2010.
Chronicles the life of Laura Bridgman, who, born into a New Hampshire farm family in 1829, became deaf and blind…
at the age of two. Freeberg recounts Laura's transformation into a woman who voraciously absorbed the world around her under the tutelage of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe of the Perkins Institution for the Blind. 2001.
Mori tells how she fled Japan for America when she was twenty, escaping cruel treatment by her father and harsh…
memories of the place where her mother committed suicide. Thirteen years later, she returns to explore her homeland, reunites with relatives, and comes to terms with her tortured relationship with her father. 1995.
Frye's entries contain self-analysis and self-revelation, as well as humour, dark moods and claustrophobia, and some self-congratulating. They also serve…
as a chronicle of Frye's life, as we watch him teach classes, plan his career, record his dreams, register his reactions to the people he meets, and reflect on books, music, movies, and religious and political issues. Some strong language. 2001.