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William C. Van Horne: Railway Titan
by Valerie KnowlesWilliam C. Van Horne was one of North America’s most accomplished men. Born in Illinois in 1843, Van Horne started working in the railway business at a young age. In 1881 he was lured north to Canada to become general manager of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Ralway. The railroading general pushed through construction of the CPR’s transcontinental line and then went on to become the company’s president. During his time with the CPR, Van Horne developed a telegraph service, launched the Empress line of Pacific steamships in 1891, and founded CP Hotels. He capped his career by opening up Cuba’s interior with a railway. A man of prodigious energy and many talents, he also became Canada’s foremost art collector and one of the country’s leading financiers. For all of his amazing accomplishments, Van Horne was knighted in 1894. When he died church bells throughout the length and breadth of Cuba tolled to mark his passing, and when his funeral train made its way across Canada, all traffic on the CPR system was suspended for five minutes.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Dreams and Shadows
by Lian GoodallMackenzie King (1874-1950) was Canadas tenth and longest serving prime minister and an important figure on the international scene, especially during the Second World War. This book provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of Mackenzie King.
Wine Witch on Fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation, and Drinking Too Much
by Natalie MacLeanA powerful memoir about how one woman resurrects her life and career in the glamorous but sexist wine industry.Natalie MacLean, a bestselling wine writer, is shocked when her husband of twenty years, a high-powered CEO, demands a divorce. Then an online mob of rivals comes for her career.Wavering between despair and determination, she must fight for her son, rebuild her career, and salvage her self-worth using her superpowers: heart, humour, and an uncanny ability to pair wine and food.Natalie questions her insider role in the slick marketing that encourages women to drink too much while she battles the wine world’s veiled misogyny. Facing the worst vintage of her life, she reconnects with the vineyards that once brought her joy, the friends who sustain her, and her own belief in second chances.This true coming-of-middle-age story is about transforming your life and finding love along the way.
Winisk: On the Shore of Hudson Bay
by Mildred Young HubbertThe northern community known as Peawanuck (Cree for Flint) is located approximately 32 kilometres up river from the former village of Winisk on the shore of Hudson Bay. There, prior to a devastating flood on May 16, 1986, the First Nations residents of Winisk had carried on with a traditional lifestyle built largely around hunting and trapping seasons.The late Mildred Young Hubbert of Markdale, Ontario, first visited Winisk in the 1960s as a classroom consultant with the then Department of Indian Affairs. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine the scenario some three years later that found her experiencing an odd sort of honeymoon at Winisk and ultimately her first three years of marriage to the wonderful and highly unorthodox teacher, George Hubbert, all six foot six of him. Together the two teachers came to be a vital part of the village during the mid-1970s, a story lovingly and engagingly told by Millie Hubbert in a manuscript completed just prior to her passing.Winisk: On the Shore of Hudson Bay is charmingly told in the same anecdotal writing style that delighted readers of several previous books by the same author. This is vintage Millie Hubbert!
Winston Churchill and Mackenzie King: So Similar, So Different
by Terry Reardon The Right Honourable John N. TurnerThe story of the complex relationship between two world leaders during one of the greatest crises in human history. Born just two weeks apart in 1874, Winston Churchill and William Lyon Mackenzie King had much in common. Both forged long parliamentary careers, and each led his country to victory in World War II. A BBC poll deemed Winston Churchill the greatest Briton of all time, and Mackenzie King has been judged by a group of historians as the greatest Canadian prime minister. Their parallel careers fostered a working relationship that lasted almost fifty years. It was not always an easy relationship, however. Churchill, famous for his drink and cigars, was impetuous and charismatic, an extrovert; King, a teetotaller during WWII, was noted for considering all options before cautiously proceeding. Fate threw this ill-matched pair together. For the first time, the vital relationship between these two very different men is explored in depth. It is the story not just of two extraordinary leaders, but also of the changing bonds between Britain and Canada.
With Your Words in My Hands: The Letters of Antonietta Petris and Loris Palma (McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History #2.50)
by Donna R. GabbaciaFollowing Antonietta and Loris's first kiss in the shadows of the Italian Alps barely a year after the end of the Second World War, the couple was divided by a distance far greater than could ever have been imagined. With Antonietta's family moving to Montreal, migration entered the couple's intimate worlds, stretching the distance between them from the two hundred kilometres separating Ampezzo and Venice to the ocean between Montreal and Venice. Throughout their transatlantic separation, the young lovers fervidly wrote each other until they were reunited in Canada in 1949.With Your Words in My Hands tells a story about love and migration as written and read, idealized and imagined, through daily correspondence. Sonia Cancian recovers a rare complete epistolary record of an immigrant experience defined by love and sustained in writing, translating the letters with deftness and an ear for the immediacy of emotion and longing they embody. Cancian gives context to these exchanges dating from the beginning of the largest migration movement from Italy to Canada, showing how love, frustration, fear, sadness, and empathy were palpable elements that inflected the quotidian – bureaucratic processes, employment, family life – and defined immigrant experience.For the countless couples whose love is fragmented by separation but woven together with envelopes and stamps, or onscreen in today's instant messaging, these letters remind us how the experience of distance and proximity, absence and presence, can be reconfigured within the world of intimate correspondence.
Women Who Give Away Millions
by Iris NowellThis book pays tribute to 14 women who donated millions of dollars to causes close to their hearts. Iris Nowell is the author of five books. Writing her 1996 book, Women Who Give Away Millions, has given her a solid foundation of philanthropy, the not-for-profit sector, and the wealthy. She has also written a memoir of Canadian artist Harold Town, and a biography of artist, filmmaker, and impassioned feminist, Joyce Wieland.
Women Winning Office: An Activist’s Guide to Getting Elected
by Peggy NashWhen Peggy Nash first decided to run for elected office, she had no idea where to start, who to contact, or what the rules were. For those who are underrepresented in political life, politics can seem like a secret society designed to shut them out. Women Winning Office is a practical handbook for activist women on how to open doors and take their place in the political process. Find out how to build a team, get nominated, inspire volunteers, and canvass voters. Nash draws on her experience in five federal campaigns, as well as the stories of many inspiring Canadian women who have run for office at all levels of government. Some succeeded; some did not. Some faced difficult and painful experiences. Every one of them would do it again. To make real progressive change, we need to change not only who gets elected in Canada, but how our democracy functions. If you want to find out how to take your desire for a better world into elected office, this book is for you.
Working for Freedom: The Story of Josiah Henson
by Rona AratoJosiah Hensons life is an epic tale of one mans battle against evil and ignorance. By the time he was six, Josiah had been sold three times. When he was nine, his familys owner beat him for trying to learn to read. In spite of his physical pain and emotional heartache, he never lost the sense of morality that was his bedrock. After his escape, Josiah became an advocate for those still in bondage. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, he led 118 slaves to safety in Canada. Working for Freedom is the story of a man who proved that one person can make a difference in defending and promoting human rights.
Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives that Changed Canada
by Sandra MartinLonglisted for the Charles Taylor Prize and selected as a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book and an iTunes Store Best Book Globe and Mail columnist Sandra Martin honours the lives of Canada's famous, infamous, and unsung heroes in this unique collection of obituaries of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Here are Canadian icons such as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, social activist June Callwood, and urban theorist Jane Jacobs. Here are builders such as feminist and editor Doris Anderson, and businessman and famed art collector Ken Thomson. Here are our rogues, rascals, and romantics; our service men and women; and here are those private citizens whose lives have had an undeniable public impact. Finally, Martin interweaves these elegant and eloquent biographies with the autobiography of the obit writer, offering an exclusive and intimate view of life on the dead beat. Beautifully written, compelling, and vivid, Working the Dead Beat is a tribute to those individuals who, each on their own and as a collective, tell the story of our country, and to the life of the obit writer who chronicles their extraordinary lives.
World Enough and Time: Conversations with Canadian Women at Midlife
by Andrea Mudry"For me, getting older physically seems to be epitomized in the feeling that I look like my mother. She’s really attractive … It’s just that I can see that she’s older, and I’m not supposed to be." - Charlotte Wilson Hammond "My view of the world is slowly becoming more integrated. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve walked to the top of a mountain, and can look down and see all around." - Lesia Gregorovitch "Some women have told me that they’re too old at fifty. And I wondered to myself why - at fifty - would anyone think herself too old?" - Linda Silver Dranoff "Now I look upon everything I do … and say, ’Is this how I’m going to be using the energy that I have, or am I going to use it in a different way?" - Roberta Bondar "The most important thing is not to be afraid." - Kim Campbell
Worth Travelling Miles to See: Diary of a Survey Trip to Lake Temiskaming, 1886
by A. H. Telfer Lorene DicorpoIn the 1880s the provincial government sent out teams of land surveyors to explore the northern Ontario hinterland. By rail, canoe and on foot they and their crews cut through the forests and across streams, establishing the boundaries for townships in preparation for settlement. Alexander Herkes Telfer was a member of the party led by the Haliburton surveyor Alexander Niven, who was responsible for running the lines for seven townships around the head of Lake Temiskaming. The child of Scottish immigrants who settled in Scarborough, Ontario, A.H. Telfer logged his experiences in a personal diary, revealing a love of new frontiers and adventure that the hardships of life could not diminish. His vivid account provides interesting details of early surveying methods and of the lives of some intrepid early settlers in this wild but beautiful land. An introduction and annotations by the editor and early photographs of the upper Ottawa/Lake Temiskaming area complement the diary and create a historical context. "I personally have long been interested in the surveyor Alexander Niven from Haliburton. I grew up on Niven Street in New Liskeard, and as a child wondered about the man the street was named for. The story of Niven and the other surveyors who mapped the Townships of the Little Clay Belt in the District of Temiskaming in the 1880s is long overdue. "A.H. Telfer’s personal diaries, which tell of the day-to-day hardships and accomplishments of these surveyors, are a fascinating account of the country before the great land rush of the 1890s and the Cobalt mining boom of 1903, which changed the landscape dramatically. This personal account by one of the members of the actual survey party of 1886 is interesting from a historical perspective, as it bridges the gap between the fur trading and logging eras, and the settlement of Temiskaming. Of equal interest is the mention in the diary of pioneers in the area, such as C.C. Farr, the founder of the town of Haileybury; Edouard Piche, one of the earliest settlers on Lake Temiskaming; and the Heard brothers from Haliburton, who were among the first homesteaders. "For anyone interested in the history of northern Ontario, this is a ’must read.’"- Bruce W. Taylor, genealogist, historian and author, his most recent book being New Liskeard: The Pioneer Years (2003).
Wrestling with Life: From Hungary to Auschwitz to Montreal (Footprints Series #25)
by Richard King George ReinitzGeorge Reinitz was twelve years old when he and his family were taken from Szikszó, Hungary, and deported to Auschwitz, where many of his family members were killed. As a boy on the brink of adolescence, he experienced the horrors of a Nazi death camp. Following his liberation he returned to his hometown where he remained for a few years before immigrating to Montreal in 1948 as part of the Canadian Jewish Congress’s War Orphans Project. In Wrestling with Life, George Reinitz recounts his vivid memories of childhood and his experiences in one of the worst places humans ever created. He recalls being tattooed with an unclean needle, eating raw potato skins to stave off hunger, watching his father get whipped in the face, and looking after the horses of SS officers. In Auschwitz he learned and used survival skills that he later applied in the commercial realm. George settled in Montreal and became a world-class wrestler, competing internationally and carrying the flag for the Canadian team at the 1957 Maccabiah Games in Israel. After working in a number of jobs he found his calling in the furniture business, eventually founding Jaymar Furniture, a leading manufacturer and a company that still operates successfully in Quebec. Wrestling with Life is a moving account of a child’s survival under the most difficult of circumstances. It tells the story of one man’s hard-won success as a businessman and athlete.
Writing History: A Professor’s Life
by Michael BlissOne of Canada’s best-known and most-honoured biographers turns to the raw material of his own life in Writing History. A university professor, prolific scholar, public intellectual, and frank critic of the world he has known, Michael Bliss draws on extensive personal diaries to describe a life that has taken him from small-town Ontario in the 1950s to international recognition for his books in Canadian and medical history. His memoir ranges remarkably widely: it encompasses social history, family tragedy, a critical insider’s view of university life, Canadian national politics, and, above all, a rare glimpse into the craftsmanship that goes into the research and writing of history in our time. Whether writing about pigs and millionaires, the discovery of insulin, sleazy Canadian politicians, or the founders of modern medicine and brain surgery, Michael Bliss is noted for the clarity of his prose, the honesty of his opinions, and the breadth of his literary interests.
The Year Is a Circle: A Celebration of Henry David Thoreau
by Victor Carl FriesenHenry David Thoreau is remembered as a foremost nature writer. He was an ecologist before the term was invented. A man of many parts, including social critic, he is known to have had an influence on such internationally recognized leaders as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. "Victor Carl Friesen, author of The Spirit of the Huckleberry, an astute analysis of Henry David Thoreau’s prose, again demonstrates his affinity for the Walden sage with this unique volume of poems and photographs. Taking a series of quotations demonstrating Thoreau’s sensuousness, he writes a poem for each and then illustrates them with outstanding colour photographs. The poems, mostly written in the blank verse form, have sturdy strength and remarkable insight into both Thoreau and nature."- Walter Harding, Founding Secretary, The Thoreau Society Inc., State University of New York, Genesco "Friesen is particularly qualified as a Thoreau scholar, for his personal interests extend well beyond literature to include natural history, a subject very much at the centre of Thoreau’s writings."- Canadian Book Review Annual
Young Royals on Tour: William & Catherine in Canada
by Christina BlizzardA day-by-day celebration in words and photographs of the young couple’s first tour of Canada. On April 29, 2011, Prince William of Wales married Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London. The newlyweds’ first royal tour took place in Canada from June 30 to July 8. People across the country rejoiced with the couple as they made their way through a land that holds special significance for the Royal Family, emphasizing and renewing the bond with Canada. This was not the Duke of Cambridges first trip "home to Canada," since he accompanied his parents, Charles and Diana, in 1991 and his father and brother, Harry, in 1998. This journey included such highlights as Canada Day in Ottawa, dragon boating in Prince Edward Island, visiting homeless youth in Quebec City, street hockey in Yellowknife, and a side trip to help bolster the courage of fire-devastated citizens in Slave Lake, Alberta. The Duke and Duchess presented the vibrant, modern face of the Royal Family, and excitement followed them everywhere as they travelled across Canada.
You're Not Dead Until You're Forgotten: A Memoir
by John Dunning Bill BrownsteinMuch to his chagrin, John Dunning was born into the movie business. But once he came to accept his career fate, he developed a great passion for making movies, and ultimately became Canada's pre-eminent B-movie producer, with a knack for developing young talent. In You’re Not Dead until You’re Forgotten, Dunning, in forthright and charming fashion, recounts his rough-and-tumble upbringing in the Montreal suburb of Verdun in the 1930s, his modest start in the film industry behind the candy counter of his family's movie theatre, and later, his ventures into film distribution and production. In the 1960s Dunning, along with financial wizard André Link, founded Cinepix, which eventually merged into the Lionsgate Entertainment film colossus. Specializing in such exploitation genres as raucous comedy, groundbreaking Québécois "maple syrup porn" and horror films, Cinepix churned out cult classics like Valérie, Shivers, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, and Meatballs. Dunning's detailed recollections of making these movies provide a rare, candid, and witty take on how the film industry really works. Driven to succeed in the face of arbitrary censors, parochial Canadian critics, and controlling government funding agencies, Dunning and Link developed a formula for producing controversial, moneymaking movies, and helped launch the careers of such luminaries-to-be as David Cronenberg, Ivan Reitman, and Don Carmody. Cronenberg has called John Dunning "the unacknowledged godfather of an entire generation of Canadian filmmakers." Illustrated with personal photos and film stills, You’re Not Dead Until You’re Forgotten finally gives this pioneer Canadian filmmaker his long-overdue spotlight.
Zygmunt Bauman and the West: A Sociology of Intellectual Exile
by Jack PalmerZygmunt Bauman was both an outsider of Western modernity and one of its foremost interpreters. He was an exemplary figure in twentieth-century intellectual work on exile who experienced both Nazi and Soviet forms of totalitarianism.The first work to draw extensively on Bauman’s personal archive, Zygmunt Bauman and the West argues that the distinctive social thought that sprang from Bauman’s lived experiences of exile amounts to a sustained, sophisticated, and hitherto unappreciated problematization of Eurocentrism and the West. Through an overview of the intellectual’s thought and his contribution to sociology, Jack Palmer explores Bauman’s experience and interpretation of the West and seeks to understand his work in a broader context, outside of the Eurocentric environment from which it was born. Intervening in a resurgent sociology of intellectuals, Zygmunt Bauman and the West re-evaluates the place of the West in social and political thought.