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Smitten by Giraffe: My Life as a Citizen Scientist (Footprints Series #28)
by Anne Innis DaggWhen Anne Innis saw her first giraffe at the age of three, she was smitten. She knew she had to learn more about this marvelous animal. Twenty years later, now a trained zoologist, she set off alone to Africa to study the behaviour of giraffe in the wild. Subsequently, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey would be driven by a similar devotion to study the behaviour of wild apes. In Smitten by Giraffe, the noted feminist reflects on her scientific work as well as the leading role she has played in numerous activist campaigns. On returning home to Canada, Anne married physicist Ian Dagg, had three children, published a number of scientific papers, taught at several local universities, and in 1967 earned her PhD in biology at the University of Waterloo. Dagg was continually frustrated in her efforts to secure a position as a tenured professor despite her many publications and exemplary teaching record. Finally she opted instead to pursue her research as an independent “citizen scientist,” while working part-time as an academic advisor. Dagg would spend many years fighting against the marginalization of women in the arts and sciences. Boldly documenting widespread sexism in universities while also discussing Dagg’s involvement with important zoological topics such as homosexuality, infanticide, sociobiology, and taxonomy, Smitten by Giraffe offers an inside perspective on the workings of scientific research and debate, the history of academia, and the rise of second-wave feminism.
Snatched!: The Peculiar Kidnapping of Beer Tycoon John Labatt
by Susan GoldenbergIn 1934, fifty-three-year-old beer tycoon John Sackville Labatt was kidnapped from his Lake Huron summer home and held ransom for three days. His captors, a group of ex-rumrunners, desperate in the days following prohibition and the Great Depression, were hoping for a big payday. This bizarre true crime story traces the abduction through to the trials of the abductors. From a heavily populated hideout to a case of mistaken identity, follow the story of Labatt, the first person in Canada to be kidnapped for high ransom.
So Few on Earth: A Labrador Métis Woman Remembers
by Josie PennyShort-listed for the 2011 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing Josephine Mildred Curl Penny grew up in Labrador during the 1940s and 1950s. Like many Métis, she and her family lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, moving inside to the primitive settlement of Roaches Brook each fall to hunt and trap, and outside to Spotted Islands in the spring to harvest the rich fishing grounds. Sent away to hospital at age four, to boarding school when she was seven, and forced out to work at age eleven, Josie lost the family bond so important to a young child. She recounts the years spent at Lockwood Boarding School where she suffered atrocious punishments, merciless teasing, and the humiliation of two rapes. The depersonalization and constant punishment eventually took their toll, and her once free-spirited nature was broken. Reading became her only escape Set against the beauty and ruggedness of the Labrador coast, So Few on Earth is a story of perseverance in a harsh environment and the possibility of life starting anew from shattered beginnings.
Soar, Adam, Soar
by Rick Prashaw“Coming out. Coming in. Coming home.” Adam Prashaw’s life was full of surprises from the moment he was born. Assigned female at birth, and with parents who had been expecting a boy, he spent years living as “Rebecca Danielle Adam Prashaw” before coming to terms with being a transgender man. Adam captured hearts with his humour, compassion, and intensity. After a tragic accident cut his life short, he left a legacy of changed lives and a trove of social media posts documenting his life, relationships, transition, and struggles with epilepsy, all with remarkable transparency and directness. In Soar, Adam, Soar, his father, a former priest, retells Adam’s story alongside his son’s own words. From early childhood, through coming out first as a lesbian and then as a man, and his battles with epilepsy and refusal to give in, it chronicles Adam’s drive to define himself, his joyful spirit, and his love of life, which continues to conquer all.
Solitary Courage: Mona Winberg and the Triumph over Disability
by Mona Winberg J. Patrick BoyerSolitary Courage is the story of a mother’s tough-love determination, her severely disabled daughter’s astonishing triumphs, and a documentary record of the political battles, organizational conflicts, and human struggles that citizens with disabilities face and fight every day of their lives. Mona Winberg became a pioneer of independent living, and emerged a leading advocate for citizens with mental and physical disabilities. Her courageous causes erupted from her deep reservoir of compassion and concern. Her unflinching challenges to the status quo expressed both optimism and realism about life and society. Her life is testament to the power of Solitary Courage. Between 1986 and 1999 she was the only newspaper columnist in North America regularly writing about disability issues. Through her award-winning column "Disabled Today" in Toronto’s Sunday Sun, Mona Winberg painstakingly built up a body of work of more than 600 articles chronicling front-line battles for equality. She was a realist, a wise person with a no-nonsense approach, kindly, but clear-eyed. Solitary Courage begins with the story of Mona Winberg’s life, followed by a representative selection of 156 of her columns organized into 20 thematic chapters, the best of Mona in her own words. The last part of the book reflects upon Mona Winberg’s legacy of lessons that still connect to programs and policies touching the lives of Canadians with disabilities today. The subjects are wide-ranging and engaging because Mona used personal examples of individuals with disabilities and news-making issues raised by their plight. She also reported on the street-level outcomes of government policies. This variety and approach to disability issues provides real education and genuine human interest, whatever a reader’s background or experience.
Somewhere Over the Sea: A Father's Letter to His Autistic Son
by Halfdan FreihowIn this deeply moving and elegantly written book, Halfdan W. Freihow takes Gabriel, his young autistic son, on a journey through the full spectrum of human experience. With great love, profound tenderness, and gentle wit, Freihow captures Gabriel's triumphs and disappointments, his joy and frustration, while struggling to help him make sense of a world that he himself does not, and cannot, fully comprehend. A powerful, honest, and achingly beautiful narrative, Somewhere Over the Sea describes a complex, loving relationship that is sometimes fraught with misunderstanding, but always bolstered by unconditional love. A must-read for all parents.
A Song for China: How My Father Wrote Yellow River Cantata
by Ange ZhangPublished in celebration of the famous Yellow River Cantata’s 80th anniversary, this is the riveting history of how a young Chinese author and passionate militant fought using art to create a socially just China during the period of the struggle against the Japanese and during World War II.This is the fascinating story of how a young Chinese author, Guang Weiran, a passionate militant from the age of twelve, fought, using art, theater, poetry and song, especially the famous Yellow River Cantata — the anthem of Chinese national spirit — to create a socially just China. Set during the period of the struggle against the Japanese and the war against the Kuomintang in the 1920s and ’30s, this book, written and illustrated by Guang Weiran’s award-winning artist son, Ange Zhang, illuminates a key period in China’s history. The passion and commitment of the artists who were born under the repressive weight of the Japanese occupation, the remnants of the decaying imperial order and the times of colonial humiliation are inspiring.Zhang’s words and wood-block style of art tell us the story of his father’s extraordinary youth and very early rise to prominence due to his great talent with words. We see and hear the intensity of what it meant to be alive at such a significant moment in the history of China, a country that understands itself as the heir to one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. The humiliations and social injustice the Chinese people had endured in the colonial period were no longer bearable. And yet there were major factional differences between those who wanted to create a modern China. Ange’s words and art paint the picture for us through his father’s story, accompanied by sidebars that explain the historical context.The book ends in a burst of glorious color and song, with the words of Yellow River Cantata in Mandarin, as well as newly translated into English. This great song turns eighty years old in 2019, and will be sung and performed by huge orchestras and choirs around the world, as the Chinese diaspora has embraced the cantata as its own.Key Text Features historical context sidebars illustrations lyricsCorrelates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
Sounding Thunder: The Stories of Francis Pegahmagabow
by Brian D. Mcinnes Waubgeshig RiceFrancis Pegahmagabow (1889–1952), a member of the Ojibwe nation, was born in Shawanaga, Ontario. Enlisting at the onset of the First World War, he became the most decorated Canadian Indigenous soldier for bravery and the most accomplished sniper in North American military history. After the war, Pegahmagabow settled in Wasauksing, Ontario. He served his community as both chief and councillor and belonged to the Brotherhood of Canadian Indians, an early national Indigenous political organization. Francis proudly served a term as Supreme Chief of the National Indian Government, retiring from office in 1950. Francis Pegahmagabow’s stories describe many parts of his life and are characterized by classic Ojibwe narrative. They reveal aspects of Francis’s Anishinaabe life and worldview. Interceding chapters by Brian McInnes provide valuable cultural, spiritual, linguistic, and historic insights that give a greater context and application for Francis’s words and world. Presented in their original Ojibwe as well as in English translation, the stories also reveal a rich and evocative relationship to the lands and waters of Georgian Bay. In "Sounding Thunder", Brian McInnes provides new perspective on Pegahmagabow and his experience through a unique synthesis of Ojibwe oral history, historical record, and Pegahmagabow family stories.
South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels
by Meaghan Marie HackinenSouth Away follows Meaghan Marie Hackinen and her sister in the adventure of a lifetime: bicycling from Terrace, BC down the West Coast to (almost) the tip of the Baja Peninsula. Along the way Hackinen battles with the elements in Vancouver Island’s dense northern forests and frigid Mexican deserts; encounters strange men, suicidal highways and monster trucks; and makes some emergency repairs as tires and spokes succumb to the ravages of the journey. Luckily, the pair meet some good people along the way and glean some insight about the kindness of strangers.A rare road-trip story with two female leads, this travel memoir also chronicles an inner journey, as the author begins to better understand her relationship with her adventurous (and not-so-adventurous) family. South Away tells an engaging and personable tale, with imaginative and memorable depictions of land and sea along the ever-winding coast.Praise for South Away:"Everyone says 'Be careful,' but Meaghan Marie Hackinen wants to live large. South Away will fill your lungs with the fresh air of adventure and restore your faith in human goodness. An exhilarating debut."~ Candace Savage, author of A Geography of Blood and Strangers in the House"Hackinen’s journey is the quest of her dreams. Her sharp images of life on the road reveal that the world is more complex than she thought—and that sometimes people will let you camp on their front lawn."~ Nicole Haldoupis, editor of Grain Magazine and untethered
Spanish John
by John McDonellThe republication of the memoirs of Colonel John McDonell of Scottas (1728-1810) will be welcomed by Highlanders the world over. Neither romantic novel nor learned history can conjure up for us so vividly as this unashamedly prejudiced eyewitness account of the atmosphere of the aftermath of "the '45," the fierce loyalties and bitter hatreds, the high principles and barefaced villainy. We meet the ineffectual Stuart King, the saintly Duke of York, the unspeakable Captain Fergusson and many a minor character, each playing his part in the long drawn out British War of Succession and the death throes of Celtic society. The monograph traces John McDonell's story from his adventurous journey from Scotland to Rome at the age of 12 to his emigration to North America thirty-three years later.
The Spare Room
by Helen GarnerWinner of several prestigious prizes, The Spare Room is extraordinary writer Helen Garner's intense, moving investigation of the boundaries and limits of a lifelong friendship.As the novel opens, Helen lovingly prepares the spare room in her home for her dear friend Nicola, who is coming to visit for three weeks while receiving controversial treatment for late-stage cancer. From the moment Nicola staggers off the plane, gaunt and hoarse but still somehow grand, Helen becomes her nurse, her guardian angel, and her stony judge. The Spare Room tells an unforgettable story full of complex humour, rage, and compassion.
Spirit of the Dragon: The Story of Jean Lumb, a Proud Chinese-Canadian
by Arlene ChanThe Order of Canada, the country’s highest honour, is awarded to those who have made a distinct contribution to Canadian life. The late Jean Lumb received the Order of Canada, among other awards, for her role in changing Canada’s immigration laws that separated Chinese families, and for her contribution in saving Chinatowns across Canada. Through her dedication to helping others, Jean Lumb truly made a difference to life in Canada. Spirit of the Dragon is well-illustrated with photographs of Jean Lumb in the company of her family and important people in her life, including John Diefenbaker, Queen Elizabeth, Governors General Roland Michener and Jules Leger, plus Lieutenant Governors of Ontario, Pauline McGibbon and Hal Jackman. A concluding section, as well as listing Jean’s extensive accomplishments and awards, cites sources of more information about her and other Chinese-Canadians.
Stardust and Shadows: Canadians in Early Hollywood
by Charles Foster"You’ll like Louis Mayer," Mary Pickford told Charles Foster in 1943. "He is from Canada, too." As Foster was soon to discover, Mayer was not alone: a great many of those who helped shape Hollywood into the movie capital of the world were Canadian. Stardust and Shadows brings together the stories of 18 Canadians who were celebrities during Hollywood’s formative years. Most of those profiled were known to Foster, and stories they told him about Hollywood’s early days, enhanced by many years of research and interviews with other living performers and directors from the silent movie era, reveal a never-before-seen look at what the movie industry was really like in those early days. This is Canadian history that has never been told, and many of the startling stories and secrets of Hollywood’s past are revealed here for the first time. Celebrities profiled: May Irwin, Al and Charles Christie, Joe and Sam De Grasse, Marie Dressler, Allan Dwan, Florence La Badie, Florence Lawrence, Del Lord, Louis B. Mayer, Sidney Olcott, Jack Pickford, Mary Pickford, Marie Prevost, Mack Sennett, Douglas Shearer, Norma Shearer.
Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the Life of Lou Hooper (Carleton Library Series #266)
by Sean Mills, Eric Fillion, and Désirée RochatOntario-born jazz pianist Lou Hooper (1894–1977) began his professional career in Detroit, accompanying blues singers such as Ma Rainey at the legendary Koppin Theatre. In 1921 he moved to Harlem, performing alongside Paul Robeson and recording extensively in and around Tin Pan Alley, before moving to Montreal in the 1930s.Prolific and influential, Hooper was an early teacher of Oscar Peterson and deeply involved in the jazz community in Montreal. When the Second World War broke out he joined the Canadian Armed Forces and entertained the troops in Europe. Near the end of his life Hooper came to prominence for his exceptional career and place in the history of jazz, inspiring an autobiography that was never published. Statesman of the Piano makes this document widely available for the first time and includes photographs, concert programs, lyrics, and other documents to reconstruct his life and times. Historians, archivists, musicians, and cultural critics provide annotations and commentary, examining some of the themes that emerge from Hooper’s writing and music.Statesman of the Piano sparks new conversations about Hooper’s legacy while shedding light on the cross-border travels and wartime experiences of Black musicians, the politics of archiving and curating, and the connections between race and music in the twentieth century.
Staying in the Game: The Remarkable Story of Doc Seaman
by Sydney SharpePeter C. Newman called him "the Totem of the Titans." From a small Prairie town, Daryl K. "Doc" Seaman became an icon of Canadian business and hockey. He is one of the last of a breed of postwar entrepreneurs and sportsmen who forged modern Canada, striking deals on a handshake and always keeping their word.After flying 82 combat missions during the Second World War, Doc Seaman worked in the oil industry with his brothers, turning a small Alberta drilling business into a global giant, Bow Valley Industries. Later, he led a group that brought the Atlanta Flames to Calgary. Still a Flames co-owner, he helped reshape Hockey Canada and restore Canada’s glory in international hockey.Doc Seaman’s life is a remarkable saga of courage, resolve, generosity, and success. It ultimately leaves us not only with a deep appreciation of one iconic Canadian but also with a wider understanding of our country.
Stolen Family: Captive in Saudi Arabia
by Johanne DurocherJohanne Durocher fights to free her daughter and four grandchildren from a nightmarish life of abuse and poverty in Saudi Arabia.In 2001, Nathalie Morin was just seventeen when she met Saeed, a Saudi man who claimed to be studying in Montreal. She fell in love with him, but soon after she gave birth to their son, Saeed was deported back to his country of origin. Struggling as a single mother and wanting Samir to know his father, Nathalie travelled to Saudi Arabia to reunite her family, confident that she would be able to return to Canada whenever she wanted. But a trap was closing around her — her partner turned out to be authoritarian and violent, the abuse continuing until their last child was born. According to Saudi law, Nathalie was considered married and under Saeed’s legal authority. All too often she was shut away in her own house, a place of hellish poverty. In 2005, Johanne Durocher, Nathalie’s mother, began her decades-long struggle to get Nathalie back home to Canada with her four children: Samir, Abdullah, Sarah, and Fowaz. While Nathalie is allowed to return on her own, her children cannot leave because of a travel ban imposed by the Saudi government. And Nathalie will not leave without them.Johanne’s relentless fight for her family has garnered the support of several members of the provincial and federal governments, activists, and NGOs, including Amnesty International, who considers Nathalie to be a survivor of gender-based violence.
A Stolen Life: Searching for Richard Pierpoint
by David Meyler Peter MeylerRichard Pierpoint or Captain Dick, as he was commonly known, emerges from the shadows of history in A Stolen Life: Searching for Richard Pierpoint. An African warrior who was captured at about age 16, Pierpoint lived his remaining years in exile. From his birth in Bundu (now part of Senegal) around 1744 until his death in rural Ontario in 1837, Pierpoint’s life allows us to glimpse the activity of an African involved in some of the world’s great events. "We are indebted to the authors for breathing life into this man, who though taken from his home early in his life still was able to make a significant contribution to the early history of Upper Canada. He fought, farmed and became a giant to the Black community. We thank you for a wonderful story of this often forgotten segment of Canadian history."— Wilma Morrison, Norval Johnson Heritage Library, Niagara Falls"Everybody knows about the Underground Railroad and the great many Black souls who emigrated to Canada via this route, but very few people know the brave Black men and women who put their lives on the line in defence of this country."— Ivor Christopher, Re-enactor, Runchey’s Company of Coloured Men"A well-researched and highly readable chronicle of Richard Pierpoint’s life in Africa and North America — as a slave, a soldier, and as a pioneer in Upper Canada’s wilderness. … a vitally important contribution to Canadian Black history."— Linda Brown-Kubisch, Author, Missouri
The Stone Frigate: The Royal Military College's First Female Cadet Speaks Out
by Kate ArmstrongA memoir from the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. Kate Armstrong was an ordinary young woman eager to leave an abusive childhood behind her when she became the first female cadet admitted to the Royal Military College of Canada. As she struggled for survival in the ultimate boys’ club, she called on her fierce and humourous spirit to push back against the whims of a domineering and patriarchal organization. Later in life, feeling unfulfilled in her post-military career, she realized that finding her true path forward meant she had to go back to the beginning and revisit the truth of what she had experienced all those years ago.
The Stone Thrower: A Daughter's Lessons, a Father's Life
by Jael Ealey RichardsonA daughter discovers herself while uncovering her father’s legendary past in football. At the age of thirty, Jael Ealey Richardson travelled with her father – former CFL quarterback Chuck Ealey – for the first time to a small town in southern Ohio for his fortieth high school reunion. Knowing very little about her father’s past, Richardson was searching for the story behind her father’s move from the projects of Portsmouth, Ohio to Canada’s professional football league in the early 1970s. At the railroad tracks where her father first learned to throw with stones, Jael begins an unexpected journey into her family’s past. In this engaging father-daughter memoir, Richardson records some of her father’s never-before told stories: his relationship with his absentee father, memories of his high school and college football victories – including a winning record that remains unbroken to this day – and his up-and-down relationship with the woman he would one day marry. As Richardson begins unravelling the story of her father’s life, she begins to compare her own childhood growing up in Canada, with her father’s US civil rights era upbringing. Along the way, she also discovers the real reason – despite his athletic accomplishments – her father was never drafted into the National Football League. The Stone Thrower is a moving story about race and destiny written by a daughter looking for answers about her own black history. Using insightful interviews, archival records and her personal reflections, Richardson’s journey to learn about her father’s past leads her to her own important discoveries about herself, and what it really means to be black in Canada.
Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail
by Mark AbleyA poet and journalist looks back on a remarkable journey from Turkey to Nepal in 1978, when the region was on the brink of massive transformation. In the spring of 1978, at age twenty-two, Mark Abley put aside his studies at Oxford and set off with a friend on a three-month trek across the celebrated Hippie Trail — a sprawling route between Europe and South Asia, peppered with Western bohemians and vagabonds. It was a time when the Shah of Iran still reigned supreme, Afghanistan lay at peace, and city streets from Turkey to India teemed with unrest. Within a year, many of the places he visited would become inaccessible to foreign travellers. Drawing from the tattered notebooks he filled as a youthful wanderer, Abley brings his kaleidoscope of experiences back to life with vivid detail: dancing in a Turkish disco, clambering across a glacier in Kashmir, travelling by train among Baluchi tribesmen who smuggled kitchen appliances over international borders. He also reflects on the impact of the Hippie Trail and the illusions of those who journeyed along it. The lively immediacy of Abley’s journals combined with the measured wisdom of his mature, contemporary voice provides rich insight, bringing vibrant witness and historical perspective to this beautifully written portrait of a region during a time of irrevocable change.
Strange Way to Live: A Story of Rock 'n' Roll Resurrection
by Carl DixonCarl Dixon’s journey through the twists and turns of a music performer’s life began in Northern Ontario, where his boyhood dreams, shaped by the 1960s, collided with a new musical culture. Though Carl’s road was rocky, it was still paved with gold. It has led from his early days with hard rockers Coney Hatch to tours and lasting friendships with huge acts like Iron Maiden. The ups and downs were meteoric. Carl became a member of the legendary bands The Guess Who and April Wine and then faced the hardest test of all: a horrific auto collision in Australia that left him in a coma, barely clinging to life. Strange Way to Live follows Carl’s progress, never faltering and sometimes comical, toward musical glory. Blind determination can lead one to some strange places. Carl’s took him through some of the biggest, smallest, and weirdest scenes in this vast country, and from the glory days of Canadian rock to the present day.
Strangers with Memories: The United States and Canada from Free Trade to Baghdad
by John StewartIn the early 1990s North America was the vibrant centre of an increasingly democratic and revitalized western hemisphere. The United States and Canada were close allies working together to implement a bilateral free trade agreement and build an integrated manufacturing and export economy. By the late 2000s, the economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries were strained as policies stagnated or slipped backward and passports were needed to cross the border for the first time in history. By 2017 the US planned to wall off its border with Mexico and NAFTA was slated for renegotiation. In Strangers with Memories John Stewart combines an insider’s knowledge, a mole’s perspective, and a historian’s consciousness to explain how two countries that spent the twentieth century building a world order together drifted so quickly apart in the early years of the twenty-first - and how that world order began its current shift. Assessing the major forces and events in North America’s development between 1990 and 2010, this book also details changes at the US embassy in Ottawa during those years and its relationship with US consulates in Canada and with the State Department’s Canada desk. Explaining how Canada's influence in the world depends on the US and has radically diminished with the decline in US diplomacy under presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, Stewart gives valuable advice on how Canada should handle its foreign policy in a much less stable world. From the viewpoint of a Canadian with a front-row seat to two decades of US-Canada relations, Strangers with Memories chronicles Canada at the apogee of American power.
Strength of Conviction
by Tom MulcairGlobe & Mail Non-Fiction Bestseller Toronto Star Non-Fiction Bestseller The inside story of Tom Mulcair’s rise from modest, middle-class beginnings to the threshold of power. He has been called the strongest Opposition leader in the television era; he was also known in Québec as the provincial Opposition’s “pit bull.” Here, in his own words, and for the first time, is the inside story of Tom Mulcair’s rise from modest, middle-class beginnings to the threshold of power. Discover the man behind the headlines: who he is, how he thinks, and how he comes by the values that shaped his character. Unwavering in his convictions, he shares behind-the-scenes information on the reasons why he resigned as Québec’s minister of the environment under Charest; his decision to rejoin the New Democratic Party; and what it was like working closely with Jack Layton to help spearhead the “Orange Wave” that swept the NDP into power as the Official Opposition in the 2011 federal election. Alongside this, Mulcair also sheds light on such nation-defining events as past immigration and environmental policies, the Québec Referendum, Native residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Harper government’s Anti-Terrorism Act. In this book, Mulcair reveals his vision for the country, and his position on the issues that matter most — making Strength of Conviction an essential read for all Canadians with an interest in our nation’s future.
A Struggle to Walk With Dignity: The True Story of a Jamaican-born Canadian
by Gerald A. ArchambeauGerald Augustus Archambeau was born in Jamaica in 1933. Raised in Kingston by his three aunts, he was sent to Canada in 1947 to join his mother and stepfather in Montreal. He trained in the plumbing and steam-fitting trade, but at age eighteen decided to join the railway as a passenger car porter. He worked for Canadian Pacific and Canadian National until the 1960s, when declining passenger rail traffic and the ascendence of air travel caused him to switch to a career with a major Canadian airline in Toronto. After his retirement from the airline, Gerald and his wife, Marion, settled in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Struggling for Perfection: The Story of Glenn Gould
by Vladimir KoniecznyStruggling for Perfection is the story of the famous pianist, an enigmatic figure who made some of the most acclaimed classical recordings of the last century. A former child prodigy and an unpredictable, passionate man, Glenn Gould was known as much for his eccentricities as his vast musical genius. After retiring prematurely from performing, Gould branched out into work in film and radio and helped bring classical music recording technology into a new age. He has became a national icon in Canada. Vladimir Konieczny delivers a sensitive and affectionate portrait of this imposing figure in music history. The book is illustrated with sketches and archival photos.