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Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt
by Hanan HammadA biography of the "Cinderella" of Egyptian cinema—the veneration and rumors that surrounded an unparalleled career, and the gendered questions that unsettled Egyptian society. Layla Murad (1918-1995) was once the highest-paid star in Egypt, and her movies were among the top-grossing in the box office. She starred in 28 films, nearly all now classics in Arab musical cinema. In 1955 she was forced to stop acting—and struggled for decades for a comeback. Today, even decades after her death, public interest in her life continues, and new generations of Egyptians still love her work. Unknown Past recounts Murad's extraordinary life—and the rapid political and sociocultural changes she witnessed. Hanan Hammad writes a story centered on Layla Murad's persona and legacy, and broadly framed around a gendered history of twentieth-century Egypt. Murad was a Jew who converted to Islam in the shadow of the first Arab-Israeli war. Her career blossomed under the Egyptian monarchy and later gave a singing voice to the Free Officers and the 1952 Revolution. The definitive end of her cinematic career came under Nasser on the eve of the 1956 Suez War. Egyptians have long told their national story through interpretations of Murad's life, intertwining the individual and Egyptian state and society to better understand Egyptian identity. As Unknown Past recounts, there's no life better than Murad's to reflect the tumultuous changes experienced over the dramatic decades of the mid-twentieth century.
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division
by Peter Hook"It's very strange. Over the years Joy Division have become a huge part of music culture. A lot of people think they know what happened. But they don't! Anyone who's ever written a book or made a film about Joy Division, unless they were sat in that van or car with us, they don't know anything about it. Me, Barney, Steve, Ian, Rob, Twinny, Terry and Dave. Only us lot know what really happened. . . " Peter Hook
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division
by Peter Hook'Genuinely funny: indeed, the story will... keep you entertained for a very long time' Sunday Times Joy Division changed the face of music. Godfathers of the current alternative scene, they reinvented rock in the post-punk era, creating a new sound - dark, hypnotic, intense - that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M., Radiohead and many others. This is the story of Joy Division told by the band's legendary bassist, Peter Hook. 'Hook has restored a flesh-and-blood rawness to what was becoming a standard tale. Few pop music books manage that'Guardian'An honest, enthusiastic account ... It's a window like no other into the reality of life in this most aloof of bands' METRO'An immense account of Joy Division's rise...Having read Hook's book, you'll feel like you were the fifth member of the band' GQ 'A bittersweet, profanity filled recollection... If you like Joy Division, you really have to read it' Q Magazine 'Hook lifts the lid on the real Ian Curtis' NME 'He's frank, incredibly funny, and isn't shy'Artrocker
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division
by Peter HookIn Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division, Peter Hook, bassist for the legendary, groundbreaking band Joy Division, takes readers backstage with the group that helped define the sound of a generation and influenced artists such as U2, Radiohead, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.Unlike other books about Joy Division, Factory Records, or lead singer Ian Curtis—who took his own life just before the band's first U.S. Tour—Unknown Pleasures tells Joy Division's story from the unique perspective of one of the three surviving band members.Told with surprising humor and vivid detail, Unknown Pleasures is the book Joy Division fans have been waiting for.
Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey - The instant Sunday Times bestseller
by Her Honour Wendy JosephTHE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2023'Wendy Joseph's gripping account of the law at work reads like a cliffhanger.' Sunday Times'Absolutely superb. 5 stars for sheer readability alone. Her Honour entertains as she educates us about murder, about the law and about how we human beings are shaped as we create the culture we live with.' PHILIPPA PERRY, author of THE BOOK YOU WISH YOUR PARENTS HAD READ___________________________________________________________________________________'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are killed by dangerous drivers, or corporate gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.'High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room.And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock.With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad.The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, the author warns that we do so at our peril._____________________________________________________________________________________________'The most exceptional book I have read in a long time.' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A very rare gem. written with authority, humility and compassion. Compellingly clever and sharply honest.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, author of ALL THAT REMAINS'Riveting, thought-provoking, and very, very entertaining. I loved it.' RODDY DOYLE'Will make you question all the fundamentals that you've come to take for granted about offenders, the crimes that they commit - especially murder - and the punishment they deserve. A page turner that will leave you wanting to know more.' EMERITUS PROFESSOR DAVID WILSON, author of MY LIFE WITH MURDERERSThe instant Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023
Unlawful Orders: A Portrait of Dr. James B. Williams, Tuskegee Airman, Surgeon, and Activist (Scholastic Focus)
by Barbara BinnsBarbara Binns presents the inspiring story of one man in his struggle for racial equality in the field of battle and the field of medicine.The Tuskegee Airmen heroically fought for the right to be officers of the US military so that they might participate in World War II by flying overseas to help defeat fascism. However, after winning that battle, they faced their next great challenge at Freeman Field, Iowa, where racist white officers barred them from entering the prestigious Officers' Club that their rank promised them. The Freeman Field Mutiny, as it became known, would eventually lead to the desegregation of the US armed forces, forever changing the course of American history and race relations.One Black officer who refused to give in to the bigotry at Freeman Field was James Buchanan "JB" Williams. JB grew up the son of sharecroppers, but his loving family and insuppressible intellect drove him to push boundaries placed on Black Americans in the early twentieth century. JB's devotion to the betterment of others took him from the classroom where he learned to be a doctor, to serving as a medic in the US military and eventually joining the elite Tuskegee Airmen, where he fought to change the minds of all who believed Black men couldn't make good soldiers. But JB's greatest contribution came in his role as doctor and Civil Rights activist after the war, where he continued to push past injustices placed on Black Americans.Critically acclaimed author Barbara Binns tells the story of one man's remarkable life, and in doing so, explores the trials of the brave Black freedom fighters who defended the world against racism and bigotry, both on the front lines and at home.
Unleashed
by Ronald Kidd The Kennedy Center Ard HoytAlongside the presidents and their families, some crazy pets have lived in the White House. From John Quincy Adams's pet alligator all the way to First Puppy Bo Obama, the White House has been home to lots of four-legged friends. Now readers can get an inside look at the animals that have accompanied our nation's leaders! Unleashed is based on a play produced by The Kennedy Center in conjunction with an initiative that aims to educate American youth about past presidents.
Unleashed
by Boris JohnsonShattering the mold of the traditional political memoir, Unleashed is a candid, unrestrained, and revealing book by Boris Johnson, the Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In Unleashed, Johnson takes readers through all the big decisions during his time in power and why he took them. The challenges and crises, how they were resolved—or not—and how he nearly died from Covid; riots; crime; the London Olympics, and so much more. Johnson writes about his role in Brexit and the constitutional sea-change in British politics in 2019 with his landslide election victory.Underlying everything in the book is Johnson's belief that the UK is an extraordinary country and should have an exceptional future. Unleashed stands out as a rare glimpse into the inner workings of leadership at the highest levels of power.
Unless Victory Comes: Combat With a Machine Gunner in Patton's Third Army
by Patrick Gilbert Gene GarrisonA dramatic, moving memoir of coming of age amid the chaos and terror of WWII combat by a member of the 87th Infantry Division. Gene Garrison spent a terrifying nineteenth birthday crammed into a muddy foxhole near the German border in the Saar. He listened helplessly to cries of wounded comrades as exploding artillery shells sent deadly shrapnel raining down on them. The date was December 16, 1944, he was a member of a .30-caliber machine gun crew with the 87th Infantry Division, and this was his first day in combat. Less than a year earlier, he&’d entered college as a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio. Now, as the night closed around Garrison, slices of light pierced the darkness with frightening brilliance. Battle-hardened German SS troopers using flashlights infiltrated the line of the young, untested American soldiers. Someone screamed &“Counterattack!&” In the maelstrom of gunfire that followed, the teenage Garrison struggled to comprehend the horrors of the present, his entire future reduced to a prayer that he would be alive at daybreak. From those first frightening, confusing days in combat until the war ended five months later, Gene Garrison saw many of his buddies killed or wounded, each loss reducing his own odds of survival. Convinced before one attack that his luck had deserted him, he wrote a final letter to his family to say goodbye, handing it to a friend with instructions to mail it if he died. From the bitter fighting west of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Garrison describes the degradation of war with pathos and humor. His story is told through the eyes of the common soldier who might not know the name of the town or the location of the next hill that he and his comrades must grimly wrestle from the enemy but who is willing to die in order to carry the war forward to the hated enemy. He writes of the simple pleasure derived from finding a water-filled puddle deep enough to fill his canteen; a momentary respite in a half-destroyed barn that shields him from the bitter cold and penetrating wind of an Ardennes winter; the solace of friendship with veterans whose lives hang upon his actions and whose actions might help him survive the bitter, impersonal death they all face. The rich dialogue and a hard-hitting narrative style bring the reader to battlefield manhood alongside Garrison, to each moment of terror and triumph faced by a young soldier far from home in the company of strangers.
Unlike the Rest: A Doctor's Story
by Chika Stacy OriuwaIn this personal story of becoming, belonging and being seen, a psychiatry resident pulls back the curtain on the journey to becoming a doctor.From childhood, Chika Oriuwa dreamed of being a doctor. She knew that she was destined to wear the white coat one day, no matter what it took. The high of being accepted to the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine in 2016 came crashing down when Oriuwa discovered she was the only Black student in her incoming class of 259 students. Oriuwa soon learned that medical school and a medical career are not immune to the systemic discrimination that permeates the fabric of our world. Interwoven with descriptions of on-the-ground medical training, personal moments of doubt and success, and reflections on mental health and family expectations, Unlike the Rest is the moving and inspiring story of a young doctor’s journey through medical school and residency, where she found her calling in the science and in the patients, but also felt alone and lonely, and compelled to advocate for change, not only for those in training but for those in care. And while the risks in speaking up seemed great, to simply endure was unacceptable.If you’ve ever doubted that you belong or struggled to find your voice, Unlike the Rest will inspire you to stay true to yourself and fight for what you believe in.
Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary
by Edward KleinA New York Times Bestseller! From the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Amateur and Blood Feud . . . <P><P>Unlikeable is the stunning, powerful exposé of Hillary Clinton and her floundering race for the White House. With unprecedented access to longtime associates of the Clintons and the Obamas, investigative reporter Edward Klein meticulously recreates conversations and details of Hillary Clinton's behind-the-scenes plotting in Chappaqua and Whitehaven. <P><P>Klein, the former editor in chief of New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, draws a deeply troubling portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton, a highly unlikeable presidential candidate and a woman more associated with scandal than with accomplishments, with lying than with truth, with arrogance than with compassion.
Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution
by Joel Richard PaulSilas Deane, a Connecticut merchant and member of the Continental Congress, went to France to persuade the king to support the colonists in their struggle with Britain. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a playwright who had access to the arms and ammunition that Deane needed. And the Chevalier d'Éon was a diplomat and sometime spy for the French king who ignited a crisis that persuaded the French to arm the Americans. This is the true story of how three remarkable people lied, cheated, stole, and cross-dressed across Europe to gain France's aid as the War of American Independence hung in the balance. .
Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton (Women Composers #13)
by Lydia R. HamessleyDolly Parton's success as a performer and pop culture phenomenon has overshadowed her achievements as a songwriter. But she sees herself as a songwriter first, and with good reason. Parton's compositions like "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become American standards with an impact far beyond country music. Lydia R. Hamessley's expert analysis and Parton’s characteristically straightforward input inform this comprehensive look at the process, influences, and themes that have shaped the superstar's songwriting artistry. Hamessley reveals how Parton’s loving, hardscrabble childhood in the Smoky Mountains provided the musical language, rhythms, and memories of old-time music that resonate in so many of her songs. Hamessley further provides an understanding of how Parton combines her cultural and musical heritage with an artisan’s sense of craft and design to compose eloquent, painfully honest, and gripping songs about women's lives, poverty, heartbreak, inspiration, and love. Filled with insights on hit songs and less familiar gems, Unlikely Angel covers the full arc of Dolly Parton's career and offers an unprecedented look at the creative force behind the image.
Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero
by Stacy Mattingly Ashley SmithIn April 2005, Ashley Smith made headlines around the globe when she miraculously talked her way out of the hands of alleged courthouse killer Brian Nichols after he took her hostage for seven hours in her suburban Atlanta apartment. In this moving, inspirational memoir, the 26-year-old widowed mother of a six-year-old girl shares for the first time the little-known details of her traumatic ordeal, and expands on how her faith and the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven« Life helped her survive and bring the killer's murderous rampage to a peaceful end.Just as she told her 6'1", 210-pound captor that his ultimate "purpose" in life was to end up spending the rest of his life in prison, preaching the teachings of Jesus Christ to his fellow inmates, Smith believes her own purpose is to spread that message of love to the rest of us. Juxtaposing the minute-by-minute tale of her experience with the never-before-told tragedies and triumphs of her own life, Unlikely Angel is a gripping tale of downfall and redemption, involving addiction, violence, death, loss, faith, and love. It is a story that will leave no reader untouched.
Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero
by Stacy Mattingly Ashley SmithIn March 2005, Ashley Smith made headlines around the globe when she miraculously talked her way out of the hands of alleged courthouse killer Brian Nichols after he took her hostage for seven hours in her suburban Atlanta apartment. In this moving, inspirational account, the twenty-seven-year-old widowed mother of a six-year-old girl shares for the first time the little-known details of her traumatic ordeal and expands on how her faith and the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven®Life helped her survive and bring the killer’s murderous rampage to a peaceful end. Like her captor, Smith too has faced darkness and despair. Yet even during the most desolate times of her life, she yearned for something better. Seeking a new life, she moved to Atlanta, got a job, enrolled in a medical assistant training program, and was beginning to find her way to becoming the kind of mom she wanted her little girl to have. Then Brian Nichols took her hostage. Just hours earlier, he’d allegedly shot to death a judge, a court reporter, a deputy, and a federal agent and escaped in a stolen vehicle. Ashley had paid only passing attention to media coverage of the unfolding manhunt. Now she found herself face-to-face with Nichols, a desperate, heavily armed man with nothing left to lose. Unlikely Angel is Ashley’s gripping, powerful account of how this nightmare scenario developed into a remarkable connection between a man wanted for multiple murders and a single mother struggling to make a fresh beginning from her troubled past. Juxtaposing the minute-by-minute tale of her experience with the never-before-told tragedies and triumphs of her own life, Unlikely Angelis a story that will leave no reader untouched.Ashley has made appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America, 20/20, and Larry King Live.
Unlikely Brothers: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption
by John Prendergast Michael Mattocks"You don't look like brothers . . ."Peace activist and cofounder of the Enough Project, John Prendergast is known as a champion of human rights in Africa. But the not-so-public face of J.P. is the life he's led as a Big Brother to Michael Mattocks. As a curious, driven, and emotionally wounded twenty-year-old, J.P. made the life-changing decision to form a "Big Brother/Little Brother" relationship with then seven-year-old Michael, who was living out of plastic bags and drifting from one homeless shelter to the next with his mother and siblings. Lacking a connection with his own brother and distancing himself from a disastrous relationship with his father, J.P. formed a unique bond with Michael the moment they met. Michael and J.P. became like family, with Michael and some of his siblings even living with J.P. one summer. In the years that followed, J.P. took Michael and his brothers on outings, whether it was fishing, playing basketball, patronizing cheap restaurants, or going on road trips. This friendship would continue for over twenty-five years as the two coped with varying degrees of violence, instability, and trauma in their own lives. Told in duet, Unlikely Brothers follows Michael as he grows up on the tough streets of Washington, D.C., where as a young teenager he watched his best friend get shot, dropped out of school, and started dealing crack cocaine shortly thereafter. By sixteen, Michael had become the kingpin of his neighborhood, guns and drugs always close at hand. Meanwhile, J.P. was traveling to and from African war zones. J.P. offered Michael a refuge from the streets, never really confronting the gravity of what Michael was going through in his adolescence. In turn, Michael afforded J.P. an escape from his own turbulent personal and professional life.As the years go by, the two swoop in and out of each other's lives, slowly disconnecting as they disappear into their respective worlds, but making their way back to each other at a critical moment for both of them. The effect the two have on each other is extremely significant to both of their paths to redemption.Inspirational and deeply moving, Unlikely Brothers beautifully showcases how life's most random moments can often be the most profound. From the Hardcover edition.
Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma (Gender and Culture Series)
by Barbara WillIn 1941, the Jewish American writer and avant-garde icon Gertrude Stein embarked on one of the strangest intellectual projects of her life: translating for an American audience the speeches of Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state for the collaborationist Vichy government. From 1941 to 1943, Stein translated thirty-two of Pétain's speeches, in which he outlined the Vichy policy barring Jews and other "foreign elements" from the public sphere while calling for France to reconcile with Nazi occupiers.Unlikely Collaboration pursues troubling questions: Why and under what circumstances would Stein undertake this project? The answers lie in Stein's link to the man at the core of this controversy: Bernard Faÿ, Stein's apparent Vichy protector. Faÿ was director of the Bibliothèque Nationale during the Vichy regime and overseer of the repression of French freemasons. He convinced Pétain to keep Stein undisturbed during the war and, in turn, encouraged her to translate Pétain for American audiences. Yet Faÿ's protection was not coercive. Stein described the thinker as her chief intellectual companion during her final years. Barbara Will outlines the formative powers of this relationship, noting possible affinities between Stein and Faÿ's political and aesthetic ideals, especially their reflection in Stein's writing from the late 1920s to the 1940s. Will treats their interaction as a case study of intellectual life during wartime France and an indication of America's place in the Vichy imagination. Her book forces a reconsideration of modernism and fascism, asking what led so many within the avant-garde toward fascist and collaborationist thought. Touching off a potential powder keg of critical dispute, Will replays a collaboration that proves essential to understanding fascism and the remaking of modern Europe.
Unlikely Companions: The Adventures of an Exotic Animal Doctor (or, What Friends Feathered, Furred, and Scaled Have Taught Me about Life and Love)
by Laurie HessWhether it's an umbrella cockatoo who's not eating, a depressed chinchilla, a pregnant potbellied pig, or a ferret possibly needing surgery, exotic animal vet Laurie Hess is at the front lines with some remarkable pets-and their equally eccentric, dedicated, and sometimes demanding owners. Following a week in Dr. Hess's life as she tries to uncover the source of an unknown ailment killing some of her most vulnerable patients, Unlikely Companions is anAll Creatures Great and Small with a mysterious twist that includes a special message about managing our most important relationships-those with our friends, coworkers, children, spouses, and ourselves."Dr. Hess takes everyday as it comes and treats whatever enters her office with compassion, and knowledge, and sometimes even humor."-Martha Stewart
Unlikely General: "Mad" Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America
by Mary StockwellA “compelling” biography of the Revolutionary War hero, disgraced Congressman, and hard-drinking womanizer who came to the rescue of a brand-new America (Library Journal).In the spring of 1792, President George Washington chose “Mad” Anthony Wayne to defend America from a potentially devastating threat. Native forces had decimated the standing army and Washington needed a champion to open the country stretching from the Ohio River westward to the headwaters of the Mississippi for settlement.A spendthrift, womanizer, and heavy drinker who had just been ejected from Congress for voter fraud, Wayne was an unlikely savior. Yet this disreputable man raised a new army and, in 1794, scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, successfully preserving his country and President Washington’s legacy. Drawing from Wayne’s insightful and eloquently written letters, historian Mary Stockwell sheds light on this fascinating and underappreciated figure. Her compelling work pays long-overdue tribute to a man—ravaged physically and emotionally by his years of military service—who fought to defend the nascent American experiment at a critical moment in history.“Those interested in American military history, US–Native American relations, and the early republic will benefit from reading Unlikely General.” —Pennsylvania History“[A] fine biography of Wayne.” —The Wall Street Journal
Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made
by Derek Leebaert"Propulsive." —The Wall Street Journal“Leebaert has done the near impossible—crafted a fresh and challenging portrait of the man and his inner circle.”— Richard Norton Smith, author of An Uncommon Man, former director of the Hoover, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Ford presidential libraries.“A fascinating and absorbing analysis of FDR’s brilliantly chosen team of four courageous and creative men and women.”—Susan Dunn, author of 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election Amid the Storm, Massachusetts Professor of Humanities, Williams College.Drawing on new materials, Unlikely Heroes constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis.Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt's Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II.Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up to 1933, none would ever have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them. By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Many of the dangers that they all overcame are troublingly like those America faces today.
Unlikely Insider: A West Coast Advocate in Ottawa
by Jack AustinAt a time when too many of the world’s political leaders are consolidating power by playing on divisions and stoking fear, Unlikely Insider, a memoir by former federal cabinet minister and senator Jack Austin, comes as a welcome reminder of the value of public service as a force for economic progress, social justice, and nation-building.With both historical perspective and an eye to the future, Austin reflects on events and people whose impacts are still felt, and on the enduring challenges of Canadian life. Moving away from colonial domination of Indigenous Peoples, navigating our pivotal relationship with the United States and engagement with China, the nature and purpose of the Senate: these remain timely concerns, to which Austin has made significant contributions. Sharing insights into policy as well as into the personalities of colleagues and friends, Unlikely Insider paints vignettes of figures from Premier Zhou Enlai to Queen Elizabeth and recounts the author’s travels with Pierre Trudeau after the prime minister’s retirement. As a British Columbian, Austin worked to ensure that his province’s perspectives and interests mattered in Ottawa; as someone who came from a disadvantaged background, he is sensitive to the need to make the country a place of fairness and opportunity for all. Unlikely Insider reminds Canadians that inclusion – regional, social, and demographic – makes our nation both stronger and more just.
Unlikely Love Stories
by Mike MccardellThese are stories of the defender of a handicapped parking spot, a woman who has delivered homemade Valentine cards to neighbours for twenty years, and love between a widower and a woman who had never been on a date before. They are the stories that never make front page headlines, but that Mike, with his keen eye for observation, reveals to be just as meaningful and important.With a rare gift for bringing out the magic in everyday situations, Mike turns the spotlight on all the little, seemingly insignificant things that make life fascinating. His touching stories resonate with simple truths about people and the world that we live in. Readers will laugh and cry as Mike's infectiously positive outlook exposes how life is good, no matter what you have. As much as his good-news TV reports have become a BC institution, his annual collections have become a Christmas tradition. With close to 70,000 copies sold, the books have contributed over $80,000 to Variety-The Children's Charity.
Unlikely Paradise: The Life of Frances Gage
by Alan D. ButcherWinner of the 2010 Donald Grant Creighton Award Artist Frances Gage, born in 1924 in Windsor, experienced both artistic recognition and acute despair in her life, yet she flourished in her work and as part of the contemporary Toronto art scene. A friend of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, she developed a greater connection with the Group of Seven, working closely with Frederick Varley and producing reliefs of both him and A.Y. Jackson while working in Tom Thomson’s shack Frances remained focused and positive and became a successful sculptor, creating more than five hundred works of art. Still, even though she achieved the dream she strove toward during all the years of struggle, she discovered that the Dante-like Paradise she had sought and gained was instead the poet’s Inferno in disguise. Her correspondence, as referenced in this remarkable biography, bears out this insight in a life often marked by unsatisfying triumph over tragedy. It presents a candid view of one of Canada’s most fascinating artists of the twentieth century.
Unlikely Pilgrim: A Journey into History and Faith
by Alfred RegneryTwo middle-aged men, fast friends, make eleven foreign trips—pilgrimages you might call them —to parts of the world rich in the history of Christianity. The trips combine adventure, strenuous physical activity, exhilaration, discovery, and friendship. Three of the journeys were to Western Europe; six were to Eastern Europe and the Balkans and two to the Middle East. The trips were spontaneous and unplanned, often requiring improvisation along the way. Told in a lighthearted and often amusing style, An Unlikely Pilgrim provides a vivid and colorful picture of parts of the world often out of the range of American tourists, but deep in both ancient and current geopolitical, historical, and cultural wealth.
Unlikely Radicals: The Story of the Adams Mine Dump War
by Charlie AngusFor twenty-two years politicians and businessmen pushed for the Adams Mine landfill as a solution to Ontario’s garbage disposal crisis. This plan to dump millions of tonnes of waste into the fractured pits of the Adams Mine prompted five separate civil resistance campaigns by a rural region of 35,000 in Northern Ontario. Unlikely Radicals traces the compelling history of the First Nations people and farmers, environmentalists and miners, retirees and volunteers, Anglophones and Francophones who stood side by side to defend their community with mass demonstrations, blockades, and non-violent resistance.