Уэйн Джонстон0.0 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CBC
Consummate storyteller and bestselling novelist Wayne Johnston reaches back into his past to bring us a sad, tender and at times extremely funny memoir of his Newfoundland boyhood.
For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a wreck of a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly and skinny, unable to keep food down, plagued with insomnia and a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose, though they had already removed his tonsils, adenoids and appendix. To the neighbours, he was known as "Jennie's boy," a backhanded salute to his tiny, ferocious mother, who felt judged for Wayne's condition at the same time as worried he might never grow up.
Unable to go to school, Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne's childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, and only one of them lived to tell the tale.
Jennie's Boy is Wayne's tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him. His boyhood was full of pain, yes, but also tenderness and Newfoundland wit. By that wit, and through love--often expressed in the most unloving ways--Wayne survived.
Rick Mercer0.0 Canada’s beloved comic genius tells his own story for the first time.
What is Rick Mercer going to do now? That was the question on everyone’s lips when the beloved comedian retired his hugely successful TV show after 15 seasons—and at the peak of its popularity. The answer came not long after, when he roared back in a new role as stand-up-comedian, playing to sold-out houses wherever he appeared.
And then Covid-19 struck. And his legions of fans began asking again: What is Rick Mercer going to do now? Well, for one thing, he’s been writing a comic masterpiece. For the first time, this most private of public figures has turned the spotlight on himself, in a memoir that’s as revealing as it is hilarious. In riveting anecdotal style, Rick charts his rise from highly unpromising schoolboy (in his reports “the word ‘disappointment’ appeared a fair bit”) to the heights of TV fame. Along the way came an amazing break when, not long out of his teens, his one-man show Show Me the Button, I’ll Push It. Or, Charles Lynch Must Die, became an overnight sensation—thanks in part to a bizarre ambush by its target, Charles Lynch himself. That’s one story you won’t soon forget, and this book is full of them.
There’s a tale of how little Rick helped himself to a tree from the neighbours’ garden that’s set to become a new Christmas classic. There’s Rick the aspiring actor, braving “the scariest thing I have ever done in my life” by performing with the Newfoundland Shakespeare Company; unforgettable scenes with politicians of every variety, from Jean Chretien to George W. Bush to Stockwell Day; and a wealth of behind-the-scenes revelations about the origins and making of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Made in Canada, and Talking to Americans. All leading of course to the greenlighting of that mega-hit, Rick Mercer Report . . .
It’s a life so packed with incident (did we mention Bosnia and Kabul?) and laughter we can only hope that a future answer to “What is Rick Mercer going to do now?” is: “Write volume two.”
Томас Кинг0.0 Meet Bird and Mimi in this brilliant new novel from one of Canada’s foremost authors. Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.
By turns witty, sly and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.
Хайди Л. М. Джейкобс0.0 Aspiring novelist Molly MacGregor's life is strikingly different from a literary heroine's. Named for one of literature's least romantic protagonists, Moll Flanders, Molly lives in Edmonton, a city she finds irredeemably unromantic, where she writes university term papers instead of novels, and sells shoes in the Largest Mall on Earth. There she seeks the other half of her young life's own matched pair.
Delightfully whimsical, Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear explores its namesake's love for the written word, love for the wrong men (and the right one), and her complicated love for her city.
Катал Келли0.0 "The most fascinating things about life are the banalities we so rarely discuss amongst ourselves but that we devote most of our energies to navigating. How did that day you've forgotten look? What did it feel like? Were you lonely? Did you have the sense you were progressing anywhere? Probably not. Yet string a few thousand of them together and that's a life." --From Boy Wonders
Cathal Kelly grew up in the seventies and eighties, decades when dressing like Michael Jackson seemed like a good idea and The Beachcombers--"an adventure show about logging"--seemed to make sense. But apart from fashion missteps and baffling TV plotlines, Kelly's youth was a time of wonder, obsession and discovery. Navigating an often fraught fam-ily life, Kelly sought refuge in books, music, movies, games and at least one backyard hole. However, looking back he sees that his passion for George Orwell, Star Wars or The Smiths was never just about the book, movie or band. Rather, it was about the promise each new experience offered him in making sense of the world, and how he might find a home within it.
By turns funny, elegiac and insightful, Boy Wonders is an unvarnished celebration of grow-ing up and stumbling toward identity. It's about the good and the bad of those brief years when we find purpose without end, obsession with-out limit and joy in the strangest of places.
Дженнифер Крейг4.2 A flat broke grandma puts her green thumb to good – if not quite legal – use.
Breaking bad? Try breaking into the job market when you’re past a certain age. Jess, single and proud of her independence, finds that her options are limited when she loses her job and most of her investments on the same day.
Jess’ search for a new income leads her to the world of growing weed, a journey that comes with some surprising revelations – about herself, the people she comes to know through her new enterprise, and the people she thought she knew all along. Not to mention her own talent at growing her “special” plants…
Гари Барвин3.0 Set in the years around 1492, Yiddish for Pirates recounts the compelling story of Moishe, a Bar Mitzvah boy who leaves home to join a ship's crew, where he meets Aaron, the polyglot parrot who becomes his near-constant companion.
From a present-day Florida nursing home, this wisecracking yet poetic bird guides us through a world of pirate ships, Yiddish jokes and treasure maps. But Inquisition Spain is a dangerous time to be Jewish and Moishe joins a band of hidden Jews trying to preserve some forbidden books. He falls in love with a young woman, Sarah; though they are separated by circumstance, Moishe's wanderings are motivated as much by their connection as by his quest for loot and freedom. When all Jews are expelled from Spain, Moishe travels to the Caribbean with the ambitious Christopher Columbus, a self-made man who loves his creator. Moishe eventually becomes a pirate and seeks revenge on the Spanish while seeking the ultimate booty: the Fountain of Youth.
This outstanding New Face of Fiction is filled with Jewish takes on classic pirate tales--fights, prison escapes, and exploits on the high seas--but it's also a tender love story, between Moishe and Sarah, and between Aaron and his "shoulder," Moishe. Rich with puns, colourful language, post-colonial satire and Kabbalistic hijinks, Yiddish for Pirates is also a compelling examination of mortality, memory, identity and persecution from one of this country's most talented writers.
Сьюзен Джуби0.0 Prudence Burns is an overly idealistic Brooklyn girl who has inherited a derelict plot of land named Woefield Farm. Her motley crew of farm hands consists of Earl, an elderly, reclusive bluegrass legend; Seth, an agoraphobic heavy-metal blogger in early recovery from alcoholism; and Sara, an 11-year-old girl with a flock of elite show poultry.
When Prudence is felled by a thyroid condition, things on the farm begin to fall apart, resulting in valiant and sometimes ill-advised attempts to restore domestic bliss. Efforts are complicated by a renegade mule, attempts to turn a hideously ugly child’s playhouse into a high-yield roadside farm stand, and an electrical station’s worth of crossed wires. Will Prudence get well? Will Seth finally get rid of his pesky virginity? Will Earl rescue Sara? And will anyone, ever, admit they might be wrong?
Told in four highly distinct, unforgettably hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking voices, The Republic of Dirt is about what happens when passions collide with pride and what it takes to save each other, our small part of the planet, and ourselves.
After 15 years, a NYC copywriter is suddenly fired, and single. But his worst trouble? Meet Earnest Hemmingway, bedeviled by moniker of famous author Ernest Hemingway. Earnest's father pressures him to come home and help run the family clothing business. As a complex familial battle plays out, Earnest's inherited name leads him in unexpected directions.
Билл Коналл0.0 Over the centuries a variety of colourful settlers have washed up on the shores of Cape Breton Island in search of a promised land; French, English, Irish, Highland Scots. In 1970 a small group of hippies arrive in pursuit of their dream, hopelessly unequipped to meet the challenges of farming the rocking land. Then, early in the new millennium, a financially encumbered medical doctor coaxes her asthmatic old K-Car across the Canso Causeway to take up her first job at the small clinic in the tourist village of Baddeck.
Кэсси Стокс0.0 WINNER OF THE 2013 STEPHEN LEACOCK AWARD FOR HUMOUR WRITING!
27-year-old Frieda Zweig is at an impasse. Behind her is a string of failed relationships and half-forgotten ambitions of being a painter; in front of her lies the dreary task of finding a real job and figuring out what “normal” people do with their lives. Then, a classified ad in the local paper introduces Frieda to Gladys, an elderly woman who long ago gave up on her dreams of being a dancer.
The catch? Gladys is a ghost.
In Dance, Gladys, Dance, Cassie Stocks tells the uplifting story of a woman whose uncanny connection with a kindred spirit causes her to see her life in a new way—as anything but ordinary.
Патрик де Витт3.8 Таинственный и могущественный Командор приговорил несчастного Варма к смерти. Неприятная миссия выпадает на долю братьев с говорящей фамилией Систерс - Эли и Чарли, которые не привыкли обсуждать поручения. Для Чарли кровопролитие - это жизнь, а Эли со временем начинает задаваться вопросом - зачем он убивает? Два брата, две судьбы, но будущее у них одно. Что же победит: злое начало Чарли или простота и добродушие Эли?
Тревор Коул0.0 Jean Vale Horemarsh is an ordinary, small-town woman with the usual challenges of middle age. She's content, mostly, with the life she's built: a semi-successful career as a ceramics artist, a close collection of women friends (if you ignore the terrible falling out she had with Cheryl all those years ago), a comfortable marriage with a kind if otherwise unextraordinary man. And then Jean sees her mother go through the final devastating months of cancer, and realizes that her fondest wish is to protect her dearest friends from the indignities of aging and illness. That's when she decides to kill them...
This eagerly awaited new novel from Trevor Cole combines the humour and sharp observations of contemporary life that he is known for with an irresistibly twisted premise, for fans of the quirkily macabre Six Feet Under and Dexter, and readers of Paul Quarrington, Miriam Toews, Jonathan Franzen, and, of course, Trevor Cole.
In his first two, GG-shortlisted novels, Trevor Cole proved himself a master of drawing us into the shadowy side of human nature with sharp observation and warm wit.
Уилл Фергюсон0.0 Offbeat, charming, and filled with humour and insight, Beyond Belfast is the story of one man’s misguided attempt at walking the Ulster Way, “the longest waymarked trail in the British Isles.” It’s a journey that takes Will Ferguson through the small towns and half-forgotten villages of Northern Ireland, along rugged coastlines and across barren moorland heights, past crumbling castles and patchwork farms.
From IRA pubs to Protestant marches, from bandits and bad weather to banshees and blood sausage, he wades into the thick of things, providing an affectionate and heartfelt look at one of the most misunderstood corners of the world. As the grandson of a Belfast orphan, Will also peels back the myths and realities of his own family history—a mysterious photograph, rumours of a lost inheritance. The truth, when it comes, is both surprising and funny …
Марк Лейрен-Янг0.0 Winner of the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
The cops wanted to shoot me, my bosses thought I was a Bolshevik, and a local lawyer warned me that some people I was writing about might try to test the strength of my skull with a steel pipe. What more could any young reporter hope for from his first real job?
The night Mark Leiren-Young drove into Williams Lake, British Columbia, in 1985 to work as a reporter for the venerable Williams Lake Tribune, he arrived on the scene of an armed robbery. And that was before things got weird. For a 22-year-old from Vancouver, a stint in the legendary Cariboo town was a trip to another world and another era. From the explosive opening, where Mark finds himself in a courtroom just a few feet away from a defendant with a bomb strapped to his chest, to the case of a plane that crashed without its pilot on board, Never Shoot a Stampede Queen is an unforgettable comic memoir of a city boy learning about—and learning to love—life in a cowboy town.
Терри Фаллис0.0 A burnt-out political aide quits just before an election — but is forced to run a hopeless campaign on the way out. He makes a deal with a crusty old Scot, Angus McLintock — an engineering professor who will do anything, anything, to avoid teaching English to engineers — to let his name stand in the election. No need to campaign, certain to lose - or is he?
Стюарт МакЛин4.0 Every family has its secrets.When you commit acts of arson during Christmas dinner, attempt to start a life of crime by shoplifting a lipstick, or sink your false teeth into the forbidden pleasure of corn on the cob, it’s hard to come clean. But Stuart McLean has got the goods on Dave and his family.Morley, for example, is reluctant to talk about her beauty parlour betrayal and that other man in her life—Mathieu—while Dave tries to avoid mentioning his assault on an innocent dentist. These are the things they wouldn’t tell you themselves: lies, white and otherwise, aliases, double lives, and all manner of petty crimes and everyday transgressions. These are the Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe.
Артур Блэк0.0 Arthur Black--beloved radio personality, newspaper columnist, bestselling author and two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour--shows no symptoms of a weary funny bone with his latest offering Pitch Black.
Pitch Black delivers hilarious insights on the medical application of duct tape, the real difference between men and women, how to reuse that Commodore 64 in the closet and why writers dread cocktail parties and barbeques ("A stranger asks you what you do; you tell them you're a writer. And they come back with 'No, I meant what do you do for a LIVING.'").
At least one writer need not fear the hors d'oeuvres table--Pitch Black proves that Arthur Black is master of his craft. Laughs are guaranteed.
Уилл Фергюсон0.0 Canada's number one humorist, routinely compared to our own Bill Bryson, has written a funny, idiosyncratic, and warmly humane book full of sly observations and witty stories culled from his travels among the people and places of our neighbors up north.
Will Ferguson spent the past three years crisscrossing Canada. In a helicopter above the barren lands of the subarctic, in a canoe with his four-year-old son, aboard seaplanes, and along the Underground Railroad, Will's travels have taken him from Cape Spear on the coast of Newfoundland to the sun-dappled streets of old Victoria.
Funny, poignant, and insightful, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw is a provocative tribute to a land that is akin to a series of loosely connected outposts peopled with some of the most interesting folks in the world.
Йен Фергюсон0.0 Book DescriptionIn 1959, just one step ahead of the law, Ian Ferguson's parents left the sophisticated big-city life of Edmonton for Fort Vermilion - once a fur-trapping frontier town, now a remote aboriginal settlement in northernmost Alberta.
Дэн Нидлс0.0 Winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for 2003
The creator of the hugely popular Wingfield Farm plays lays bare a beguiling corner of rural Canada
Just a few hours north of the city, you’ll find the familiar features of Persephone Township: the hardscrabble farms, the timeless small towns, the laconic local citizens. The fabled turf that is home to Wingfield Farm (immortalized by Dan Needles in five one-man stage productions), Persephone is hard to find on any map but very near the Canadian soul.
In Persephone anything can happen and often does. Towering local figures dating back to the township’s murky colonial beginnings land-grabbing speculators, shady railway promoters, heedless despoilers of natural wonders, and spectacularly slippery politicians cross paths with the likes of Sir John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier, not to mention the rebel William Lyon Mackenzie and the future King Edward VII. With Axe and Flask tells it all, sparing no Canadian sacred cow in uncovering the township’s checkered past, from the displacement of its original native inhabitants to the recent invasion of the weekenders.
You are about to enter a world at once strange and recognizable, where past and present, fact and fiction combine in a potent mix of comedy, pathos and national identity.
Уилл Фергюсон3.7 When an enormous, self-help manuscript lands on Edwin de Valu's desk, it seems destined for the trash can. The trouble is this doorstopper is a unique thing--a self-help book that actually works--and before Edwin knows it, a chain of events has been started that will have enormous consequences not just for his own life, but for the world at large.
Стюарт МакЛин0.0 The Vinyl Café Unplugged is the third book in Stuart McLean's Vinyl Café series, and like the one before it, Home from the Vinyl Café, it won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. This collection contains 14 delightful stories, many first broadcast on CBC Radio, about an idiosyncratic family of four in Toronto. Dave and Morley, the parents, and Sam and Stephanie, the children, lead a life of endless minor mishaps and misunderstandings.
In "Odd Jobs," Dave, who owns a record store called the Vinyl Café, wants to install an outlet in his kitchen at home. Friends from the neighbourhood come over one by one to help until, by the end of the day, they have broken a window, chipped a sink, and left 15 large holes in the kitchen wall without managing to install an outlet. In "The Razor's Edge," Dave leaves for the airport at 6:15 a.m. for a 7 o'clock flight. Arriving, he enters the wrong line and then gets lost. Reaching the gate with 45 seconds to spare, he finds it deserted and soon discovers he's two hours early. When an airline staffer arrives and remarks on how early he is, he says, "I always try to be. I've never understood those people who wait until the last moment." Whether they're trying to toilet train their cat, Galway, or figure out why the air conditioning cools every room except the one they sleep in, Dave and Morley and the kids keep their endless good humour and let us in on their secret lives. --Mark Frutkin
Артур Блэк0.0 Arthur Black is back in this lively new collection of his wit and wisdom. Once again, Black attacks our perceptions of daily living and surrenders to bureaucratic eventualities. Who else but Arthur Black would sit naked at a nude beach and envision people with their clothes on? Or, on the issue of sex education, opt for lying to children?
Black Ties and Tales is also a compilation of curiosity: Why is a man in Italy hoarding the world's cutlery? Why will we see the resurgence of the push mower? Who is on a quest for the ultimate shoe shine? Why does Arthur Black want to live in a thankless world?
Black takes aim at everything from politicians to nuisance lawsuits, from erotica to the Scots -- and he does it with his trademark linguistic twists. After you've read this book, you'll discover why it's not easy being Arthur Black.
