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Everything and nothing at all : essays / by Wills, Jenny Heijun,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From Hilary Weston Prize-winning author Jenny Heijun Wills comes a new collection of piercing, breathtaking essays on beauty, identity, and language -- as well as the grey zones that exist between and within these notions of self. As an adoptee, Jenny Heijun Wills has spent her life navigating the spaces of race and ethnicity. As a polyamorous, pansexual femme, she occupies a liminality between family -- adopted, biological, chosen -- and "freedom;" queerness and heteronormativity; monogamy and a constellation of love. As a person who self-harms to cope with mental illness, she moves between the desire to be beautiful and the urge to make herself ugly, preening in the limelight while daily wishing her body would disappear. And as a parent with a lifelong eating disorder, her love language is to feed, but she finds it near-impossible to consume anything herself. These facets of Jenny's personhood have served as both the anchors she has clung to, in the time before self-discovery and understanding, and the harsh parameters of what others now imagine she can be. Everything and Nothing At All weaves together literary criticism, cultural context, and personal history into a staggering tapestry of knowledge. Yet Jenny is acutely aware of the cost of this knowledge: the more she uncovers, the more parts of herself she must reconcile. And though she is guided by those who came before -- her Korean grandmother, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, even Emily Brontë, when read with intention -- and the lovers she has sewn into her life, they cannot shield her from the combined weight of this knowledge. It feels at once like everything she has been seeking in order to set herself free, and that which threatens to extinguish her, one day, into nothing at all. Devastating, illuminating, and beautifully crafted, these essays breathe life into the ambiguities and excesses of Jenny's life, where she lingers always at the intersections within the intersections of identity."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Essays.; Personal narratives.; Wills, Jenny Heijun.; Body image.; Pansexual people; Self-perception.; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Saga boy : my life of Blackness and becoming / by Downing, Antonio Michael,1975-author.;
Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines. He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah", a punk rock rapper, "Molasses", a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus", a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy", a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself. Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Authors, Canadian (English); Musicians; Musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Homework : a memoir / by Dyer, Geoff,author.;
"A memoir by the English author Geoff Dyer, focusing on his childhood years"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Dyer, Geoff; Authors, English; Education; Working class families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Jane in love : a novel / by Givney, Rachel,author.;
Bath, England, 1803. At 28, Jane Austen prefers walking and reading to balls and assemblies; she dreams of someday publishing her carefully crafted stories. Already on the shelf and in grave danger of becoming a spinster, Jane goes searching for a radical solution--and as a result, seemingly by accident, time-travels. She lands in ... Bath, England, present day. The film set of Northanger Abbey. Sofia Wentworth is a Hollywood actress starring in a new period film, an attempt to reinvent her flagging career and, secretly, an attempt to reinvent her failing marriage. When Sofia meets Jane, she marvels at the young actress who can't seem to "break character," even off set. And Jane--acquainting herself with the horseless steel carriages and seriously shocking fashion of the twenty-first century-- meets Sofia, a woman unlike anyone she's ever met before. Then she meets Fred, Sofia's brother, who has the audacity to be handsome, clever, and kind-hearted. What happens when Jane, against her better judgement, falls in love with Fred And when Sofia learns the truth about her new friend Jane. And worst of all, if Jane stays with Fred, will she ever achieve her dream, the one she's now seen come true.
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Biographical fiction.; Time-travel fiction.; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817; Women authors, English; Motion picture actors and actresses; Female friendship; Man-woman relationships; Self-realization in women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The year of finding memory : a memoir / by Bates, Judy Fong,1949-;
LSC
Subjects: Bates, Judy Fong, 1949-; Authors, Canadian (English); Children of immigrants; Chinese Canadians;
© c2010., Random House Canada,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Barefoot at the lake : a boyhood summer in cottage country / by Fogle, Bruce,author.;
Subjects: Fogle, Bruce; Vacation homes; Veterinarians; Veterinarians; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Crooked teeth : a queer Syrian refugee memoir / by Ramadan, Ahmad Danny,author.;
"'Writing this memoir is a betrayal.' So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he'd rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to. Starting with his family's humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city's underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria's LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that's not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love. What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative -- a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own"--Back cover.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Ramadan, Ahmad Danny.; Novelists, Canadian; Refugees; Refugees; Sexual minorities; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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And home was Kariakoo : a memoir of East Africa / by Vassanji, M. G,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Vassanji, M. G.; Vassanji, M. G.; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Sisters in the wilderness : the lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine [i.e. Catherine] Parr Traill / by Gray, Charlotte,1948-;
Includes bibliographical references (p. [361]-368) and index.
Subjects: Moodie, Susanna (Strickland), 1803-1885; Traill, Catherine Parr (Strickland), 1802-1899; Frontier and pioneer life; Women authors, Canadian (English); Women authors, Canadian;
© 1999., Penguin Books Canada,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Call the vet : my life as a young vet in 1970s London / by Fogle, Bruce,author.;
When he arrived in London as a newly trained vet, Bruce Fogle quickly learnt to embrace the unexpected. An idealistic, fresh-faced Canadian, he cut his teeth at the prestigious Woodrow & Singleton surgery in the heart of the Knightsbridge. Just five minutes' stroll from Harrods and their notorious 'Zoo Department,' Singleton's was frequented by Britain's most distinguished pet owners, from Duchesses and Sultans to Paul McCartney and Elizabeth Taylor. Yet for Bruce, the allure of the rich and famous could never compete with the newly discovered thrills of his profession. Whether for commonplace ailments or the melodrama of surgery, a veritable arc of patients crossed his treatment table, from cats and dogs to alligators, pumas and even a capuchin monkey. Call the Vet is a wonderfully rich and warmly funny memoir. Set against the vibrant backdrop of 1970s London, it explores the unique bond between pets and their owners; the common thread of compassion that unites all cultures and classes, and the discovery of love and joy in unexpected places.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Fogle, Bruce.; Veterinarians; Veterinarians; Veterinarians; Human-animal relationships.; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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