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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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The secret history of Audrey James : a novel / by Marshall, Heather(Heather J.),author.;
Northern England, 2010 After a tragic accident upends her life, Kate Mercer leaves London to work at an old guest house near the Scottish border, where she hopes to find a fresh start and heal from her loss. When she arrives, she begins to unravel the truth about her past, but discovers the mysterious elderly proprietor is harbouring her own secrets ... Berlin, 1938 Audrey James is weeks away from graduating from a prestigious music school in Berlin, where she's been living with her best friend, Ilse Kaplan. As she prepares to finish her piano studies, Audrey dreads the thought of returning to her father in England and leaving Ilse behind. Families like the Kaplans are being targeted, and the stakes grow higher by the day. Restrictions tighten, the borders close to Jews, and rumours swirl about people being apprehended in the street and shipped off to work camps. When Ilse's parents and brother suddenly disappear, two high-ranking Nazi party members confiscate the Kaplans' upscale home, believing it to be empty. In a desperate attempt to keep Ilse safe, Audrey becomes housekeeper for the officers while Ilse is forced into hiding in the attic--a prisoner in her own home. As war in Europe threatens, it isn't long before a shocking turn of events pushes Audrey to become embroiled in cell of the anti-Hitler movement: clusters of resisters working to bring down the Nazis from within Germany itself. But resistance comes with risk, and before the war is over, Audrey must decide what matters most: saving herself, her friend, or sacrificing everything for the greater good.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Anti-Nazi movement; Female friendship; Jewish families; Jewish women; Music students; Secrecy; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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The secret history of Audrey James : a novel / [Book Club Set] / by Marshall, Heather(Heather J.),author.;
Northern England, 2010 After a tragic accident upends her life, Kate Mercer leaves London to work at an old guest house near the Scottish border, where she hopes to find a fresh start and heal from her loss. When she arrives, she begins to unravel the truth about her past, but discovers the mysterious elderly proprietor is harbouring her own secrets ... Berlin, 1938 Audrey James is weeks away from graduating from a prestigious music school in Berlin, where she's been living with her best friend, Ilse Kaplan. As she prepares to finish her piano studies, Audrey dreads the thought of returning to her father in England and leaving Ilse behind. Families like the Kaplans are being targeted, and the stakes grow higher by the day. Restrictions tighten, the borders close to Jews, and rumours swirl about people being apprehended in the street and shipped off to work camps. When Ilse's parents and brother suddenly disappear, two high-ranking Nazi party members confiscate the Kaplans' upscale home, believing it to be empty. In a desperate attempt to keep Ilse safe, Audrey becomes housekeeper for the officers while Ilse is forced into hiding in the attic--a prisoner in her own home. As war in Europe threatens, it isn't long before a shocking turn of events pushes Audrey to become embroiled in cell of the anti-Hitler movement: clusters of resisters working to bring down the Nazis from within Germany itself. But resistance comes with risk, and before the war is over, Audrey must decide what matters most: saving herself, her friend, or sacrificing everything for the greater good.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Anti-Nazi movement; Female friendship; Jewish families; Jewish women; Music students; Secrecy; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 12 / Total copies: 12
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The water dancer [sound recording] : a novel / by Coates, Ta-Nehisi,author.; Morton, Joe,1947-narrator.; Random House Audio Publishing,publisher.;
Read by Joe Morton.Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage--and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child--but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind--but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author's bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America's oldest struggle--the struggle to tell the truth--from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Audiobooks.; Slavery;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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It Will Only Hurt for a Moment A Novel [electronic resource] : by Dawson, Delilah S..aut; Brentan, Carlotta.nrt; cloudLibrary;
In this highly atmospheric thriller from the Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of The Violence, a young woman hopes to reinvent herself at an isolated artists’ colony . . . only to be drawn into its dark, twisted past. “Filled to the brim with righteous fury and fright that cannot be quelled, this novel solidifies Dawson as an unstoppable force.”—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters Sarah Carpenter is starting over. She’s on the run—leaving behind her unsupportive, narcissistic ex-boyfriend and alcoholic, abusive mother—and headed for a new beginning at Tranquil Falls, a secluded artists’ colony on the grounds of a closed hotel. There, with no cell signal or internet to distract her, she hopes to rediscover her love for pottery and put the broken pieces of her life back together. But when Sarah uncovers the body of a young woman while digging a hole for a pit kiln, things start to fall apart. Her fellow artists begin to act in troubling ways. The eccentric fiber artist knits an endless scarf. The musician plays the same carousel song over and over until his fingers bleed. The calligrapher grins with ink-stained teeth. Not to mention the haunting dreams Sarah has night after night. When she discovers glass shards in her clay, Sarah wonders if someone is out to get her—or if she’s losing her grip on reality out here in the wilds, where the pounding of the waterfall never, ever fades. As she investigates the beautiful valley and the crumbling resort looming over them all, she unearths a chilling past that refuses to remain buried . . .
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Supernatural; Contemporary Women; Psychological;
© 2024., Penguin Random House,
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The end of getting lost : a novel / by Kirman, Robin,author.;
"The year is 1996--a time before cell phones, online status updates, and location tags--a time when you could travel to a remote corner of the world and disappear, if you chose to do so. This is where we meet Gina Reinhold and Duncan Lowy, a young couple of creatives, madly in love, traveling around Europe for their honeymoon. Or, Gina thinks it's her honeymoon--that's what Duncan has told her. She's just suffered a head injury while exploring the ruins of the Berlin Wall and now she can't remember the last year of her life. She can't even remember her mysterious accident, only waking up in the hospital with, thankfully, her beloved and doting Duncan by her side, ready to whisk her away to explore the world's most romantic locales. But in reality, Gina hasn't seen or spoken to Duncan in months. So why--and how--is he suddenly standing vigil at her bedside, miles from home and anyone they know? They seem madly in love now, but for how long can Duncan keep this charade alive, and how far will he go to keep Gina's past hidden from her? As they hop borders across Europe, the past catching them at every new destination, we see that Gina's memories might not be as elusive as her injury leads Duncan to believe ... The End of Getting Lost is a literary thriller and a love story, a tightrope act of deception as much as it is an elegant exploration of love and marriage, and our expectations of both when mirrored against reality. With notes of Patricia Highsmith, Caroline Kepnes, and Lauren Groff, Robin Kirman has spun a delicious tale of deceit, redemption, and fighting for who and what you love-no matter the costs"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Deception; Head; Love; Man-woman relationships; Memory disorders;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Power metal : the race for the resources that will shape the future / by Beiser, Vince,1965-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."How the metals we need to power technology and energy are spawning environmental havoc, political upheaval, and murder -- and how we can do better. An Australian multimillionaire's plan to mine the ocean floor. Garbage pickers in Nigeria risking their lives to salvage e-waste amid nightmarish pollution. A Bill Gates-backed entrepreneur harnessing artificial intelligence to find metals in the Arctic. Train-robbing copper thieves in Chile. These are some of the people in the intensifying global competition to locate and extract the minerals essential for two critical technologies that will shape humanity's future: the internet and renewable energy. It's a race that will create new industries, generate enormous wealth, and destabilize the global balance of power. It could propel us to a more sustainable future -- or plunge us into an environmental nightmare. In Power Metal, journalist and author Vince Beiser explores the Achilles' heel of green power and digital technology: that the manufacturing of our computers, cell phones, electric cars, solar panels, and wind turbines requires enormous amounts of increasingly rare materials -- lithium, cobalt, copper, and others -- the demand for which is skyrocketing. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet. Beiser crisscrossed the world to witness this race, reporting on the damage it is already inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and the ways in which we can minimize that damage. The result is a book that is both a gripping read and a sobering account of the battle between what civilization demands and what the planet can withstand. Power Metal is a compelling and important glimpse into this new, disturbing, and exciting world"--
Subjects: Mineral industries; Mines and mineral resources; Rare earth metals; Strategic materials; Sustainable development;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Super agers : an evidence-based approach to longevity / by Topol, Eric J.,1954-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."One of the most respected, celebrated, and influential medical researchers in the world gives a guided tour of the revolution in longevity science that is exploding now. This is an evidence-based approach to longevity in a market drenched in snake oil-Eric Topol doesn't promise a silver bullet to magically stop the aging process, he shows how preventing the development of killer chronic diseases like obesity, heart disease, cancer and neurodegeneration is completely changing what "old age" can be. And we can start long before middle age-or long after. Dr. Topol shows how and why you can deal with chronic problems now instead of waiting until it is too late. Breakthrough treatments have been developed from new tools, new understanding of how our personal genomes work, and what AI can see in our health data. We can now engineer cells, build proteins and find drugs that make us live longer, better. Many of these treatments are on the shelf now-or soon will be-and improving fast. Our author is the ultimate guide because he participated in developing and testing many of them. The first part of the book "The New Age of Healthspan" describes inspiring patients aged 90+, sets out the dimensions of the new advances in the treatments of age related diseases, and details an expanded definition of what a healthy lifestyle means now-good sleep, diet, exercise, sure, but much beyond. He calls it Lifestyle+. He then turns to the "Chronic Killers"-Obesity/Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer, and Neurodegeneration. Parts on the "Big Collateral Implications" and "Thinking Ahead" follow and include ways we might eventually come to reverse the aging process itself"--
Subjects: Aging; Artificial intelligence; Longevity.; Medicine, Preventive.; Older people;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The gates of Gaza : a story of betrayal, survival, and hope in Israel's borderlands / by Tibon, Amir,1989-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family's reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: "The girls are behaving really well, but I'm worried they'll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us." Some 45 miles north, Amir's parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs. In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal--and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue--alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm's way for decades. Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements--a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Arab-Israeli conflict.; Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Navigating life with Parkinson's disease / by Parashos, Sotirios A.,author.; Wichmann, Rose L.,author.; American Academy of Neurology.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."It is hard to believe it has been only 7 years since the publication of our first edition. In this short time, so much has changed in what we know about Parkinson's disease and how to treat it. As I read through the first edition, I found much information was already out of date within 4 years from publication. New knowledge about the role of protein misfolding and how it leads to nerve cell damage in Parkinson's, about when and where the disease may be starting, about how it may progress and spread through the brain, about how it affects almost all aspects of body functions, about how all this new knowledge is shaping the quest for a cure, about how important exercise is, and about how the multidisciplinary approach to disease management changes the quality of life of people with Parkinson's has been accumulating at a dizzying pace. More than 200 years after the publication of Parkinson's An Essay on the Shaking Palsy and just over 50 years after the implementation of levodopa in Parkinson's treatment, it looks as though scientists are poised to make a breakthrough toward effective treatments of the disease itself, not just the symptoms, and paths that may eventually lead to a cure are now visible. Such progress would be impossible without the hard work of many researchers; the financial support of the corresponding government agencies; the advocacy of national and international Parkinson's organizations and the philanthropy of their donors; and the tireless efforts and open minds of the doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers caring for people with Parkinson's and their families. Above all, none of this progress would be possible without the active participation of people with Parkinson's and their families through advocacy, community engagement, and participation in clinical trials. To them we would like to extend a great "thank you"."--
Subjects: Parkinson's disease; Parkinson's disease; Self-care, Health.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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