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Leonard Cohen, untold stories. by Posner, Michael,1947-author.;
"The extraordinary life of one of the world's greatest music and literary icons, in the words of those who knew him best. Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon--there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in contemporary western culture, entertaining and inspiring the world with his work. From his groundbreaking and bestselling novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, to timeless songs such as "Suzanne," "Dance Me to the End of Love," and "Hallelujah," Cohen is one of the world's most cherished artists. His death in 2016 was felt around the world by the many fans and followers who would miss his warmth, humour, intellect, and piercing insights. Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories chronicles the full breadth of his extraordinary life. This third and final volume in biographer Michael Posner's sweeping series of Cohen's life--That's How the Light Gets In--explores the last thirty years of his life, starting with the late 1980s revival of his music career with the successful albums I'm Your Man and The Future. It covers the death of his manager, Marty Machat, and the appointment of another who would ultimately be accused of stealing more than five million dollars from Cohen. Personally, Cohen suffers the traumatic end of his long relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann and begins a public romance with actress Rebecca De Mornay. When that relationship ends in 1993, as Cohen is about to turn sixty years old, he begins a deeply spiritual phase, entering the Mount Baldy monastery under the tutelage of Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi--arguably the most important relationship in Cohen's life. Ever the seeker, he then goes to Mumbai in 1999, the first of half a dozen trips to India to investigate Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, expanding his growing fascination with spirituality. In 2008, Cohen makes his triumphant return to the concert stage, and for five years travels the world in an extraordinary final act of his life, giving almost four hundred performances over three continents. The book provides the first full chronicle of Cohen's final months, fighting debilitating disease, while still creating three new studio albums, adding to his remarkable legacy. Cohen's story is told through the voices of those who knew him best--family and friends, colleagues and contemporaries, business partners and lovers. Bestselling author Michael Posner draws on hundreds of interviews to reveal the unique, complex, and compelling figure of the man The New York Times called "a secular saint." This is a book like no other, about a man like no other."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Cohen, Leonard, 1934-2016.; Composers; Singers; Poets, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Bright Side [electronic resource] : Twelve Months, Three Heartbreaks, and One (Maybe) Miracle / by Bradbury, Cathrinaut; CloudLibrary;
“Anyone who has had their life completely gutted and rewired will adore this family story. Bradbury's dark humour and gloriously upbeat voice makes it the perfect antidote to a tough year. I loved it!” —Plum Johnson, author of They Left Us Everything The hilarious and moving story of how a modern woman's life can change utterly in a single year—and how, even when life whacks you in the head, you can find yourself rewarded with grace. Cathrin Bradbury's life imploded in the space of a few months. Her beloved parents died, her marriage limped to an end after twenty-five years, her heavily mortgaged house turned against her, and a promising new romance ended in crushing disappointment.   But somewhere in that year, a new path, or three or four, began to open up. As Bradbury navigates the setbacks, her troubled brother makes an astounding recovery to health and sobriety. She is reunited with her closest childhood friend after a long absence, with deeply satisfying results. She and her four siblings feel their way to becoming a new kind of family without their parents. And her adult children emerge into sharper focus, each gloriously and uniquely themselves. Slowly, she discovers that the path is steep, the view obscured, but there's light ahead.   Cathartic, hilarious, and profoundly moving, The Bright Side broadens the way we think and talk to each other about the ordinary experiences we all share. A master of the uncomplaining voice, Bradbury combines grace and humanity to look at the world unflinchingly and see what makes it wonderful and absurd at the same time, and to let us all in on the secret.General adult.Electronic reproduction.Online resource; title from digital title page (CloudLibrary, viewed April 2, 2025).
Subjects: Electronic books.; Women; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY; Later Years; Life Stages; FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS;
© 2021., Penguin Canada,
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The Bright Side [electronic resource] : Twelve Months, Three Heartbreaks, and One (Maybe) Miracle / by Bradbury, Cathrinaut; Porter, Jessicanrt; CloudLibrary;
Read by Porter, Jessica.“Anyone who has had their life completely gutted and rewired will adore this family story. Bradbury's dark humour and gloriously upbeat voice makes it the perfect antidote to a tough year. I loved it!” —Plum Johnson, author of They Left Us Everything The hilarious and moving story of how a modern woman's life can change utterly in a single year—and how, even when life whacks you in the head, you can find yourself rewarded with grace. Cathrin Bradbury's life imploded in the space of a few months. Her beloved parents died, her marriage limped to an end after twenty-five years, her heavily mortgaged house turned against her, and a promising new romance ended in crushing disappointment.   But somewhere in that year, a new path, or three or four, began to open up. As Bradbury navigates the setbacks, her troubled brother makes an astounding recovery to health and sobriety. She is reunited with her closest childhood friend after a long absence, with deeply satisfying results. She and her four siblings feel their way to becoming a new kind of family without their parents. And her adult children emerge into sharper focus, each gloriously and uniquely themselves. Slowly, she discovers that the path is steep, the view obscured, but there's light ahead.   Cathartic, hilarious, and profoundly moving, The Bright Side broadens the way we think and talk to each other about the ordinary experiences we all share. A master of the uncomplaining voice, Bradbury combines grace and humanity to look at the world unflinchingly and see what makes it wonderful and absurd at the same time, and to let us all in on the secret.Electronic reproduction.Online resource; title from title details screen (CloudLibrary, viewed April 2, 2025).
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Personal Memoirs; Women; BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY; Later Years; Life Stages; FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS;
© 2021., Penguin Random House,
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Kohkum's royal bannock / by Burton, Wilfred,1958-; Pichette, Hawlii.; Klyne, Irma.; Fayant, Larry.;
This beautifully illustrated Métis picture book is book is fully bilingual in Michif and English. A feast for the eyes and a tickle for the funny bone, Kohkum cooks up a HUGE order of bannock in her own kitchen, for the Queen and 299 guests! This lively and whimsical tale begins with a letter from the government asking Kohkum to cook bannock for the Royal visit. Kohkum's grandson Xavier is as excited as she is, until they do the math and are shocked to learn that they are cooking not just for the Queen but for her entourage and guests too. A mad scramble ensues, with a rushed trip to the grocery store to buy a ridiculous amount of flour and milk, and a perilous trip home with the car stuffed with supplies and Xavier riding on the roof. Several aunties come to the rescue, helping with bannock assembly and sharing in the excitement of cooking for the Queen. Written by an educator, this story provides many opportunities to count in English and Michif, with many laughs along the way as Kohkum, aunties, and Xavier scramble to cook the bannock in time for the Queen's visit. Boldly colourful, humourous illustrations by illustrator Hawlii Pichette bring this entertaining story to life. Full translation makes this book ideal for in-class cultural learning and Michif language acquisition.
Subjects: Picture books.; Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain, 1926-2022; Bannocks (Bread); Métis; Grandmothers; Michif language; Michif language materials;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Endling : a novel / by Reva, Maria,author.;
"In the absurdist literary tradition of George Saunders comes the debut novel of a writer who is "bang-on brilliant" (Miriam Toews) and "bright, funny, satirical, relevant" (Margaret Atwood), chronicling the exploits of three Ukrainian women and one very endangered snail through the travails of foreign invasion, unlikely romance, capitalist exploitation, and nail-biting survival. Ukraine, 2022. Nastia and her sister, Solimaya, are entangled in the booming bridal industry, getting paid to entertain Western men who've come to Ukraine on "Romance Tours" to find their dream woman. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who's tried, and failed, to breed specimens from the region's dwindling snail population in her mobile lab. Nastia's obsession with finding her absent mother--a flamboyant protester who disappeared after years of public opposition to the romance tours--leads her to embark on the journey of a lifetime across hundreds of miles along with three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a rare snail with one last shot at perpetuating his species. This journey, and these dreams, come to a screeching halt as Russia invades. In a stunningly ambitious and achingly raw metafictional spiral, Endling brilliantly balances the comedic stakes set in motion by the plot while drawing on Reva's personal experiences as a Ukrainian expat, forced to witness the hostilities from afar while tracking her family's delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and real life combine on the page, Reva probes the hard truths of war: What is it like to leave behind one's home and possessions? Conversely, what is it like to stay and continue with the mundanities of life and work under military occupation? For those of us witnessing from overseas: how does our sense of reality change? Can normalcy and security be restored, or have they always been an illusion? Endling is a tour de force from an author on the cutting edge of fiction, telling a story of love, loss, humour, and devastation that only she could tell."--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Satirical fiction.; Novels.; Mail order brides; Russian Invasion of Ukraine, 2022; Sisters; Women biologists;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Do not say we have nothing / by Thien, Madeleine,1974-author.;
"An extraordinary novel set in China before, during and after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989--the breakout book we've been waiting for from a bestselling, Amazon.ca First Novel Award winner. Madeleine Thien's new novel is breathtaking in scope and ambition even as it is hauntingly intimate. With the ease and skill of a master storyteller, Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations--those who lived through Mao's Cultural Revolution in the mid-twentieth century; and the children of the survivors, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989, in one of the most important political moments of the past century. With exquisite writing sharpened by a surprising vein of wit and sly humour, Thien has crafted unforgettable characters who are by turns flinty and headstrong, dreamy and tender, foolish and wise. At the centre of this epic tale, as capacious and mysterious as life itself, are enigmatic Sparrow, a genius composer who wishes desperately to create music yet can find truth only in silence; his mother and aunt, Big Mother Knife and Swirl, survivors with captivating singing voices and an unbreakable bond; Sparrow's ethereal cousin Zhuli, daughter of Swirl and storyteller Wen the Dreamer, who as a child witnesses the denunciation of her parents and as a young woman becomes the target of denunciations herself; and headstrong, talented Kai, best friend of Sparrow and Zhuli, and a determinedly successful musician who is a virtuoso at masking his true self until the day he can hide no longer. Here, too, is Kai's daughter, the ever-questioning mathematician Marie, who pieces together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking a fragile meaning in the layers of their collective story. With maturity and sophistication, humour and beauty, a huge heart and impressive understanding, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once beautifully intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of daily life inside China, yet transcendent in its universality."--
Subjects: Political fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Composers; Storytellers; Musicians; Mathematicians; Chinese Canadians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Like every form of love : a memoir of friendship and true crime / by Viswanathan, Padma,1968-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Padma Viswanathan was staying on a houseboat on Vancouver Island when she struck up a friendship with a warm-hearted, working-class queer man named Phillip. Their lives were so different it seemed unlikely to Padma that their relationship would last after she returned to her usual life. But, that week, Phillip told her a story from his childhood that kept them connected for more than twenty years. Phillip was the son of a severe, abusive man named Harvey, a miner, farmer and communist. After Phillip's mother left the family, Harvey advertised for a housekeeper-with-benefits. And so Del, the most glamorous and loving of stepmothers, stepped into Phillip's life. Del had hung out with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Mexico City before the Cuban revolution; she was also a convicted bank robber who had violated her parole and was suspected in her ex-husband's murder. Phillip had long since lost track of Del, but when Padma said she'd like to write about her and about his own young life, he eagerly agreed. Quickly, though, Padma's research uncovered hidden truths about these larger-than-real-life characters. Watching the effects on Phillip as these secrets, evasions and traumas came to light, she increasingly feared that when it came to the book or the friendship, only one of them would get out of this process alive. In this unforgettable memoir, Padma reflects on the joys and frictions of this strange journey with grace, humour and poetry, including original readings of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales and other stories that beautifully echo her characters' adventures and her own. Like Every Form of Love is that rare thing: an irresistible literary page-turner that twists and turns, delivering powerful revelations, right to the very end."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Viswanathan, Padma, 1968-; Family secrets.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The company we keep : a novel / by Itani, Frances,1942-author.;
"In this warm, bittersweet story, set in the same town as Remembering the Bones, five strangers find solace and new friendships as they grapple with grief in its many guises. Hazzley is having a hard time after the death of her husband. When her longtime friend Cassandra, café owner and occasional tea-leaf reader, suggests that Hazzley start up a conversation group, Hazzley posts a notice on the community board at the local grocery store. Four people turn up at the first meeting: Gwen, a recent retiree who is similarly getting over the loss of a husband, and who finds herself telling her life story to the parrot she is temporarily caring for; Chiyo, a 45-year old dance instructor who became accustomed to checking the notice board for news on behalf of her gossip-loving mother who had become too ill to go out; Addie, the daughter of a psychiatric nurse who is pre-emptively grieving a close friend who has breast cancer; and Tom, an amateur poet who, having been deprived of home baking since becoming a widower, comes to the first meeting hoping cake will be served. With a good deal of humour and world-weary savvy, Cassie watches over the group and bears witness to the interaction and weekly exchange of stories, some of which she knows are true, some fabricated, and all of which she can see are pulling this small group together. In the end, all five find themselves on previously unimagined paths, learning that new beginnings are possible, and that they are never past the stage when life can still surprise."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Grief; Friendship; Loss (Psychology);
Available copies: 4 / Total copies: 5
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The company we keep : [Book Club Set] / by Itani, Frances,1942-author.;
"In this warm, bittersweet story, set in the same town as Remembering the Bones, five strangers find solace and new friendships as they grapple with grief in its many guises. Hazzley is having a hard time after the death of her husband. When her longtime friend Cassandra, café owner and occasional tea-leaf reader, suggests that Hazzley start up a conversation group, Hazzley posts a notice on the community board at the local grocery store. Four people turn up at the first meeting: Gwen, a recent retiree who is similarly getting over the loss of a husband, and who finds herself telling her life story to the parrot she is temporarily caring for; Chiyo, a 45-year old dance instructor who became accustomed to checking the notice board for news on behalf of her gossip-loving mother who had become too ill to go out; Addie, the daughter of a psychiatric nurse who is pre-emptively grieving a close friend who has breast cancer; and Tom, an amateur poet who, having been deprived of home baking since becoming a widower, comes to the first meeting hoping cake will be served. With a good deal of humour and world-weary savvy, Cassie watches over the group and bears witness to the interaction and weekly exchange of stories, some of which she knows are true, some fabricated, and all of which she can see are pulling this small group together. In the end, all five find themselves on previously unimagined paths, learning that new beginnings are possible, and that they are never past the stage when life can still surprise."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Grief; Friendship; Loss (Psychology);
Available copies: 15 / Total copies: 15
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Finding the mother tree : discovering the wisdom of the forest / by Simard, S.(Suzanne),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A world-leading expert shares her amazing story of discovering the communication that exists between trees, and shares her own story of family and grief. Dr. Suzanne Simard was born and raised in the rainforests of British Columbia and has forged a lifelong relationship of love and respect with the trees. This relationship was the driving force behind her decision to dedicate her life to better understanding the forest and the network that connects the plant life within. With humour, emotion, and the narrative drive of a lifelong storyteller, Dr. Simard takes readers on an intimate journey of groundbreaking scientific discovery. Linking her research to her personal experiences, she recounts her life's work uncovering the "Wood Wide Web," the underground mycelium network that connects all the trees and plants within a forest. It is a network that allows them to share not only nutrients, but information, all of which originates from the hubs called Mother Trees. Readers will journey with Dr. Simard into this massive experiment, from dramatic encounters with wildlife to the groundbreaking "Aha" moments in a lab, from learning how to utilize this network to promote plant growth to what this network can teach us about combatting climate change. Dramatic, funny, touching, and evocative, Finding the Mother Tree offers an intimate and personal look at discovery. This book is not about how we can save the trees, but about how the trees might actually save us."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Simard, S. (Suzanne); Forest conservation.; Forest ecology.; Human ecology.; Trees; Forest regeneration.; Conservationists;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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