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The lonely hearts hotel / by O'Neill, Heather,1973-author.;
Set in Montreal and New York between the wars, a spellbinding story about two orphans whose unusual magnetism and talent allow them to imagine a sensational future, from the bestselling, two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted author. Exquisitely imagined and hypnotically told, The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. Set in the early part of the 20th Century, it is an unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose fortune hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to escape one's origins. It might also take true love. Two babies are abandoned in a Montréal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their true talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing for the rich, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, both escape into the city's underworld, where they must use their uncommon gifts to survive without each other. Ruthless and unforgiving, Montréal in the 1930's is no place for song and dance. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes, the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make those dream come true. After Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls hit the stage and the alleys, the underworld will never look the same. With extraordinary storytelling, musical language, and an extravagantly realized world, acclaimed author Heather O'Neill enchants us with her best novel yet -- one so magical there is no escaping its spell.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Circus performers; Orphans; Man-woman relationships;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The city of the living / by Lagioia, Nicola,1973-author.; Goldstein, Ann,1949-translator.; translation of:Lagioia, Nicola,1973-Città dei vivi.English.;
In March 2016, in a nondescript apartment on the outskirts of Rome, Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato, two "ordinary" young men from good families, brutally murdered twenty-three year old Luca Varani. News of the seemingly inexplicable crime sent shockwaves through Rome and beyond. What motivated such extreme violence? Were the killers evil or in the grip of societal evils? Did they know what they were doing? Or were they possessed? And if the latter, possessed by what? Based on months of interviews, court documentation, and correspondence with the killers themselves, The City of the Living is not only a fast-paced, revelatory thriller in the style of Lisa Taddeo's Animal, it is also a descent into the dark heart of Rome--a city that is unlivable and yet teeming with life, overrun by rats and wild animals, and plagued by corruption, drugs, and violence. Yet, the Eternal City is also a place that, more than any other in the world, seems to inspire a sense of absolute freedom in its inhabitants. Proceeding in concentric circles, Nicola Lagioia leads us through a maze of betrayed expectations, sexual confusion, inability to grow up, economic grievances, crises of identity--progressively tightening the focus of the analysis to locate the breaking point after which anything is possible. As hypnotic as Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, an heir to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and destined to cast on spell on fans of the Morbid podcast, The City of the Living is Nicola Lagioia's most gripping, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel to-date. Razor-sharp, unputdownable, devastating, it is the story not only of a crime but of human nature itself; of the tension between responsibility and guilt, between the drive to oppress and the desire to be free; of who we are and who we can become.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Varani, Luca, 1993-2016; Assassination;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hester : a novel / by Lico Albanese, Laurie,1959-author.;
"A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England's witchcraft trials. Who is the real Hester Prynne? Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic--leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible. When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne,the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows--while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which? In this sensuous and hypnotizing tale, a young immigrant woman grapples with our country's complicated past, and learns that America's ideas of freedom and liberty often fall short of their promise. Interwoven with Isobel and Nathaniel's story is a vivid interrogation of who gets to be a "real" American in the first half of the 19th century, a depiction of the early days of the Underground Railroad in New England, and atmospheric interstitials that capture the long history of "unusual" women being accused of witchcraft. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese's Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864; Man-woman relationships; Authors; Women;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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The twilight world / by Herzog, Werner,1942-author.; Hofmann, Michael,1957 August 25-translator.; translation of:Herzog, Werner,1942-Dämmern der Welt.English.;
"Werner Herzog, one of the most revered filmmakers of all time, in his first book in many years, tells the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to defend a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War Two. In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts there asked, whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the war was over. At their meeting, Herzog and Onoda spoke for hours, and together began to unravel Onoda's incredible story. At the end of 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. Defend the territory with guerilla tactics at all costs. There is only one rule: you are forbidden to die by your own hand. In the event of capture, give the enemy all the misleading information you can. Onoda dutifully retreated into the jungle, and so began his long campaign. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades. And all the while Onoda continued to follow his orders, surviving by any means necessary, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, all alone in the jungle, like a phantom, becoming one with the natural world. Until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. In The Twilight World, Herzog immortalizes Onoda's years of absurd yet epic struggle, recounting his lonely mission in an inimitable, hypnotic style--part documentary, part poem, and part dream--that will be instantly recognizable to fans of his films. The result is something like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe: nothing less than a glowing, dancing meditation on the purpose and meaning we give our lives"--
Subjects: Biographical fiction.; Historical fiction.; War fiction.; Novels.; Onoda, Hiroo; Japan. Rikugun; Guerrilla warfare; Soldiers; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Paradise of the damned : the true story of an obsessive quest for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold / by Thomson, Keith,1965-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.The transporting account of an obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue and a competition with Spanish conquistadors for the legendary city's treasure. As early as 1530, reports of El Dorado, a city of gold in the South American interior, beckoned to European explorers. Whether there was any truth to the stories remained to be seen, but the allure of unimaginable riches was enough to ensnare dozens of would-be heroes and glory hounds in the desperate hunt. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh: ambitious courtier, confidant to Queen Elizabeth, and, before long, El Dorado fanatic. Entering the Elizabethan court as an upstart from a family whose days of nobility were far behind them, Raleigh used his military acumen, good looks, and sheer audacity to scramble into the limelight. Yet that same swagger proved to be his undoing, as his secret marriage to a lady-in-waiting enraged Queen Elizabeth and landed him in the Tower of London. Between his ensuing grim prospects at court and his underlying lust for adventure, the legend of El Dorado became an unwavering siren song that hypnotized Raleigh. On securing his release, he journeyed across an ocean to find the fabled city, gambling his painstakingly acquired wealth, hard-won domestic bliss, and his very life. What awaited him in the so-called New World were endless miles of hot, dense jungle packed with deadly flora and fauna, warring Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous civilizations, and other unforeseen dangers. Meanwhile, back at home, his multitude of rivals plotted his demise. Paradise of the Damned, like Keith Thomson's critically acclaimed Born to Be Hanged, brings this story to life in lush and captivating detail. The book charts Raleigh's obsessive search for El Dorado -- as well as the many doomed expeditions that preceded and accompanied his -- providing not only an invaluable history but also a gripping narrative of traveling to the ends of the earth only to realize, too late, that what lies at home is the greatest treasure of all.
Subjects: Biographies.; Raleigh, Walter, Sir, 1552?-1618.; El Dorado.; Explorers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The madwomen of Paris : a novel / by Epstein, Jennifer Cody,author.;
"A young woman with amnesia falls under the influence of a powerful doctor in Paris's notorious women's asylum, where she must fight to reclaim dangerous memories-and even more perilously, her sanity-in this gripping historical novel inspired by true events, from the bestselling author of Wunderland. "I didn't see her the day she came to the asylum. Looking back, this sometimes strikes me as unlikely. Impossible, even, given how utterly her arrival would upend the already chaotic order of things at the Salpêtrière-not to mention change the course of my own life there." When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière she is covered in blood and badly bruised. Suffering from near-complete amnesia, she is diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling "the epidemic of the age": hysteria. It is a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martine Charcot, the asylum's famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. To Charcot's delight, Josephine also proves extraordinarily susceptible to hypnosis, the tool he uses to unlock hysteria's myriad (and often sensational) symptoms. Soon Charcot is regularly featuring Josephine on his stage, entrancing the young woman into fantastical acts and hallucinatory fits before enraptured audiences and eager newsmen-many of whom feature her on their paper's front pages. For Laure, a lonely asylum attendant assigned to Josephine's care, Charcot's diagnosis seems a godsend. A former hysteric herself, she knows better than most that life in the Salpêtrière's Hysteria Ward is far easier than in its dreaded Lunacy division, from which few inmates ever return. But as Josephine's fame as Charcot's "star hysteric" grows, her memory starts to return-and with it, images of a horrific crime she believes she's committed. Haunted by these visions, and helplessly trapped in Charcot's hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into actual insanity. Desperate to save the girl she has grown to love, Laure plots their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Joséphine is actually a madwoman, soon to be consigned to the Salpêtrière's brutal Lunacy Ward-or a murderer, destined for the guillotine. Both are dark possibilities-but not nearly as dark as what Laure will unearth when she sets out to discover the truth"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Biographical fiction.; Novels.; Charcot, J. M. (Jean Martin), 1825-1893; Salpêtrière (Hospital); Hysteria; Mentally ill women; Psychiatric hospital patients; Psychiatric hospitals;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The wall [videorecording] / by Johnson, Aaron,1990-actor.; Cena, John,actor.; Liman, Doug,film director.; Nakli, Laith,1969-actor.; Amazon Studios,presenter.; Hypnotic (Firm),production company.; Elevation Pictures,publisher.;
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith Nakli.Follows two soldiers pinned down by an Iraqi sniper, with nothing but a crumbling wall between them. Their fight becomes as much a battle of will and wits as it is of lethally accurate marksmanship.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.MPAA rating: R.DVD ; widescreen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Action and adventure films.; Feature films.; War films.; Snipers; Soldiers;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The mad women's ball / by Mas, Victoria,author.; Wynne, Frank,translator.;
"The Salpetriere asylum, Paris, 1885. Dr Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad, hysterics, and been cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated - these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, or wayward daughters. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is The Mad Women's Ball, when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves it is a rare moment of hope. Genevieve is a senior nurse - after the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and has placed her faith in Dr Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie, the 19 year old daughter of a bourgeois family who have locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret - she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about - The Book of Spirits - Genevieve is determined to escape from the asylum (and the bonds of her gender) and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve's help ..."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Salpêtrière (Hospital); Psychiatric hospitals; Women; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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