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The road to Appledore : or, How I went back to the land without ever having lived there in the first place / by Wayman, Tom,1945-author.;
"Acclaimed author Tom Wayman's account of his shift from urban to rural. The recent pandemic accelerated an existing trend among urban Canadians to move to the country. Yet to quote from a 2022 Globe and Mail article, "People from cities don't always realize what they're getting into." For anyone setting out in that direction, or dreaming of doing so, Tom Wayman's The Road to Appledore: Or How How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place is rewarding reading. The book follows Wayman from Vancouver to southeastern BC's Slocan Valley, deep in the Selkirk Mountains, and presents with his characteristic humour and philosophical insight his ensuing major shifts of perspective and knowledge. Mishaps, misadventures and moments of delight and wonder abound in Wayman's prose reflections on his decades of living immersed in nature and the contemporary rural--from having to deal with a bear cub in his kitchen, to engaging in a vigilante action to protect a community water system, to the quiet satisfaction of growing his own food and flowers. Wayman depicts the rural southwest of Canada in intimate detail, transporting readers alongside him."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Wayman, Tom, 1945-; Mountain life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The outsmarters / by Ellis, Deborah,1960-;
"Eleven-year-old Kate lives with her grandmother, who runs a junk shop in a big old house on the outskirts of town. It sometimes feels sad to be in the business of collecting other people's leftover stuff, but Kate knows sad. She's a bit lonely, and she doesn't remember her mother, who left long ago. Still, Kate dreams that one day her mother will return, and when she does, she'll need money. So Kate sets out to make some, just in case. At first she wants to offer psychiatric advice, like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon. Gran squashes that idea: "You are not a psychiatrist. You'll just get sued." But what about a philosopher, who Gran says is just someone who thinks deeply about important things. "I do that all the time," Kate says, and soon she opens up a Philosophy Booth to provide answers to life's big and small questions for $2 a pop. But who can answer Kate's questions? Where does her grandmother go in her truck at night? And why won't she talk about Kate's mother? These are hard questions to answer, and Kate gets help from two kids who come into her life. Myndeelee, who moves into the house behind Gran's, and Brandon, who Gran seems to hate, though Kate can't figure out why."--
Subjects: Families; Grandmothers; Friendship; Survival; Self-reliance in children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The fifth season : creativity in the second half of life / by Nepo, Mark,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Now in his seventies, poet and philosopher Mark Nepo explores the rhythms of aging in the second half of life. As the years go by, the question for each of us becomes more and more real: What does it mean to age? Despite the limitations that come as the body wears down, Mark Nepo believes that there are many gifts to inhabit by aging. So much is gained and so much is shed along the way. As Mark began to reflect on the gifts and challenges of this process we're all immersed in, he realized, more than ever, that we are called to live a creative life as we age. We are led to what the Chinese call "the fifth season" -- that moment in late summer when the glare of the sun fades so that we can see clearly the true colors around us. The Fifth Season offers Mark's wise and gentle insights on growing older, helping readers identify the second half of life as a turning point, a time of integration and transformation that guides us in making sense of our experiences. All seasons lead to this season; all experiences lead to this understanding of experience. In truth, Mark writes, we each must face living and dying from the inside of the one life we are given. But we can share the journey, which is the purpose of this book, to be a companion in your effort to enter the fifth season of your life"--
Subjects: Aging.; Older people; Older people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The Bhagavad Gita : the song of God retold in simplified English / by Viljoen, Edward,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages [105]-114)."The Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God Retold in Simplified English is the latest title in the Essential Wisdom Library. This unique edition of the timeless epic is designed to be accessible for readers without any prior experience of Hinduism. Not simply a translation of the original, Viljoen has simplified and restated the Gita's complex ideas, so that a first-time reader can fully appreciate the scope and beauty of this magnificent Indian classic. Written in concise, modern language the retelling vividly captures the power and depth of the original work. Part of the Mahabharata, the Gita is a dialogue between Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna. Its verses contain some of the key ideas of Hindu philosophy--Dharma, Moksha, and various yogic practices. Originally written well over a thousand years ago, the Gita has proven to be a timeless source of wisdom, inspiring philosophers and revolutionaries alike in the millennia since it was written. In addition to the retelling of the text, this edition includes a character list, a glossary of important terms, and chapters exploring the back-story from the Mahabharata and the impact and meaning of the Bhagavad Gita itself. The Bhagavad Gita is an approachable way for today's readers to engage with one of history's richest spiritual epics"--
Subjects: Bhagavadgītā;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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An alphabet for Joanna : a portrait of my mother in 26 fragments / by Rogers, Damian,author.;
"Throughout her life, acclaimed poet Damian Rogers was never given a satisfactory account of the circumstances around her birth. The "truth" behind the stories she was told by her mother--the free-spirited, beautiful and often troubled Joanna--constantly shifted, and Damian could collect only fragments: a trip to California, a mysterious trauma, a miscarriage followed by a psychotic break, and a dramatic return to Detroit, pregnant. Now, in the present day, as 40-year-old Damian copes with Joanna's debilitating frontal-lobe dementia, she realizes she may never truly uncover the full story. At once a riveting portrait of a time and place (Detroit and Southern California from the mid-1960s to the late-1980s), an unconventional mother-daughter saga, and an exploration of how memory constantly shapes and reshapes our intimate relationships, at its heart An Alphabet for Joanna is a meditation on the relationship between mental illness and creative life. Damian Rogers writes effortlessly across genres, including lyrical memoir, investigative reporting, and powerful philosophical reflection, as she pieces together the ways we build lives out of stories. And by tracing her mother's deterioration into the present day, she poignantly shows how, even when memory fails, we remain connected through art, empathy, and imagination."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Rogers, Damian.; Rogers, Damian; Children of mentally ill mothers; Mentally ill mothers; Mothers and daughters.; Poets, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Milena and Margarete : a love story in Ravensbrück / by Strauss, Gwen,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A profoundly moving celebration of love under the darkest of circumstances. From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka's first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time. With the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, her home became a central meeting place for Jewish refugees. German Margarete, born to a middle-class family, married the son of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But soon swept up in the fervor of the Bolshevik Revolution, she met her second partner, the Communist Heinz Neumann. Called to Moscow for his "political deviations," he fell victim to Stalin's purges while Margarete was exiled to the hell of the Soviet gulag. Two years later, traded by Stalin to Hitler, she ended up outside Berlin in Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp built for women. Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the post-war survivors' accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong women who never gave up and continue to inspire. As Margaret wrote: "I was thankful for having been sent to Ravensbrück, because it was there I met Milena.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Buber-Neumann, Margarete, 1901-1989.; Jesenská, Milena, 1896-1944.; Ravensbrück (Concentration camp); Lesbians; Women Nazi concentration camp inmates; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A Horse at the Window [electronic resource] : by Gordon, Spencer.aut; cloudLibrary;
A genre-bending collection of dramatic monologues shining a light on the anxious, self-directed gaze that defines contemporary consciousness. Borrowing stylistic elements from the prose poem, faux memoir, online diatribe, and philosophical investigation, the twenty-five dramatic monologues in Spencer Gordon’s genre-bending collection shine a light on the anxious, self-directed gaze that defines contemporary consciousness. CEOs lose their obscene wealth in lurid hellrealms; an aspiring writer reassembles a personal history out of fragments from the 2000s; police cadets receive a curious crash course in transduction and ethics; the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and Deepwater Horizon oil spill reveal the immanent sublime. Ranging from ironic and furious to pleading and melancholic, Gordon’s speakers exist in a world of social media think pieces, hot takes and take downs, fake news and distorted facts, steeped in pop culture and its discontents. They are real people, intimate as kin. But they’re also pseudonyms, ghosts, and playbacks, echoing from insubstantial handles drifting on the web. They lie and lurk and love online, channelling the morphemes of digital language and filtering the concerns of self, performance, digital identity, and complicity through the irreverence, non-rationality, and surprising beauty of Zen.General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Absurdist;
© 2024., House of Anansi Press Inc,
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Bullet train : a novel / by Isaka, Kōtarō,1971-author.; Malissa, Sam,translator.; translation of:Isaka, Kōtarō,1971-Maria Bītoru.English.;
Nanao, nicknamed Lady Bird--the self-proclaimed "unluckiest assassin in the world"--boards a bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with one simple task: grab a suitcase and get off at the next stop. Unbeknownst to him, the deadly duo Tangerine and Lemon are also after the very same suitcase--and they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Satoshi, "the Prince," with the looks of an innocent schoolboy and the mind of a viciously cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has history with some of the others. Risk fuels him as does a good philosophical debate ... like, is killing really wrong? Chasing the Prince is another assassin with a score to settle for the time the Prince casually pushed a young boy off of a roof, leaving him comatose. When the five assassins discover they are all on the same train, they realize their missions are not as unrelated as they first appear. A massive bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with an incredible energy and surprising humor as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwind. Award-winning author Kotaro Isaka takes readers on a tension packed journey as the bullet train hurtles toward its final destination. Who will make it off the train alive--and what awaits them at the last stop?
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Assassins; Coma; High speed trains; Psychopaths; Revenge; Teenage boys;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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What we owe the future / by MacAskill, William,1987-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."One of the most stunning achievements of moral philosophy is something we take for granted: moral universalism, or the idea that every human has equal moral worth. In What We Owe the Future, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill demands that we go a step further, arguing that people not only have equal moral worth no matter where or how they live, but also no matter when they live. This idea has implications beyond the obvious (climate change) - including literally making sure that there are people in the future: It's not unusual to hear someone way, "Oh, I could never bring a child into this world." MacAskill argues that the sentiment itself may well be immoral: we have a responsibility not just to consider whether the world of the future will be suitable for supporting humans, but to act to make sure there are humans in it. And while it may seem that the destructive capacity of modern industrial technology means that we ought to eschew it as much as possible, MacAskill argues for optimism in our ability to (eventually) get technology right, for the future's benefit, and ours. Where Hans Rosling's Factfulness and Rutger Bregman's Utopia for Realists gave us reasons for hope and action in the present, What We Owe the Future is a compelling and accessible argument for why solving our problems demands that we worry about the future. And ultimately it provides an answer to the most important question we humans face: can we not just endure, but thrive?"--
Subjects: Altruism.; Civilization, Modern; Future, The.; Human beings; Human beings;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Wisdom takes work : learn, apply, repeat / by Holiday, Ryan,author.;
"Of all the stoic virtues -- courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom -- wisdom is the most elusive. This is especially apparent in an age where reaction and idle chatter are rewarded, and restraint and thoughtfulness are unfashionable. The great statesman and philosophers of the past would not be fooled, as we are, by headlines or appearances or the primal pull of tribalism. They knew too much of history, of their own flaws, of the need for collaboration to do any of that. That's wisdom -- and we need it more than ever. Wisdom is Ryan Holiday's guiding principle, and Wisdom Takes Work is the culmination of all his work. Drawing on fascinating stories of the ancient and modern figures alike, Holiday shows how to cultivate wisdom through reading, self-education, and experience. Through the lives of Montaigne, Seneca, Joan Didion, Abraham Lincoln, and others, Holiday teaches us how to listen more than we talk, to think with nuance, to ruthlessly question our own beliefs, and to develop a method of self-education. He argues convincingly for the necessity of mental struggle and warns against taking shortcuts that deprive us of real knowledge. And he shows us how dangerous power and intelligence can be without the tempering influence of wisdom. An absence of curiosity and prudence is a catastrophe for all of us, argues Ryan Holiday. This incredibly timely book both diagnoses the greatest problem of our current moment and offers solutions for the way forward. Wisdom is work -- but it's worth it"--
Subjects: Learning.; Self-knowledge, Theory of.; Virtues.; Wisdom.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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