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A theatre for dreamers / by Samson, Polly,author.;
1960. The world is dancing on the edge of revolution, and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters and musicians live tangled lives. Forming within this circle is a triangle: its points the magnetic, destructive writer Axel Jensen, his dazzlingly beautiful wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen. Into their midst arrives teenage Erica, with little more than a bundle of blank notebooks and her grief for her mother. Settling on the periphery of this circle, she watches, entranced and disquieted, as a paradise unravels. Burning with the heat and light of Greece, A Theatre for Dreamers is a spellbinding novel about utopian dreams and innocence lost - and the wars waged between men and women on the battlegrounds of genius.
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Historical fiction.; Artists; Communities; Genius; Interpersonal relations; Poets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Magnificent rebel : Nancy Cunard in Jazz Age Paris / by De Courcy, Anne,author.; container of (work):De Courcy, Anne.Five love affairs and a friendship.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Anne de Courcy, the author of Husband Hunters and Chanel's Riviera, examines the controversial life of legendary beauty, writer and rich girl Nancy Cunard during her thirteen years in Jazz-Age Paris. Paris in the 1920s was bursting with talent in the worlds of art, design and literature. The city was at the forefront of everything new and exciting; there was no censorship; life and love were there for the taking. At its center was the gorgeous, seductive English socialite Nancy Cunard, scion of the famous shipping line. Her lovers were legion, but this book focuses on five of the most significant and a lifelong friendship. Her affairs with acclaimed writers Ezra Pound, Aldous Huxley, Michael Arlen and Louis Aragon were passionate and tempestuous, as was her romance with black jazz pianist Henry Crowder. Her friendship with the famous Irish novelist George Moore, her mother's lover and a man falsely rumored to be Nancy's father, was the longest-lasting of her life. Cunard's early years were ones of great wealth but also emotional deprivation. Her mother Lady Cunard, the American heiress Maud Alice Burke (who later changed her name to Emerald) became a reigning London hostess; Nancy, from an early age, was given to promiscuity and heavy drinking and preferred a life in the arts to one in the social sphere into which she had been born. Highly intelligent, a gifted poet and widely read, she founded a small press that published Samuel Beckett among others. A muse to many, she was also a courageous crusader against racism and fascism. She left Paris in 1933, at the end of its most glittering years and remained unafraid to live life on the edge until her death in 1965. Magnificent Rebel is a nuanced portrait of a complex woman, set against the backdrop of the City of Light during one of its most important and fascinating decades"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Cunard, Nancy, 1896-1965; Authors, English; Publishers and publishing; Women journalists; Women political activists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The coming bad days / by Bernstein, Sarah(Literature teacher),author.;
Includes bibliographical references.After leaving the man with whom she'd been living, an unnamed protagonist in an unnamed university city is working unspectacularly on the poet Paul Celan. The abiding feeling in the city is one of paranoia; the weather has been deteriorating and outside her office window she can hear police helicopters circling, looking for the women who have been disappearing. She is in self-imposed exile, hoping to find dignity in her loneliness. But when she meets Clara - a woman who is exactly her opposite - her plans begin to unravel. Reminiscent of Rachel Cusk, Gwendoline Riley and Thomas Bernhard, The Coming Bad Days is a penetrating interior portrait of feminine negation and cruelty.
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Female friendship; University towns; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Death and the visitors / by Redmond, Heather,1969-author.;
"1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon's downfall. Mary and Jane's father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. The Russians are enthusiastic followers of Mary's late mother, philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which leads to a lively dinner discussion. Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder. Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name. Coming to their aid is Godwin's disciple, the dashing poet Percy Shelley, who seems increasingly devoted to Mary, despite the fact that he is married. And a young woman Jane befriends turns out to be the mistress of the celebrated poet--and infamous lover--Lord Byron. As both sisters find themselves perhaps dangerously captivated by the poets, their proximity to the truth of the Russian's murder puts them in far greater peril ... "--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Novels.; Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Clairmont, Claire, 1798-1879; Godwin, William, 1756-1836; Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822; Man-woman relationships; Murder; Poets; Regency; Russians; Sisters; Stepsisters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Welcome home : a guide to building a home for your soul / by Zebian, Najwa,author.;
"From the celebrated poet, speaker, and educator Najwa Zebian comes a powerful approach to healing focused on building a home within yourself. In her debut book in the self-development space, poet Najwa Zebian shares her revolutionary concept of home to guide readers to embrace their vulnerability, discover their self-worth, and build their own strong foundations from the ground up. In Welcome Home, Najwa shares her own personal story for the first time, powerfully weaving memoir, poetry, and deeply resonant teachings, from leaving war-torn Lebanon for Canada at sixteen, to coming of age as a young Muslim woman in Canada, to sexual harassment that left her alienated from her community, to building a new identity for herself as she learned to speak her truth"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Zebian, Najwa; Home.; Lebanese; Muslim women authors; Self-actualization (Psychology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The case of the married woman : Caroline Norton and her fight for women's justice / by Fraser, Antonia,1932-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Poet, pamphleteer and artist's muse, Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity and intelligence. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result - acquittal - Norton legally denied Caroline access to her three children under seven. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband. Yet Caroline refused to despair. Beset by the personal cruelties perpetrated by her husband and a society whose rules were set against her, she chose to fight, not surrender. She channelled her energies in an area of much-needed reform: the rights of a married woman and specifically those of a mother. Over the next few years she campaigned tirelessly, achieving her first landmark victory with the Infant Custody Act of 1839. Provisions which are now taken for granted, such as the right of a mother to have access to her own children, owe much to Caroline, who was determined to secure justice for women at all levels of society from the privileged to the dispossessed. Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a woman, at once courageous and compassionate, who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time"--Publisher's description.
Subjects: Biographies.; Norton, Caroline Sheridan, 1808-1877.; Authors, English; Women authors, English; Women's rights; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Looking at women looking at war : a war and justice diary / by Amelina, Viktorii͡a,author.; Atwood, Margaret,1939-writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references."Destined to be a classic, a poet's powerful look at the courage of resistance When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country's literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children's book author. Everyone in Ukraine knew that Amelina was documenting the war. She photographed the ruins of schools and cultural centers; she recorded the testimonies of survivors and eyewitnesses to atrocities. And she slowly turned back into a storyteller, writing what would become this book. On the evening of June 27th, 2023, Amelina and three international writers stopped for dinner in the embattled Donetsk region. When a Russian cruise missile hit the restaurant, Amelina suffered grievous head injuries, and lost consciousness. She died on July 1st. She was thirty-seven. She left behind an incredible account of the ravages of war and the cost of resistance. Honest, intimate, and wry, this book will be celebrated as a classic"--
Subjects: Diaries.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Amelina, Viktorii͡a,; Authors, Ukrainian; Russo-Ukrainian War, 2014-;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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The love songs of W.E.B. Du Bois : a novel / by Jeffers, Honorée Fanonne,1967-author.;
The 2020 National Book Awardnominated poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic - an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of 'Homegoing', 'Sing, Unburied, Sing', and 'The Water Dancer' - that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era. A Dewey Diva Pick. #OwnVoices.
Subjects: Historical fiction.; African American women; African American families; African Americans; Identity (Psychology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Milk and honey / by Kaur, Rupi.;
This book is part of our Book Sanctuary collection. A Book Sanctuary is a physical or digital space that actively protects the freedom to read. It provides shelter and access to endangered books. Launched by Chicago Public Library in 2022, The Book Sanctuary initiative brings attention to challenged titles, and commits to making these books accessible. Innisfil ideaLAB & Library's Book Sanctuary Collection represents books that have been challenged, censored or removed from a public library or school in North America. More than 50 adult, teen, and children's books are in our collection and are available for browsing and borrowing in our branches and online. Explore the collection to learn more about why these books were challenged.LSC
Subjects: Canadian poetry.; Banned book sanctuary.; Survival; Women;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 3
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By any other name : a novel / by Picoult, Jodi,1966-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A captivating novel about two women, centuries apart, fighting to be heard -- one of whom may be the real author of Shakespeare's plays -- from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here. As an undergraduate, Melina Green had a rare opportunity to have one of her first plays judged by famous theater critic Jasper Tolle, only to be publicly humiliated by a harsh and biased critique. Ten years later, her confidence as a playwright has never recovered, although she has just completed a work that she thinks is her best yet. It is based on the life of her ancestor Emilia Bassano, the first published female poet in England -- and rumored to be the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets -- but whom some scholars suspect may be the real author of a number of his plays. Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, and then her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits it to a festival under a male pseudonym. In 1581, the young orphan Emilia Bassano is being raised in the ways of English aristocracy by the Baron Willoughby and his sister. Her lessons on languages, reading, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling. But like most women of her day, she has no control over her fate, and is ripped from her old life and forced to become a courtesan to Lord Hunsdon, a man knighted by Queen Elizabeth as the Lord Chamberlain in charge of all theater in London. Though she has no other freedoms, and inspired by the work of the most brilliant playwrights of the time, she pseudonymously sets her own pen to paper to tell a story. Told in dual intertwining timelines, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. As Emilia alters the course of her life and therefore the course of the world, she blazes a trail. Centuries later, will Melina face the same terrible fate -- to have her work celebrated, but only at the price of letting another take credit?"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Biographical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Lanyer, Aemilia; Women dramatists; Women;
Available copies: 4 / Total copies: 5
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