A Perfect Night to Go to China


Book Description

A man's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic after the son he was watching disappears.




Sparrow Nights


Book Description

An exhilarating novel of erotic and psychotic extremes from one of Canada’s best fiction writers. Everyone would agree that Darius Halloway was the most civilized of men, a professor of French literature, a connoisseur of ideas and women and wine, a perfect guest at life’s dinner party. Darius himself would have agreed, until Emma, waifish and insatiable,walks out the door, leaving her empty clothes hangers rattling in his closet. For a little while, it’s not so bad. He thinks she must come back, and other women find his melancholy quite compelling. But then the sparrows of insomnia start picking at the inside of his skull. Life’s little aggravating moments seem to require him to seek direct retaliation. Soon all his smoothness and cleverness is directed toward wreaking the most elaborate revenge… and getting away with it. Until the ultimate retaliation arises, and there he is, in the most damning of situations, with his nerves on fire and his heart in his throat…finally not thinking of Emma. From the Hardcover edition.




The Film Club


Book Description

From the 2005 winner of the Governor-General’s Award for Fiction and the former national film critic for CBC television comes a delightful and absorbing book about the agonies and joys of home-schooling a beloved son. Written in the spare elegant style he is known for, The Film Club is the true story about David Gilmour’s decision to let his 15-year-old son drop out of high school on the condition that the boy agrees to watch three films a week with him. The book examines how those pivotal years changed both their lives. From French New Wave, Kurosawa, and New German cinema, to De Palma, film noir, Cronenberg and Billy Wilder, among many others from world cinema, we read about key moments in each film, as the author teaches his son about life and the vagaries of growing up through the power of the movies. Replete with page-turning descriptions of scenes and actors and directors, the narrative is framed with the tender story of his son’s first bittersweet first loves. This is a charming and poignant story about a very special time in a father and son’s relationship. David Gilmour is a novelist who has earned critical praise from literary figures as diverse as William Burroughs and Northrop Frye, and from publications as different as the New York Times to People magazine. The author of six novels, he also hosted the award-winning Gilmour on the Arts. He lives in Toronto with his wife Tina Gladstone.




Canada's Storytellers | Les grands écrivains du Canada


Book Description

For over three-quarters of a century, the Governor General’s Literary Awards have been awarded annually in a variety of evolving categories. Fifteen Governors General have served as their patron. The impressive list continues to grow apace: between 1936 and 2018, the awards recognized 719 books in English and French and have been presented to 580 authors, illustrators, and translators. This beautifully illustrated bilingual compendium presents the biographies of all 580 award laureates, many accompanied by stunning archival portraits. This is the final instalment in Andrew Irvine’s remarkable and comprehensive research into what has become a touchstone of Canada’s literary culture. Together with Canada’s Best and The Governor General’s Literary Awards of Canada: A Bibliography, this work provides readers with a definitive overview of this literary prize. By itself, Canada’s Storytellers is an invaluable reading companion for anyone wanting to be introduced to many of our most influential authors, illustrators, and translators working in both French and English over the past decades. It belongs on the shelf of every enthusiast of Canadian literature. Bilingual edition.




Reading the 21st Century


Book Description

The first decade of the twenty-first century was noteworthy for war, terror, religious revival, economic collapse, and a technological revolution that prompted countless critical responses and gave rise to a paradox: writing flourished, but reading declined.Reading the 21st Centuryinvestigates the urgent themes, major works, and crisis of reading in an era of instant communication. In wide-ranging and innovative criticism, Stan Persky examines international non-fiction and fiction to engage with both the triumphs and tensions of reading and writing today. Evaluating works by established authors Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee, and José Saramago, as well as emerging writers like Naomi Klein, Javier Cercas, and Chimamanda Adichie, Persky also showcases a remarkable group of reporters - Steve Coll, Dexter Filkins, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran - who have written essential books about global issues. An illuminating and accessible work about the present age,Reading the 21st Centuryintroduces new ways of thinking about the world's most significant cultural, political, and moral problems.




Night Train to Turkistan


Book Description

The first account of travel in Chinese Turkistan, closed to foreigners since 1949, shows a world where bureaucratic hazards often loom larger than geographical ones. First serial to Esquire.




China


Book Description

This beautiful guide makes the vast enigma of China accessible to every visitor. Continuing the series' winning formula, this new edition combines in-depth, up-to-date descriptions with dazzling photographs, detailed maps, cutaway illustrations of renowned structures, and a wealth of useful travel tips organized by cities and areas.




Midnight in Peking


Book Description

Winner of the both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger from the author of City of Devils Chronicling an incredible unsolved murder, Midnight in Peking captures the aftermath of the brutal killing of a British schoolgirl in January 1937. The mutilated body of Pamela Werner was found at the base of the Fox Tower, which, according to local superstition, is home to the maliciously seductive fox spirits. As British detective Dennis and Chinese detective Han investigate, the mystery only deepens and, in a city on the verge of invasion, rumor and superstition run rampant. Based on seven years of research by historian and China expert Paul French, this true-crime thriller presents readers with a rare and unique portrait of the last days of colonial Peking.




The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature


Book Description

A fully revised second edition of this multi-author account of Canadian literature, from Aboriginal writing to Margaret Atwood.




Shanghai Girls


Book Description

Shanghai, 1937. Pearl and May are two sisters from a bourgeois family. Though their personalities are very different - Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid - they are inseparable best friends. Both are beautiful, modern and living a carefree life ... until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away the family's wealth, and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to two 'Gold Mountain' men: Americans. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, the two sisters set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the villages of southern China, in and out of the clutches of brutal soldiers, and even across the ocean, through the humiliation of an anti-Chinese detention centre to a new, married life in Los Angeles's Chinatown. Here they begin a fresh chapter, despite the racial discrimination and anti-Communist paranoia, because now they have something to strive for: a young, American-born daughter, Joy. Along the way there are terrible sacrifices, impossible choices and one devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel by Lisa See hold fast to who they are - Shanghai girls.