Search results for ""great plains publications ltd""

Three lives, one unreliable narrator and the consequences of losing intimacy. This is All a Lie opens with Ray leaving his mistress for the final time. At the bottom of her apartment tower, he answers his phone. It's Nancy, his lover, and she is threatening to jump if he drives away. She wants emotional truth in an arena where everything is a lie. She wants a reason to stay alive and Ray is uniquely unqualified to give her what she wants. Ray's wife, Tulah, loves snow and keeps a snow journal – every time it snows she goes out in it and records what she thinks and feels about the snow in the context of her life. Tulah is filled with secrets, and denial, and unhappiness and when she is drawn into Ray's messy affair, everything she thought she knew is thrown aside. What are the consequences of losing intimacy? Does Nancy jump from her 39th floor balcony? What happens with Tulah and Ray? The answers lie within, perhaps.

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Art Lessons is in the voice of Cassie from a seven-year-old to seventeen, when she finally leaves home for art school. She discovers the transformative power of visual art in herself and on the lives of others. Cassie lives in a family of sports nuts, she's a loner and easily distracted by boyfriends, but in love with trees, her inspiration for drawing, and the process of art-making, which to her feels like floating. While unlikely teachers of all ages challenge her, her Polish grandmother, Babci, is an intuitive guide on Cassie's path to becoming an artist. Through her own heightened observational skills and awareness of her difference, Cassie is saved by her art, changing as the trees she continues to draw over time.

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The despair of refugees has haunted us long before the civil war in Syria. Lyse Champagne's evocative new story collection attempts to put these collective and individual tragedies into an historical context.Two Armenian sisters write to each other in the year leading up to the deportations. A young Ukrainian mother embroiders her life story as famine threatens. A boy travels to Hong Kong by train while the Japanese march towards his hometown of Nanjing. A Jewish girl collects words and falls in love as she hides in a French mountain village in 1942. A Cambodian refugee recalls his childhood in his home country and his new life in Canada on a makeshift stage. A Rwandan family prepares to emigrate days before President Habyarimana's plane is shot down.These stories span the twentieth century and reach into the twenty-first. We discover letters, maps, and the kindness of strangers. Word lists, a falling piano, and young love. Hiding places, history lessons, and conversations around the table. Music, a makeshift stage, and life breathed into memories.

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Dean Gunnarson, world-renowned escapologist, has made a career of avoiding death. But his first escape was his greatest -- surviving juvenile leukemia. In the wake of his illness, a magic-obsessed young Dean mirrors the training of his hero Houdini in his hometown of Winnipeg. Another boy on the cancer ward, named Phil, also wants to walk in Houdini's footsteps. Together, Phil and Dean go on a quest for real, true magic that will save Philip's life. They ultimately learn magic can even surprise the magician.

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Unexplained footsteps at Seven Oaks House. A woman vanishing into thin air at the Hotel Fort Garry. Spirits reaching out from beyond the grave at the Pantages Theatre. Just what is happening in Winnipeg's heritage buildings at night? Early Winnipeg was a booming city full of excitement with no shortage of murders, cheating lovers and tragic accidents; all playing a role in Winnipeg having the reputation as one of Canada's most haunted places. Haunted Winnipeg shares with the reader the city's best known ghost stories, as well as some lesser-known tales. Hear about the people who may be haunting these historic sites while learning about the buildings' unique and creepy history.

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Before the internet, before TV, Manitoba was a hotbed for innovation in radio. These innovations range from the first publically-owned radio station to the first play-by-play broadcast of women's hockey. During World War II, a Winnipeg broadcaster was as well-known in England as Churchill. And Neil Young's very first recording was done at a local station. These are but a few of the stories of early radio in Manitoba. In its first half century, the medium was a powerful, revolutionary force that touched and linked virtually everyone in the province.

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After three years in the Mexican War, color-blind Dannon Lereaux sets out across the mountains in search of "love, red, and a new class of salvation," expecting to find all three in a girl called Madder Carmine. Set in the year 1849, amidst a vividly reconceived Appalachia, young Dannon has returned from the war only to discover home was finer when remembered from afar. Disenchanted and confused he puts all hope of deliverance in a girl he once met, and, along with an escaped slave named Virgil, he embarks on an epic journey to find her. But hard on their trail is Will Lawson, Virgil's vengeful owner. As Dannon is pushed deeper into the world of the hunted, his mind slips into a world of its own. Suddenly the mountains of his youth are transformed into the Nine Circles of Hell and Virgil becomes his soul-guide through the underworld. With this notion firm in his mind, Dannon commends himself to a surreal journey as he seeks redemption in the heart of the Inferno.

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Jamie Kidding finds a semi-automatic handgun in an inner-city dumpster. An aspiring artist, Jamie initially resorts to his notebook to record the reality of his complicated life with his mother, his deadbeat stepfather and the bullies he faces daily at his high school. Gradually, the weapon takes over Jamie's life and his imagination, tantalizing him with deadly solutions to his personal troubles. Seduced by a sense of power, one fateful day he takes the gun to school. Jamie's Got a Gun is a hypbrid of novel, film noir, and comic/graphic novel.

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This is the inspiring story of a Canadian woman who transformed a simple afternoon of reading to a group of children in her backyard in Ghana, Africa, into seven large community libraries in poor areas of the country's capital, support for more than 200 smaller initiatives around Ghana and in other African countries, and a publishing venture that produces children's books in English and Swahili. Kathy Knowles now runs her volunteer-based Osu Children's Library Fund out of her Winnipeg home with twice-yearly trips to Ghana. Her work promoting libraries and literacy continues – construction is now underway on a three-storey library in the area of the capital known as Korle Gonno.

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In Richard Van Camp's fictionalized north anything can happen and yet each story is rooted in a vivid contemporary reality. The stories offer a potent mix of tropes from science fiction, horror, Western and Aboriginal traditions. The title story pits Torchy against Smith Squad, fighting for love and family in a bloody, cathartic, and ultimately hopeful narrative. Van Camp's characters repeatedly confront the bleakness of sexual assault, substance addiction and violence with the joy and humour of inspired storytelling.

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Emerging from the back rooms, ultimate insider Michael Decter treats us to a range of raunchy and riveting stories of politics in Canada. From his youth stuffing envelopes for the NDP in Winnipeg to his days as Ontario premier Bob Rae's right-hand man, Michael Decter has helped shape policy in several governments. He has also met with the great, the not so great, and the downright bad. His stories of encounters with Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Bob Rae, Bill Clinton, and a host of others are by turns hilarious and thought-provoking.If you';ve ever wondered what went on in the smoke-filled rooms where nation-changing decisions of the 1980s and 90s were taking place, this is the book for you.

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When Liam's mom dies, he thinks life can't get any worse. He's wrong. Forced to live with a grandfather he has never known, in a small town where Youth and Crime are king and queen of a hick-town gang, Liam only wants to be left alone. Not easy, considering the gang's favourite hangout is the cemetery where his mom is buried. A popular place, this cemetery, as there he meets Harmony, a gorgeous but unusual girl who records the names of all the babies buried there long ago. Like Liam, she has a secret.The very different stories of these two grieving fifteen-year-olds interweave brilliantly in this fast-paced, engaging and unforgettable book about family, love and healing.

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Forced to move every twelve days, what would happen to your life? 1927. Rembrandt is the only child in the tiny community of Three Farms. Soon his two aunts grow desperate for babies of their own. A man wearing a black top-coat and a glad-ta-meet-ya smile arrives with a magic bottle and a deadly deal is made. Determined to undo the wager, Rembrandt, Pa, and Uncle Thompson embark on the journey of their lives, for if they stay in one place for more than twelve days terrible things happen. But where and when will they find a champion capable of defeating the Black Bottle Man? Time ticks. Lives change. Every twelve days. . .

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Sixteen-year-old Sarah (it’s pronounced SAH-rah, thank you) has a successful blog creating fusion recipes. When Sarah is invited to compete on Cyber Chef, a virtual cooking competition, her twists on her Baba’s recipes are not enough to pique the palate of the show’s producers. She is pushed to present dishes that represent her Filipinx culture, but these flavours are foreign to her since her parents raised her emphatically Jewish. To survive Cyber Chef and find her cultural identity, Sarah must discover why her mother turned her back on all things Filipinx, and learn the true meaning of fusion.

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From pre-contact Indigenous trading through 1939, Thinking Big examines the history of businesses, business leaders, and organisations in Winnipeg. Discover how the Winnipeg business community dealt with challenges such as the Great Depression and the post-World War I depression, and organised itself to take advantage of periods of growth and prosperity.

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The stories in Vermin are linked by themes of loss, longing and music: a restaurant server in a Tofino restaurant reflects on the nature of men in her past and present; a woman prepares to marry a brooding artist unpopular with both her parents and her small town community; a new homeowner has strange encounters witha previous owner who is struggling to let go. Stories in this collection have appeared in Joyland, The Saturday Evening Post, Room, The Antigonish Review and other journals and anthologies.

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She lives outside the village, in the woods, near the river, with her sister. Or her mother. She doesn’t really know. Her life is simple, but nothing ever stays the same. Her body is changing; life around her is changing, too. And there aren’t many people around who can explain to her what’s happening.A story with a sombre offbeat mood, guided along by a narrator using unique and colourful language.Originally published by Québec-Amérique as À l’abri deshommes et des choses

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Opposite Identicals is an upper middle grade novel set in the very near future — a time when climate change has irreversibly altered our planet and lifestyles. Nova and Joule are fourteen-year old twins whose scientist parents have recently uprooted the family from their urban home and moved to the country on a year-long research assignment, studying the effects of GMO 'SuperCrop' farming on the environment in the final regulatory phase before global expansion. Surrounded by nature and quiet, open spaces, shy, bookish Nova is in heaven. But Joule - whose life's ambition is to be famous and reach a million Hollagram followers - is desperate to escape. One day, Joule gets her wish, although not in a way anyone ever expected. In an instant, she's gone - swallowed up by a mysterious sinkhole under her bedroom floor. Suddenly twinless, Nova is forced to step in and lead the search for her missing sister. But can she face her fears and figure out what caused the sinkhole in time to save Joule? Told from alternating points of view, it's a fantastical adventure about overcoming obstacles, self-discovery, and environmental awareness.

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Based on extensive interviews, My Left Skate: The Extraordinary Story of Eliezer Sherbatov is a first-person biography of a teenager who had it all on the hockey rink: guts, drive, and exceptional talent. When a freak accident leaves him with a permanent disability and no feeling below his left knee, everyone believes Eliezer's career is over -- everyone except his mother, a professional power skating coach. She teaches Eliezer to skate using the muscles in his upper leg, and after two and half years of operations and rehabilitation, he returns to the rink to become one of Quebec's elite junior players. Still undrafted at age nineteen, Eliezer embarks on a professional career in Europe in the hopes of one day returning to the NHL. His travels lead him to France, Kazakhstan, Slovakia, and to Poland, where he lives and plays hockey just a few kilometres from the Auschwitz death camp, haunted by memories of the past. In its stunning conclusion, My Left Skate describes Eliezer's life in Ukraine and his struggle to escape from war after Russia invades the very region in which he lives and plays.

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"What this town has done, its like pickling people. Taking us when were young and fresh and vulnerable, sticking us in a jar and filling us with all these rules they hope will preserve us from the rotting decay of worldliness. But you cant brine someone in that much guilt and shame their whole lives and expect them not to change. Shrivel into mere husks of their former selves, sour as vinegar. Twenty-seven-year-old Isaac Funk is broke, drifting, and questioning his lonely existence on the East Coast. Having left his conservative hometown of Newfield, Manitoba full of piss and vinegar, Isaacs dreams of studying music and embracing queer culture in Halifax have gradually fizzled out. When his grandfather dies and leaves him a substantial inheritance, Isaac is pulled back to the Prairies for the first time in ten years. Finding his father Abe just as enigmatic and unreachable as always and his extended family more fragmented than ever, Isaac begins to wonder if there will ever be a place for him in Newfield. Is the prodigal son home for good, or is it time to cut and run once more?"

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When cousins, Ford, Ellie and Gavin, discover their great-grandfather was a rogue World War 2 spymaster, they must outrun MI6 and the CIA through the streets of Paris, relying on their wits and Ford's newfound clairvoyant skills to unlock Great-Granddad's spy secrets buried in the past. Great-Granddad hid something important to the war effort and these agencies want it back!

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Maggie Johnson is dealing with too much — the rising distrust and hate of the townspeople, her growing (and unpredictable) supernatural powers, and the dead, waiting to be transitioned from this side to the next. Right now, they're her saving grace. But when a soul-eater steals the ghost she's transitioning, things don't just take a turn for the worse, they take a turn for the personal. This thing has a connection to her and to her family, and it's coming for revenge. As Maggie races to stop the entity, the body count ticks up, and the soul-eater's touch reaches close to home. The answers Maggie seeks are coming to a head, but will she survive the revelation?

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Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the NHL, Golden Boys looks at fifty players that have shaped the history of hockey in Manitoba. Featuring detailed biographies, rare photographs and plenty of never-been-told before stories, Golden Boys is sure to delight, surprise and cause arguments amongst hockey fans young and old.

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Winnipeg is a place of extremes. Winters are fierce and relentless. Summers are unbearably hot. It has been both the murder and auto theft capital of Canada and the Slurpee capital of the world. It is a place that exerts an influence, that marks and changes its inhabitants. This anthology features writers who have all lived in Winnipeg for a time and been inspired, horrified, changed by that experience. The stories here capture a tone of history, dread, violence, weirdness, and sometimes even whimsy; a tone that only Winnipeg exudes.

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Six months ago, Julia's life was perfect. Then her dad died. Now she lives with her grieving mother and sick grandmother in a puny apartment above their bookstore. After a dark bout of depression, Julia is fragile and mourns both her father and her old life. But she has one thing to be happy about: Jeremy, the most popular boy at school, has chosen her. Jeremy's love for Julia is passionate, even obsessive. As she grows closer to Jeremy, Julia pushes her disapproving friends and family away. But Jeremy only becomes more controlling and Julia has to decide what lines cannot be crossed.

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When a great earthquake rocks the Pacific Northwest, fifteen-year-old Rowan Morgan is hiking in a suburban forest. Tremors rip the coast from Oregon to Alaska and turn Rowan's world upside down. After her father is wounded and taken to the hospital, he orders Rowan and her brother to stay inside his earthquake-proof, survivalist home. While the electrified fences offer some protection, it isn't long before mobs gather, desperate for some of the food and water rumoured to be held inside. Rowan knows that if the hungry neighbours had any true idea of the riches in her father's cellar and water tanks, they wouldn't be so easily turned away. Early one morning, Rowan leaves the compound and sets off in search of her father. She is turned away from the hospital and so goes to check on nearby friends where she finds a local gang has moved in. She escapes from them only to run into a stranger she met in the forest the day before. Why is he following her and what does he want?

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Lee Kvern's much-anticipated new collection contains stories which revolve around humanity in all its flawed glory: an artist's girlfriend dies by mistake; a mother holds surveillance on her son's foray into drugs; a sibling's jealousy toward her sickly brother; a father's death; a mother's fear for her unbridled, grade-two son; a woman with a hijab in the modern world of Save-on groceries. An arborist, his wife and a Shar-Pei are in need of an attitude adjustment; a dying senior looks back over her life, her children, her lost love; RCMP and prostitutes come for tea on a Wednesday afternoon.

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In The Lucky Ones: African Refugees' Stories of Extraordinary Courage, Anne Mahon presents a collection of personal accounts of heartbreaking loss, extraordinary bravery, and the resilience needed to begin again in a new country. Candidly told in their own words, the subjects reveal the uplifting truth of their unbreakable human spirit. A wide assortment of men and women ranging in age from four to 73 represent a variety of African countries and backgrounds. Their compelling stories span from experiences in their African birth countries to their new home in Manitoba. These inspiring insights challenge assumptions and encourage understanding. All author proceeds from the sale of this book will go to micro-lending opportunities and post-secondary scholarships for the African community of Manitoba.

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Before Luke came into his life, all Ben cared about was skateboarding, and whether his father would ever remember that he was alive. Then there was Luke, and it felt like he was being carried along on some sort of wave. But then Luke died, and everyone at school thinks it's his fault. Maybe it is.The Fall charts the lives of three boys as they deal with the death of their friend and brother. One turns to alcohol to escape his guilt. Another looks to a gang to replace what he's lost. Ben needs to find a way to reconcile his role in Luke's death and prove that he was not to blame. He must also learn that the man he will become is his to define.

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Bethany, a beautiful and popular teen hangs herself the night before Halloween. Her devoted sister follows her into a frozen death, and a city where trees bleed along the banks of a river of blood. Meanwhile, Addy is visiting from Montreal, determined that Natalie's mother will give birth to her baby while she is there.Consider a baby born in a snowstorm, one girl who never sleeps and another who craves blood, ghostly footprints and dangling corpses, New Year's fireworks and an unexpected kiss, all tied to a legendary queen who lives in the hidden center of Suicide City.

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Manitoba’s history is one of being carved. Ice sculpted the land before nomadic first people pressed trails across it. Southern First Nations dug into the earthto grow corn and potatoes while those in the north mined it for quartz used in arrowheads. Fur traders arrived, expanding on Indigenous trading networks and shaping new ones.Then came settlers who chiselled the terrain with villages, towns and cities.But there is failure and suffering etched into the history, too.In Winnipeg, slums emerged as the city’s population boomed. There were more workers than jobs and the pay was paltry. Immigrants and First Nations were treated as second-class, shunted to the fringes. Rebellions and strikes, political scandals and natural disasters occured as the people molded Manitoba.That past has been thoroughly chronicled, yet within it are lesser-known stories of people, places and events. In The Lesser Known, Darren Bernhardt shares odd tales lost in time, such as The Tin Can Cathedral, the first independent Ukrainianchurch in North America; the jail cell hidden beneath a Winnipeg theatre; the bear pit of Confusion Corner; gardening competitions between fur trading forts and more.Once deemed important enough to be documented, these stories are now buried. It's time to carve away at them once again.

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Eugenia Grimm is a tough girl living in a tough town at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She drinks and fights and pushes against expectations. She is also hurting. After her father died by suicide on her eighth birthday, her older brothers drifted away and her mother up and left when she turned 14, Eugenia has not made the best choices. After a last-straw violent incident and faced with the possibility of incarceration, she is sentenced to time at an Intensive Support and Supervision Program located at a remote mountain ranch. There, she begins to make connections, explore difficult truths, and might even turn things arounduntil a series of events pull her into a dark spiral she may not have the strength to resist.

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Part memoir, part social history, this collection of ten essays explores the various physical and natural elements that form the backdrop to Braun’s memories of growing up on a farm in southern Manitoba in the mid-20th century. From blackboard chalk to curling rocks in the chapter on stone, from mirages to straight-line winds in the essay on light and air, she reflects on her interactions with the elements as a child and how her responses influenced her evolution into adulthood.Braun includes intriguing tidbits about the science and history behind each element as it pertains to life in her unique location on our planet. The book highlights the value and beauty of the simple components of our surroundings that we take for granted growing up, exposes their true complexity, and reveals how the fascination with a “simple” thing can become a lifelong pursuit that sustains our artistic and spiritual needs.

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Seventeen-year-old Chloe fears she’s a Dud, a child born to two werewolves who can’t change into a wolf. If she’s still a Dud by the time she reaches adulthood, she’ll be exiled. In the meantime, she’s at the bottom of the pack hierarchy. But Chloe is a natural Alpha, unable to bow her head meekly. While running through the woods, she encounters a feral werewolf with the opposite problem: he’s trapped in wolf form. Chloe suspects the feral is her old classmate, Marcus, who everyone believes died along with the rest of his family in a mysterious plane crash last year. Chloe vows to help Marcus regain his human self because giving up on him would mean admitting possible failure for herself, too. But she must act quickly. Pack law mandates killing ferals.

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During a winter season in the mid-1970s, unexpected and dramatic events shape the lives of three people living in the mansion, Winter Willow.Melanie, a young graduate student, is grieving the loss of her mother and main support system when she discovers that her PhD funding has been cancelled. Then she meets Stone, owner of Winter Willow, an old mansion in her neighbourhood, and is offered a position as his personal assistant. Moving in with him during that snowy and isolating season not only creates a strange sleepiness that makes it difficult for Melanie to concentrate on her studies, but also serves to disrupt the life and routine of Stone and his housekeeper, Celeste.When Melanie begins a relationship with a fellow grad student, she is confronted with the choice between a future with him and her life at Winter Willow. This novel explores the moment when a life can change, the pivot upon which the future depends.

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Discover the history of Manitoba sites through the stories of the ghosts that haunt them.Manitoba may seem like a quiet province, but its prairies teem with paranormal activity. A ghostly groundskeeper still does his rounds at the Delta Marsh Field Station; strange noises and apparitions of children in 19th-century clothing have been reported at Lower Fort Garry; and Mrs. Kennedy still welcomes guests to Captain Kennedy’s House—just as she did when her home was built in 1866. Haunted Manitoba shares eerie stories from all corners of the province and places them in the context of Manitoba’s rich history.

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A cutting satire concerning the death spiral of the white, male identity.With his divorce nearly finalized, the surprise success of his freshman book on the wane, and his ill-advised affair with grad student Lara Kitts put to bed, Dr. Barker Samuel Stone is on the precipice of a cozy tenure-track existence. All in all, none too shabby for a straight, aware, upper-middle-class white dude, amirite?Then an enigmatic e-mail sends Barker’s life spiralling along an unanticipated trajectory. Summoned to a late-night confab at the campaign office of controversial mayoral candidate Baz Randell – folk hero to some, populist blowhard to everyone else – Barker is looped in on an epic, career-ending scandal.In the midst of mounting chaos, Barker is informed that an anonymous complainant has levied a claim of sexual misconduct against him. Given the university’s embarrassing record of botching cases of misconduct, Barker is advised that the administration is looking to bring the hammer down on someone – anyone – hard.In his whole life, Barker has never before felt so much like a nail.

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In 1904, Assiniboine Park was conceived as a people’s playground, a place devoid of commercial amusements where all classes of Winnipeggers could relax and rejuvenate in idyllic and Arcadian surroundings. The book traces the development of the park and its infrastructure—the layout of fields, forests and gardens, the two pavilions, the conservatories and the zoo—and how this corresponded with an ever-evolving Winnipeg. It explains the actions, conflicts, and arguments of a colorful cast of politicians and bureaucrats who made the park what it is today. The story of Assiniboine Park is told within the wider context of the evolution of urban parks in Canada and the United States.

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