Search results for ""goose lane editions""

Giller Prize-winner Lynn Coady's unforgettable Christmas story "The Three Marys," is adapted from her award-winning debut novel, Strange Heaven, published in 1993. Published on the occasion of Goose Lane Editions's 60th anniversary, it is also a part of the six@sixty collection.

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"Warner relishes, in each poem, the discovery of the ugly, the reveal of the rotting underneath and inside. The rhythms feel sometimes like heavy boots on the feet, worn loosely with the laces untied, the writing tumbling occasionally into poetic grace -- that silent melody which pulls the readers in by their necks." -- Amy Andersen, Scene

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Ailsa Kay lays out the literary equivalent of a jigsaw puzzle in Under Budapest, bringing into stark relief the triumphs, calamities, and desperation of two North American Hungarian families and those whose lives they've touched. There's Agnes and Tibor, mother and son, travelling to Hungary for reasons they keep to themselves, he to recover from a disastrous love affair, she to search for a sister gone missing during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. There's Janos, a self-styled player and petty thug, who schemes to make it rich in post-communist Hungary. And there's Gyula and Zsofi, caught up in a revolution that will change the face of Hungary forever. Their lives are all connected by a conflagration of events: The legacy of wartime violence, past allegiances, long-buried rivalries, and secrets from the past. Through riveting narratives that spring back and forth through time, Under Budapest captures the drama and ravages of the Hungarian Revolution and the eras that followed. A dark ode to memory, Kay's intimate spectacle demonstrates that actions have consequences, that the past cannot be shaken, that all events can carry the possibility of repercussion.

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When most people think of the War of 1812, they think of the Niagara frontier, the British burning of the White House, the harrowing tale of Laura Secord, and the much-ballyhooed Battle of New Orleans. But there was more of British North America involved in the war than Upper and Lower Canada. With Great Britain locked in battle with Napoleon's France, the United States pounced on the chance to declare war on Britain. In New Brunswick, the threat of invasion was a very real possibility. Fearing for their lives, families, and property, the people and their legislative assembly adopted every possible measure to make New Brunswick ready for war. However, an officially undeclared state of neutrality was established along the Maine border, and the threat faded. Supporting the British army in its efforts in Upper and Lower Canada and the navy in its operations along the Atlantic coast led to major growth in the province's war economy.As the war moved into its final year and Napoleon's empire fell in Europe, Britain became much more aggressive in its North American campaign. Buoyed by this, the New Brunswick government decided to press its claims to the unresolved international border with Maine. The British military thus occupied the Penobscot River Valley, and northern Maine was declared part of New Brunswick. By the end of the war, and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, the unresolved border remained unresolved.The economic, political, geographical, and societal results of the War of 1812 continue to be felt in New Brunswick. The war strengthened the colony's ties to Britain, built up its economy, and led to the growth of major cities, especially with the settlement of retiring soldiers. Shipbuilding and supplying the British troops had led to growing profits for farmers, fishermen, merchants, and labourers. Although it would be decades later before the boundary issue was officially settled, there were areas still in dispute. Unlike its Upper and Lower Canadian cousins, the war in New Brunswick may not have involved the burning and pillaging of towns and villages, but its effects were nonetheless important and far-reaching.A Neighbourly War is volume 19 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

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Shortlisted, George Bugnet Award for FictionKalila chronicles the lives of Maggie and Brodie, whose joy collides with devastation when their daughter's birth also heralds the news of her congenital heart condition. In this startlingly inventive novel, Rosemary Nixon braids light and darkness into a narrative chain pulled exquisitely taut. Through Maggie and Brodie's shifting viewpoints, the isolating impenetrability of hospital life, the mediation of physics, music, and family, Nixon propels the reader into unmapped emotional terrain where a shell-shocked family grapples with the horror, joy, and mystery of impermanence. The result is a spellbinding tale, provocative for the emotions and the intellect.

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There's something fresh and fantastic in Aurian Haller's view of the world. In Song of the Taxidermist, he demonstrates both a fascination and unease with the independence of the body -- its resistance to the self's colonizing imperative. Employing a powerful visual and intellectual imagination, a camera and a roving curiosity, he investigates the ways that flesh inhabits the spaces around us. Building upon the stories of famous taxidermied specimens -- the celebrated French giraffe, Zarafe, and the Alaskan sled dog, Togo -- he explores what it means when the shell of a being becomes iconic in a culture: how place, an idea, or a quality might fill a standing skin. Like his compatriots Erin Mouré, Roo Borson, and Michael Ondaatje, Aurian Haller pushes beyond the constraints of the short lyric or narrative moment to experiment with larger thematic forms. This stunning new collection, so carefully executed in image and phrasing, so agile in its metaphors, is both astonishing in scope and lush in its imaginative landscape.

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Winner, Alberta Historical Resources Foundation Heritage Award, Canadian Museums Association Outstanding Achievement in Publications, and Redgees Legacy AwardShortlisted, Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book PrizeRemember pearl-snap Western shirts, Scrubbies jeans, and denim jackets, George W. Groovy, Cowboy Kings, Red Straps? Take a trip down memory lane and relive the GWG story! Remember the slogans "Anything Goes," "They wear longer, because they're made stronger," and Wayne Gretzky's declaration that "I grew up in GWGs"? GWGs have been a cultural icon in Canada since the company's founding in 1911. Here, at long last, is the complete, lushly illustrated history of the Great Western Garment Company, whose products were staples for some generations and defined cool for others. This lavish book includes archival photographs, advertisements, product photos, and insights on the long history of this iconic Canadian company. Begun in Edmonton, GWG not only manufactured jeans, but also helped immigrant women support their families, becoming a model of management and labour working collaboratively. GWG eventually became the largest workwear manufacturing company in Canada, providing different styles of work and leisure clothing for men, women, and children, and for the military during both world wars. Although Levis acquired the company during the 1960s and '70s and closed the last factories in 2004, the GWG brand remains a part of pop culture. It is firmly fixed in the Canadian psyche and still holds a place in Canadian hearts.

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Shortlisted, Next Generation Indie Book AwardHeart-corroding sex with a tin woodman. A foundering marriage like a cat on the brink of death that still manages to purr. Sharon McCartney's visceral exploration of relationships -- how they begin and end, the tenuous threads that hold people together, and the events that can tear them apart -- is unstinting, eyes-wide-open aware. Beginnings, endings, transitions: none elude the sometimes sardonic but always sinuous language of these finely wrought poems.

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Brent MacLaine's elegant, capacious, and finely crafted fourth collection, Athena Becomes a Swallow, contains twenty-seven monologues spoken by characters that appear in Homer's The Odyssey. These are not the voices of the major players, but the voices of the minor characters who received scant attention in the original. Here they are allowed to have their say about the events that swirl around them, providing a new persepctive and showing how the shine of the gods also falls on the common folk.

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Winner, Archibald Lampman Poetry Award and Ottawa Book AwardThese poems chart moments where the beauty of life is glimpsed like a carnival through a crack in a fence. The verse is full of living toys, dressing up, and daylight ghosts. His world is peopled with gods and heroes and inventories the luminous, devastating details of everyday lives. Poile discerns that love is an odd mix of a fairy princess and the monster under the bed. Tracing a firm entry into middle age, Poile favours the expression of a shared experience of the world as opposed to the youthful desire to be unique. He vaults between two worlds: an outer, urban landscape where people raise families, make a living, and get on in the world and an inner terrain of thought and emotion. Metre and rhyme both underscore and undercut Poile's subject matter, and he captivates with texture and sound. Although his work is informed by tradition, his language is grounded in the quotidian, setting up a fruitful dialog between past and present. There are no rules when it comes to making a poem that sings and shimmers.

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Winner, Atlantic Independent Booksellers Choice Award and Best Atlantic Published Book AwardShortlisted, British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and National Business Book AwardWere the Gallery's treasures gifts or loans? Was Lord Beaverbrook careless or devious? Jacques Poitras sifts through the personal correspondence, takes stock of the witnesses and testimony at the 2006 arbitration hearings, and interviews the combatants of a bitter legal battle that rocked the art world on both sides of the Atlantic. Deftly connecting the pieces of this historic jigsaw puzzle, he tells a fascinating tale peopled with an arresting cast of characters — from the self-proclaimed "master propagandist" to the present-day heirs of the Beaverbrook legacy.

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An invasion? For teenagers Dryfly Ramsey and Shadrack Nash, poor and ignorant in the world's terms but rich in the lore of the magical Miramichi, the annual influx of American anglers, with their money, fishing gear, and thirst for salmon seems like one, and it sets the stage for action. A cast of quirky, unforgettable characters — Nutbeam, a large-nosed, floppy-eared hermit; Shirley, Brennan Siding's toothless postmistress and Ramsey family matriarch; and Buck, who appears once a year to sire another child — conspire to capture the imagination in Herb Curtis's now classic novel. And what of the Whooper, that mystical beast whose cries result in amazingly tall tales? In The Americans Are Coming, the voices of Brennan Siding ring out in the rich vernacular of New Brunswick's Miramichi region, a world immersed in myth, folklore, and the sulpherous belch of a nearby pulp mill, and where ghosts and demons are as real as the Lone Ranger or the spring run of gaspereaux. With a new afterword by David Adams Richards.

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In this entertaining volume, you'll find Governor General Award-winner Margaret Avison and American sci-fi novelist Piers Anthony rubbing shoulders with Blag Dahlia and Ben Bachelder. You'll read of Jello Biafra's encounter with shoe-eating cows, Alan Dean Foster's ride on a whale shark, and Kage Baker's hilarious account of actors broken down on Interstate 5. Filmmakers, politicians, stand-up comedians, poets, journalists, and carpenters all come together through the shared experience of hitching a ride. Throughout the '60s and '70s -- the heyday of hitchhiking -- this form of travel was a key means of transportation. Today, people continue to hitchhike all over the world. Money never changes hands, but all manner of social transactions take place. Hilarious, sad, nostalgic, sometimes scary, and always entertaining, these travelers' tales will open your eyes and take you back -- or forward. Just when you think you've heard it all, turn the page. You'll discover you haven't!

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Straight from the heart of the music industry, a book that answers a question that has nagged music fans across the nation. What are the best Canadian albums of all time? A unique panel of those who live and breathe Canadian music was assembled. Musicians, broadcasters, club owners, retailers, roadies, and more -- literally hundreds of people across the country cast their votes in this unprecedented poll. Rush's Neil Peart, Ron Sexsmith, Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies, Holly Cole, Kim Stockwood, Sass Jordon, Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea, Saturday Night Blues host Holger Peterson, and The Vinyl Café's Stuart McLean are just a few of the people who voted for their favourite albums. Who will make the top 10? Neil or Joni? Rush or The Hip? Leonard or Gordon? The Band or Arcade Fire? The countdown in on! A groundbreaking book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums features cover reproductions and descriptions for each of the albums that make it onto the list, as well as documentary photographs, in-depth interviews, fascinating facts, and musician-contributed sidebars.

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The brutal battlefields of Europe during World War II were the testing ground for the young men of the 1st Battalion of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment. On June 6, 1944, the soldiers landed on the coast of France as part of the first wave of the D-Day invasion. After securing the eastern flank of the Canadian landing along Juno Beach, the Regiment was in constant contact with the enemy over the next thirty days, suffering a steady stream of casualties. This led to a ferocious battle in the French village of Carpiquet. For five days, the Regiment endured a living hell and suffered nearly 300 casualties. By the end of it, the North Shore Regiment had effectively died. For the first time, the comprehensive tale of this storied Regiment is finally told.D-Day to Carpiquet is volume 9 in the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

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In this illuminating essay, Neil Bissoondath explores the powerful influence exerted by narrative on the human psyche. Storytelling is a primary activity in the human experience. The stories that we tell ourselves, as well as those we hear from others, help to answer the question of who we are, "as individuals, as familial beings, as social beings." On a deeper level, stories are also subtle forms of confession. They reveal our dreams and desires, our fears and fantasies, our hurts and pleasures. Sifting through history, Bissoondath examines how governments, both totalitarian and democratic, have sought to control and to simplify narrative. Novelists, to different and contradictory ends, have used narrative as a sphere of exploration and discovery, where questions are numerous and answers are rare. Fiction, suggests Bissoondath, is a subtle, yet powerful narrative form, unsurpassed in its ability to confirm human complexity and to affirm human existence. Dans cet essai édifiant, Neil Bissoondath explore la puissante influence qu'exerce la narration sur la psyché humaine. Raconter des histoires est une activité primordiale dans l'expérience humaine. Les histoires que nous-mêmes racontons, de même que celles que nous entendons raconter par d'autres, nous aident á répondre á la question de savoir qui nous sommes "en tant que personnes, en tant que membres d'une famille, en tant qu'êtres sociables". À un niveau plus profond, les histoires sont aussi une forme subtile de confessions. Elles révèlent nos rêves et nos désirs, nos peurs et nos fantasmes, ce qui nous blesse ou nous fait plaisir. Puisant des exemples dans l'histoire, Bissoondath examine comment les gouvernements, tant totalitaires que démocratiques, ont cherché á contrôler et á simplifier la narration. Les romanciers, quant á eux, ont utilisé la narration á des fins différentes et contradictoires comme une sphère d'exploration et de découvertes, où les questions sont nombreuses et où les réponses sont rares. Bissoondath suggère que la fiction est une forme de narration subtile mais néanmoins puissante, qui est sans égale dans sa capacité á confirmer la complexité des hommes et á affirmer l'existence humaine.

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John Reibetanz captures the ordinary details of life -- family and friendship, birth and death -- and transforms them into the extraordinary. His seventh book of poetry is a masterful collection, finely crafted with wit, warmth and affection. Transformations is divided into four parts, each providing a different perspective on the main theme. Choosing not to confront but to explore, he allows for subtle revelations of a deeper truth which hover just beneath the surface, turning the world upside down and right side up again with his poetic "transformations." The result is nothing short of magical.

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In Tacoma Narrows, Mitchell Parry reflects on the nature of disasters, both public and private. A reflection on things lost, Parry allows himself to feel deeply, to ask what went wrong and to ruminate tragic moments with humility and romantic sensibility. Acutely aware of the nature that surrounds him, Parry embraces things like the wind howling at his window, an elk in the backyard or an orange sunset, and attaches them to memories. A deep mediation in three parts, Tacoma Narrows is a consideration on how we weather storms, the "currents, turmoil, vortices" of life and recognizing that one is "still learning to let lost things stay lost." The result is a courageous, moving and deeply personal collection that asks us to realise that letting things go is the hardest thing disasters of all kinds demand of us, but it's also perhaps the most important lesson they can teach us.

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A long-awaited history of this important Canadian regiment, The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 looks at this military unit from its beginnings in the early days of the 19th century to its disbanding in 1817. Best known for its perilous Winter March through the wilderness of New Brunswick to the battlefields of Upper Canada, the 104th was a British unit whose early role in the War of 1812 was to defend the Maritimes. In 1813, it was ordered to Upper Canada and took part in a raid on the American naval base at Sackets Harbor, New York. From there, they were sent to the Niagara Peninsula and fought in the Battle of Beaver Dams. Returning to Kingston, parts of the regiment fought in the Battle of Lundy's Lane and took part in the siege of Fort Erie, during which their commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel William Drummond, was killed. The 104th fought its last action at Lyon's Creek in October 1815. The end of the war in 1815 saw the regiment in Montreal, where it disbanded in 1817. Although styled as a New Brunswick regiment, it drew its members from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Upper and Lower Canada, England, Scotland, and Ireland. The story of the 104th can be seen as a truly national endeavour, whereby "British Americans" in British North America, and Britons alike, defended those colonies from foreign aggression. After the war, many of the veterans remained in British North America and helped to build what would eventually become Canada. Today there are a few memorials, a bridge named in the regiment's honour, and a few artifacts, but the story of the 104th has largely been forgotten. The bicentenary of the War of 1812 has revived interest in this regiment — the only regular regiment of the British Army to be raised and employed on this continent during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. This history of the 104th relies upon period correspondence, reports, diaries, and journals to describe the exploits of this famous unit. The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 is volume 21 of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Series.

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Described as Newfoundland's answer to Frank McCourt, M.T. Dohaney's To Scatter Stones is available once again. Long out of print, the highly anticipated To Scatter Stones was first published in 1992, the second novel in Dohaney's celebrated Corrigan Women trilogy. In this novel, Tess Corrigan, newly divorced, has moved from Montreal to St. John's as manager of a travel agency. On a visit to her birthplace, a tiny outport called the Cove, she agrees to stand as the Liberal candidate in the forthcoming provincial election. Little by little, she becomes wrapped up in the lives of her childhood friends and neighbours. But the return to her roots is also difficult. The last of the Corrigan women, Tess is the daughter of Carmel and an American soldier, who turns out to be a bigamist. In addition to the uncomfortable echoes from her past, Tess's politics stir up conflict in the traditionally Tory village. Not only does she face discouraging odds and hard ethical choices, but she is the first "petticoat candidate" ever to run for office in the Cove. On top of these external crises, Tess must deal with her own conflicting emotions and the love of youth, Dennis Walsh, now a priest, who reappears in the Cove. To Scatter Stones spans from the 1960s into the 1990s, marking not only the life changes of the last of the Corrigan women, but the radical changes as Newfoundland moved from paternalism and an economy based on the fishery to a more equitable political ideal. With wit and insight, M.T. Dohaney carries the story of the Corrigan women into the final decades of the 20th century.

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Readers and critics who warmed to the fine intelligence of his debut collection will be astonished and delighted to see how much Eric Miller has matured as a poet in the six years since Song of the Vulgar Starling first appeared in 1999. In the beautifully constructed and perceptive poems of his new collection, In the Scaffolding, Miller moves fluidly from one delight to another. Fatherhood and the imagined world of the infant, the overabundant complexity of Nature, the mind's endless curiosity, and the inner life of birds are just some of the topics that fall under the lens of this versatile and vibrant poet. Governor General's Award nominee Lynn Davies says that Miller's work shows "how words can move us into the process of recognition." With his long, floating rhapsodic sentences and exquisite metaphorical structures, Miller has often been compared with the great Romantic poet Shelley. Certainly few writers today can match his gifts for expressive language and surprising poetic rhythms.

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Winner of the 1979 Governor General's Award for fiction, Antonine Maillet's virtuoso creation, The Tale of Don L'Orignal, is now back in print. Maillet's tale begins one day, not so very long ago but back in the youth of the world, when a hay-covered island materialized off shore, an island populated by fleas who soon took human form. The leader of this uncouth crew of have-nots, Don l'Orignal, wore a moose-antler crown as his badge of office. At his right hand were his brave lieutenants: his son, Noume, and his general, Michel-Archange. The general's wife, the doughty charwoman, spy, and rabble-rouser La Sagouine, had one finger in every pie and one raised to her neighbour, La Sainte. The Flea Islanders were constantly at odds with the almost as clever but far more civilized upper crust of the mainland village: the mayoress, the schoolteacher, the merchant, the banker. When they invaded and tried to steal a keg of molasses, the outcome of the mock-heroic battle was unclear, except that La Sainte's son, the hapless young Citrouille, and Adeline, the merchant's lovely daughter, had fallen in love. With the insider's accumulation of oral history, gossip, and shrewd hindsight, Antonine Maillet has conjured up a fictional Acadia that her ancestors would relish. Perhaps those who could read it would have even understood it: she wrote Don l'Orignal in a version of 16th-century domestic French that she adapted for modern readers. In this far-fetched, but always entertaining fable, Maillet holds up a mirror to Acadian history and to an all too fallible human nature.

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Douglas Glover's raucous first novel was a finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award and sold out its first and only print run in just one month. Now mystery fans and readers of literary fiction alike can once again enjoy this witty post-modern detective tale by the author of Elle. The eponymous central character in Precious is a boozy, burned-out reporter with an embarrassing nickname and a penchant for getting into trouble. After three failed marriages and a humiliating stint in a Greek jail, he will do anything for the quiet life. A job as woman's page editor for the Ockenden Star-Leader seems like just the ticket -- that is, until town gossip Rose Oxley winds up dead with a pair of scissors lodged in her chest. Suddenly Precious finds himself embroiled in a hilariously over-the-top murder mystery, brimming with delicious satire about the newspaper business and culminating in a characteristically outrageous Gloverian showdown with firearms, snowmobiles, and booze. Inviting comparisons with the novels of Jasper Fforde and Ross MacDonald, Precious deftly combines an ingenious literary parody with the plot of a richly satisfying mystery.

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Charmaine Cadeau's intensely imagined poems captivate everyone who experiences them. Delving beneath the gleaming surfaces of satellite dishes, wagon-wheels, rain-barrel planters, and suburban sprawl, she reveals a luminous spirituality. The encroachment that turns rural Ontario into cottage country becomes Cadeau's unsentimental locus of truth and beauty. With skill that even experienced poets seldom possess, Cadeau evokes the intangibility of perception, its flickering contingencies. In What You Used to Wear, Charmaine Cadeau has achieved what all young poets wish for but almost none attain. Her poetry is so impressive that her first book appears unheralded, untested by journal publication, and with few of the other supports usually so essential to first collections. Ross Leckie, Goose Lane's poetry editor and Cadeau's former creative writing professor at the University of New Brunswick, says, "This is very much a surprise book. I threw the manuscript into the mix to fill out packages for the readers, and it kept coming to the top." Anne Simpson, a finalist for the 2003 Governor General's Award for poetry and winner of the 2004 Griffin Prize, eagerly edited the book. With the publication of What You Used to Wear, Goose Lane is proud to launch the first book of a truly remarkable poet.

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The fair-haired child of Canadian missionary parents, Daniel Coleman grew up with an ambivalent relationship to the country of his birth. He was clearly different from his Ethiopian playmates, but because he was born in Ethiopia and knew no other home, he was not completely foreign. Like the eucalyptus, a tree imported to Ethiopia from Australia in the late 19th century to solve a firewood shortage, he and his missionary family were naturalized transplants. As ferenjie, they endlessly negotiated between the culture they brought with them and the culture in which they lived. In The Scent of Eucalyptus, Coleman reflects on his experience of "in-between-ness" amid Ethiopia's violent political upheavals. His intelligent and finely crafted memoir begins in the early 1960s, during the reign of Haile Selassie. It spans the king's dramatic fall from power in 1974, the devastating famines of the mid-1970s and early 1980s, and Mengistu Haile Mariam's brutal 20-year dictatorship. Through memoir and reflection, The Scent of Eucalyptus gives a richly textured view of missionary culture that doesn't yield to black-and-white analysis.

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Karenin Sings the Blues is a meditation sparked by the actors in Tolstoy's 19th-century masterpiece, Anna Karenina. Entering this famous saga of derailed love, McCartney explores the repercussions and unintended consequences of Anna and Vronsky's passion. Here, Anna Karenina's cuckolded husband "sings the blues," but Count Vronsky, too, bemoans his disappointed expectations. McCartney imagines the anxieties of Anna's children, the self-absorption of busybodies and in-laws, the ambivalence of servants and friends sucked into Anna's romantic vortex. Set at the height of the industrial age, the roar of the train and the pounding rhythm and flying soot of the steam locomotive epitomize the vigour of McCartney's poems. The same vigour and clear vision characterize the "California" poems, which deal with McCartney's youth in urban southern California. Domestic chaos amid cultural inanity creates turmoil and fear. How is it possible to love a distant mother, a father off somewhere with a third or fourth wife, a wounded and angry brother, a terminally ill sister consuming everything? How is it possible not to? How can an adolescent know the difference between self-preservation and self-destruction? These concerns continue into adulthood and motherhood in "Persuasion," the third section of Karenin Sings the Blues. Accessible and always forthright, McCartney combines plain-speaking revelations about family and domestic life with literary criticism and witty cultural play.

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It's often said that the main export of the Maritimes is Maritimers, and the same is true of Newfoundland. "Going down the road" is a way of life, but so is coming home for Christmas. It is tradition marked by happiness, fun, and sometimes less comfortable emotions. Given the regional penchant for yarn spinning, this common experience yields an abundance of stories.In An Orange from Portugal, editor Anne Simpson takes liberties with the concept of "story" to produce a book bursting with Christmas flavour. Many of her choices are fiction, others are memoirs, tall tales, poems, or essays, and still others defy classification. Some authors are nationally and even internationally famous, some are well known in the region, and others are published here for the first time. Spanning more than a century of seasonal writing, the collection includes a description of killing a pig aboard the sailing ship Argonauta for Christmas dinner; Hugh MacLennan"s Halifax waif who wants nothing more than for Santa to bring him a real orange, an orange from Portugal; a story by Alden Nowlan and another by Harry Bruce giving very different versions of what the animals in the barn do on Christmas Eve; a story about Jewish children hanging up their stockings; and very new work by young writers Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey. Beautiful poems by Lynn Davies, Milton Acorn and others leaven the collection for readers of all persuasions. Other authors include: Wayne Johnston, Mary Pratt, David Adams Richards, Carol Bruneau, Wilfred Grenfeld, L.M. Montgomery, Paul Bowdring, Grace Ladd, Herb Curtis, Joan Clark, Ernest Buckler, Rhoda Graser, Bert Batstone, Elisabeth Harvor, David Weale, Charles G.D. Roberts, Ronald F. Hawkins, Mark Jarman, Elsie Charles Basque, Richard Cumyn, Herménégilde Chiasson, Stan Dragland, Alistair MacLeod, and Bernice Morgan.An Orange from Portugal is a Christmas feast, with the scent of turkey and the sound of laughter wafting from the kitchen, and a flurry of snow outside the window.

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Shortlisted, Toronto Book AwardsOn May 2, 1967, Montreal and Toronto faced each other in a battle for hockey supremacy. This was only the fifth time the teams had ever played each other in the Stanley Cup finals. Toronto led the series 3-2. But this wasn't simply a game. From the moment Foster Hewitt announced "Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States," the game became a turning point in sports history. That night, the Leafs would win the Cup. The next season, the National Hockey League would expand to twelve teams. Players would form an association to begin collective bargaining. Hockey would become big business. The NHL of the "Original Six" would be a thing of the past. It was The Last Hockey Game. Placing us in the announcers' booth, in the seats of excited fans, and in the skates of the players, Bruce McDougall scores with a spectacular account of every facet of that final fateful match. As we meet players such as Gump Worsley, Tim Horton, Terry Sawchuk, and Eddie Shack, as well as coaches, owners, and fans, The Last Hockey Game becomes more than a story of a game. It also becomes an elegy, a lament for an age when, for all its many problems, the game was played for the love of it.

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Moncton, Dieppe, and Riverview are some of the fittest areas in New Brunswick. And, no wonder, these cities have one of the best-developed trail systems in the province and people in these cities are keeping fit, without even noticing. Trails of Greater Moncton, a book by Riverview resident and freelance writer Kate Merlin orients residents and visitors alike in this hiker's paradise. Many of the trails are easy, suitable for anyone with a couple of hours to spare. A few will challenge the adventurous. A 2001 survey indicated that 98% of Dieppe respondents knew about their community's TransCanada Trail, and of the 80% who had used it, more than half enjoyed its benefits at least once a week. Throughout the three cities, people use the trails vigorously, enjoying nature, keeping fit, and chatting with friends they know and friends they've just met. The TransCanada Trails links all three cities, winding along the banks of the Petitcodiac. It offers a ringside view of the famous Tidal Bore and, at low tide, the river's hauntingly beautiful red mudflats. All of the trails described in Trails of Greater Moncton are on public land. They include a mixture of groomed trails, wood roads, and rugged footpaths that allow hikers to move instantly from city streets to wild nature, giving hikers the opportunity to view old-growth trees, rare bog plants, and wildlife, ranging from raccoons to coyotes and sometimes a black bear. Trails of Greater Moncton includes 25 carefully described walks and helpful hints for enjoying a Moncton walkabout. Each trail is accompanied by synoptic information, a map, and photographs, and sidebars on plants, animals, historic sites, and other landmarks. With a Trails-at-a-Glance chart and helpful hints for enjoying a Moncton walkabout, Trails of Greater Moncton is the indispensable companion for walkers, cyclists, and cross-country skiers of all ages and abilities.

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The thirteen provocative stories in A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, Darryl Whetter's first collection, offer lots of sex, a bit of violence, and a wickedly clever exploration of human nature.Backed into emotional corners, Darryl Whetter's men are creatures of feckless energy and intermittent idealism. Their fragile relationships break up easily, and men who don't retreat into pot-fuelled lethargy revert to ambitious self-destruction. Excellent as he is at capturing his characters' essence, Darryl Whetter is mature enough to view the men in particular, but also the women, with considerable irony. Whetter's "heroes" are often men in their twenties or thirties, men with little self-knowledge but boundless self-centredness and sexual appetite.The event that propels several stories is the break-up of a marriage, a love affair, or a liaison of convenience. When separation doesn't inspire pot-induced lethargy, it goads these men to frenzy. Backed into emotional corners, they revert to self-destruction. Sometimes, as in the hilarious "Profanity Issues," valiantly suppressed rage, shame, and terror erupt at a weird angle, and blind loyalty to an impulsive misjudgement snowballs into weeks of public humiliation. "Non-Violent, Not OK" is an insider's view of the 2001 Quebec City riot. The central character, Chuck, is encouraged in an abstract sort of way by his lazily liberal prof, equipped by a father who thinks money fixes everything, and armed with pop-psych instructions from a bloodless riot manager. Innocent of ideology, he wanders aimlessly around in the tear gas, offering his Maalox-based eye-spray to friend and foe alike. In "A Sharp Tooth in the Fur," an ex-couple acts out a highly original sexual fantasy that's as hilarious as it is shocking. From the classroom to the laundromat, from Paris to the mosquito-infested Ontario bush, Whetter dissects a portion of human experience that has never been so deftly explored, revealing the psyche of the 20-something male.

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Maud Lewis a peint l’intérieur de sa minuscule maison d’une seule pièce — : pas seulement les murs, mais aussi l’intérieure et l’extérieure des portes, les cadres de fenêtres, les boîtes à pain, le petit escalier menant au grenier, le poêle à bois, bref tout ce qu’elle avait sous la main. Sa demeure était un plaisir à regarder.Quatorze ans après sa mort, l’Art Gallery of Nova Scotia a fait l’acquisition de la maison peinte de Maud Lewis, alors bien connue main en très mauvais état. La stabilisation et la restauration de ce précieux artefact ont posé un défi de taille aux conservateurs. En 1998, la maison a été installée intacte, avec son mobilier, son matériel de peinture et tous ce que l’artiste y avait accumulé, dans la salle Scotiabank Maud Lewis.

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Disaster can strike without notice. In a split-second the forces of nature, human intervention, or a simple twist of fate can place lives in jeopardy. A ship sinks, a plane crashes, a child wanders deep into the forest. Death is imminent, except for the bravery and persistence of small groups of men and women who enter these dark frontiers as rescuers. Of course they fail sometimes -- but often they return with the near dead, plucking them from the hungry jaws of disaster. Written by veteran newsman Dean Beeby, Deadly Frontiers: Disaster and Rescue on Canada's Atlantic Seaboard tells the stories of real-life heroes, and of the bureaucracy and bungling that threaten their lives and those they have sworn to save. In Deadly Frontiers, Dean Beeby deals with the chilling question of Canada's preparedness for disaster, as he investigates the most significant events in the contemporary history of search and rescue. Canada occupies a unique position in the rarified world of search and rescue. The second-largest country on the planet, Canada has three jagged coastlines, an immense internal wilderness, and a vast Arctic to swallow hapless travellers. Since the Second World War, Canada's East Coast has been the crucible for modern search-and-rescue techniques and equipment. This hard-won experience has been driven mostly by disaster, from the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger oil rig off Newfoundland to numerous cargo-vessel disappearances in the 1990s, including the Protektor, Gold Bond Conveyor, Marika, and Vanessa. Ground search and rescue, a special branch of this culture, was reborn in 1986 during the protracted search for a lost child in the forests north of Halifax. Swissair Flight 111 plunged into waters off Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia in 1998, triggering a massive search-and-recovery effort, as well as a fundamental rethinking of emergency response. The worst disaster within the search-and-rescue community itself was the 1998 crash in Quebec of a Labrador helicopter from Greenwood, Nova Scotia, leaving six rescue specialists dead among the charred wreckage. In Deadly Frontiers, author Dean Beeby examines official documents, forensic evidence, and the personal histories of those involved in these cases and more. His book is a frank examination of how Canada's tragedies and triumphs have helped forge a professional search-and-rescue culture that is second to none.

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Waterborne is a preternatural tale of the Atlantic layered with the textures, colours, and voices of the sea. Stella Maris Goulding is the unwanted child of a teenage mother and a usually absent father. She has grown up in Elsinore, a Newfoundland fishing village, loved and cared for only by her grandmother. Her mother clearly hates her, belittling and abusing her without remorse while cultivating her own beauty. Stella adores her mother and blames herself for the failings with which her mother charges her. The legacy of Stella's unhappy childhood is an emptiness that nothing can fill. Unable to transform her inner self, Stella adopts an outer persona. Binding her torso with an elastic bandage, she dons boxer shorts and a singlet, black jeans and a leather biker jacket. The young man who is not her is free to come and go in the world as he pleases, unobserved. On these journeys, she leaves herself behind like a shed skin. Alone at the seashore, Stella discovers a pale young man washed up on the Newfoundland beach. Soon, she begins to recognize his part in the strange heritage passed down through generations of her family. She will never know all of her family's story, but as her mother is dying, she learns what she needs to know about them all: her Scottish great-grandmother, her grandmother, her terrible mother, and herself. With her mother, she also recognizes the true identity of the beautiful young man she has befriended. Waterborne is a compelling and emotionally intense novel about transformation and human desire. JoAnne Soper-Cook has crafted a world steeped in magical realism, where neither time nor betrayal can break the bonds of family.

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Winner, Ottawa-Carleton Book AwardShortlisted, Trillium AwardMan of Bone has a thriller's taste for blood, but Alan Cumyn delivers something more: a heart-wrenching portrait of an ordinary Canadian jerked into third-world terrorism. Bill Burridge, his wife and their little son have moved to the "island paradise" of Santa Irene on Bill's first diplomatic posting. At the short-staffed embassy, he is thrown, almost unbriefed, into work he scarcely understands. After less than two weeks, while driving alone on a "safe" highway to an afternoon of badminton in the country, he is snatched by revolutionaries. Against his will, Burridge turns out under torture to be a "man of bone" who can't give up and die. His ignorance and low status make him useless to his captors, but they can't simply let him go. They continue to torture him until, distracted by other battles, they abandon him and his keeper in a mountain village. Suddenly one day helicopters rake the village with gunfire, and the whole situation turns upside down. Alan Cumyn is well known for creating men with tender hearts and iron wills. Bill Burridge, angry at God for making him live, keeps his wits by remembering his and Maryse's courtship and marriage and their life with young Patrick. Although he isolates this part of himself from his torturers, he and his beloved family discover when he returns to Ottawa, barely alive, that "living happily ever after" will be more complex than they could have imagined.

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Luther Corhern, Miramichi guide and keeper of Cavender Bill's Salmon Camp log, never met a fisherman in his life (other than Stan Tuney) who would tell you a lie. It's a good thing, too — you'd have a job on your hands if you had to sort fact from fiction in Lute's chronicles. Here's the situation: a rich American has bought the old Cavender place and turned it into a fishing camp. Now known as Cavender Bill, he takes in fellow American "sports" as guests, hiring Lute and his friends as guides. Cav thinks the sports would enjoy a log: a fishing record embellished with guides' stories. Lute, with his grade six education, is the natural choice to man the Underwood Deluxe. Now, Lute is a dreamer, and it would be fair to say that Luther Corhern's Salmon Camp Chronicles strays somewhat from its original purpose. It contains stories about Lute's friends Nean "short for Neanderthal" Kooglin, Elvis "formerly Hogarth" Glasby, Lindon Tucker, and lying Stan Tuney. Dryfly Ramsey, Shadrack Nash, and Kid and Corry Lauder show up, too. But Lute's mind ranges in all directions, over topics such as a computer that sends letters from the future, the curative power of mackerel tied to the feet, golf, and Christmas. The weather, however, isn't what it used to be. According to Elvis, "She used to be a lot colder when we were operatin' under Fahrenheit. Old Celsius don't seem to have the bite in it, so it don't." But every topic leads Lute back to the salmon and to the mystical river that's home to man and fish alike.

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A recreational canoeman in his native Texas, Rick Sparkman thought he knew all about the sport when he moved to Nova Scotia in 1981. The swift, cold rivers and streams of his new home adjusted his thinking in the most personal way: he got dumped. That's when he started learning to paddle in earnest. Woodlands Canoeing explains the fundamentals of recreational canoeing in the woods of the Maritimes, New England, and anywhere else where the waterways are small, the water is swift and at times shallow, and canoeing varies with the seasons. It's a guide to safe, comfortable recreation for those who already canoe a little and want to know more, as well as for people experienced in canoeing on lakes or on the more predictable rivers described in other canoeing books. Woodlands Canoeing outlines the advantages of various kinds of equipment and describes canoeing and camping techniques in words, photos, and drawings, mixing practical information with anecdotes drawn from Sparkman's years of family canoeing. Throughout, Sparkman concentrates on having fun, even when the expected summer shower becomes the tail of a hurricane or the canoe has to be inched over rocky shallows where only a few days earlier there was plenty of water. Keeping warm, dry, and well fed are crucial to Sparkman's pleasure, and Woodlands Canoeing contains hints for packing, instructions for making camp, and recipes for delicious and satisfying meals. Because of the region's volatile climate and variable water conditions, Sparkman has learned how to canoe delightfully in all weathers, and in Woodlands Canoeing he passes his hard-won knowledge along. An enthusiastic winter canoeist, he even explains how to achieve this feat safely and -- believe it or not -- in comfort.

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Lesley Choyce writes rings around most Canadian authors. This collection of short stories, Dance the Rocks Ashore, is certainly choice Choyce. Dance the Rocks Ashore contains substantial new stories including "Dance the Rocks Ashore," a bittersweet account of an elderly couple's decline; the hilarious and bizarre "My Father Was a Book Reviewer" "The Third or Fourth Happiest Man in Nova Scotia," with a peculiar hero reminiscent of Noah; and "The Wreck of the Sister Theresa," in which spring fever hits like "a handshake in hell." Favourite stories from previous books include "Losing Ground," the pivotal chapter in Choyce's acclaimed 1989 novel The Second Season of Jonas MacPherson, as well as "The Cure," "Dancing the Night Away," and the complex and disturbing "Conventional Emotions."

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Corry Quinn starts off on the wrong foot. When he's very small, his mother dies. Then his feckless father, heading down the road from his Miramichi village to Toronto, deposits Corry with his Uncle Kid. Now, this is a pretty good arrangement: Kid knows full well that Corry's father will never come back to Silver Rapids, and he and Corry get along fine. But Corry is a sad young fellow. One winter day, angry and miserable, he sticks his tongue to an icy railroad spike. By the time the infection clears up and he gets out of hospital, half his tongue is gone, and he will never talk properly again. Strangely enough, his accident improves his life. He and Kid understand each other well, Kid talking, Corry writing notes. Kid is an ageing hippie with a heart of gold and a shed full of home-grown weed. This, not Kid's tiny fishing gear shop, supports the two of them. Eventually, after many tragicomic adventures involving girls, fish, and the elusive eastern cougar, both Kid and Corry grow up. Together they find simple yet cunning ways to turn their chub hole into a magical salmon pool, the shed into a sporting camp, Kid into an outfitter, and Corry into a man with a voice.

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Shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial AwardEmergencies, faith, truancy, and poverty intersect in this wry debut that volunteers a transfusion of the unpredictable for those who yearn to transition beyond a muralized Olive Garden world. Stevie Howell's [Sharps] takes its cue from an Egyptian hieroglyph used interchangeably to represent "waters," the letter N, and all prepositions within a sentence. Similarly, [Sharps] alters its structure and functionality from page to page. The Queen launches an advertising campaign to procure our envy. The last unicorn crochets a sweater out of the sisal cords of the books. The falsity of Billy Joel's New York propaganda is grounds for libel. We discover the one thing you can do "With a sawed-off rifle, a low IQ, and curiosity/about human biology." From certain angles, [Sharps] embraces the possibilities of poetry — from others, it engages in a protracted street fight with language.

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The Sun the Wind the Summer Field shows the wit, intellect, and skill with words and rhyme for which Alfred G. Bailey is famous. This collection gathers together a half-century of poems. Some are the works of a young, strong voice applying the poetics of T.S. Eliot to the Canadian ethos, while others give voice to old age, undiminished in power and enriched by experience. Some of the poems in The Sun the Wind the Summer Field have appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Cormorant, and Wild East, but most have never been published before.

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Claire Harris is one of Canada's most powerful poets. Dipped in Shadow shows her at her strongest: the book's five poems making hard-hitting statements about women and their children. "O what are you thinking my sisters," the book's foreword, draws women of all races together in the fundamental facts of female life: fear for themselves and fear for their children. In "Night Dances," a frightening story of sexual and physical abuse, knife-sharp language and experimental form expand words far beyond their usual connotations. "Sister (Y)our Manchild" reminds women that the cruellest soldiers in the most vicious wars are their babies; they have nurtured evil in their beautiful children. "This Fierce Body" reviews the life of a young man dying of AIDS as friends watch at his bedside. Experimental form and language make "Woeman Womb Prisoned," a harrowing evocation of a teenager in childbirth, both moving and provocative.

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Fables from the Women's Quarters marked Claire Harris's blazing 1984 entry into the literary world, winning a Commonwealth Prize for poetry in its year of publication. A tribute to the women who create the fabric of life, this book contains poems that have become classics.

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The compelling plot of Nancy Bauer's fifth novel, The Irrational Doorways of Mr. Gerard, winds through Cornwall, Quebec City, and the Eastern Townships, New England, and the Fredericton area of New Brunswick. Full of vivid description and eccentric characters, the story brings to life the strange relationships between Arlene, her daughter Alice, and her "found" daughter Andrea, on one side, and their benefactor, James, and the mysterious Mr. Gerard, on the other. The startling dénouement at last fits all the mysterious pieces together. At another level, The Irrational Doorways of Mr. Gerard integrates the delicate complexity of Tao philosophy with matriarchal mythology, the disorientation of the picaresque, the character-substitution games of classical comedy, and the heightened detail of magic realism. Bauer's post-modern blend leads the reader through a story full of intrigue into the world of the spirit.

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Something Drastic is a first-rate comedy wrapped in a clever story starring eccentrics galore. When her boyfriend dumps her, Lenore writes long letters to him while her own life takes her on a roller coaster of emotions and events.

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In Temporary Shelter, Travis Lane demonstrates that she is one of Canada's finest and most rigorous poets. Yet, she writes with a subtle, sometimes muted, voice and from a position refreshingly removed from current fashion and ideology. Celebrating the open against the enclosed, the wildnerness against the city, the imagination against things tidily nailed down, the poems in this collection might best be seen as separate illuminations.

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In this sequel to The Golden Thread, Claire Delaney recalls her past and steers a tricky path among mid-life joys and responsibilities.

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During John Thompson's sadly attenuated lifetime, he completed only two volumes of poetry. At the Edge of the Chopping There Are No Secrets and Stilt Jack (published posthumously), but seldom has such a slim oeuvre supported such a large reputation. When John Thompson: Collected Poems and Translations was first published in 1995, the reasons for Thompson's stature became clear, and in the twenty years since then, his influence has only grown larger. Thompson seeks out the darkest places of the heart, then floods them with light. These remarkable poems evoke the deep woods, the relentless turning of seasons that churn life into death, and back again to life. They unflinchingly examine his relationships, drawing out the pain and joys of domesticity. Confessionally raw, but oblique and beautiful, Thompson's poetry — and in particular, his experiments in Stilt Jack with adapting the ghazal, a poetic form with origins in Arabia — has influenced three generations of poets. As Peter Sanger notes in his definitive introduction, "For many young Canadian poets, composing a ghazal sequence has become a rite of passage, and Thompson is often addressed or alluded to as a tutelary figure." Reissued to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of its first appearance, this volume, edited and introduced by Peter Sanger, now revised and updated with new information and insights, gathers together all of Thompson's extant mature poems and translations, including, in addition to the two published books, poetry published only in periodicals, unpublished poetry, and Thompson's haunting translations from several of his French Canadian contemporaries and the great French poet René Char.

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In his first collection of poetry, this well-known editor, historian, and critic takes memory as his overarching subject. Echoes in Silence explores Keith's memories of England, of his wartime childhood, or words, language, and God, and of Proust, the quintessential spokesman of memory.

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