Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology in 2020 'A stunningly original memoir ... her most human tale of love, loss and redemption is illuminated and given meaning by this backdrop. A beautiful and compelling read' Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone In The Smallest Lights in the Universe, MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager interweaves the story of her search for meaning and solace after losing her first husband to cancer, her unflagging search for an Earth-like exoplanet and her unexpected discovery of new love. Sara Seager has made it her life's work to peer into the spaces around stars - looking for exoplanets outside our solar system, hoping to find the one-in-a-billion world enough like ours to sustain life. But with the unexpected death of her husband, her life became an empty, lightless space. Suddenly, she was the single mother of two young boys, a widow at forty, clinging to three crumpled pages of instructions her husband had written for things like grocery shopping - things he had done while she did pioneering work as a planetary scientist at MIT. She became painfully conscious of her Asperger's, which before losing her husband had felt more like background noise. She felt, for the first time, alone in the universe. In this probing, invigoratingly honest memoir, Seager tells the story of how, as she stumblingly navigated the world of grief, she also kept looking for other worlds. She continues to develop ground-breaking projects, such as the Starshade, a sunflower-shaped instrument that, when launched into space, unfurls itself so as to block planet-obscuring starlight, and she takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets. At the same time, she discovers what feels every bit as wondrous: other people, reaching out across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering consolation and advice, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match with an amateur astronomer. Equally attuned to the wonders of deep space and human connection, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own light in the dark.

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a humorously dark folk tale woven together with a high-energy concert. This music/theatre hybrid starring international Klezmer sensation Ben Caplan is inspired by the true stories of Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908. It's about how to love after being broken by the horrors of war. It's about looking into the eyes of God.

"In an unflinching look at love, sex, and fertility, and inspired by real stories of mothers during the Canadian birth-control movement of the early twentieth century, one of Canada's most celebrated playwrights vividly recreates a couple's struggles with reproduction. It's Ottawa in the 1920s, before birth control is legalized. Sophie, a young working-class girl, falls madly in love with her sister's suitor, and eventually marries, a stablehand named Jonny. After two difficult childbirths, doctors tell Sophie she shouldn't have any more children, but don't tell her how to prevent it. When Sophie inevitably becomes pregnant again, she faces a grim dilemma."--

"Zoltan Beck is dying. His devoted but long-suffering sons, Ben and Frank, are trying to prepare themselves and their families for Zoltan's eventual departure...but they can't quite bring themselves to believe that the end is really at hand, and neither can Zoltan himself. The head of a family marked by war and tragedy for decades, he "can't stand to be in a room with a miserable person" and has done his best to keep the pain of his refugee past from his beloved children. But as he faces the end of his life, he discovers a heartbreaking secret from the War that will ultimately bring the family together - or irrevocably disrupt it. Set in both mid-20th century Hungary and contemporary Toronto, this is a deeply moving novel that revels in the energy of its extraordinary characters. It is the story of lost love and newfound connections, of a father and his sons desperately reaching out to bridge an ever-widening gap...even as their time together ebbs away."--Provided by publisher.

Girl Unwrapped is a girl's coming-of-age story set in 1960s Montreal about the burdens and blessings of history, the divided self, and the quest to be whole. Toni Goldblatt's awakening to taboo desire conflicts with her Holocaust-scarred parents' expectations. Yearning to reinvent herself, she flees to Israel in the wake of the 1967 war, but the Zionist dream doesn't save her; only on her return, when she discovers kindred spirits in the underground lesbian bar scene, does Toni begin to find her own path. Girl Unwrapped is a novel about love, isolation, and the search for personal truth despite the stranglehold of family.

"Twelve exquisitely written stories depicting the search for human connection and the attempt to fit in far from home. All the Shining People explores migration, diaspora, and belonging within Toronto's Jewish South African community, as individuals come to terms with the oppressive hierarchies that separate, and the connections that bind. Seeking a place to belong, the book's characters -- including a life-drawing model searching the streets for her lover; a woman confronting secrets from her past in the new South Africa; and a man grappling with the legacy of his father, a former political prisoner -- crave authentic relationships that replicate the lost feeling of home. With its focus on family, culture, and identity, All the Shining People captures the experiences of immigrants and outsiders with honesty, subtlety, and deep sympathy."--

This is a love story; an unlikely convergence of two people from different worlds who were able to make a rich and tender life together, and not only endure each other's company in alarmingly close quarters but revel in it. Edith Iglauer was born in Cleveland and lived an urban, sophisticated life in New York until she met and married John Daly, a commercial fisherman in British Columbia. She spent more than four years on his forty-one-foot troller, the Morekelp until his sudden death. John Daly was an impassioned and greatly talented fisherman who was convinced that he could "think like a fish"; an amateur philosopher who worked out, and followed, an orginal set of beliefs and principles; a mystic who, after forty years of fishing, felt himself to be at one with the sea and the mountains along the British Columbia coast; a scholarly looking, high-spirited, full-blown eccentric who covered the white walls of his pilothouse with his favorite quotations in bold black letters ("Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke. O.W. Holmes") Fishing with John established Edith Iglauer as one of BC's most popular writers. This unusual West Coast love story sold 16,000 copies in hardcover and continues to be a bestseller in paperback.

As a result of the success of M is for Moose, Canadian children can rhyme off their ABCs with images of ducks, kayaks, moose, and Lake Winnipeg shimmering in their imaginations. Now children can learn their numbers with Canada Counts. On these pages, new artwork illustrates numbers from 1 to 20, as well as other important Canadian numbers such as 1867 and 1982. There may be 1 walking boy, but there are 3 territories, 4 seasons, and 9 Supreme Court justices. With Canada Counts, Charles Pachter has written another love letter to our country.

"The Old Blue Couch and Other Stories" by Seymour Mayne - A delightful blend of humor & wit, exploring identity & loss. A must-have for lovers of engaging storytelling.

Nearly 14, Pauline has discovered that her life is far more interesting if she records it as a great work of fiction -- featuring, of course, herself as the tragic heroine. Pauline's hand-wringing accounts of misbehaving boyfriends, backstabbing friends, and general angst are intermingled with more serious issues like her parents' divorce and her beloved teacher's loss of a best friend to AIDS. Laced with the pop-culture references young readers love, Pauline's "novel" reveals the realities of today's teenage life.

Living in a rat-infested hotel in Franco’s post-war Spain, André Bennett, a Canadian painter, loves Toni, his girl friend, who wants him to return home. Roger Kraus, a Nazi on the run, shadows the young artist day and night. They meet on a bridge during the last night of the fiesta, and as the sky is shredded by exploding fireworks, the story draws to its violent climax. Originally published in 1954, The Acrobats marks Mordecai Richler’s stunning debut as a novelist.

Matt Cohen's stories have been widely anthologized and have appeared in distinguished periodicals and journals in Canada, Britain and the United States. "Lives of the Mind Slaves" features 7 short stories -- one of which (Trotsky's First Confessions') was written especially for this book -- and a brilliant novella. Cohen's novella, Golden Whore of the Heartland, explores the conflict between the spontaneity of passion -- a chance affair -- and the comfort of commitment and belonging. The Sins of Tomas Benares' explores the theme of love over generations. 'Caf? Le Dog' is a celebration of all that remains inexplicable in the attractions between men and women. Racial Memories' is vintage Cohen -- a story about a not-so-classic Jewish family. "Lives of the Mind Slaves" contains the best of Cohen's two previous short story collections, "Caf? Le Dog" and "Living on Water."

With life simply overflowing with pungent melodrama, it's all Pauline and her purple pen can do to record each twist of the plot. First, her best friend splits to become a teen ice queen. Then, Pauline's dragged into the revolting details of her divorcing parents' love life. And to top it off, she finds herself falling for a self-described "neo-existentialist" -- much to the displeasure of her loyal boyfriend. How will she ever write her way out of this one?

Product description INCLUDES 23 STORIES WRITTEN BETWEEN 1954 AND 1984. HIGHLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, THE STORIES ARE ALL ABOUT A MAN IN VARIOUS STAGES OF LIFE FROM BOYHOOD TO TH E RCAF IN WORLD WAR 2, RAISING A FAMILY OF DAUGHTERS IN ENGLAND, TO BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL WRITER. THE CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE STORIES IS SUCH THAT THEY READ LIKE A NOVEL. From Publishers Weekly The son of Polish Jews who emigrated to Canada, Levine grew up in Ottawa, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II and thereafter lived in England for 31 years, where he wrote, married and raised a family. A good number of the 23 stories in this exceptional collection were written between 1958 and 1978 and are clearly autobiographical, centering on a Canadian writer living in England who relives his youth through trips back to Canada and visits from Canadian relatives. The narrator of Levine's stories recalls his past effortlesslyfamily relationships, lost loves, old friendships. And with pleasure the reader participates in these journeys, sharing Levine's experiences of fulfillment, disappointment and nostalgia. One doesn't easily leave Levine's tales behind, for as the narrator of the title story says in the volume's concluding line: "I would carry that sound with me long after I left." NovemberCopyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The first biography in a generation of Canada's most eccentric and most important prime minister -- Mackenzie King -- and his defining influence on our 20th century. Most Canadian historians consider William Lyon Mackenzie King to be not only the country's greatest prime minister but also its most peculiar. From 1919 to 1948 he occasionally lorded over the Liberal Party, also serving as prime minister for much of that time. Mackenzie King was a brilliant tactician, was passionately committed to Canadian unity, and was a protector of the underdog, introducing such cornerstones of Canada's social safety net as unemployment insurance, family allowances and old-age pensions. At the same time, he was insecure, craved flattery, became upset at minor criticism, and was prone to fantasy -- especially about the Tory conspiracy against him. King loosened the Imperial connection with Britain and was wary of American military and economic power. Yet he loved all things British and acted like a praised schoolboy when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt treated him as an equal. King comes at a time when the Canadian people have resoundingly rebuffed the Liberal party under Michael Ignatieff; while the party's future remains uncertain, this definitive biography sheds light on its history under its greatest leader. This first major biography of Mackenzie King in 30 years mines the pages of his remarkable diary. At 30,000 pages, King is one of the most significant and revealing political documents in Canada's history and a guide to the deep and often moving inner conflicts that haunted Mackenzie King. With animated prose and a subtle wit, Allan Levine draws a multidimensional portrait of this most compelling of politicians.