When Mavis Himes, a psychoanalyst with an established practice of over forty years, began to contemplate retirement, she decided to learn to play the cello.From meeting her teacher in an overcrowded café, through the demanding task of cello practice with its persistent strains and stresses on the body, Himes found a growing appreciation of music's power on her own well-being. An unfortunate bicycle accident resulting in serious injuries to her left arm threw her mu...

The late Sir John Templeton once said:"To buy when others are despondently selling and to sellwhen others are avidly buying requires the greatest fortitude."Many investors get caught in popular investment themes. They enthusiastically buy near the top, then fearfully sell near the bottom when the market corrects its excess. Conversely, the greatest investment returns in history have been made by be...

When Wolfe Cruise buys an old hotel in downtown St. Marys, Ontario, there's a giant pile of weird rocks in the backyard that the previous owner won't stop talking about.Wolfe soon discovers that the barber who kept a shop here had an unusual marketing scheme: bring a special enough rock, get a free haircut. For sixty years, from behind his red-padded & nickel-plated chair, the Barber would mimic, amuse, and draw his customers into his comic play. Now, as Wo...

Dr. Brian Standish isn't happy.His wife thinks he's a misanthropist, but Brian believes he merely hates most people.He never wanted to be a hematologist, or a doctor for that matter. But he is and doesn't like what he sees daily at Kilminster General, his hospital in the west of England: conceit, philandering, and dissembling, with Big Pharma feeding at the trough while acting as a puppeteer for his colleagues. And then there's the ...

This delightful collection of colourful anecdotes from Fay Pettapiece's upbringing and married life in urban and rural British Columbia brings on both laughter and tears -- but more of the former than the latter. The Years Between is a fascinating reflection of British Columbia's history, as told from the perspective of an only child whose father's sundry jobs hauled the family from one challenge to the next around the province, and whose grandmother lived a pioneer type of life i...

Looking for GordonThe Shape of Love"This is a beautifully written memoir of love and a lament that has a universal quality to it, a potent and loving gesture from the author to her deceased husband."- Michael Redhill, winner of the 2017 Giller Prize for his novel Bellevue SquareA woman who meets and marries her husband in her older age finds that even after a ten-year honeymoon, aft...

During the first few weeks after Matthew Kirk was born -- brain-damaged as a result of oxygen deprivation during delivery -- the doctors advised his parents, Donna and Ed Kirk, to put him in an institution, have another baby as soon as possible, and get on with their life.But what the doctors didn't understand was that Matthew was their life.Indeed, as he grew, he would surprise everyone with his athletic good looks, spirited personality, and supre...

In his youth in Toronto, only child Julian Whitely had to compete with three dead siblings for his mother's attention. On bad days back then, he often saw the ghosts of those infants slide along his bedroom walls, causing him to doubt his sanity as well as his mother's state of mind.Many years later during his thirtieth wedding anniversary in Vancouver, Julian chances on the snapshot of a teenage love. Recalling his cruelty to the girl, he's propelled on a mission ...

Against the Tide recounts the journey of a frail young boy who found his strength in running, sparking his dream of becoming an Olympic athlete.His adventures included lumberjacking in British Columbia and working on a tramp steamer to the Arctic. Running led him to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where he set a Commonwealth record in the Decathlon.Eschewing the family investment business he pursued a writing career, earning a Ph.D. from Stanford in English Litera...

Erica McArthur died in a car accident in 2000 at the age of 23.Through a collection of inspiring stories, moving poems, and lyrical songs by her father, Jake McArthur, this book provides an intimate window into a curious series of experiences that he had, both prior to and following the accident.In these pages, which will make you laugh and cry - and contemplate - you will find reasons to wonder about non-material reality. You will not find declarative certainty. You will f...

Lawyer and former Union soldier Richard Montgomery is commissioned to infiltrate a clandestine Confederate operation in Canada in 1864 during the U.S. Civil War. On numerous forays across enemy lines as a courier for former Alabama senator Clement C. Clay, one of the leaders of the Rebel conspiracy, Montgomery relays the word to his Yankee superiors regarding several diabolical Confederate campaigns in Union territory. These include a nefarious attempt to burn down much of New York...

William Gairdner, PhD, is a former Olympic athlete, businessman, and author living near Toronto. He began publishing serious essays and books on political and moral philosophy in mid-life, and among his many bestsellers -- books that have profoundly enriched national dialogue and discussion -- are The Trouble With Canada, The War Against the Family, Canada's Founding Debates, The Book of Absolutes, and The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Neve...