Canadian
A Bibliography of Macmillan of Canada Imprints 1906-1980
This bibliography is a descriptive and comprehensive record of the publishing activity of Macmillan of Canada, one of the most important Canadian publishers of the twentieth century whose archives are now part of the McMaster University collection. The bibliography is arranged chronologically, beginning with Macmillan's first publications in 1906 a …
A Charm Against the Pain
29 VOICES FROM NEWFOUNDLAND
“Direct, honest, courageous”
“. . . humour and hilarity . . .”
This writing is “as stalwart and generous as it has been significant.” The title, A Charm Against the Pain, expresses “the power of literature to navigate travellers through the valleys and peaks of life” – Joan Clark
Contributors: Lillian …
A Game to Play on the Tracks
A Game to Play on the Tracks is the story of booze-loose and too-smart singer, Arden, and her failed return to the life of country music and the British Columbia bar scene. She has a new baby, some unhealed hurts, and a husband, Nichol, who is stuck in boyhood and thinks and talks in bad poems. Arden doesn't survive the road, and the story belongs …
A Kind of Fiction
Acclaimed poet P. K. Page weaves together an astonishing range of characters and themes in this remarkable selection of stories written over the last fifty years and collected here for the first time. A Kind of Fiction bears witness to an accomplished prose stylist and displays the same lively and witty intelligence that established her reputation …
Mme. Bourg? Dreams of Br'sil
Is it the hot wet air that lies like a sheet on Paris, or the confiture de Br'sil in its little pot, placed by l'Inspecteur on her bedside table? Whatever the reason, Mme. Bourg? sleeps a tropical sleep, casting aside a tumble of ecru lace, her torso glistening white as magnolia soap.
Marmoset faces form and shift in the reflecting crystals of chandeliers; glittering jewelled macaws peer from sconces.
Mme. Bourg? walks in the black-green jungle, calling, calling. Who is loosed and lost among unfamiliar trees, odours of tree-moss, scents of Shameless Mary? Is it Mme. Bourg? herself, now pocked with shadows, trailing leaves and the conjugations of Portuguese verbs?
Marmosets swing in the branches, chatter and wheeze, their faces the size of her thumb's top joint. In their eyes she sees the points of their tiny dreams. Brilliant and noisy as silk umbrellas opening, vast birds rise from her feet.
Za Za is secretive, busy with macumba. She models discarded lovers -- waxen homunculi jabbed full of pins -- forgetful now of their shapes, their given names. In a day, in a week, their beautiful strength will fail them. Mme. Bourg? scolds, 'Oh heartless, heartless Za Za, leaving the pin box empty, the candle guttering wax.'
Late afternoon sun fills the sala with zebras, casts palm-frond stripes on sofas and chairs. Tree orchids split the baroque legs of tables, erupt in delicate durable blooms.
Green light stains the white octagonal tiles of the co-pa, stains Augusto's hornet jacket, his lifted hands. Augusto, coffee maker to the Pretender, wears the royal coat-of-arms on his golden sleeve. Water, metallic, furious as quicksilver, falls through the green air like a school of trout; is caught in a flannel funnel, a vertical windsock, as if in a landing net. 'Like molten lead plummeting down shot-towers, it is the length of the fall that counts' ... Augusto is offering some simple lesson, but Mme. Bourg? is falling too. 'When or where?' she cries, and 'where or when?' But Augusto, nimble, bearing a polished tray with pie-crust edging, pours her a caf?zinho black as tar.
Still half asleep in the stifling morning, Mme. Bourg? stretches a lazy arm. Into the pale trumpet of the house phone she calls Augusto. 'A windsock for the equatorial winds,' she sighs, 'and little suits for the marmosets -- of satin.'
How can she grasp an air that has no hand-holds, cling to this curve of space? Mme. Bourg? waits, ear pressed to the receiver, for the reassurance of Augusto's voice.
(1987)
A Kind of Perseverance
In A Kind of Perseverance Margaret Avison shares with readers two lectures she gave at the University of Waterloo in 1993 -- 'Misunderstanding is Damaging' and 'Understanding is Costly'. Thoughtfully and with precision she tells of her journey, often unfocussed, that led finally to the Christian conversion that is central to an understanding of her …
A Litany in Time of Plague
A Litany in Time of Plague is K.D. Miller's first collection of short fiction. The 'plague' of the title story is a reference not only to AIDS but to its ironic companion, loneliness.
Miller's child characters are like little aliens dropped into a world that wavers from incomprehensible to bewildering, and yet, there is a knowing in them, an attunem …
A Literary Life: Reflections And Reminiscences 1928-1990
A master of the short story and author of several excellent novels, Morley Callaghan has long been a writer of international reputation. Callaghan was born and raised in Toronto, educated at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and Osgoode Hall Law school. Working as a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star, he met Ernest Hemingway who was al …
A Maritime Christmas
The Magic of Christmas is always felt strongly in the Maritimes. This collection of yuletide stories is a mixture of true seasonal remembrances and fictional imaginings of the holiday season. Contributions are from over 20 Maritime writers, and touch on all the things that make Christmas so special: traditions, reunions with family and friends, th …