Alberta's iconic river has been dammed and plumbed, made to spin hydro-electric turbines, and used to cleanse Calgary. Artificial lakes in the mountains rearrange its flow; downstream weirs and ditches divert it to irrigate the parched prairie. Far from being wild, the Bow is now very much a human product: its fish are as manufactured as its altered flow, changed water quality, and newly stabilized and forested banks. The River Returns brings the story of the Bow River's transformation full circle through an exploration of the recent revolution in environmental thinking and regulation that has led to new limits on what might be done with and to the river.
What do Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ed Sullivan have in common? Ottavio Canestrelli crossed paths with each. He performed with the Krone Circus in Italy and Germany from 1922 to 1924 on the eve of Hitler's rise to power; he witnessed a rally for Mahatma Gandhi in India in 1931; and he appeared twice on the Ed Sullivan Show during the 1960s. In The Grand Gypsy, Canestrelli, with his grandson, Ottavio Gesmundo, tells the story of a man who witnessed historical events as he toured with his family through five continents and countless nations, including experiences fighting in World War I and the excavation of the Sphinx in Egypt. It shares memories of life in the circus, filled with daring feats and tragic mishaps. With over one hundred and seventy historical photographs included, this memoir chronicles a circus dynasty from the late nineteenth-century in Europe to the new millennium in the United States.
Presents extended reviews of noteworthy books, short reviews, essays and articles on topics and trends in publishing, literature, culture and the arts. Includes lists of best sellers (hardcover and paperback).
"These stories describe aspects of Jewish life in Brantford from the 1940's. They are centred on fictional characters and events but loosely based on some of the experiences the author had growing up.
Barbara Brodman began writing this book nearly a half century ago and abandoned it to some far corner of her heart and mind until a confluence of life experiences and advancements in science made it viable as a work of science fiction. Incorporated herein are decades of research and teaching in disciplines as diverse as literature, art, and almost every area of the social sciences. However, it was not a lifetime of teaching and research that motivated this book as much as a desire to leave behind a fictionalized memoir of a family lineage the author feared would die with her passing. It also pays homage to the fine art of storytelling that has all but disappeared from modern culture, and it encourages a closer evaluation of concepts of love and family born of free thinking, not of fear. The novel spans some thousand years of human development, beginning at a time not too distant from our own. It begins when a group of scientists, faced with the possibility of impending extinction of the human species at human hands, decides to take action. After decades of discussion and research, they conclude that the only solution is to eradicate all males of the species and to design a blueprint for a female-comprised new world order that accords to nature the preeminent position it lost under male domination. In this new world order, politics and religion are abandoned as basic institutions of society, and consensus rules. Knowledge of a world previous to the new world order is possessed by only one woman, the Archivist. It is she who is the most respected of women, though she wields no power outside of the world of books. When she wanders too far outside the walls of the Great Library, to which she is bound from birth, things go awry, and the impossible occurs. Her quiet life of books and solitary research becomes a life of adventure and subterfuge, love and loss; until, once again, she must face choices made by the ancestors who created her world.
How does a person born with mental and physical challenges become the most popular person in his community ? Why did the town throw a 50th birthday party for him and name a street in his honor ? Why do valedictorians mention him in their commencement addresses ? Why does a person who can't use a computer get 500 Facebook friends the first week he is on it ? Freddy : A Love Story attempts to answer those questions. It is an often humorous, sometimes poignant look at the town of Clinton, Tennessee and the man who captured the town's heart.
