Ontario Books

Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government--A Memoir

Gregory Levey

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shut Up, I'm Talking is a smart, hilarious insider take on Israeli politics that reads like the bastard child of Thomas Friedman and David Sedaris. Now a political writer for Salon, Gregory Levey stumbled into a job as speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the United Nations at age twenty-five and suddenly found himself, like a latter-day Zelig, in the company of foreign ministers, U.S. senators, and heads of state. Much to his surprise, he was soon attending U.N. sessions and drafting official government statements. The situation got stranger still when he was transferred to Jerusalem to write speeches for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Shut Up, I'm Talking is a startling account of Levey's journey into the nerve center of Middle Eastern politics at one of the most turbulent times in Israeli history. During his three years in the Israeli government, the Second Intifada continued on in fits and starts, Yasser Arafat died, Hamas came to power, and Ariel Sharon fell into a coma. Levey was repeatedly thrust into highly improbable situations -- from being the sole "Israeli" delegate (even though he's Canadian) at the U.N. General Assembly, with no idea how "his" country wanted to vote; to nearly inciting an international incident with his high school French translation of an Arab diplomat's anti-Israel remarks; to communicating with Israeli intelligence about the suspected perpetrators of suicide bombings; to being offered leftover salami from Ariel Sharon's lunch. As Levey got better acquainted with the personalities in the government's inner sanctum, he witnessed firsthand the improvisational and ridiculously casual nature of the country's behind-the-scenes leadership -- and realized that he wasn't the only one faking his way through politics.

With sharp insight and great appreciation for the absurd, Levey offers the first-ever look inside Israel's politics from the perspective of a complete outsider, ultimately concluding that the Israeli government is no place for a nice Jewish boy.

Susur: A Culinary Life, Books 1-2

Susur Lee, Jacob Richler, Sara Angel

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Over the past decade, Toronto-based chef Susur Lee has built an international reputation with his groundbreaking cuisine, winning raves such as "culinary genius" from critics and chefs alike. Borrowing heavily from French and Chinese traditions, Susur defies the ubiquitous "fusion" label with his wholly original and decidedly bold style of cooking, dubbed nouvelle Chinois. SUSUR: A CULINARY LIFE offers readers an intimate look at the evolution of this master chef. Toronto food writer Jacob Richler takes us on an enthralling culinary odyssey that begins with Susur’s apprenticeship at Hong Kong’s legendary Peninsula Hotel and follows the chef ’s major Successes at his award-winning restaurants Lotus and Susur. This in-depth study also chronicles Susur’s ambitious plan to modernize the ancient repertoire of classical Chinese cooking —a 5,000-year journey that ends in the creation of his vibrant new cuisine. A remarkable subject deserves a remarkable book, and SUSUR is as innovative as the chef it celebrates. Two colorful, gorgeously illustrated volumes — one describing Susur ’s development as a chef, the other featuring his most sought-after recipes —are bound together in an intricate and innovative presentation that resembles a Chinese puzzle box. A sensuous treat for foodies and chefs alike, SUSUR is the definitive word on this cutting-edge chef.

Midnight at the Dragon Cafe: A Novel (Alex Awards (Awards))

Judy Fong Bates

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Set in the 1960s, Judy Fong Bates’s much-talked-about debut novel is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a small Ontario town’s solitary Chinese family, whose life is changed over the course of one summer when she learns the burden of secrets. Through Su-Jen’s eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café unfolds. As Su-Jen’s father works continually for a better future, her mother, a beautiful but embittered woman, settles uneasily into their new life. Su-Jen feels the weight of her mother’s unhappiness as Su-Jen’s life takes her outside the restaurant and far from the customs of the traditional past. When Su-Jen’s half-brother arrives, smouldering under the responsibilities he must bear as the dutiful Chinese son, he forms an alliance with Su-Jen’s mother, one that will have devastating consequences. Written in spare, intimate prose, Midnight at the Dragon Café is a vivid portrait of a childhood divided by two cultures and touched by unfulfilled longings and unspoken secrets.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Who ultimately is L.M. Montgomery, and why was there such an obsession with secrecy, hiding, and encoding in her life and fiction? Delving into the hidden life of Canada's most enigmatic writer, The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery answers these questions. The eleven essays illuminate Montgomery's personal writings and photographic self-portraits and probe the ways in which she actively shaped her life as a work of art. This is the first book to investigate Montgomery's personal writings, which filled thousands of pages in journals and a memoir, correspondence, scrapbooks, and photography.

Using theories of autobiography and life writing, the essays probe the author's flair for the dramatic and her exuberance in costuming, while also exploring the personal facts behind some of her fiction, including the beloved Anne of Green Gables. Focussing on topics such as sexuality, depression, marriage, aging, illness, and writing, the essays strip away the layers of art and artifice that disguised Montgomery's most intensely guarded secrets, including details of her affair with Herman Leard, her marriage with Ewen Macdonald, and her friendships with Nora Lefurgey and Isabel Anderson. The book also includes rare photographs taken by Montgomery and others, many of which have not previously appeared in print.

One of the highlights of The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery is the inclusion of a secret diary that Montgomery wrote with Lefurgey in 1903. This hilarious document is a rare find, for Montgomery's teasing banter presents us with a new voice that is distinct from the sombre tone of her journals. Published here for the first time, more than 100 years after its composition, this diary is virtually unknown to readers and scholars and is a welcome addition to the literature on this important figure.

This volume fills in many of the blanks surrounding Montgomery's personal life. Engaging and erudite, it is a boon for scholars and Montgomery fans alike.

The Donnelly Album: The Complete and Authentic Account of Canada's Famous Feuding Family

Ray Fazakas

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On February 3, 1880 five members of the hated Donnelly family in Lucan, Ontario, were killed by a mob of drunken vigilantes.

The Donnelly Album tells in compelling detail the story of the Donnellys - James, Johannah and their seven sons and one daughter. Arriving from Tipperary, Ireland in the 1840s, the family settled in the boisterous pioneer community near London, Ontario. For the next 30 years, their activities gained wide notoriety in the area. James was convicted of murder but escaped the gallows. The sons grew up to be handsome, reckless, enterprising in business and very dangerous in combat.

What is it about The Donnellys that still fascinates people? Were they really as evil as their enemies portrayed them? Why was no one ever convicted of their murders? What happened to the surviving Donnellys? And why do local people still feel strongly, taking sides for or against the family?

After 15 years of exhaustive research, lawyer Ray Fazakas has produced the definitive account of the famous feud and its tragic consequences. He has also collected an astonishing treasure trove of old photographs, period drawings, maps and documents, showing the Donnellys, their murderers and the sites and people involved.

This unique combination of narrative and illustration recreates an epic tragedy of frontier life.

Fallen Angel: The Unlikely Rise of Walter Stadnick and the Canadian Hells Angels

Jerry Langton

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Walter Stadnick is not an imposing man. At five-foot-four, his face and arms scarred by fire in a motorcycle accident, he would not spring to mind as a leader of Canada's most notorious biker gang, the Hells Angels. yet through sheer guts and determination, intelligence and luck, this Hamilton-born youth who had the nickname of "Nurget" rose in the Hells Angels ranks to become national president. Not only did he lead the Angels through the violent war with their rivals the rock machine in Montreal in the Nineties, Stadnick saw opportunity to grow the Hells Angels into a national criminal gang. he was a visionary--and a highly successful one.

Bikers are not known for their fondness for rival gangs. Stadnick and the Angels fought and defeated rival gangs, or used power of persuasion to patch them over. As Stadnick's influence spread, law enforcement took notice of the growing presence of the Angels in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. However, Stadnick's success did not come without a price. Arrested and charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder, stadnick beat the murder charges but was convicted of gangsterism and is currently serving time.

Fallen Angel details one man's improbable rise to power in one of the world's most violent organizations, while shedding light on how this enigmatic and dangerous biker gang operated and why it remains so powerful.

The Voyageur's Highway: Minnesota's Border Lake Land

Grace Lee Nute

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Nice short history of the Border Route 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book itself is fine, but for whatever reason, Amazon saw fit to add "Mysteries & Horror" to the title of the book in its website. I was hoping to get some ghost stories and/or folklore from the Boundary Waters, but what I got was (comparatively) dry history. I am so, so disapointed that this book is not what Amazon portrays it as, and if you have any ideas that would be more in line with what I'm looking for (folklore and ghost stories from the Boundary Waters and Quetico area, lumberjacks, miners, indians, trappers, voyageurs) please post them here!

Editorial Review:

A popular guide to the state's canoe country from Rainy Lake east to Lake Superior tells of famous explorers, the great fur traders, voyageurs, Indians, and loggers who passed that way. Photographs and maps support the fascinating, authoritative text.

There Never Was a Better Time: Toronto's Yesterdays

Doug Taylor

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Editorial Review:

Jack and Ernie Taylor emigrate to Canada in 1921, and three years later their parents, Mary and John Taylor, along with their brothers and rascal of a grandfather, Job, move to the city. It is one of the most dynamic decades in the history of Toronto. The family thrives, despite the different temperaments involved, thanks in part to the strength of Mary's discipline. She provides structure for her sons, yet they still enjoy the diverse frivolities of the time.

Share in their daily life during the Roaring Twenties as they:

• Cross Toronto harbour on a side-paddle ferry
• Attend a baseball game at Hanlan's Point
• Sail aboard the Cayuga to Port Dalhousie
• Attend a Remembrance Day service at the old city hall
• Observe the 60th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada
• Experience the CNE, the biggest and grandest annual fair in the world
• Share the laughter of a vaudeville show at the Pantages Theatre
• Visit Sunnyside, Toronto's summer playground by the lake

"Toronto the Good" was evolving into a dynamic, sinful metropolis, adored by many and feared by others. The Taylors witness the cultural identity and infrastructure of their adopted city becoming firmly established during a time of rapid urban expansion.

There Never Was a Better Time: Toronto's Yesterdays is an entertaining and informative history of an immigrant family during one of the most thrilling times in Toronto's history.

The Jews of Windsor, 1790-1990: A Historical Chronicle

Jonathan V. Plaut

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Editorial Review:

Beginning with the first Jewish settler, Moses David, the important role that Windsor Jews played in the development of Ontario's south is mirrored in this 200-year chronicle. the founding pioneer families transformed their Eastern European shtetl into a North American settlement; many individuals were involved in establishing synagogues, schools, and an organized communal structure in spite of divergent religious, political, and economic interests.

Modernity and the growing influences of Zionism and Conservative/Reform Judaism challenged the traditional and leftist leanings of the community's founders. From the outset, Jews were represented in city council, actively involved in communal organizations, and appointed to judicial posts. While its Jewish population was small, Windsor boasted Canada's first Jewish Cabinet members, provincially and federally, in David Croll and Herb Gray. As the new millennium approached, jews faced shrinking numbers, forcing major consolidations in order to ensure their survival.

Roughing It in the Bush (Norton Critical Edition)

Susanna Moodie

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In 1832, Susanna Moodie immigrated to Canada from Britain with her husband and daughter in search of comfort and independence in the unsettled Canadian backwoods. She went on to chronicle her experiences in this personal, accurate, and often humorous account. This Norton Critical Edition of Roughing It in the Bush provides everything that a student needs to analyze and enjoy Moodie's tale.

A thorough "Backgrounds" section includes images, a map, contemporary reviews of Roughing It, and letters written by Moodie to her husband during the winter of 1839, at which time he was serving a military appointment in the Victoria District and she and her children were facing life-threatening illnesses.

"Criticism" contains ten essays by leading Canadian scholars and authors, among them Margaret Atwood, Carl Ballstadt, D. M. R. Bentley, Susan Glickman, and Michael Peterman.

A Chronology of Susanna Moodie's life and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.