Honoured as a hero in China, Ontario-born Norman Bethune was a surgeon, medical innovator, and charismatic political activist who deployed his skills on the battlefields of Spain and China in the 1930s. His prodigious energy included inventing surgical instruments, mobile blood-transfusion units, teaching, and advocating for social justice at home and abroad. Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian, has always been fascinated by the dynamic man who married his social conscience to his medical mission. Reviled as a Communist by some, revered as a humanitarian by others, Bethune was a complicated, inspirational figure who lived and loved on a large canvas.

The stormy and inspirational life of a Canadian doctor who is a hero in China. Honoured as a hero in China, Ontario-born Norman Bethune was a surgeon, medical innovator, and charismatic political activist who deployed his skills on the battlefields of Spain and China in the 1930s. His prodigious energy included inventing surgical instruments, mobile blood-transfusion units, teaching, and advocating for social justice at home and abroad. Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese Canadian, has always been fascinated by the dynamic man who married his social conscience to his medical mission. Reviled as a Communist by some, revered as a humanitarian by others, Bethune was a complicated, inspirational figure who lived and loved on a large canvas.

A biographical account of the life of Norman Bethune, detailing the story of his life including his career as a surgeon, his fight to eradicate tuberculosis, his commitment to establish a medicare system in Canada, and his communist ideologies, through considerable research and interviews with friends, family, former patients and colleagues.

Surveys the life and career of the social theorist best known for the quotation, "The medium is the message, " who helped shape the culture of the 1960s and predicted the future of television and the rise of the Internet.

Big Bear (1825–1888) was a Plains Cree chief in Saskatchewan at a time when aboriginals were confronted with the disappearance of the buffalo and waves of European settlers that seemed destined to destroy the Indian way of life. In 1876 he refused to sign Treaty No. 6, until 1882, when his people were starving. Big Bear advocated negotiation over violence, but when the federal government refused to negotiate with aboriginal leaders, some of his followers killed 9 people at Frog Lake in 1885. Big Bear himself was arrested and imprisoned. Rudy Wiebe, author of a Governor General’s Award–winning novel about Big Bear, revisits the life of the eloquent statesman, one of Canada’s most important aboriginal leaders.

Originally published in the early 1950s, The Scalpel, the Sword celebrates the turbulent career of Dr. Norman Bethune (1890-1939), a brilliant surgeon, campaigner against private medicine, communist, and graphic artist. Bethune belonged to that international contingent of individuals who recognized the threat of fascism in the world and went out courageously to try to defeat it. Born in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Bethune introduced innovative techniques in treating battlefield injuries and pioneered the use of blood transfusions to save lives, which made him a legend first in Spain during the civil war and later in China when he served with the armies of Mao Zedong in their fight against the invading Japanese. He is today remembered amongst the pantheon of Chinese revolutionary heroes. In Canada Bethune’s strong left-wing views made him persona non grata, but this highly readable and engaging account has helped to sustain the memory of a great man.

Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the deep South. “Intense, brilliant . . . . Capote has an astonishing command . . . a magic all his own.” —The Atlantic At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

Wilfrid Laurier is acknowledged as a great prime minister, a superb orator, and a survivor. But he has become more myth than man. André Pratte, chief editorial writer of Quebec’s La Presse, uncovers Laurier’s complexity amid the charged political circumstances of the early 20th century. Laurier tried to unite a newborn country that found itself grappling with the thorny questions of minority rights, regional tensions, and its role in the world. Pratte skilfully reveals a Laurier who did not have to create a special political strategy in order to deal with the realities of Canada. Growing up in French- and English-Canadian cultures, he himself was a mirror of that complexity. Pratte’s Laurier affirms our long and stable history, while recognizing that events are never predictable, and that dialogue, tolerance, and compromise are always necessary.

Canada has no better interpreter than prolific writer and thinker John Ralston Saul. Here he argues that Canada did not begin in 1867; indeed, its foundation was laid by two visionary men, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. The two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. But it was during the "Great Ministry" of 1848—51 that the two politicians implemented laws that created a more equitable country. They revamped judicial institutions, created a public education system, made bilingualism official, designed a network of public roads, began a public postal system, and reformed municipal governance. Faced with opposition, and even violence, the two men— polar opposites in temperament—united behind a set of principles and programs that formed modern Canada. Writing with verve and deep conviction, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.

Georges and Pauline Vanier follows their lives and travels across the world - from Canadian military life to the League of Nations, from the inner circles of British government to their harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied France - detailing their disappointments and triumphs during social and political turbulence. With insight and sympathy, Mary Frances Coady tells their dramatic personal story. Revealing their remarkably vibrant personalities, she details the couple's support of the French resistance as well as Georges Vanier's pleas for the Canadian government to accept refugees fleeing Hitler's horrors and his effort to broaden immigration policy. She also recounts the importance of their religious convictions, their controversial standing among Quebecers, and their early advocacy of official bilingualism. An invigorating and well-told tale of their lasting legacies, Georges and Pauline Vanier is the definitive account of the enduring contributions the Vaniers made to the world and to their country.