Bøger udgivet af Greystone Books,Canada

Charles Wilkins, then a university student, took a job as a gravedigger in a vast corporate cemetery in the east end of Toronto during the hazy summer of 1969. The bizarre-but-true events of that time-a midsummer gravediggers' strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal bone-shifting-play out among a Barnum-esque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir. Amid relentless gallows humor and the inevitable reminders of what it is, finally, to be human, Wilkins provides an unforgettable insider's view of a morbidly fascinating industry. "In the Land of Long Fingernails" is a story of mortality, materialism, friendship and sexuality... and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man.

Memoir, biography, and outrageous comedy make for a perfect blend in the debut book from acclaimed writer Steve Burgess. Telling the tale of his mother's life and death, and along the way laying bare his own life and struggles, Burgess renders a memorable and deeply moving meditation on life and family.The author's mother, Joan, barely survived her thirteenth birthday: a rare disorder had made it almost impossible for her to swallow food. Her battle to survive this illness was the first in a lifelong sequence of courageous confrontations with her upbringing. As she raised her five children, Joan revealed herself to be a strong and remarkably complex woman. This is her story, but it's also the story of her husband, a charming United Church minister, and their children-including the alarmingly delinquent Steve, who spent much of his adolescence and beyond dropping acid, drinking to excess, and getting in trouble with the law. Which leads him to wonder: was he responsible for his mother's ills and perhaps even her death?Whether he's relating how an ice cream product saved him from a gruesome death on the Trans-Canada, or sizing up the rebranding efforts of a woeful Manitoba motel, or depicting daily life

Award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and musician Paul Quarrington was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in summer 2009. Looking death in the face, he decided to go out singing, throwing everything he had into his work and demonstrating a creative energy that belied his illness. He performed with his band, recorded two new albums, and completed this eclectic, funny, and moving memoir of a life lived in music and words. In "Cigar Box Banjo," Quarrington ruminates on the bands of his childhood; his restless youth spent playing bass with a cult band, and his incarnation, in middle age, as rhythm guitarist and singer with the band Porkbelly Futures. Ranging through rock 'n' roll, the blues, folk, country, and soul, he explores how songs are made, how they work, and why they affect us so profoundly. On stage and in studios from Newfoundland to Nashville, Quarrington celebrates his last year on the planet.

What begins as a road trip through America soon becomes a journey of discovery into themselves and into the heart of the next-door neighbour they thought they knew. For Wayne Grady, the thrill of landscape and history is tempered by memories of racism and his own family roots. Merilyn Simonds, her ear tuned for the offbeat, finds curious echoes of the ex-pat promised land she grew up with. Together they travel against the tide of American history, following in the literary tire tracks of John Steinbeck, William Least Heat Moon, and Francis Trollope.Grady and Simonds experience the splendors of the Mojave Desert, the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi River, and the bayou's of Louisiana and the Outer Banks and contemplate the impact of geography on culture and of culture on landscape. They observe America from the outside, yet feel strangely at home.Part travelogue, part exploration, part mid-winter love story told with wit and acuity by one of Canada's most engaging literary couples, Breakfast at the Exit Cafe is a journey into the reality behind the cultural myth that is America.

A Hunter's Confession tells the story of hunting in David Carpenter's life, including the reasons he once loved it and the reasons he no longer pursues it. When he was a boy, Carpenter and his father and brother would head out along the side roads and into the prairie marshlands searching for duck, grouse, and partridge. As a young man, he began skulking around the bushes with his hunting buddies and trudging through groves of larch, alpine fir, and willow in search of elk. Later, hunting became a form of therapy, a way to ward off melancholy and depression. In the end, as a result of a dramatic experience after shooting a grouse, Carpenter gave up hunting for good.Winding through this personal narrative is Carpenter's exploration of the history of hunting, subsistence hunting versus hunting for sport, trophy hunting, and the meaning of the hunt for those who have written about it most eloquently. Are wild creatures somehow our property? How is the sport hunter different from the hunter who must kill game to survive? Is there some sort of bridge that might connect aboriginal hunters to non-aboriginal hunters? Why do many hunters feel most fully alive when they

Sydney Cannings and Richard Cannings tell the story of the province's geology and the history of its living creatures. Starting 200 million years ago, when there was no British Columbia west of the present Rocky Mountains, the authors take us on a journey through time, describing the collisions of island chains called terranes, the sliding of plates, the erupting of volcanos, and the movement of glaciers that created British Columbia as we know it today. They also describe the rich legacy of fossils left behind as a result of all this geological activity. This updated edition has been extensively revised to reflect the current thinking about plate tectonics and the geological history of British Columbia. There are also seven new maps and a number of new photographs. An appendix lists the various types of rock in British Columbia.

A zookeeper's story of her extraordinary relationship with the bears she has rescued and her insights into their emotional lives."An inspiring trip into the mind and reality of bears.”-Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants WeepFew people know bears as intimately as Else Poulsen. She has raised bears, comforted bears, taught bears, learned from bears, had bears communicate their needs to her, and nursed bears back to health. This remarkable book reveals the many insights about bears and their lives that she has gained through her work with them.In the eighties, Poulsen became a zookeeper in Calgary, where she rehabilitated bears in crisis. She has shared in the joy of a polar bear discovering soil under her paws for the first time in twenty years, felt the pride of a cub learning to crack nuts with her molars, and grieved at the horror of captivity for Asian black bears in China.Smiling Bears provides an enlightening and moving portrait of bears in all their richness and complexity and of Poulsen's exhilarating work with them.

Five immense lakes lie at the heart of North America. They cover an area of nearly 95,000 square miles and hold more than 5,500 cubic miles of water. Together they comprise the world's largest freshwater system, containing 95 percent of the continent's fresh water - and one-fifth of the planet's total supply. Home to 40 million people, the Great Lakes' drainage basin is the hub of industry and agriculture in North America. More than a region; it is almost a nation in itself.The Great Lakes: A Natural History of a Changing Region is the most authoritative, complete and accessible book to date about the biology and ecology of this vital, ever-changing terrain. It begins with an account of the geological formation of the lakes and an overview of the lakes' role in relatively recent human history. Grady takes readers through the lakes basin, defined and explored by its three component forest ecosystems: the Boreal, the Great Lakes/St Lawrence and the Carolinian Forests. Representative flora and fauna species are profiled, along with notable physical, climatic, and environmental features.The Great Lakes is both a first-hand tribute and an essential guide to a fascinating ecosystem in eternal flux.

Beginning naked in the darkness Brian Brett takes us on a journey through a summer's day that also tells the story of his affectionately named Trauma Farm-exploring the garden, orchards, fields, the mysteries of live-stock and poultry, and the social intricacies of rural communities.Both a memoir and a natural history of the small mixed farm, this eighteen-year-long day travels forward and backward in time, taking us all the way from Babylon to globalization and demonstrating the importance of both tall tales and rigorous science as Brett contemplates the perfection of the egg and the nature of soil or offers a scathing critique of agribusiness and the modern slaughterhouse. Whether discussing the uses and misuses of gates, examining the energy of seeds, or bantering with his family and neighbors, Brett remains aware of the miracles of life, birth, and death and the ecological paradoxes that confront the rural world every day.Threaded with a deep knowledge of biology and botany, Trauma Farm is an erudite, poetic, passionate, and frequently hilarious portrait of rural life and a rich and thought-provoking meditation on the modern world.

With irreverent and at times mordant humor, Most of Me chronicles Robyn Michele Levy's early, mysterious symptoms (a dragging left foot, a crash into “downward dead dog” position on the yoga mat), the devastating Parkinson’s diagnosis, her subsequent discovery of two lumps in her breast (Little Lump and Big Blob), her mastectomy and her life since then dealing with her diverse disease portfolio. She is accompanied on her journey by a fantastic cast of characters, including her Cry Lady (who always makes appearances at inopportune times) and perky Dolores the Prosthesis, as well as a convoy of health professionals, family members, friends, and neighbors. Both heartbreaking and hilarious, Most of Me offers a unique glimpse into a creative mind, an ailing body, and the restorative power of humor and fantasy.

Garlic has been used throughout history as a nourishing food and a magical medicine, healing everything from toothaches to dysentery. For much of this past century many dismissed its medicinal qualities as folk remedies more efficiently replaced by modern drugs - but today garlic is undergoing a renaissance. Not only are more people cooking with garlic, they are also growing it in their backyards. And scientists are studying garlic's antibiotic, antifungal, and antiparasitic qualities, as well as its potential for cancer treatment. In Pursuit of Garlic tells Liz Primeau's story of her love affair with the divinely odorous bulb and leads us on a tour of garlic's role in history, art, medicine, and science. Primeau shares her favorite garlic-centered recipes, visits garlic fairs, discusses the many varieties of garlic - from Russian Red to German Brown to Kettle River Giant - and gives invaluable tips for growing your own.

For twenty years, Ian McAllister has explored the rugged north coast of British Columbia, known as the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the last places on the planet where wolves live in an undisturbed way. This book describes McAllister's experiences over that period following two packs of wolves, one that dominates the extreme outer coastal islands, and another that lives farther inland in the heart of the temperate rainforest.McAllister, along with Chris Darimont and Paul C. Paquet, were the first to document the unique behavior of these animals in The Last Wild Wolves. In Following the Last Wild Wolves McAllister brings readers up to date describing what has happened to the wolves and their environment since the book first appeared. He chronicles their unique behavior as they fish for salmon in the fall, target seals hauled out on rocks in winter, and give birth to their young in spring. He also describes the work of scientists with the Raincoast Conservation Society who have been studying the wolves and explains how their science corroborates his own observations and the traditional knowledge of the area’s Native people. Most interestingly, the results of these studies reveal a genetically distinct population of wolves independent of and separate from all other known wolf populations on the planet.

Whether you bicycle for fitness, pleasure, transportation or all of the above, "Easy Cycling around Vancouver" features dozens of routes to discover across the Lower Mainland and northwestern Washington State. From Squamish to Bellingham, Richmond to Agassiz, Jean and Norman Cousins guide you along winding backroads and quiet country lanes, pointing out the best cafes and swimming holes as well as local flora and historic sites. This updated and expanded second edition includes: * forty-five tours (nine all-new ones) ranging from 20 to 45 km long* concise, easy-to-follow maps and route descriptions* helpful tips about cycling basics, safety and trip planning Try a flat, scenic trail with the kids or combine several tours to make up a multi-day trip. Ride right from your front door or take a bus, train or ferry to the starting point. Whatever your cycling interest, "Easy Cycling around Vancouver" will fit the bill.

Small Beneath the Sky is a tender, unsparing portrait of a family. It is also a book about place. Growing up in a small prairie city, where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, Lorna Crozier never once dreamed of becoming a writer. Nonetheless, the grace, wisdom, and wit of her poetry have won her international acclaim. In this marvellous volume of recollections, she charts the geography that has shaped her character and her sense of home. Crozier vividly depicts her hometown of Swift Current, with its one main street, its two high schools-the one on top of the hill was for the wealthy kids - and its three beer parlours, where her father spent most of his evenings. She captures crystal moments from her childhood - delivering newspapers with her brother in the blue-snow light of a winter morning, planting potatoes under a pale full moon, enjoying an illicit night swim in the town's public pool. She writes unflinchingly, too, about the grief and shame caused by poverty and alcoholism. At the heart of the book is Crozier's fierce love for her mother, Peggy, her no-nonsense champion and moral guide.The people in these pages are drawn simply, without adornment, as befits the landscape in which they live. Interspersed with the narratives of daily life - sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking - are prose poems evoking the elements. These "first causes" - dust, light, rain, wind, snow-take on mythical qualities in Crozier's sure hands, imparting ancient knowledge about the prairie grasslands and their effect on those who have put down stakes there. Rich in detail, generous in spirit, this unconventional memoir pays tribute to life's mysteries, secrets, and surprises. Lorna Crozier approaches the past with a tactile, arms-wide-open sense of discovery. Calling on the ghosts of ancestors and the power of memory, she has traced her beginnings with a poet's precision and an open heart.

The first ten years of the 21st century were a fast-moving, event-filled decade -- and there was no exception in the NHL. Legendary players, including Patrick Roy, Brendan Shanahan, and Joe Sakic, all hung up their skates, clearing the ice for stunning debuts from astonishingly talented young players like Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and Patrick Kane. Returning to hockey's roots, the outdoor rinks at the NHL Winter Classic drew in million of viewers, shattered attendance records, and entertained thousands in such storied locations as Chicago's Wrigley Field and Boston's Fenway Park. "Best of the Decade" captures all the excitement, in full-color photographs, of the past ten years of NHL hockey.

In 1871, Marianne North, a brilliant artist with a keen interest in botany, set-forth to travel the world on a quest to paint indigenous plants in their natural habitat. Encouraged by her friend Charles Darwin, North travelled by boat, train, mule, foot and palanquin to every continent except Antarctica. She circled the globe twice over fifteen years and accumulated an extensive and valuable collection of more than eight hundred paintings, which today comprise the esteemed Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London.North-high-spirited, indefatigable, and brave-also kept detailed journals, which were posthumously published in three volumes in the late 1800s. Abundant Beauty collects the most engaging writings from those journals in one edition, including rich descriptions of botanica and delightful accounts of local people and customs from her sometimes dangerous travels. Abundant Beauty is a fascinating and informative read for botanists, gardeners, historians, and armchair travellers.

This fun and engaging story makes an engrossing -- but not overwhelming -- introduction to environmental issues for young readers. With the help of their parents and their own imaginations, Jamie and Megan discover that natural magic is all around them, even in their own home. Sheets and pillows, fruits and furniture -- they all come from nature. What's more, the air isn't just empty space -- it's full of smells, sounds, water, and life-giving gases. And their backyard contains clues to both past and future: rocks from millions of years ago, a nail from pioneer times, and seeds that will grow into food for the summer. Beautiful full-color illustrations bring each adventure to vibrant life, with a forest growing in the living room and a stream appearing in the back garden. Each chapter ends with a page of related activities, and a glossary is included at the back.

Co-published by: David Suzuki Foundation.

Co-published by the David Suzuki Foundation.

"Snakebit" traces the author's journey from a childhood fascination with snakes and amphibians, through academic flirtation, to professional association with some of the world's greatest herpetologists. It leads the reader through desert, swamp, jungle, and lab to reveal the strange world of these cryptic creatures and the often stranger fraternity that pursues them. Both celebrating and sending up the science and philosophy surrounding what surely seems insanity to some, "Snakebit" is packed with personalities, history, geography, culture, and an eclectic mix of locales.

First published in 2004, and now with a new introduction by the author and a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., this book of natural history, environmentalism, and politics explores one of the Earth's last primeval places: Clayoquot Sound. Pitt-Brooke takes the reader on 12 journeys, one for each month of the year. Each journey covers the outstanding natural event of that season, such as whale-watching in April, shorebird migration in May, and the salmon spawn in October.

Kevin Chong has grand plans. He draws up a to-do list of major milestones that will give him the life he always wanted—and the life that will inspire awe and envy in his friends. Things like settling down and starting a family; learning a foreign language; getting a tattoo. But these grand plans go out the window when Chong makes an unconventional decision: he's going to buy a racehorse. Not the whole thing—he'll become part—owner of the horse. Just don't ask him which part.Thus Chong meets Blackie, the racehorse that will win his heart, even if she doesn't always win on the track. He meets Randi, the cantankerous and foul-mouthed horse trainer with a heart of gold. He meets an assorted array of characters who work, live and drink at the track—and, one by one, the items on his to-do list are crossed out and replaced with horse-related ambitions. His goals are a bit more humble (cussing like a track worker replaces learning a foreign language), but his life has gained new meaning.The story is infused with the noise, excitement and faded glamour of the horse-racing world. It is strewn with fascinating tidbits about the history and tradition of this

"City Farmer" celebrates the new ways that urban dwellers across North America are reimagining cities as places of food production. From homeowners planting their front yards with vegetables to guerilla gardeners scattering seeds in neglected urban corners, gardening guru Lorraine Johnson chronicles the increasing popularity of innovative urban food growing.

"Off the Chain" takes readers on a wild ride through the rise of snowboarding, from its hippie origins in the backwoods of Vermont and California to its present incarnation as a $150 billion global industry. Illustrated with 100 color photographs, "Off the Chain" begins with the sport's early days, when the pioneers built their own boards and snuck onto the slopes. Author Rebagliati profiles snowboarding's most notorious figures, explores the nature of snowboarding culture, and tells what touring as a young World Cup snowboarder is like. He traces the mainstreaming of the sport, the evolution of snowboard fashion, and the emergence of Shaun White as snowboarding's first megastar. He's unsparing in revealing the sport's more controversial aspects, from groupies to drugs, including his own experience having his gold medal revoked -- and then restored -- after failing a drug test. Rebagliati pulls no punches in this lively mix of personal memoir and sports history.

Talk of global warming is nearly inescapable these days - but there are some who believe the concept of climate change is an elaborate hoax. Despite the input of the world's leading climate scientists, the urgings of politicians, and the outcry of many grassroots activists, many Americans continue to ignore the warning signs of severe climate shifts. How did this happen? Climate Cover-up seeks to answer this question, describing the pollsters and public faces who have crafted careful language to refute the findings of environmental scientists. Exploring the PR techniques, phony "think tanks," and funding used to pervert scientific fact, this book serves as a wake-up call to those who still wish to deny the inconvenient truth.

Hockey isn’t just a Canadian obsession — the sport boasts fans from around the globe, and it has been played extensively at the international level. Whether at the Olympics, the World Juniors, or special games like the infamous 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, international hockey has a rich history, and plenty of trivia for die-hard fans.

This lively collection of fascinating facts and fables, colorful cartoons, and dynamic illustrations explains how everything on Earth is connected. Since its original publication, concern for the environment has grown, and although environmental damage has increased, so too have "green" strategies. This new edition reflects these changes, with expanded discussion of environmental issues and new technologies, as well as many more activities. New sidebars offer extra facts, tips, and real-life examples of things other budding ecologists have done to make the world a better place.

In this edition of their bestseller, the sequel to the best-selling "Good News for a Change, " authors David Suzuki and Holly Dressel provide the latest inspiring stories about individuals, groups, and businesses that are making real change in the world. "More Good News" features the most up-to-date information about critical subjects, such as energy and the economy, not covered in the previous edition. These stories offer compelling proof from the front lines that sustainable solutions already exist.

"Brew North" tells the delightful story of Canada's national beverage. Lively and informative, "Brew North" puts beer lovers front and centre. From cowboys quaffing India pale ale in a western saloon to modern-day beer snobs sipping pints of cask-brewed bitter and commenting on its "chocolate and cigar box bass notes," this is the story of the men--and women--who brewed, served and drank the intoxicating malted beverage. Charming illustrations reveal rustic taverns, Victorian photographs give us that era's opulent saloons, and modern colour shots help us understand the brewing process. The book also illustrates how brewers have long been conscious of marketing and advertising, creating unique bottles and ads, giveaway trays and signs.