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Above the Fold: A Personal History of the Toronto Star – John Honderich
Don’t let them ruin the newspaper. . . These were the dying words of Beland Honderich to his son, John. The newspaper was the Toronto Star, founded in 1892 by Joseph E. (Holy Joe) Atkinson and, to this day, one of the world’s leading and most respected socially liberal broadsheets. For the second half of its legendary–and sometimes controversial–history, both John and his father, as successive editors, publishers, and family owners, made it into the newspaper we know today. The Star has been, at different times, home base to the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Morley Callaghan, Pierre Berton, June Callwood, Peter C. Newman, Gary Lautens, Robert Fulford, Richard Gwyn, Christie Blatchford, Michele Landsberg, Chantal Hebert, Joey Slinger, and many more. It also brandishes a corporate history unlike any other. In an extraordinary exercise of arbitrary power, the Ontario government held veto power over all of the Star’s operations until the paper eventually evolved to the five families of the Torstar Voting Trust, one of which were the Honderichs. And in that process, those families committed in court to observe and promote the intellectual and spiritual basis on which the Star has always operated.
Completed just weeks before the author’s untimely death, Above the Fold gives us an on-the-ground account of how the Star, once known primarily for its tabloid sensationalism and screaming headlines, transformed into a bastion of journalistic quality that routinely wins the industry’s highest honours and accolades. Honderich writes about the paper he loved and the challenges it faced over the years, including crippling strikes, boardroom battles, soaring egos, the vicious newspaper wars with various competitors, and, most recently, the shift away from print. He also delves deeply into his relationship with his father, who could be remarkably cold and unfeeling toward his son and others, earning the nickname “The Beast.” There was great love between the two men but it came at a cost both professionally and, of course, personally. Always worried about accusations of nepotism as he rose to the top job at the paper, John felt he needed to prove himself that much more, which he did–and then some.
Honest, frank, generous, and highly informative, Above the Fold is a personal history of one of the most storied and successful newspapers of our time, told through the lives of the father and son who ran it for close to half-a-century.
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All Roads Home: A Life on and Off the Ice – Bryan Trottier/Stephen Brunt
Over the course of his incredible career, Bryan Trottier set a new standard of hockey excellence. A seven-time Stanley Cup champion (four with the New York Islanders, two with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and one as an assistant coach with the Colorado Avalanche), Trottier won countless awards and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. In 2017, he was named one of the NHL’s Top 100 Players of All Time.
Trottier grew up in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, the son of a Cree/Chippewa/Metis father and an Irish-Canadian mother. All Roads Home offers a poignant, funny, wise, and inspiring look at his coming of age, both on and off the ice. It is a unique memoir in which Trottier shares stories about family, friends, teammates, and coaches, the lessons that he has learned from them, and the profound impact they have had in shaping the person he has become.
Some of the incredible characters featured in the book include Trottier’s father Buzz; legendary Islanders coach Al Arbour; teammates Clark Gillies and Mike Bossy; and the Penguins’ Mario Lemieux, to name but a few. He’ll also talk about the high school English teacher and guidance counsellor who helped him develop self-confidence and encouraged him as a writer: Governor General’s Award-winning poet, Lorna Crozier.
All Roads Home will also include a Foreword from bestselling author Jesse Thistle (From the Ashes) and two very special Afterwords: one from Trottier’s daughter, Lindsy Ruthven, and the other from his life-long friend, beloved hockey great Dave Tiger Williams.
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All the Women in my Brain; And Other Concerns – Betty Gilpin
Like Jenny Lawson and Caitlin Moran, Emmy-nominated actress and writer Betty Gilpin delivers a lightning-strike dispatch of hilarious, intimate, and luminous essays on how to navigate this weird and wondrous life.
Betty Gilpin has a brain full of women. There’s Blanche VonFuckery, Ingrid St. Rash, and a host of others—some cowering in sweatpants, some howling plans for revolution, and some, oh God, and some…slowly vomiting up a crow without breaking eye contact? Jesus. These women take turns at the wheel. That’s why Betty feels like a million selves. With a raised eyebrow and a soul-scalpel, she tells us how she got this way.
Betty has depression, Betty has a dream, Betty has tits the size of printers. She has debilitating shame and then, impossibly, a tiny voice saying what if. She takes us from wild dissections of modern womanhood to boarding school to the glossy cringe of Hollywood. We laugh through the failures (monologue to beagle! Ancient mentors proposing fellatio!) and quietly hope with her for the dream. Whether that dream is love or liberation or enough iMDb credits to tase the demon snapping at her ankles, we won’t know until the shit-fanning end. There’s Hamlet, there’s self-sabotage, there’s PTSD from turkey. Stunning, candid, and laugh-out-loud funny, All the Women in My Brain is perfect for any reader who’s ever felt like they were more, or at least weirder, than the world expected.
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And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle – Jon Meacham
A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Abraham Lincoln was president when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions inextricably bound up with money, power, race, identity, and faith. He was hated and hailed, excoriated and revered. In Lincoln we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations.
At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right.
This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford’s Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans of the nineteenth century, Lincoln’s story illuminates the ways and means of politics, the marshaling of power in a belligerent democracy, the durability of white supremacy in America, and the capacity of conscience to shape the maelstrom of events.
Lincoln was not all he might have been—few human beings ever are—but he was more than many men have ever been. We could have done worse. And we have. And, as Lincoln himself would readily acknowledge, we can always do better. But we will do so only if we see Abraham Lincoln—and ourselves—whole.
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Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory – Ted Barrie
The years 2019 to 2025 mark the eightieth anniversary of the longest battle of the Second World War, the Battle of the Atlantic. It also proved to be the war’s most critical and dramatic battle of attrition. For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, most of which were escorted by Royal Canadian destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat “wolf packs” in the paths of the convoys, the German Kriegsmarine almost succeeded in cutting off this vital lifeline to a beleaguered Great Britain.
In 1939, the Royal Canadian Navy went to war with exactly thirteen warships and about 3,500 regular servicemen and reservists. During the desperate days and nights of the Battle of the Atlantic, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945, it had become the fourth largest navy in the world.
The story of Canada’s naval awakening from the dark, bloody winters of 1939–1942, to be “ready, aye, ready” to challenge the U-boats and drive them to defeat, is a Canadian wartime saga for the ages. While Canadians think of the Great War battle of Vimy Ridge as the country’s coming of age, it was the Battle of the Atlantic that proved Canada’s gauntlet to victory and a nation-building milestone.
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Big Men Fear Me – Mark Bourrie
The remarkable true story of the rise and fall of one of North America’s most influential media moguls.
When George McCullagh bought The Globe and The Mail and Empire and merged them into the Globe and Mail, the charismatic 31-year-old high school dropout had already made millions on the stock market. It was just the beginning of the meteoric rise of a man widely expected to one day be prime minister of Canada. But the charismatic McCullagh had a dark side. Dogged by the bipolar disorder that destroyed his political ambitions and eventually killed him, he was all but written out of history. It was a loss so significant that journalist Robert Fulford has called McCullagh’s biography “one of the great unwritten books in Canadian history”–until now.
In Big Men Fear Me, award-winning historian Mark Bourrie tells the remarkable story of McCullagh’s inspirational rise and devastating fall, and with it sheds new light on the resurgence of populist politics, challenges to collective action, and attacks on the free press that characterize our own tumultuous era.
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Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder – William Shatner/Joshua Brandon
The beloved star of Star Trek, recent space traveler, and living legend William Shatner reflects on the interconnectivity of all things, our fragile bond with nature, and the joy that comes from exploration in this inspiring, revelatory, and exhilarating collection of essays.
Long before Gene Roddenberry put him on a starship to explore the galaxy, long before he actually did venture to space, William Shatner was gripped by his own quest for knowledge and meaning. Though his eventful life has been nothing short of extraordinary, Shatner is still never so thrilled as when he experiences something that inspires him to simply say, “Wow.”
Within these affecting, entertaining, and informative essays, he demonstrates that astonishing possibilities and true wonder are all around us. By revealing stories of his life—some delightful, others tragic—Shatner reflects on what he has learned along the way to his ninth decade and how important it is to apply the joy of exploration to our own lives. Insightful, irreverent, and with his signature wit and dramatic flair, Boldly Go is an unputdownable celebration of all that our miraculous universe holds for us.
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Born to Shine: Do Good, Find Your Joy, and Build a Life You Love – Kendra Scott
For 20 years, Kendra Scott built her eponymous jewelry company from a hobby and an idea into a billion-dollar brand, creating beautiful and affordable pieces with signature-cut natural gemstones packaged in a sunny yellow box. By any measure, she’s the woman who has it all: a self-made billionaire, a generous philanthropist, and a mother of three with a squad of strong female friendships.
Sounds pretty perfect, right?
But perfection is a myth that doesn’t serve any of us. A myth that encourages us to assume that we know what other people are going through, to judge each other on appearances and reputations, to present the best versions of ourselves and pretend like we’ve got it all together even when everything is falling apart. Perfection isn’t just a lie, it’s exhausting, and Kendra is tired of it.
In this in this vulnerable, wise, and laugh-out-loud book, Kendra takes us on a journey of personal stories and hard-earned life lessons, from her humble beginnings as an awkward, bullied young girl in small-town Wisconsin to launching a business in her spare bedroom with $500. With every pitfall, misstep, and failure, Kendra builds a life –- and a career—rooted in joy, purpose and doing good, a life she wants for every reader.
With heart and humor, Kendra reminds us that not all that glitters is gold, and that there is no level of success that can insulate you from what it means to be a human being: that life is as messy as it is magical, that bad things happen to good people for no good reason, and that a good life does not mean a perfect one.
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Breaking History: A White House Memoir – Jared Kushner
Few White House advisors have had such an expansive portfolio or constant access to the president. From his office next to Trump, senior adviser Jared Kushner operated quietly behind the scenes, preferring to leave the turf wars and television sparring to others.
Now, Kushner finally tells his story–a fast-paced and surprisingly candid account of how an earnest businessman with no political ambitions found himself pulled into a presidency that no one saw coming.
Breaking History takes readers inside debates in the Oval Office, double-crosses at the United Nations, tense meetings in Arab palaces, high-stakes negotiations, and the daily barrage of leaks, false allegations, investigations, and West Wing infighting.
A true historical thriller, this book is not your typical political memoir. Kushner details Washington’s intense resistance to change and reveals how he broke through the stalemates of the past. An outsider among outsiders, Kushner was a results-driven executive among beltway power brokers. He questioned old assumptions and delivered unprecedented results on trade, criminal justice reform, production of COVID-19 vaccines, and Middle East peace. His successful negotiation of the Abraham Accords, the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in 50 years, earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Written by one of the few people by Trump’s side from his trip down the golden escalator to his final departure from Andrews Air Force Base, Breaking History provides the most honest, nuanced, and definitive understanding of a presidency that will be studied for generations.
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The fully authorized and official biography of legendary Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, one of the world’s most revered and celebrated musicians of the last half century.
Charlie Watts was one of the most decorated musicians in the world, having joined the Rolling Stones, a few months after their formation, early in 1963.
A student of jazz drumming, he was headhunted by the band after bumping into them regularly in London’s rhythm and blues clubs. Once installed at the drum seat, he didn’t miss a gig, album or tour in his 60 years in the band. He was there throughout the swinging sixties, the early shot at superstardom and the Stones’ world conquest; and throughout the debauchery of the 1970s, typified by 1972’s Exile on Main St., considered one of the great albums of the century. By the 1980s, Charlie was battling his own demons, but emerged unscathed to enhance his unparalleled reputation even further over the ensuing decades.
Watts went through band bust-ups, bereavements and changes in personnel, managers, guitarists and rhythm sections, but remained the rock at the heart of the Rolling Stones for nearly 60 years—the thoughtful, intellectual but no less compelling counterpoint to the raucousness of his bandmates Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood. And this is his story.
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Chip War: the fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology – Chris Miller
An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world’s most critical resource—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in conflict.
You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing. Now, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more on chips than any other product, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America’s military superiority and economic prosperity.
Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. became dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America’s victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand. America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.
Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.
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Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the breaking of America – Maggie Haberman
Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few understand him and his motivations better. Now, demonstrating her majestic command of this story, Haberman reveals in full the depth of her understanding of the 45th president himself, and of what the Trump phenomenon means.
Interviews with hundreds of sources and numerous interviews over the years with Trump himself portray a complicated and often contradictory historical figure. Capable of kindness but relying on casual cruelty as it suits his purposes. Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who embedded himself in popular culture, galvanizing support for a run for high office that he began preliminary spadework for 30 years ago, to ultimately become a president who pushed American democracy to the brink.
The through-line of Trump’s life and his presidency is the enduring question of what is in it for him or what he needs to say to survive short increments of time in the pursuit of his own interests.
Confidence Man is also, inevitably, about the world that produced such a singular character, giving rise to his career and becoming his first stage. It is also about a series of relentlessly transactional relationships. The ones that shaped him most were with girlfriends and wives, with Roy Cohn, with George Steinbrenner, with Mike Tyson and Don King and Roger Stone, with city and state politicians like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani, with business partners, with prosecutors, with the media, and with the employees who toiled inside what they commonly called amongst themselves the “Trump Disorganization.”
That world informed the one that Trump tried to recreate while in the White House. All of Trump’s behavior as President had echoes in what came before. In this revelatory and newsmaking book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history.
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Danielle Walker’s Healthy in a Hurry: Real Food, Real Fast – Danielle Walker
Beloved author Danielle Walker proves that healthy cooking is both doable and oh-so-satisfying. In Healthy in a Hurry, Danielle presents more than 150 paleo recipes inspired by her sunny California lifestyle and diverse cuisines from around the world, including:
–No-cook lunches: Pesto Chicken, Nectarine & Avocado Salad; Thai-Style Shrimp Salad; Steak Lettuce Wraps with Horseradish Cream Sauce
–Freezer-friendly meals: Pork Ragu over Creamy Polenta; Turkey Chili Verde; Baked Pepperoni Pizza Spaghetti with Ranch
–Delicious pasta dishes: Curry Noodles with Shrimp; Mac & Cheese; Creamy Roasted Garlic, Chicken Sausage & Arugula Pasta
–Sheet pan dinners: Mediterranean Salmon with Artichokes & Peppers; Lemongrass-Ginger Pork Chops with Crunchy Jicama & Mint Salad; Peruvian Steak & French Fries
–Easy grills: Skirt Steak Tacos with Sriracha Aioli; Hawaiian BBQ Chicken with Grilled Bok Choy & Pineapple; Chipotle Cranberry-Sweet Potato Turkey Burgers
Each recipe is shaped by Danielle’s capable hands to be free of gluten, grains, and dairy–and most have just ten ingredients or fewer. And if that weren’t good enough, every recipe is photographed and all are fast to make, giving busy people with dietary restrictions lots of ways to eat well on a tight schedule–and budget. With prep times and cook times, dietary guidelines, a pantry of sauces and spice mixes, and six weeks of meal planning charts, Healthy in a Hurry will help you become the calm, organized cook you’ve always aspired to be.
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Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control – Ryan Holiday
In his New York Times bestselling book Courage is Calling, author Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a bold and brave life. In this much-anticipated second book of his Stoic Virtue series, Holiday celebrates the awesome power of self-discipline and those who have seized it.
To master anything, one must first master themselves–one’s emotions, one’s thoughts, one’s actions. Eisenhower famously said that freedom is really the opportunity to practice self-discipline. Cicero called the virtue of temperance the polish of life. Without boundaries and restraint, we risk not only failing to meet our full potential and jeopardizing what we have achieved, but we ensure misery and shame. In a world of temptation and excess, this ancient idea is more urgent than ever.
In Discipline is Destiny, Holiday draws on the stories of historical figures we can emulate as pillars of self-discipline, including Lou Gehrig, Queen Elizabeth II, boxer Floyd Patterson, Marcus Aurelius and writer Toni Morrison, as well as the cautionary tales of Napoleon, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Babe Ruth. Through these engaging examples, Holiday teaches readers the power of self-discipline and balance, and cautions against the perils of extravagance and hedonism.
At the heart of Stoicism are four simple virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Everything else, the Stoics believed, flows from them. Discipline is Destiny will guide readers down the path to self-mastery, upon which all the other virtues depend. Discipline is predictive. You cannot succeed without it. And if you lose it, you cannot help but bring yourself failure and unhappiness.
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Go to Dinners: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook – Ina Garten
America’s favorite home cook presents delicious, crowd-pleasing, go-to recipes that you’ll want to make over and over again!
Even Ina Garten, America’s most-trusted and beloved home cook, sometimes finds cooking stressful. To make life easy she relies on a repertoire of recipes that she knows will turn out perfectly every time. Cooking night after night during the pandemic inspired her to re-think the way she approached dinner, and the result is this collection of comforting and delicious recipes that you’ll love preparing and serving. You’ll find lots of freeze-ahead, make-ahead, prep-ahead, and simply assembled recipes so you, too, can make dinner a breeze.
In Go-To Dinners, Ina shares her strategies for making her most satisfying and uncomplicated dinners. Many, like Overnight Mac & Cheese, you can make ahead and throw in the oven right before dinner. Light dinners like Tuscan White Bean Soup can be prepped ahead and assembled at the last minute. Go-to family meals like Chicken in a Pot with Orzo and Hasselback Kielbasa will feed a crowd with very little effort. And who doesn’t want to eat Breakfast For Dinner? You’ll find recipes for Scrambled Eggs Cacio e Pepe and Roasted Vegetables with Jammy Eggs that are a snap to make and so satisfying. Ina’s “Two-Fers” guide you on how to turn leftovers from one dinner into something different and delicious the second night.
And sometimes the best dinner is one you don’t even have to cook! You’ll find Ina’s favorite boards to serve with store-bought ingredients, like an Antipasto Board and Breakfast-for-Dinner Board that are fun to assemble and so impressive to serve. Finally, because no meal can be considered dinner without dessert, there are plenty of prep-ahead and easy sweets like a Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie and Beatty’s Chocolate Cupcakes that everyone will rave about.
For Ina, “I love you, come for dinner” is more than just an invitation to share a meal, it’s a way to create a community of friends and family who love and take care of each other, and we all need that now more than ever. These go-to recipes will give you the confidence to create dinners that will bring everyone to your table.
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Marie Kondo’s Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life – Marie Kondo
From the #1 bestselling sensation and Netflix star comes her inspirational visual guide to elevating the joy in every aspect of your life, with more than 100 photographs of the Marie Kondo lifestyle.
Inspired by the Japanese concept of kurashi, or “way of life,” Kurashi at Home invites you to visualize your ideal life from the moment you wake up until the end of each day. By applying the time-tested query from Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up—“Does it spark joy?”—to your mindset and behaviors, you are invited to imagine what your life could look like free from any limitations. This vision then becomes a touchpoint that helps you make conscious, mindful choices—from how you use every corner of your living space to how you take advantage of every moment.
At its core, the KonMari philosophy focuses not on what to get rid of, but on what to keep. In this inspirational visual guide, beautiful photographs and Kondo’s unique suggestions empower you to embrace what you love about your life and then reflect it in your home, activities, and relationships, like creating a calm nook for writing, taking time each morning to review a to-do list, or having relaxing nighttime rituals that promote a restful sleep.
Your newfound clarity will inspire you to clear out the unneeded clutter so you can appreciate the inviting spaces, treasured belongings, and joy-sparking moments that remain.
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Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman – Alan Rickman
Harry Potter and Sense and Sensibility actor Alan Rickman builds upon his legacy as a world-class actor, a tireless political activist, an avid traveler, and more through his diaries—a twenty-five-year passion project in which Rickman invites readers backstage and into his life.
Alan Rickman remains the one of the most beloved actors of all time across almost every genre in the American and British markets, from his breakout role as Die Hard’s Hans Gruber to his heart-wrenching run as Professor Severus Snape, and beyond. His air of dignity, his sonorous voice, and the knowing wit he brought to each role have captivated viewers across nearly every generation alive today.
But Rickman’s artistry wasn’t confined to just his performances. Fans of movies, theater, and memoirs at large will delight in the intimate experience of Rickman detailing the extraordinary and the ordinary in a way that is “anecdotal, indiscreet, witty, gossipy and utterly candid.” He grants us access to his thoughts and insights on theater performances, the craft of acting, politics, friendships, work projects, and his general musings on life. The Rickman Diaries was written with the intention to be shared, and reading it feels as if Rickman is chatting to a close friend.
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Jennie’s Boy: A Newfoundland Childhood – Wayne Johnston
Consummate storyteller and bestselling novelist Wayne Johnston reaches back into his past to bring us a sad, tender and at times extremely funny memoir of his Newfoundland boyhood.
For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a wreck of a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly and skinny, unable to keep food down, plagued with insomnia and a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose, though they had already removed his tonsils, adenoids and appendix. To the neighbours, he was known as “Jennie’s boy,” a backhanded salute to his tiny, ferocious mother, who felt judged for Wayne’s condition at the same time as worried he might never grow up.
Unable to go to school, Wayne spent his days with his witty, religious, deeply eccentric maternal grandmother, Lucy. During these six months of Wayne’s childhood, he and Lucy faced two life-or-death crises, and only one of them lived to tell the tale.
Jennie’s Boy is Wayne’s tribute to a family and a community that were simultaneously fiercely protective of him and fed up with having to make allowances for him. His boyhood was full of pain, yes, but also tenderness and Newfoundland wit. By that wit, and through love–often expressed in the most unloving ways–Wayne survived.
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When Lisa Bryan began meal prepping several years ago, she quickly became tired of eating leftovers and wasting food. At the same time, she realized she needed to “downshift” the accelerated pace of her life. Seeking balance, she made dietary changes like eating more vegetables and simple proteins, eliminating gluten (to manage her celiac disease) as well as processed foods, and reducing refined sugar. Then she flipped the script on meal prep by focusing on individual ingredients. On a whim, she posted a video to YouTube that went viral and she realized how many people were out there, just like her, who wanted a fresh approach to meal planning.
By prepping a handful of ingredients at the start of the week–such as flaked salmon, zucchini noodles, peas, prosciutto, soft-boiled eggs, and roasted veggies–and then mixing and matching them throughout the week, she found that she could enjoy a variety of meals and snacks (Creamy Salmon Zoodles, Peas and Prosciutto with Jammy Eggs, and Strawberries, Avocado, and Arugula Salad) without getting bored.
Lisa’s debut cookbook is packed with 100 simple and ingenious, big-batch recipes that can either be frozen or repurposed into delicious meals without resembling leftovers. A dinner of light Coconut Chickpea Curry with rice can be enjoyed the next day atop a tortilla for a crispy tostada at lunch, or as a chickpea shakshuka for breakfast. All of the recipes are gluten-free and low in refined sugar; many are naturally anti-inflammatory, and dairy is minimal and optional. Lisa’s approachable method for eating well and preparing meals with ease will inspire home cooks to downshift, too–at least when it comes to making healthy meals without a fuss.
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Make a meal out of almost anything.
Stop shopping and start cooking what you have. Your pantry’s possibilities are endless. Milk Street will help you transform whatever you already have into bright, bold meals from around the world.
Got a can of chickpeas? It can become anything from a quick hummus to a curry spiked with sweet carrots, from a garlicky chickpea soup to a bowl of crispy canned beans with lemon and scallions.
Or grab that can of tomatoes from the back of the cabinet. It can become spicy one-pot pasta all’arrabbiata, chilaquiles rojos, a rich shakshuka with poached eggs or a chicken and tortilla soup.
Turn to the refrigerator, where eggs and leftover vegetables are the start of cheesy migas, a Spanish tortilla with potato chips or a quick fried rice. Chicken breasts or thighs from the freezer become Hungarian chicken paprikash or hearty chicken salad with green tahini. Cooks in Amalfi, Italy, taught us to turn a wedge of Parmesan and lemons on the counter into a light yet flavorful pesto. And that’s just the start. Desserts, too, come together easily with ingredients everyone keeps on hand.
These 225 recipes begin with the most common ingredients in your kitchen, but they provide more than a lesson in practicality. They teach an improvisational, creative way to cook.
That’s when cooking becomes an adventure.
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