History of the Motorcar

Thomas Allen Editors

Thomas Allen

Years after a rare vocal disorder caused Keath Fraser to nearly lose his voice, another tragedy irrevocably altered the award-winning novelist and short story writer's life. As his wife lay unconscious beside him, he was unable to call for help. 
These events set him on a global quest in search of others whose lives, like his, had undergone a similar and mysterious collapse of voice. For twenty years, Fraser was told by the medical establishment that his voice difficulties were psychological; that was until he discovered relief in botulinum toxin, the drug favoured by Hollywood plastic surgeons in obliterating wrinkles, which miraculously - albeit temporary - smoothed out his choppy, strangulated speech. 
He finally had a diagnosis: Spasmodic Dysphonia, a misfiring of the vocal chords caused by faulty transmitters in the brain. Beginning on Canada's West Coast, the author then travels to New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Great Britain, Ireland, the US, India, and Sri Lanka. 
The Voice Gallery is an account of Fraser's international journey through a diaspora of lost voices; a record of his trysts with fellow travellers, including some of the world's most astute voice teachers and specialists. It is a memoir about the wonders and frailties of the human voice.

The voice gallery: Travels with a glass throat

Fraser, KEAth

Biographies & Memoirs

In 1996, successful businessman and certified pilot, Scott Griffin, decided to break from the comfortable routine of his life to go work for the Flying Doctors Service, an African organization that flies doctors to remote areas to administer medical assistance. Griffin also made the daring decision to fly his small, single-engine Cessna 180 solo from Canada to Africa and back again. "My Heart is Africa" is the engaging, personal story of Griffin's two-year aviation adventure throughout Africa. Facing storms, equipment problems, fuel shortages and isolation, Griffin successfully made his way to Kenya - little did he know, his harrowing flight over the Atlantic was only the beginning of his adventure. Once in Africa, Griffin circumnavigated the continent, flying over deserts, mountains and jungles both as a medical volunteer and tourist. Throughout his journey - which included being arrested and crashing, then re-crashing, his plane - Griffin discovered the heartrending humanity and beauty of Africa. "My Heart is Africa" is an absorbing adventure story, but it is also the story of Africa - its problems and people, its landscapes and limitations, its culture and courage. Griffin's intrepid flying odyssey not only takes the reader on a journey across Africa but into the lives of all the doctors, nurses, aid workers and eccentric characters that crossed his path along the way. "My Heart is Africa" is a fascinating and gripping account of one man's quest to push beyond his personal limits in order to explore and experience a new way of life.

My Heart is Africa

Politics & Social Sciences

Griffin, Scott

Social Sciences

A provocative argument for a mystical, rather than historical, understanding of Jesus, leading to a radical rebirth of Christianity in our time.
For forty years, scholar and religious commentator Tom Harpur has challenged church orthodoxy and guided thousands of readers on subjects as controversial as the true nature of Christ and life after death. Now, in his most radical and groundbreaking work, Harpur digs deep into the origins of Christianity.
Long before the advent of Jesus Christ, the Egyptians and other peoples believed in the coming of a messiah, a virgin birth, a madonna and her child, and the incarnation of the spirit in flesh. While the early Christian church accepted these ancient truths as the very basis of Christianity, it disavowed their origins. What had begun as a universal belief system built on myth and allegory was transformed, by the third and fourth centuries A.D., into a ritualistic institution based on a literal interpretation of myths and symbols. But, as Tom Harpur argues in The Pagan Christ, "to take the Gospels literally as history or biography is to utterly miss their inner spiritual meaning."
At a time of religious extremism, Tom Harpur reveals the virtue of a cosmic faith based on ancient truths that the modern church has renounced. His message is clear: Our blind faith in literalism is killing Christianity. Only with a return to an inclusive religion where Christ lives within each of us will we gain a true understanding of who we are and who we are intended to become. The Pagan Christ is a book of rare insight and power that will reilluminate the Bible and change the way we think about religion.

The Pagan Christ : Recovering the Lost Light

History

Tom Harpur

World

The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and a Son By David Gilmour (Canadian Edition)

Humor & Entertainment

DAVID GILMOUR

Movies

Theoretical physics is in trouble. At least that's the impression you'd get from reading a spate of recent books on the continued failure to resolve the 80-year-old problem of unifying the classical and quantum worlds. The seeds of this problem were sewn eighty years ago when a dramatic revolution in physics reached a climax at the 1927 Solvay conference in Brussels. It's the story of a rush to formalize quantum physics, the work of just a handful of men fired by ambition, philosophical conflicts and personal agendas. Sheilla Jones paints an intimate portrait of the key figures who wrestled with the mysteries of the new science of the quantum, along with a powerful supporting cast of famous (and not so famous) colleagues. The Brussels conference was the first time so many of the "quantum ten" had been in the same place: Albert Einstein, the lone wolf; Niels Bohr, the obsessive but gentlemanly father figure; Max Born, the anxious hypochondriac; Werner Heisenberg, the intensely ambitious one; Wolfgang Pauli, the sharp-tongued critic with a dark side; Paul Dirac, the silent Englishman; Erwin Schrödinger, the enthusiastic womanizer; Prince Louis de Broglie, the French aristocrat; and Paul Ehrenfest, who was witness to it all. Pascual Jordan, the ardent Aryan nationalist, came uninvited. This is the story of quantum physics that has never been told, an equation-free investigation into the turbulent development of the new science and its very fallible creators, including little-known details of the personal relationship between the deeply troubled Ehrenfest and his dear friend Albert Einstein. Jones weaves together the personal and the scientific in a heartwarming--and heartbreaking--story of the men who struggled to create quantum physics: a story of passion, tragedy, ambition and science.

The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition and Science

Science & Math

Sheilla Jones

History & Philosophy

It was the day before Independence Day, 1833. As his bride, Lucie, was about to be sold down the river, Thornton Blackburn planned a daring―and successful―daylight escape from their Louisville masters. Pursued to Michigan, the couple was captured and sentenced to return to Kentucky in chains. But Detroit's black community rallied to their cause in the Blackburn Riots of 1833, the first racial uprising in the city's history. Thornton and Lucie were spirited across the river to Canada, but their safety proved illusory when Michigan's governor demanded their extradition. Canada's defense of the Blackburns set the tone for all future diplomatic relations with the United States over the thorny issue of the fugitive slave, and confirmed the British colony as the main terminus of the Underground Railroad. The Blackburns settled in Toronto, where they founded the city's first taxi business, but they never forgot the millions who still suffered in slavery. Working with prominent abolitionists, Thornton and Lucie made their home a haven for runaways. When they died in the 1890s with no descendants to pass on their fascinating tale, it was lost to history. Lost, that is, until archaeologists brought the story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn again to light.

I've Got a Home in Glory Land : A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad --2007 publication.

Karolyn Smardz Frost

Americas

Shortlisted for the acclaimed 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book Award, This Cake Is for the Party has received consistent rave reviews praising debut writer Sarah Selecky.  In these ten stories, linked frequently by the sharing of food, Sarah Selecky reaffirms the life of everyday situations with startling significance. For upmarket women’s fiction readers that love stories which reflect the joys and pitfalls of marriage, fidelity, fertility, and relationship woes, this collection is a conversation starter. This Cake Is for the Party reminds us that the best parts of our lives are often the least flashy. Reminiscent of early Margaret Atwood, with echoes of Lisa Moore and Ali Smith, these absorbing stories are about love and longing, that touch us in a myriad of subtle and affecting ways.With more than 10,000 copies sold in Canada, where she was named the CBC Book Award's Best New Writer, Sarah Selecky proves she is an exciting new voice with a promising future.

This Cake is for the Party: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Sarah Selecky

Literary

For New condition books; You will be the first to open the book cover. For Used condition books; It shows signs of wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. There are no problems in page content and in the paper. Shipping fast. All pages and covers are readable. May be ex-library book, and may not include any access codes, CDs or DVDs. All pages and cover are intact , but may have aesthetic issues such as price clipping, nicks, scratches, and scuffs. Pages may include some notes and highlighting. Tracking provided on most orders. 100% Satisfaction is Guaranteed!

The Canadian Campus Companion: Everything You Need to Know About Going to University and College

Ben Coli

Reference

A high-flying, action-packed tale for readers of all ages about the adventurous life of a Canadian icon.

William Avery Bishop survived more than 170 air battles during World War I and was given official credit for shooting down seventy-two German aircraft. Experts on aerial warfare acknowledge that his relentless air fighting techniques and skills as a brilliant individualist and marksman were unique and his record unsurpassed. He was the first man in British military history to receive the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order, and the Military Cross in one ceremony.

This remarkably objective biography, written by Bishop's son, is a warm-hearted, entertaining, and often surprisingly outspoken account of the escapades and heroics of a man of great courage. Eddie Rickenbacker one said, "Richthofen usually waited for enemies to fly into his territory; Bishop was the raider, always seeking the enemy wherever he could be found ... I think he's the only man I ever met who was incapable of fear."

Throughout his life Billy Bishop was something of an eccentric - a man of ebullient high spirits and feverish enthusiasm. As a boy in Owen Sound, Ontario, though, he had no aptitude for learning. His three years at the Royal Military College were disastrous - an epic of rules broken and discipline scorned. He often admitted that his special method of landing wrecked more planes than he shot down.

In the days when fliers could rightly think themselves heroes for just having the courage to go up in the rickety plans, Billy Bishop won the respect of comrades and enemies alike. He was one of the new breed of warriors who met the deadly challenge of air combat and made the airplane a decisive military weapon.

Courage of the Early Morning

William Arthur Bishop

Leaders & Notable People

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Books by Thomas Allen