Heart of Dankness

Mark Haskell Smith

“Moneyball” meets the documentary “The Union: The Business Behind Getting High” in this non-fiction book that explores the culture of cannabis, from its humble beginnings as a textile fiber in 2727 BC, to its illegalization during the Great Depression, to its increasing use as medicinal treatment — all culminating in the annual event for marijuana aficionados everywhere: the Cannabis Cup.
 
After spending three years researching his novel Baked, Mark Haskell Smith turns his focus on the one event that intrigued him in the fascinating world of the cannabis culture: the Cannabis Cup competition. What makes a strain of marijuana award-winning? he wonders. Who would risk everything to grow the good stuff? Is this really a nearly $100 billion a year industry? Alternating between California, the hub of the legalization and decriminalization debate, and Amsterdam, where the world’s preeminent cannabis festival takes place each year, Mark discovers a compelling world where science meets agriculture, and hedonism toes the line of criminality.
 
Combining wit, curiosity, and frankness, **Heart of Dankness **reveals the world of underground botany and outlaw farming, where “strain hunters” risk fines, imprisonment, and reputation to develop amazing weed — and, ultimately, battle for the coveted Cannabis Cup, and millions of dollars.

Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert 

Davin de Kergommeaux

Davin de Kergommeaux takes readers on a journey through the first systematic presentation of Canadian whisky: how it’s made, who makes it, why it tastes the way it does, its history, and the rich, centuries-old folklore surrounding it.

Join whisky authority Davin de Kergommeaux on a pan-Canadian journey from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, celebrating the diversity of Canada’s unique spirit. With his conversational and accessible tutelage, de Kergommeaux offers readers a carefully researched, reliable, and authoritative guide to Canadian whisky that is, quite simply, not available anywhere else. Not only a book describing the history and culture of the spirit, Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert is also an informed exploration of taste. For the first time, whisky consumers — experts and novices alike — can approach Canadian whisky with a connoisseur’s appreciation of its rich subtleties.

Globe & Mail bestseller Vancouver Sun bestseller

Four Strong Winds: Ian and Sylvia

John Einarson

“To my principal mentors Ian & Sylvia – I offer my profound respect and admiration.” —Gordon Lightfoot

“What a time, what a tale! Ian and Sylvia hit the stratosphere in the Sixties with Canadian-tinged folk songs that made them the darlings of the college dorms. Through hits and misses, marriage and divorce, and all the fun in-between, they didn’t miss a thing. A beautifully detailed book that is respectful to the legend and heart-warming in its honesty. A great story well told.”
—Jim Cuddy, Blue Rodeo and Jim Cuddy Band

“John Einarson is one of this country’s premiere cultural writers. He gets right inside the true and remarkable story of Ian & Sylvia’s rise to the elite ranks of folk, country-rock, and cowboy music, extracting the best quotes from the duo with all their humor, insight, sarcasm, and cheekiness intact. You’ll know why these two belong among Canada’s finest music-makers.” —Bob Mersereau, broadcaster and author, 100 Top Canadian Albums

“Emerging from Bohemian Toronto and New York’s Greenwich Village in the mid-’60s, Ian & Sylvia became major folk stars in the U.S. With historical perspective and his usual love of subject, John Einarson spins an entertaining tale of two enigmatic Canadians who individually continue to create and perform today and whose story is finely woven into the multi-hued tapestry that is contemporary music.” —Martin Melhuish, author of Oh What a Feeling and Heart of Gold

An acclaimed music historian brings us the long-awaited story of Ian & Sylvia - marking the first time that the legendary folk duo has endorsed a biography of their groundbreaking career.

Their classic “Four Strong Winds” is widely considered to be one of the great songs of all time. Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell count among their admirers. Their music, including hits like “You Were On My Mind” and “Someday Soon,” has been recorded by everyone from Dylan, Joan Baez, and Johnny Cash to Sarah McLachlan and The Tragically Hip. Their influence on music - both in Canada and the United States - has endured over generations and surpassed genres. Yet until now, we have known little of the story behind the folk sensations Ian & Sylvia. In Four Strong Winds, John Einarson takes us back to Ian & Sylvia’s early days in Toronto coffeehouses, to their experiences at the heart of the vibrant 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, and beyond, as their personal and musical partnership continued to change and evolve. Based on Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s own personal reflections as well as on the recollections of contemporaries, associates, and admirers, Four Strong Winds is the definitive account of this iconic musical duo and a window on a fascinating period in music history.

True North: A Life Inside the Music Business

Bernie Finkelstein

One of the all-time greats in Canadian music recounts his life and times in the business from the 1960s to the present. Whether acting as a producer, record label owner, or manager of great singer/songwriters and bands, Bernie Finkelstein, recipient of the 2006 Juno Special Achievement Award, has played a pivotal role in bringing great Canadian music to the rest of the world.
 
Bernie Finkelstein has been a prominent figure in the Canadian music industry for nearly five decades. Now, a couple years after selling his beloved True North label and only recently stepping down from his role at MuchFACT, which has given out more than $63 million in grants to Grammy-winning acts like Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado and Arcade Fire, Bernie is finally ready to talk. In this wildly entertaining and outspoken memoir, the producer, label owner, and artist manager opens up about his childhood, breaking into the Greenwich Village scene with The Paupers at age 19, discovering Bruce Cockburn, producing the “loudest band in the world,” Kensington Market, managing and producing Murray McLauchlan, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, and Rough Trade, winning 40 Junos, and much more.

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World

H.H. Dalai Lama

“An impressive guide for teaching religious tolerance and respect to readers of all ages.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This wise, humane book, an original work rather than a collection of talks, is an incisive statement of His Holiness’s thinking on ways to bring peace to a suffering world.”—Publishers Weekly

A stirring call to move beyond religion for the guidance to improve human life on individual, community, and global levels—including a guided meditation practice for cultivating key human values


Ten years ago, in his best-selling Ethics for a New Millennium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama first proposed an approach to ethics based on universal rather than religious principles. Now, in Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama, at his most compassionate and outspoken, elaborates and deepens his vision for the nonreligious way. Transcending the mere “religion wars,” he outlines a system of secular ethics that gives tolerant respect to religion—those that ground ethics in a belief in God and an afterlife, and those that understand good actions as leading to better states of existence in future lives. And yet, with the highest level of spiritual and intellectual authority, the Dalai Lama makes a claim for what he calls a third way. This is a system of secular ethics that transcends religion as a way to recognize our common humanity and so contributes to a global human community based on understanding and mutual respect.


Beyond Religion is an essential statement from the Dalai Lama, a blueprint for all those who yearn for a life of spiritual fulfillment as they work for a better world.

Authentic Happiness

Martin Seligman

In this national bestseller — Martin Seligman’s most stimulating, persuasive book to date — the acclaimed author of Learned Optimism introduces yet another revolutionary idea. Drawing on groundbreaking scientific research, Seligman shows how Positive Psychology is shifting the profession’s paradigm away from its narrow-minded focus on pathology, victimology, and mental illness to positive emotion and mental health. Happiness, studies show, is not the result of good genes or luck. It can be cultivated by identifying and nurturing traits that we already possess — including kindness, originality, humor, optimism, and generosity. Seligman provides the tools you need in order to ascertain your most positive traits or strengths. Then he explains how, by frequently calling upon these “signature strengths” in all the crucial realms of life — health, relationships, career — you will not only develop natural buffers against misfortune and negative emotion, but also achieve new and sustainable levels of authentic contentment, gratification, and meaning.

Occult America

Mitch Horowitz

“Fascinating…Occult America is a serious, wide-ranging study of all the magical, mystical, and spiritual movements that have arisen and influenced American history in often-surprising ways.” —Washington Post Book World Podcast

“One of the most readable histories of American mysticism ever written…This is historical reporting that is crafted so well, it holds the reader much like a Voodoo spell.”—Tucson Citizen

“Horowitz teases out fascinating stories of the ‘dreamers and planners who flourished along the Psychic Highway’…In showing how the paths of these figures occasionally intersected with the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Horowitz argues that the influence of the occult extends beyond the séance room and into the mainstream of American thought.” —Washington Post Book World

“Excellent.” —Library Journal

“One of the best recent books on patterns of belief.” —Fortean Times

“A fantastic tour guide to the fringes of reason, high weirdness, deep esoterica, secret societies, and mystery religions.” —Boing Boing

“Employing extensive research while writing with an authoritative tone, Horowitz succeeds in showing how a ‘new spiritual culture’ developed in America.”—Publishers Weekly  
From its earliest days, America served as an arena for the revolutions in alternative spirituality that eventually swept the globe. Esoteric philosophies and personas—from Freemasonry to Spiritualism, from Madame H. P. Blavatsky to Edgar Cayce—dramatically altered the nation’s culture, politics, and religion. Yet the mystical roots of our identity are often ignored or overlooked. Opening a new window on the past, Occult America* *presents a dramatic, pioneering study of the esoteric undercurrents of our history and their profound impact across modern life.

Beaufort

Ron Leshem

“Evocative, heartbreaking and haunting … [Israel’s] “Red Badge of Courage.” Because Leshem, like Stephen Crane, never saw combat, this is not a work of autobiography or observations but one of empathy and reconstruction—and all the stronger for that because the author has deployed both qualities without judgment. Beaufort is that rare thing, a novel of deep moral concern in which sympathetically drawn and beautifully realized characters are allowed to speak for themselves.”—Los Angeles Times

“Thirteen young soldiers spring to life with voices at once self-critical and brash, tender and darkly flippant…. Though firsthand accounts and combat memoirs line the shelves of bookstores, Leshem’s fiction rivals them in the completeness of his cosmos of war.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A gripping, viscerally powerful tale…. An alternately grim and blackly comic war/coming-of-age novel.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An important novel…. This is a picture of war from a soldier’s point of view. Its language is crude, the body count rises, and yet the tenderness of the bonds among the men is extraordinary.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Beaufort is that rare thing, a novel of deep moral concern in which sympathetically drawn and beautifully realized characters are allowed to speak for themselves.” —Chicago Tribune

*Beaufort. To the handful of Israeli soldiers occupying the ancient crusader fortress, it is a little slice of hell—a forbidding, fear-soaked enclave perched atop two acres of land in southern Lebanon, surrounded by an enemy they cannot see. And to the thirteen young men in his command, twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Liraz “Erez” Liberti is a taskmaster, confessor, and the only hope in the face of attacks that come out of nowhere and of missions seemingly designed to get them all killed. But in their stony haven, Erez and his soldiers have created their own little world, their own rules, their own language. And here Erez listens to his men build castles out of words, telling stories, telling lies, talking incessantly of women, sex, and dead comrades. Until, in the final days of the occupation, Erez and his squad of fed-up, pissed-off, frightened young soldiers are given one last order: a mission that will shatter all remaining illusions—and stand as a testament to the universal, gut-wrenching futility of war.

**The basis for the Academy Award-nominated film of the same name.

**

How to Defeat Your Own Clone

Kyle Kurpinski

Send in the clones! On second thought, maybe not.
 
CAN IT READ MY MIND?
WILL IT BE EVIL?
HOW DO I STOP IT?
 
Find out the answers to these and other burning questions in this funny, informative, and ingenious book from two bioengineering experts who show you how to survive—and thrive—in a new age of truly weird science.
For decades, science fiction has been alerting us to the wonders and perils of our biotech future—from the prospects of gene therapy to the pitfalls of biological warfare. Now that future looms before us. Don’t panic! This book is all you need to prepare for the new world that awaits us, providing indispensable cautionary advice on topics such as
 
• bioenhancements: They’re not just for cyborgs anymore.
• DNA sequencing and fingerprinting: What’s scarier than the government having your DNA on file? Try having it posted on the Internet.
• human cloning:** **Just like you, only stronger, smarter, and more attractive. In other words: more dangerous.

Our future may be populated by designer babies, genetically enhanced supersoldiers, and one (or more!) of your genetic duplicates, but all is not lost. How to Defeat Your Own Clone is the ultimate survival guide to what lies ahead. Just remember the first rule of engagement: Don’t ever let your clone read this book!

The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca

Tahir Shah

In the tradition of A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, acclaimed English travel writer Tahir Shah shares a highly entertaining account of making an exotic dream come true. By turns hilarious and harrowing, here is the story of his family’s move from the gray skies of London to the sun-drenched city of Casablanca, where Islamic tradition and African folklore converge–and nothing is as easy as it seems….

Inspired by the Moroccan vacations of his childhood, Tahir Shah dreamed of making a home in that astonishing country. At age thirty-six he got his chance. Investing what money he and his wife, Rachana, had, Tahir packed up his growing family and bought Dar Khalifa, a crumbling ruin of a mansion by the sea in Casablanca that once belonged to the city’s caliph, or spiritual leader.

With its lush grounds, cool, secluded courtyards, and relaxed pace, life at Dar Khalifa seems sure to fulfill Tahir’s fantasy–until he discovers that in many ways he is farther from home than he imagined. For in Morocco an empty house is thought to attract jinns, invisible spirits unique to the Islamic world. The ardent belief in their presence greatly hampers sleep and renovation plans, but that is just the beginning. From elaborate exorcism rituals involving sacrificial goats to dealing with gangster neighbors intent on stealing their property, the Shahs must cope with a new culture and all that comes with it.

Endlessly enthralling, The Caliph’s House charts a year in the life of one family who takes a tremendous gamble. As we follow Tahir on his travels throughout the kingdom, from Tangier to Marrakech to the Sahara, we discover a world of fierce contrasts that any true adventurer would be thrilled to call home.

From the Hardcover edition.

In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams

Tahir Shah

Named one of *Time magazine’s Ten Best Books of the Year, Tahir Shah’s The Caliph’s House was hailed by critics and compared to such travel classics as A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun. Now Shah takes us deeper into the real Casablanca to uncover mysteries hidden for centuries from Western eyes.
**
In this entertaining jewel of a book, Tahir Shah sets off across Morocco on a bold new adventure worthy of the mythical Arabian Nights. As he wends his way through the labyrinthine medinas of Fez and Marrakech, traverses the Sahara sands, and samples the hospitality of ordinary Moroccans, Tahir collects a dazzling treasury of traditional wisdom stories, gleaned from the heritage of A Thousand and One Nights, which open the doors to layers of culture most visitors hardly realize exist. From master masons who labor only at night to Sufi wise men who write for soap operas, In Arabian Nights** takes us on an unforgettable, offbeat, and utterly enchanted journey.

Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies, and Aid

Samantha Nutt

“Samantha Nutt is scrupulously consistent with her hard-nosed, direct, in-your-face style and defiant resolve in her approach to war and the massive abuses to humanity, especially women and children. Samantha is telling us in no uncertain terms that humanitarianism starts by a ‘critical reflection concerning our own actions and deeds.’ And then she offers some solid proposals to consider. Well done, in a most compelling of ways.” —LGen the Hon. Roméo A. Dallaire, (Ret’d), Senator

“This is an extraordinarily riveting book. The anecdotes are heart-wrenching; the analysis is trenchant, principled, uncompromising. I never read a book in one sitting: I read Damned Nations in one sitting, and I regretted that it came to an end. It’s not an easy read, but it’s filled with emotional and intellectual power.” —Stephen Lewis, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, and Chair of the Board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation

“This book is a passionate reaction to so much of the stupidity and calumny that leads to death and destruction, and yet, it incorporates insightful and cool headed reasons as to why. An important book for our times.” —Lloyd Axworthy, President, University of Winnipeg and former Minister of Foreign Affairs

“A brave, eloquent, and necessary book.” –Lewis Lapham, editor of Lapham’s QuarterlyFor readers of Christopher Hedges, Robert Fisk, and Christopher Hitchens, an extraordinary humanitarian gives us a bracing and uncompromising account of her work in some of the most devastated corners of the world — and a new and provocative vision for changing course on our growing militarization.

In 1995, twenty-five-year-old Samantha Nutt, a recent medical-school graduate and a field volunteer for UNICEF, touched down in Baidoa, Somalia, “the City of Death.” What she saw there — gangs of young men roaming the streets armed with rocket launchers; a woman in a clinic line holding a dead baby; an aid agency working in such an unsafe environment that its workers had to travel with armed escorts high on drugs — would spur her on to a lifetime of  passionate advocacy for children and families in war-torn areas around the world. Damned Nations is the brilliant distillation of Dr. Nutt’s observations over the course of fifteen years providing hands-on care in some of the world’s most violent flashpoints, all the while building the world class non-profit War Child North America. Combining original research with her personal story, it is a deeply thoughtful meditation on war as it is being waged around the world against millions of civilians — primarily women and children. Nutt’s boundless energy, dedication, and compassion shine through on every page as she lays out real, lasting solutions to these problems and shows how to move beyond outdated notions of charity towards a more progressive, inclusive, and respectful world view.

To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann

Gail A. Hornstein

A fascinating and dramatic account of a controversial figure in twentieth-century psychiatry.

In this “dazzling and provocative” (Publishers Weekly) biography, Gail Hornstein brings back to life the maverick psychiatrist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World tells the extraordinary life story of the German-Jewish refugee analyst who accomplished what Freud and almost everyone else thought impossible: she successfully treated schizophrenics and other seriously disturbed mental patients with intensive psychotherapy, rather than medication, lobotomy, or shock treatment. Written with unprecedented access to a rich archive of clinical materials and newly discovered records and documents from across Europe and the United States, Hornstein’s meticulous and “delightfully lucid” (Kirkus Reviews) biography definitively reclaims the life of Fromm-Reichmann. The therapist at the core of Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is also the analyst who had an affair with, and later married, her patient Erich Fromm. A pioneer in her field, she made history as the pivotal figure of the unique and legendary mental hospital, Chestnut Lodge.

They’re Your Parents, Too!

Francine Russo

Your parents are growing older and are getting forgetful, starting to slow down, or worse. Suddenly you find yourself at the cusp of one of the most important transitions in your life—and the life of your family. Your parents need you and your siblings to step up and take care of them, a little or a lot. To make the right things happen, you will all need to work together. And yet your siblings may have very different ideas from yours of what’s best for Mom and Dad. They may be completely uninterested in helping, leaving you with all the responsibility. Or they may take charge and not allow you to help, or criticize whatever help you do give. Will you and your siblings be able to reach an understanding and work together, or will the challenges you face tear you apart? 

    Most of us enter this period of our lives unprepared for the difficult decisions and delicate negotiations that lie ahead. This is the first book that provides guidance on the transition from the “old” family to the “new” one, especially for adult siblings. Here you’ll find practical advice on a wide range of topics including
 
• Who will make major medical decisions, manage finances, and enforce end-of-life choices if your parents cannot? And how will this be decided and carried out?
• How will you negotiate caregiving issues and deal with unequal contributions or power struggles?  
• How can inheritance and the division of property, assets, and personal effects be handled to minimize hurt feelings and resentment?
• How will you cope with the natural reemergence of unresolved childhood rivalries, hurts, and needs?
• How can caring for your parents be an enriching experience rather than a thankless chore?
• Most important, how can you ensure the best care for your parents while lessening conflict, guilt, anger, and angst?
 
    Written by a veteran journalist who chronicles life and how baby boomers live it, They’re Your Parents, Too! offers all the information, insight, and advice you’ll need to make productive choices as you and your siblings begin to assume your parents’ place as the decision-making generation of your family.

    Filled with expert guidance from gerontologists, family therapists, elder-care attorneys, financial planners, and health workers; resonant real-life stories; and helpful family negotiation techniques, this is an indispensable book for anyone whose parents are aging.

The Amateur Gourmet

Adam D. Roberts

Self-taught chef and creator of the Amateur Gourmet website, Adam Roberts has written the ultimate “Kitchen 101” for anyone who’s ever wanted to enjoy the rewards of good eating without risking burning down the house! In this deliciously illuminating and hilarious new kitchen companion, Roberts has assembled a five-star lineup of some of the food world’s most eminent authorities. The result is a culinary education like no other.

Learn the “Ten Commandments of Dining Out” courtesy of Ruth Reichl, editor in chief of Gourmet *magazine. Discover why the New York Times*’s Amanda Hesser urges you never to bring a grocery list to the market. Get knife lessons from a top sous-chef at Manhattan’s famous Union Square Cafe, and much more. Packed with recipes, menu plans, shopping tips, and anecdotes, The Amateur Gourmet provides you with all the ingredients to savor the foodie lifestyle. All you need to add is a healthy appetite and a taste for adventure.

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