Gerald McCarthy enlisted in the Marines at 17 and volunteered for Vietnam. After the war he went AWOL, then to civilian jails and military brigs and finally to a Navy psychiatric ward, where he witnessed patient-attempted suicides. Medically discharged, he returned home to upstate New York and piecework in shoe factories. Written in two voices--one lucid, one dreamlike--his memoir delivers a jump-cut narrative of his troubled adolescence, his wartime experiences and his struggle to come un...

When Gerry McCarthy hit the headlines in 1996, he was the man at the center of a five million dollar dope bust, the largest grow-op takedown in Canadian history. But when he hit the big city as a small-town teenager many years before, he was as green as grass. The story in between is a unique and winding journey through the vibrant, revolutionary years of the twentieth century.A Man of Substances looks unblinkingly at McCarthys invention, reaction, and folly over a life on the less...

How one organization took on industrial pollution—and the lessons for our new centuryIn 1977, one forward-thinking judge took an ecological disaster—the poisoning of the James River by Allied Chemical—and turned it into a great environmental-protection legacy. The $8 million payment made by Allied would go on to fund the game-changing Virginia Environmental Endowment.Blueprint for Going Green provides an insider’s account of the remarkable results ...

Stephen Reid has grown old in prison and seen more than his share of its solitude, its vicious cycles, and its subculture relationships. He has participated in the economics of contraband, the incredible escapes, the intimacies of torture, the miscarriages of justice, and witnessed the innocent souls whose childhood destinies doomed them to prison life. He has learned that everything is bearable, that the painful separation of family, children, and friend is tolerable, and that sorrow must...

Hatred, blackmail, and murder—a Brad Shade hat trick. The Black Ace reunites us with our favourite, savvy fourth-liner, with plot twists, wisecracks, and an ending that could only come from G.B. Joyce.Thanks to Shade’s work at the NHL draft last season, he gets to hold on to his job as scout for L.A.—at least for now. But a journeyman’s work is never done. Shade is checking out the talent in Regina with his old friend and teammate “Chief.” But when they learn of the suicid...

Hamilton Spectator columnist Paul Benedetti’s essays paint a wonderfully funny portrait of family life today.Paul Benedetti has a good job, a great family, and successful neighbours — but that doesn’t stop him from using it all as grist for a series of funny, real, and touching essays about a world he can’t quite navigate.Benedetti misses his son, who is travelling in Europe, misplaces his groceries, and forgets to pick up his daughter at school. H...

In this sequel to the best-selling Uncle John’s Presents Book of the Dumb, guest author John Scalzi casts a wide net to bring readers more mind-boggling dumbosities perpetrated by dumb-doers. This time, to prove that dumb-nastics are not a modern phenomenon, Scalzi digs into the past to unearth some of history’s most ill-advised blunders. The lesson: Dumb is as dumb does. And you’ll be smarter for reading it.

Is addiction a disease, a sin, a sign of hypersensitivity, a personal failing, or a unique resource for the creative mind? However it is defined, addiction can have devastating consequences, often shattering lives, sundering families, causing impoverishment, and even triggering suicide. Yet it can also be a source of inspiration. In these frank essays, leading American and Canadian writers explore their surprisingly diverse personal experiences with this complex phenomenon, candidly recoun...

A humorous short story recounting a young married couple's purchase of a house, and the plight of dealing with an insane neighbor. A rare comedy that could be used as entertainment... or as a warning!

Jack Sutherland, the narrator and protagonist of this memoir has, you might say, led a charmed life in the face of seeming damnation. A confirmed alcoholic in his early teens, by his twenties he was PA and bodyguard to the Hollywood stars most notably Michael Stipe, Ru Paul and Mickey Rourke. His work took him to exotic destinations around the world and bizarre encounters and requests. It also led him back to a smorgasbord of lethal addictions: alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy and perhaps most ...

The Bleaks is the true story of a harrowing nightmare into which writer Paul Illidge’s life is plunged one summer night, when a police drug-squad raids his suburban house, arrests him and his two teenage sons, and whisks them off to jail for growing some marijuana plants in their basement. Helpless against police harassment and abuse, tangled in a judicial system where the presumption of innocence is thrown out the window, Illidge is not only forbidden contact with his children, b...

Schizophrenia "One Mans Struggle" is an autobigraphical book of the life of Ray Edgell. A man who had the world under his feet. The disease took everything from him. This book will detail his demise and the actions that led him to coping with his disease and getting much more in return from having suffered from it.