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This creative nonfiction biography of the celebrated Arctic explorer Dr. John Rae begins in 1854 when, on a mapping expedition to the Boothia Peninsula, Rae discovers the missing link in the Northwest Passage. On the same trip, a chance encounter with an Inuit hunter leads him to uncover the tragic fate that befell the officers and crew of the long-missing Franklin Expedition when, starving on the ice, they resorted to cannibalism.

This biography explores what drove William Smith to change his name, in the gold fields of California in the 1850s, to Amor De Cosmos. Hawkins traces how De Cosmos became one of the most feared journalists in British Columbia and then how he forced his way into British Columbia politics, becoming BC’s second premier. Although De Cosmos played a crucial role in creating present-day Canada from sea to sea, by the end of his life, he was little remembered.

In this lavishly produced hardcover volume, Plaskett has created an autobiography as colourful as his finest paintings. Plaskett begins with his early family life in New Westminster, BC, relates his encounter with abstract expressionism under Hans Hofmann, and then discusses the development of his mature style. Included are an introduction by the late George Woodcock, some 30 full-colour reproductions of Plaskett's paintings and over 90 black and white photos.

Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis's eloquent and winsome defense of the Christian faith, originated as a series of BBC radio talks broadcast during the dark days of World War Two. Here is the story of the extraordinary life and afterlife of this influential and much-beloved book. George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican--famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends J. R. R.

The second volume in his autobiographical quartet based on the seasons, Winter is an achingly beautiful collection of daily meditations and letters addressed directly to Knaugsaard's unborn daughter 2 December - It is strange that you exist, but that you don't know anything about what the world looks like. It's strange that there is a first time to see the sky, a first time to see the sun, a first time to feel the air against one's skin. It's strange that there is a first time to see a face, a tree, a lamp, pajamas, a shoe.

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, sixty-seven-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty -- a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre -- took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life's work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes.

Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin continues his definitive biography of Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror through to the coming of the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history. When we left Stalin at the end of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, it was 1928, and he had finally climbed the mountaintop and achieved dictatorial power of the Soviet empire. The vastest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took.

The untold story of Leon Crane, the only surviving crew member of a World War II B-24 crash on a remote mountain near the Arctic Circle, who managed to stay alive 81 days in sub-zero temperature by making peace with nature, and end his ordeal by walking along a river to safety.

Traces the story of an American rowing team from the University of Washington that defeated elite rivals at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, sharing the experiences of their enigmatic coach, a visionary boat builder, and a homeless teen rower.