Perceptive, controversial, topical, and achingly funny, Miriam Toews’s books have earned her a place at the forefront of Canadian literature. In this first monograph on Toews’s work, Sabrina Reed examines the interplay of trauma and resilience in the author’s fiction. Reed skillfully demonstrates how Toews situates resilience across key themes, including: the home as both a source of trauma and an inspiration for resilient action; the road trip as a search for resolution and redemption; and the reframing of the Mennonite diaspora as an escape from patriarchal oppression. The deaths by suicide of Toews’s father and sister stand out as the most shocking and tragic of the author’s biographical details, and Reed explores Toews’s use of autofiction as a reparative gesture in the face of this trauma. Written in an accessible style that will appeal to both scholars and devotees of Toews’s work, Lives Lived, Lives Imagined is a timely examination of Toews’s oeuvre and a celebration of fiction’s ability to simultaneously embody compassion and anger, joy and sadness, and to brave the personal and communal oppressions of politics, religion, family, society, and mental illness.

The captivating possibilities of extraterrestrial life on exoplanets, based on current scientific knowledge of existing worlds and forms of life It is now known that we live in a galaxy with more planets than stars. The Milky Way alone encompasses 30 trillion potential home planets. Scientists Trefil and Summers bring readers on a marvelous experimental voyage through the possibilities of life--unlike anything we have experienced so far--that could exist on planets outside our own solar system. Life could be out there in many forms: on frozen worlds, living in liquid oceans beneath ice and communicating (and even battling) with bubbles; on super-dense planets, where they would have evolved body types capable of dealing with extreme gravity; on tidally locked planets with one side turned eternally toward a star; and even on "rogue worlds," which have no star at all. Yet this is no fictional flight of fancy: the authors take what we know about exoplanets and life on our own world and use that data to hypothesize about how, where, and which sorts of life might develop. Imagined Life is a must-have for anyone wanting to learn how the realities of our universe may turn out to be far stranger than fiction.

When Janie Jurkovich became divorced after 35 years of marriage and family devotion, she was lost. She had never truly lived the life she wanted to live.She began to read, reflect and explore ... and thus began an incredible journey."Live the Life You Have Imagined" takes you on that journey. Whether you are newly divorced, retired, widowed, ready for change, or just feeling stuck in your life, this no-nonsense, no-fluff book shows you how to start living the life you always imagined. You'll learn: * Where to begin and how to put yourself on the path to a great life.* The simple, daily activities that create a best life.* How to deal with naysayers, challenges, and the "shoulds."* Where to look for resistance and how to deal with obstacles.* Why anyone can live their best life, no matter where they are now.This book is designed for reflection and re-reading. It features discussion questions (perfect for book clubs) after each chapter to help you dig deeper and find your own ways to live your best life.About Janie JJanie J is an author, a speaker, a competitive athlete, business owner and world traveler. This is the life she imagined and it's only getting better. She continues to engage in daily reflection, reading and exploration. Discover more about her ongoing journey at www.JanieJ.net.

The polar ice caps are melting, hurricanes and droughts ravish the planet, and the earth's population is threatened by catastrophic climate change. Millions of American jobs have been sent overseas and aren't coming back. Young African-American men make up the majority of America's prison population. Half of the American population are poor or near poor, living precariously on the brink, while the top one percent own as much as the bottom eighty. Government police-state spying on its citizens is pervasive. Consequently, as former President Jimmy Carter has said, "we have no functioning democracy." Imagine: Living In a Socialist U.S.A., edited by Francis Goldin, Debby Smith, and Michael Steven Smith, is at once an indictment of American capitalism as the root cause of our spreading dystopia and a cri de coeur for what life could be like in the United States if we had economic as well as a real political democracy. This anthology features essays by revolutionary thinkers, activists, and artists—including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, civil rights activist Angela Davis, incarcerated journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, and economist Rick Wolff— addressing various aspects of a new society and, crucially, how to get from where we are now to where we want to be, living in a society that is truly fair and just.

Living in Imagination By: Jayd Westberg Jayd Westberg wrote Living in Imagination because she wants children to know that even when you feel that you are different, there is always someone out there to understand you. Sometimes, we have to climb mountains before we can appreciate the beauty of the world around us. She, too, had to climb mountains in her lifetime. She, too, did not feel like she completely fit in. But she surrounded herself with people who showed her love and acceptance, and now you never see her without a smile.