After the end of a successful career, but one that has failed to fulfill her lifetime longing to live and work as an artist, a succession of random and serendipitous events prompts Lynda Grace Philippsen to head for Japan. There she begins the formal study of ikebana at Sogetsu Kaikan (Headquarters), in Tokyo.

Ikebana, the centuries-old, sophisticated and highly-nuanced sculptural art of arranging flowers, presents her with numerous challenges. Communication barriers, cultural blinkers, unfamiliar pedagogy, and confounding social codes are, at times, as daunting as the curriculum’s demanding and enigmatic nature.

Like a bird on her shoulder, Lynda takes the reader along the kado (the way of flowers), in a way that is both eloquent and relatable. A fascinating and immersive experience, not only does her story, which is told with insight and candour, contain moments of profundity, but it is also laugh-out-loud-funny at times. And while she captures the energizing experience and ambience of Tokyo in vivid detail, she does not sugar-coat her struggles. Her voice remains refreshing, raw and real.

When COVID-19 interrupts her studies, forces a return to Canada and leaves her mourning the Tokyo life she must let go, Lynda discovers that the kado holds enlightening twists and turns of its own. Remarkable surprises beyond her imagination, leading to self-actualization, transformation and a new understanding of home.

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Violeta has built a life defined by restraint, reason, and appearances. Highly educated and financially independent, she radiates success and is known for her sharp intellect and self-control. Her banking job is reliable, her boyfriend is nice, her life is risk-free. What more could Violeta want? But beneath this mask of discipline, Violeta is deeply conflicted, haunted by always making the safe choice in life and an unresolved past love.

When this past love reappears, Violeta’s control slips. Desire resurfaces, not as nostalgia but as a living force, charged with everything left unsaid, everything denied. Every glance carries history. Every touch threatens collapse. Their kind of love is rare, and second chances even rarer. As the pull toward her forbidden truth tightens, Violeta must decide whether resisting desire will save her—or slowly destroy her. Does she have the courage to take a risk? Will she choose her life of comfort and safety, or the one she has denied herself for years?

Across cities steeped in heat and memory, The Dilemma explores the dangerous space between longing and loyalty, temptation and fear. It is a sensuous, haunting meditation on love that refuses to be forgotten—and the cost of pretending it no longer matters.

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When young Leo travels to India to visit his grandparents, excitement fills the air—especially when a jungle adventure awaits. But when a shimmering butterfly leads Leo off the path, the jungle closes in, sounds fade, and Leo suddenly finds himself alone in a vast, unfamiliar forest.

Luckily, Leo isn’t alone for long. Beneath towering trees, the forest grows denser as unexpected guides appear and unfamiliar paths unfold. With each step deeper into the forest, Leo must decide who to trust as the jungle reveals its secrets.

Rooted in the vibrant landscapes and cultural traditions of India—including the celebration of Hanuman Jayanti—Little Leo’s Big Adventure is a heartwarming story about friendship, empathy, and finding your way.

The fun doesn’t end with the story. An interactive appendix invites young readers to keep exploring through drawing, coloring, counting, reflection questions, and a playful jungle board game, making this book both an engaging read and a hands-on learning experience for children and caregivers to share.

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An Invitation into the Compassionate Heart of God

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made powerfully reveals God’s unconditional, compassionate, and fearless love for his creation. At times such lavish and freely available love may not feel comfortable. In light of our mistakes and regrets, we often don’t feel worthy or deserving of such kindness and compassion. But as the pages of this “love letter” from God are turned, the inspiration to surrender ourselves over to this divine love will grow. Thankfully, God’s relentless love doesn’t ignore our failings. It courageously acknowledges them in light of his extravagant grace and mercy. It actually dissolves our lack of love for ourselves and renews our sense of identity as God’s beloved. This is God’s perfect love for us.

Refreshingly, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made invites readers to settle more fully into this rhythm with God. The devotions, artwork, and contemplative exercises engage readers and offers generous space to remember and more fully embrace with radical acceptance God’s perfect love.

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Vicky the Vaccine is back in action to save the world from COVID-19, a bad-guy germ that is causing a lot of people to get sick. With the help of determined doctors and scientists, Vicky will teach Willy the White Blood Cell and his Antibuddy friends how to defeat this bad-guy germ and end the pandemic. In this story, YOU become the hero, helping to save your family and friends through the power of vaccination. Come along on another adventure with the Vax-Force team and explore the amazing science of vaccines!

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Robert and Peter Crenshaw, who are the sons of an abusive father and an overwhelmed mother, grow up in the same circumstances, but follow opposite paths. Robert attempts to escape his past through academic excellence while Peter descends into a vortex of substance abuse. Robert becomes a respected doctor, hiding both his past and his brother.

His deep shame prevents healthy relationships, but he cannot hide from his past forever. Rosa, Robert's loyal maid, understands both brothers, and helps each to find a new way forward.

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What exactly is spotted dick or bangers and mash? What times are pubs open? How can you get from the airport to London city centre? How do you use the Tube in London? What about driving? Everyday language and daily routines that you are familiar with in your own country can be mystifying in Britain, even though English is the common language. For tourists and curious travellers, this unique, comprehensive guide to the differences between North American and British culture and way of life will provide the answers.

For readers planning a longer stay in Britain, questions related to many areas, such as visas, medical care, bank accounts, getting a driver’s license and buying or renting a property will be clarified.

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At the height of the Great Depression, 2,000 young, single, unemployed and homeless men decided to ride boxcars from Vancouver to Ottawa to seek work and wages from Prime Minister "Iron Heel" R.B. Bennett. Their undertaking became the On-To-Ottawa Trek. Vancouver Advocate cub reporter Mark Hunter is given the perilous assignment of infiltrating the Trek. Once accepted into the journey, can he remain incognito? Can he endure the odyssey's hardships and dangers? Also, can he survive the Trek's violent ending? Most important, can he provide objective and accurate reporting of the historic event?

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Sophie is a smart, bubbly young girl who has an eye for style and a love for science. She isn’t afraid of mixing colours or patterns with an elaborate cut, as long as they match her butterfly shoes! And she isn’t afraid of mixing chemicals and using science to create amazing accessories for her friends and family.

Sophie enters the annual science fair to try and win a lab full of new equipment. She’s ready to make science that’s smart and fashionable! But when Sophie strides onstage, people tease her flashy clothes. What kind of scientist looks like that?

It’s up to Sophie to prove that a scientist isn’t defined by the clothes they wear, or how they look. A scientist is defined by the strength of their experiments. Will Sophie’s science win the day, no matter what she wears?

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Asha, a head strong and fierce Warrior, has just barely escaped her nemesis’s flaming castle alive—and thankfully, not empty handed. After capturing Khaba’s pet, Asha returns to her superior, the supercilious Mina, and prays she won’t be too angered by her failure, but her hopes are quickly dashed.

Scornful of Asha’s failure, Mina sets her household on a new course, determined to put an end to Khaba’s reign of terror and foil his new plan of removing the King of Galnormada from his throne. Asha and her companions sail for the mysterious kingdom on a turbulent and frightfully lengthy journey, one that will take Asha farther than she has ever travelled before. With her companions by her side, Asha feels unstoppable and ready to take on any challenge that presents itself, but an unexpected arrival to the household quickly unravels secrets and plots far beyond anything she trained for.

As her journey continues, Asha realizes she still has much to learn about the world and relies heavily on her training at the Sugiliate Warrior Academy to guide her, but discipline and oaths do not always lead to the right choices. Sometimes, her vow to be the greatest Warrior of all puts her—and those she cares about—in greater danger than ever before.

Reign of Ashes, the second book of The Sugilite Warrior Series, is a dark, action-packed fantasy of loyalty, ambition, and the cost of choosing duty over the heart—as every decision could bring Asha closer to a future not of her making or desire.

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Dr. Sanjiv K. Gandhi spent decades working inside operating rooms where children’s lives literally hung in the balance. In this brave, unflinching memoir, he opens up about the scalpel-edge decisions that defined his career as a pediatric cardiac surgeon, the personal losses that transformed his path, and the convictions that pulled him from the surgical suites into the political spotlight, only to be cast into the darkness again.

From his childhood in small-town Nova Scotia as the son of immigrant physicians to the operating rooms of North America, Africa, and beyond, Gandhi takes readers inside a life shaped by resilience, precision, and purpose. Along the way, he shares extraordinary stories of patients whose courage taught him as much as any mentor and of personal losses that reshaped how he defined success, fatherhood, and compassion. Interwoven throughout are recipes that honour his family, reminding us that food, like surgery, is an act of love.

But this is more than a surgeon’s memoir. It is also a searing critique of the systems meant to safeguard public health. With candor and urgency, Gandhi challenges us to reconsider how we measure success, how we value care, and how we can make medicine more humane.

Deeply personal and universally resonant, Brave Cuts blends humanity, humility, and honesty in a story that’s as much about the courage to challenge entrenched systems as it is about saving lives. This is a portrait of a man who has never stopped fighting—for patients, for justice, and for a better vision of society.

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“To spin a dip” is a popular sailor’s term meaning “to tell a story”—“salty” because they are of the very essence of the sea. "Who would have thought . . . I’d end up here" is the twelfth volume in the Salty Dips series that began in 1983. It brings together stories told by serving or retired Royal Canadian Navy sailors and details the surprising twists and turns that as members of the Navy they could not have imagined when they signed up to serve, plus a short story of a naval spouse’s experience to round out the volume. It is also an invaluable document in Canadian naval history and an absorbing anthology of real-life stories for anyone interested in daily life in the Canadian Navy.

The memories collected here cover a period of immense social and institutional change from post-WWII downsizing and the Korean War through the controversial unification of the armed forces in the late 1960s, the campaign to bring women fully and fairly into the service in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, and the complex new challenges of the post-9/11 world.

Most of the stories in Salty Dips are the frank personal testimonies of the officers and enlisted sailors who participated in this rich history. Although the editors have worked hard to make sure the facts are correct, memories decades after an event can sometimes add a twist or two to a tale, so readers should not expect one hundred percent accuracy. What you can expect is twenty-one fascinating portraits of a changing Canadian Navy and some startling insights into the talents and mindsets that have enabled Canadian men and women to perform extraordinarily under often difficult or dangerous conditions.

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It is the year 2040, and the world has changed forever.

In the near dystopian future, climate change and illness have devastated humanity, leaving few habitable safe havens and even fewer resources for survivors. With the world divided into tenuous alliances, conflict is not just unavoidable. It’s a promise.

Eve wakes up injured in the medical unit of Vector Surge, one of the remaining alliances in the Atical safe land. Eve has no memory of who she is or where she came from. She later learns that she was spared a grisly death in the dead zone—a no man’s land between alliance bases—by Vector Surge members who found her. With a murky past, she’s met with scrutiny and suspicion by all but Olivia, a nurse practitioner who spends her days treating the injured and saving lives. With an undeniable attraction blooming between the two women, Eve questions if the past really matters, and if she could leave it behind for her newfound family.

Yet Vector Surge’s enemies are at the alliance’s doorstep, threatening to unravel everything Eve’s built. As the alliance suffers attacks from all directions, Eve must decide what’s more important: uncovering her past or protecting her present.

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This is a book about love—love you can carry with you everywhere, even when your loved ones aren’t there…

I Love You Everywhere is a poem for children struggling with separation anxiety. Whimsical imagery and clever rhymes paint a vivid picture of how to overcome feelings of fear, sadness, and anger when a parent is away. Ideal for readers under the age of seven, this book emphasizes the importance of love in every circumstance.

Read this book at bedtime or anytime your child needs a reminder that you care about them when you’re together and when you’re apart.

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Questioning life experiences - from British India to independent India; minority discrimination in the new land (USA). Entertains questions, as subtle as human nature to what’s hidden behind ultimate reality; perceived by an amateur philosopher-scientist. In various settings these constitute the subject matter of most poems. Partly autobiographical, it considers life and living in an analytical way.

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Before the convenience of the internet, accessing music wasn’t for the faint of heart: fans waited for their favourite songs to come on the radio so they could record them on cassette tapes, made sure they were home to watch genre-specific video programs, and spent endless hours—and part-time job money—at record and music merchandise stores; musicians worked relentlessly, creating demos in garages and playing gigs tirelessly, with the hopes of being famous. While it took a lot of time and dedication, it was also fun and rewarding, and no one loved it more than metalheads.

In Echoes from the Pit, Sean Murphy takes readers on a headbanging journey to the vibrant eighties and early nineties heavy metal scene in the Ottawa-Hull region, where he was both a consumer and a creator, sharing his rare insider perspective into the rise of the raucous guitar riffing era there in his youth.

This metal memoir is chock-full of stories, including firsthand accounts, of close to forty bands, some local—Exciter, Antix, Galleon, Witchkiller—and some more famous—Megadeth, Anthrax—who played there, the history of venues like Roxanne’s, Barrymore’s, and The Chaud that featured thrash on their stages, the fervent fans, and a variety of others who helped shape the metal underground in Canada’s capital.

Echoes from the Pit captures a time when heavy metal was more than just music; it was a community, a culture, and a way of life. It is a celebration of the legacy of an epoch that continues to influence and bring joy to many.

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Over three decades of global experience in asset management, maintenance, and reliability have shaped this deeply personal and insightful exploration of what is required to keep complex industrial systems running. From the oil fields to mines, from manufacturing facilities to utilities to municipal infrastructure, Emilio Sarno has worked with tradespeople, engineers, and executives, learning and sharing invaluable lessons about the operation and maintenance of the assets that move our world forward.

This honest reflection is an experience-driven guide to the dos and don’ts of reliability, drawn from a career that spans management, engineering, project leadership, and consulting across industries and continents. Mr. Sarno shares hard-earned insights, cautionary tales, and philosophical perspectives that may challenge conventional thinking. Whether you're a frontline technician, a reliability engineer, or a leader navigating the complexities of asset performance, this book offers practical wisdom from a seasoned professional. This work is also a tribute to the unsung heroes who ensure our physical assets perform as expected, day in and day out, even with limited resources and under immense pressure. Expect stories, not formulas. Expect disagreement, not dogma. Above all, expect a thoughtful contribution to the ongoing conversation about reliability within the broader context of asset management.

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“Searching for Sansai” is a book for anyone who is interested in local wild plants, foraging in general or Japanese Canadian cooking, especially those residing in British Columbia or the Pacific Northwest.

The book includes:

1. identification of species of interest

2. potential and actual locations to find these plants

3. examples of Japanese recipes for each plant

4. the historical and cultural importance of these “sansai” (wild mountain plants)

4. conversations about the past and future of foraging and the environment

In passing on this information, the author hopes to attract more people and newer generations to the culture and history of foraging locally, particularly those of Japanese descent.

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Human beings have pursued happiness since the beginning of time. Many believe that attaining happiness is the ultimate goal. In That Your Joy May Be Full: John’s Exposition on Joyfulness, the emphasis is on what the Bible considers more important: joy.

This biblical study explores what the author, Pastor Ohimai Musa, describes as “the deep and transformative concept of joy.” Pastor Musa analyzes the Gospel of John, the Johannine epistles, and key themes explored in the Book of Revelation to demonstrate the importance of joy in the Scriptures and how we may experience it in its fullness.

Those who seek a deeper understanding of biblical joy will benefit from the many contrasting perspectives on happiness found in Stoic, Epicurean, and other non-Christian philosophies. By setting these viewpoints alongside John’s writings, the author highlights John’s unique approach to the fullness of joy. Joy is not a fleeting emotion. Rather, it is a state of being that can be sustained, empowering us to remain steadfast in faith regardless of circumstances.

In the pages of this book, Christians who are seeking spiritual growth will come to understand joy as a divine gift rather than a passing feeling. They will learn about spiritual resilience, and discover how they can receive, retain, and restore joy in their lives. In a world in which many people seek happiness, this book gently urges you to aim for joy.

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When Nacho sets out on his morning walk, he has no idea who he will meet today! Will it be a new doggy friend? When he encounters new creatures in his neighbourhood, he greets them all with the same question: What kind of dog are you?

Nacho is surprised to discover that not all his friends are dogs like him. What animals will he meet on his walk? Join Nacho as he learns about the other animals that live in his neighbourhood. You just might meet a friend you recognize, too!

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