The Morningside Man

From 1972 to 1997, each weekday morning, "Morningside host Peter Gzowski guided what he considered the most intelligent listeners in the country through three hours of the most intelligent radio programming in the land. He took us through the briars of political and social policy debate, entertained us with the best of Canadian music and song, challenged us with the mysteries of science, tipped us to the better books of the season and introduced us to their authors, gave us tested and mouthwatering recipes, read aloud our best letters to him, and took us off the beaten path of Canada to show us who and where we are. The program lives on in "The Morningside Years. In these pages - and on the accompanying free compact disk - you'll find a collection of the most memorable items from the program's years on air. Here you'll rediscover Gzowski's interviews with the stars of Canadian literature - Margaret Laurence, Robertson Davies, W. O. Mitchell, Alice Munro, Timothy Findley, and Margaret Atwood. The heartbreaking drama by Emil Sher, "Mourning Dove, is presented in its entirety, as is the exceptional panel discussion of Louis Riel's trial. There's a chapter of the fifteen best letters to the program, as well as a mini-"Morningside Papers - "The Sixth (and Definitely Last)." There are photographs, too: a "Morningside family album and a series of candid shots taken in the studio during what may have been the most exciting day in the program's life - the day spent preparing for the 1997 Red River Rally. There are conversations with scientists, and letters from abroad and from the North. And, on the accompanying CD, among other memorable pieces, there are excerpts from a classicpolitical conversation among Eric Kierans, Stephen Lewis, and Dalton Camp, a hilarious conversation with Stuart McLean, a moment with Margaret Visser, a new arrangement of "O Canada," sung a cappella by Quartette, and an unforgettable discussion among all the Canadian women who ever swam Lake Ontario. Dalton Camp, one of the most companionable fixtures of "Morningside, contributes a funny and surprisingly tender foreword, but Gzowski has the final word in the book: an essay in which he reflects on what "Morningside was and what it meant to him. His retirement as host of "Morningside in May 1997 occasioned a flood of affection for the man and accolades for his journalism that was unprecedented in Canadian broadcasting. Many lamented not just the passing of "Morningside, but also the loss of a daily presence who, with the tools of unfeigned curiosity and simple courtesy, tended a vast field in which Canada's tallest poppies thrived. A priceless keepsake, "The Morningside Years is Peter Gzowski's salute to his listeners and an enduring memento of Canadian broadcasting at its best.

From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife and Inland, a sweeping novel of mothers and daughters, displacement and belonging, and wondrous tales of a world both fallen and new “A multifaceted gift of a novel that only Téa Obreht could conjure onto paper.”—Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other Stories There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside. After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family’s past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia’s lonely and impoverished reality. Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything. Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Book • When Ohio-born Pru Steiner arrives in New York in 1976, she follows in a long tradition of young people determined to take the city by storm. But when she falls in love with and marries Spence Robin, her hotshot young Shakespeare professor, her life takes a turn she couldn’t have anticipated. Thirty years later, something is wrong with Spence. The Great Man can’t concentrate; he falls asleep reading The New York Review of Books. With their daughter, Sarah, away at medical school, Pru must struggle on her own to care for him. One day, feeling especially isolated, Pru meets a man, and the possibility of new romance blooms. Meanwhile, Spence’s estranged son from his first marriage has come back into their lives. Arlo, a wealthy entrepreneur who invests in biotech, may be his father’s last, best hope. Morningside Heights is a sweeping and compassionate novel about a marriage surviving hardship. It’s about the love between women and men, and children and parents; about the things we give up in the face of adversity; and about how to survive when life turns out differently from what we thought we signed up for.