Canada Books

This is an absolute MUST for everyone mountain biking in the Canadian Rockies. The maps and descriptions of the trail are extremly acurate and are extremly useful.

This guide book gives a good review of all the major mountain biking trails in Southern Alberta. The maps are good and there are entertaining photos throughout of some vintage mountain bikers.

The difficulty ratings are quite realistic, in my opinion.

Backroad Mapbooks: Southwestern Alberta is a complete outdoor recreational guide for those working, living, or traveling to southern Alberta. This book contains full colour maps showing the smallest back road, river tributary, and lake. Maps also include details on the size and general condition of roads; location of campsites and tourist information centers; and indoor and outdoor recreational areas.

This book also contains a very detailed reference section with information on fishing regulations and fishing tips; lake and river paddling routes (including put in and take out areas); parks and campgrounds; hiking, walking, and sightseeing trails; wildlife viewing areas, and winter recreation areas. Within each of these sections, various areas of southwestern Alberta are explored with detailed entries on particular locations, sites, and areas. This part of the book will be particularly useful to those visiting the area as well as residents looking for something new to do.

As an archaeologist, I do a lot of back road and oilfield access trail driving. Usually, the development or survey map I am given is in really bad shape and usually twenty or thirty years out of date. Therefore, I usually have to guess how to get to my project area. This takes up extra time that could be better used on site. Using this map though, I now have a good idea of the exact oilfield roads to take to get to my sites. I even have an idea of how good of road conditions I can expect on these roads saving me a good deal of valuable time.

In this way, the map portion of this guide will be particularly helpful for those working in the oilfield industry. This book actually shows many of the existing back roads and oilfield roads so that the reader can quickly find a way into his or her project area. I know of only one other map book with such detail. This other book retails at over $250, making Backroad Mapbooks: Southwestern Alberta much more economically reasonable.

As a reference on out door activities in this area, this is a good book.

Extremely detailed maps show hiking trails, boat launches, hang gliding spots, horse back riding trails, out of the way campgrounds, etc. Separate sections on trails, fishing, paddling and parks/campgrounds with descriptions are cross indexed. If you can put the pieces together, the total amount of information in this book is impressive

5 star all the way. Beautiful illustrations, sweet story. No question about it, you should buy it.

I just bought this book for my 5 year-old daughter and she loves it. The charming story contains some positive lessons about hard work and friendship, and introduces to children the concept that a big fancy house is not necessarily the best home for everyone; sometimes the little old cozy cottage feels more like home.

The book's real strong point though is the illustrations. The art in this book is so soft and friendly looking, as well as detailed. Your child will love poring over the beautiful illustrations in this book.

Highly recommended.

This survey of ballet dance for young performers provides a fine introduction for kids just beginning to explore the potentials of ballet. Black and white photos of students in action accompany tips on positioning, pointe work, allegros and ballet classes. A fine guide recommended for young newcomers to ballet.

A wonderful example of beautiful ballet technique and poise. It is a friendly and simple introduction to the basics of ballet for any beginner. My sisters and I really learned a lot from this book. I highly recommend this to any aspiring ballet dancer.

i read this book to my brother who has asthma too. he is 4 and he realy enjoyed it i recommend it.

This is a wonderful story which conveys the resourcefulness of children. More than that, Michael provides a view from within the Inuit culture. He illuminates for those of us who did not grow up on the Arctic Circle what it is to live in that harsh environment. At the same time, he shows us how alike we all are: enjoying the holidays and a good baseball game with friends.
Vladyana's magnificent art is an added bonus.
I bought this book after hearing Michael tell the story at the International Reading Association teachers' conference in 1999. Since that time, it has become one of my favorites, as well as a favorite of my students and my colleagues.

Bass Culture
This is a great resource for any fan of reggae, or anyone interested in Jamaica's recent social/cultural history. Bradley's obviously spent a lot of time collecting and sifting through the history of the music, a seemingly impossible task when you consider the haphazard and apocryphal nature of it all, and presents the accumulated knowledge in a fair and balanced way. Doubtless, there's small inaccuracies here and there but this book is one of the most thorough I've read on the subject. I found this book to be a goldmine of information and it lead me to discover some wonderful music and musicians which may have otherwise passed me by.

At over 500 pages this thick little British import is an exhaustive survey of the Roots Rocker Era of reggae: '69 thru early 80's when dancehall took over.

The book begins with the birth of Jamaican music, and the rise of the sound systems. Ska, Rocksteady, then Roots Reggae are examined. Economics,and the rise of Rastafarism are woven throughout the story.

The various producers and their work are discussed, along with the importance of Britain as a sales base, and the emergence of Trojan.

Dub, DJ's, producers, singers, rhythm sections, etc are all discussed.

This very dense and packed with stories and information I cannot imagine anyone being disappionted as long as they realize this deals exclusively with the 70's roots era.

Will Ferguson plows through centuries of Canadian history in Bastards and Boneheads, a book that beautifully judges the personalities that have created and built Canada. This is a book for those who do not think Canadian history is very interesting or eventful. Very colourful personalities have made their will known in both helpful and harmful shaping this country and they come alive within these pages. This book will also shatter the myth of Canadians as "nice" people, because quite often we are not, particularly looking at the Holocaust of the WWII, the Japanese internments, and the relations with First Nations people (such as the chapter on Oka). The author's examination of more recent history, from the October Crisis to Chretien is also very illuminating. In the end how can any book with a chapter called "Ranking the Prime Ministers, From the Great to Mulroney" be all that bad. A wonderful book on a fascinating country. Highly recommended.

Ferguson does a wonderful job making Canadian history, traditionally perceieved as a dull topic, into an enthralling tale of a budding nation, people, and the strange contradiction that is inherent to all things Canadian. The language is simple, yet the ideas are very critical. The humoUr is terrific, yet Ferguson pulls no punches in condemning some of Canada's more shameful history. An excellent primer for anybody interested in Canadian history.

'The Bay of Love and Sorrows' is one of the best books--if not THE best--I've ever read.

Most books tend to be draggy at the start. This is an exception. It sucks you in from the beginning. It sucks you in and makes you feel like you're an observer, watching everything that's going on as the author describes it. You get outraged, you get saddened, you feel relief,...you feel everything as you read through this; and as you get further and further along, you don't want to stop reading.

The characters are human. No one is saintly, everyone has their faults and strengths. The actions and scenery are described very well--sometimes in a few words, sometimes in many words.

More importantly, though, it makes you think about how justice is doled out sometimes--how sometimes those who have nothing to do with what has happened end up suffering before those involved get their just desserts. It also makes you think about how some people will believe anything anyone tells them, without having the audacity and the know-how to question everything.

A definite must-read.

If you've not read any of David Adams Richards' books, you're missing a wonderful experience. Richards is master of the sublime, even when covering gritty topics and plotlines. Such as it is in this title; the characters are imperfect, flawed, some of them disturbed, outcast. This story is a tangled web woven, entrapping the souls it skirts, unravelling their lives as the situation(s) gain momentum. There are truly haunting moments experienced as one absorbs the tale. Although the reader will have affinity with the characters' very human flaws, Richards never allows us to get too close and I believe he does that deliberately; this fiction takes an in-depth look at the shallowness of living on the edge and the waste that it is.

The story will pull you in gently and carry you along with ease - the writing is so good you don't notice it... you simply absorb the story and its characters.

I've been keeping my eyes open for more of this writer's works (I started with his latest "Mercy Among the Children") as he has quickly become one of my fave writers. This is an excellent starter into the rich and dense world of David Adams Richards. Enjoy.

Though he died, sadly and miserably, before I was even born, the greatness of Canada Lee cast a long shadow over my early life on Long Island (a suburb of New York). Lee was but one of the victims of the tragic blacklist, and the HUAC hearings which tore apart the country, especially the entertainment world in which many well-meaning folks had taken part in various charitable organizations before and during World War II only to find themselves suspected of Communism or merely "premature anti-Fascism." It was a time in which, to paraphrase playwright Lillian Hellman, you had to cut your conscience to suit this year's fashions, and such a time may be coming around again. If so, the Canada Lees of today are going to come to a terrible end.

What a world! And yet, as Mona Smith shows us, there is redemption for even the most miserable of us, and Lee was able again and again to triumph over the ingrown and casual racism of the film world by finding parts that made him more than just a grinning servant a la the underrated Stepin Fetchit. He refused to play a servant and thus suffered many privations and was debied many roles, along with his better known compatriot Paul Robeson, also a famous athlete before turning to acting.

Lee's greatest films included Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT, in which he plays the only sane man in a lifeboat filled with hysterical excuses for human beings. This film, written partially by John Steinbeck, is one of those movies that seem more and more central to Hitch's career as time goes by--to Steinbeck's too.

Mona Smith's account of how she came to write the life of Canada Lee, as set forth in her preface, is heartbreaking. Unbelievably, Canada Lee's widow was still alive and was able to share with Ms. Smith a mountain of personal papers. It is trily one of the miracles of the archival process, and it makes her book not only a showbiz biography, but a study in civil rights and in American history and human endurance.

I recommend this book to everyone, of all ages, who wants to learn about redemption and sacrifice.

The story of Mr. Canada Lee is complex and great to read, I had heard of him growing up and I remember watching "Body and Soul" when it came on tv as a child and my family telling me all the great things he had done, and the fact that history until now has reported very little about him, gets me. He contributed a lot to helping others who were not treated fairly. And he also made it possible for stars today to not have to be limited to certain roles. He was a man of courage and stood firm in what he believed, even when others around him abandoned him, he never gave up. I can only hope I can be that strong in my own life.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel Beginning of Was. Author Ania Szado takes the reader on an intensely emotional roller-coaster ride in her gripping, well-crafted story of love remembered, lost and found, of one woman's harsh journey through grief that pushes to the limit, to her eventual salvation from despair, the beginning of healing and reconciliation. For Marta Fett, "was" begins with the death of her five-year-old daughter, Asha, in a car accident which also kills her drinking husband and Asha's father, Kurt. The story is told in a smooth interplay of flashbacks to Marta's own traumatic youth, the cruel, sweet recollections of her Asha, and her life in the present as a homeless desperate charity case helping out in a rectory and a dying old woman's home. Ania Szado is a master craftsman with words. Her sentences are rich in imagery and metaphor, her use of words meticulously accurate and expressive. I admire her clever subtlety and amazing ability to tease, as when Marta writes on a piece of paper which she hides inside the hem of a First Communion gown in the final pages of the novel - on one side is the word "believe," and on the other side, "in despair." Which side is to be read first? I LOVE this book and very strongly recommend it.

This is a lovely, short novel, about a woman who must come to
terms with the grief over the loss of her young daughter. The mysteries
of the novel unravel themselves slowly as you begin to gain a
complete picture of the history that haunts the main character and learn
more about the people around her. And just when you think the
journey is complete, something completely surprising happens
toward the end of the novel that is enlightening and incredibly moving.
The writing style is highly imagistic and lyrical, it took a little getting
used to but this is a book mostly about grief and emotions and the
language of the novel conveys these emotions beautifully. A wonderful
novel about coming to terms with life's greatest pains and losses.
Very strongly recommend.