Stewart Books

A suspicious suicide, reluctant detective, generational friction, environmental activism, and local theater provide fodder for a fairly conventional murder mystery, until the accidental death by guillotine of a lead character during rehearsals for The Mikado takes this tale into a nasty little unconventional turn. Set on the misty shores of Vancouver Island, the mystery deepens as historical grievances and levels of resentment gradually emerge with a growing list of suspects. This is a great first novel by a Canadian pair of authors steeped in drama and literature, but grounded in the concerns of the present day. While The Mikado is not at the top of my must-see list, I greatly enjoyed this page-turner, and can only imagine the concealed twists and innuendos that await revelation for true Gilbert and Sullivan aficionados.

Kay Stewart and Chris Bullock's A Deadly Little List is a mystery set on Salt Springs Island, B.C. It teems with suspects ranging from local environmentalists to the cast of a local production of The Mikado. The title of the book comes from the Lord High Executioner's song, "A Little List," that Ko Ko sings because he hasn't met his quota of executions, so murder is afoot. Constable Danutia Dranchuk is new to her position when she is sent to Salt Springs Island to sign off on what local law enforcement sees as an apparent suicide. Her instincts and shrewd observations tell her that this is a murder and the medical examiner concurs. She persuades her superiors to let her investigate further on her own and, by the conclusion of A Deadly Little List, this female constable has successfully proven her detective skills. When Joe Bertalucci, a security guard in a historic cabin destined for demolition by a wealthy land developer, is found dead, the suspicion falls on the local environmentalists who have been protesting. However, a second murder by guillotine occurs on the set of The Mikado within days of the first. The deaths seem unrelated, but while Danutia is tracking down all her suspects, unbeknownst to her, Arthur Fairweather, a drama critic from the Victoria Post-Dispatch, begins his own snooping looking into the murder connected to the Salt Springs theatre festival's Mikado. The mystery unfolds in alternating chapters from the different points of view of Danutia and Arthur until the stories converge for a dramatic ending. Once Arthur and Danutia finally meet, together they catch the murderer. The writing in A Deadly Little List resonates with witty allusions and lovely similes. Danutia is the dominant character with hints about a dark relationship in her past and a commitment to her law enforcement profession. Arthur is a witty Brit drama critic with an ex-wife. The reader finishes A Deadly Little List expectant that Arthur and Danutia will develop a personal relationship in future sleuthing adventures in other interesting settings.

Someday, somewhere, someone will create a database of picture books that work best when you read them aloud. Maybe one already exists, but how extensive is it? What I really want is a listing that continually updates as each and every new readaloud comes out. A seasonal list that takes into account all publishers, large and small, and their potential readaloud catalogs. Because, you see, if such a list were to exist, it would allow me to check and see whether or not Joel Stewart's utterly charming, "Dexter Bexley and the Big Blue Beastie" was included. It appears to be tailor made for reading to large groups, but appearances can be deceiving. You never know how well a book will do until you're reading it yourself to a captive audience of five-year-olds. Whatever the case, a good readaloud or not, "Dexter Bexley" has the distinguishing characteristic of being an amusing story, well penned, and delightful to the eye. Would that all our British imports could claim so much.

So there's Dexter Bexley, just minding his own business, when he happens to run his scooter right smack-dab into a Big Blue Beastie. A derby wearing, scarf-wrapped Big Blue Beastie. A derby-wearing, scarf-wrapped Big Blue Beastie who is bored and can't think what to do about it except eat little Dexter Bexley up. Fortunately the boy is a quick thinker and is able to come up with a couple diversions. When the Big Blue Beastie grows bored of scooting on his own scooter, he's talked into delivering flowers. When that wears thin the two become private detectives, solving a variety of different cases. And after that they create a desert of hitherto unseen proportions. In the end, however, Dexter runs out of ideas for distraction, and it is the Beastie who comes up with a plan, buying the two of them some lollipops. After all, it is no longer SO bored, "now that I've found a friend."

Any good picture book worth its salt knows how to play around with simple language. In this particular case, Stewart has a penchant for the understated. This is a supremely wry little book. One that isn't afraid to downplay the ridiculousness of a situation. Jokes in this book will appeal to both children and their jaded parental units. For example, I appreciated that when the "stocks and shares went up and up" of the Beastie and Dexter, the creature is heard to say, "Now I'm REALLY bored." And the sheer variety of cases the boy and Beastie share together when they become detectives are great. "The Rubber Glove Affair" (in which a variety of colorful gloves have been blown into balloons and are floating above the earth carrying our two heroes). "The Bicycle from Beyond". Even their arch nemesis gets a great name like "Professor Hortern Zoar".

The art too is odd and infinitely interesting. Stewart indulges in squiggly pen lines with vibrant colors within them. And dialogue tends to come in eclectic little speech balloons that curve and pop up around the narration when it best suits the needs of the book. The Beastie is the real lure here, however, and in him Stewart creates the ultimate British gentleman. Though he may sport claws and a suspiciously jutting jaw, this monster is a lovely mix of the frightening and the benign. He has, after all, delicate little feet sporting shoes with criss-crossed laces. For reasons I couldn't really pinpoint, the pictures here reminded me of Edward Gorey's work. It has a purposeful shakiness that Gorey lacks, but if you get above and beyond that you can see all kinds of similarities in terms of proportions and nonsensical beasts.

If you happen to be in a particularly Anglo centric mood, consider pairing sweet "Dexter" alongside such other recent remarkable titles as Nicholas Allan's, I'm Not Cute! or The Opposite by Tom Macrae. Both are sly little books, and both have a core of sweetness to them that never disintegrates into mush. I believe it may have been the School Library Journal review of this book that suggested that one might also pair this with a fellow boy-and-his-best-monster book, Leonardo, the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems. The tone of these two books is rather different, but they might go well together, if only because their physical layout isn't all that dissimilar. In the end, however, Joel Stewart has created a mighty original creation all on his own and it's well worth a read. Recommended to anyone with a penchant for deep and abiding silliness.

My children, ages 3 and 7, insist that I read this book to them every night. My 3 year old has memorized the words so that she can "read" along with me. It's a wonderful story with beautiful illustration. We love it so much, we are now searching for everything by Joel Stewart to add to our collection.

Hodgins is a skillful writer, and he's in top form here. The dialog is excellent, as are the character potrayals, and the descriptive passages are both compelling in their own right, anchoring the reader into scenes with a vivid sense of physical immediacy, and in terms of the way landscape echoes and refracts the protagonist's sensibility and changing pyschological states. This is not an easy book. The relationship of the protagonist to his father is shot through with pain, a pain that is all the more excruciating for the reader because it is so resonant. But in the end this is a rewarding and redemptive read. It is an intimate story painted in bold colors, with a bigger heart than alot of the psychologically minimalist fiction coming out these days. Highly recommended!

Unlike the common run of North American writers, Jack Hodgins' vistas are unconfined by borders, real or imaginary. His book on writing fiction, A Passion for Narrative, is among the finest of the genre. It is unique in its consideration of Pacific Rim writing. His latest novel, Distance, exhibits his extended outlook brilliantly. "Distance" can impart many meanings and Hodgins weaves geographical and personal themes here with his usual skill. "Distance" may be narrowed, and the issues of personal reconciliation and defining "home" are important ones in this book.

We follow Sonny Aalto from Ottawa to Vancouver Island, then across the Pacific. There's even a side journey to the woods of Finland, his family's origins. The journey confronts us with Sonny's family. "Confront" is fraught with meaning, since Sonny's interactions with his family are tense and acerbic. Pleasant words don't often appear and "dislike" is the mildest epithet available. Yet the hostility is tempered with another side to all the characters. Family life, no matter how conflict-filled, still carries an undercurrent of mutual respect and tenderness. Sonny, who has strenuously resisted communicating with his father while seeking closer ties with his own children, is induced to return home.

Why is Sonny so frequently on the move? He's spent a lifetime edging eastward, following various careers, seeking his children. He travels incessantly - ruined cathedrals, shrines to pagan gods, remote villages. The driving force is his father, Timo - "Swampy" Aalto. Abandoned by his wife Viira, Timo, quite unprepared for the role, becomes a single parent. In a remote corner of Vancouver Island, missing part of a leg, and virtually unemployable, he resents the role and his life. Sonny is either left to his own devices or forced to clean up after Timo's drunken debauches with whichever women will tolerate him. Leaving home wasn't a hard decision for Sonny. Once departed, he just never stopped. Ottawa is his latest refuge - "he wanted to belong" . Will it be his last?

Skating the Rideau Canal on one of Ottawa's notorious February days, Sonny is confronted by a stranger claiming to be his brother. "Believe me, mate. I would not risk frozen gonads for a prank!" Jerrod has travelled half way around the planet to deliver an invitation: come to Australia and visit his mother. And shoot boar - they kill sheep. Sonny demurs. He hasn't used a rifle in thirty years. Far more significantly, he's uncertain how to deal with his long-vanished mother. Lured to Victoria by his ailing father, the island continent beckons. Timo, who has his own reasons to confront Viira, endorses the journey. Crippled, seriously ill, he embraces the idea of the adventure. Timo as a travelling companion is compounding risk.

Family relationships, especially those dominated by confrontation, make compelling reading. Sonny has inherited his father's tendency to steer away from family ties - his son is "up the Valley" running a craft store while his daughter Charlotte returned to Vancouver pursuing a photographic career. Charlotte scorns Sonny, while son Warren seems to communicate only to request money. Under Jack Hodgins' perceptive eye and skilled narrative style, these characters become vividly staged in this engrossing tale. The family gathering in the Australian bush becomes a cockpit of conflicting experiences and interests. For all his mother-deprived upbringing, Sonny is a successful businessman. He must hold his own against half-siblings, and on their home turf. Hodgins doesn't invoke a false hero in Sonny, but there's strength and motives to persevere against stiff odds. Timo also shows unexpected drive, his patriarchal role may be challenged, but rarely relinquished.

Hodgins' characters are finely drawn - he has a keen sense of details about people and their habitats. His ability to convey idiosyncrasies of local speech borders on the uncanny. You can hear the bushman's voice of Jerrold Hawkins. Timo's irascibility echoes the stress of years struggling in Vancouver Island's own bush environment. Sonny's firewood supplier's laconic observations reflecting life in the upper Ottawa Valley. This isn't stereotyping, it's identification.

Hodgins draws more than characters. In tracing Sonny's wanderings, each locale is characteristically depicted. Ottawa's chip wagons, Vancouver Island's isolated "up-island" towns, and the novelty of the island continent. His Australian visits enable a special talent for conveying the contrasting environments. When he takes Sonny to the vastness of Australia's desert, he pictures it both with the eye of a casual visitor and established resident. You share Sonny's role as the intruder into both family and place with sympathy. The vast stretches and novel circumstances of that distant and unusual land. Jack Hodgins introduces us to people and places we may never encounter. Follow his lead into journeys of mind and space. It's a rewarding jaunt. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Hypnosis can bring you success at weight loss, especially if other approaches have failed. Some of my patients report that their weight loss was virtually effortless -- not at all like being on a diet. Reaching and maintaining an ideal weight requires your attention to three simple principles:

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I will be forever grateful to Dr. Larry for this CD it changed my life!

After years of trying every diet plan imaginable, I purchased Dr. Larry's Lose Weight CD. Hypnotism was totally unfamiliar to me (except the stage type). I couldn't believe it would work, but was determined to try.

Listening to the tape on a daily basis, I learned to eat smaller portions of healthy food, joined a fitness centre where a fitness instructor devised a program for me to support the weight loss program suggested by Dr, Larry.

"Meeting emotional needs without using food as a salve" was perhaps the most difficult. Being overweight, size 16-18 clothes and feeling very unattractive, led to a cycle of overeating. But as the pounds started to come off and continued to do so with the aid of Dr. Larry's CD, a new confident person emerged, who could handle this lifestyle change.

Dr. Larry's CD changed my life - after almost 40 pounds of weight loss, I wear a size 10, lead a healthy, active lifestyle and have a very positive outlook on life. I was thrilled to go shopping for my first pair of jeans (without an elastic waistband) and have my grandchildren call me their "cool Nanny"!

our son loves krypto this sturdy book is one of our favorites. He is only 2.5 years so the turning is a little difficult but he is learning to be more gentle. A great little story.

I bought this book for my 14 mo. old daughter because I personally thought it was hilarious. Oh and also because there are lots of flaps and dials - not sure what they're called. I think my daughter is a little too young for it now but I'm pretty sure she'll like it when she's a little older.

"Stewart Home imprisoned the pure pupil of a drug fetus." - Kenji Siratori, author Blood Electric

This guy writes seriously screwed up books...and he writes them brilliantly.

It's like Irvin Welsh (who is an obvious influence.) if Irvin had studied English Lit'...or like James Joyce if Joyce hadn't been the only Irishman in history who could not tell a story.

You gotta read this stuff...but then go read some Jane Austin just to get a bit of balance back.

Believe it or not, in the early 1980s, medical hypnosis experts claimed only 25 percent of smokers could be cured through hypnosis. (Of course, cigarette companies said smoking was good for you, too!) Dr. Larry proved them wrong -- in his own family practice, two-thirds of his patients quit smoking after a single hypnosis session.

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Dr. Larry Deutsch, a practicing family physician and hypnotherapist, has over 30 years of hands-on experience. He's already helped thousands of people lose weight, quit smoking or achieve other health goals via medical hypnotherapy. With his motivating and entertaining style he combines sound medical advice, psychology and self-hypnosis techniques to empower you to find the subconscious strength and will power necessary to succeed. "Remember: Smoking is also a biological addiction! You can achieve a higher chance of success by combining some medical counseling to deal with physical symptoms of withdrawal. Fortunately, hypnosis and self-hypnosis boost your response to counseling, making your cravings much easier to combat."

Dr. Larry's Quit Smoking Program was largely responsible for my ending a 30 year addiction to cigatettes.

I acquired the CD when I was thinking of quiting and after I listened to it once I decided to quit and have not had a puff since.

The first few days were difficult but by listening to the CD two or three times a day for the first week I was able to resist the urge to smoke.

I can recommend the Quit Smoking Program because I am sure that it made the difference it made the difference between this successful attempt at quitting and previous failed attempts.

An account of the great accomplishments and the magnificent failures of the visionaries who sought to create what they could not find in America.

This book is about people whose names aren't found in schoolbooks and there have been no marble statues made in their honor, but nevertheless they helped make America what it is today. All of them...visionaries, indomitable pioneers, ranting lunatics, or patient doers, helped to build America.

In these pages are the stories of people like Sylvester Graham (Graham Crackers), who campaigned against "adulterated" bread but only succeeded in having a cracker named for him; of Orson Fowler, who made a fortune exploiting phrenology; of George Eveans, who conceived the Homestead Act; of Henry George, who propounded the idea of a single tax, on land; and among the many others, of Dorothea Dix, who struggled to improve the asylums of the mentally ill. Learn about the heroes and heroines of the temperance and the suffragette movements; of the persons who worked for the deaf and dumb, the insane, and the blind...or who brought about prison reforms, or led the fight for the workingman. Learn about more of America's off-beat characters in this book!

I really enjoyed Holbrook's technique of depicting history through as an inter-related web of ideas and historical personalities. As an exmple, his explanation of the underlying motiviations for Prohibition were very insightful. It was also exciting to see the evolution of the modern penitentiary system, mental hospitals, Oneida silverware and the graham cracker. These are all things that are a part of modern life and reading this history helped me to understand why they are they way they are.

I got this book at a reading by the author, whose enthusiasm for his subjecct was infectious. I was also enchanted by James Grashow's whimsical woodcut illustration on the cover--a mauve hippopotomus doing a feathery fan dance. The illustrations beckon us into Edelstein's etymological digs into the shared parentage of strange doublets--hippopotomus and feather being just two. Both words stem from the Indo-European #pet- (as well as the suffixed form "pet-ra,")meaning "to rush, fly." With a light touch, Edelstein flies through feather's line derived from the Greek "pteron" (feather or wing) through the Jurassic Age archeopteryx, pen (as in,quill), penne (pasta shaped like a quill); then rushes us on to pinnacle, panache, petulant, impetus, perpetual, compete, repeat, appetite, and get this, symptom. But, he asks, "how does the massive, slow-moving hippopotamus, which has absolutely no sense of panache and certainly can't fly, join the family of rushing and flying words? The answer is not in the 'hippo' but in the rushing water where it thrives. Greek 'potamos' means 'river,' originally 'rushing water.' Greek 'hippos' means 'horse.' Literally, a hippopotamus is a 'horse in rushing water.' Hippos rarely wander far from water, where they feed on water plants and share vegetation, feel buoyant, and stay cool."

All this information in a single page of text!

But the book is not just a trip through the meandering geography of our language. Edelstein has unpacked th treasures words have gleaned from their travels, and he entertains us with their tales. Think of gods, muses, royalty, clergy, soldiers, maids, barbarians, Romans, Greeks, French, Germans,Americans all sharing a common table, swapping stories, jokes and wordplay and you get some idea of this book. It's rich Epicurean fare packaged as small tastes--tapas, perhaps. And, it is a comfortable book, cozy in the hands with a soft cover; light enough to carry in a backpack or purse (which I do); with clear operating instructions (doublets are in alpha order). Erudite but friendly, Edelstein's Dubious Doublets might be construed as Pooh's take on the Oxford English Dictionary. For me, it's become a pal.5

Allison Tracy, Western Massachusetts

Anyone interested in words will find this book to be delightful and enlightening. Stewart Edelstein has taken many unlikely pairs of words and traces them back to reveal their common, often surprising roots. For example, he pairs "gazebo" and "placebo." A gazebo is a structure, he explains, which affords an enjoyable view. A placebo is a substance with no real effect. What do these words have in common? Expectation, we learn. Then we learn about the history and the early recorded uses of the words. The book is filled with discussions of such "dubious doublets"-- which provides the book's title-- from "aardvark" and "procelain" to "canary" and "cynic" to "salacious" and "salmon" to "dentist" and "dandelion," and many, many more. Dubious Doublets is a delightful read, filled with erudition and humor. And it is accessible to people who, like me, have never really studied word origins. It is beautifully and humorously illustrated. It would make a fine gift for writers, people interested in language, or people who enjoy words games. It can be read in small doses or in large portions, depending on one's mood. I heartily recommend it.

Rebecca Reid and Dr. Michael Campbell met while they were cataloguing Dun Iain's artifacts in the book Ashes to Ashes. After months of long-distance dating, Rebecca was thrilled to be working with Michael on a dig in Scotland at the Rudesburn Priory in Eidon Hills. It was rumored that the abbey's last prioress, Marjory Douglas, still haunted its halls and that Robert the Bruce's heart was buried there and never found. Leading a group of archeology students, Rebecca was eager to uncover the priory's treasures, mythical or no. She was also eager to determine what exactly her relationship with Michael was. However, their relationship was immediately strained when Sheila Fitzgerald, Michael's ex, showed up at the dig to film the entire event. When Sheila was found murdered a few days later, apparently with Michael's own knife, Rebecca finds herself doubting her relationship with Michael. Oh, she knows that he didn't do it, of course, but she has no idea who did. Was it Adele Garity, an older woman who went back to school who is obsessed with New Age philosophies; Dennis Tucker, an overweight student with his own hidden agenda; Jeremy Kleinfelter, Sheila's current lover, the leader of the dig whose reputation is on the line after he as accused of salting his previous dig? Or was it someone else entirely? As Rebecca works to solve the mystery before Michael is arrested, she also has to try and council Hilary Chase, a rape victim and help her get involved in her first relationship since with Mark Owen, a fellow student. As more and more revelations come to light, Rebecca discovers that she doesn't really know anyone on the dig, including herself...

Dust to Dust is a wonderful sequel to Ashes to Ashes. It is not necessary to read Ashes to Ashes, though, as Carl does a fine job about giving the reader a little bit of background if they are not familiar with the story. Still, Ashes to Ashes is a great book so I recommend you read it. I loved this one even more than Ashes to Ashes, though, as it had more of a romance story in it. Rebecca and Michael are in that interesting stage of a relationship where they are serious enough to have to determine if what they have is worth taking to the next level or if they should just give up on the whole thing. It was also wonderful to have a dig in Scotland as the backdrop. I particularly enjoyed learning about Scottish history and the archaeological aspects were fascinating. The book is a wonderful read and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys romantic mysteries!

In her second book about historians Michael and Rebecca, Lillian Stewart Carl takes us to a dig at a priory in Scotland. Sacked by Henry VIII during his attemps to divorce himself from Catharine of Aragon and the Catholic church, the priory is haunted, not only by Henry's victims but by the pasts of the archaeological team. You'll also want to read the first in the series, Ashes to Ashes and then the the third, but hopefully not final installment, Garden of Thorns.