Canada Books

i loved it, it taught me things i never knew before, it's a great read for people who want to know more about the past

In the book, Home Child, I liked it when Arthur was finally accepted by Sadie's family. I felt sorry for Arthur because he had been sent to a strange home where he didn't feel loved. This book informed me about home children, something I had never known about.

Nandita Sharma neatly explains the ways conceptions of home, identity and ethnicity are used to draw boundaries into which people may be invited or from which they may be strategically excluded. Her examples are from Canada but the ideas she investigates are applied around the world. Sharma's will interest everyone affected by and attempting to influence migration and mobility.

Home Economics: Nationalism And The Making Of 'migrant Workers' In Canada by Nandita Sharma is an in-depth study of homelessness and how such a significant and growing homeless population may be attributed to immigrants and Canada's immigration laws. Meticulously investigating the global system of various national states, Home Economics comprehensively presents an accessible understanding of the intricacies involved in living as a 'migrant worker' or 'illegal' in every aspect of contemporary life. A work of impressive scholarship and detailed research, Home Economics is a seminal contribution to professional, governmental, and academic library collections -- and highly recommended reading for immigration policy makers and social activists involved with immigration issues.

The Home Game is absolutely the best book that I have ever read. I'm a huge hockey fan and this book really brings it home. It covers the family aspect, the Dineens, the Hornungs, the Odjick as well as the individual skill that is essential for succes like Brett Hull and his absent father. Being a hockey player myself, one of my greatest fears is breaking my neck when crashing into the boards. The chapter on Brad Hornung has taught me to be even more careful when hitting a player. There are many lessons that can be learned from this book and I believe I am a better person having read this book. Sincerely,
Anonymous.

I purchased this book in Toronto several years back and read it on the 8-hour train ride back to New York. One of the longer and more riveting chapters in the book deals with Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, and Marty McSorley, who are accompanied on a hockey exhibition throughout Europe with their respective fathers. We also hear the story of Brett Hull, who relates how his very famous father, Bobby -- the Golden Jet -- was absent from his childhood. Macgregor also explores the families Dineen, Dryden, and Howe, as well as Beliveau and Lafleur, and a number of European players who met with success in the NHL (Odzick, Yashin, Daigle). It also tells the story of Brad Hornung, a junior star whose neck is broken during a game, and of Troy Edwards, who delivered the check. "The Home Team" captures hockey on a very personal, human level that I've not seen done elsewhere. It helps that Macgregor is himself a Canadian and writes about it with an insider's view of not just a game but a culture. It's an absolute shame that the book is out of print. If you can find it used, grab it.

Hotels to Remember is an amazingly beautiful book. Ms. Sikes supplies us with wonderful factual detail, as well as fascinating tales about these grand old hotels that have welcomed travelers with their special grandeur over the decades. And then there are the exquisively done pastels painted by the author that take your breath away with their wonderous detail and color. Ms. Sikes is a marvel herself to be able to write the text, take the photographs, and also paint these outstanding pastels. Bravo to an author who is surely one of a kind, and to this gloriously unique book!

Hotels To Remember by artist and hotel enthusiast Mary Montague Sikes offers a unique and breathtaking look at fabulous hotels around the world which is deftly narrated with descriptive, insightful, articulate text, and vividly illustrated with a combination of Sike's own artwork and a series of full-color photographs. A splendid joy to simply page through, Hotels To Remember is a highly recommended and genuine pleasure for armchair travelers, and an unusual aid and reference resource for planning business and/or vacationing itineraries.

House opened my eyes to the work of MacIvor and set the standard for contemporary Canadian theatre. Victor's rants and theories are both entertaining and engaging for an audience, and both challenging and rewarding for an actor. MacIvor thrives in the intimacy of smaller theatre spaces where the audience has no choice but to be affected by the action on stage. If interested, be sure to read See Bob Run, Never Swim alone, Here Lies Henry, and MacIvor's most recent play Marion Bridge - his most sincere work so far. Great to read, wonderful to perform, and unforgettable to witness. Also, MacIvor fans may look for the new independent film adaptation of See Bob Run by Calgarian director Don Scott!

No playwright has ever engaged my attention the way Daniel MacIvor does. The production of House Humans I saw grabbed me by the throat. MacIvor obliterates the fourth wall with a combination of showmanship, stage craft, and pure writing skill that nobody today matches. If you're looking for a play to spice up your season, and have a director with the courage and resourcefulness to take on this script, you'll have a hit on your hands. If you are at all interested in modern drama, you should read this guy, and pick up his other scripts as well. He's pure gold.

I discovered David Gilmour's fiction completely by accident; my ex husband received it from his sister, and my life was changed. David Gilmour has had a long and successful career in Canadian media, but his fiction- specifically, this book- is his greatest accomplishment.

The reader will find Bix by turns hilarious, repulsive, pitiful and loveable.... some aspect of his story is bound to hit home with everyone. Gilmour turns a phrase like no one else; he is a master.

Buy this book here, you'll be hard pressed to find it anywhere now...read it twice, then buy Lost Between Houses, Sparrow Nights, An Affair With The Moon, and Back On Tuesday. ENJOY!

I love "How Boys See Girls." Notice I wrote "love" rather than "loved." That's because I re-read it on a regular basis. This is the story of prescription- and booze-abusing, aging hack Bix who is obsessed by the young, beautiful and completely screwed-up Holly. Set in Toronto, the book mirrors Proust's "Swann's Way" and its tale of obsessive and unhealthy love.
A great opening: "I was drinking a lot in those days. I don't apologize for it. You have to do something to make yourself feel better and for a while there it worked. When the booze clicked in, things looked ripe as yellow flowers and the moment soared like one of those free-floating birds I saw from the hotel window when I was a kid. In those days I hung out in a bar called the Circus. I went in for a drink one day and I never came out."

This book is an interresting true story that many children can relate to in terms of dreams for the future. My daughter and I enjoy Pamela Jane's writing and the illustrations go well with the text.

I like this book because it is funny. I also like "Right On, Winky Blue!." Winky goes to New York City because he was chosen to be a guest on a radio show. This is a funny book too.

This is a compelling story of how fame affects a very nuclear family. A mother and young son start a children's television show, and when the boy becomes a teenager he stars in his own series which develops a huge cult-like fan base. It has another great father character (typical of Johnston's books) who tries to realize his own dreams. But the more nerdy mother who literally and figuratively runs the show is another unforgettable character, and a study in how good intentions can do more damage than good. And the son is realistically written as being torn between what he wants for his father, his mother and himself. The fanatic following of the family's fame is at times over the top, but the real story is what goes on inside their increasingly secluded home.

Canadian author Johnston forsakes his native Newfoundland for 1960s Toronto to tell a more urban story of growing up in the early heyday of television -- from the inside. The narrator, Henry Pendergast, child star, watching reruns of himself on tape, looks back to a time before.

'My parents, in that other life, were teachers.' Substitute teachers, that is, unable to get permanent jobs. His father, Peter, dreamed of having real time to devote to his novel; his mother, Audrey, churned out TV scripts, routinely rejected. In the evenings they all watched a black-and-white TV dubbed 'the Gillingham,' for the repairman whose frequent visits were essential to its operation. Until one day Mr. Gillingham put the picture tube back in upside down and it operated perfectly for so many years that shameless journalists, spying through windows, consumed lots of ink speculating on why Henry Pendergast had an upside down TV set in his room.

But I digress and get ahead of myself. As in many cautionary tales, the Pendergasts get their heart's desire. Audrey sells a children?s show, 'The Rumpus Room,' which becomes a smash hit, with her as the host, Miss Mary, and Henry as twin, silent, illustrative insects, Bee Good and Bee Bad. Peter goes on teaching for a while, but the money is pointless and the principle vague. Adamantly refusing to have anything to do with the show -- except watch it -- Peter labors on his novel, refusing to discuss it, much less let anyone see it.

Their lives disrupted by aggressive journalists, the Pendergasts move to a security-conscious condominium and Henry attends an uppercrust school. The condo was a compromise that pleased no one. Peter wanted to remain in their old neighborhood; Audrey wanted a secluded suburban estate. As their interests diverge, such wrangles increase. Peter digs in his heels, but Audrey, gentle, earnest, well meaning and focused, is a force of nature.

Audrey takes her work seriously. She regards TV as a powerful instrument for good or evil. 'Good TV would keep books from becoming obsolete, she said, but my father would say it was good books that would keep books from becoming obsolete.'

Eventually Henry gets a little old for the twin bees. Audrey develops a new show about the young Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television. The network likes it, with some minor changes that remove it from the realm of truth or history, and the show becomes a cult hit, with Henry in the title role.

But if Audrey has success, her husband has all the humor - a quality that any fan of Johnston's knows is essential for a balanced life. Audrey, poor thing, has no sense of humor at all (I did wonder, from time to time, how they ever got together in the first place). Even at its most lighthearted, Peter?s humor has an edge, but as the rift grows wider, Peter's wit becomes a weapon. Audrey gets the sentiment if not the sense, but Henry's understanding inevitably becomes complicitous.

Henry has inherited his father's humor and his mother's desire for family harmony and happiness, a warring combination. He spends a lot of time in his darkened room watching the Gillingham. His understanding of his parents' motives has undergone the dissection of reflection and in this mood he feels compassion for both, as well as a more pitiless understanding.

His own life has been shaped by celebrity. Harassed by journalists, he is virtually a prisoner, with no friends and no activities outside of acting and watching television. He is also becoming a teenager and begins to envision himself as something more than Mom's protege, as something more than Philo Farnsworth, nerd hero. The story builds to a cataclysm of good intentions, rebellion and rejection.

Johnston's ('The Colony of Unrequited Dreams,' 'The Divine Ryans') funny, poignant book is a story of growing up as an icon of popular culture, who is simultaneously a lonely unselfconfident boy. It's an exploration of one man coping with his wife?s runaway success. It's a look at the early upswell of television, with its naivety and burgeoning cynicism and it's a running commentary (mostly from Peter) on mass popular culture. It's a sharp and moving novel.

Highly recommended, Bryan Prince's I Came As A Stranger: The Underground Railroad is a fascinating history and site guide to the American Underground Railroad, a pre-Civil War secret organization of conspirators who risked life and freedom to help fugitive slaves make the perilous journey to the freedom in Canada. Black-and-white illustrations, and compelling testimony make I Came As A Stranger an educational and uplifting read for young readers of all ages.

Very seldom do we get the opportunity to read history from the voices of those that lived it and, the persons who are descendants of those who lived it. In this amazing volume, you have both. Bryan Prince is not only a consumate historian, he is a descendant of the fugitives who made it to freedom and settled in Southern Ontario. While intended for young adults, older readers, especially from the U.S. will have the opportunity to learn "the rest of the story" of the Underground Railroad.

I'm an adult, but I found this book very helpful in the study about the Aztecs. The illustrations really help to bring the period to life. It covers some mature topics though, like human sacrifice that I hope won't disturb kids reading this book. A great overview about the conquest of Mexico.

Tanaka attempts to portray Cortez's invasion of Mexico from the persective of the Aztecs. Illustrations are vivid and there is lots of information and food for discussion in these pages. Minor discrepancies exist, but overall an excellent book to help balance the Western view of history.