Canada Books

This book is much more than a field guide. The authors provide practical advice on eradicating invasive species, as well as fascinating histories of how the invasive plants got here in the first place. It's amazing how many of them were brought over for gardens! The guide is thorough, covering both terrestrial and aquatic species. Recommended for anyone with pesky invasive plant problems, be it a homeowner or a natural resource manager.

This book is an outstanding reference for homeowners, hikers, naturalists, and botanists trying to learn more about what plants are invasive in their backyards,neighborhood parks, and forests and what to do about them. I especially like the pictures -- most useful for identification. And not only can you learn to identify invasive plants, but the book has informative sections for each species on why that species is a problem and how to control it. I really liked the fascinating stories behind the plants. Once you take a look at this book, you will start seeing invasive plants everywhere.

Although I am not a professional botanist to point out technical errors I have found this book to be very useful. I wanted a book that could help me quickly identify plants along roadsides and disturbed habitats that are typically known to be invasive. I wanted a "picture" of how many of the plants were native. I have even identified very prolific invasives in nature preserves here on Long Island , NY. My interests also involve edible plants and this book helps me determine if the plant I am curious about has any edible parts because it allows me to identify the plant and then cross reference it in other books or on the internet once I know the species. Lots of photographs to help spot that plant you are looking for and they usually show enough features of the plant to help identify it. From an ecological standpoint I think it is great to have this book at the fingertips of those looking to restore natural habitats on their own property or our nature preserves. Finally!, a book that can assist us all with the massive problem of invasive plants.

My children love this book and so do I. The little boy's reactions to Jennifer's amorous advances and then to her absence seem realistic and are very endearing. Another cute "kissing" book to check out is "The Good-night Kiss" by Astrid Mola.

I came across this book while volunteering at a childrens book fair. I just fell in LOVE with it and had to buy it for myself! I have no children, but have read it to my nieces and they loved it too! I am proud to have this 'childrens book' on my bookshelf!

This book is perfect for young children and the young at heart. Adults will love it as much as their children. I read it with first and second graders. They sympathized with the narrator's "Ewww, a girl LIKES me" feelings, and they giggled when he changed his mind. Boys and girls had different reactions over whether or not the narrator should tell his friends of his change of heart.

In a time when children would rather turn on the TV than listen to a good story, this one won over the crowd. They even asked me to "Read it again!"

Very pleased with my purchase and I hope to hear more of T.W. Kriner in the near future.

This is an extrodinate book. Once you pick it up, you can't stop reading it. When I started to read the book, I right away became more interested in the Niagara Falls. This book kept my imagination going the entire time. I recommend this book to anybody who is facinated by mystery, heroism, and tragedies of one of the most breath taking places on earth.

If you are tired of reading the same stories over and over again - about Niagara Falls, then this is the book for you. The book is packed with little known trivia in a well-written manner.

This book was recommended by my Dutch mother-in-law who loved the story as a young girl. It is a wondeful tale of animal and human, and teaches that we truely need each other to survivie. I enjoyed this more than any other man/wolf stories Ivé ever read.

I read this book as a child and have never forgotten it. Wrapped up snugly in my warm bed in England, having imaginary adventures in far off Canada. I also remember a further book called Son of Kazan. I have searched many times over the years to find either of these books, I am now 56 years old , and I am grateful to Amazon for making them accessable to me, I was beginning to think I would would never find them. I highly recommend Kazan to any child for an exciting and stimulating read.

An exciting and deeply moving story, Kazan is a must-read for anyone who loves and appreciates animals and nature. They story is told mainly through the eyes of Kazan, a dog who is one-quarter wolf, and this point of view truly enhances the sense of adventure. I felt an instant kinship with the author even though the story was originally written in 1914.

Martin has done a remarkable job of telling a very difficult story of the inter-relationships between the first people of Canada, the new world order people of European ancestry and the animals. I am Mi'maq and reading the history took be back to a time and an appreciation of what was a part of life. My hats off to Martin for telling a story that needed to be told!

This book is a great read for many reasons. One that may not get mentioned, but strikes me as important, is the demonstration of how social rules and the environment relate to economic markets. In short: the relationship of the native North American tribes to the fur markets was conditioned by their culture which went through a sudden, tragic, transformation.

Scholarly works are not supposed to entertain but Martin's interesting ideas about the cultural confrontation between the First People and the first Europeans makes for fascinating reading. He challenges several accepted views about Native population decline resulting from disease and warfare which are sure to spark disagreement; yet his logic is difficult to refute and the perspectives he offers provide new directions for research. Martin manages to avoid casting anyone into the roles of oppressor and victim by presenting the sequence of events as the result of rational decisions by both cultural groups. While anthropologists and sociologists will certainly find "Keepers" of interest, anyone who teaches cultural diversity or provides diversity training will also benefit from this work. General readers will enjoy asking themselves if their ancestors could have been involved in the events Martin describes.

This book provides an extensive key to amphibians and reptiles in North America. If you are studying herpetology, this book has many diagrams in it that really help with keying out dinstinguishing characteristics. Plus, the book is set up simply in plain English. Other keys that I have used were not as extensive as this one, and they were usually confusing. This key takes away all the ambiguity.

This breaks down characters for families very easily. The only draw back to this book is that it doesn't contain common names, but that can always be looked up. I recommend this book to any biologist or herpetologist. It also shows what the basic characters are with pictures.

This key is a must for anyone that is seriously interested in reptiles or amphibians. For instructors of Herpetology lab this book will prove to be invaluable, the illustrations and current phylogenetic classifications will aid in teaching.

This is not a book I would have chosen for myself. However, I just finished reading it for my bookclub and I must admit.....I couldn't put it down. I had borrowed it from my local library and I have just purchased it.....if you need to remember innocence and what it was like to be a child and carefree.....this is a must read.

An absolutely refreshing and captivating read that mere words cannot describe.

I can but echo the words of the gentleman who wrote the first review for this book. As a 41 year old business owner living and working in downtown Toronto, I rarely get moved by fairy tales. Kingfisher Days, is much more than that.

I too listened with great interest to the CBC's captivating production where the author warmly and intelligently read this wonderful book. I have attended a number of Soulpepper productions (the theatre company that she and her husband started), it is a soul expanding experience to see one of their plays.

The best part of being Canadian? Small things. Like the CBC's 'sometimes' greatness in bringing books like this to an audience starved for art that touches your soul. Like the Soulpepper theatre company, who does the same much more consistently. And like Susan Coyne, who if she had been raised somewhere else in the world, may never have written this wonderful book.

When I was young and we were new in this country, I sometimes wished that my parents and I would have emigrated to New York or Paris or some other 'exciting' place instead of Toronto. Reading Kingfisher Days, I am glad they did not.

I haven't read the book yet, but I've been listening to it being read by Susan Coyne herself on the CBC. Normally I have no time for fairy stories, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc., which I suppose makes me a grumpy old man, but I was totally entranced by the CBC production. Don't you love people who review a book without reading it! I would normally never do that but I couldn't resist. The reading on the air was more than wonderful, enough so that even though I am a rock hard cynic and a scientist I was totally captivated.

When I opened 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' I was expecting a travel book, which it is ... and a great one at that. What I wasn't expecting was how much it would touch my soul. I sat, riveted, as I took a journey not only around the world, but across thoughts, hopes, dreams. Anyone who's ever questioned whether, with the whole world to choose from, they're living their lives in the best place or whether they've filled their lives to the very best of their ability, will find a resonating spirit in this book.
As Laurie Gough makes her way from Canada and across America she hopes not only to settle happily in California, but to find the coastal cave that she lived in for six nights, years ago. But the search is not so much for the cave itself, as for the more free-spirited (she believes) girl that lived there. As she drives, she recalls previous travels in the Greek islands, the Yukon, Jamaica, Sumatra, and Seoul, to name a few. These tales can't fail to inspire. Her bravery alone, traveling solo through often uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, situations is humbling to say the least. But it's this bravery she feels has been lost and she hopes to rekindle by finding her cave.
Several times the author seemed to wander into places I thought only existed in my daydreams. Some were so uncanny they made me gasp. Since childhood I have wanted a glass-walled bedroom perched on the top of a house, entirely surrounded by trees. I clapped my hands in delighted envy when the author set up home in just such a room ... and in a Californian Redwood forest at that. These instances were some of the most poignant for me - the fact that daydreams can so easily be reality if you go out and make them so ... that really hit home.
The travel stories are touching, humourous, enchanting, and filled with travel's usual mix of discomfort, frustration, alarm, and achingly beautiful encounters. All are told with the author's clear natural gift for portraying the lightness and the depth in every situation.
So if the idea of sleeping in a coastal cave, inside a Californian Redwood, on a Mediterranean beach, or on the banks of the remote Yukon river lights something intangible inside, I wholeheartedly recommend you read 'Kiss the Sunset Pig' and let inspiration rain over you.

If you enjoyed Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, or even if you were not lucky enough to read it, Laurie Gough's second book offers the same magical combination of beautiful, descriptive travel writing and soul-searching that never comes across as self-involved or forced. Starting in Canada, Gough takes the reader along on her road trip to rediscover a special cave she once stayed in along the California coast - and how she has evolved since that memorable sojourn. Interspersed throughout the narrative are chapters on some of Gough's other international adventures to such exotic locales as Sumatra and Seoul, South Korea (a place that comes across as utterly unappealing).

Much of the beauty in Gough's writing comes not just from her memorable descriptions of the people, places, and things she encounters and learns from (especially those harrowing Indonesian bus and ferry rides and Marcia, her struggling car), but also from her brutal honesty about some of the low points she struggled through along the way. By the end of the book, the reader truly roots for Gough to find her cave so the journey can go full-circle.

Despite an unexpected outcome, Gough manages to discover the meaning and convey the depth of her experience in a way that never seems heavy-handed or cliched. This is a beautiful and inspiring piece of travel writing that offers many riches for fellow travelers, those who enjoy strong writing, and anyone who has ever considered his or her place and purpose in the universe.

Laurie Gough is an intrepid traveller with a youthful exuberance for adventure. I realize, though, that no matter what one's age, some people are born with wanderlust and have a need to travel the world. The interesting thing is, travellers always return home. That's what Gough does. She's been to thirty countries, hitchhiking thousands of miles by herself though fourteen of them. But she always returns to her hometown of Guelph, Ontario in Canada.

At the beginning of Kiss the Sunset Pig, Gough sets off for California from Guelph in a "blue, beat-up mini Ford Bronco" she calls Marcia. To help with driving and expenses, she picks up a travelling companion named Debbie, whom she has met through an ad and, before the trip begins, has only spoken to on the phone. Debbie gets dropped off in St. Louis, Missouri, at the home of a boyfriend she has never met face to face.

"Sometimes I think I'm still looking for an axis," Gough writes early on in her journey. After reading her book, I think the axis may be the wanderlust. It's who she is. For a person with wanderlust, there is no perfect place to live. A place may seem ideal, for a time, but really it's just a base at which to prepare oneself for the next adventure.

Reading about her encounters with strange and wonderful people is frightening at times (for the reader and for her), but I realize travelling with a companion or in a group, as I usually do, one is not open to the same exciting possibilities. Travelling solo, Gough finds herself talking to strangers more readily as she's more open and more herself. "That's the thing about travelling: it's like peeling away a layer of yourself, exposing yourself to the world so it can expose itself to you".

The structure of the book is an interesting one that works extremely well. (She did the same in her first book, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross, which I highly recommend.) Rather than write a book of travel stories in chronological order, Gough reflects on previous journeys as she drives across the United States in a car that needs lots of garage visits along the way.

One of those reflections is the Greek island of Naxos. There Gough created a temporary home under a small bamboo wind shelter on the beach. Her backpack went missing for a time and to ease her panic, she looked at the "dependable milky rock" of the moon. Gough realized things like that didn't matter "in the great scheme of the universe" (she had her passport and money), and I realize too, as a traveller, one needs to practice non-attachment. Gough describes Greece beautifully as a "land where myth and reality swirl around each other in a luminous haze." Yet she needed to move on, "to see the rest of the world."

One summer, Gough hitchhiked to the Yukon, 3,000 miles from Guelph. She says hitchhiking is "always a surprise study of human beings." Her travelling companion Kevin told her of his own world adventures. His advice was "You have no idea what's in store for you, but if you let yourself go along with the flow of the unknown and accept whatever happens, things seem to work out".

The "exotic detours" of which Gough writes don't all have happy endings. Her teaching job in Kashechewan in Canada's sub-Arctic ended after only three months with Gough defeated and exhausted by the chaos of a third-grade class. A trip to Jamaica with her sister ended quickly, as Gough likes to stay with locals while her sister prefers fancy hotels.

Gough is full of questions about where she belongs. Those questions don't at all detract from the book; they help us relate. After all, travel is about looking for oneself, and as travel-book readers, we get to reflect on similar questions.

On her trip to California, Gough plays Joni Mitchell's "California" that includes the phrase "kiss the sunset pig." She carries a tattered notebook called "Cave Journal" and would like to find that cave on the Pacific again, where she spent some time thirteen years previously. Along with her questions and her longing, Gough has a healthy sense of humour about her encounters along the way. She describes a town on the Great Plains called Grainfield as the "size of a bath mat."

At an earlier age, Gough described herself as "still on my way to everywhere." She has learned that travel can mean "hours, even days of despair, rain, heatwaves, snow, mosquitoes, late trains, no trains, followed by a single moment of dazzling elation. It was those single moments one tended to recall." Gough makes some realizations at the end of her California trip that I don't want to reveal here. But I would say, even though she is older and perhaps wiser, I still see her as on her way to everywhere.

Gough has married since the stories written about in her book and has a baby son. They divide their time between a farmhouse outside of Guelph, Ontario, and a Quebec village. Seventeen of her stories have been anthologised in various literary travel books, including Salon.com's Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance and Sand in My Bra: Funny Women Write from the Road. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, Outpost, Canadian Geographic and numerous literary journals.

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Leopoldo Alas es un universal viviendo como provinciano pues nunca salió de España, sin embargo es impresionante su capacidad para penetrar en su actualidad histórica. Usando los principios naturalistas como nadie en La Regenta el edifica una historia sobre el cimiento de un perfecto conocimiento del lugar. Dicho de paso, lugar que el vivió y habitó, y por tanto muy bien estudiado para describirlo minuciosamente. Esta es una novela que Clarín escribió cuando tenía 33 años de edad. En apariencia la novela es provinciana por sus características, y a su vez es universal por la misma sustancia de la que es portadora.

Aquí vemos a Fermín de Paz, joven sacerdote, convertido en un instrumento codicioso, dirigido por las ambiciones de su madre, sedienta de poder quiere que su hijo se adueñe del poder eclesiástico de toda una ciudad. Ana Ozores, la más bella mujer de la burguesía regional de Vetusta le es confiada como penitente. Ella es una mujer huérfana y privada del verdadero sentimiento anhelado por todos los humanos: el amor. Es prisionera de un amor fingido con un hombre de mucha más edad, el viejo regente Víctor Quintanas. Ana es seducida por su joven confesor, sensual por naturaleza y libertino desenfrenado. Esa lucha de tentaciones es en sí el corazón que mana en La Regenta en los tres años que cubre esta historia pasional.

Siendo totalmente seducida por Fermín, Ana descubre que más que hermana de fe es victima de un amor pasional cayendo en adulterio, viendo como resultado una cadena de sufrimientos al ocurrir una tragedia entre el sacerdote y su esposo a quien mata en duelo desequilibrado, huyendo finalmente y dejando a Ana en completa soledad y abandono, rechazada por toda una ciudad.

Para entender el impacto de estas acciones imaginémonos solo por segundos la España de entonces atada a qué dirán y a los caprichos de la época. Ana, creemos, nunca se había tenido que casar con un hombre a quien no amaba y que incluso por la gran diferencia de edad nunca llegaría a amar posiblemente más que a un padrino. Entra pues esta novela dentro de las llamadas novelas de adulterio donde Clarín refleja igualmente el estado social y moral de la sociedad que el conoce muy bien, en un ambiente histórico detallado.

En 1888 Luis Bonafoux y Quintero acusó a Clarín de plagios diciendo que La Regenta era una astuta traducción de Madame Bovary de Flaubert, a lo que el escritor contestó: "cuando escribí este capítulo del texto no pensaba en madame Bovary ni con cien leguas; diez o doce años hacía que la había leído. Pero aunque me hubiese acordado de ella, sin el menor escrúpulo hubiese escrito todo lo escrito; pues, en efecto, no hay parecido ni remoto en lo que
Bonafoux llama plagio (Clavería, 1942)."

Se compara pues como Leopoldo Alas pinta a Ana de Ozores, sujeta dentro de su propio acontecer a las mismas crisis románticas e ilusiones que Emma Bovary en su rincón normando en la novela de Flaubert, y es hasta cierto punto la misma manera de concebir el personaje como no en vano el propio Clarín dijo "una mujer que sueña es una mujer que piensa de la manera más natural de pensar en las mujeres (Clavería, 1942)."

Baste añadir como Clarín usa su magistral naturalismo incluso para hacer descripciones de la temporada del año en el Capitulo Uno. Su exámen microscópico del que hablábamos anteriormente es exaltado de una manera casi fotográfica pues el nos narra incluso los tonos, reflejos y hasta sonidos del prado: "Empezaba el otoño. Los prados renacían, la hierba había crecido fresca y vigorosa...se destacaban sobre prados y maizales con tonos oscuros; la paja del trigo, escaso, amarilleaba...algunas quintas de recreo...reflejaban la luz como espejos. Aquel verde esplendoroso con tornasoles dorados y de plata...y su cumbre la sombra de una nube invisible...vigorosa y variada."

Hay un contraste entre realismo y fantasía donde el autor usa elementos fantásticos como alternativa para acertar en la realidad que quiere exponer entre Ana y Fermín, usando incluso modos de suspenso trayendo el susto del horror de manera sobrenatural a la que aquí llamamos métodos de fantasía. Usando esta técnica, según nuestro parecer, Clarín aprovecha para denunciar las condiciones reales de la sociedad en que se desenvuelve la historia y la influencia religiosa-espiritual de la España de la época.

Alejandro RG.

Leopoldo Alas, aka "Clarín" falls into that curious category of authors whose literary output is, though exceedingly limited, nonetheless extremely important. A prolific journalist, and author of numerous short stories, he produced only two novels, one of which, _La Regenta_ is widely recognized as perhaps the best single work of fiction of 19th century Spain.

Clarín will remain forever overshadowed by his contemporary, Galdós, -- the acnowledged master of the era -- whose _Fortunata and Jacinta_ stands as the other great 1000 page novel of the period. Yet it is arguable whether or not any single work of Galdos' conveys quite the same epic sense of grandeur and beauty as Clarin's magnum opus.

Readers who delve into Clarin's novel will find themselves immersed in the lives of numerous members of the haute burgeoisie of Vetusta, including Ana Ozores -- the Regenta from whom the novel takes its title -- her good natured husband with a romantic penchant for "honor plays" of the Spanish, golden age theater, Mesias, the man who would be lover, and Fermin, the extremely conservative priest and confessor who steadfastly defends the doctrine of Papal infallibilty and strives to save her from the temptations of Mesias even as he himself becomes seduced by her beauty. A host of secondary characters completes the rich tapestry of Vetustan social life and helps create one of most lush and engrossing novels of the epoch.

_La Regenta_ stands in Spanish letters, second perhaps, only to Cervantes' _Don Quixote_. It equals anything Galdos produced, and, indeed, compares quite favorably to anything produced in Europe in that century. Along with Cervantes, Borges and García Marquez, Leopoldo Alas is without a doubt one of the Spanish speaking world's greatest novelists.

Funny, tragic, complex story about a woman and about a whole small city.
Wonderfuly written, with a trully great character, Fermin, and more than a hundred supporting roles.
Much better than Madame Bovary, or anythimg from Dickens, Zola, James.. (and much more amusing).

Before reading The Last Resort I neither understood nor cared much about retirement planning. Now, however, even though I'm only 24 years old, and thanks to the book, I've acquired a much better appreciation of why investing and lifestyles planning is so important - for both young and old. I'm recommending that any young person who reads this should also read The Last Resort.

I've read many books on investing and I haven't found one yet that is better than The Last Resort. Readers learn not only about some little known investment strategies, but also about the importance of knowing what you want to do with your money once you have it - a different, more holistic approach that really appealed to me.

I've now read The Last Resort twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. I'd strongly endorse it for anyone who is concerned about their retirement prospects and who appreciate common sense, practical advice presented in a highly readable manner. The best thing I can say about this book is that it actually motivated me to increase my retirement savings and investing resolve.

Rob Thomson