Canada Books

If I could write a letter to Ms Munro, it would simply say...thank you for sharing your gift, and then probably, quit reading your fan mail and write some more short stories! Munro's gift is to make the simplest tale accessible to every reader, and whatever twists and turns she may take you on, your brain in sheer delight will exclaim..."of course!" She is capable of making the most isolated 1930's farm come alive to modern urban condo dwellers. Like a Rosetta stone of feeling and emotion, she allows the readers to inhabit the characters fully, regardless of gender or personality or circumstance. This collection is further evidence and testament to that gift, and of that genius. Write on, Ms Munro, write on!

I hadnt read much Alice Munro before but I was very impressed with this collection of stories. There's a wonderful understatement about the entire collection, but each story resonates with its own life and people. I loved the melancholy and moody landscapes, the other-worlds of women and children mainly on farms and villages.

I think good stories create their own unique life; after all, why else would we care about characters who we meet and get to know so briefly? But we DO care about the characters; somehow they matter and though nothing is resolved sometimes, somehow everything has changed. The ordinary transformed.

If you haven't read Alice Munro before, you're in luck! you have some ten volumes of the best writing in English to select from! This collection includes some of Munro's earliest stories, at least as early as 1968, and one of her best known, "The Red Dress". It's a good starting place. If you've already read Munro's later story-suites, such as Runaway, then you'll be intrigued to find a less distinctive but equally crafty word-artist in Happy Shades. The stories in this collection are less interpenetrating, less like a novel in the form of a suite, than in other collections, but that's not a flaw, just a difference. One story (I won't declare which) ranks in my mind as a classic equal to any in English. If a short-story writer is ever to win the Nobel Prize, in my opinion it should be Alice Munro.

Really good book. I totally recommend it, plus any other of her books. I haven't been disappointed yet.

Lois Richer has moved up to another level of impressive fiction. Her suspense grabbed me and didn't let go. I loved the emotion and romance between her hero and heroine. So realistic and such a beautiful setting. Can't wait for the next book!

Once she had a loving husband and a son she cherished until the day Georgia MacGregor came home to see an inferno with her beloved men inside beyond rescuing. Unable to stay in Calgary and the memories that haunt her, she travels the country side until she finds a job for a cook in the northern Canadian woods. The head of Camp Hope, Kent Anderson, hires her on the spot, believing she is a gift from God because she is also a nurse.

Kent is attracted to Georgia but he holds back from pursuing a relationship because he is working to get a promotion to the head office so his sister, a paraplegic, could have the choices he thinks she needs. While Kent wrestles with his own guilt, Georgia is in danger from a stalker who will stop at nothing to kill her because of the pain she caused him. Unwilling to put Camp Hope in danger, Georgia prepares to leave a place she calls home and the man she loves but the killer strikes out putting them in danger.

The heroine is the victim of two great tragedies and though she is grieving she is strong enough to reach out and help people. Readers will love her and hope she can find happiness with Kent. Lois Richer builds up the suspense to unbearable levels while simultaneously bringing people in love together. DANGEROUS SANCTUARY is an exciting romantic suspense novel that readers will be delighted to know is the first installment in the Camp Hope series. The audience will be unable to stop reading until the last page is turned.

Harriet Klausner

The title (although evoking unfortunate associations: "bees in the bonnet," "bats in the belfry," "birds in the bush") is an exact description of what you get in this little book. Written primarily for deacons, although invaluable to any person who's a member of the Episcopal Church USA or the Anglican Church of Canada, this little book is a how-to guide that spells out in great detail the liturgical functions of deacons. Different chapters focus on deacons in rites of Christian initiation, the Eucharist, ordinations, seasonal celebrations, daily office, and various pastoral liturgies (marriages, reconciliations, burials). If you're looking for a book that explores the theology and spirituality of the diaconate, this isn't the one. But it is an excellent guide for appropriate diaconal participation in liturgy--actually, the best--and it doesn't pretend to be anything else.

DEACONS IN THE LITURGY is written for Anglicans/Episcopalians in North America. As such, it will be of interest primarily to people of that communion. That does not stop it from having a wider appeal.

What this book does so well and so simply is explain the role of the diaconate in the various liturgies of the church. It tells what to do and when to do it providing an expansion to the rubrics of the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. It does not delve very much into history but does bring history up to justify certain acts. It explains the diaconal functions from an ancient and ecumenical context and then makes some provision for modern practice and usage. At all stages, the relevant passages from the BCP and other US and Canadian resources are referenced. It is a great guide for Anglican deacons but it has more potential as well.

Without explicitly saying so, the book describes many functions that have wider acceptance than just the Anglican Communion. Usually, these are evident by the lack of specific citations but they should be readily apparent to anyone with a passing knowledge of liturgy. This helps to differentiate denominational practice from wider practice and this book is simple enough, short enough and well written enough to be of use to others. This is especially true for United Methodists.

The United Methodist Church revived the permanent diaconate in 1996. Since the most recent BOOK OF WORSHIP was published in 92, it has no knowledge of deacons in liturgical functions. They are left to founder or make things up as they go along. The institutional United Methodist Church needs to address this problem but this book would be an excellent stopgap measure for UM deacons. This is especially true since UM liturgy is inherited from the Church of England.

A Must for Deacons!

Morehouse Press is one of the major publishers for things Episcopal, so it makes sense that Ormande Plater's book, 'Deacons in the Liturgy', would be published by them. This is a book designed to be used by those preparing to be (or who are) deacons in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition. It looks specifically at the role of deacons in the liturgical practice of the church - liturgy here defined as the order or worship; deacons do have roles (indeed, more important roles) outside of the worship-service-liturgical functions, but this book concentrates on the in-church-worship role.

This book grows out of a process begun in 1980 in response to the adoption of the new Book of Common Prayer version in the Episcopal church, and an expanding view of what deacons do. This is a specialised ministry, to be sure, but it is also an important ministry that serves as a bridge in some ways - 'by working together in liturgy, deacons and others symbolise the mission of the chruch in the world.'

After brief historical introduction, Plater covers many of the aspects of the diaconate - appropriate action and role in ministry of the Word and ministry of the sacrament; proper vestments and gestures, the relationship of deacons to other ministers, and the variations that take place in the different seasons, services, and occasions.

For being such a short text (a mere 70 pages of actual text), it is remarkably comprehensive in scope for the kinds of 'choreography' and activity of deacons in worship services. It is not intended to be a survey of theological questions of the role of the diaconate, nor an historical overview (though some of that does introduce the text) - for these topics, the reader will need to look elsewhere. However, for the task Plater set for himself - a full and useful description of the deacons' role, this text succeeds brilliantly.

If you think about economics, you need this Economist/Bloomberg Press publication or one very much like it.

For clarity on all matters of the public record--not just economics--nobody beat the ECONOMIST newspaper, a British 'news magazine' whose largest national readership is now in the USA.

When the style and content gurus at the ECONOMIST get around to publish a dictionary on the terms and nomenclature of the core competence, well, let's just say it's a little bit like watching the World Cup, the Super Bowl, or the World Series (apologies, cricket fans).

It doesn't get any better than this. I think you'd better buy one.

Buy it, thats the best advice I can give. This book can help anyone to better understand the field of economics and comprehend economics texts more easily.

This, the Fourth Edition of The Economist's handy publication, is not a dictionary in the ordinary sense of the term. There is no pronunciation guide and most of the entries are phrases, not single words, e.g., "circular flow of money," "durable goods," "Gibrat's law," "marginal utility," "theory of games," etc. The "definitions" are more like explanations, some of them quite elaborate. Nobel laureate economists are included as well as distinguished economists from the past. Distinguished contemporary economists who have not won the Nobel Prize in economics are not included. Thus Adam Smith makes it; Julian Simon does not, while Herbert Simon, who did win the prize, does.

Bayes' theorem is explained in some detail and such terms as "saddle point" and the "Lagrange multiplier," e.g., merit graphs and equations in their definitions, but other terms like the "Black Scholes formula" for derivatives is mentioned but not explained in detail. Obviously the editors Graham Bannock, Ron Baxter and Evan Davis, have their reasons for their hierarchies of ink expenditure. They call their approach "a micro-encyclopedic treatment with extensive cross referencing." The cross references are indicated with two types of grey arrows, one for "see" and another for "see also." Clearly one of their goals is to be as encyclopedic as reasonable without making the volume too large to fit into a briefcase or to be read in bed.

Although The Economist is British this publication is aimed at the entire English-speaking world, especially the large market in the United States where this book is published by the Bloomberg Press. Most of the entries betray no national bias, although there are some exceptions. For example in the entry for "balanced budget" it is mentioned that the "UK budget is often in deficit." The same could be said about the US budget, but the US budget is not mentioned. For the entry on "balance of payments" a table is presented with both the UK and the US balance of payments for the year 2001.

This book works well for students of economics (and might make a nice gift for someone who is majoring in economics) but why would the general reader want to own such a publication? The answer is that the "dismal science," as economics has been dubbed, is actually an arcane and technical social science, and so an encyclopedic dictionary is most helpful for anyone who follows the financial news. Incidentally the phrase "dismal science" (not an entry in this book!) comes from Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) who was referring to political economists whom he called, "Respectable Professors of the Dismal Science."

Dismal or otherwise, some knowledge of economics is essential for commerce in today's world of business. This book can serve as a reference, or, if you're like me, you can read it as an extension of the Econ 101 course you took in college.

Distant Thunder tells the truth behind the real contribution that Canadians made in the First Great War. The book shows that even though Canada's great contribution, the nation was never praised for the blood and men it drained on the trench lines in the heart of Europe. It shows the true determination and grit of the men fighting there and it is told in a very easy to follow and understandable way. Since I am a Canadian, I can relate to the story. A true Canadian story that could never be told but now is there for anyone to read.

The book gives accounts of battles such as Vimy Ridge as realistically as possible and make the reader believe that they are truly in the shoes of the soldiers. Dr. Joyce M. Kennedy Ph.D. wrote a gem of a book here and I stamp it a must read for everybody.

This is a fasinating and gripping history of Canadian involvement in WW 1. Having visited Vimy, Mons, Bruge and Verdun in the 1950s, her book, encouraged me to make a return visit which I did on July 1 2001 for local celebrations.It is must reading for Canadians and necessary forothers who want a complete picture of WW 1. Mixing in her father's letters and journals with the history gives the reader a very close sense of presence at the battles. It has made me check out my relatives who also were in WW 1. It is especially poignant given the present state of world tensions.

Robert James Kennedy served with the 2nd Battery, 1st Artillery Brigade during World War I and saw action on the battlefields of every major operation involving the Canadian Expeditionary Force until he was wounded in August 1917 from a direct hit on his gun pit. Kennedy was present at St. Julien during the first gas attack in 1915, and was mentioned in dispatches "For gallant and distinguished service in the field" in April 1917 during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. In October 1917, Kennedy was sent back to Canada as a result of his wounds. During the course of his battlefield service, Kennedy wrote in his diaries which, along with his letters home, are the basis for Distant Thunder: Canada's Citizen Soldiers On The Western Front. Joyce Kennedy is the daughter of Robert Kennedy and has enhanced her father's writings with period battlefield photographs and maps. Distant Thunder is a superb contribution to the growing body of World War I literature and highly recommended for personal, academic, and community library military history collections.

This book was an amazing resource that helped me enormously with breastfeeding. If it wasn't for Dr. Newman's book, I wouldn't have lasted the first weeks of breastfeeding. Through comprehensive teachings and examples, it teaches you how to breastfeed easily and without pain, while giving you a glimpse of the marketing that formula companies employ to lure women away from nursing.

It is the one book that is essential for a breastfeeding mother (or mother to be).

The definitive guide to breastfeeding that I have looked for and finally found - how incredible for it to also be Canadian! Everything is covered in this book, even blebs which I needed information on personally and could not find in the many other breastfeeding books I own (I am a childbirth educator and doula so I own several). Not only did it have the information I needed, it even had a picture of a bleb and gave me the healing options I needed for this painful condition! This is the first book I recommend to all of my clients.

A must have for any new mom or any lactation helper! A great gift idea. If you know Jack , then this is the book you would expect it to be! This book tells it like it is in easy to understand terms. I can't say enough good about this book !

I waited and waited for this one to come. It was a good ending and I love the characters.

This is the fourth book of what was to have been a trilogy, the author obviously had second thoughts and thank goodness she did. I believe that this one is the best of the lot, or maybe it is because it is still the freshest in my mind, no matter, they are all a triumph of historical fiction.

I do not think there is a boring page, never mind a boring chapter in any of them.

Most people who have any interest in history will have some knowledge of the Queen of the Iceni, what befell her and her daughters and the pain and suffering she rained down on the Roman invader in retribution.. . .

The Warrior Queen has burned Colchester to the ground and the Roman's are leaving London. Rome's forces are stretched to the limit and their chain of command is broken. Never in the history of the legions have the Roman forces been in such disarray.

Can Boudica sustain her advance against the might of Rome. Will she ever she her daughter Graine again. The young girl has taken refuge on the island of Mona will her mother succeed where others have failed. Can she unite the land of Britain against its invaders, or will the might of Rome finally impose its iron will on the tribes of Britain.

So, we have arrived at the final climatic novel of Scott's series. Having started with a touch too much fantasy in the opener the previous two efforts have been high quality and gripping. The pace, characterisation and emotive response doesn't let up in this final novel as we follow Breaca to her inexorable destiny at the hands of the Augusta II.
The novel opens rapidly where the third left off. Cygfa and Graine are coming to terms with their brutal mistreatment at the hands of a cohort of Roman legionaries. Breaca is painfully learning to wield a sword again whilst Valerius seeks to prove himself to the Iceni host whilst the simmering anger of Cunomar lingers painfully at his side, the younger man desperate to prove himself his mother's heir should she fall in battle. From this point we follow Scott's retelling of what little history we know as Valerius destroys the IX legion in a manner emulating the infamous Varian defeat in A.D. 9. Cunomar develops his own band of elite troops, the Bears, blooding them in fierce combat. All the while Breaca is struggling to heal, both physically and mentally, reaching her fateful decision during the final sack of the Claudian Temple in Camulodunum whilst her son and brother debate who must lead the war host.
After injecting a cameo from Graine as she defeats the Corvus-led invasion of Mona using the power of the Dreamers and the subsequent self-sacrifice by Dubornos after the rites in the lands of the Coritani, we find Hawk appointed the true bearer of Breaca's father's sword and the swelling host of the British warriors sacking London before the final fateful battle.
When readers of Scott's magnificent series find themselves reluctant to read this final novel they will realise that the character empathy engendered by this sterling author has given us an emotional link to Breaca and the Iceni. We know with terrible finality that Breaca will die because history commands it but we do not wish it to happen. As the pages march inexorably on the heart grows heavier knowing the Dreamers and the Iceni are doomed to failure and the Boudicca cannot lead her people to victory. Still, Scott delivers it in a manner that is both exhilarating in Breaca's courageous fight at the climatic battle and her subsequent benediction on the surviving Valerius, Cygfa and Graine who take the power of the Dreamers into a hidden world to rest and nurture before being reborn once the Roman Empire falls.
My review of the opening novel in this quartet found it lacking and fantastical. That view remains. However, from the second novel through to the end Scott delivers a series that packs an massive emotional punch, crisp subplots, vibrant language and a colorful sense of humanity that ensures the pages keep turning faster and faster. It will appeal to readers wanting to gain a sense of the violence and raw battles that define the period, it will appeal to readers trying to gain a sense of the celtic druids and the otherworlds they walked. But, above all, it will appeal to the reader who wants to pick up a series and wish it never stopped.
A masterpiece.

The book is written beautifuly and I learned about my fellows Polish immigrants a lot. I can be proud of them. It is written with genuine talent of observation, showing interesting details, thoughful thoughts, impressions. I recommend the book for everyone who wants to immigrate, not to scare him/her, but to appreciate the circumstances the others had to go through. This book helps to appreciate the new adopted country, and... to love the old country - Poland.

The talented writer shows her interest in Polish immigrants to Canada - their life and struggles, their hopes and dissapointments. It shows the achievement and happiness they found in a new country and a new environment. The book is true, touching and very well written.

In the monthly magazine published in Paris "Kultura"(9. 504 1989), a review of the book "Dreams and Reality" was published. Benedykt Heydenkorn stressed that the author of the book, Aleksandra Ziolkowska, a young Polish writer, depicted the Polish immigrants in Canada in an interesting way, with a great talent, but also in a very objective way. He remarked that she didn't want to prove anything, she only wanted to share all kinds of stories of people's lives, their views on Canada and their views on the old country Poland. He stressed that she didn't generalize anything.

In the quarterly Ossolineum "Dzieje Najnowsze" ( 3-4 1988), Prof. Marek Drozdowski wrote that the stories are written with talent and understanding. He asserts that the reader can learn about the painful episodes that immigrants faced in establishing themselves and finding their own place in a new society in Canada. He liked the philosophy of immigration shown in one story about Irma, and he also liked the way Ziolkowska portrayed the Canadians Indians.

Professor Marcin Kula , the well recognized historian at Warsaw University, wrote in the Krakow scientific magazine "Przeglad Polonijny" (NR 2, 1988 ) that the book "Dreams and Reality" teaches more about the problem of immigration than the scientific essays about that subject. The book gives material for reflection about the myth of a "gold Eldorado" that was so popular among the people leaving Poland.

The Drought is another apocalyptic novel by futurist author J.G.Ballard. In narrative as spare and dry as the expanding deserts he envisions, Ballard describes an earthwide ecological catastrophe when industrial pollution causes a breakdown of the water cycle. Man and planet parch together. This disruption of the elements is accompanied by bizarre disturbances of the human landscape; old friendships fail while old enmities take sinister new courses; teams of "fishermen", their boats stranded in the dust of former harbors, cast their nets for a new, easier prey. Idiots become prophet kings in this redefined world. While not as vividly drawn as some of Ballard's other works, The Drought is an expertly written book; full of cryptic symbology, poetic flashes, casual violence and "Ballardian" prose. Another five star effort by this under appreciated writer.

The world dies. Ballard ends it with a flood in Drowned World, with wind in Wind from Nowhere and so on. In this book it is a drought. Think for yourself how you would write it. In a few paragraphs Ballard sucks you into his version, peopled with characters strange and as unbelievable as the premise. I know the exact location to shoot the movie of this, and have always cherished a secret dream that one day I'd help make that movie. Now comes Crash - and now millions of otherwise literary Americans will come to know some of JGB's work and some lucky soul with cash will buy the option to my dream. Ah well, the greater good is that JGB may become recognized at last as one of the finest minds in SF, a creator of worlds and a master of psychologies. Please read the book, but please leave the movie rights for me

This is a frightening world so close to our own. A world where one small mistake leads to a world wide drought. A world where communities, lives and loves fall apart. This was the first book that moved me, and I can still smell the salt of those drying oceans. This is Ballard at his best.

This book is a wonderful collection of history, technique and lore about the Inuit qajaq found in Greenland and Canad's eastern Arctic. Anyone interested in these boats either as a historian, a builder or a paddler needs a copy on their shelf! The contributors are genuine experts both from the past as well as those involved in the revival of these very special boats.

The collaborative work of the late John Heath (1923-2003) who was an acknowledged expert in kayaks, and the Canadian ethnologist E. Arima, Eastern Arctic Kayaks: History, Design, Technique combines informed and informative analyses of form and function with historical background and illustrations of kayaking techniques that will be of immense interest to recreational users of kayaks, as well as academics with an interest in Inuit and Canadian Arctic aboriginal culture. The reader is provided with a comprehensive overview of the evolution and construction of Greenland kayaks, supplemented with an illustrated series of rolling and sculling techniques. The definitive text includes woodworking tools, construction techniques, and the treatment of skins for the kayak cover. Superbly illustrated with historic photographs and expert drawings, Eastern Arctic Kayaks is especially recommended for readers with an interest in the history of watercraft and northern native material culture.

The Arctic regions covered are the coastal areas of Greenland, Hudson's Bay, Baffin Island, and Labrador. Swedish kayaks are also examined for similarities in construction and for historical comparisons. The authors also went to museums in western and northern European countries to study kayaks at these. The authors--both with in-depth backgrounds on the subject--do a sound, detailed study on historical, present-day, and recreational kayaks. Heath especially was interested in the value of design elements and kayaking techniques of the oldest kayaks for today's recreational kayakers. For three decades, Arima has been an ethnohistorian with Parks Canada focusing on the Arctic and northwest coast of North America. Text, photographs, and detailed design drawings of kayaks work together in relating unique information on the different aspects of kayaks. While the material covers a broad geographical area and hundreds of years of kayak-making and use in hunting and transportation, one is struck by the remarkable ingenuity of the design of early kayaks; which has stood the test of time to be the basis for modern-day kayaks.