Canada Books

IT WAS VERY WELL WRITTEN AND THE PICTURES ARE FANTASTIC. IT BROUGHT BACK GREAT MEMORIES AS I TOO OWNED A FARM, IN INDIANA. I AM ON MY WAY TO OWNING A RANCH, SOON, I HOPE AND READING THIS BOOK I LAUGHED AT THE ANTICS OF KIDS AND ANIMALS. I DON'T THINK FARMERS, OTHER THEN THE AMISH WOULD KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING IN THOSE PICTURES TODAY HAHAHAH. EVERYTHING WAS DONE BY ANIMAL OR BY HAND. THE PICTURES AND WORDING ARE JUST GREAT. I THINK IT IS A WONDERFUL READ ESPECIALLY SOMEONE WHO LIVED AND WORKED BACK THEN ON THEIR FARM

The pictures alone make this book a "must have" for anyone who grew up on a farm. It brings back warm fuzzy memories.

I loved the book, "This Old Farm". The memories it brought back to me are some that I had forgotten for many years. The writers of "This Old Farm" knew exactly what they were talking about. I could smell the odors, see the colors, feel the grass, hear the sputter of the tractors and machines. It brought tears to my eyes as it brought back memories of my life on a farm while I was growing up.

I really had angst when deciding to read this book. I listened to the audio version and it was so excellent. So creative and different. The conversations between these sheep is so funny and so clever. How they solve the murder of their shepherd was so well done and funny. I loved their comments about the butcher. It may be true or not but to think of sheep discussing their preferences for one type of green over another to munch on or that they might have any preferences about anything was not something I'd think about but I do now. I like all animals so to expand my thinking or imagination about them is always welcome.
If you want to read (or listen to) something different, clever, fun, and have some laughs you can't go wrong with this superb book. I'd give it 10 stars if I could. The reader Josephine Bailey captured the various personalities and was excellent in giving a different type of voice to the human characters and the sheep characters.

It's a very weird, beautiful mirror for us humans. Ladies, please dont wear make-up,when you read this book. Gentlemen, be prepared, it is better then the Life of Brian. I got tears of laughing all the time. One of the rare books, you have to have at home - at least in 3 samples, in order to be able to give it to your highly sophisticated or misanthrop friends. Enjoy.

What a great mystery! Author Leonie Swann brings us into the collective minds and hearts of a herd of sheep, without ever becoming precious or twee. Set in Ireland, the mystery itself is quite good (unlike some animal-based mysteries.) Swann's writing is witty without being pretentious. The sheep are definitely clever and heroic, while staying true to their ovine species, and even the humans are well-rounded and carefully done. A real winner (and you'll never look at a sheep in quite the same way again!)

THREE RIVERS: THE YUKON'S GREAT BOREAL WILDERNESS explores a region of vast wilderness previously unknown to the outside world, but is a major environmental hotspot of modern times as it represents one of the last, key pieces of the boreal region. With the Mackenzie Valley pipeline proposal looming to threaten it, the Three Rivers region is in the news and deserving of this coffee-table survey, which packs in color photos and art and writing by major authors to remind of the region's importance.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

After visiting the yukon(from Australia)and travelling by road I was interested in learning about more inaccessable areas of the Yukon. The book is first and foremost a photographic journey in the great boreal wilderness area by way of the Snake, Bonnet Plume and Wind rivers. The photographs are spectacular but are accompanied by well written text and great descriptive writing by a number of different writers who made the trip. It also is informative where relevent of the history of the area and has just the right balance. The book is a focus on the need to conserve the area, and it successfully does this by "taking you there" and helping you see and feel it for yourself. It does not focus on an anti development theme as such but achieves the environmental focus in a positive and stunning manner.The book is a delight to look at and read and is well set out and captioned. The gwich'in inhabitants of the area and their lives are well integrated into the story and adds to make this a book worth having and revisiting. I can appreciate the care that went into preparing this book so that it is immediately visually stunning but then has wonderful text to read and enjoy and have some appeal to everyone.

A magnificent combination of pictures and text/stories on the Yukon. Great to see such a good book about a part of the world one rarely reads or hears about.

Personally, I feel that this book should be added to the the grade 12 academic calender. This book really shows a bit of all sides of Canadian History, Politics, Family, and virtually every aspect with living in a "Post Troudeau" generation.
Well worth the purchase.

Bravo Zulu to Mr. Gairdner. His book should be read by all Canadians. There's so much great stuff in it that I can't go into the detail here but it exposes the myths and realities of Multiculturalism, Medicare, the courts, the Justice system, Socialism, (the benifits of) Democratic Capitalism and many more.

William Gairdner details methodically the flawed thinking that has taken Canada down the road to it's current mediocre existence. Gairdner ruthlessly gores every sacred cow the elites have created in this country from socialized medicine to official bilingualism and multiculturalism as state policy.

This book will transcend you to a time and place that makes you feel at peace with nature. Merrick's writing is like poetry in motion. You will wish you could have been there to experience the times when he is at one with the universe. The people and places he is writing about no longer exist, which is the greatest pity of all.

I read some of the previous reviews before getting this and some were positive and some negative...I have to say I was very much pleased with the book, excellent story and tale with local dialogue to add an element of adventure and flair. I just really enjoyed the story and to see the hardships people faced...

A fascinating book! A well written account by a man who traveled extensively in the Canadian North in the 1930s, just as the traditional remoteness that had characterized that world was ending with the introduction of planes and other technologies. Merrick was a keen and sympathetic friend of the North, its history and its Native peoples.

This book is a must have for turtle lovers everywhere. It is a clear and concise reference book for the known species of turtles and tortoises in the U.S. and Canada. The authors are both well known scholars in the field of herpetology. Carl Ernst has written many scientific papers on a variety of chelonian species. His partner, Barbour is also well known throughout the reptile world. Being a professional herpetologist, I feel that this was a perfect addition to my collection of books.

Very much detailed description of each and every turtles and tortoises found in the US and Canada, from anatomy to behavior to breeding. It's a must for any experienced chelonian enthusiast. Although, I would not recommend this book to a novice.

For turtle owners everywhere this is a valuable resource to have on the shelf! Of all of my 'turtle books' this one is by far my favorite. Even for a novice multiple turtle owner (that knows how to read) this book will prove worthy of its purchase price because it goes a beyond the standard "get a uv light" material. It teaches you about the turtle in the wild so that you can be better equipped to build an environment as closely related to their preferred location as possible while also explaining their habits along with detailed descriptions to help you identify the turtle with certainty and understand its history. My only wish is that there were a book just like it for the turtles outside of the United States & Canada. I also would have appreciated every picture in color rather than just a few ;)

This book is a good source to balance the word and image of Islam and Muslim in the western world. Muslim is not only in Arabian peninsula or Gulf contries, in fact Indonesia is the largest muslim population in the world. Many pictures on the book can give the different side of Islam in Southeast asia. They don't speak arabic, they don't have big nose,they are short, skiny etc. I recommend this book for the people who wants to know Muslim in Southeast asia without reading a long history book.

But there is unbalance information in the book I noticed, specially information about Indonesian muslim in the introduction. Steve Raymer seems doesn't have a good source that he can get the information about Indonesian muslim. Might be because they are so many and he tries to put it in the same ammount as Malaysian which is only about 1/6 or 1/8 of Indonesian in comparison. It is best if he can consult or clarify his information with the Indonesian sociologists, historians, or scholars in order to validate the information. One of the examples is on second page, the picture doesn't not macth the note (citation). The picture is showing the people who are suplicating, is not always in arabic, but he says those people are reciting the koran. This is just small example.
I recommend people who have this book to check with the Southeast Asian people to clarify the information.
More than that, good work and well done.

As one who's lived in Southeast Asia off and on for the past seven years, the thing that strikes me about the book by Raymer are the brilliant photos, yes. But the way they are put together gives a human face to Southeast Asia's Muslim peoples. A fair and realistic look at them is refreshing in light of many Western reports that tout them all as gun-toting extremists.

Steve Raymer has done an exceptional job at capturing the humanity of Southeast Asian Muslims through the lenses of the faithful camera. The pictures are breathtakingly beautiful, while the accompanying caption and text serve as an easy-to-read commentary especially for those expecting only an excursion into the subject. His attempt at a sympathetic understanding of a culture that is relatively obscure to the average Westerner is commendable; the journalistic objectivity being a salient feature of the book.

Raymer, in my opinion, succeeded in shattering the perpetuated myth surrounding the perception of Muslims. Not only does he cogently disprove the notion of a monolithic Muslim culture across the Muslim world, but he also demonstrates the existence of diversity with which Islam is practiced in this forgotten region. The cognitive image of either a rich Middle-Easterner or a terrorist brandishing an AK-47 so often associated with Islam must now be relegated to the domain of stereotypes. The book is probably a silent apologist for the peace of Islam.

Caveat emptor for those expecting their stereotypes confirmed and prejudices accomodated; the book is sure to frustrate them.

The maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words had never been truer. The picture is now worth millions of humans.

Thank god (and Canada) for Colburn and Sorensen. They crack me up everytime. I'm crossing my fingers that I don't need to move to Canada after this election, but if I do, at least I now know that they control everything anyway.

After reading this book I have a new awe of Canadians. They benevolently have their hands in every part of American society! Who knew that Clamato, The BlackBerry PDA, synchronized swimming and lightbulbs all hail from the Great White North? The book is humorous in how it puts forth the evidence of canuck domination. Peter Jennings, William Shatner and Tommy Chong---all Canadian. Dozens of films that we believe are filmed in the USA--- filmed in Canada. Is everything I know know now thrown into question?
After reading this book I wonder if our upcoming election even matters, if Canada is running the place anyway...I'll still vote, just in case.

I just bought 2 copies of this book for some American friends who are moving to Canada. This is the PERFECT gift for any Canadians or Americans! Its packed with real facts about why Canada is behind everything American's think is great. If the Republicans take over the Oval Office again in 2009, I'm going to study this book so that I can move to Canada and pretend I'm one of 'em, eh?

As a child author Elsie Hulsizer spent her summers sailing in a small sailboat with hr parents, and as an adult she and her husband spent their summers sailing out of Puget Sound and up the straight of Juan de Fuca - also to windward, where they explored the west coast of Vancouver Island over a twenty-year period. VOYAGES TO WINDWARD: SAILING ADVENTURES ON VANCOUVER ISLAND'S WEST COAST charts these journeys and discoveries, using the author's photos to present their journeys in a set of vivid adventures which will appeal to both armchair readers and would-be Vancouver Island sailors. A gorgeous display of color photos throughout makes VOYAGES TO WINDWARD an exciting visual display, spiced with high adventure and not a few practical tips.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

What a wonderful book, the photographs are stunning, the stories of all the places along the west cosast of Vancouver Island are compelling. Elsie Hulsizer's book is a pleasure to read. From her descriptions of this rugged coast to her portraits of the people encounterd along the way, you will enjoy every story and anecdote. I encourage anyone who enjoys adventure, natural beauty, historical perspective or sailing to order this book. Whether for your own pleasure or as a special gift, this is a delightful book.

The book is evocative of the beauty and charm of the remote places of the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Interesting local history is complimented by vivid photography and captured the experience of sailing the West Coast. A very enjoyable book.

I loved this book! I thoroughly enjoyed Marsha's style of writing and found the book engrossing. It's certainly not necessary to have experienced life with a Bull Terrier to enjoy Wally's story, but Bully owners especially will find themselves laughing out loud in so many places! Reading of Wally's antics and his sweet nature reminded me so much of my two dear departed Bullies.

But it's not just Wally's story that grabs the reader. There are the dogs that came before him, as well as Marsha's and Stephen's personal experiences. I just can't imagine anyone not enjoying "Wally's World"!

I read this book after my mother recommended it. From the very first page that I read, I had a difficult time putting the book down. Ms. Boulton is a very gifted writer who knows how to reel the reader. Every tale that she tells in the book keeps you on your toes. Wally the Wonder Dog is so charming. I have read other dog books, but this one is the best one. While I was reading the book, I felt that Wally was one of my own four-legged babies. I am happy to learn that I am not the only person out there who is obsessed with her dog!
This book is an amazing and heartwarming tribute to an incredible dog who brought so much joy to so many people.

No, this is not a dog story book. It is about principals and principles. The principals are Marsha Boulton, the engaging author/narrator; Stephen Williams, her partner and award winning author; and the titular Wally, a wonderful bull terrier. The principles include courage in meeting the challenges of life, devotion twixt man and dog and values worth fighting for. It is filled with love, wonderful commentaries on life, suspense, outrage and, in the end, a confirmation of those, both man and dog, who employ a zest for living.