Canada Books

Farley's Follies (as the author renames this collection in his foreword) is an enchanting encounter with our Northern Neighbors. After the introduction of the sailing librarian father, and his floating boat-mobile, I was thoroughly locked into the magical land of travel via armchair. Clever illustrations could have (should have?) included a map as these stories take the reader all over Canada: Ontario, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and the tundra of Hudson Bay. Depression refugees, trading the re-invented fishing boat for the prairie ark/schooner, pet owls, a magic mutt, naturalist training, an artic expedition, sailing adventures, amazingly tolerant and encouraging parents, and letters home from WW2, the reader watches the man emerge in this an exceptional compilation.-Mamalinda

Like most Americans, I had never heard of Farley Mowat until I made the association of the Disney film "Never Cry Wolf" with his name on a book spine one day. I loved the movie, so I figured I might as well try out the book.

I adored Never Cry Wolf, but you often hear that a writer has one good book in him (or her), and after that it is all downhill. Furthermore, I looked in the library catalog and Mowat had dozens of titles! I had no idea which ones to try, they had odd titles! So I picked up this reader, to get an idea which of the titles I might want to pick out.

After reading this collection, I decided I wanted to read them all. Mowat is simply the best Canadian writer, and one of the top of this century, in my humble opinion. I have now read five of his books, and my collection continues to grow. Even the books that are represented as children's books (like The Dog Who Wouldn't Be) are a joy to adults as well.

Mowat has the keen eye of observation that Mark Twain had, but without the viciousness of the satire... he is much more coy and subtle in his musings on families and nature. Many of his works involve the Arctic north, Saskatchewan, the high seas, and animals; but I have yet to find a poorly written chapter in any of his works.

If you want some proof that Mowat is worth buying, pick up this Reader and see for yourself. I read a few small portions to my writers club as samples of excellent writing, and they loved it. It reads smoothly, like a storyteller would speak, like a Garrison Keilor tale.

He is a controversial figure, is my understanding. Purportedly, he is not allowed to visit the United States, because in one book he claimed to shoot his rifle at overflying US warplanes. Who knows if this is true; Mowat admits to a bit of freedom in embellishing a tale; which is only right, since it is more fun that way. Don't worry about these details, just read some of it and enjoy it.

This book has short stories from a real reserve near two real towns (Wetaskiwin and Hobbema) in Alberta, Canada. The characters are amazingly funny and real. The way he writes this book it is like he spent 20 years of his life living with Native Americans! I wouldn't want to get stuck on this reserve! A must-read book! It is sooo goood that money is no object! A book to laugh at and to lift your spirits! I haven't read one of his books (and I've read all but two) that I haven't loved

Kinsella mixes prose and dialect to plunge the reader into the world of the misunderstood Canadian aboriginee. Full of fun and shenannigans but with a poignant message attached. Short, easy to read stories. I've read then all at least a dozen times

Bob Patterson's review really captured a lot of what I was feeling. As a former member of the Canadian Army, I was not only able to see in my mind's eye the scenes that Christie was describing, I was able to see many of the soldiers, often because I actually knew those men. The Canadian Army is not big - and the Army of West is probably about 6,000 Regulars and a few more thousand reservists - that's not a very big town, and all of the larger than life characters tend to become known by all - men like Mars Janek, whom I had the honor to serve with back in 1995, and who features prominently in this book as the extraordinary soldier that he is. Canadians really have no idea how lucky they are that these bright young men and women are willing to put their lives on the line in the service of their country.

Christie did a great job with this book, and clearly she wrote it her own way. My only real citicism is that I would have liked her to spend a bit more time of the achievements and field operations, and a little bit less on deaths, but I understand why she went the route that she did.

The Canadian army is very small - many organizations claim to be like a "family" but the Canadian Army is a family. In the larger world there may be 6 degrees of separation but in the Canadian Army there may be only two. So every loss is a wound for all. Every loss is indeed the death of a brother.

This remarkable book is a revelation of what it may mean to be part of a true Band of Brothers - a world where the most senior general lends a master corporal his own wedding ring so that he can ask his girl to marry him - a world where the entire platoon comes to the home of a fallen comrade and spends a week in the community celebrating his life - a world where a 40 plus year old widow enlists so that she can continue to be part of the family - a world where Colonels weep for their men.

The book also causes the reader to think more deeply about war and soldiers. It is politically correct to feel that all war and everything about it is bad. But we discover, that for all its terror and for all the losses, for a soldier war is what he lives for. It is when he also discovers whether he is any good at his life's work. We discover how good our soldiers are. Surprisingly, for we always think the less of ourselves, in Afghanistan, we are considered the heavy weights who punch well above our weight.

We discover that while war exhausts a person more than any other activity, it also makes him more alive.

We discover that PTSD is much more prevalent in peacekeeping than in the kind of situation that we find in Afghanistan. In peacekeeping the kit was awful and the impotence high - imagine simply witnessing atrocity? But in Afghanistan our soldiers can take the initiative and they are very well equipped and have rules of engagement that make sense.

We discover a new kind of woman soldier - who are at home in this strange world, as is of course the "Blatch", and who are no longer seen as odd.

We discover how the families of our soldiers have been integrated into the mission and we see how the worst of all news is given and how the families are supported when what they all fear the most occurs.

This is not the civil service in green that was the sadness of our forces for many years. Implicit throughout the book is that someone really knows that he is doing. I think that someone might be called Rick Hillier.

We discover how great our local field leadership is too which also says something more about General Hillier -

Brig- Genl Dave Fraser to LTC Ian Hope, in radio orders given at 11.30pm on July 17 "You need to recapture Nawa and Garmser by 1600 hours.

Hope to Fraser: "Roger that. Recapture Nawa and Garmser by 1600 hours."

Fraser: "Any questions?"

Hope: "Just one: Where are Nawa and Garmser?'

Not only do we routinely pull off tough missions, but the Cols take all the risks that their men do - they lead by example. They also tend to do the really terrible things like personally extract the burnt and mutilated bodies of their dead so that the buddies in the platoon would not have to remember their friend like that. There is all this bull in the public service about "Servant Leadership". Here you see it for real at all levels from the LTC down to the Master Corporal.

We discover the central frustration of the mission. That we have to go back again and again and take the same ground because the ANP, the police, cannot hold it - we learn how complex this work is.

But most of all, we learn how fortunate we are to have those wonderful people wearing our uniform.

It is a mystery to me how, in a nation, so cut off from the reality of war, that we can once again have the kind of army that we had in 1917. A pathfinder Army.

A small army that can think and adapt. A small army that is lead by men and women of an integrity and skill that put our business and public organizations to shame. A small army largely made up from men and women from small town Canada who have that can do attitude that used to be the hallmark of Canadians.

Who else could tell this story but "Blatch"? A woman who acknowledges that she knows of only two soldiers who swear more than she. A woman who shares the hardships, the joys, the terrors, the losses and the fun. A woman who loves her boys and who is loved back.

She writes with such a love and a passion - I could not put the book down except when my eyes were so full of tears that I could no longer see.

It is exciting, it's very funny, it's very sad. But in the end it is heroic. Not in a little boy's view of heroic but in the most mythic sense of people who live for each other in undertaking a very hard task.

At the end of the book, "Blatch" goes back to see everyone to see how they are.

"Eight months later, Hope (LTC Ian Hope) answers my email form an airport lounge somewhere. I wrote back to tell him of one of the stories - bawdy and funny, loving and sad, always brutally honest - I'd heard from the troops.

You must miss them so xxxxxx much," I said. " I can hardly bear to write about them sometimes. I find them so beautiful."

"You understand what I miss," he wrote back. "I am Odysseus."

This is a wonderful book about wonderful people written by a wonderful person - who has by the way a wonderful dog but that is another story.

All Canadians should read this book. It will give you a whole new respect for this country and its amazing history. This book is a page turner from the first chapter onward. Most Canadians are likely not aware of many of the seminal events detailed in this important work. History, often a dull subject, is brought to life in this volume. Highly recommended!

Mr. Orchard eloquently achieves in this book what is most needed in this nation - he writes about who we are, what we have been through, how close we have come on how many countless occasions to assimilation, and most importantly how with vision and luck, we have survived despite all odds and expectations to the contrary. The Fight for Canada borrows from the rich traditions, perspectives and styles of American works such as JFK's Profiles in Courage and the most honoured of history textbooks available in the English language (indeed, I would argue that Orchard writing about Canada could put Howard Zinn writing about America to shame any day of the week and twice on Sundays). Orchard's range is spectatular for at times it is impossible for the coldest heart not to feel a swell of pride and yet, he can turn around with such ease as to give the most patriotic idealistic heart pains for the tragedies that are Canadian history. We have hanged heroes - make no mistake about it. We have hanged honourable men, we have long forgotten genuine patriots and we have vilified statesmen (among whose ranks I count David Orchard himself) who, in any other country, would be imortalized and bestowed with honours and posthumous recognition such that every elementary school child would know their names and heroic acts. With the Fight for Canada being written in such an easy conversational and yet insightful tone and the subject-matter of which being of the gravest of importance to Canada's future, in my mind it is inexcusable to have not read this book and still count oneself amongst the citizenry of Canada.

Before reading any classical texts from Watts & Zimmerman and Beaver, I think any junior accounting doctoral sdudents should read this book!
Excellent introductory book for anyone who wants to do capital market research in the future!

Strongly recommend!

Professor Scott explains financial accounting theory drawn from recent research. He provides a clear, easy-to-use framewaork for students to 1) place this theory in a financial accounting context,2) explain and analyze the theory intuitvely and 3) reveal the theory's relevance in understanding the practice of accounting. Similar good textbooks in this field includes Positive Accouning Theory by Watts & Zimmerman, Financial Reporting: A Accounting Revolution by Beaver and An Introduction to Aplied Professional Research for Accountants by Ziebart.

Although my book is the 1991 version, it is very informative, and is a wonderful reference guide to all badges of the Canadian Infantry. The 1991 version also had what the badge was worth in that year. During my search on Amazon I see that the last version was 1996, I think the only difference would the change of worth for each badge.

A very complete review with a great deal of detail to some of the smaller more obscure units of WWI.Both beginning collectors and advanced collectors can benefit from it.

This book gives anybody doing their Newfoundland family history an in-dept look into the life and times of the Seventeenth Century in the Fisheries Industry in Newfoundland. Well written and entertaining as well as informative.

Peter Pope writes an excellent account of the Newfoundland Plantation in the seventeenth century. Notably, he details the prominent position that the island held in the trans-Atlantic trade during the same period. It's a wonderful and thorough revisionist account that shifts some focus from the more traditional and well documented trading centres of North America. Overall, a stellar analysis of Early Modern Newfoundland!

This is the best chapter book my kids (six-year-old girls) have read, and they've read a lot. Before discovering the Harriet Bean series, they would sit down and read only one chapter of a book. After receiving "The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean" and "Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats" as gifts, however, they couldn't put them down. They immediately read "Five Lost Aunts"--in one sitting--and read "The League of Cheats" the next day, also in one sitting.

Like my daughters, I love every book in the Harriet Bean series. ("The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean" is first in the series, followed by "Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats" and then "The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean.") In my own list of favorite chapter books, this series is tied for # 1 (along with the "Sarah Plain and Tall" series). It reminds me a bit of the Junie B. Jones series because it is hilarious, but it is better written. It's also more engaging than Junie B. because it's a mystery, and kids are compelled to keep reading not only because of the humor but also because they are driven to find out how the mystery is solved.

I strongly disagree with the reviewer from the "School Library Journal," who says the Harriet Bean books are contrived. This review misses the point of the genre. The point is not to have a realistic plot but rather to engage children with humor, charming characters, and suspense.

I also appreciate the strong female protagonists in this series. My favorite scene is when Harriet learns about her aunt Veronica, who is a strong-woman in a circus. Veronica was originally told that, as a female, she couldn't enter a strong-man contest, but she enters in disguise and beats all the boys and men. This is one of the most hilarious, gratifying, and empowering scenes I've encountered in a children's book.

I can't recommend this series strongly enough. It will engage good readers (the writing is very well-crafted), and it will inspire reluctant readers to keep reading, just as the Harry Potter series does. I wish Alexander McCall Smith would write more books in this series!

In this second book in the "Harriet Bean" series, McCall Smith brings us an interesting and fanciful story. Harriet discovers that her father has 5 sisters, but that he has lost touch with them. To increase the mystery, her father produces a picture of all of them, himself included, without any faces. The painter had been sent away before he was able to paint faces, for lack of additional funds.

Harriet is irresistibly drawn to find them. Her need to complete the picture of her family is virtually obsessive. Yet it is truly appropriate. For most people in the end, it turns out to be family that is the most important and the most long lasting of friends and companions. Perhaps this is the primary lesson of Smith's book.

In particular, this young to young adult book is specially focused on character development. While Smith always pays attention to character, here for children, he is especially careful. Each of the missing sisters has a distinct character, in fact character is often the method by which Harriet finds the ones that are missing. As an interesting twist, Smith makes two of Harriet's sisters, detectives who run a "Ladies Detective Agency" reminiscent of Smith's other series on that topic. Imagine the wondrous detective stories Smith will weave for us when he puts Harriet together with her Aunts the detectives.

The book is recommended for all readers from age 5 to 105. It is fun, it is interesting and it is well written.

Plenty of international development projects are fostered in richer nations and fail in poorer ones: is it because these regions are inherently corrupt, or because developers don't really understand how these developing nations work? THE POWER OF GREED: COLLECTIVE ACTION IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT analyzes the common problems involved in community development projects, challenging the routines and ideas of international development agencies and showing how individuals in developing nations often don't see their individual needs addressed in such projects. Chapters survey conceptual frameworks of success, strategies, and both failures and achievements in light of these ideas. Especially recommended for college-level courses in international politics

The amount of treasure expended as aid to developing countries since World War II has been immense. If it had worked, there should have been no poverty left in the world, democracy should have developed everywhere, and the whole world a better place to live. Needless to say, it hasn't worked out that way. Instead we are seeing countries facing massive amounts of debt that will never be repaid.

Dr. Rosberg is a Canadian living in Belize. This book reflects what he has learned from his years of observing and working with developmental projects. He says that for a project to be successful, an individual's self-interest (which he calls greed) has to tell him that doing these things will be beneficial to him. Dr. Rosberg says that the sterile debates of morality associated with wealth generation have to be laid aside. This is a pragmatic book that looks at the world of developing companies as he finds them, not as something abstract as might be viewed from an ivory tower.

This is an interesting point of view that looks at modern problems in a way that almost relates back to the work of Adam Smith many years ago.

I enjoyed this book very much, and I am not even Canadian

Edith Fowke collected much Canadian folklore and folk songs during her life, and wrote many books about these subjects. This is a good introductory book. Fowke carefully includes songs, jokes, stories, etc, from each part of Canada, showing that Newfoundland and Quebec do not have a monopoly on our folklore.

Far too often, Canadians downplay their rich cultural history and undervalue their store of folklore. Hopefully, more books like this one will help us to learn and appreciate our folklore and will whet a thirst to discover more.