Canada Books

It is a sad, heart warming boo

This story portrays the relationship between Natives and English people, and that is what makes it so interesting. This story is beautifully written, and I'd love to read it over and over.

I read this book years ago and found it unspeakably sad and haunting. I remember it as if I read it yesterday. An uncommon and insightful view of a white boy and the last of a group of native people that is treated with beautiful sensitivity. Recommended hightly.

I really enjoyed reading Blyth's account of his escapades during WWII. It is one of those "slice of life" books where you can really get a good understanding of his (and his crew's) time in the RCAF and the war. For any students who are studying the treatment of POWs in the different wars, this book would give them valuable insight into the German's treatment of POWs in WWII. Enjoyable!

This book was great because it gave wonderful insight to what it was like during WWII. There is such detail about everything the author experienced from flying night raids, his capture and the surroundings at the POW camp. I really enjoyed all the different stories about his crew and other POWs. The author is a great storyteller!!

As a historian, I am aware of few books that tell the story of the air war over Europe from the Canadian perspective. 'Cradle Crew' is such a book, and it's a good one that I highly recommend. Written by Ken Blyth, a Canadian who became the pilot of one of the youngest air crews to fly over Europe in the war (thus the name 'Cradle Crew'), this story tells of the entire air crew experience, from enlistment through combat. But it goes much farther, for Blyth and his crew were shot down over Europe and ended up spending time in a German Stalag as POW's. Therefore, the book not only gives the reader an excellent, well-written perspective on the Canadian aircrew experience in the war, but is also a memoir of a POW. Blyth is a strong writer, and his story is engaging and never dull. This is an excellent book, and an important addition to the literature on the air war over Europe. It is invaluable as one of few Canadian books on the subject. Filled with interesting and rare photos of crew life, aircraft, and German Stalags, this is a must-have for any aviation history lover, and should be in every Canadian's bookshelf as a record of how the men from up north helped defeat Hitler and save the world not so many years ago.

My first thought upon finishing "Cue the Dead Guy" was--oh good, I have two more Polly Deacon books waiting to be read. Polly is addictive. I love the glimpse into the not-so-glamourous world of the touring theatre company. The insight into that world,and the world of Muskoka, Ontario is so refreshing. Mel Walton writes about her world without fawning or feeling the need to make it painfully cute. Her world is appealing and real, and just maybe a little more interesting than the average small town. Her main characters are vivid; her plotting is splendid, even the subplots kept my interest. It's an easy and enjoyable read, and, Polly is an ingenius creation with her dry wit and interesting life choices. Loved it. Looking forward to the next book!

When I finished Mel Walton's book, my first thought was--good, I have at least 2 more of her books to read. I'm already addicted to this character--Polly Deacon is a fresh and genuinely interesting protagonist. She's brave, funny and human. I loved the detailed picture of life in the theatre, especially the not-so-romantic aspect of a small touring company in the Muskoka's. I loved the description of the area; not fawning or precious,but respectful and pleasing. Plot, setting, character--the book is rich with all three, and somehow, Mel Walton makes them work splendidly. Her humour is edgy without being cynical. I love the book. I will buy more H. Mel Walton!

In need of cash, Polly deacon takes a job designing the props for a squabbling, dysfunctional touring children's theater group. But when the stage manager goes mysteriously missing before the first rehearsal, only Polly suspects murder. The local police show their usual lack of interest in her theories, but a series of gruesome, demented practical jokes proves that the killer is on the loose -- and it's like a member of the cast! Cue The Dead Guy is funny, engaging, cleverly plotted, skillfully written, and will leave the reader looking for more H. Mel Malton titles!

Why read about a girl who is borderline white trash growing up in the South in the 50s? Because it's personal, touching, and funny as hell. Fanny Flagg never fails me, and she has done it again in one of her earlier books which somehow slipped by me until now. Flagg's characters are homey, eccentric, and never dull. I don't see how you could read this and NOT be entertained.

I read this book and laughed out loud. I gave it to my depressed daughter to read on a long plane ride. She was told repeatedly to quiet down because she was laughing so hard. It's probably the naked truth that is so funny because it's so seldom revealed.Great characters, settings and a twisty plot. You'll love it and I have nothing to gain by telling you this.

Along side Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe this is Fannie's best novel. I can't decide which of the two is better. this novel made me laugh out loud. I recommend this to anyone. anything by Fannie is awsome, don't wait pick it up.

Damselflies and Dragonflies are ancient life forms that also happen to be some of the most colorful and interesting species of insects in Northeast America and throughout the world. Breathtaking and painstakingly accurate illustrations and identification knowledge invaluable. Page for page one of the most accurate and valuable field books you can own.

This is the best damselfly field guide available for anyone interested in the odonates. This guide has been very helpful to me in my identification of species for the New York State Dragonfly and Damselfly survey for which I am a volunteer surveyor. This book has also come in handy for my job as a Wildlife Biologist during site surveys.

This is the field guide to damselflies of the Northeast that I've dreamed of. Ed Lam's artwork is stunning, as he illustrates each species in full detail. The book is concise and very well organized. He lets the reader know whether each species and sex can be identified in the field or whether it needs to be caught and inspected more closely. He gives critical field marks for accurate identification. Even if the reader never goes into the field to ID these beautiful creatures, the artwork alone is worth the price of admission. All species native to the northeast are covered including detailed range maps to the county level and both common and scientific names. I purchased this book directly from the publisher for $20 + S&H.

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.