The August Gales
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Three different fishing communities, three different countries, but in their pursuit of fish on the banks they would have much in common, including the terrors of the North Atlantic storms.
The August Gales is a richly detailed history of the banks fishery, the perils of the North Atlantic, and more specifically, the three powerful, and ultimately deadly, August storms that devastated not only an industry, but entire communities. The great gale of 1873, which struck near the eastern mainland of Nova Scotia, was only a prelude to the gales of 1926 and 1927, which brought unthinkable grief to the towns of Lunenburg and Gloucester as well as the island of Newfoundland. (On one fateful day, a woman in the village of Blue Rocks, near Lunenburg, lost her husband, two of his brothers, and three of her own brothers.) Impeccably researched and with over 40 black and white images, The August Gales is a fascinating and at times moving account of the schooners that made their living, and met their end, in the famed North Atlantic gales.
The City Speaks in Drums (pb)
Artist: Susan TookePublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Available for the first time in paperback, the award-winning The City Speaks in Drums follows two boys from North End Halifax as they explore their neighbourhood and the city beyond, finding music everywhere. At the skate park, by the Public Gardens, down Spring Garden Road, and on the boardwalk, drums and saxophones and dancers and basketballs create the jumbled, joyful, pulsing rhythm of Halifax. Shauntay Grant’s playful spoken word-style poem and Susan Tooke’s vivid illustrations create a wildly energetic and appealing journey through the big, bright city.
My Hair is Beautiful
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$9.95Celebrate natural hair with Governor General’s Award-nominated author Shauntay Grant in this joyful board book. With accessible text and vibrant photos of toddlers sporting afros, cornrows and everything in between, My Hair is Beautiful brings a powerful message of self-love.
Lay Figures
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95In Saint John, New Brunswick in 1939, Elizabeth MacKinnon is swept up in the city’s vibrant community of artists. She finds herself joining their struggles to make sense of making art in a time of economic depression. In a story that couples bitter despair with exuberant triumphs, Elizabeth and her fellow artists make life-changing discoveries about politics and social responsibility, desire and betrayal.
The Top 15: Nova Scotia’s Greatest Athletes
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95At 18, Sidney Crosby became the youngest player in NHL history to record 100 points in one season. At 29, he scored his 1000th NHL point, won his third Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and was named playoff MVP. It is probably no surprise that Crosby is No. 1 on this list of Nova Scotia’s Top 15 athletes, as compiled by the province’s Sport Hall of Fame.
But what other athletes have done the remarkable and, times, the impossible? This book selects athletes from hockey, boxing, swimming, and other sports and ranks them—a formidable task bound to generate debate. Who is to say if gymnast Ellie Black is better than swimmer Nancy Garapick, or NHLer Al MacInnis greater than boxing legend Sam Langford? The authors acknowledge that ranking greatness is subjective, so, in addition to the Top 15 Athletes, the book includes 15 honourable mentions, as well as fascinating sidebars such as “15 Memorable Moments in Nova Scotia Sport” and “15 Great Nova Scotia Athletes Under the Age of 25.” There is something for every sports fan in this photo-rich keepsake book packed with names, images, and little-known facts.
A Circle on the Surface
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95It’s 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together—though they have little idea how to create such a life.
Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped, and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes. When the Greenes receive the news they have been waiting for, and that Una is convinced will save her and her marriage, she begins to unravel in ways neither is prepared for.
From critically acclaimed and bestselling author Carol Bruneau comes an achingly honest portrait of a marriage in a time of war—and an examination of how it is that we come to know ourselves.
The Blind Mechanic The Amazing Story of Eric Davidson, Survivor of the 1917 Halifax Explosion
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Eric Davidson was a beautiful, fair-haired toddler when the Halifax Explosion struck, killing almost 2,000 people and seriously injuring thousands of others. Eric lost both eyes—a tragedy that his mother never fully recovered from. Eric, however, was positive and energetic. He also developed a fascination with cars and how they worked, and he later decided, against all likelihood, to become a mechanic. Assisted by his brothers who read to him from manuals, he worked hard, passed examinations, and carved out a decades-long career. Once the subject of a National Film Board documentary, Eric Davidson was, until his death, a much-admired figure in Halifax.
This book does not gloss over the challenges faced by Eric and by his parents. Written by his daughter Marilyn, it gives new insights into the story of the 1917 Halifax Explosion and contains never-before-seen documents and photographs.
There Be Pirates! Swashbucklers & Rogues of the Atlantic
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95Did you know pirates once sailed the seas around Atlantic Canada? Pirates might seem like fun in the movies, but back in the 17th and 18th centuries—the Golden Age of Piracy—being a pirate was very serious business.
From the Hackmatack award-shortlisted author of Oak Island and the Search for Buried Treasure comes the newest book from Nimbus’s popular Compass series for young readers. Learn about what everyday life was like for some of the fiercest pirates of all time. Explore the history of piracy, from the ancient Romans and Greeks to modern-day pirates. How did pirates navigate the seas? What happened if they were caught? Did pirates really bury treasure?
This full-colour non-fiction book includes highlighted glossary terms, informative sidebars, over 50 colour illustrations and historical photographs, an index, and recommended further reading.
Catching the Light
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95The kids call her Lighthouse: no lights on up there. In a small town, everyone knows when you can’t read. But Cathy is just distracted by the light, lines, and artistry of everyday life. She is a talented artist growing up in tiny Mariners Cove and yearns for acceptance. She dreams of enrolling in art school, but getting there will be a struggle. Hutch Parsons is everything Cathy is not: charismatic, popular, smart. Overflowing with energy, he is confident in his plans for the future. But one icy evening his world is upended and those plans are swept away.
Dancing between points of view, Catching the Light explores the ordinary lives of two extraordinary people. With gorgeously lyrical language and a strong sense of place, this tender novel announces a bright new voice in Atlantic fiction. Winner of the 2014 Percy Janes First Novel Award for an unpublished manuscript.
The Sea Was in Their Blood
$22.95The Sea Was in Their Blood explores two key questions: who were the men aboard the Miss Ally, and why were they battered and sunk by a storm forecasted days in advance? Through interviews with the crew’s families and friends, rescue personnel, and members of the tight-knit fishing communities of Woods Harbour and Cape Sable Island, award-winning journalist Quentin Casey pieces together the tragic sinking—including important case details not previously reported—and weaves in the backstories of the Miss Ally‘s crew and the lingering effects of their disappearance.
Sable Island in Black and White
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95The newest addition to the Images of Our Past series, Sable Island in Black and White is a fascinating look at day-to-day life on Nova Scotia’s most secluded outpost during the nineteenth century. Travel back in time to 1884 when author Jill Martin-Bouteillier’s great aunt, Trixie, was growing up on this isolated spit of sand 160 kilometres from the North American mainland. Trixie’s father, Robert Jarvis (R. J.) Bouteillier, was Sable Island’s superintendent, acting on behalf of the Nova Scotia government as lawmaker, doctor, dispenser of stores, and, most importantly, head of lifesaving.
This narrative history accented by more than 100 black and white family photographs of the island’s famous shipwrecks, wild horses, and visitors tells the incredible true story of a stalwart group of ordinary people who called Sable Island home.
Nova Scotia at War, 1914-1919
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$26.95When the First World War ended in 1918, its profound impact did not. The war continued to haunt a nation. Nova Scotia at War, 1914-1919 is an in-depth study of Nova Scotia’s role that was, at the time, the most traumatic collective experience in the history of Canadians. As Tennyson explores in nine fascinating chapters, the war effort was more than just the brave soldiers and sailors who went overseas; it was also the civilians who worked in the fishery, on the farms, and in the forests, coals mines, and steel mills.
A specialist in early twentieth-century Canadian political history, author and historian Brian Tennyson examines the economic impact of the war, which shattered Nova Scotia’s dream of becoming the Atlantic gateway and the industrial heartland of Canada. Includes 30 black and white photos.
Aftershock The Halifax Explosion and the Persecution of Pilot Francis Mackey
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95On December 6, 1917, harbour pilot Francis Mackey was guiding Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, into Bedford Basin to join a convoy across the Atlantic when it was rammed by Belgian Relief vessel Imo. The resulting massive explosion destroyed Halifax’s north end and left at least two thousand people dead, including pilot William Hayes aboard Imo.
Who was to blame? Federal government and naval officials found in Pilot Mackey a convenient target for public anger. Charged with manslaughter, he was imprisoned, villainized in the press, and denied his pilot’s license even after the charges were dropped. A century later he is still unfairly linked to the tragedy.
Through interviews with Mackey’s relatives, transcripts, letters, and newly exposed government documents, author Janet Maybee explores the circumstances leading up to the Halifax Explosion, the question of fault, and the impact on the pilot and his family of the unjust, deliberate persecution that followed.
Fire in the Belly How Purdy Crawford rescued Canada, and changed the way we do business
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95Purdy Crawford’s name is synonymous with Canadian business and law. But even after education at Mount Allison and Harvard, Purdy arrived on Toronto’s Bay Street as an outsider, the son of a coal miner from tiny Five Islands, Nova Scotia. So how did young Purdy ascend so quickly and so far to become one of Canada’s top lawyers and best-known business mentors? In this biography of Purdy, bestselling business writer Gordon Pitts begins with the moment in 2007 when Crawford was enlisted by some of the country’s leading corporate officials to stave off financial market catastrophe. The book describes the role Crawford has played in mentoring several of Canada’s brightest economic thinkers, and his contribution to changing the way business was done in the boardroom, particularly in opening the door for women. Includes a photo insert of highlights from Purdy’s professional career and private life.
There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen (pb)
Artist: Sydney SmithPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Willa Wellowby’s house has been overrun by monkeys. They’re ballet dancing, playing the bagpipes, listening to the Beatles, and causing mayhem and destruction all over the house and yard. And the more Willa asks them to leave, the more havoc they wreak. She calls the police, the RCMP, the FBI, and Scotland Yard to get rid of these monkeys…but when the Mounties finally show up, it’s Willa who’s in trouble!
First published in 1992, There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen won the Canadian Children’s Book Centre Mr. Christie Award for Best Canadian Children’s book, ages 8 and under. This new softcover edition will introduce the bestselling book to a whole new generation.
Black Loyalists Southern Settlers of Nova Scotia’s First Free Black Communities
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95During the American Revolution (1775-1783), the British government offered freedom to slaves who would desert their rebel masters as a way of ruining the American economy. Many Black men and women escaped to the British fleet patrolling the East Coast, or to the British armies invading the colonies from Maine to Georgia.
After the final surrender of the British to the Americans, New York City was evacuated by the British Army throughout the summer and fall of 1783. Carried away with them were a vast number of White Loyalists and their families, and over 3,000 Black Loyalists: free, indentured, apprenticed, or still enslaved. More than 2,700 Blacks came to Nova Scotia with the fleet from New York City.
Black Loyalists is an attempt to present hard data about the lives of Nova Scotia Black Loyalists before they escaped slavery in early South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and after they settled in Nova Scotia to bring back into our awareness the context for some very brave and enterprising men and women who survived the chaos of the American Revolution, people who found a way to pass through the heart, ironically, of a War for Liberty, to liberty and human dignity.
Includes an insert of 20 historical images and documents.
Up Home
Artist: Susan TookePublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95Happy memories sparkle in this journey through poet Shauntay Grant’s childhood visits to North Preston, Nova Scotia. Her words bring to life the sights, sounds, rhythms, and people of a joyful place, while Susan Tooke’s vibrant illustrations capture the warmth of one of Canada’s most important black communities. Up Home celebrates the magic of growing up, and the power in remembering our roots now in a new softcover edition.
The Terrible, Horrible, Smelly Pirate
Artist: Eric OrchardPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95A fun, read-aloud pirate story that will be a favourite with educators.
Set in the misty waters around Halifax Harbour, this fun read-aloud pirate story follows the adventures of a terrible, horrible, smelly pirate named Sydney and his friend Parrot Polly. After answering a riddle set by a tricky mermaid the rascals dig for treasure by the old lighthouse on McNab’s Island. Children will enjoy the anticipation as the chest is raised to the surface, and the surprise as its unexpected contents are revealed. The clean and dirty theme will make this book a circle time favourite with many daycare and library programmers. Parents will love it too.
View From a Kite
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95I must admit that when I first started losing weight I was pleased. I dropped from a pudgy hundred and twenty-five down to one-eighteen in a month, and kept on going. One hundred and five, and my breasts disappeared. By the time they hauled me off to the Sanatorium, a feverish, weepy, ninety-pound weakling, I was out of love with elegant bones and scared that I was coming out through my skin.
A teenager in the 1970s, Gwen is stuck in a tuberculosis sanatorium with only her journal and the occasional illicit cigarette to keep her sane. Her twisted sense of humour helps her deal with invasive medical procedures, oversensitive friends, and dictatorial nurses, but nothing can spring her from prison.
Not that life outside would be much better. Gwen is haunted by the dark and violent turn her life took just before she got sick. Her family has been shattered, and Gwen is fighting hard—with all the stubbornness and humour she can muster—not to be shattered too.
Chocolate River Rescue
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95“Get off of there, Craig!” shouted Shawn.
“I can’t! I’m slipping!” wailed Craig.
Shawn leaped back onto the ice. He took a breath and jumped over the widening crack, grabbing his little brother by the coat as he flew through the air. Both boys fell heavily to the ice on the other side.
The boys stared in horror as the crack widened to reveal an eddy of churning, foaming brown water.Tony, Craig, and Shawn are trapped on an ice floe on the Petitcodiac River in the dead of winter, and the rapid current is pulling them toward the ocean. Twelve-year-old Petra arrives and the boys think they’re saved, but their dangerous journey is only just beginning.
The boys and Petra face peril at every twist and turn of the river in Chocolate River Rescue, an exhilarating adventure based on true events. They also learn that a river of chocolate is far better served warm, over ice cream, than cold on an ice floe!
arn that a river of chocolate is far better served warm, over ice cream, than cold on an ice floe!
If I Had an Old House on the East Coast
Artist: Kat Frick MillerPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$25.95If I had an old house on the East Coast I would fall in love at first sight.
It would grab me by the heart, and not let go.With introspection and deep appreciation for the East Coast, this inspirational gift book shares a dream, in words and images, of falling in love with an old house and breathing new life into it. Exploring, with lyrical prose, everything from an old house’s foundation to its layers of antique wallpaper to its decades-old gardens bursting with wildflowers, this book is a love letter to a vanishing way of life. Fully illustrated with gentle watercolours from celebrated local artist Kat Frick Miller, If I Had an Old House on the East Coast also includes practical tips for the old-home-owner, from how to clear your home of ghosts to instructions for making rosehip jelly and maple syrup.
In the Wake
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Set on the shores of modern-day Nova Scotia, two women are stagnated by grief and their own flawed versions of the past. Can the truth set them free?
When Emily and her family move back to Nova Scotia from Calgary, it is a return to the coastal landscape that already haunts her—and the waters where her father died. She meets her neighbour Linda, a gruff but loving widow and Linda’s grown son, Tom, who struggles to stay on an even keel. As they settle in, Emily and her husband, Daniel, learn more about the short but turbulent history of the house they’ve just bought. With Daniel away for work, Emily becomes caught up in the lives of her neighbours, relying on Linda’s friendship and growing closer to Tom, despite his unsettling knack for appearing when she least expects him. As the tension in each family builds, both Emily and Linda must confront long-unanswered questions.
With its nuanced depictions of marriage, parenting, grief and mental illness, and humorous, understated dialogue, Davison’s debut is at once suspenseful and subtle.
Fire in the Belly
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95A paperback edition of the award-winning biography by of Purdy Crawford, who went from Toronto’s Bay Street as an outsider, the son of a coal miner from tiny Five Islands, Nova Scotia, to one of Canada’s top lawyers and best-known business mentors.
The Snow Knows
Artist: Josée BisaillonPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95The snow knows
where the rabbit goes.
It knows the hushshush
of the owl’s wing.In this deceptively simple children’s picture book, a pair of awardwinning storytellers share the joys of winter. A lyrical prose poem, The Snow Knows introduces readers of all ages to animals both domestic (a tabby cat by the wood stove) and wild (a slinking lynx; a choir of coyotes), celebrating wilderness and outdoor play.
With whimsical hideandseek illustrations, readers will love following footprints and catching a glimpse of an owl’s wing or pheasant’s feathers, suggesting what appears on the following page. A beautiful book, destined to be a perennial winter favourite, and read aloud by a crackling fire.
The Strangers’ Gallery
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95St. John’s archivist Michael Lowe’s life is turned on its head when a Dutch acquaintance, Anton Aalders, arrives on his doorstep in 1995. Anton is searching for a father he never met, ostensibly a Newfoundland soldier who was part of the Allied forces that liberated the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War. Anton’s visit stretches from a few days to a few months, reluctant as he is to go in search of his father, and keen to learn as much as he can about Newfoundland, its history, and its people. Rabble-rouser and ardent Newfoundland patriot Brendan “Miles” Harnett, Michael’s friend and sometime bugbear, is obsessed with his own search for the lost “fatherland” of Newfoundland, which relinquished its political independence in 1934. Miles is only too eager to teach Anton—and Michael—the shameful, forgotten history (as he sees it) of the lost country of Newfoundland. The Strangers’ Gallery is a finely crafted, at times humorous, novel about the painful search for identity—both political and personal.
Music is for Everyone
Artist: Sydney SmithPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Music is for Everyone is sure to get you excited about making music! Singer-songwriter Jill Barber takes her young readers through many different kinds of music—hip hop, jazz, classical, folk—and instruments in an energetic, rhyming tour. Sydney Smith’s gleeful illustrations capture all the joy that comes from making music—in all its forms!
Lasso the Wind Aurelia’s Verses and other Poems
Artist: Susan TookePublisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95George Elliot Clarke started writing poems for his daughter the day she was born.Tooke, a three-time winner of the Lillian Shepherd Memorial Award for Excellence in Illustration, aprroached Clarke (Regarding their collaboration).For this 24-page hardcover book, she has created bold and graphic collaged images, ranging from a grim image of imprisoned families to a whimsical vision of a dragon at a picnic to endearing pictures of Aurealia as a baby.This book is aimed at kids aged seven to fourteen and the birthday poems end at age nine because they “have a particular sequential feel” says Clarke, a Windsor born, prize winningpoet laureate of Toronto and teaches Canadian literature at the University of Toronto
Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95Eco-Innovators profiles some of the region’s most innovative and forward-thinking leaders in sustainability. These entrepreneurs and educators, activists and agitators, farmers and fishers have all made measurable contributions both in their respective fields of interest and in motivating others to make change.
In the book, we meet Kim Thompson, a strawbale builder and consultant, who has recently brought her building experience to a renovation of an older house in downtown Halifax. Then there’s Edwin Theriault, who bought a bale of clothing back in 1971 and launched Frenchy’s, a chain of seventy-six used-clothing stores that has become an East Coast institution. Edwin doesn’t consider himself an environmentalist at all, but over the years his business has kept countless tonnes of material out of landfills. Also profiled are Speerville Flour Mill and Olivier Soaps in New Brunswick, Sean Gallagher of Local Source in Halifax, David and Edith Ling of Fair Acre Farm on PEI, and Jim Meaney of Cansolair solar heat air exchangers in Newfoundland, among many others.
With ten chapters on matters like reducing consumption, greening the home, sustainable eating, dressing, transportation, and vacationing, the book is an important look into the lives of Atlantic Canadians committed to creating viable green options in our region.
Grow Organic A Simple Guide to Nova Scotia Vegetable Gardening
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Grow Organic deals with specifically Nova Scotian issues, giving advice about our growing season, which types of vegetables grow best here, and where to get local organic seeds. The book also contains a chapter of inspirational profiles of specific gardeners and farmers from around the province. The book is written in a friendly, straightforward manner, and is intended as a simple and accessible guide for people with a specific interest in organic vegetable gardening. It includes many illustrative photographs and recipes.
Gracie, The Public Gardens Duck pb
Artist: Richard RudnickiPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$14.95Gracie has a nice, comfortable life in the Halifax Public Gardens. Her days are full of swimming in lakes and fountains, napping in bushes, and gobbling up the delicious treats that the visitors to the park bring especially for her. Muffins, popcorn, and peanut butter sandwiches. Yum! Gracie loves the attention and the company she gets from people but she especially loves all the food.
One day, however, Gracie’s favourite people stop giving her food. What’s happening? Why won’t anyone share their lunch? Aren’t they worried that she’ll starve? Despite her best efforts, Gracie’s turned away by all her food sources, and to fill up she has to turn to-well, duck food. And despite herself, she starts to enjoy it.
Gracie, the Public Gardens Duck is a funny and sweet story, reminiscent of classic children’s literature, but with a modern heroine-one hungry duck in search of dinner!
Steam Lion PB
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95This is the story of a man born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who became one of the most powerful forces in international trade in the nineteenth century.
Samuel Cunard’s list of interests reads like a history of the Maritimes-shipbuilding in chatham, coal mining in Cape Breton, forestry in PEI, and warehouses in Halifax. But his business acumen and vision extended far beyond Eastern Canada: His innovative steamship Britannia was the first reliable, timely link between the Old World and the New, and the transatlantic transportation of mail, goods, and passengers was revolutionized. The continued success of the Cunard Line is a testament to Samuel Cunard’s brilliance as both a mariner and a businessman.
The first full-length biography of one of the most fascinating figures in mercantile history, Steam Lion is an important and engaging record of a man, his business, and his times.
East Coast Rug-Hooking Designs
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$24.95Rug-hooking began long ago as a practical solution to the drafty floors in North American settlers’ houses. From those humble beginnings, the craft has evolved into a highly respected art form, and many who have seen the vibrant rugs created by Atlantic Canadians are inspired to take up the hook themselves.
In East Coast Rug-Hooking Designs, master rug-hooker Deanne Fitzpatrick explores and explains the art she loves. Photographs of her colourful hooked rugs are accompanied by her frank and touching stories of life in Atlantic Canada-the life that inspires so many of her designs. From hooking and gathering fabric, to choosing colours, designing, and binding, the entire process is clearly explained. Over thirty playful and dynamic patterns are included-some suitable for beginners, and some that will challenge even experienced hookers. Whatever your level of expertise, this book will surely have you hooked!
Rug-hooking artist Deanne Fitzpatrick is renowned worldwide for her stunning rugs and patterns. Her work is in permanent exhibits at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, among others, and she has made frequent radio and television appearances, including on CBC’s Land and Sea. She lives in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
