The Second Season of Jonas MacPherson (3rd ed)
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Set on the East Coast, and focusing on 69-year-old Jonas, this novel reflects the title character’s energy, rage and humour as he looks upon his world, past and present, and is filled with memorable characters, adventures, and a pervading rugged gentleness.
Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea A Living History
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$25.95“It is a good tale, well told, which opens the door to the wanderings of the imagination.” —The Globe and Mail
The history of Nova Scotia is an amazing story of a land and a people shaped by the waves, the tides, the wind, and the wonder of the North Atlantic. Choyce weaves the legacy of this unique coastal province, piecing together the stories written in the rocks, the wrecks, and the record books of human glory and error. In this newly revised sweeping true-life adventure, he provides a thoughtful down-to-earth journey through history that is both refreshing and revealing.
Here, well into the twenty-first century, he looks back at the full story of Nova Scotia from the geological history to the civilization of the Mi’kmaq, the arrival of the Europeans, and beyond to the stormy history of English and French. Choyce takes a critical look at the wars that helped shape the province, the scoundrels and the heroes who lived here down through the centuries, and the seas and storms that swept through the land of the Bluenosers. The original edition of Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea was published to acclaim by Penguin Books in 1996. This new edition brings the story up to date and looks at the changes in politics, economy, and global climate that will challenge Nova Scotians in the years ahead.
“Lesley Choyce’s writing captures the ebb and flow of Nova Scotia seafaring, from its Golden Age of Sail to the disasters and crimes at sea.” —The Halifax Chronicle Herald
High Water Mark Stories from Atlantic Canada 1983-2023
Editor: Lesley ChoycePublisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Down Home for Christmas – Holiday Stories from Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Down Home for Christmas offers a rich tapestry of seasonal stories from some of Pottersfield Press’s most talented and beloved authors and is sure to touch both those who love Christmas and those who enjoy the entire winter season in our rugged Down East region.
Peggy’s Cove The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95A history of Peggy’s Cove from the formation of the rocks through settlement and on to the present day. A story of sea, fish, settlers, sea monster, rogues, heroes, storms, artists, tragedy and tourism of one of the world?s most famous coastal communities.
The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers
Editor: Julia Swan, Lesley ChoycePublisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95In this poignant, often funny, and heartfelt collection, Nova Scotia authors and artists put to the page their thoughts and emotions about their fathers, who raised, inspired, loved, and taught them–and occasionally drove them crazy. As well as MacLeod, Bruneau, and Murray, The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers includes stories by Harry Thurston, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Frank Cameron, Joan Baxter, Jon Tattrie, Bruce Graham, Lesley Choyce, Lenore Zann, David Mossman, Janice Landry, Lindsay Ruck, Ian Colford, Julia Swan, Craig Flinn, and Daniel Paul.
Here are fathers of all kinds: quiet, thoughtful, wise men; stubborn and headstrong men; and men whose careers and circumstances called forth public bravery and heroism. Included too are fathers whose mark on the world is more private but just as compelling, just as fearless, just as noteworthy. They embody the strength everyone needs to weather the storms of life, the humour that helps us to laugh at crucial moments, and the stalwart vision it takes to raise daughters and sons and send them out into the world.
Nova Scotia Love Stories
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95In Nova Scotia Love Stories, Lesley Choyce has assembled some of the province’s most beloved authors who explore through fact and fiction the myriad ways in which a love story exists. These writers with a strong emotional connection to this shaped-by-the-sea province demonstrate the many guises and moods of love: for the young, the aged and all points in between. There is love that is healing, heart-throbbing joyful, but also love that is disillusioned, unusual, possibly misguided, but always life-changing. The stories are heartwarming, touching, funny, and profound. This collection will convince any reader that love thrives and abides here on the wave-swept shores of Nova Scotia.
A young girl experiences profound attraction to the enigmatic but charismatic Manuel Jenkins in Budge Wilson’s tale; a child tells of having two mothers in Bruce Graham’s short story; and Marjorie Simmins and Silver Donald Cameron each describe how they met and fell in love, bridging their lives from opposite coasts of Canada. Maureen Hull’s Miranda finds herself in a relationship with a rather unlikely partner; Jim Lotz and Lindsay Ruck tell of real-life love stories: deep, long-standing commitment between two kindred souls, through a lifetime of shared adventures.
There are other jewels here from Jon Tattrie, Steven Laffoley, Sheldon Currie, Harold Horwood, Carol Bruneau, Michael Ungar, William Kowalski, Don Aker, Chris Benjamin, and Lesley Choyce. Collectively, these writers explore many facets of this most human emotion.
The Mi’kmaq Anthology Volume 2 In Celebration of the Life of Rita Joe
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Theresa Meuse is the former chief of Bear River First Nation and has worked in various jobs with Mi’kmaq organizations. She is an educator and advisor and author of a children’s book, The Sharing Circle. Lesley Choyce is the publisher of Pottersfield Press, an English instructor in Dalhousie University’s Transition Year Program and the author of several books.
The Mi’kmaq Anthology
Editor: Rita JoePublisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95A varied and spiritual collection of work by the Mi’kmaq writers of Atlantic Canada. Both young and old stories and storytellers combine talents to produce short stories, poetry, and personal essays.
Skunks for Breakfast
Artist: Brenda JonesPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$11.95Everyone knows there are no skunks in Nova Scotia…right? Well, that’s what Pamela thinks, until she wakes up one morning to a terrible smell.
Now Pamela stinks, her father stinks, her sister stinks, and her mother stinks. Soon her life stinks—her friends at school won’t come near her! And no matter how many skunks her father catches underneath the house, there always seems to be another.
Join Pamela and her family as they confront the odorous onslaught—and watch Pamela slowly start to like the unexpectedly cute creatures.
Saltwater Chronicles Notes on Everything Under the Nova Scotia Sun
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$18.95This book celebrates the ordinary: the everyday disasters and discoveries that shape a life. In this, his one hundredth book, Lesley Choyce takes readers along as he writes about nearly everything under the sun from his home by the sea on the North Atlantic coast of Canada—all of it most ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.
Cold Clear Morning (revised edition) New Revised Edition
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$22.95Taylor Colby grew up in the tiny Nova Scotia fishing village of Nickerson Harbour, but his guitar-playing skill led him to become a much sought-after studio musician in Los Angeles. Along with him went Laura, his childhood sweetheart and soulmate. In L.A., Laura becomes enamoured with the dark side of rock and roll life, leaving Taylor lost, distraught and deeply damaged. Taylor realizes he has to go back home to Nickerson Harbour, to confront Laura’s parents, to reunite with his father and to understand the truth of his own dysfunctional family.
Back in Nova Scotia, Taylor learns that his mother, who had abandoned him as a child, wants to come home to reconcile with her own past. Taylor is haunted by his loss and grief but must also come to terms with some hidden truths about Laura. As he begins to make sense of his past, he befriends an American feminist professor who is trying to start life anew in Canada with her troubled twelve-year-old son.
Cold Clear Morning is a novel about dreams realized and dreams shattered. It is about love and loss, hunting and healing, grief and forgiving. Taylor Colby speaks his story of what it takes to pick up the remains of a shattered life and find renewed purpose and hope. It is the story of going back to the home that you thought you could never return to. In his odyssey from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and back home, he attempts to find real meaning to his life of adventure and despair.
Nova Scotia Visions of the Future
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95In the summer of 2008, Pottersfield editor Lesley Choyce sent a letter to a select and varied list of Nova Scotians to contribute to a book about this province’s future. He invited some of the best minds (and hearts) around the province to present their vision of this possible province of the future.
Contributors would write about the environment, technology, immigration, social aspects, urban life, rural life, energy, politics, government, family, economics, forests, the ocean and much more. The bolder the vision, the better. Stories, personal opinions and controversial ideas were encouraged. Which future? Anything beyond ten years and up to a thousand.
The results of that request were varied, ambitious and surprising. This most insightful book may set in motion some serious action that can help Nova Scotia live up to its full future potential. The writing is personal, provocative, reflective, proactive, and thoroughly captivating by over forty contributors from many divers fields of expertise.
Driving Minnie’s Piano
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Novelist Lesley Choyce weaves together his real-life adventures living by the sea at Lawrencetown Beach on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. He writes of his love for the rugged coast and tells tales of the ordinary and the extraordinary. His story includes accounts of what it’s like surfing in the Canadian North Atlantic through all four seasons including the frigid depths of winter.
Also threading its way through this narrative is the story of Minnie’s piano. There is music here in word and spirit along with the lessons learned from the old and the young. Driving Minnie’s Piano is an eloquent personal memoir about the precious and fateful moments that change our lives. It is an exploration of what makes us tick and prompts us to be both heroes and fools in the daily enterprise of living.Nova Scotia: A Traveller’s Companion
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95A varied and provacative array of writing about this province by residents and visitors through the centuries.
Pottersfield Nation
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95A stunning collection of some of Canada’s finest writers who just happen to call Atlantic Canada their home. The book celebrates Pottersfield Press wriers in our 25th year. The array of talent includes non-fiction by Farley Mowat, Harry Thurston, H R Percy, Joan Baxter, Archibald MacMechan, Thomas Raddall, Judith Fingard, Charles Saunders, George Elliott Clarkes, Pete Sarsfield, Gregory Cook, Billy Bidge, Dean Jobb, The Frenchy’s Ladies, Bob Chaulk, Mike Ungar and others.
Far Enough Island
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$8.95Sarah’s family has had a streak of bad luck. Her father is a fisherman and the fish have disappeared. Her mother is worried all the time. It seems that nothing is going right for her family. Sarah’s best friend is her dog, Jeremiah, who came into her life in the night in the middle of a horrendous storm. Sarah is concerned about her unhappy mother and her father — who doesn’t always make the right decisions. Here is a story about a young girl’s belief in herself, a family’s struggle to survive and the desire to hold onto hope even when all hope seems to be gone.
Famous at Last
Artist: Jill QuinnPublisher: Pottersfield Press$8.95Another chapter book for the younger set.Lavishly illustrated, a story about being and getting famous. A journey of discovery for everyone.
Sid the Kid and the Dryer A Story About Sidney Crosby
Artist: Brenda JonesPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95A fresh and fun take on the younger years of hockey superstar Sidney Crosby, through an unlikely character: the dryer in the basement. Author Lesley Choice imagines the early life of W. P. (Whirpool) the dryer, now a popular attraction at the NS Sport Hall of Fame, as W.P. is hit with stray pucks while Sidney works on his shot in the basement. Vibrant artwork from illustrator Brenda Jones completes this imaginative tale.
I’m Alive. I Believe in Everything
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00“Controlled, fluid, wry and passionate.” —Halifax Daily NewsA generous serving of new and selected poems. Lesley Choyce was declared “a national treasure” by the Ottawa Citizen and “Nova Scotia’s answer to the Renaissance Man” by CBC’s Peter Gzowski. Quill and Quire found Lesley Choyce’s writing “life enhancing, life celebrating.” For a taste of this lasting collection, you can watch Lesley read the title poem “I’m Alive. I Believe in Everything,” which is available on youtube.
Nova Scotia Shaped by the Sea
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$24.95The history of Nova Scotia is an amazing story of a land and people shaped by the waves, the tides, the wind and the wonder of the North Atlantic. Lesley Choyce weaves the legacy of this unique coastal province, piecing together the stories written in the rocks, the wrecks and the record books of human glory and error. In this true-life adventure, he provides a down-to-earth journey through the natural and man-made history that is both refreshing and revealing. The story begins after the retreat of the glaciers when the first people arrived, and over thousands of years evolved the highly civilized Mi’kmaq culture. The arrival of the Europeans disrupted their life, unleashing tumultuous conflicts that would last centuries. Then came the power struggle between France and England, which was fought at sea as well as on land. As England emerged the victor, the Acadians were driven from the land they loved. Once the wars subsided, the pirates and privateers still plundered the seas, but the honest sailors and shipbuilders of Nova Scotia led the province into a flourishing world trade. During the First World War, Nova Scotia was again thrust into military action, resulting in one of the most devastating explosions ever to rip through a city. Decades later, Halifax was torn apart again, this time by military riots. Here in the new century, it is clear that the way of life along this coast is changing. But while the wealth of the sea has been plundered by human greed, the dreams of life in harmony with the fierce yet beautiful North Atlantic live on, even as the coastline continues to be carved away by the restless surge of the waves
Peggy’s Cove The Amazing History of a Coastal Village
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$15.95Here is the complete history of the famous cove and the unique village that hosts thousands of visitors each year. The story begins with the formation of the rocks along these shores and the impact of the glaciers. The Mi’kmaq were the first to live here in the summers, harvesting the riches of the sea. A land grant in 1811 brought the first hardy settlers, who built homes and wharves and discovered that the sea could provide bounty but was also a source of great danger.
The story includes the origin of the name, Peggy’s Cove, and details about the everyday life of nineteenth-century families living here. A history of the famous lighthouse is included and there are excerpts from many of the famous and not-so-famous visitors who have written about the Cove through two centuries.
The author explores the most damaging storms and the shipwrecks, the reports of sea monsters and other strange phenomena. Fishing was always a source of income, but it changed over the years. At times the fish prices were so low it was not worth the effort and, in recent years, dramatic changes to the ocean have seen the collapse of several important species of fish.
In the twentieth century, Peggy’s Cove attracted artists, writers and ultimately thousands of tourists. Sculptor William de Garthe made his home here and created his monument to the coastal fishermen out of the sheer granite outcropping in his backyard. In 1998, Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the shores of Peggy’s Cove and the community opened its doors to the world in an effort to provide support for the rescue workers and the families of the victims. From the earliest days to the present, the story of Peggy’s Cove has been a tale of natural wonder and human endurance.Skunks for Breakfast
Artist: Brenda Jones$8.95Everyone knows there are no skunks in Nova Scotia…Right? Well, that’s what Pamela thinks, until she wakes up one morning to a terrible smell.
Now Pamela stinks, her father stinks, her sister stinks, and her mother stinks. Soon her life stinks—her friends at school won’t come near her! And no matter how many skunks her father catches underneath the house, there always seems to be another.
Join Pamela and her family as they confront the odorous onslaught—and watch Pamela slowly start to like the unexpectedly cute creatures.