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Historic House Names of Nova Scotia
$17.95Mount Uniacke, Acacia Grove, Winckworth, Saint’s Rest, Spruce Tree Cottage. Ever wonder how Nova Scotia houses got their names? The better-known names are largely connected with prominent historical figures who resided in commodious homes with sprawling grounds, but the naming tradition was far more prevalent than that. Historic House Names of Nova Scotia provides a fascinating look at the house-naming tradition in Nova Scotia. What sorts of names did Bluenoses create, and what did the names mean? Author and historian Joe Ballard has amassed a wealth of historical information and photos on the subject.
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Canadian Confederate Cruiser The Story of the Steamer Queen Victoria
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Canadian Confederate Cruiser tells the story of an elegant but unpretentious steamer that bore witness to the birth of a nation. In 1864, the Queen Victoria took the Fathers of Confederation from Quebec to Charlottetown and back. Long before she could be given the recognition she deserved, the Queen Victoria was lost in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras, the crew and passengers rescued by the American brig Ponvert. That incident and the events that followed it put the lost vessel into the international limelight and tweaked diplomatic relations between Canada and the United States.
John Langley, the author behind Steam Lion, the award-winning biography of Samuel Cunard, documents the life of this steamer and the unlikely cross-border tug-of-war that developed over her bell. In telling the Queen Victoria‘s story, Langley provides a better understanding of the social and political forces that led to Confederation, explaining the pivotal choices that were made.
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Kiss the Joy As It Flies
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Shortlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour. A new smaller format of Fitch’s critically acclaimed adult novel.
Panic-stricken by the news that she needs exploratory surgery, forty-eight-year-old Mercy Beth Fanjoy drafts a monumental to-do list and sets about putting her messy life in order. But tidying up the edge of her life means the past comes rushing back to haunt her and the present keeps throwing up more to-dos. Between fits of weeping and laughter, ranting and bliss, Mercy must contemplate the meaning of life in the face of her own death. In a week filled with the riot of an entire life, nothing turns out the way she expected.
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Black Water Rising
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95When heavy November rains threaten to flood the small town of Black River, New Brunswick, the community calls on the hydroelectric company to open the gates of its dam and drop the water level. But local management has been overruled by their parent company and ordered to keep it closed. It’s got some people hinting it’s time they took things into their own hands.
Seventeen-year-old Stanton Frame is caught in between: his father is manager at the dam, but his girlfriend, Jessica, has joined an environmental group that’s taken an interest in the matter. With just hours until the town floods, things come to a violent clash between police and protesters. The next morning the dam has been sabotaged, Jessica is missing, and Stanton has more questions than answers.
Suspenseful and authentic, with a fine ear for the nuances of local politics and teenage sensibilities, celebrated YA author Robert Rayner’s new novel combines activism, love, and mystery.
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The Big Book of Lexicon:Volumes 7,8,9 Puzzles to Challenge & Entertain
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Theresa Williams’s lexicon puzzles have been hugely popular since they were first published in 1988. Half-crossword, half-word search, lexicon puzzles engage and entertain fans of all ages. This edition brings back volumes 7, 8, and 9 and presents them as one large book for hours of fun!
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Field Notes A City Girl’s Search for Heart and Home in Rural Nova Scotia
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Sara Jewell has collected lots of addresses—eighteen in total—including four in Vancouver, British Columbia, and three in her hometown of Cobourg, Ontario. But there was one address that always remained constant: Pugwash Point Road in rural Nova Scotia. She was nine years old the first time her family vacationed in the small fishing village about an hour from the New Brunswick border, and the red soil stained her heart. Life, as it’s wont to do, eventually took Jewell away from the east coast. But when her marriage and big-city life started to crumble, she only wanted one thing: a fresh start in Pugwash.
>Field Notes includes forty-one essays on the differences, both subtle and drastic, between city life and country living. From curious neighbours and unpredictable weather to the reality of roadkill and the wonders of wildlife, award-winning narrative journalist Sara Jewell strikes the perfect balance between honest self-examination and humorous observation.
Accented with five original drawings from Joanna Close.
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All Hands Lost Sinking of the Nova Scotia Gypsum Freighter Novadoc
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$17.95All Hands Lost chronicles the tragic last voyage of the gypsum freighter SS Novadoc as she sailed from the Annapolis Basin into a raging nor’east storm in the Bay of Fundy in March 1947. Loaded with four thousand tons of Nova Scotia gypsum, she foundered off Portland, Maine, taking all twenty-four crew members, thirteen of them Nova Scotians, to their deaths.
The story is told through the eyes and memories of those who lost family members on the Novadoc — the brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends of the young Nova Scotia men, many of them war veterans, and two women who perished in the tragedy. The book tells of the seafaring life of Novadoc’s captain, Allan J. Vallis, OBE, an experienced merchant mariner and war veteran who unwittingly took the vessel into a hurricane-force storm.
Henshaw takes a critical look at the formal inquiry into the sinking and the report that deemed the loss “an act of God.” He questions the seaworthiness of an aging vessel that sailed into that fateful storm with makeshift repairs. He also questions discrepancies in compensation paid to the families of the twenty-four crew members who died with the ship.
The book examines the history of Paterson Shipping, the Ontario company that owned Novadoc, and Senator Norman Paterson, the wealthy Winnipeg grain merchant who founded the company in 1926. All Hands Lost is a moving and factual account of a 1940s tragedy at sea, as well as a tribute to the memory of the men and women who perished on the ill-fated Novadoc.
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Paddy Boy
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$17.95Paddy Boy is Patrick O’Flaherty’s lively memoir of childhood in a small secluded Newfoundland community, covering the years 1939-54. This time is most unique because it is a bridge between the old Newfoundland with its curious links to England, Ireland, and Scotland, and its new status, after 1949, as a province of Canada. O’Flaherty reimagines just what that lost world was like, how children figured into it, how his family and other families functioned and what part religion played.
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When You Look For Me
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$17.95Here is the true story of a parent’s worst nightmare come true. Kevin Bonang’s family learns that their oldest daughter, Tiffany Tanner, has suddenly gone missing while kayaking on an inner city canal in the northern industrial city of Hamm, Germany. Kevin and his wife Lisa immediately make the journey from Nova Scotia to Germany to help in the search. Once at the site, the true reality of their daughter’s fate becomes obvious. No matter how optimistic local search officials try to be, Kevin and his wife assume the worst.
When You Look For Me takes the reader through seventeen days of the massive search including encounters with the police, search dogs, an unkind media but much kinder everyday Germans who share their compassion for Tiffany’s parents. After many grim conversations with search officials, the Bonangs begin to realize that they are not able to bring their daughter back home to Nova Scotia alive even though there had been some small glimmer of hope.
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The Big Book of Lexicon : Volumes 10, 11, 12
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Theresa Williams’s lexicon puzzles have been hugely popular since they were first published in 1988. Half-crossword, half-word search, lexicon puzzles engage and entertain fans of all ages. This edition brings back volumes 10, 11, and 12, and presents them as one large book for hours of fun!
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Big Book of Lexicon Vol 4, 5, 6
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Theresa Williams’s lexicon puzzles have been hugely popular since they were first published in 1988. Half-crossword, half-word search, lexicon puzzles engage and entertain fans of all ages. This edition brings back volumes 4, 5, and 6 and presents them as one large book for hours of fun!
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Atlantic Canada’s Unusual Place Names Place name origins, attractions, legends, characters, history and firsts
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95A collection of unusual place names from the four Atlantic provinces! The origins of each of these 477 strange names are explained and any notable or quirky history is described in detail. Of course, many of these names become “unusual” only when they are at a distance from the place of their origin. Joe Batt’s Arm, for example, may seem unusual to a Manitoban (not to Newfoundlanders!). Pokemouche could sound odd to an Ontarian (but familiar to New Brunswickers!). This book also includes little-known facts, trivia, and occurrences from the Atlantic provinces, and also 18 mini-biographies of famous, infamous, and not-so-famous-but-still-interesting Atlantic Canadians.
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A History of Disaster (2nd edition) The Worst Storms, Accidents, and Conflagrations in Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95A History of Disaster chronicles 43 of Atlantic Canada’s most deadly disasters, many well-remembered and none ever forgotten. Included are not only the region’s iconic disasters like the Halifax Explosion and the Springhill mine collapses, but also lesser-known events, such as the 1977 Saint John jail fire. Photos and illustrations of the aftermath reveal the heartbreak and bravery that accompanied these life-altering catastrophes. Now in a new size.
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War at Sea Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest single engagement of the Second World War, resulted in the coming-of-age of the Royal Canadian Navy. By 1945, the Canadian Navy had transformed from a small force of 3,500 personnel and 13 vessels into the third-largest naval power in the world. As German U-boats threatened to weaken the Allied war effort, the Canadian Navy was put to work protecting convoys across the Atlantic and hunting for submarines off the coast of Atlantic Canada.
War at Sea uses first-hand accounts from the veterans who survived, as well as a detailed catalogue of the technology, weapons, and ships, to describe the history of this pivotal conflict. Author Ken Smith emphasizes the contribution of Atlantic Canadians, who worked in areas vital to the war effort while under constant threat from U-boats, sabotage, and spies.
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Islands of Nova Scotia Outpost Portraits
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Equally home to tragedy and beauty, Nova Scotia’s islands are buoys in a nearly “sea-locked” landscape. In this revised edition, Mitcham showcases 10 Nova Scotia islands through narrative portraits. Included are little-known outport Scaterie Island, billed as “Sable Island’s Rival”; the Avon River’s mysterious Boot Island, whose tides have claimed many a swimmer; the infamous Halifax Harbour islands; and more. Portraits of each island contain vivid descriptions and remarkable true stories as well as facts and legends detailing unique features about these unusual offshore sites.Features 20 illustrations by Peter Mitcham and a brand-new introduction from the author.
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Letters Home Maritimers and the Great War, 1914-1918
Editor: Ross HebbPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95With personal letters gathered from public archives and the relatives of those who fought in the First World War, historian Ross Hebb tells the story of Canadian soldiers, from recruitment to deployment to return, in their own words. Letters Home is a collection of the correspondences of 20 people shipped overseas from across the Maritimes, asking about their homes and farms, wondering at the girls in Britain, and leaving keepsakes and life advice for their children.
Organized chronologically, the letters describe crossing the Atlantic, training in England, the confusion and anticipation leading up to combat, and for some, the journey home. Includes 20 photographs of the letter writers, their families, postcards, and memorials.
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Girl on the Run
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95When seventeen-year-old track and field star Jesse Collins’s dreams of a full scholarship are shattered after the sudden death of her dad, she leaves home to work as a summer camp counsellor to escape the nosy stares in small town…and her own secret guilt. After a mix-up at registration, she’s put in charge of a boys’ cabin, and the head counsellor, Kirk, predicts she won’t last the first two weeks.
In the midst of fending off four twelve-year-old boys who are hell-bent on mortifying her and a growing attraction to Kirk, Jesse finds the inspiration to run again from an unlikely source. After all, a good pair of legs can take a girl far, but it’s facing the truth that makes all the difference.
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Failures and Fiascos
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Do you remember the invasion of Newfoundland’s hydroponic cucumber? How about New Brunswick’s ill-fated space-age sports car?In this dynamic collection, Dan Soucoup follows the money trail up the political ladder to deliver the dirt on the most devastating failed business ventures, political scandals, and industry fiascos in Atlantic Canadian history. Presented in concise, entertaining vignettes, Boondoggles exposes two centuries of debacles in regional, national, and international scope.Exposed is the downfall of many local industries including steel, coal mining, nuclear and hydro-power, oil, heavy-water, and even rum-running. Relive the tragic fall of Sydney Steel in Cape Breton, PEI’s flawed immigrant investor program, the controversial (and ongoing) Churchill Falls project in Newfoundland, New Brunswick’s doomed Chignecto Ship Railway, and plenty more. From the coal mines of Cape Breton to the dry docks of Esquimalt, rediscover the stories that made headlines and continue to baffle Atlantic Canadians today.Includes 40 historical and contemporary images.
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From Old Hollywood to New Brunswick Memories of a Wonderful Life
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Imagine receiving a mysterious invitation from Charlie Chaplin, doing jigsaw puzzles with Marilyn Monroe, having a heart-to-heart with Jack Kennedy, or being kissed by Greta Garbo. All of these and more are the sensational memories of UK-born, honorary Maritimer Charles Foster. After an unlikely childhood, his adventurous spirit brought him in 1943 to RAF pilot training school in Calgary. Through a series of incredible circumstances and fortunate friendships, Foster went on to become a Hollywood writer and publicist.Now writing from New Brunswick as a regular columnist for Senior’s Advocate, Foster shares his most tantalizing stories as a collection for the first time. With tales from the golden age of film, radio, theatre, and music, including international adventures from Moscow to Berlin and beyond, From Old Hollywood to New Brunswick shows just how far an RAF uniform, a little bit of luck, and whole lot of charm could take you in mid-twentieth century show business.Includes a 20-page insert of original photographs.
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Genealogical Research in Nova Scotia
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95Revised and updated this popular resource for amateur genealogists and history buffs is the best package for finding out more about the people who populate the province.
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Vancouver Island Book of Musts 2nd edition
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$17.95Savouring a sunset on Chesterman Beach, browsing local fare at the Salt Spring Island Market or admiring the Chemainus Murals–it’s all here–the best beach on Hornby Island and the islands’ best place to stay: Vancouver Island Book of Musts is the ultimate guide to our 101 best places. Knowledgeable islanders like oenophile John Schreiner, author Lynne Bowen and naturalist Bruce Whittington weigh in with their top five MUSTS.
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The Blind Man’s Eyes
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95With over 100 of her best poems plus George Elliott Clarke’s essay on the achievement of Rita Joe, The Blind Man’s Eyes confirms Joe’s place in Canadian literature.
From a homeless child who led a blind beggar door-to-door, Rita Joe emerged as spokesperson for her nation and for the individual’s heart. Her much anthologized poems and rare autobiography have riveted her message to the Canadian conscience, revealing both the Mi’kmaq people and the universal artist’s heart of this Elder.
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Prometheus Reconsiders Fire
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95In his new collection of poems, Prometheus Reconsiders Fire, PEI poet Brent MacLaine undertakes an exploration of fire. The prefatory title poem establishes Prometheus as the poet’s persona, a voice that is dedicated to the reconsideration of fire in both its benevolent and malevolent aspects. Formal and elegant, Prometheus plots a trajectory between the classical and the local, a bearing that will be familiar to readers of MacLaine’s earlier work Athena Becomes a Swallow. Wide-ranging in its geography, the new book is wrapped ’round by “The Fire Hall Suite” that begins and ends the book. These are poems that respond to the “drive-by wisdom” created by the anonymous “Sign Person” who speaks to the local community by way of the Fire Hall’s roadside sign. Framed by the “Suite,” the poems of Prometheus move between city and country. A naturalist in the city, MacLaine brings to the urban environment the acutely observing eye that has always characterized his Island nature poems. MacLaine’s imagery, both urban and rural, is remarkable, and no other Canadian poet is quite as capable as MacLaine is in marrying the formal and the colloquial.
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Variations on Blue
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95This year’s poetry book by an Island writer is by former P.E.I. bookseller Pam Martin; this is her first book. As a child Pam Martin had four very sudden and unexpected encounters with death. These experiences shaped her emotional life as she struggled to understand them and to find beauty in a world that seemed fraught with peril. The poems also examine, with delicacy and humour, the world she encountered as a teenager, a social worker and a wife.
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Here for the Music
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95Laurie Brinklow’s long-awaited first collection of poems beaches the reader on the shores of contemporary womanhood. Strewn with memories of the tumultuous journey through childhood to adulthood and the detritus of relationships chanced and abandoned, finally being “here” brings to devotion to daughters and friends and an Island place. Brinklow’s book contains the tidal pull of loss and renewal, departure and arrival that keeps a lover of islands so close to the edges of life and death. That’s the here. But what she is “here” for is both more magical and more pragmatic: the music. It’s the music of language and the dance of human relationships, the sex and love melodies that bewilder and beguile. Brinklow brings this music down to us where we live, with the earthy touch of the “angel-in-charge-of-things-as-they-really-are.”
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The Reluctant Detective
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95A young widow, orphan and mother, Wilhelmina Anne Brown is just beginning to find some stability in her new home in Prince Edward Island when she is forced to deal with the death of her beloved uncle, Bill Darby. Darby, a Charlottetown private investigator, leaves Anne and her fourteen-year-old daughter a small savings account and his business, where Anne has worked as office manager for six years. What follows is Anne’s struggle to protect her family, find justice for her clients, and forge a new life for herself in this page-turning thriller.
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At First, Lonely
Publisher: Acorn Press$17.95Best-known as a musician and a spoken-word performer, poet Tanya Davis has now taken to the page with At First, Lonely. In this collection, she reflects on life’s many passages: falling in love and out, the search for personal truth, the search for home. Davis’s style is one-of-a-kind: a blend of contemporary phrasing with profound personal expression. But her message is universal; over two million people have watched How to Be Alone, a film adaptation of her poem created by independent filmmaker Andrea Dorfman. Tanya Davis’ poetry challenges the intellect and touches deep places in the heart.
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Destination White Point
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$17.95White Point Beach Lodge has been in operation since 1928, persevering through early bankruptcy, the Great Depression, World War II, and a sometimes unforgiving climate in the hospitality industry. The resort is situated on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, where authors Zane Grey and Albert Bigelow Paine once travelled to write about the charms of the undisturbed wilderness.The evolution of tourism in southwest Nova Scotia owes much of its early progress to well-connected foreign anglers and hunters, who used their own pipelines to broadcast this Canadian destination as a bountiful game reserve and a gem for tourists to discover. This book depicts the contribution of some of these foreigners, notably Philip Hooper Moore, the creator of White Point. His conception was a vacation haven where discerning sportsmen could hunt and fish while their families enjoyed the state-of-the-art amenities at the resort. The Lodge remained a seasonal destination for several decades until the 1980s heralded a shift to year-round operations. A convention centre and more accommodations were added, all designed to blend with the original rustic log buildings.Destination White Point draws on the oral history of former and current staff and guests, some whose experiences date back to the 1930s, to paint authentic pictures of work and play at White Point. The descendants of a number of guests have perpetuated the White Point vacation tradition, travelling from New England as well as Upper and Lower Canada on an annual basis. Multi-generational connections are commonplace at White Point with a half-dozen or more family members employed at the resort across several decades.For the last thirty years or so, stories of ghostly sightings and manifestations have been circulating around the property. One of the supernatural visitors is believed to be Ivy Elliot, who co-managed White Point with her husband Howard for over forty years. These events recently attracted a group of paranormal investigators, who paid a visit to White Point. Since the 1980s, colourful rabbits have delighted children and adults alike. Today, the lodge remains a popular destination for both Canadians and foreigners and a vital link to our storied past.