-
Woman From Away
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95Born in 1910 Montana, Tessie Gillis in the 1950s came with her husband Joe to Rear Glencoe in Inverness County to live the hard,satisfying life of rural Cape Breton. Illness finally gave her the opportunity to write, and her friend and editor Evelyn Garbary helped her bloom into one of Cape Breton’s finest writers.
-
Sister to Courage
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95In Sister to Courage, Wanda takes us inside the world she shared with Viola and ten other brothers and sisters. Through touching and often hilarious stories, she traces the roots of courage and ambition, good fun and dignity, of the household that produced Viola Desmond.
Tough and compassionate, Viola shines through beyond the moment she was carried out of Roseland movie theatre for refusing to sit I the blacks-only section. Viola emerges as a defender of family and a successful entrepreneur whose momentum was blocked by racism.
With honesty and wit, Wanda Robson Tells her own brave story, giving new life to two remarkable women and the family the loved.
-
Magnificent Obsessions
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$17.9514 provocative chapters by writers who go a little further out, a little deeper, and bring back treasures for the rest of us. Each chapter stands on its own and each on is part of the portrait of Cape Breton Island. Magnificent Obsessions is essential and utterly enjoyable bedside reader.
-
Talking Cape Breton Music – Expanded Edition
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Conversations with People who Love to Make Music
-
The Keys
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95Theresa O’Brien was born in Ireland and writes in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. This compelling first collection presents O’Brien as an accomplished storyteller.
-
Song of Rita Joe Autobiography of a Mi’kmaw Poet
Publisher: Breton Books$21.95Song of Rita Joe is a book of exceptional courage and insight, the words of a gentle woman who fought for her family, justice, and her own independent voice. She faced intolerance, ignorance, and abuse, searched her inheritance for strength, and wrote poems of clarity and encouragement that continue to inspire not only her people but all people.
Finally, she was a humble woman, an honoured Mi’Kmaw elder, poet, and member of the Order of Canada.
-
Marguerite Gallant A Legendary Acadian – Une Acadienne Legendaire
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95A Friend to all, this unique Acadian comes to life in a delightful new book. Marguerite Gallant is remembered as awoman brave enough to go her own way, to dress as she wished, and to live life to the fullest. Having grown up inpoverty, she struck out in the world, serving as a companion to families in the United States.
-
Special Link – Early Childhood Inclusion Quality Scale
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95This workbook is a tool for assessing inclusion quality in early childhood centres and for helping centre move toward higher quality inclusion. The Scale provides a picture of sustainable and evolving inclusion quality—an emerging issue as more children with special needs attend communitybased centres and as inclusion pioneers leave their centres and a new generation of directors and early childhood educators take on the inclusion challenges.
-
Company Store J.B.McLachlan and the Cape Breton Miners, 1900-1925
Publisher: Breton Books$24.95With all the passion and forward thrust of a terrific novel, The Company Store is John Mellor’s winning story of Labour’s Wars in Cape Breton Island. A much sought after book, it has been too long out of print, and it remains a good place for the general reader to start in digging into this essential story in the making of the character of industrial Cape Breton. The company store itself stands as a powerful symbol for the entire system against which the miners fought-a system wherein the company owned the mines, the homes, the stores and often even the ministers and priests-all with the goal of profits for shareholders and of keeping the workers indebted and in line. And when all these failed, the governments sent in the troops against the workers!
-
Stud Horse Boy
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95From the truck’s horn and the stallion’s whinny, The Stud Horse Boy is called from school for adventures breeding horses that made farm life and woods work possible in Eastern Nova Scotia. The boy is torn between boiling anger and admiration for his one-eyed, alcoholic father. Will he become his father? How do you act amidst the eroticism and smutty jokes? How do you find the courage to live? A wonderful storyteller, Darryll Taylor remembers with great good humour, shockingly realistic scenes, and passionate respect. The Stud Horse Boy is today’s story-a teenager coming of age in difficult and changing times.
-
Little One A Novel
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95A moment of compassion in the anthill means that Little One will live — a life of new ideas that will challenge the colony’s traditional world. Beautifully written and difficult to classify, Phil Organ’s novel holds up a rare, compelling mirror to human life. Little One demonstrates integrity and commitment to her colony, but eventually, with extraordinary courage, she dares to live out her own vision. Little One possesses kernels of terror and kernels kernels of exquisite light.
-
Summer Preserves
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00Smart, sassy, and sexy, Summer Preserves is a solid debut collection from poet, teacher, and activist Diane Reid.In Summer Preserves, Diane Reid serves up a generous collection filled with guts and good taste. A genuine keeper.“Bursting at the seams with ideas…powered by energetic engagement.. There is, at the core, a control and serious attention to craft.” —Matt Robinson, whose poetry collections include A Ruckus of Awkward Stacking, No Cage Contains a Stare that Well, and Against the Hard Angle.
-
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.
-
The Wedding Reels
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00Not for the faint of heart, Joyce Rankin’s new book returns to the traditional roots she mined for At My Mother`s Door. Now in The Wedding Reels she has gone more to the heart of the moments of grief and doubt that we so often carry alone, and for which we rarely have the words. Eventually, love does abide, and her loyalty to place shines through even the darkest moments life can offer. This is the intimate poetry of the storyteller — frank, clear, unforgettable.“Joyce Rankin`s The Wedding Reels is a collection of poetry whose subjects are as local as a square dance, whose themes are as universal as life itself.” — Frank Macdonald, author of A Forest for Calum.Poet George Elliott Clarke called Joyce Rankin`s best-selling first book “a hymn of survival and settlement.”
-
Wake of the Aspy A Novel of Northern Cape Breton
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95Teeming with life and remembrance, Wake of the Aspy is a novel of family, passion, and the beauty of memory’s heart.The coastal steamer Aspy connected northern Cape Breton to the world. It was a lifeline, an escape route, and a threat to the old ways. Rooted in a woman’s hard-won independence, Stewart Donovan’s terrific, often hilarious storytelling—the sounds and rhythm and acid wit of daily life—faces with vitality the local life and its encounters with government and a tourism future. Despite expropriations, war, cutbacks and social injustice aimed at driving them out, these are survivors you still might be lucky enough to meet Down North.
-
Yankees at Louisbourg The Story of the First Siege, 1745
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95“The best and fullest account of the first siege of Louisbourg,” wrote historian W.S. MacNutt. The reader is there for the planning and the rabble-rousing and the day-by-day details of this essential event in Canadian history and in Americanconsciousness. L.E. DeForest called “the capture of Louisbourg in 1745 the most important military achievement of the American Colonists prior to the War of the Revolution.” Told in considerable depth and detail, this extremely readable book accounts for and describes that colonial achievement, and George Rawlyk’s telling is considered the most complete and best book on the subject.“An excellent, fair, comprehensive history of the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg.” — Goodreads
-
God’s Country Cape Breton Stories, Classic and Rare
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95Cape Breton Island continues to earn its place at the table of Canadian literature. God’s Country offers an essential collection of classic stories that helped build that award-winning reputation, as well as several rare and harder-to-find stories that maintain the growing respect while pointing toward future literary achievements. This is a lasting book that works for both bedside reading and the high school and university classroom. In God’s Country you’ll find stories by Alistair MacLeod, Joan Clark, Lynn Coady, D.R. MacDonald, Silver Donald Cameron, D.C. Troicuk, Sheldon Currie and many more — gathered under one rich and attractive roof. And these classic writers are only some of the authors this new volume has to share.
-
Cape Breton Book of the Night (Expanded Edition) Tales of Tenderness and Terror
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$18.95THE EXPANDED EDITION from over 25 years of Cape Breton’s Magazine. This book offers a tough, caring presentation of extraordinary experience.
-
-
Celtic Colours
Artist: Murdock SmithPublisher: Breton Books$18.95The first book about celtic colours, 10 Nights Without Sleep is an insider’s years of adventure with the Cape Breton’s festival that has won the world’s praise. Both a history and an intense personal memoir, the reader rides on Dave Mahalik’s shoulder as he discovers the joy of driving some of the finest Celtic musicians around Cape Breton through full-blown autumn colours. One huge musical party, year after year, both onstage and at the nightly Festival Club where the music that stretchses to dawn and beyond — into days that end thrilled, exhausted and with breakfas before bedt. And Dave really takes you along.
-
Cape Breton Highlands National Park
Publisher: Breton Books$18.9544 EXCELLENT HIKES! NEW TRAILS! Adventures in hiking, skiing, kayaking-quirks of wildlife-affectionate appreciation of our National Park’s natural beauty-all make for entertaining and informative reading from a legendary outdoorsman, who has rewalked and updated all 44 trails. A good storyteller and retired Park warden, he weaves his adventures into facts about flora and fauna, geology and weather-and where along the road to see the evidence. Much more than a guide-for both hikers and armchair travellers!
-
Cape Breton’s Christmas A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95FROM THE HEART OF CAPE BRETON, Christmas radiates through stories by Beatrice MacNeil, Hugh MacLennan, Tessie Gillis, Paul MacDougall, Marie Battiste, Wanda Robson, Rita Joe, Ellison Robertson, and many more. From the Christmas tree in the coal mines to a community roasting turkeys at Bernie’s Bakery; from Christmas wrecked to Christmas saved, and Christmas far from home. Cape Breton’s Christmas is a family keeper — for anyone who loves wit, celebration and the generosity of Maritimes life.
-
Silver Dart The Story of J.A.D. McCurdy, Canada’s First Pilot and the First Airplane
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95A WARM, ENTHUSIASTIC AND ENTERTAINING biography of the fearless pioneer pilot who flew Canada into the Aviation Era when his Silver Dart lifted off lake ice in Baddeck, February 23, 1909. The story of the Aerial Experiment Association — four young men around Alexander Graham Bell — that developed and flew the flimsy planes that became the legendary Silver Dart. A story of companionship, invention and courage, as Canadian aviation was born in Cape Breton Island.
-
Cape Bretoners in the First World War In Their Own Words
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95IN THEIR OWN WORDS, rare conversations with survivors of World War One are the heart of these stories, letters, and vivid news accounts of Cape Breton’s participation. From enlistment and training to trench warfare, an intimate account from soldiers and nurses who dared to serve. Much more than Cape Breton, it speaks for Canada’s Great War soldiers — their patriotism and desire for adventure, victories and tragedies, and their scars — beautifully shared in this remarkable compilation.
-
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 2
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95On the heels of the best-selling Book One, Cape Breton’s Christmas — Book Two is a rich collection of stories and memories from nearly fifty Cape Bretoners, including Clive Doucet, Jess Bond and Sheldon Currie. From a Christmas tree in the coal mine to Christmas on the battlefield, from joyous memories to reminders that break the heart, celebrations in Cape Breton and far from home — Cape Breton’s Christmas—Book Two is a gift of the season’s renewal and the island’s generosity and strength.
-
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.
-
Local Hero 20 New Short Stories from Cape Breton Island
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$18.95This superb collection introduces Carmel Mikol and Hector MacNeil and Sue McKay Miller within a solid blend of noted writers including Carol Bruneau, Clive Doucet and Maureen Hull. From country life to city, on Cape Breton Island and away, here are Tim Vassallo and Leacock Award winner Bill Conall, Teresa O’Brien, Ellison Robertson and the comic genius of Julie Curwin and Larry Gibbons. Victor Sakalauskas and Dave Doucette portray children in harrowing, breathtaking circumstances, and the realism of D.C. Troicuk, Joyce Rankin, Ruth Schneider, David Muise, and Jigs Gardner deliver exquisite stories from life. Poignant, comic, powerful and heart-wrenching, Local Hero is marvelous evidence of Cape Breton’s place inlasting Canadian literature.
-
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book Three A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Once again, the heart of Cape Breton radiates through in the all-new Book Three of Cape Breton’s Christmas — another lasting collection of Cape Breton memories and stories, including tales of compassion, hilarious events, touching family gatherings and Christmas far from home — plus memories of the sacrifices that made the holidays work. For anyone who loves wit, celebration and the generosity of Maritimes life — these are stories to be read again and again.
-
Dieppe Canada’s Forgotten Heroes
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95Gripping in its intensity, this 75th Anniversary edition of the 1942 Canadian raid on a well-fortified German-held French town with fairness, eloquence, and compassionate detail. Mellor fought at Dieppe, and puts the reader in landing craft and on the beaches with individual Canadians who formed the bulk of the attackers. He follows survivors into P.O.W. camps, where courageous leadership and successful tunnel escapes sustained men for three long years. Terrific reading!
-
The Cape Breton Summertime Revue
Publisher: Breton Books$14.00Through Ron Caplan’s lively and revealing conversations, Mac MacDonald, Bette MacDonald [Mary Morrison!], Maynard Morrison [Cecel!], Leon Dubinsky, Gerald Taylor and Stephen MacDonald share the history and day-to-day work that created Cape Breton’s beloved stage performances of unforgettable song and outrageous comedy. The Cape Breton Summertime Revue takes you to the heart of ten years of a Cape Breton Classic. Warren Gordon’s terrific photographs are worth the price of the book.
-
Women of Courage 15 Cape Breton Lives, In Their Own Words
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Women’s lives and accomplishments are so often private and rarely shared. Women of Courage offers intimate interviews with fifteen ordinary women whose lives leap with energy, humour, pathos, and power. Hard work, high spirits and abiding love are the threads through their unforgettable lives. Rita Joe, Clara Buffett, Katie Margaret Gillis, Hattie Carmichael, Lexie O’Hare and many more. These spoken lives are reminders of the thousands of women who have been the fundamental underpinning of Cape Breton Island.
-
Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 4
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95The Cape Breton’s Christmas series has become an annual holiday joy! This fourth collection continues to mine the memories and stories of Christmas experiences on this remarkable island. From humorous events to heartbreaking memories, these stories from the heart of Cape Breton keep Christmas alive all year long. And once again, ten percent of all sales from Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 4 will be donated to Feed Nova Scotia. An extra reason to enjoy this long-lasting gift for home and friends.
