Best of
Canada

1983

In Search of April Raintree - Critical Edition


Beatrice Culleton - 1983
    Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind. In the end, out of tragedy, comes an unexpected legacy of triumph and reclamation.In this Critical Edition, editor Cheryl Suzack has chosen ten critical essays to accompany one of the best-known texts by Canadian Aboriginal author Beatrice Culloden/Mosionier.

Best Tales of the Yukon


Robert W. Service - 1983
    Service to the Yukon Territory. Soon, he was famous as the poet who chronicled the Klondike gold rush and the savage beauty of the frozen north. His tales of hard-bitten propectors and sourdoughs in "The Land God Forgot" make vivid, exciting reading. Here are all the brawling, colorful characters that Service immortalized, including One-Eyed Mike, Dangerous Dan McGrew, Pious Pete, Blasphemous Bill -- and, of course, the lady known as Lou.

Canada


Karla Zimmerman - 1983
    A comprehensive travel guide across Canada, with information on accommodations and restaurants, festivals and events, entertainment and shopping, and interesting tourist sites.

Marie Blythe


Howard Frank Mosher - 1983
    S. Geological Survey," according to USA Today. His "greatest gift," says the Washington Post, is "his talent for creating lively, living characters." One of his most vivid and memorable characters is Marie Blythe.At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young girl with a felicitous name immigrates to Vermont from French Canada. She grows up confronting the grim realities of life with an indomitable spirit--nursing victims of a tuberculosis epidemic, enduring a miscarriage alone in the wilderness, and coping with the uncertainties of love. In Marie Blythe, Mosher has created a strong-minded, passionate, and truly memorable heroine.

Home Game


Paul Quarrington - 1983
    Nathanael "Crybaby" Isbister was once the greatest baseball player in the world, but now he's a down-on-his-luck drifter on the road to oblivion.  That is until he wanders into a circus sideshow troupe stranded in a tiny Michigan town dominated by a hellfire-and brimstone religious sect.  The sect vows to drive the troupe out, but give them one unlikely chance to remain--the baseball game to end all baseball games.A funny, moving novel, Home Game walks the straight but delicate line between absurdity and compassion with dazzling style and expertise.

None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948


Irving Abella - 1983
    Detailing the country's refusal to offer aid, let alone sanctuary, to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1948, it is an immensely bleak and discomfiting story - and one that was largely unknown before the book's publication.Irving Abella and Harold Troper's retelling of this episode is a harrowing read not easily forgotten: its power is such that, 'a manuscript copy helped convince Ron Atkey, Minister of Employment and Immigration in Joe Clark's government, to grant 50,000 "boat people" asylum in Canada in 1979, during the Southeast Asian refugee crisis' (Robin Roger, The Literary Review of Canada). None Is Too Many will undoubtedly continue to serve as a potent reminder of the fragility of tolerance, even in a country where it is held as one of our highest values.

The Outport People


Claire Mowat - 1983
    There were no roads, no cars and no telephones. The tiny village that nestled among the rocky hills of Newfoundland's desolate southern coast had existed for generations with ancient customs and patterns of speech that still endured-while the modern world waited impatiently in the wings. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand experience-the Mowats lived in the outport community for five years-Claire Mowat has written a fictional memoir that beautifully recreates an almost vanished world. A world where life revolved tightly around the home and neighbours watched over one another. A world where one's kitchen was open to anyone who might drop in, day or night. A world that Claire Mowat grew to love.

Quebec, 1759: The Siege and the Battle


Donald H. Graves - 1983
    The dramatic battle on the Plains of Abraham not only set the course for the future of Canada; it opened the door to the independence of the American colonies some 20 years later. Stacey's account is regarded as the best ever written. This new edition contains all the text and the pictures of the previous edition, in a smart and generous new format.

In Enemy Hands: Canadian Prisoners Of War, 1939-45


Daniel G. Dancocks - 1983
    

Korea: Canada's Forgotten War


John Melady - 1983
    The heroism and sacrifice of Canadians who fought in this conflict as part of the United Nations force has often been ignored. In this lively, anecdotal book, John Melady combines archival material and interviews with many Korean veterans. The result is a vivid, intensely human account of the war from its first days, to heroic battles such as Kapyong, to fascinating and more obscure incidents such as the Koje prison camp insurrection, as well as personal stories of doctors, POWs, and journalists who witnessed the conflict, including Pierre Berton and René Lévesque. The men from across Canada who served and fought were forever changed by what they saw and experienced in this faraway land. Army, navy, air force -- all receive their share of long-overdue praise in this important book, which was originally published in 1983 but is now fully revised.

Beyond Happiness: The Intimate Memoirs of Billy Lee Belle


Peter McGehee - 1983
    Scented with gardenia and a hint of diesel exhaust. This narrative was first presented as a theater monologue and still echos some of the theatricality of its protagonist and author.

The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English


Margaret Atwood - 1983
    An impressive selection of some of the best work of Canadian poets and Atwood's brilliant introductory survey of Canadian poetry make this an excellent textbook choice.

Eagle Song


James A. Houston - 1983
    Its purposes were to replenish provisions, barter for valuable sea otter pelts and, incidentally, to obtain sexual services of the young village women.A group of rebellious Indian youths, infuriated by the arrogance and disdain of the white men, carried out a violent plan to massacre the crew and plunder the ship. Surviving the slaughter were Jewitt, the appealing and skilful ironsmith, and Thompson, the dour sailmaker. Eagle Song is the turbulent tale of their two-year captivity, seen through the eyes of Siam, a Nootkan nobleman.

Simone Weil: An Introduction to Her Thought


John Hellman - 1983
    In her brief, remarkable life she wrote a host of essays and letters and filled several notebooks with reflections. Hellman's volume sets out the single world view--with its paradoxes and its logic--which appears behind her disparate writings but which she never lived to set out formally herself. Hellman extracts the key themes in Weil's writings on Marxism, Hitlerism, factory work, history, and religion, in an effort to examine the seeming contradictions and inconsistencies in her fusion of deep spirituality and commitment to the poor and oppressed and her love-hate relationship with Roman Catholicism and Israel. The result is a synthesis of her thought as a whole, drawn principally from her varied, fragmentary writings, and seen in relation to her life and personality.