Best of
Canada

1995

Dance Me to the End of Love


Leonard Cohen - 1995
    Now for its 10-year anniversary, Welcome is thrilled to present the entirely re-imagined and redesigned Dance Me to the End of Love. With the art of Matisse and the words of Cohen still at the heart of the book, the new look and feel of this Art & Poetry book is overwhelmingly beautiful. Cohen's song is a lyrical tribute to the miracle of love, the grace it bestows on us and its healing, restorative power. Originally recorded on his Various Positions album, and featured in Cohen's anthology, Stranger Music, this poetic song is gloriously married to the art works by Henri Matisse, perhaps the greatest artist of the twentieth century. "I had this dance within me for a long time," Matisse once said in describing one of his murals. Dance Me to the End of Love is the perfect book for art lovers, song lovers, and all other lovers as well.

Stories from the Vinyl Cafe


Stuart McLean - 1995
    The collection features Canada's much-loved fictional family: Dave, Morley, Stephanie and Sam. Stories from the Vinyl Cafe also introduces a host of other wonderfully imagined characters, such as Margaret Dwyer, a suburban housewife who startles herself by shoplifting a pepperoni sausage, and Flora Perriton, who is consumed with thoughts of lost opportunities when an old friend passes away. Then there's Ed, who-overcome by the death of his favourite rock star-embarks on a pilgrimage to New York City to meet the singer's widow.As always, the stories in this rewarding and irreverent collection prove that Stuart McLean is indeed a national treasure.

Death is of Vital Importance: On Life, Death, and Life After Death


Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - 1995
    Including case histories and stories, the book recounts such events as her mother's death, and her own near-death experience and epiphany of cosmic consciousness.

Híbýli vindanna


Böðvar Guðmundsson - 1995
    Guðmundsson brings together past and present in this tragic story of the historic journey to Nýja Ísland, the world's largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland.

The Guns of Normandy: A Soldier's Eye View, France 1944


George Blackburn - 1995
    In what was a relatively small area, both sides bombarded each other relentlessly for three months, each trying to overwhelm the other by sheer fire power.The Guns of Normandy puts the reader in the front lines of this horrific battle. In the most graphic and authentic detail, it brings to life every aspect of a soldier’s existence, from the mortal terror of impending destruction, to the unending fatigue, to the giddy exhilaration at finding oneself still, inexplicably, alive.The story of this crucial battle opens in England, as the 4th Field Regiment receives news that something big is happening in France and that after long years of training they are finally going into action. The troop ships set out from besieged London and arrive at the D-Day beaches in the appalling aftermath of the landing.What follows is the most harrowing and realistic account of what it is like to be in action, as the very lead man in the attack: an artillery observer calling in fire on enemy positions. The story unfolds in the present tense, giving the uncomfortably real sense that “You are here.”The conditions under which the troops had to exist were horrific. There was near-constant terror of being hit by incoming shells; prolonged lack of sleep; boredom; weakness from dysentery; sudden and gruesome deaths of close friends; and severe physical privation and mental anguish. And in the face of all this, men were called upon to perform heroic acts of bravery and they did. Blackburn provides genuine insight to the nature of military service for the average Canadian soldier in the Second World War – something that is all too often lacking in the accounts of armchair historians and television journalists. The result is a classic account of war at the sharp end.From the Hardcover edition.

Reluctant Pioneer: How I Survived Five Years in the Canadian Bush


Thomas Osborne - 1995
    The view 16-year-old Thomas Osborne first had of Muskoka was at night, trudging alone with his even younger brother along unmarked primitive roads to find their luckless father who, in 1875, had decided to make a new start for his beleaguered family on some "free land" in the bush east of the pioneer village of Huntsville, Ontario. The miracle is that Thomas lived to tell the tale.For the next five years Thomas endured starvation, falling through the ice and freezing, accidents with axes and boats, and narrow escapes from wolves and bears. Many years later, after returning to the United States, Osborne wrote down all his adventures in a graphic memoir that has become, in the words of author and journalist Roy MacGregor, "an undiscovered Canadian classic."Reluctant Pioneer provides a brooding sense of adventure and un- sentimental realism to deliver a powerful account of pioneer life where tragedies arrive as naturally as rain and where humour resides in irony.

Northern Dancer: The Legend And His Legacy


Muriel Lennox - 1995
    . . . I think the way Muriel Lennox tells the story--going behind the scenes and focusing on the horses--will give everyone a clear picture, not only of how special Northern Dancer actually was, but of all the obstacles he had to overcome".--Ron Turcotte, jockey. "For me Northern Dancer was the epitome, the dream of those of us blessed with a love of horses".--Omar Sharif.

Stompin' Tom: Before the Fame


Stompin' Tom Connors - 1995
    

The Piano Man's Daughter


Timothy Findley - 1995
    Lily is a woman pursued by her own demons, "making off with the matches just when the fires caught hold," "a beautiful, mad genius, first introduced to us singing in her mother's belly." It is also the tale of people who dream in songs, two Irish immigrant families facing a new and uncertain future in turn-of-the-century Toronto. Finally, it is a richly detailed tribute to a golden epoch in our history and of a generation striking the last, haunting chord of innocence.The Piano Man's Daughter is a symphony of wonderful storytelling, unforgettable characters, and a lilting, lingering melody that plays on long after the last page has been turned.

Native Plant Stories


Joseph Bruchac - 1995
    These mythical stories draw upon legends from eighteen Native American tribes and illustrate the importance of plant life in Native American traditions.

Chretien: The Will To Win Volume 1


Lawrence Martin - 1995
    

American Woman: The Story of the Guess Who


John Einarson - 1995
    [music]

Prisoners of the North


Pierre Berton - 1995
    Prisoners of the North tells the extraordinary stories of five inspiring and controversial characters whose adventures in Canada’s frozen wilderness are no less fascinating today than they were a hundred years ago.We meet Joseph Boyle, the self-made millionaire gold prospector from Woodstock, Ontario, who went off to the Great War with the word “Yukon” inscribed on his shoulder straps, and solid-gold maple-leaf lapel badges. There he survived several scrapes with rogue Bolsheviks, earned the admiration of Trotsky, saved Romania from the advancing Germans, and entered into a passionate affair with its queen.We meet Vilhjalmur Steffansson, who knew every corner of the Canadian North better than any explorer. His claim to have discovered a tribe of “Blond Eskimos” brought him world-wide attention and landed him in controversy that would dog him the rest of his life.There is John Hornby, the eccentric public-school Englishman so enthralled with the Barren Grounds where he lived that he finally starved to death there with the two young men who had joined his adventures.Berton gives us a riveting account of the contradictory life of Robert Service — a world-famous poet whose self-effacement was completely at odds with his public persona.And we meet the extraordinary Lady Jane Franklin, who belied every last stereotype about Victorian women with her immense determination, energy, and sense of adventure. She travelled more widely than even her famous explorer husband, Sir John. And her indefatigable efforts to find him after his disappearance were legendary.A Yukoner himself, Berton weaves these tales of courage, fortitude, and reckless lust for adventure with a love for Canada’s harsh north. With his sharp eye for detail and faultless ear for a good story, Pierre Berton shows once again why he is Canada’s favourite historian.From the Hardcover edition.

Voices of the Plains Cree


Edward Ahenakew - 1995
    Chief Thunderchild's stories of a fierce and vanished freedom are reprinted here as he told them to Edward Ahenakew in 1923.

Selected Poems: Émile Nelligan


Émile Nelligan - 1995
    The impact of this great writer’s work and his distinction as being the first Canadian writer to be influenced by Baudelaire and Rimbaud make this collection a vital contribution to the international understanding of Quebecois literary history.

The Donnelly Album: The Complete and Authentic Account of Canada's Famous Feuding Family


Ray Fazakas - 1995
    Arriving from Tipperary, Ireland in the 1840s, the family settled in the boisterous pioneer community near London, Ontario. For the next 30 years, their activities gained wide notoriety in the area. James was convicted of murder but escaped the gallows. The sons grew up to be handsome, reckless, enterprising in business and very dangerous in combat.What is it about The Donnellys that still fascinates people? Were they really as evil as their enemies portrayed them? Why was no one ever convicted of their murders? What happened to the surviving Donnellys? And why do local people still feel strongly, taking sides for or against the family?After 15 years of exhaustive research, lawyer Ray Fazakas has produced the definitive account of the famous feud and its tragic consequences. He has also collected an astonishing treasure trove of old photographs, period drawings, maps and documents, showing the Donnellys, their murderers and the sites and people involved.This unique combination of narrative and illustration recreates an epic tragedy of frontier life.

Going Inside: A Couple's Journey of Renewal into the North


Alan S. Kesselheim - 1995
    They escape on a year-long canoeing expedition. They begin paddling at Grand Cache, Alberta, on the Smoky River. Following old fur-trade routes, they travel northeast, to the far end of Lake Athabaska. Their first summer's paddling done, they dig in for a long, lonely winter in a tiny cabin in a deserted fishing camp. It is here that Marypat discovers, against all expectations, that she is pregnant. When the thaw comes, they resolve to press on into the Northwest Territories, north of the tree line and beyond the reach of medical help, to try to reach Baker Lake - although, assuming all goes well, Marypat will be heavily pregnant by the time they reach their destination ... The heart of Going Inside is not the adventure of white-water rapids or the ferocious storms and numbing cold, but rather Alan Kesselheim's deep joy at the beauty and healing power of the natural world - discovering fresh wolf tracks, looking an otter in the face, observing the ever-changing character of a river each day, seeing the slow stirring of the natural world as the hard grip of a northern winter begins to ease. In this environment, what seemed important back in civilization becomes trivial, and the natural cycle, so easily ignored when insulated by modern living, becomes profound.

Whisky and Ice: The Saga of Ben Kerr, Canada's Most Daring Rumrunner


C.W. Hunt - 1995
    Coast Guard put him at the top of the most-wanted list and offered a reward of $5,000. But ending up in Club Fed was not Kerr’s only worry - he had to contend with Hamilton crime lords Rocco and Bessie Perri.Whisky and Ice takes the reader back to the Prohibition era, when Canada and the United States were obsessed with "demon liquor" (not to mention the endless posturing by politicians). As Hunt aptly writes, the U.S. during Porhibition "was about as dry as the mud flats of the Mississippi at high tide."

Henry And The Cow Problem (Annikins)


Iona Whishaw - 1995
    Each book measures 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" and contains full color pages. Individual titles available in quantities of 20s only.

All Possible Worlds: Utopian Experiments in British Columbia


Justine Brown - 1995
    Indeed, utopian experiments started springing up soon after the first European explorers passed through.In All Possible Worlds, Justine Brown explores the attraction BC holds for utopian thinkers. She tells the stories of some of their idealistic communities: Metlakatla; Sointula; the Doukhobor towns in the Kootenays; the strange empires of Brother Twelve and other Gulf Island messiahs; the artist and hippie communes of the Sixties and Seventies; and much more.

The Original Jesus: The Buddhist Sources of Christianity


Elmar R. Grüber - 1995
    In this book, the authors of The Jesus Conspiracy explore the connections between Buddhist missionaries in the Holy Land and the origins of Christianity.

French Fun: The Real Spoken Language of Québec


Steve Timmins - 1995
    Consists of words that are helpful in understanding everyday situations or for communicating on a more intimate level. The entries are listed in dictionary form for easy reading of common Quebecois words.

A Likely Story


Robert Kroetsch - 1995
    With incisive wit, humor and penetrating insight, Robert Kroetsch follows the events of his life, both real and literary, that have moved him from the bareness of desk and computer into the secret places at the heart of the writing experience. Throughout this chronicle, he toys ironically with the notion that he ceases to be himself when he writes, that writing allows him to escape from the confines of self into exciting varieties of the essay, story and poem.A Likely Story records in loving detail that escape. It is a remarkable assemblage of confessional personal essays, one of the principal elegiac poems of out time, a cowboy poem and speculative pieces that defy literary classification. Through them all Robert Kroetsch enters the landscape of recollection, discovery, delight, self-deception, play, grief and revelation, and through them all he insists with customary boldness: I am attempting to write an autobiography in which I do not appear.

Attack on Montreal : Battles of the War of 1812


Pierre Berton - 1995
    A series of accessible, fast-paced non-fiction narratives aimed at pre-teen and young teenage readersPierre Berton, Canada's leading popular historian, vividly recreates the conflicts and events that helped forge Canada into a nation separate from the United States.

Age of Secrets: The Conspiracy That Toppled Richard Nixon and the Hidden Death of Howard Hughes


Gerald Bellett - 1995
    

Raven's Village: The Myths, Arts and Traditions of Native People from the Pacific Northwest Coast


Canadian Museum Of Civilization - 1995
    The stories that surround the human, animal and supernatural figures that appear on Native totem poles, in housefront paintings, and in sculptures are vividly retold and interpreted according to their symbolic meaning.Six cultural groups are represented--the Coast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Central Coast, Nuxalk, Haida, and Tsimshian. The book also describes an archaeological dig representing over 5,000 years of Native habitation, and illustrating many cultural traditions that continue toind expression in the modern world.

The Kids Canadian Tree Book


Pamela Hickman - 1995
    Trees provide food and shelter for local wildlife. But how can children learn about the trees in their neighborhood? And how can they find out about the trees in other parts of Canada? This book in the Kids Canadian Nature Series contains large pictures, hands-on activities and accessible information to help children learn about trees in Canada. Each page is packed with fascinating facts that will stimulate the interest of young nature enthusiasts.