NON-FICTION BOOKS

Title: Training Aces: Canada's Air Training During the First World War

Author: Peter C. Conrad

Genre: Non-Fiction/Canadian History

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 232 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310146

Price: $24.95



When the First World War broke out, little was known about aviation. Even less was known about using the biplane as a new weapon. Training Aces chronicles the development of military aviation in Canada that began in the years before the war when early flight experiments were made by the Canadians and Americans, including Alexander Graham Bell, William Wallace Gibson, John Douglas McCurdy, William McMullen, Glenn H. Curtiss, and William Straith. This book portrays the important role that Canada played in the success of the air training efforts before and during the First World War, and describes the establishment of two aviation companies in Toronto and Vancouver.

Title: Defending the Inland Shores: Newfoundland in the War of 1812

Author: Gordon K. Jones

Genre: Non-Fiction/Canadian History

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 168 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310443

Price: $19.95



Defending the Inland Shores describes the significant role that the Newfoundland soldiers played in the defence of Canada during the War of 1812. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was on the front lines throughout the war, fought with honour and great courage, and experienced many casualties during military actions, such as the Battle of the Maumee, the Battle of Fort George, and the Battle of Lake Erie. This book also discusses several legendary military commanders from the War of 1812, including George Prevost, Isaac Brock, Andrew Bulger, and George Macdonell. Defending the Inland Shores tells incredible stories and recalls important events from Canadian military history.

Title: On Guard for Thee

Author: Matthew Bin

Genre: Non-Fiction/Canadian History

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 208 pp.

ISBN: 9780978379322

Price: $24.95



On Guard For Thee: Canadian Peacekeeping Missions is a collection of soldier's stories from Canadian men and women who have served overseas on UN or NATO missions from the end of the Cold War to the present day. The stories are collected directly from the individual veterans. Contributors represent virtually every major Canadian mission, including Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Cambodia, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The result is a raw, honest look at peacekeeping, from the legendary missions in Rwanda and Bosnia, to the slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to the ongoing fight in Afghanistan. The full Canadian peacekeeping experience is here, showing, from the ground level, how Canada’s international reputation was built.

Title: Elizabeth Simcoe's Canadian Journey

Authors: Ellen McIntosh-Green

Genre: Non-Fiction/Canadian History

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 88 pp.

ISBN: 9780978439538

Price: $16.95

Elizabeth Simcoe was a privileged, upper class, English gentlewoman who married Upper Canada’s first Lt. Governor John Graves Simcoe. A true product of her time, Elizabeth developed a passion for the “untamed world” which eventually brought her to the wilds of Canada in the years between 1791 and 1796 on a journey which today seems unbelievable. The book gives a fascinating picture of not only the woman behind the man who helped to build southern Ontario but also of life itself in the province at that time. The story of Elizabeth Simcoe’s Canadian journey is a triumph and a tragedy, an inspiration to all Canadians.

Title: Adventures with Camera and Pen

Author: Anthony Dalton

Genre: Non-Fiction/Adventures

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 240 pp.

ISBN: 9780978439521

Price: $24.95



Adventures with Camera and Pen is a collection of tales from Anthony Dalton ’s nomadic life as an adventurer and photo-journalist. The stories run the gamut from searching for Polar bears on the shores of Hudson Bay through mountain climbing in Western Canada to tracking Royal Bengal tigers in Bangladesh jungle. They depict Dalton’s often hilarious encounters with an eclectic variety of wildlife in the Canadian Arctic, the Falkland Islands and Namibia. As an expedition leader, he documents a difficult journey to remote salt mines in the Sahara north of Timbuktu with a CBC-TV film crew.

  

Title: The Man Who Stayed Afloat

Author: Fraser Sutherland

Genre: Non-Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 160 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956169

Price: $19.95

When a Slovenian teenager sneaked into Austria in 1956, it was the start of an epic Canadian journey. Landing penniless the next year in Toronto, young Ivan Letnik worked his way up from golf-club dishwasher to greasy-spoon proprietor. Building on success, he bought a former Detroit fire tug and turned it into a floating restaurant on the barren Toronto waterfront. But in 1981 a city excursion ferry, veering off course, rammed and sank the restaurant. It didn’t sink the man who called himself Captain John, though. Battling financial reverses, he kept dishing out clam chowder to boatloads of tourists when he wasn’t hosting an annual dinner to feed the homeless. The Man Who Stayed Afloat tells his triumphant story. 

 

Title: Taking the Ice

Author: Pj Kwong

Genre: Non-Fiction/Sports/Canadian History

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 264 pp.

ISBN: 9780978439576

Price: $25.95

Canada is synonymous with success in figure skating. Taking the Ice tells us about some of the people who have been instrumental in creating the "Ice Dynasty" that we have come to enjoy as Canadians. It all begins with the love affair between Canadians and Barbara Ann Scott, the 1948 Olympic Champion, and the book takes us right up to the stories of the Canadian Champions at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games: Patrick Chan, Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison, Olympic Bronze Medallist Joannie Rochette, and Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Taking the Ice is not just for skating fans but for everyone who loves the personal and human details in a story that connects us all.

 

Title: Lost Passport: The Life and Words of Edward Lacey

Author: Fraser Sutherland

Genre: Non-Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback, 6 x 9, 456 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956060

Price: $26.95

Edward Lacey was one of the rare North American writers who intimately knew the Third World in the latter twentieth century. A superb speaker and translator of multiple languages, he was a gifted teacher in Mexico, Trinidad, Brazil, Thailand, and Indonesia. While he was a college student in the 1950s, his poems pioneered forthrightly gay themes. No one — neither loyal friend nor newfound acquaintance — could forget this strange man: solitary yet sociable, pedantically aloof and gravely polite, a lifelong enemy of authority. A remarkable Canadian poet, Edward Lacey is among the few who are known beyond our borders.

Title: The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe

Author: John Maynard

Genre: Non-Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback, 6 x 9, 192 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956336

Price: $19.95

A first in sporting literature, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe is the largely untold story of Aboriginal involvement with the world game in Australia’s sporting history. The acceptance that Aboriginal players found within the post-World War II migrant communities had a profound impact on their lives. The multicultural environment of Australian soccer provided them with a haven from the prejudice and racism of wider Australian society. Interweaving personal stories and extensive research with links to the broader Indigenous world community, this book is a celebration of the extraordinary journey taken by Aboriginal sportsmen and women to forge the way ahead for the present crop of talented players. 



Title: Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance

Authors: Howard Pedersen and Banjo Woorunmurra

Genre: Non-Fiction

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 228 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956732

Price: $19.95

Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance is the thrilling true story of the great Aboriginal resistance fighter, Jandamarra — a legend, forever etched into the history of the Australian landscape. Set in the magnificent Kimberley outback during the late nineteenth century when the last stage of Australia’s invasion is about to be played out in the lands of the Bunuba people. Amid the ensuing chaos and turmoil, extraordinary and sometimes contradictory relationships are forged, which will reach long into the future. Jandamarra died on his own soil defending his country. He is a true Australian hero. Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance is the winner of the Western Australia Premier’s Book Award.