Independent Book Reviews for Independent Readers
Towards the end of Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s enthralling memoir-like journey of discovery Following the River: Traces of Red River Women (2017, Wolsak & Wynn), she states:
“When we consider countless horrors in the world, innumerable disasters and catastrophes, a ship consumed by fire on a late summer night is but only one. Unremarkable, yet its dark stroke colours lives for generations.”
The ship in question was the SS Premier, a ship that plied the waters of Lake Winnipeg, carrying people and cargo south to north, north to south.… Continue reading
According to the Diabetes Canada website, there are 11 million Canadians living with diabetes or prediabetes. Every three minutes, another Canadian is diagnosed. For the James Bay Cree living in the territory of Eeyou Istchee in Northern Quebec, “fully one-third of the adults have been diagnosed with type 2 or gestational diabetes and more remain undiagnosed.”
The Sweet Bloods of Eeyou Istchee was produced by creehealth.org in order to educate and inform the Cree and other Indigenous peoples of the dangers of eating too much of the wrong foods
and not getting enough exercise.… Continue reading
Woodstock, New Brunswick’s Chapel Street Editions must be one of this province’s best-kept publishing secrets. I found out about them quite by accident when another author mentioned one of their books they recently read (the novel Taapoategl & Pallet, which I plan to read soon).
Edwin Tappan Adney is a name well-known to New Brunswickers, particularly in and around the town of Woodstock, which borders on Maine in the central-west area of the province.… Continue reading
Silver Donald Cameron is one of Canada’s most versatile and experienced professional authors and is the host and executive producer of TheGreenInterview.com, a subscription-based website with interviews (100 and counting!) of people from all parts of the globe and with every type of background imaginable. Mr. Cameron believes that “this is the most important work I’ve ever done — and this is my 18th book!” Out of those interviews came Warrior Lawyers, which includes 15 interviews with lawyers helping environmentalist groups and individuals navigate the law in order to help save the earth.… Continue reading
to The Last Beothuk (2017, Flanker Press), Mr Collins’ last book was Desperation: The Queen of Swansea (2016, Flanker Press), which won a “The Very Best!” Book Award in the Historical Fiction category for that year. At the time, I posited that Mr Collins was at the top of his storytelling game. One could only guess what his next subject might be! Well, we didn’t have to wait long, for we have the finished product from Flanker Press on the shelves now.… Continue reading
Canadian author David Cozac was born and raised in Toronto. He works for the United Nations. In the past, he worked for several human rights organizations, including PEN Canada and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
Finishing the Road (2017, Tightrope Books) is Mr Cozac’s debut novel and it certainly augurs well for any future books he may pen. Set in Guatemala in the closing years of its Civil War (1960-1999), it involves three principal characters: Marc, a young man from Toronto who is in the country to learn Spanish, Sixteen-year-old Magdalena and her younger brother Jacinto, Ixil people now living in Guatemala City whose father was taken away by the military, and whose mother died while they were hiding from government troops in the jungle, and Claire, a French journalist who has recently learned of her Guatemalan father and has traveled to the country to meet him for the first time.… Continue reading
-winning author Jon Tattrie, whose most recent book, Redemption Songs (2016, Potterfield Press) was about the history of Black Africans in North America, has turned his attention to one of the most prominent First Nations personages, Daniel N. Paul, Mi’kmaw Elder.
Mr Paul is himself an author of several books, in particular the popular We Were Not the Savages (2006, Fernwood Publishing) now in it’s third printing.… Continue reading
