In 1971, Harry Bruce, recognized as one of Canada’s top non-fiction writers, lost his mind—according to his peers—when he left bustling, lucrative Toronto and moved his family to the tough little seaport of Halifax. Harry was already acquainted with Halifax; at eighteen, he lived at HMCS Stadacona as an officer-cadet in the Royal Canadian Navy. He joined the navy chiefly to lose his virginity.…
I’ve just spent some quiet time poring over Planet Digby, and I had to keep telling my brain I was looking at photographs and not paintings. The collection of images – photographs of reflections of fishing boat hulls in Digby harbour – is complemented by a selection of poetry and even Biblical passages. Together, the photos and poems act as a commentary on the Earth, its ecological changes and humankind’s relationship with the two.…
Historical non-fiction can sometimes present itself as a stained parchment paper timeline of facts, the kind that is best saved for a game of trivia or a college term paper. Other times, it can deliver as a timely, fascinating excursion. In this case, Daring, Devious, and Deadly is definitely the latter as an easy, must-read work. Author Dean Jobb does an extraordinary job of winding several notorious, landmark cases in Nova Scotian history into a book that should be on every Canadian History bookstore shelf.…
As the Black Lives Matter movement advances, there have been many, many new books released focussing on the history of slavery, segregation and outright racism that existed and still exists in Canada. This is particularly true in Atlantic Canada where many former slaves and black Loyalists sought freedom and new lives, only to face the same issues they were escaping from in the Thirteen Colonies.…
Early on a May morning, a young Nova Scotia woman straps on a small backpack and leaves the Halifax Common to start her journey along the coastal roads of Nova Scotia. Planning to cover almost a marathon a day, she will walk the perimeter of the entire province in just under three months to raise awareness for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Brigadoon Children’s Camp Society.…
What does it mean, to do the wrong thing for the right reasons? 16-year-old Winnie, the self-reliant narrator of Deborah Hemming’s taut novel Throw Down Your Shadows, is about to learn that painful lesson.
It’s summer, 2005. Winnie lives with her artist mother, Ruth, in Gaspereau, a small rural community next door to Wolfville, in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, wine and apple country.…
Reading a novel by Lesley Cynthia Crewe is like covering yourself in an old quilt. You know you can settle in and get cozy, wrap yourself in the words and let the characters and their memories keep you company as you read.
Emmeline Darling, the book’s main character, revisits her past as she reads aloud from her memoir at a writing class she takes in her retirement years.…
Lesley Choyce has been a mainstay on the Atlantic Canadian literary scene for decades. The author of 100 books, he has written and published in every genre imaginable. He has won and been shortlisted for numerous regional and national literary awards, operates a publishing house, held teaching positions at Dalhousie University and other institutions, and worked as a television presenter. He is an environmentalist, a humanitarian, a surfer, a husband and father, and a tireless advocate for Atlantic Canadian writing and writers.…
A Forest for Calum takes place in the 1950s and 60s rural Cape Breton. Many of the men and fathers around are war veterans; Roddie’s father was a casualty. His mother followed soon after. Which is how he came to be raised by his grandfather Calum.
With just the two of us, a 70-year-old man and a 6-year-old kid, conversations were pretty scarce, most of the time over the following years filled with patterns and habits.…
Blood in the Water is really the story of two men, the most apparent being that of Phillip Boudreau, the not-so-innocent victim of murder, the other being that of the book’s author, the late Silver Donald Cameron. While it certainly would not have been the author’s wish that this book would be published posthumously, it has nevertheless drawn even more attention since the active mind of this wonderful gentleman is now at rest.…
Spending two weeks in the “isolation room.” Standing inside a closet as punishment. Being tied into bed at night. These are some of the memories shared by former residents of the Halifax Protestant Orphans’ Home in award-winning journalist Lois Legge’s Wounded Hearts: Memories of the Halifax Protestant Orphans’ Home.
In addition to inserting snippets of sociological context, Legge provides the reader with basic facts about the Home and its inception.…
Rosalie Osmond’s second novel, Broken Symmetry, centres on the Wentzell family. The events unfold from 1943 to 1959 and mostly occur in their shared family home in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. When the novel opens, sisters Emma and Virtue are married to two brothers, Nathan and Obadiah. The men own a small barbershop together which sits next to the shared house. The hundred-year-old home was originally designed by a sea captain “centred on the eternal rather than temporal reward.”…
Lillian Burke is not a household name. If Edward M. Langille, author of The Lillian Burke Story, had his way, that would change. Artist, reconstruction therapist, musician, teacher—American-born Burke was all of these. Though Burke lived the bulk of her life in the United States, she also had a Canadian connection. This came through Elsie Grosvenor, Alexander Graham Bell’s eldest daughter.…
year 2020 marks 265 years since the Acadian Expulsion (Le Grande Dérangement) in 1755. Unfortunately, the outbreak of Covid-19 will likely not allow Acadians to gather together to observe this milestone year. Annually, on August 15th (the actual day of the start of the deportations), Acadians the world over observe their overcoming of the cultural genocide enacted upon them by the British.…
illness. It would appear that the mental illness trope never seems to wear out. Is it because we who are able are fascinated by those with a mental disability? Or do we see more than a few of our own thoughts and mis/perceptions in the bringing to light the depths of madness the human brain is capable of? Whatever the reason, I never tire of seeing how an author — using fiction — unravels the tangled up thoughts of a mentally ill person.…
