The Ted Barris Interview: Part II
Here is part II of my interview with Ted Barris. This interview has been edited for length and for clarity.
WWI
War among the Clouds: New Brunswick Airmen in the Great War by J. Brent Wilson
Aviation was still in its infancy at the outbreak of the First World War. The Wright brothers had made their first successful flight only a decade earlier in 1903, and few people had ever seen, let alone flown in, an airplane. But that did not stop hundreds of New Brunswick men from enlisting with the British air services during the war.
Girl Takes Drastic Step!: How Molly Lamb Bobak Became Canada’s First Official Woman War Artist, written by Jillian Dobson and illustrated by Genevieve Simms
When Molly Lamb Bobak enlisted in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC), in November of 1942, she had become part of the nascent women’s divisions in the Canadian military. In WWI and at the beginning of WWII, women serving in the military were limited to positions as nurses, but in the summer of 1941 that all changed; the three branches of the Canadian military each created a women’s division in which women were trained for non-combatant roles, including clerical and administrative services, food services, and trades work. Molly joined more than 50,000 Canadian women, serving at home and abroad in order to help turn the tide of war.
The John MacLachlan Gray Interview
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author John MacLachlan Gray about his most recent book, Mr. Good-Evening, the third book in his Raincoast Noir series.
The Roosting Box: Rebuilding the Body After the First World War by Kristen den Hartog
A trickle that began in 1915
turned to a flood of soldiers returning to Canada needing care for their often-devastating injuries:
missing limbs, ravaged lungs, faces and minds destroyed. Many of them ended up at Toronto’s
newly opened Christie Street hospital, also known as the Dominion Orthopedic Hospital (DOH).
In Perpetuity by James Rowinski
In Perpetuity brings together the biographies of 110 soldiers from the Fredericton area who died from service during the First World War.
The River Twice by John Bemrose
John Bemrose draws readers in and won’t let them go until the last page of this astonishingly lyrical and deeply humane novel.
The Porcelain Moon: A Novel of France, the Great War, and Forbidden Love by Janie Chang
Set against the little-known history of the 140,000 Chinese workers who were brought to Europe as non-combatant labour during WWI, The Porcelain Moon is a tale of forbidden love, identity and belonging, and what we are willing to risk for freedom.
Life Savers and Body Snatchers by Dr. Tim Cook
From Tim Cook, Canada’s top war historian, comes a definitive medical history of the Great War.
In Our Youth by Angus Scully
In Our Youth explores the lives of thirty-two young Canadian military and civilian flyers, viewed through the medium of archival photography.
The Mystery Ships of Nova Scotia in the First World War by John N. Grant
n 1917, a small fleet of six schooners sailed from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland ports as live bait for German U-boats.
Muggins: The Life and Afterlife of a Canadian Canine War Hero by Grant Hayter-Menzies
The unusual and moving tale of Muggins, a famed fundraising dog who became a mascot of the Canadian Red Cross during the First World War.
Amid the Splintered Trees by Heather McBriarty
A sweeping novel of the Canadian experience in the First World War, Amid the Splintered Trees is loosely based on author Heather McBriarty’s own family history.
A Canadian Nurse in the Great War: The Diaries of Ruth Loggie, 1915-1916 Edited by Ross Hebb
A Canadian Nurse in the Great War grants a peek, through the diary of Ruth Loggie, into a little-known moment of our history. It also offers a glimpse into forbidden territory-women at war.
The History of Rain by Stephens Gerard Malone
Literary historical fiction set in a war-torn Europe and glamourous Old Hollywood, following a lonely landscape gardener, from author of Big Town and I Still Have a Suitcase in Berlin.
