Book Review - Peace Pipe Dreams: The Truth about Lies about Indians

I've always been curious about the issues that face native peoples in Canada so was happy to pick up a copy of Peace Pipe Dreams: The Truth about Lies about Indians.

Darrell Dennis is a stereotype-busting, politically incorrect Native American/Aboriginal/Shuswap. With a large dose of humour and irreverence, he untangles some of the truths and myths about First Nations: Why do people think Natives get free trucks, and why didn’t he ever get one? Why does the length of your hair determine whether you’re good or bad? By what ratio does the amount of rain in a year depend on the amount of cactus liquor you consume?

In addition to answering these burning questions, Dennis tackles some tougher subjects. He looks at European-Native interactions in North America from the moment of first contact, discussing the fur trade, treaty-signing and the implementation of residential schools. Addressing misconceptions still widely believed today, Dennis explains why Native people aren’t genetically any more predisposed to become alcoholics than Caucasians; that Native religion doesn’t consist of worshipping rocks, disappearing into thin air, or conversing with animals; and that tax exemptions are so limited and confusing that many people don’t even bother.

Employing pop culture examples, personal anecdote and a cutting wit, Darrell Dennis deftly weaves history with current events to entertain, inform and provide a convincing, readable overview of First Nations issues and why they matter today.

Although the above description from Goodreads calls author, Darrell Dennis a native American, he actually is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter and radio personality from the Secwepemc Nation in the interior of British Columbia.

The first issue is what they are comfortable being called. According to the author:

"First Nations" is the popular term in Canada, "Native American" or "American Indian" in the US and you should stay away from plain old "Indian" in both countries... it's impossible to provide a term that all native people can be comfortable with. For example, the word "Indian" is used amongst fellow "Indians" but there will always be "Indians" who are offended by the word "Indian" even though they support their fellow "Indians" using the word "Indian". It's generally considered bad for to call an "Indian" if you yourself are not an "Indian" and that includes "Indians" from India. Got it?

The book is very well researched and Mr. Dennis says the book is meant to be a quick and dirty introduction to the truth behind the stereotypes, and one of the messages is, Don't believe everything you read about Indians.

The book is filled with humour, which makes the material sink in more. The chapters includes such topics as Native Names, Native Perceptions: The European Point of View, Native Perceptions: The North American Point of View, Natives and Alcohol, Religion & Residential Schools (the one very serious chapter in the the book with no attempts at humour), Treaties, Native Land, Native Government and The Future.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It's entertaining, informative and I think it is an important read, a book that should be read by every Canadian.

Book Review - The Twelve Days of Christmas in Canada

Some people might wonder why I read a children's book, The Twelve Days of Christmas in Canada.

When I saw Teena reading it, I had a good chuckle. Then Teena asked about something she had just read in it. Was Saskatoon Berries named after the city, or was the city named after the berries?

Hmm. I guessed wrong. Seems the city was named after the berry. Shows you can learn new facts from anywhere.

So I sat down today and gave it a read.

O Canada, in Christmastime! Come with Juliette and her "crazy Canuck cousin" as they take a holiday trip across the country, all the way from Prince Edward Island and vieux Québec to Winnipeg and Vancouver. Along the way Juliette gets really cool Canadian gifts—like 8 bears a-swimming, 6 Mounties marching, and a loon in a maple tree!

Theo is Juliette's Canadian cousin, actually he calls himself her crazy Canuck cousin, who takes Juliette on an adventure across Canada. Accompanied by a loon named Maple, they travel by car, motorcycle, train, plan and even dog sled, seeing the sights and learning facts along the way.

Yes, I admit that I learned some facts about Canada during their trip. The final part of the trip are some fun facts about Canada, such as Canada has over three million fresh water lakes, which is about 60% of the worlds lakes, and that the eastern white cedar is the slowest growing tree in the world, usually live to 200 years old, with some having lived for more than 1300 years.

It's a fun book to give to a child for Christmas.

Book Review - Tell Me to my Face

Back in the sixties, I was a big CFL fan, Hamilton Tiger Cat fan, and a huge fan of #68, Hamilton defensive lineman Angelo Mosca. When I found out recently that he had written an autobiography, Tell Me to my Face, I had to read it.

Co-written with Hamilton Spectator columnist Steve Milton, "Tell Me To My Face" is an intimate and surprising story of Mosca's journey from a hard-scrabble upbringing to playing in a record nine Grey Cups, becoming the most hated man in the CFL and wrestling as the infamous King Kong Mosca. 

The title of the book comes from the very first TV commercial he did back in the sixties. It was for Schick shavers, and he was promoting them as the smoothest shave a man can have. For the final line, he turns to the camera and says in his most menacing voice, "If you think I'm lying come and tell me (dramatic pause) to my face!" 

The book is written pretty much in the same way Mosca speaks, plain language mixed with some profanities.  I like how he doesn't go into detail about games played and bouts fought but instead tells the background of his life. It was very interesting to see how the inside of the wrestling world works.

Mosca is pretty frank about his life, including things he did that in the end he wasn't proud of.

I really enjoyed this book. The last page includes a postscript that starts, "I am fond of this story written long ago."

Every day is a gift as long as I open my eyes.

Old age is like a bank account - You can withdraw in later life what you have deposited along the way.

So my advice is to deposit all the happiness you can in your bank account of memories.

Thank you for your part in filling my account with happy memories, which I continue to fill.

My simple guidelines to happiness:

1) Free your heart from hate
2) Free your mind from wrong
3) Live simple
4) Give more
5) Expect less.

I like that. Thanks big #68!

 

Book Review - Good Mourning

A few weeks ago, Teena read Good Mourning and wrote a review on it, saying it was a good interesting book to read. It sounded interesting so I decided to read it myself.

In this funny, insightful memoir, a young socialite risks social suicide when she takes a job at a legendary funeral chapel on New York Citys Upper East Side.Good Mourning offers a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most famous funeral homes in the country where not even big money can protect you from the universal experience of grieving. It's Gossip Girl meets Six Feet Under, told from the unique perspective of a fashionista turned funeral planner.

Elizabeth Meyer stumbled upon a career in the midst of planning her own father's funeral, which she turned into an upbeat party with Rolling Stones music, thousands of dollars worth of her mother's favorite flowers, and a personalized eulogy. Starting out as a receptionist, Meyer quickly found she had a knack for helping people cope with their grief, as well as creating fitting send-offs for some of the city's most high-powered residents.

Meyer has seen it all: two women who found out their deceased husband (yes, singular) was living a double life, a famous corpse with a missing brain, and funerals that cost more than most weddings. By turns illuminating, emotional, and darkly humorous, Good Mourning is a lesson in how the human heart grieves and grows, whether you're wearing this season's couture or drug-store flip-flops.

I thought the book was fun and interesting to read. It really was two stories in one book. One is Elizabeth Meyer's issues in dealing with family, friends and co-workers after deciding to take a job at an upscale funeral home. The other is all the stories regarding the upscale clientele and some of the weirder funny, interesting stories inside the funeral business.

It is not a sad or depressing read. I really enjoyed Good Mourning and would recommend it.

Book Review - Open Heart, Open Mind by Clara Hughes

I still remember watching Clara Hughes in the Women's 5,000km event at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, pumping her legs around the final turn of the event and the Canadian announcer shouting, "and here comes CLARA HUGHES!" She crossed the finish line setting a track record. Later in the event that record would be broken twice and she walked away with the bronze medal at the age of 40.

Clara is the only athlete in the world to have won multiple medals at both the summer and winter Olympics, four for speed skating and two for cycling. Amazing!

In September I was at the Toronto launch of her new book, Open Heart, Open Mind. The title refers to advice given to her by an elder at a First Nations Brushing Off ceremony at the Squamish First Nations Reserve just before the Vancouver Olympics.

The long-awaited memoir by Canada’s most celebrated Olympian and advocate for mental health.

While most professional athletes devote their entire lives to training, Clara spent her teenage years using drugs and drinking to escape the stifling home life her alcoholic father had created in Elmwood, Winnipeg. She was headed nowhere fast when, at sixteen, she watched transfixed in her living room as gold medal speed skater Gaétan Boucher effortlessly raced in the 1988 Calgary Olympics. Dreaming of one day competing herself, Clara channeled her anger, frustration, and raw ambition into the endurance sports of speed skating and cycling. By 2010, she had become a six-time Olympic champion.

But after more than a decade in the grueling world of professional sports that stripped away her confidence and bruised her body, Clara began to realize that her physical extremes, her emotional setbacks, and her partying habits were masking a severe depression. After winning bronze in the last speed skating race of her career, she decided to retire, determined to repair herself. She has emerged as one of our most committed humanitarians, advocating for a variety of social causes both in Canada and around the world. In 2010, she became national spokesperson for Bell Canada’s Let’s Talk campaign in support of mental health awareness, using her Olympic standing to share the positive message of the power of forgiveness.

Told with honesty and passion, Open Heart, Open Mind is Clara’s personal journey through physical and mental pain to a life where love and understanding can thrive. This revelatory and inspiring story will touch the hearts of readers everywhere.

I really enjoyed her openness and honesty, which I find very unusual for an autobiography for an athlete or celebrity. She has an easy to read writing style. I found her trip from wasted teen, to world athlete, to a champion of bringing awareness to depression issues a very interesting journey. To train for world championships, and the biggest event in the world, the Olympics, while battling depression, is inspiring.

I'm really glad I went to the book launch and bought the book. One day I hope to have her autograph it for me.

This book is my fifth in the 9th Canadian Book Challenge.

Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Blackberry

I read mostly non-fiction books but very few about business. Research in Motion, now known as Blackberry, has been a fascinating stock to follow. Losing the Signal tells the story behind the company's dramatic rise and fall.

It was a classic modern business story: two Canadian entrepreneurs build an iconic brand that would forever change the way we communicate. From its humble beginnings in an office above a bagel store in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry outsmarted the global giants with an addictive smartphone that generated billions of dollars. Its devices were so ubiquitous that even President Barack Obama favoured them above all others. But just as it was emerging as the dominant global player, BlackBerry took a dramatic turn.

The Startup That Never Grew Up is the riveting, never-before-told story of one of the most spectacular technological upsets of the 21st century. Unlike Enron, which was undone by its executives’ illegal activities, or Lehman Brothers, which collapsed as part of a larger global banking crisis, BlackBerry's rise and fall is a modern-day tale of the unrelenting speed of success and failure. It is a thrilling account of how two mismatched CEOs outsmarted more-powerful competitors with a combination of innovation and sharp-elbowed tactics; and how, once on top of the world, they lost their way. The company responded too slowly to competitors' innovations, and when it finally made its move, it stumbled with delayed, poorly designed and unpopular smartphones. A little more than a decade after Research In Motion introduced the BlackBerry, it is now struggling to survive. Its share of the US phone market fell from 50 per cent in 2009 to about one percent in 2013, showing just how aggressive, fast and unforgiving today’s global business market can be.

I really enjoyed the book but found the story of the company's rise was far more interesting than its fall. The relationship between RIM founder Mike Lazaridis and its CEO Jim Balsillie was very interesting. Lazaridis was all technology while Balsillie was all about getting the product's name out in the world. They were two completely different individuals who worked well together but never hung around each other away from the office.

The book even goes into Jim Balsillie's failed attempts to buy an NHL franchise. He found all about the politic's of the NHL's team owners. No amount of money was going to let him in.

One thing that I found interesting is that both found new technology that was dismissed by their competitors, much to their delight, and they took full advantage of that.  Yet when new technology such as Smart Phones came out to challenge the Blackberry, Balsillie and Lazaridis were the first to dismiss them feeling they would never catch on. They never looked at their own company's history from the outside and it cost them.

Losing the Signal is a well-researched and well-written interesting book worth reading.

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health

A while ago I read the book Wheat Belly, a groundbreaking book that promotes the fact that wheat is bad for you.

Renowned cardiologist, William Davis, MD explains how eliminating wheat from our diets can prevent fat storage, shrink unsightly bulges, and reverse myriad health problems.

Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100 million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and high blood sugar to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls “wheat bellies.” According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It’s due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch.

After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic—and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. In Wheat Belly, Davis exposes the harmful effects of what is actually a product of genetic tinkering and agribusiness being sold to the American public as “wheat”—and provides readers with a user-friendly, step-by-step plan to navigate a new, wheat-free lifestyle.

Informed by cutting-edge science and nutrition, along with case studies from men and women who have experienced life-changing transformations in their health after waving goodbye to wheat, Wheat Belly is an illuminating look at what is truly making Americans sick and an action plan to clear our plates of this seemingly benign ingredient.

At the time, I had just spoken to my doctor about going off Janumet pills which I was taking twice a day to control my sugar and was finding that even by switching to whole wheat bread and pastas, it really didn't help much.

What I read in Wheat Belly totally made sense. Dr. Davis' argument is that this is no longer our parents' wheat that is being used in products, the wheat that was grown in the 50s and 60s all around the world. In the 1960s, geneticists managed to change the genetics of wheat being grown to increase a farmers yield. Agricultural geneticists claim was the new wheat still contained all the same properties of the old wheat. However there are extra properties added such as gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite.

The doctor also deeply stresses how carbohydrates affect blood sugar. In fact, when Canadian Dr. Fredrick Banting was researching and discovering a cure for diabetes, his original 1922 publication speaks of limiting carbs in diabetic children to just 10g per day. One slice of bread can have 25 or more!

Davis talks about a Temple University study of obese diabetics who reduced their carbs to just 21 grams per day. Not only did their blood sugar drop, but there was an average loss of 3.6 pounds per patient in just 2 weeks!

After reading this book, my glucose level was between 13 and 14. I got it down to the low 9s before summer, then got lazy. What I found was when I cut out most wheat, I never felt bloated and was less gassy. I have been eating pasta and had some buns lately and my sugar has risen and I feel bloated and gassy.

Maybe I should reread the book. I believe there are a lot of truths in Wheat Belly! I'll be writing more of my experience of getting back on track by cutting out wheat and carbs.

Book Review - The Age of Earthquakes

I was at the library this week and saw The Age of Earthquakes on the feature shelf. It's a small pocketbook size and is very strangely set up.

A highly provocative, mindbending, beautifully designed, and visionary look at the landscape of our rapidly evolving digital era.

50 years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture in The Medium is the Message, Basar, Coupland and Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that’s redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the 'extreme present'.

THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors offer five characteristics of the Extreme Present (see below); invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and ‘mindsource’ images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly’s striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It’s like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read.

Welcome to THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn’t just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it’s also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.

When first glancing through the book, it seems to involve a lot of disconnected images and statements.

Reading the book from start to finish, though, is a fascinating. I can't picture two people working on a book together let alone three, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Shumon Basa, plus thirty artists. What they managed to do is create a fast reading, thought provoking book.

It speaks to how the Internet and cell phones have shrunk the world, keeping people connected while at the same time isolating individuals. How we live longer but experience life fast. The Age of Earthquakes is a book that makes a person think.

I found an interesting interview with the three writers about their thoughts on our current technological age and where it might be taking us.

To me, this book is a necessary read for everybody!

Book Review - Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster

Until I saw the book, Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster, I had never heard of this disaster. Weeks after the stock market crash that brought in the Great Depression, an earthquake occurred deep in the ocean, 250 miles south of Newfoundland. The quake created a huge tsunami 27 metres high in some places that came roaring into the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland destroying whole communities and taking lives.

Twenty-seven dead. Staggering property losses.

Triggered by an offshore earthquake on the Grand Banks, a tsunami unleashed its fury on the coastline of the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland, killing twenty-seven people and destroying homes and fishing premises in fifty outports.

Here is the dramatic, incredible story of the South Coast Disaster of 1929, the superhuman efforts of Nurse Dorothy Cherry to save the sick and dying, and Magistrate Malcolm Hollett’s tireless campaign to rebuild shattered lives and devastated communities.

Maura Hanrahan does a great job in telling the story. She recreates some of the conversations and activities that were going on before the earthquake shook the island and the three waves came crashing in, from many interviews with the survivors.

Some of the men had been in the South Pacific during the first world war and had themselves experienced tsunamis, and tried to warn others in their villages, when they saw the water in their harbour sucked out. Some listened to their warnings and took to high ground. Others chose to ignore them as foolishness. Still others never heard them.

It is sad, horrible tragedy but as in all tragedies heroes do step forward such as Dorothy Cherry, a nurse who took to her horse traveling to community after community to tend to the sick and injured. Townspeople had to stand together as the cable, Burin's only link to the rest of the world, was cut by the earthquake. For three days the world did not know of the disaster until the SS Portia came by on a scheduled stop and radioed St. John's for help.

Although not part of Canada at the time, it's great to see that Canada was, by far, the largest contributor to the relief effort.

This book deservedly was shortlisted for the 2005 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards and won the 2005 Newfoundland and Labrador Historic Sites Heritage and History Award.

It is a piece of history, a disaster that the rest of the country should know about. This book is an excellent place to start.

Book Review - Last Man on the Moon

I was/am lucky enough to be born during the time of the great space race to the moon between Russia and the United States. Each mission was more exciting than the one before and it was such a thrill to watch Neil Armstrong be the first man to walk on the moon.

This book, The Last Man on the Moon, is the autobiography of the twelfth and last man to walk on the moon, Gene Cernan. 

Eugene Cernan is a unique American who came of age as an astronaut during the most exciting and dangerous decade of spaceflight. His career spanned the entire Gemini and Apollo programs, from being the first person to spacewalk all the way around our world to the moment when he left man's last footprint on the Moon as commander of Apollo 17.

Between those two historic events lay more adventures than an ordinary person could imagine as Cernan repeatedly put his life, his family and everything he held dear on the altar of an obsessive desire. Written with New York Times bestselling author Don Davis, this is the astronaut story never before told - about the fear, love and sacrifice demanded of the few men who dared to reach beyond the heavens for the biggest prize of all - the Moon.

It is a fascinating look back at what the NASA space program was all about, the behind the scenes politics and astronauts attempting to jockey for position to be the first to step on the moons surface.

In the book, Cernan, who had three trips in space, twice to the moon and once to land, walk and drive on it, talks about the dedication, focus and involved training involved to be prepared for a mission. He also talks about the stress it put on families being away from each other for great periods of time. What Betty Grissom said after the death of her husband, Gus, who died with two other astronauts, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, in a fire while sitting in his space capsule in a pre-launch test launch pad, says much about how much time they had to spend apart:

“I’m going to miss the phone calls. That’s mostly what I had of him. The phone calls.”

That could also describe many workaholics of which I am proud to say, I am not.

I really enjoyed this book, the style in which it was written, and the fact that Cernan never seems to cover anything up about him, or the program.

If I have one complaint, it would be that the book uses black and white photos, even on the cover. Colour pictures were taken on the moon and they would have been far more sensational to see.

Before Cernan's flight, it was declared that the moon program was canceled and this would be the last trip for sometime. The last words spoken by Cernan as he stepped off the surface of the moon for the last time?

Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future – I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.

Last Man on the Moon was written in 1999, 27 years after his moon walks. So what does he think about the fact that man has not yet returned to the moon?

Too many years have passed for me to still be the last man to have walked on the Moon. Somewhere on earth today is the young girl or boy, the possessor of indomitable will and courage, who will left that dubious honour from me and take us back out there where we belong.

I agree, Gene.

Last Man on the Moon is a terrific book written about a terrific adventure taken by human kind. I highly recommend it.

Book Review - Knight's Shadow (Greatcoats #2)

I don't read a lot of fiction but when I read Traitors Blade, the first book of a new Greatcoat's series, I knew I was hooked.

The series is set in the mythical land of Trista.  Although it is considered a fantasy, it is more true to the Three Musketeers era than to a land filled with magic and mythical creatures. Those I mostly shy away from.

The second book in the series, Knight's Shadow, came out in March of this year.

Following his beloved debut, Traitor's Blade, Sebastien de Castell returns with volume two of his fast-paced fantasy adventure series, inspired by the swashbuckling action and witty banter of The Three Musketeers. Knight's Shadow continues the series with a thrilling and dark tale of heroism and betrayal in a country crushed under the weight of its rulers' corruption.

A few days after the horrifying murder of a duke and his family, Falcio val Mond, swordsman and First Cantor of the Greatcoats, begins a deadly pursuit to capture the killer. But Falcio soon discovers his own life is in mortal danger from a poison administered as a final act of revenge by one of his deadliest enemies. As chaos and civil war begin to overtake the country, Falcio has precious little time left to stop those determined to destroy his homeland.

This is as just as good of a story as Traitor's Blade. Told from the viewpoint of Falcio (pronounced Fal-Key-oh), the author Sabastein de Castell gives great depth to all the characters in the story. I found myself really hating the evil doers, the Dashini (think evil ninjas) and the Dukes attempting to hold onto their own mini empires here and was totally engaged in Falcio's small band's desperate attempt to stop a civil war from erupting in country and putting the rightful owner of Trista's throne, Aline, a thirteen year old girl, into power.

The small group Falcio leads grows in this story from his original two Greatcoat members, Kest, the great swordsman having become the Saint of Swords in this story and Brasti, the expert, deadly accurate archer, to a small diverse band of Greatcoats, including one young woman just learning the art of battle and swordsmanship.

Knight's Shadow, originally to be called Greatcoat's Lament (both titles would work for this book), is an action-packed, violent, well-told story, full of mysteries, sword fights, battles, and intrigue, from start to finish.

According to the author's website, the first draft of Tyrant's Throne, the third in the Greatcoat series is near completion. I anxiously await its release next year.

Book Review - America's First Broken Arrow

Until recently I had never heard of the true story of how an American bomber with a live nuclear weapon aboard became lost over Canada. America's First Broken Arrow: A True Story of the Cold War, A Doomed Bomber and America's First Lost Nuclear Weapon by Canadian author Norman Leach, tells the tale.

On the eve of Valentine's Day, 1950, an American Strategic Air Command B-36 bomber-loaded with an atomic bomb-flew into the frozen night on a simulated bombing run from Alaska to San Francisco. The engines suddenly failed on this notoriously unreliable aircraft and the crew, before parachuting into the rugged terrain of northern British Columbia, set the autopilot to take the aircraft far out to sea.

Years later the wreckage of the bomber was accidentally discovered on a remote northern British Columbia mountaintop hundreds of miles from its presumed location deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. Did an atomic bomb lie undetected for a number of years in coastal northern British Columbia? Or was the nuclear weapon jettisoned and destroyed only miles from Canadian shores, becoming the world's first dirty bomb? Was this America's first lost nuclear weapon? Finally, and most baffling, did one of the missing crewmembers, the last man aboard, attempt to pilot the doomed aircraft back to its Alaskan base?

This compelling true-life mystery will resonate with readers in a world in which a new nuclear arms race is shaping the geopolitical climate.

I found this to be a hugely interesting read. The author starts with the detonation of the first nuclear weapons during World War 2, how the Russians designed their own nuclear arsenal and the arms race that resulted from that. The B36 bomber designed for long distance attacks, sounds like an unreliable death trap for those who flew it.

The original flight plan was to carry a live nuclear bomb but without the detonator on a simulated bombing run that was to never fly over Canadian territory. The fact that the plane ended up crashing in the Canadian Rockies and the terrifying story of what to do with the bomb when the plane was so close to Vancouver, shows how much can go wrong with what was to be a routine mission.

The cold war may have settled down but I do wonder how many nuclear bombs are still flying around in the skies today ready for action.

I enjoyed this book and found it not only well researched and written but liked the amount of pictures and diagrams that went with it that helped give the reader a better understanding of what was being explained.

Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay

I like beer and enjoy reading books about Canadian history, so when I discovered there was a book about the history of beer in Ontario, Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay, I had to give it a read.

Ontario boasts a potent mix of brewing traditions. Where Europeans explored, battled and settled, beer was not far behind, bringing the simple magic of brewing to Ontario in the 1670s. Early Hudson's Bay Company traders brewed in Canada's Arctic as Loyalist refugees brought the craft north in the 1780s. Early 1900s temperance activists drove the industry largely underground but couldn't dry up the quest to quench Ontarians' thirst. The heavy regulation that then replaced prohibition centralized surviving breweries. Today, independent breweries are booming and writing their own chapters in the Ontario beer story. Beer historians and writers Alan McLeod and Jordan St. John have tapped the cask of Ontario brewing to bring the complete story to light, from foam to dregs.

The book is very well done. It does not go into great detail about each and every old time brewery in Ontario, which is good as it makes it a very easy book to read and enjoy. It starts with the first people to come to settle the area in the late 1700's, the military and finishes with the latest opening of Ontario craft and micro-breweries in 2014.

I found it a well-paced book, enjoyable and education. One interesting thing to note is that the stories told in the Sleeman commercial are true according to Ontario Beer.

Ontario Beer is a great read for any Ontario beer drinker.

Book Review - You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes

When Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was on his third and last mission in space aboard the the International Space Station (ISS) from December 19, 2012, to  to May 13, 2013, he took thousands and thousands of pictures. In his first book, An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, Hadfield told the story of his life, career and his three missions to space. In Your Are Here, Around the World in 92 Minutes, the focus is on the pictures that he took while in command of the ISS.

In "You Are Here", astronaut Chris Hadfield creates a surprisingly intimate and compelling visual essay about the planet we live on, choosing the best from the thousands of photos he took on the International Space Station.

Chris Hadfield's new book shows us our home--our city, country, continent, our whole planet--from a unique perspective. Curated from images never before shared, Chris's big picture reveals why our planet looks the way it does and why we live where we do. Chris sees more in these images than we do, not just because he's spent months in space but because his in-depth knowledge of geology, geography and meteorology allows him to read the mysteries the photos reveal.

"You Are Here" opens a singular window on our planet, using remarkable photographs to illuminate the history and consequences of human settlement, the magnificence (and wit) of never-before-noticed landscapes, and the power of the natural forces shaping our world and the future of our species.

This is a fun book. The pictures are incredible. On some pages are images of earth that take the shape of animals, birds and fishes. The book is organized by continents and Hadfield in just a sentence or two gives his interpretation of what the photo is about. Some of his comments can really make you think.

If you think images of earth are amazing from Google maps, you will be blown away from the photos that make up this book.

Above is a picture of Toronto at night which Hadfield sent via tweet on January 19, 2013

Book Review - Death Wins in the Arctic

Up until recently I had never heard of the tragedy that happened up in the Yukon, when four members of the North West Mounted Police went missing while on patrol in the harsh winter of 1910. It became known as The Lost Patrol. Then I came upon the book Death Wins in the Arctic.

With prospectors, trappers, and whalers pouring into northwestern Canada, the North West Mounted Police were dispatched to the newest frontier to maintain patrols, protect indigenous peoples, and enforce laws in the North. In carrying out their duties, these intrepid men endured rigorous and dangerous conditions.

On December 21, 1910, a four-man patrol left Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, heading for Dawson City, Yukon, a distance of 670 kilometres. They never arrived. The harrowing drama of their 52-day struggle to survive is an account of courageous failure, one that will resonate strongly in its depiction of human intelligence pitted against the implacable forces of nature. Based on Fitzgerald's daily journal records, Death Wins in the Arctic tells of their tremendous courage, their willingness to face unthinkable conditions, and their dedication to fulfill the oath they took. Throughout their ordeal, issues of conservation, law enforcement, Aboriginal peoples, and sovereignty emerge, all of which are global concerns today.

It is an amazing story of a fight for survival. The bravery and endurance the four men of the original patrol was presented well by the author, as was those that went out looking for them. It's incredible what a human body, soul and can endure with only hope to keep a person going.

I had a hard time imagining the weather these men went on with. Each day starts with the temperature and weather of the day. Minus forty but no wind. Minus fifty-six and gale force winds. Only one person I know, John of the Canadian Book Challenge who lives in the North West Territories, would have ever experienced such harsh temperatures.

The book is tied up nicely at the end with chapter about a group of individuals who, a hundred years later, set out to duplicate the route and their adventures.

Death Wins in the Arctic is a well-written story about what happened to the two patrols. I'm glad that I was able to read it in a comfortable chair with the furnace on.

Book Review - Beerology by Mirella Amato

A few months ago I bought Beerology by Beer Cicerone, Mirella Amato. Although I didn't read it cover to cover when I got it, I have been using it whenever I need to research something beer related and find it quite useful. Finally, though, I sat down and read it cover to cover.

If you’ve ever experienced the pleasure of a pint, Beerology is the ultimate guide to exploring, understanding and enjoying the world of beer. 

THERE IS a beer for every mood, food and occasion. And, with the growing number of beer festivals popping up worldwide, beer is finally getting the attention and appreciation it deserves. For the average beer lover, the overwhelming choices, brewing styles and traditions can be confusing to say the least. Enter beer specialist Mirella Amato - one of only seven Certified Master Cicerones (beer sommeliers) in the world. With an advanced brewing certificate behind her, readers will be in expert hands as they navigate the multifaceted world of beer, guided by Amato''s refreshingly accessible style.

Mirella is the first woman in Canada to become a Certified Beer Cicerone and is the first Canadian to earn the title of Master Cicerone. She also has an advanced brewing certificate on the critical control points of brewing.

It was almost five years ago when I took a six week beer course from Mirella and she is a fountain of knowledge. Mirella not only contributed to the Oxford Companion to Beer but has also appeared on CBC Radio, CityTV's Breakfast Television and History Television. I always enjoy chatting with her whenever we met at a beer event.

Beerology is divided into four sections: Beer Basics, Beer Styles, Diving In and Glossary & Tools. Beer Basics explains what beer is, how it is made, what glasses suit which style the best, and how to pour and taste a beer. Beer Styles gives excellent descriptions of all the different beer styles, some of which I have not heard of before and would love to try.

Diving In is a very interesting section on setting up beer tastings, pairing beer with food (more important than pairing wine with food really) entertaining with bee, and recipes for beer cocktails, Personally I think beer is too good to mix into a cocktail, although the recipe for a BB Sour did catch my eye.

The last section is not only a glossary of terms but provides beer tasting sheets, the beer flavour wheel, and various reference charts.

If you are just getting into beer or have been enjoying the many different styles of beers out there in the world today, you will find Beerology interesting and informative.

Book Review - Rimmer, Dammit

I am a big fan of the cooking contest show, Top Chef, and this year the finale took place in San Miguel de Allende. On the show, the city was described as a community of artists. Although the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is beautiful to look at, I remembered a story that former Toronto Sun writer Paul Rimstead told in one of his first columns when he stayed there in 1972.

Rimstead enjoyed, what you might call, the less elegant drinking establishments. he walked into one place in San Miguel, went up to the bar and ordered a drink. He noticed a trough that ran along the outside of the bar and wondered what it was for. Turns out it was there so no man needed to walk away from the bar if he needed to relieve himself.

With that thought, I remembered that after he died in 1987, the Toronto Sun put out a book called Rimmer Dammit, which was a collection of 52 of his best columns he did over his years as an original, day one Sun Columnist.

Rimstead was a favorite columnist of mine. He was a hard drinker and basically just wrote about his life. There were days when he had to much and missed a column, but most of his columns were entertaining.

I started this book by reading 15 to 20 pages and found it was too much. The book is hard to buy, so get it from a library and do what I did after that initial reading, sit down and just read a column or two a day. That's how he originally wrote, so it's best to read it that way. 

It was enjoyable reading his old columns and his descriptions of Toronto way back in the seventies and eighties. The last column in the book, and I'm unsure if if it his last column ever, was called Magic Moments and published on April 12, 1987. It was mostly about magician Doug Henning, but in the last part of the article, he mentioned it was his six month wedding anniversary, to his wife, to whom he called Miss C Hinky, when he wrote about her. On the next page is the message, Six weeks later, on May 26, Rimmer died of hard living. He was 52.

The last part of the book is stories from people he knew and wrote about, even Myrna Rimstead, AKA Miss C Hinky. I quite enjoyed that section.

If you were a fan, this books worth checking out, but if you hadn't heard of him, you might not get it. I'm glad to go back to this journey through the past.

Book Review - The Morning After, The 1995 Quebec Referendum

In 1995, Quebec citizens went to the polls to vote on whether the province should succeed from Canada. The question that Quebecers had to vote on was amazingly vague: Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995.

I remember sitting at home and watching the results come in that night. Like many Canadians, my eyes were glued to the little red needle at the bottom of the TV screen, swinging just above and then just below the 50% line. In the end, 93% of eligible voters turned out and voted. At the end of the evening, by a very narrow 50.58% margin, Quebec voted to remain as a province of Canada.

The Morning After, the 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day That Almost Was takes a look back at the campaign before the vote, the results, and what might have happened if the "Yes" side had of won a narrow victory but does this in a very different way from other books on the subject.

Only the most fearless of political journalists would dare to open the old wounds of the 1995 Quebec referendum, a still-murky episode in Canadian history that continues to defy our understanding. The referendum brought one of the world's most successful democracies to the brink of the unknown, and yet Quebecers' attitudes toward sovereignty continue to baffle the country's political class. Interviewing 17 key political leaders from the duelling referendum camps, Hébert and Lapierre begin with a simple premise: asking what were these political leaders' plans if the vote had gone the other way. Even 2 decades later, their answers may shock you. And in asking an unexpected question, these veteran political observers cleverly expose the fractures, tensions and fears that continue to shape Canada today.

Instead of just telling the story from start to finish, journalist Chantel Hebert and former politician Jean Lapierre spent a year interviewing all the major participants and lets them tell the story from their viewpoint, what they felt leading up to the vote, what the thought of the wording of the question, what they foresaw and how they would react had the "No side" had won.

The book is divided into 5 parts, The Yes Camp, The Quebec No Camp, The Feds, The Premiers, and The Last Word which is, of course, the interview with Jean Chretien. Each section devotes chapters exclusively to each person interviewed. The chapter on Roy Romanow, who was the Premier of Saskatchewan, was the most interesting and surprising. Had the "No side" won narrowly, depending on how negotiations with Quebec were handled, Romanaw was prepared to have Saskatchewan leave the Confederation!

I had never heard that one before. It was shocking.

Also unusual was a chapter at the end called In Lieu of an Index, Hebert, Lapierre and the Cast. Here the authors talk about their association with everyone interviewed in the book, from the time they first met or heard of them. I found it very frank and enlightening after reading about these major figures.

An excellent book that I would highly recommend!

Book Review - "Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine"

As much as I love beer, I also have a fondness for wine, although usually whites more than reds. Rieslings and Gewurztraminers are my favorites.

I enjoy driving through the Niagara wine region past fields and fields, filled with rows and rows of grapes, dotted with many vineyards to stop in for a tasting and to buy a bottle or two.

That one of the world's greatest vineyard could be threatened for destruction by an extortionist, was a story that I had to read.

In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison-a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder-unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation and the crime shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Vanity Fair journalist Maximillian Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by some of France's top detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic investigation. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine. 

"Shadows in the Vineyard" takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small-town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that runs through it.

Shadows in the Vineyard is supposed to be the story as described above but really only takes up maybe a quarter of the book. The rest of the book leaps back into the past and the entire history of the Domaine, the history of wine in the Burgundy region and even to the start of the California wine industry and its history.

That's not to say the book is not interesting. Even though not much of the book was dedicated to the actual crime, it is a very well-written and interesting book. Potter has a way with words that can set a vision of the landscape in the readers mind and allow them to know the passion of the characters involved.

One thing that I was disappointment about was I had hoped there would be pictures of some of the characters involved, the region and of the Domaine. It would have really added to the book. The picture above is one that I borrowed from the 'net. Still it is a very well written story.

If you like wine, this is a great book.

Book Review - Lost Breweries of Toronto

Ever since I passed the Old Dominion Brewery Building on Queen Street E, discovered that Todmorden Mills was once also a brewery, and that there was once a brewery on Queen Street across from Trinity Bellwoods Park, I have wondered what the brewing industry in Toronto was like back in the 1800s. Jordan St John, who is Canada's only national beer columnist and hosts a blog called St. Johns Wort, Beery Musings And Amusing Beers, writes about just that in Lost Breweries of Toronto.

Explore the once-prominent breweries of nineteenth-century Toronto. Brewers including William Helliwell, John Doel, Eugene O'Keefe, Lothar Reinhardt, Enoch Turner, and Joseph Bloore influenced the history of the city and the development of a dominant twentieth-century brewing industry in Ontario. Step inside the lost landmarks that first brought intoxicating brews to the masses in Toronto. Jordan St. John delves into the lost buildings, people and history behind Toronto's early breweries, with detailed historic images, stories both personal and industrial, and even reconstructed nineteenth-century brewing recipes.

This is a very interesting book. It's not just the story of many of the breweries that existed back in the nineteenth century but is also the story of Toronto itself and many of the small villages on the outskirts of the city that one day would come to form the core of the city. It's hard to envision that a brewery built in the  Kensington Market area in 1837 was too far from north the city of Toronto to succeed.

Fire plays a very prominent role in the book, as it it seems that during the 1800s it was almost a fact of life that if a person ran a brewery, it would one day burn down. Most of the breweries in the book caught fire at one time or another. It's telling in the chapter the Servern Breweries that By the 1850s, taking into account the destruction of several of the local breweries by fire, it would have been the largest in the environs of Toronto.

The book is filled with sketches of the old breweries and many of the old beer labels. I was surprised at the size of many of the breweries of the period.

I enjoyed this book so much that I plan to read the first one he wrote Ontario Beer: A Heady History of Brewing from the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay.