Horse of Iron
I read Lawrence Scanlan’s Little Horse of Iron: A quest for the Canadian Horse after we’d been thinking of getting an elderly Canadian gelding. Knowing little about the breed, other…
J. D. Rogers, Newfoundland
Newfoundland by J. D. Rogers is an essential in your library of Newfoundland Mi’kmaq history. Published in 1911, it is part of A Historical Geography of the British Colonies. I…
One Man’s Journey
Early in my reading of Calvin White’s One Man’s Journey: The Mi'kmaw Revival in Ktaqmkuk, I realized how much I owe Gus White, Calvin’s father. The characteristics that made Calvin…
Meghan and Harry
(by Jim Stewart) Meghan and Harry: The real story, by Lady Colin Campbell. It's hard to believe that this book came out in 2020. It is remarkably prescient, as if it had been written yesterday. Anyone interested in British history, Hollywood, celebrity and popular culture, the effect of media and social media on our society
The Ride of Her Life
In the fall of 1954, a woman decided to leave her home in Maine and, with her little dog, go to California. Annie Wilkins was 63, had been ill, had…
Sylvester Joe
Sylvester Joe is one of the best known men in the island of Newfoundland's exploration history. He's also one of the least known. A Mi'kmaq hunter and guide from Bay…
Caribou Drive
In his 1969 book Newfoundland, Harold Horwood recounts the story of a caribou drive in western Newfoundland in the late 1800s. He heard it in the Codroy Valley, from "an…
First Nations Books
Here are some books that are valuable for anyone wanting to know more about First Nations and the history and process of colonization within a land. That land might be…
Pen Name Mysteries
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith and Devoted in Death by J. D. Robb are pen name mysteries by famous authors I've never read. Robert Galbraith is J. K. Rawling…
Coronation Street Library
Seeing that a Coronation Street adult colouring book will soon be released made me think about how big the Coronation Street library is. Reams of paper about the fictional town…
Mi’kmaq Images
Ruth Holmes Whitehead's new book Niniskamijinaqik, Ancestral Images: The Mi'kmaq in art and photography is beautiful. If you are interested in Mi'kmaq history, it is also essential. It puts faces…
Library Science
Sometimes a simple thing happens that makes you realize what you should have done. One day at the library, I was reshelving books that had been left out. There were…
Interlibrary Loan
I wanted a book a while back. The St. Thomas public library didn’t have it and neither did the local bookstore. Did I want to drive to London to look…
Dick Francis: A racing life
The back cover of Dick Francis: A Racing Life, a biography by Graham Lord, calls it “warm, affectionate, yet sharp and perceptive.” I usually read the jacket information before starting a…
Newfoundland Mi’kmaq Books
The telling of a place often is told through the people who make up the place. Conversely, the telling of a family can be told through the place they lived.…
Francis Family Books
If you had the sad job of picking the topic of the last novel you would write, I don’t think you could choose better than Dick Francis did. Crossfire, co-written…
Drifting into Doom: Book
It was a dark and stormy night when I began reading Earl Pilgrim’s Drifting into Doom: Tragedy at Sea. Winter rain blew at the windows and tree branches hit the…
The Public Library
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in the library. It was in an old house on Main Street in Belmont, right near our house. I…