Postcards of Essex County
Regular price $32.95A unique and rare collection of postcards from Essex County, David Newman’s Postcards from Essex County documents the churches, factories, fairgrounds, houses, beaches, trains and cars of old Essex. Over 315 cards have been catalogued into fourteen chapters, including sections on Harrow, Leamington, Kingsville, Maidstone and more. A beautiful gift book in hardcover with full-colour illustrations.
Windsor: Then And Now
Regular price $24.95Windsor, Ontario: the City of Roses, the Automotive Capital of Canada, South Detroit. Whatever name you know it by, this is a city that has flourished and transformed over the years, growing and changing with its industrial nature. In Windsor: Then & Now, architectural specialist Andrew Foot partners with landscape photographer Ian Virtue to explore the life of this mid-sized, blue-collar town through photographs. By contrasting historic images, stretching from the turn of the century to the modernist 1970s, with photographs of today’s Windsor, we see a cityscape in vivid relief. From the Gothic towers of St. Mary’s Academy, levelled for a suburban neighbourhood, to the vibrant downtown Norwich Block replaced by the skyscraping Chrysler tower, Windsor: Then & Now shows us a city balancing a rich heritage with a taste for the new—a constant flux, shifting and renewing itself with the times.
The Rumrunners: A Prohibition Scrapbook
Regular price $22.95A 10,000 copy seller in Canada, The Rumrunners offers a photographic history of the regular men and women who smuggled Canadian liquor to the United States during the roaring ’20s. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Prohibition.
“I can’t imagine a walk through Windsor’s history with anyone else…A colourful time in Windsor’s history, told by one of our best storytellers.”—Sandra Pupatello, M.P.P. Windsor West
“Prohibition certainly was a colourful era, filled with characters and stories the likes of which we may never see again. If not for Marty Gervais’s research into the phenomenon that was Prohibition, many of these stories would have faded with the memories of their leading players.”—Laryssa Landsale, Walkerville Times Magazine
Ford City
Regular price $24.95Ford City was a town steeped in the history of the auto industry. Companies including Ford, E.M.F., Studebaker, Chalmers and Chrysler all called Ford City their home of Canadian operations. But it was more than just an industrial town. It was a rumrunning hub, a communist hotbed, and a thriving cultural centre for the people of the Border Cities. From the town’s inception, through amalgamation, to the revitalization of the Ford plant in the 1990s, Ford City is the story of the industrial heart of Windsor.
PRAISE FOR HERB COLLING
“Colling rebuts the curious notion that Canadian history, even when told in relation to major U.S. events, is not compelling or important.”—Quill & Quire
Mulligan's Bar Guide
Regular price $9.99More cocktails, more shooters, more fun bar lingo, more astounding facts and reasons to celebrate—Mulligan’s Bar Guide is back with over 450 recipes.
A bestseller—over 200,000 copies sold—this well-priced and handy guide is Canada’s favourite drink bible. Now completely updated and expanded, the 25th anniversary edition of Mulligan’s Bar Guide features
Mulligan’s Bar Guide is the perfect bar accessory from Canada’s first name in bartending.
Five Days Walking Five Towns
Regular price $24.95The Canadian border city facing Detroit was not always simply “Windsor, Ontario”—it was a patchwork of multiple communities that amalgamated into Windsor throughout the 20th Century. In Five Days Walking Five Towns, fabled local raconteur Marty Gervais puts on his boots and takes the reader on a street-by-street walking tour through Riverside, Ford City, Walkerville, Windsor, and Sandwich—weaving together his own memories with the booms and busts of his eclectic, storied city. Along the way, tales of Indigenous curses, rum-running, union-busting, and murderous ministers abound.
With intimate, conversational prose and an acute eye for lore that time forgot, Marty Gervais has created a work not just for Ontario history buffs but for anybody who cares about the evolution of cities and the strange, beautiful people who inhabit them.
Praise for Five Days Walking Five Towns
“Windsor like we’ve never seen it”—Nino Ricci, author of Where She Has Gone
“Gervais does not tire, and never fails to amuse.”—Patrick Brode, author of Border Cities Powerhouse
The Original Six Hockey Trivia Book
Regular price $19.95
Missing Witches | Recovering the True Histories of Feminist Magic
Regular price $23.95
Pocket Birds Of Canada - 2nd Edition
Regular price $18.99Compact, easy-to-use, and fully updated, this pocket guide features 435 species of birds found in Canada and is the perfect field companion for bird enthusiasts of all ages and levels of experience.
Pocket Birds of Canada is perfectly sized to carry along with you on a bird-watching expedition. Each half- or full-page profile features high-quality, close-up annotated photographs of each bird, showing differences between males and females or juveniles and adults, along with range maps and descriptive text explaining key information to aid in identification. Further details on voice, nesting and feeding habits, and preferred habitats help to complete the picture.
Produced in association with David M. Bird, Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Biology at McGill University and a longtime bird enthusiast, this 2nd edition of Pocket Birds of Canada is an indispensible addition to any birder's library.
Wenjack
Regular price $12.00
Original Six Dynasties: The Detroit Red Wings
Regular price $29.95Dying For a Drink: How a Prohibition Preacher Got Away with Murder
Regular price $19.95AS SEEN ON TV ONTARIO’S THE AGENDA WITH STEVE PAIKIN
FINALIST FOR THE 2019 ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION CRIME BOOK
Known to history as “The Fighting Parson,” Reverend J.O.L. Spracklin broke into a notorious Windsor roadhouse one chilly November night in 1920 and shot and killed barkeep Beverly “Babe” Trumble. Easily acquitted by reason of self-defense, he never served a day of time. A provincial liquor license inspector already known for his brash tactics, Spracklin’s audacious tactics solidified across North America the Detroit-Windsor borderlands’ reputation as the new Wild West—an uncivilized outpost where whisky flowed freely, warrants were forged on the spot, and ministers toted guns to keep the peace.
To the rest of Ontario, a dry province, Spracklin was the saviour they’d been waiting for, the answer to the lawlessness of the Border Cities—that is, until he shot a man at point blank range. In this exploration of the period, decorated Ontario historian Patrick Brode unpacks this infamous piece of Prohibition lore and asks: Why did Babe Trumble die? What led to a hotheaded reverend taking the law into his own hands, killing a man, and getting away with it? Full of fire-and-brimstone preachers, crooked politicians, wily rum runners, grandstanding lawyers, and innocents caught in the crossfire, Dying for a Drink is a fascinating read that will captivate anyone interested in the real stories behind this fabled time.
PRAISE FOR DYING FOR A DRINK
“A brisk read that aptly describes Canada’s temperance movement and the move towards prohibition…quite enjoyable.”
—Canada’s History
“Nicely researched…Fast-paced…This slim, lively volume illuminates Ontario’s pre–Jazz Age cultural and legal history and that of prohibition in an informative fashion.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Brode brings to his account a wealth of local knowledge about Windsor and its Prohibition-era past…well researched and peppered with fascinating characters.”
—Literary Review of Canada
“A fascinating book, thoroughly researched and tightly written.”
—Windsor Life
Peace by Chocolate: The Hadhad Family's Remarkable Journey from Syria to Canada
Regular price $22.95Finalist, Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction, and Taste Canada Awards (Culinary Narratives)
Nominated for 3 Gourmand Awards
An Atlantic Bestseller
A Hill Times Top 100 Selection
February 2016. Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
Tareq Hadhad was worried about his father: Isam did not know what to do with his life. Before the war began in Syria, Isam had run a chocolate company for over twenty years. But that life was gone now. The factory was destroyed, and he and his family had spent three years in limbo as refugees before coming to Canada. So, in an unfamiliar kitchen in a small town, Isam began to make chocolate again.
This remarkable book tells the extraordinary story of the Hadhad family — Isam, his wife Shahnaz, and their sons and daughters — and the founding of the chocolatier, Peace by Chocolate. From the devastation of the Syrian civil war, through their life as refugees in Lebanon, to their arrival in a small town in Atlantic Canada, Peace by Chocolate is the story of one family. It is also the story of the people of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and so many towns across Canada, who welcomed strangers and helped them face the challenges of settling in an unfamiliar land.
The Orange Shirt Story: The True Story of Orange Shirt Day
Regular price $19.99Watching the Devil Dance | Will Toffan
Regular price $22.95The unbelievable true story of Canada’s first known spree killer, told by a veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In June 1966, Matthew Charles Lamb took his uncle’s shotgun and wandered down Ford Blvd in Windsor, Ontario. At the end of the bloody night, two teenagers lay dead, with multiple others injured after an unprovoked shooting spree. In his investigation into Lamb’s story, Will Toffan pieces together the troubled childhood and history of violence that culminated in the young man’s dubious distinction as Canada’s first known spree killer—at which point the story becomes, the author writes “too strange for fiction.” Travelling from the border city streets, to the courtroom, to the Oak Ridge rehabilitation centre, and finally Rhodesia, Watching the Devil Dance is both a thrilling narrative about a shocking true crime and its bizarre aftermath and an insightful analysis of the 1960s criminal justice system.
You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes
Regular price $32.00In 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. The millions of us who followed Chris's Twitter feed from the ISS thought we knew what we were looking at when we saw his photos. This photo documentary shows us we didn't. We caught the beauty but missed the meaning. 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.
Divided by continent, You Are Here represents one (idealized) orbit of the ISS. This planetary photo tour--surprising, playful, thought-provoking and visually delightful--is punctuated with fun, fascinating commentary on life in zero gravity, too. In the spirit of his #1 bestselling An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, 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.
Heart Berries: A Memoir
Regular price $19.95Canada Reads 2019 longlist.
National best-seller.
New York Times best-seller.
Finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Awards.
Long-listed for the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize.
A New York Times Editor's Choice.
A Globe and Mail best book of 2018.
A CBC best book of 2018.
A Toronto Star best book of 2018.
A Walrus best book of 2018.
An NPR best book of 2018.
A Chatelaine best book of 2018.
A Bustle best book of 2018.
A GQ best book of 2018.
A Thrillist best book of 2018.
A Book Riot best book of 2018.
An Electric Lit best book of 2018.
An Entropy best book of 2018.
A Hill Times best book of 2018.
A BookPage best book of 2018.
A Library Journal best book of 2018.
A Goodreads best book of 2018.
A New York Public Library best book of 2018.
Named one of the most anticipated books of 2018 by: Chatelaine, Entertainment Weekly, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Huffington Post, B*tch, NYLON, BuzzFeed, Bustle, The Rumpus, and Goodreads.
Selected by Emma Watson as the Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick for March/April 2018.
Guileless and refreshingly honest, Terese Mailhot's debut memoir chronicles her struggle to balance the beauty of her Native heritage with the often desperate and chaotic reality of life on the reservation.
Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II, Terese Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father - an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist - who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.
Mailhot "trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain and what we can bring ourselves to accept." Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.
The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany
Regular price $48.00NATIONAL BESTSELLER
In this stunning assemblage of words and images, novelist and avid birdwatcher Graeme Gibson offers an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humans and birds.
From the Aztec plumed serpent to the Christian dove to Plato's vision of the human soul growing wings, religion and philosophy use birds to represent our aspirational selves. Winged creatures appear in mythology and folk tales, and in literature by writers as diverse as Ovid, Thoreau, and T. S. Eliot. They've been omens, allegories, and guides; they've been worshipped, eaten, and feared. Birds figure tellingly in the work of such nature writers as Gilbert White and Peter Matthiessen, and are synonymous with the science of Darwin. Gibson spent years collecting this gorgeously illustrated celebration of centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes. The Bedside Book of Birds is for everyone who is intrigued by the artistic forms that humanity creates to represent its soul.
