LITMIR.BIZ

Canada’s foremost cookbook author began her career, not as a cook, but as a journalist writing for Canadian magazines. She was 60 when she turned her attention to food. Food That Really Schmecks immediately became a best-seller, and continues to sell 35 years later. It’s more than a book of wonderful recipes – it also describes the Mennonite way of life. The success of that book led to two more Schmecks books and many other cookbooks. Edna has received the Order of Canada among many other awards. Over the years, Edna developed longstanding friendships with many of Canada’s greatest writers, including Margaret Laurence, W.O. Mitchell, Sheila Burnford, and Pierre Berton. In 1991 she established The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction to recognize the first or second book of a Canadian writer. To Experience Wonder is the first book to explore behind the scenes of this successful writer’s life. At the age of 97, Edna leads an active life at her cottage on Sunfish Lake, where she writes, reads, and welcomes the many aspiring writers who come to visit.

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Peter C. Newman called him «the Totem of the Titans.» From a small Prairie town, Daryl K. «Doc» Seaman became an icon of Canadian business and hockey. He is one of the last of a breed of postwar entrepreneurs and sportsmen who forged modern Canada, striking deals on a handshake and always keeping their word. After flying 82 combat missions during the Second World War, Doc Seaman worked in the oil industry with his brothers, turning a small Alberta drilling business into a global giant, Bow Valley Industries. Later, he led a group that brought the Atlanta Flames to Calgary. Still a Flames co-owner, he helped reshape Hockey Canada and restore Canada’s glory in international hockey. Doc Seaman’s life is a remarkable saga of courage, resolve, generosity, and success. It ultimately leaves us not only with a deep appreciation of one iconic Canadian but also with a wider understanding of our country.

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"You’ll like Louis Mayer," Mary Pickford told Charles Foster in 1943. «He is from Canada, too.» As Foster was soon to discover, Mayer was not alone: a great many of those who helped shape Hollywood into the movie capital of the world were Canadian. Stardust and Shadows brings together the stories of 18 Canadians who were celebrities during Hollywood’s formative years. Most of those profiled were known to Foster, and stories they told him about Hollywood’s early days, enhanced by many years of research and interviews with other living performers and directors from the silent movie era, reveal a never-before-seen look at what the movie industry was really like in those early days. This is Canadian history that has never been told, and many of the startling stories and secrets of Hollywood’s past are revealed here for the first time. Celebrities profiled: May Irwin, Al and Charles Christie, Joe and Sam De Grasse, Marie Dressler, Allan Dwan, Florence La Badie, Florence Lawrence, Del Lord, Louis B. Mayer, Sidney Olcott, Jack Pickford, Mary Pickford, Marie Prevost, Mack Sennett, Douglas Shearer, Norma Shearer.

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In 1934, fifty-three-year-old beer tycoon John Sackville Labatt was kidnapped from his Lake Huron summer home and held ransom for three days. His captors, a group of ex-rumrunners, desperate in the days following prohibition and the Great Depression, were hoping for a big payday. This bizarre true crime story traces the abduction through to the trials of the abductors. From a heavily populated hideout to a case of mistaken identity, follow the story of Labatt, the first person in Canada to be kidnapped for high ransom.

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Short-listedfor the 2005 Ottawa Book Award for Non-fiction Soldier, sailor, adventurer, and philosopher, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was a talented French officer whose remarkable career took him from the boudoirs of Paris to the flintlock battlefields of North America and on to the luch islands of the South Pacific. In this lively biography, author Victor Suthren follows Bougainville’s career in North America during the Seven Years War and the American Revolution and his adventures in the South Seas. Written with a historian’s eye for detail, The Sea Has No End is a fascinating portrait of the most stirring and dramatic events of the eighteenth century.

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Poet, travel writer, teacher, quiz-show presenter, broadcaster, adventurer – Kildare Dobbs has played many parts, met many people, and been many places. His life journey, marked by frequent diversions and detours, reflects the exuberant eclecticism of the man himself. In Kildare Dobbs: A Writer's Life , Dobbs takes us from a gas-lit big-house childhood in 1930s Tipperary, to college days at Cambridge, to commando training and naval service in the Second World War. After a stint as a colonial administrator in Tanganyika, he moved to Canada in 1952, where he became variously an editor at Macmillan, managing editor of Saturday Night magazine, and literary editor of the Toronto Star . This is a self-portrait of a fascinating man of letters driven by a hunger for adventure.

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In his eightieth year, Lord Rowallan has finally completed this autobiography. This is a book both moving and modest. He shares with us his joys and sorrows alike, keeping nothing back, yet never causing us embarrassment. He has inspired many people, especially the young, by his life, his unswerving standards, and his indomitable faith; and this, his testament, will surely do the same.

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For almost twelve years, Jean Beaulne was a member of the Baronets «the Beatles of Quebec» along with René Angélil. In this book, he has collaborated with writer and journalist Jean Beaunoyer to tell the untold story of René Angélil and Céline Dion. Previously unknown details of René Angélil’s personal and professional life are revealed in this unprecedented investigation into the man who orchestrated one of the foremost successes in the history of show business.

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Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canada’s most beloved author, not only gave the world the classic novel Anne of Green Gables , but she was also a devoted minister’s wife, mother, neighbour, and friend to many, who in turn were honoured to have know this great lady. In Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery , the writer is remembered through first-hand reminiscences of the people who knew her. Her Sunday school students, neighbours, maids, family, and friends paint a portrait of Montgomery as she has never before been seen. Not only does this book uncover fascinating sides of the author and provide fresh anecdotes, but it includes many photographs that are published for the first time. Even Montgomery’s most devoted fans will find stories to surprise, delight, and at times even shock them.

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Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother 1900 – 2002 presents the life of a remarkable woman. A Canadian perspective on a sovereign who created and cultivated a special relationship with Canada, it is the portrait of a queen who always evoked passionate reactions. Whether it was the anonymous soldier who vowed «to fight for that little lady,» Adolf Hitler who described her as «the most dangerous woman in Europe,» or the Canadian journalist who coined the expression «the Queen Mum,» the Queen Mother seldom left people unmoved. Opening with the royal tour of 1939, during which Canadians first felt her personal magnetism, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother 1900 – 2002 describes Elizabeth’s background and development, relating how she made a marriage that brought her to the centre stage of public life. It traces her tender support of her shy husband, a reluctant king, shows how she began her Commonwealth role, and recalls her shock at the sudden and unexpected call to wear the Crown. Faced with the never-ending duties of a queen, Elizabeth proved capable of providing inspired leadership for a society faced with the stark prospect of destruction in a war to save the world. On the premature death of her beloved husband she became Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, a role that has shaped nearly half her life, and one in which Canada has always played an important part. The authors analyze Her Majesty’s successes and failures, both public and private, against the background of a century of violent disruption, material achievement, and incredible change.

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