“The Dream of the Celt” by Mario Vargas Llosa

This is a rather grim historical novel, very well written by the Nobel prize winner, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

It tells the story of Roger Casement, a member of the British diplomatic corps, who spent his life revealing and trying to improve the desperate plight of oppressed peoples in countries such as the Congo and the Amazon. Born in Ireland in l864, in a Dublin suburb, he spent a number of years in Africa before being asked to report on the rubber plantations. Here he discovered the abuse and torture suffered by the Africans as they were forced to gather rubber for the big Belgian company.

His second assignment was to examine another big rubber company, this time in Amazonia and run by the British. If anything the conditions were worse. As he reported on these things, Casement often thought of his own country, Ireland, and what he considered the oppresssion of the British. It was the middle of the First World War when he decided to try to help with an uprising in Ireland, to push the British back. His activities were considered treason, and he was put in prison, refused pardon, and hanged. This book in fact is written from his prison cell, with his ruminations on a life dedicated to helping others and ruined by an unacceptable decision of his own.

Mario Vargas Llosa is Peru’s foremost writer and won the Nobel Prize in 20l0. This book is well translated by Edith Grossman. It brings a controversial man to life and also gives some insight into the troubles that still plague the Congo.

Review by Anne McDougall

“Lord Beaverbrook and the Kennedys” by James Downey

This is a small but fascinating book about three well-known figures in political history. Lord Beaverbrook and the Kennedys were famous in both Britain and the United States. But it is in New Brunswick, Canada, that they came together in a most unusual way.

Telling the story is James Downey, a Newfoundlander and professor of English who once taught at Carleton University but then, as he says, “fell from grace into academic administration” and became president of Carleton, the University of New Brunswick and the University of Waterloo, where he is now President Emeritus. It was his l0 years at UNB (l980-l990) that led him to write this book.

The protagonist is Lord Beaverbrook, who grew up in New Brunswick but pursued his business dealings to England where he got into journalism, built the “Daily Express” into one of the most successful newspapers in the world and was also elected a member of parliament and made a peer. Max Aitken became Lord Beaverbrook. One of his friends at this time was Joe Kennedy, American ambassador to the U.K.

In the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made him Minister of Aircraft Production, where he helped greatly in the crucial Battle of Britain. Later, Churchill sent him as a go-between with President Roosevelt to gain support for Britain’s war effort.

The book shows (with good illustrations) how these relationships led to close friendship with the Kennedy family. In later years when first Jack, then Bobby Kennedy were invited to speak at the University of New Brunswick, in spite of their heavy loads at home both accepted. The speeches are reproduced here and Downey points out the rhetorical skill and craft, as well as what he calls “the American tradition of public oratory which they draw upon.”

Altogether we get an up-close look at an endlessly absorbing period of history, of our country as well as the U.K. and U.S. An unusually good book.

Review by Anne McDougall

Ken Hancock Book Signing on Saturday, July 21 from 11:00am to 1:00pm “Capital Home Cuisine Cookbook”

Come by the bookstore on Saturday, July 21 to meet local author Ken Hancock. He will be here from 11:00am to 1:00pm signing copies of his newest book, a cookbook called “Capital Home Cuisine.” This new cookbook consists of a series of recipes from major world capitals that Ken Hancock has visited throughout his travels. We look forward to seeing you all here on Saturday!

Ken will also have some of his previously published books on hand, including “Sweets Off Coupons” and his humour books “Laughter From the Web” volumes 3 and 4.

Bruce Firestone Signing “Quantum Entity” on Sunday, July 15 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm

Bruce Firestone will be in the store to sign his new book “Quantum Entity” on Sunday, July 15 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.
The first in a trilogy, “Quantum Entity” is published by Exploriem.org and retails for $19.95.

About the book:
“In the mid-21st Century, amidst a world entrenched in corporate power and greed, brilliant young physicist Damien Bell emerges to create quantum communications and the AI phenomenon of quantum entities – poised to make global scarcity a thing of the past. Here Damien’s journey begins – thrust into the reality of global business influence and national security – to prove that “we are all ONE.”

In this first book of the trilogy, Bruce M. Firestone creates a thrilling new genre that captures the essence of science fiction, adventure, romance and the entrepreneurial spirit.

To learn more about Bruce M. Firestone or “Quantum Entity” visit Bruce’s website at:

http://www.brucemfirestone.com/

Or check out the “Quantum Entity” Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy

You can also follow along on Twitter:
The Novel: https://twitter.com/#!/quantum_entity
The Author: https://twitter.com/#!/ProfBruce
Our Organization: https://twitter.com/#!/Exploriem

We look forward to seeing you all at this exciting event! Snacks and drinks will be provided! See you then!

“Nation Maker, Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times – Volume Two: 1867-1891” by Richard Gwyn

In Richard Gwyn’s second volume on Sir John A. Macdonald he shows how this charming and wily politician gave Canada our country.

Opening with Confederation in l867, when Nova Scotia and New Brunswick joined Quebec and Ontario, he describes Macdonald’s National Policy which stood for government intervention in times of public need. Macdonald believed that in such a fragmented country, Canadians had to look out for each other or they would have no nation at all.

With thorough research and a good journalist’s sense of style, Gwyn tells the story of struggle with the Red River Colony amidst constant pressure from Minnesota annexationists to take this part of Canada; Louis Riel’s two rebellions and controversial death; the battle to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, linking the continent, and the Pacific Scandal that almost sunk the whole project, as well as Macdonald’s government.

Macdonald survived all this even though his home life was not easy (his first wife had died after years of illness and the loss of one son) and his second wife, though devoted, had the handicap of caring for a disabled daughter.

Macdonald had an easy, disarming way of approaching people and they voted him back into office against heavy odds. The book includes many of the talented politicians and others who worked with Macdonald up to the young Laurier, who would be another lion in the leadership of Canada. There are excellent photographs backing the story. Gwyn in fact has done just what he did in the first volume, John A.: The Man Who Made Us. Published in 2007, that book became a bestseller and won the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. This one is every bit as good.

Review by Anne McDougall

“Quantum Entity” by Bruce M. Firestone Now Available!!!

Bruce M. Firestone’s new book, the first in a trilogy, is now available for purchase at our store! Published by Exploriem.org, “Quantum Entity” is a paperback that retails for $19.95.

About the book:
“In the mid-21st Century, amidst a world entrenched in corporate power and greed, brilliant young physicist Damien Bell emerges to create quantum communications and the AI phenomenon of quantum entities – poised to make global scarcity a thing of the past. Here Damien’s journey begins – thrust into the reality of global business influence and national security – to prove that “we are all ONE.”

In this first book of the trilogy, Bruce M. Firestone creates a thrilling new genre that captures the essence of science fiction, adventure, romance and the entrepreneurial spirit.

To learn more about Bruce M. Firestone or “Quantum Entity” visit Bruce’s website at:
http://www.brucemfirestone.com/
Or check out the “Quantum Entity” Facebook page at:
http://www.facebook.com/QuantumEntityTrilogy

You can also follow along on Twitter:
The Novel: https://twitter.com/#!/quantum_entity
The Author: https://twitter.com/#!/ProfBruce
Our Organization: https://twitter.com/#!/Exploriem

“How It All Began” by Penelope Lively

The widely-recognized British writer Penelope Lively has done it again in “How it all Began” – a subtle novel full of characters you get to know and believe in from the moment they are introduced.

The only violence comes in the first pages and of course sets the story. Friends as well as strangers rally to help the victim recuperate. We meet an aged Academic, retired, Lord Henry Peters, eager to get on TV or radio or even print with what he considers his invaluable Memoirs. There is the Grannie who helps the attractive East European immigrant with his English, only to have him fall in love with her married daughter. In the interior design business one clever operator meets another, only to have her savings nearly wiped out.

Lively shows the coincidences in life that pull people together – or apart. She is believable and delightful to read, with nineteen novels to her credit, including the most famous “Moon Tiger”, as well as three books of autobiography. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a member of PEN and the Society of Authors and a recipient of the OBE and CBE.

Review by Anne McDougall

Richard Rathwell Signs “Jump the Devil” on Sunday, June 3 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm

Ottawa born author Richard Rathwell will be signing copies of his new book “Jump the Devil” in our store on Sunday, June 3 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

About the Book:
With Jump the Devil, Richard Rathwell has masterfully interwoven the plots of five seemingly unrelated storylines to create one coherent narrative that spans the globe and works to blend the seemingly mundane with the profound, deftly providing readers the necessary clues to unlocking the story. Transcending borders, cultures, generations, and social mores, Jump the Devil brings to life the notion of the global village as it exists in the 21st Century.

“There must have been a bad bite. Something had gestated. He wasn’t imagining it. There were wet, frozen pebbles tumbling in his veins. There was a sugary sense of euphoria, a smell of orange blossoms, of piss, of diesel.”

A man in a crawlspace. A woman and her cart. A doctor in an African village. A girl celebrating New Year’s. And an Egyptian Revolutionary in front of a computer screen. These five, seemingly unrelated narratives span the globe, blurring the boundaries between the trivially mundane and the profound. Jump the Devil brings its readers on a cross-cultural voyage which inextricably links the lives of the narrators, asking the reader to decipher the clues tucked away in the pages with a deft subtlety.

Rathwell’s writing is “a fistful of sentences written with the subtlety of a geisha and the terse certainty of stainless steel.” – John Olson, Author

We look forward to seeing you all here for this exciting book signing event! Come meet the author, buy a book, and get it signed!

William P. McElligott Signing His Photography Book “Ottawa, Canada” on Saturday, June 2 from 11:00am to 2:00pm

Local author William P. McElligott will be in the store on Saturday, June 2 from 11:00am to 2:00pm signing copies of his new photography book “Ottawa, Canada.” It’s a beautiful hardcover coffee table book filled with gorgeous photographs of Ottawa taken during each of our four seasons. It would make a wonderful gift for friends and family, or as an exciting treat for yourself!
For more information about William or his book, visit www.wpmcelligott.com.

We look forward to seeing you all here on Saturday!