New Canadian library

Good Bones is a collection of short fiction by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The collection was originally published in 1992. The collection explores the sinister side of classical myths, traditional Anglo-European folklore and literary archetypes

"An immediately recognizable woman, Rachel Cameron has let fourteen years slip by since her father's death forced her to leave college and return home to teach grade school. Trapped by a tyrannically demanding mother, Rachel must suffer daily assaults on her self-respect: from the yearly classes of youngsters, who give her no more than enforced attention, forgetting her as they move on, while she longs for a child of her own; from the school principal, who knowingly takes advantage of her insecurities; from the older fellow teacher, who insinuates herself ambiguously into Rachel's life ... But in her thirty-fourth summer quite unexpectedly [she] finds release ... [which] provides her with the strength to free herself."

Many a mid-nineteenth century "female settler" must have had cause to feel gratitude to this comprehensive and live Guide, and the remarkable lady who wrote it. The book abounds with useful information from bread and pickle-making to what to do if your cabin catches fire, and how best to combat loneliness in the Ontario bush. It discusses manners, morality, what the sensible pioneer should wear, and how to raise chickens. It tells you how to raise flowers and vegetables, how to cope with illness with no doctor in reach, and abounds with practical suggestions for entertaining and interior decorating, even while in the wilderness. It is not surprising that The Canadian Settler's Guide has become a genuine classic of Canadiana. Written in a clear, lucid prose, its author's versatility, imagination, and common sense still shine from every page. Catherine Parr Traill was a young bride when she exchanged the comforts of upper-class English society for the rigour of pioneer existence. And she took the taming of the Canadian bush into her stride as gracefully as she had once entertained the vicar at tea. Her diverting and informative Guide remains as fascinating today as when it was first written.

We follow one Thomas Leadbeater Turvey, originally native to (fictional?) Skookum Falls, British Columbia, as he enlists in the Canadian Army and goes through an interminable saga of slow advancements and sudden setbacks on his mission to join his best friend Mac Macgillicuddy in the (fictional?) Kootenay Highlanders as they head to Europe to take on the Nazis. Private Turvey is of the species amiable innocent, and though he goes through an astounding series of mild-to-dire accidents and ailments, he always manages to crawl out from under with a sheepish grin. We are ever on his side, fingers tightly crossed, especially after he does eventually achieve Europe and a reunion with the ultimately ill-fated Mac

The prudent husbandman, after having taken from his field all the straw that is there, rakes it over with a wooden rake and gets as much again. The wise child, after the lemonade jug is empty, takes the lemons from the bottom of it and squeezes them into a still larger brew. So does the sagacious author, after having sold his material to the magazines and been paid for it, clap it into book-covers and give it another squeeze.

It was outright satire at the time it was written. Now, I'm inclined to think it was more of a forecast of the society we see being created.

La première traduction française du premier roman de Margaret Laurence. Extraordinairement prémonitoire, De l'autre côté du Jourdain est encore aujourd'hui d'une étonnante actualité.

Thirteen-year-old Emily Starr, desperate to join her friends at high school in nearby Shrewsbury, agrees to Aunt Elizabeth's requirement that she stay in town with her Aunt Ruth, despite Ruth's refusal to allow Emily to follow her dream of becoming a writer.

"Spit Delaney is a steam locomotive operator at a pulp mill. After decades of rising at 4am to fire up his beloved steam engine, Spit finds himself without a job when the pulp mill replaces "Old Number One" with a modern diesel engine"--

A little girl named Miranda living with her mother in the Canadian wilderness is befriended by a bear named Kroof.

A Bird in the House is a series of eight interconnected short stories narrated by Vanessa MacLeod as she matures from a child at age ten into a young woman at age twenty. Wise for her years, Vanessa reveals much about the adult world in which she lives.