Staff Picks

Canticles III

George Elliott Clarke

Guernica

Editions

To write an epic poem of Africadia requires an epic poet, and Nova Scotia’s poet outside of residence sticks the landing with Canticles III. George Elliott Clarke wanted to “review evil histories” and he does so, with power and panache. Historical “heroes” from Nova Scotia’s colonial past, such as Ochterloney and the Wentworths, don’t glow so goldenly when their exploits are enpoemed by the Black people they exploited. They say history is written by the winners, but they don’t say when the contest is concluded. Clarke is still winning, and still writing (and rewriting) Africadia.

A Green Velvet Secret

Vicki Grant

Tundra

Books

Adult fiction often obscures understanding feelings in favour of expressing them artistically, which has an important role in turning pain into beauty. However, if you’re struggling to name what you’re feeling, A Green Velvet Secret by Vicki Grant will help you learn your heart. The middle-grade story follows Yardley O’Hanlon as her beloved grandmother Gidge is dying.

When young Yardley gets a post-death visit from a stranger who she highly suspects is her reincarnated grandmother, she launches a scooter-bound investigation.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Cocktail Book

Peter Wilkins

Breakwater Books

If you can taste a golden sunset in an evening cocktail, you’ll drink up Peter Wilkins’s new guide to cocktails across Newfoundland and Labrador. Wilkins spent years travelling the world to explore cultural approaches to alcohol before cofounding the Newfoundland Distillery in 2016. He mixes those two phases of his life in The Newfoundland and Labrador Cocktail Book, exploring his adopted home and its approach to spirits in particular. If you want a quick cocktail, he’s got the recipe. If you want to create a showpiece for a party, he’ll guide you step-by-step. It includes dozens of gorgeous, glossy photos from drinkeries across the province, giving it a coffee-table appeal.

Jace Power and the Battle of Mars City

Randall James Atlantic Breeze Books

While most of us wait patiently to see if Nova Scotia’s Canso Space Port will one day become real, speculative fiction writer Randall James has gone ahead and built an entire space-trash industry in Cape Breton. This fastpaced novel for young readers takes place in Sydney a century from now. Our hero, Jace Power, starts off worried about his dad embarrassing him at career day (he hauls trash to the Moon) but his blistering adventure brings him through a war and face to screen with the android king who has taken over Mars. It’s like reading a video game. So. Much. Fun.

The Rock Box

Don McKay

Running the Goat Books and Broadsides.

Petra is a nine-year-old eager to live up to her name and study rocks. Her obsession takes over the house and spills into the backyard. She hides lovely rocks in the cupboards, down the sofa and in the medicine cabinet. Her exasperated parents buy her a beautiful Rock Box, hoping it will shrink her collection. It has home for a selection of rocks and minerals found in Newfoundland and Labrador. Sally McKay’s illustrations in The Rock Box may turn you into a petrologist. Veteran rock hounds will enjoy the geological stories, and it would make a great gift for any potential young rock stars.

How to Smuggle Children and Other Confessions of a Country Doctor

Dr David Cogswell Friesen Press

Mid-way through David Cogswell’s charming memoir about doctoring in rural Atlantic Canada, he shares some blackand-white photos from his childhood. One of his cousins is a certain Peggy Atwood and it turns out she published a few books as well, under her penname of Margaret Atwood. How to Smuggle Children takes its name from a near-disastrous family trip, but most of the book brings alive the old days and how he, his father and his grandfather doctored their rural area for a century, from horse and sleigh to horseless cars. It’s a lovely trip back in time.

Working From Home for a Harmonious Life

Luc Desroches

Pottersfield Press

When Luc Desroches began working from home in Dieppe, N.B., for his job as a public servant with the federal government, it was a bold move. The year was 2016, and asking to work from home sounded akin to asking to work from hammock. Events overtook him as he was writing this helpful book, and it shifted to a broader guidebook for those newer to telecommuting. While some of us forced to WFH likely embraced the office return, others found a permanent way of life. In Working From Home for a Harmonious Life, Desroches helps you understand what it is you enjoy about it, how to deal with the problems of longterm WFH, and why it’s an important option for workers. ■