Our top-selling time-traveller’s guide to the highly varied images of the many different women, from all walks of life, who did so much to make Canada’s civilized biggest city what it became in the twentieth century.

“A gem of a book … a teasing reminder of our complex evolution as liberated women’ … The pictures are fresh, sometimes funny, evocative in unexpected ways of their time and place and the captions … add up to a kind of short-order menu of women’s existence in the city … Any stereotype of women’s past that you bring to the book will be glancingly confirmed or lightly challenged … a fine farewell to the Toronto we knew and which is now ending.” (Michele Landsberg, Toronto Star)

“If I were in charge of filling a time-capsule for future mortals, I would probably urge that this book belongs there … I like the fact that these women in these strong photos are, many of them, unknown (though there are exceptions like Agnes Macphail, Mary Pickford, June Callwood and Marilyn Bell, Betty Kennedy, Doris Anderson) … these 144 pages are much more than a celebration of Toronto’s women over a century. They are also a remarkably well-rounded and concise history of the city … The text sparkles with fresh historical insights … Every page, every sentence counts … worth dipping into again and again.” (Judith Adams, View from the Danforth)

Two main themes marked Paul Kihiu Njuguna’s early education in Kenya. One was defined by the 13 years he spent as a scholarship student at a prominent modern boarding school in the city of Nairobi. The other flowed from his time as a child in the village of Kangemi, living next door to his grandmother, a traditional African wise woman of great skill and repute.

Milele Africa is the story of how these two main themes have subsequently blended into a new kind of life. It is a life that mixes the modern West with the oldest traditions of Africa forever. (“Milele” is in fact “Forever” in Swahili, Kenya’s national language.) Paul is a citizen of the world, adept at the latest technologies. But he has also discovered that the traditional and deeply spiritual Africa he learned about from his grandmother still has some things to tell the future. Much trouble in our world, Paul’s grandmother has finally taught him, has “a lot to do with failure by human beings to understand what goes on in the mind of the other. Everywhere today there are many different histories, which need to understand each other.”

Milele Africa strikes many different and always interesting blows in the struggle for this kind of understanding. It is an engaging book to read, full of a spirit that comes straight from the heart. Here are some gentler antidotes to terrorism in the global village. And here is some of the more optimistic human background to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, promoted by Canada at the 2002 G8 summit. (You’ll also learn a lot more about what it’s like to live in the real Kenya nowadays than you ever did watching Survivor!)

Paul Kihiu Njuguna works in the tourism industry on the sunny coast of the Indian Ocean in Kenya. It’s a place where a traditional Islamic culture, strongly influenced by the Arabian peninsula and the Indian subcontinent, has lately been bumping up against various new waves of a wider world. Paul himself, originally from a Christian background in the Kenya interior, married a coast girl and now lives in the Mombasa area, with his wife and two children.

128 pages, 140 x 215 mm, softcover, b&w photos and maps. ISBN:1-896973-31-0.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.

What animal lover nowadays doesn’t know something about the remarkable Jane Goodall, author of such compelling books as My Thirty Years With the Chimpanzees of Gombe?

Lorena Elke is a Jane Goodall of the cat world. She has spent not quite thirty years studying an ever-increasing tribe of feline fanatics. And she has discovered “that cats are highly spiritual creatures with connections to other psychic realms that we as humans are only vaguely aware exist.”

Along the way Lorena has become a learned devotee of holistic and natural methods of cat rearing (and feline-human relations). Her intimate research has shown that, if cats could talk, they would tell us they want love, play, companionship, and good health. Her book shows how to go about providing all these things and how doing this well provides no end of human rewards.

Born and raised in Manitoba, Lorena Elke graduated from Mount St. Vincent University in Nova Scotia, and then went to work in the health food and animal care industries in Toronto. She holds a certificate in advanced veterinary homeopathy, and works today as a feline nutrition and behavioural consultant. She has also co-produced a segment on cats and healing for the TV series, “Cutting Edge.” Rescue cats dominate her current multi-cat household. Her life is dedicated to healing cats.

128 pages, 140 x 215 mm, softcover with charts, illustrations, and sidebars. ISBN:1-896973-16-7.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States. Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.

This lively account of contemporary travels through the human geography of the Greater Toronto Area combines more than 100 line drawings and photographs by Toronto artist Michael J. Seward with a text by historian Randall White.

The two authors grew up in the older City of Toronto, as it used to be during the generation that followed the Second World War. They have lately been exploring the vast exurban sprawl that has subsequently arisen in what Jane Jacobs calls the “city region” of the early 21st century. At least a little like Jack Kerouac, in still another time and place, they have gone on the road, in pursuit of what has happened to the Toronto of their youth.

The book concentrates on the two dozen area municipalities in the “905”sub-region of the GTA, beyond the City of Toronto — from the City of Burlington and the Town of Oakville in the west, to the Town of Georgina and Brock Township in the north, and Scugog Township and the Municipality of Clarington in the far east. Each place is covered by drawings, photographs, and an accompanying interpretive text that focuses on local history, geography, demography, and key points of human interest. The volume concludes with a long glance at the new amalgamated City of Toronto. The end result is an intriguing and user-friendly guide to the various diversities of current city-region life. As the authors explain: “This is our own eclectic report on what the GTA looks and feels like today — and on at least a few of the things you might discover if you choose to explore the place yourself.”

Michael J. Seward has exhibited his paintings and drawings at a wide assortment of galleries and shows in Ontario and New Brunswick. Randall White is the author or co-author of a number of earlier books, including Ontario 1610-1985: A Political and Economic History, Fur Trade to Free Trade: Putting the Canada–US Trade Agreement in Historical Perspective, Toronto Women: Changing Faces 1900–2000, and Ontario Since 1985.

144 pages, 140 x 215 mm, softcover, b&w illustrations and maps. ISBN 1-896973-32-9.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.

Excavations made in the course of expanding Peace Bridge customs facilities, to accommodate recent increases in traffic between Buffalo, New York and Fort Erie, Ontario, have shed provocative new light on the ancient past of the Great Lakes region.

“A guidebook to a past that goes back four thousand years … highly readable … stories of trade and warfare, thunderbirds, layers of human bone … potsherds, pictures, and context: what people ate and how the weather was … more adventurous readers will be encouraged to visit the site … and gaze out at a great waterway … a powerful past brought imaginatively to life.” (M.T. Kelly, Books in Canada)

“Around 1800 BC, the Niagara Frontier was the site of one of the largest stone-tool workshops and trading centres in the Great Lakes region, and many traces of this prehistoric activity, and the people who pursued it, are still left below the streets of Fort Erie, Ont. … profusely illustrated with photos and maps.” (‘New and Noted,’ Globe and Mail)

Published in association with the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority.

168 pages, 215 x 275 mm, softcover. ISBN:ISBN 1-896973-10-8.

$20 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $24 (Can). Order by mail only.

Whatever it really is and wherever it may be going, the new Age of the Internet is changing the global village. As the present confederation in Canada tries to respond, is it already trapped in a time warp, bounded by the obsolete political symbolism of the “monarchical principle” in the nineteenth century?

Should Canadians today follow the lead of Australia – and New Zealand and the Guardian in the United Kingdom (or India long ago) – and start talking seriously about abolishing the monarchy, once and for all? Randall White explores the argument that at some point in the twenty-first century Canada ought to replace the present monarch with a governor general directly elected by the sovereign people.

Senior officials in Ottawa actually pondered abolishing the monarchy, briefly, more than a decade ago. Then they put the issue on a back burner, for fear of the divisions it would cause. This short book raises the prospect that there will have to be some kind of bolder action at some point, if the country is going to see the end of the twenty-first century: “Is Canada trapped in a time warp? Probably (or even almost certainly) yes … And, when you start to think about it, abolishing the monarchy as a way out could prove to be a lot less futile an idea than it seems at first glance.”

Randall White is the author or co-author of a number of books, including Ontario 1610-1985, Fur Trade to Free Trade, Global Spin, Toronto Women, and Ontario Since 1985.

128 pages, 140 x 215 mm, softcover. ISBN:1-896973-24-8.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.

This gently sparkling collection of illustrations and text is based on a popular series of talks that author Elizabeth Luther has been giving to discerning live audiences for a number of years. The theme is the unique contributions of the spirit that pioneer religious congregations have made to the growth of a distinctive Canadian community in the country’s most populous province.

The book presents photographs and other illustrations of 54 places of worship in virtually all parts of Ontario. The illustrations are accompanied by engaging short accounts of the congregations attached to these places — capturing the charm and warm human interest that made Elizabeth Luther’s original talks so popular.

Author Elizabeth Luther was born in North Bay, Ontario, in the 1920s. She spent her childhood in various parts of Canada, including a memorable stint among the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors in British Columbia. As an adult she has lived for extended periods in Ottawa, Nairobi (Kenya), and Toronto (where she still lives today). Though married very early, she eventually graduated from the University of Toronto as a mature student. Along with her popular talks, she has published articles on historical and related subjects in the Toronto Star.

Published in association with Eglinton St. George’s United Church.

216 pages, 170 x 230 mm, softcover with b&w and colour illustrations. ISBN:1-896973-20-5.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.

eastendbooks is serving as Canadian representative for an enchanting Canadian-themed children’s story about dealing with change, direct from Atlanta, Georgia.

The Journey of Sir Douglas Fir is based on the real-life adventures of a 350-year-old giant fir tree, that crashed to the ground during a great storm on Vancouver Island, and then travelled across the mountains to become today’s proud flagpole at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto.

Ric Reitz and his partners have turned these adventures into an inspiring saga recommended for readers aged 7 to 11 — in a beautifully produced full-colour illustrated book, accompanied by a sing-along, Broadway-style musical on CD: “the world’s first musical written as a book.”

A beautifully produced 48-page picture book is dedicated “To everyone who courageously faces change and somehow finds a rainbow.” The accompanying 45-minute CD features five original songs, and a full underscore with sound effects. It all adds up to something still quite rare: a provocative American encounter with the Canadian experience.

Published by Sir Fir Books, Atlanta, Georgia.

48 pages, 260 x 210 mm, hardcover with illustrations and CD. ISBN:0-9670160-0-2.

$20 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $24 (Can). Order by mail only.

There has never been a time when the call for help has gone unanswered in the Town of Caledon — from the early days of bucket brigades to today’s state-of-the-art firefighting apparatus.

This is the history of one of Ontario’s (and Canada’s) largest firefighting services where the call is still answered by volunteers, with nine stations covering 274 square miles.

Answering the Call offers over 250 pages of absorbing history about firefighting in Caledon, not too far northwest of the present city of Toronto — along with a broad range of reassuring information about just how modern, and how extensive, the Town’s firefighting force has become.

What the book also does exceptionally well is tell a great human story, difficult to do in a publication with such a broad mandate, but Answering the Call manages the task superbly. From beginning to end, a reader never loses sight of the commitment, the sense of duty, the bravery and most of all the spirit that prevails among the individual firefighters of Caledon, and throughout the volunteer brigades to which they belong. (Review by Ken Weber).

You can be sitting down for dinner, or at a wedding and the call comes and you go because you want to serve, You’re there for the service of your community, and you’re very much a part of the community. (Bernard Moyle, former Palgrave volunteer firefighter).

Published by the Town of Caledon in association with eastendbooks

ISBN 1-896973-36-1, hardcover, 256 pages, 8 1/2 x 11, 16-page colour section, 200 b&w.

$20 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $24 (Can). Order by mail only.

A fresh introduction to the aggravating permutations of the never-ending debate on the future of Canada and Quebec.

Who Are the People of Canada, Anyway? argues that if the Quebec sovereigntist movement ever were to win another sovereignty referendum, the rest of the country should just promptly offer a version of “sovereignty-association” that works as well for the rest of us as it works for Quebec. Until this happens (if it ever does), the best policy for Canada outside Quebec is to do “nothing at all.”

“Brings sanity to many issues … refreshingly level-headed … refreshingly philosophical.” (Patrice A. Dutil, Literary Review of Canada)

“I noted, with considerable interest, how Harold Innis’s image of the fur trade, and the multiracial voyageurs, inspired X … Through a series of informal, amiable chats with relatives and friends, X manages to air a fair number of complex issues. Two important points that he stresses: The people of Canada are themselves in danger of being overruled by propaganda … and we must have a story or myth, a dream to help transform us … interesting impressions … personable and anecdotal.” (B.W. Powe, Globe and Mail)

240 pages, 140 x 215 mm, softcover, 44 statistical exhibits. ISBN:1-896973-02-7.

$10 (Can), includes postage to locations in Canada and the United States.  Order by mail or through Pay Pal below:

Outside Canada and the United States, $12 (Can). Order by mail only.