Masham Means Evening by Kanina Dawson (Coteau Books)
Masham Means Evening is a poetry collection that takes the reader inside army camps, convoys, schools, markets, and villages, charting a young female soldier’s tour through Canada’s war in Afghanistan.
How I Won the War for the Allies by Doris Gregory (Ronsdale Press)
Still sassy, Doris Gregory takes the reader back over seventy years to the time when she broke with tradition, first by publicly challenging the University of British Columbia’s discrimination against women, and then by joining the Canadian Women’s Army Corps.
Evans Shaw made her first visit to the battlefields of WWI in 2004, where she realized that there was a dearth of material for Canadians. Collaborating with photographer Jean Crankshaw, she created these books as a tribute to her grandfather, who was killed in action in 1918.
First in Line: The Incredible Life of Leonard Stickby Hilda Morrow & Steve Bartlett (Creative Book Publishing)
Leonard Stick, a distinguished war veteran, lawman, and federal politician, was the ‘first’ in many historically significant events throughout his lifetime including being the first man to enlist with the Newfoundland Regiment, regional No. 1, when it was reconstructed at the outbreak of WWI.
Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War by Ronald Liversedge
(New Star Books)
Liversedge’s memoir of his two years in the Mackenzie–Papineau battalion is a riveting, soldier’s–eye account of life and death at the front, of the fascinating panoply of characters drawn to the Spanish struggle, of the ravages of the war on Spain and its people, and of the reasons that drove thousands of Canadians to volunteer.
The Long Run by Joan Sullivan (Breakwater Books)
Sullivan tells the story of one man’s extraordinary journey through the battlefield and into history. As part of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, Eric Mackenzie Robertson was at the battle at Beaumont-Hamel, then, almost unbelievably, just four years later he became the first born and bred Newfoundlander to compete in the Olympics.
* * *These and other titles are also featured on our Remembrance Day book list.
