Category: Book Review

This Saturday found us at the ArtCan Cafe in Canning. Besides, the gallery and cafe, they often have a few books on sale by local authors (see also Canning Trip). This time, they included three books by Soren Bondrup-Nielsen, plus a recent publication on the Inner Bay of Fundy. The latter is a colouring and activity book. I picked up a copy for our grand-children. Indeed, I should have purchased three copies ( one per family)

It fits well with the concept of books on local Geography. But it goes much further. It is written in both English and Mi’kmaw. It is an activity book with crosswords and colouring.

The geography is the Inner Bay of Fundy between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I can imagine extending it to the land geography that includes the watersheds flowing into the upper Bay of Fundy.

References

Sondra Eger, Darren Porter and Erica Porter, 2025, Volume 1. The Inner Bay of Fundy: Colouring and Activity Book, Friesen Press.

Soren Bondrup-Nielsen‘s books: Voles, not Moles, Winter on Diamond and Merging: contemplation on Farming and Ecology from Horseback.

This weekend, we visited New Glasgow. I took time out to visit the Coles bookstore at the Highland Mall.

Fortuitously, I found a new book by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass.

The new book, The Serviceberry is a short but uplifting read on Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.

As Kimmerer explains:

“ Serviceberries show us another model, one based on reciprocity rather than accumulation, where wealth and security come from the quality of our relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

(See also my posts The Pastoral Economy, Landscape and Food: hidden gems of the Creative Rural Economy, Annapolis County Resources and The Mail Line). In The Main Line, I quoted from Poverty and Riches. S. Nearing. 1916,” Life is enriched by aspiration and effort, rather than by acquisition and accumulation” Poverty and Riches. S. Nearing. 1916.

We also enjoyed our Saturday evening with John watching PBS on the TV. It included ‘As Time Goes by’ and ‘Doc Martin’; both examples of community life in London and Southwest England. Given the programs come from Maine, it is easy to imagine the similarity of landscapes between rural Canada (Nova Scotia) and rural New England.

The emphasis, in both cases, is upon our sense of community.

Acknowledgements

Heather and I continue to enjoy the vibrant colours, especially the tamaracks, as we drive through the Rawdon Hills.

References

Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2024, The Serviceberry, Scribner/Simon&Schuster.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013, Braiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Milkweed Editions.

Last weekend, after our French Basin trail walk, we stopped at Mare Gold bookstore in Annapolis Royal (see also An Author’s Market). It is a real treasure. Heather found a book on botanical illustration. I saw a couple of interesting titles but decided to hold off. Why?

a) do we really need more books?
b) managing two houses is a financial burden.

Later, I went online and researched Mike Duggan, Kings College, London.

The end result was that we returned to Mare Gold on Wednesday. I picked up two books.

Mike Duggan’s, All Mapped Out: How maps shape us.
and John Muir’s “The Story of my boyhood and youth: a memoir”.

The second was for Heather.

From the back cover of Muir.
Robert MacFarlane. “No other writer is so ceaselessly astonished by the natural world as Muir, or communicates that astonishment more urgently.”

From the back cover of Duggan:
“Mike Duggan asks questions of our present reliance on digital mapping: how the technologies subtly pervade our lives, condition our consumption habits and even shape our experience of the world,” Veronica Della Dora, Professor of Human Geography, University of London.

For myself, it is a marvel that I can discover these books so close to home (Middleton to Annapolis Royal). Given my interests in ‘all things geographic’, I struggle with the impact of technology: GPS, and Google Maps. Duggan helps to put it in perspective. He also introduces me to happenings on the other side of the Atlantic, and authors like Phil Cohen, and Livingmaps Network.

Both Edward, and myself, appreciate and enjoy this perspective on our world. Do pay a visit to Mare Gold. They offer a unique resource in the region.

REFERENCES

Mike Duggan, 2024, All Mapped Out: How maps shape us, Reaktion Books (U Chicago Press distributor)
John Muir, (orig. 1913) The Story of my boyhood and youth: A Memoir, U Wisconsin Press

Saturday, it was time to step out of the Valley. We had not driven down Highway #10 to Bridgewater this Winter. I wanted a change of bookstores. After a short stop in Mahone Bay, we found ourselves at Block Shop Books in Lunenburg.

Of course, we did not leave empty-handed.

I found Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise built in Hell.

Heather found Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog and Swamp.

The last Solnit book, for me, was Orwell’s Roses (see post Orwell’s Roses, and Orwell’s Roses Part 2). Here we are a few years later – still living in Paradise – seeking optimism from the “extraordinary communities that arise in disaster” – will they include rural Nova Scotia?

Heather stayed closer to her roots with “a short history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis”.

From the previous two blog posts (The Question and The Secret), I am looking for The Answer. Does it lie in Paradise? Or in the words of Bill McKibbon “The freshest, deepest, most optimistic account of human nature I’ve come across in many years“.

Acknowledgements

Edward continues to step up to the challenge. Heather remains closely connected to our garden, the greenhouse and the surrounding woodlots.

References

Rebecca Solnit, 2010, A Paradise Built in Hell, PenguinRandomHouse.
Annie Proulx, 2022, Fen, Bog and Swamp, Scribner/Simon & Schuster.