Pottersfield Press Book Club on Face book

Pottersfield Press is pleased to announce our new book club on Facebook.com
Be one of the first to know when new books are being released and other book related events.
Click here to join today.

A History of Hangings in Nova Scotia

Deanna Foster

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, Crime
180 pages
$17.95
6 x 9 paperback
ISBN 978-1-895900-95-8
(Available September 2007)

Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

From the original gallows tree at the bottom of George Street in Halifax to jail hangings throughout the province, Nova Scotians were always attracted to a hanging. This book explores many of the Nova Scotian crimes that ended with the noose. Included are the Saladin pirates, one of the bloodiest cases ever brought before a court in Nova Scotia; the hanging of Peter Mailman, who murdered his wife but captivated a reporter; and the trial of William Robinson, who not only murdered his wife but desecrated her body and tried to burn the evidence; and many others.

Almost as soon as Halifax was settled by the British in 1749, it became a violent place to live. To curb this excess, public hangings and floggings were a common occurrence for close to 100 years and people were hanged for crimes that ranged from petty theft to gruesome murders.

Hangings may have been a grisly event, but they managed to captivate large crowds, and are a testament to the prevalent interest in the dark side of history. Issues of deterrence, public opinion, and effectiveness down through the years are explored by the author as she traces the crimes and punishment for murders that prevailed from the very first to the last hanging.

Deanna Foster grew up in Tantallon, Nova Scotia. She completed her BA at Dalhousie University and is now working towards her B.Ed. at Mount St. Vincent University. Although a history class prompted her interest in hangings, she had always had a unique fascination with things deemed morbid or gothic. This is her first book.

Pardon My Frenchy's

By Pat Wilson and Kris Wood (The Frenchy's Ladies)

Nonfiction: The Maritimes, Popular Culture, Humour
160 pages
$16.95
6 x 9 paperback
ISBN 978-1-895900-92-7
(Available September 2007)

Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

Pardon My Frenchy's is a definitive relationship manual for shoppers who haunt Frenchy's, Value Village, The Sally Ann, and the hundreds of used clothing stores that are part of the Maritime mystique. Unlike a how-to book, Pardon My Frenchy's is a what-to-do compendium of ideas, quizzes, games and stories, all aimed at keeping the Frenchy's fires burning, the used clothing passion alive and the super bargain excitement as high as it was during that first root in the bins.

Pardon My Frenchy's is a dose of good old-fashioned relationship counselling, helping Frenchy's fans rekindle the romance with their favourite stores. It addresses burning questions such as: do you still feel that tingle of anticipation as your eyes sweep across the heaped bins? Does a super-bargain find still make your heart beat faster? And, the ultimate relationship question: do you find yourself casting a roving eye on Walmart or The Bay?

Readers can rely on a wealth of ideas such as Six Bring-Back-the-Thrill Techniques, Ten Surefire Ways to Pull Out all the Stops, Four Ideas to Put You in the Frenchy's Mood, Three Ways to Add Zest to the Experience, Three Tips for Initiating Virgin Frenchy's Shoppers, plus the Ultimate Definitive State-of-the-Art Frenchy's Self Quiz. There's even Frenchy's song lyrics that are perfect for a shopping crawl with the gang.

Pat Wilson and Kris Wood wrote the first Frenchy's book, The Frenchy's Connection - a how-to book on used clothing shopping. They collaborated on Extreme Sports of the Maritimes to highlight the Maritimers' pursuit of fun - at Firehall Bingo, Lobster Suppers and 10 other extreme activities. They are both members of the Ladies Killing Circle, a group of women from across the country who write for mystery anthologies, and are also the co-authors of a Maritime mystery novel, Lucky Strike, set on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia: Shaped By The Sea -- A Living History (New, Revised Edition)

By Lesley Choyce

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History
324 pages
$24.95
ISBN 978-1-895900-94-1
(Available September 2007)


Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

The history of Nova Scotia is an amazing story of a land and people shaped by the waves, the tides, the wind and the wonder of the North Atlantic. Lesley Choyce weaves the legacy of this unique coastal province, piecing together the stories written in the rocks, the wrecks and the record books of human glory and error. In this true-life adventure, he provides a down-to-earth journey through the natural and man-made history that is both refreshing and revealing.

The story begins after the retreat of the glaciers when the first people arrived, and over thousands of years evolved the highly civilized Mi'kmaq culture. The arrival of the Europeans disrupted their life, unleashing tumultuous conflicts that would last centuries. Then came the power struggle between France and England, fought at sea and on land. As England emerged the victor, the Acadians were driven from the land they loved. Once the wars subsided, the pirates and privateers still plundered the seas, but the honest sailors and shipbuilders of Nova Scotia led the province into a flourishing world trade. During the First World War, Nova Scotia was again thrust into military action, resulting in one of the most devastating explosions ever to rip through a city. Decades later, Halifax was torn apart again, this time by military riots.

Here in the new century, it is clear that the way of life along this coast is changing. But while the wealth of the sea has been plundered by human greed, the dreams of life in harmony with the fierce, yet beautiful, North Atlantic live on, even as the restless surge of the waves continues to carve away the coastline.

Penguin Books published the first edition in 1996. Lesley Choyce lives at Lawrencetown Beach and is the author of 65 books including The Coasts of Canada, a history of the country's shorelines. He has edited a companion volume to Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea titled Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion, 300 Years of Travel Writing (also from Pottersfield Press).

Hunting Halifax: In Search of History, Mystery and Murder

By Steven Edwin Laffoley

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, Mystery, Murder
192 pages
$19.95
6 x 9 paperback
ISBN 978-1-895900-93-4
(Available September 2007)

Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

"I was walking into an air-conditioned Halifax tavern on a hot summer afternoon... in search of a dark mystery... I was on the trail of a cold-case murder - a murder case 150 years cold. Clearly, I needed a beer."

So begins the strange and surprising adventure of Hunting Halifax, the true tale of writer Steven Edwin Laffoley as he investigates the mean streets and narrow alleys of historic Halifax, Nova Scotia, in search of clues to a murder, a mystery and a black hole in history.

In the early hours of September 8, 1853, in the shadow of Citadel Hill, the body of a sailor lies slumped against the staircase of a notorious tavern on Barrack Street. Something - or someone - has crushed his skull. The death is said to be an accident - a fall from a window - until two tavern prostitutes tell a very different story to Nova Scotia's famous son, Joseph Howe. They claim it was wilful murder.

As the investigation of murder and mystery unfolds, Steven discovers the ghosts of the past haunt the present in ways most unexpected. Prepared to do what it takes to find justice for the murdered sailor, he sleeps in old graveyards, drinks in rough taverns, converses in trendy coffee shops, pokes about staid Province House, ponders Victorian Age philosophy, and - somehow - just manages to avoid arrest. Humourous and engaging, Hunting Halifax is an entertaining tale of history, mystery and murder.

Born near Boston, Massachusetts, Steven Edwin Laffoley has worked as a bookstore manager, a curriculum writer, a university professor, a school principal, and a dues-paying member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters delivering beer in south Boston. A compulsive freelance writer, columnist, and broadcaster, Steven has written dozens of articles and essays for online magazines and newspapers, as well as for CBC Radio. His last book was Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason. He lives with his wife and daughter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Finishing School: a novel

By Helen Fogwill Porter

Fiction
214 pages
$19.95, 6"x9" Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-895900-88-0
ISBN-10: 1-895900-88-3
(Available in April 2007)


Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

Forty-nine-year-old divorced hair stylist Eileen Novak has enrolled in a community college to complete her high school education. Her first English assignment is to keep a journal. Initially apprehensive about this exercise, Eileen soon discovers she enjoys writing and the opportunity to really let herself go.

Set in St. John's, Newfoundland, in the 1980s and resonating with a vivid sense of place, Finishing School chronicles Eileen's sometimes traumatic, sometimes funny but fully engaged life during the school months. "Always ready to try anything," Eileen says. She speaks frankly of the day-to-day events of her life that sometimes involve uncomfortable encounters, intimate moments and awkward revelations. She's free-speaking with her wisdom and opinions about the world in general and the people she has known through her life. Eileen is unpretentious and down-to-earth as she reveals her unique way of observing the world around her from her downtown working-class neighbourhood.

The cast of characters in Eileen's life include her three grown daughters, her stepfather Herb, her classmate Tom, her ex-husband Gary, her former boyfriend Bruce, her clients as well as her friends and enemies. Readers are sure to fall in love with this delightful and unlikely fictional heroine.



A native of St. John's, Newfoundland, where she still resides and where most of her work is set, Helen Fogwill Porter has been writing professionally for 35 years. Her material spans many genres, from fiction and poetry to drama and criticism. Published across Canada and internationally, Porter is particularly interested in regional speech and creating a vivid sense of place. Her previous books, published by Breakwater Books, include Below the Bridge, a memoir-history, and A Long and Lonely Ride, a short story collection. January, February, June and July, a novel, was short-listed for the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1989 and won the Young Adult Canadian Book Award that year. Finishing School is her second novel.

Richard Zurawski's Book of Maritime Weather

By Richard Zurawski

Nonfiction: The Maritimes, Weather, Popular Science
160 pages, Includes Photographs
$18.95, 6"x9" Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-895900-89-7
ISBN-10: 1-895900-89-1
(Available in May 2007)

Click on a link below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters
Richard Zurawski's Book of Maritime Weather is filled with fascinating weather facts, myths, climatological oddities, science, folklore, and observations of the diverse and often frustrating topic of weather in CanadaÕs Maritime Provinces. Whether you just like to watch the clouds go by or are a serious student of meteorology, there is plenty to entertain you in this book.

There's virtually everything here you'd like to know about the how and why of our regional weather. What makes our weather the way it is? What drives this ceaseless cycle of hot and cold, dry and wet? Zurawski brings the reader up to date on the modern science of forecasting but also includes historical perspectives about the weather before people made the study of weather into a science. Folklore, myths and anecdotes from days past are included with the modern facts and records of our climate. Weather sayings are not only presented, but scrutinized for their basis and value. Before the days of the super-computer and Environment Canada, the sea-bound skipper was the forecaster of his era and his innate and intimate knowledge of Maritime weather shifts could mean the difference between life and death.

Even with the aid of computers, satellites and ultramodern communications, forecasting the weather is still as much an art as it is a science. Richard Zurawski's Book of Maritime Weather taps the wisdom of the past and the present to give a holistic view of the fascinating and sometimes bizarre world of Maritime weather.



Richard Zurawski is a meteorologist, documentary filmmaker, and television and radio personality who has called Halifax, Nova Scotia, his home for almost two decades. He has been in the science and weather business for the past 25 years. He is the host, creator and producer of the TV series Wonder Why?, The Adventures of the AfterMath Crew and WiseWeatherWhys. His TV series and documentaries are enjoyed around the world. Richard is currently heard predicting the fickle Maritime weather on Rogers Radio in Halifax, Moncton and Saint John.

In Our Hands: On Becoming a Doctor

Edited by Linda E. Clarke and Jeff Nisker

Nonfiction: Medicine, Hospitals, Health Care
192 pages
$19.95, 6"x9" Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-895900-86-6
ISBN-10: 1-895900-86-7
(Available in May 2007)

Click on the links below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

The experiences of medical training are some of the most profound and the most privileged a person can have. The tradition of physician writers is partly in response to this. Story is one way of helping us to make meaning of the deep events of our lives and to reflect that meaning back into the community. Those of us who welcome these stories do so, in part anyway, because we value the inside view that such voices and stories can provide us. For those of us "with ears to hear," such stories are an entry into very human experiences.

In Our Hands is an anthology written by medical students and residents from across Canada. The collection includes fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry to provide a taste of the wonder, the challenges and the graphic realities that are the experiences of those learning to care for us all. It is an emotionally charged and rich territory indeed, this place of "laying on of hands" that is medicine at its finest.

Our hands are unique maps of who we are, who we have been. For those who are learning the privilege of being a physician, studying the hand is done with extra care. In the anatomy lab, it is a profound and poetic initiation. They will continue on to learn that the art of medicine is one of connection and engagement.



The collection is edited by Linda E. Clarke, a writer and storyteller who has worked in health care and medical education for more than 15 years, and Dr. Jeff Nisker, of the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario.

Buddy MacMaster: The Judique Fiddler

By Sheldon MacInnes

Nonfiction: Biography, Music, Cape Breton
180 pages, Includes Photographs
$18.95, 6"x9" Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-895900-90-3
ISBN-10: 1-895900-90-5
(Available in May 2007)


Click on the links below to order this book:
Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

Buddy MacMaster, the renowned Cape Breton fiddler, grew up in Judique, Inverness County. He was influenced by some of the giants in the music at that time like Bill Lamey, "Little" Jack MacDonald, Angus Chisholm and Mary MacDonald. In 1949, Buddy began performing at local square dances. By the mid-1960s, Buddy was making regular appearances at dances in Canada and the U.S. that contributed to sustaining the old-time music and the dance tradition. He developed a reputation as a master fiddler and made his first visit to Scotland to perform in 1970.

Through more than 70 years in music, he has travelled extensively to perform and record. His most recent recording was with his niece, the popular Natalie MacMaster. He has received numerous awards for his service to community and culture, including the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia as well as honorary degrees from St. Francis Xavier University and Cape Breton University.

Buddy's music adheres to the Gaelic fiddle tradition that he cherishes as much as life itself. The story highlights his devotion to family, faith and community, as well as to his music. He is seen at home, at school, on the farm, and at the CNR where he worked for 45 years. The book looks at his visits to Scotland, the land of his ancestors, as well his visits to American-style music camps and festivals. The legend of Buddy MacMaster is also presented in accounts from many friends, relatives and musicians.



Sheldon MacInnes teaches at Cape Breton University and works at the archives of the Beaton Institute. He is the author of A Journey in Celtic Music - Cape Breton Style.

The DEW Line Years: Voices from the Coldest Cold War

By Frances Jewel Dickson

Nonfiction: The Arctic, Canadian History
214 pages, Includes Photographs
$19.95, 6"x9" Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-895900-87-3
ISBN-10: 1-895900-87-5
(Available in April 2007)

Click on the links below to order this book:
From Pottersfield Press
Amazon
Chapters

The Arctic seems an unlikely theatre of war. Yet in the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, thousands of young men from various countries were recruited to build and operate a complex radar system across the Arctic Circle from Alaska across Canada to Greenland.

The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, as the mammoth radar fence was known, was spawned from American fear that Soviet bomber aircraft might penetrate Canadian Arctic airspace and drop nuclear weapons on American cities and military bases.

This books tells the stories of those DEW Liners who worked in the hostile, remote climate of the North. Survival was a daily preoccupation in a land where outdoor temperatures can dip to minus 50 degrees with winds exceeding one hundred miles an hour while blinding snowfall whiteouts make vision impossible.

The stories of the DEW Liners reveal real danger here - not from Soviet bombers but from close encounters with polar bears, job-related accidents and airplane crashes, such as the one that claimed the author's father. There are, however, also tales of fun, practical jokes, comradery and human kindness that boosted the morale of those stationed in the far north.

The veterans of this northern experience, whose narratives have been collected by the author, reveal all about their sentinel role in that tense time half a century ago when they dedicated their lives to helping to prevent nuclear war.



Frances Jewel Dickson, born in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, has worked for the federal government, writing human resources policy for the Speaker of the House of Commons. She has lived and worked in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax. She now lives in East LaHave, Nova Scotia, where she has been researching this, her first book.

Ordering Information

Pottersfield Press is distributed in Canada and the United States by Nimbus Publishing.

Orders can be made direct to:
Nimbus Publishing
3731 MacKintosh Street
P.O. Box 9166
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3K 5M8

Phone: 902-455-4286
Fax (toll free): 888-253-3133

Phone toll free 1-800-NIMBUS9 (1-800-646-2879)

Email: mail@nimbus.ns.ca

Fall 2006 Releases

Driving Minnie's Piano: Memoirs of a Surfing Life in Nova Scotia

Lesley Choyce

$19.95
ISBN 1-895900-85-9
Order this book.
*Autographed copies are available by clicking here.

Novelist Lesley Choyce weaves together his real-life adventures living by the sea at Lawrencetown Beach on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore. He writes of his love for the rugged coast and tells tales of the ordinary and the extraordinary. His story includes accounts of what it's like surfing in the Canadian North Atlantic through all four seasons including the frigid depths of winter.

Also threading its way through this narrative is the story of Minnie's piano. There is music here in word and spirit along with the lessons learned from the old and the young. Driving Minnie's Piano is an eloquent personal memoir about the precious and fateful moments that change our lives. It is an exploration of what makes us tick and prompts us to be both heroes and fools in the daily enterprise of living.

Not one to take himself too seriously, Choyce recounts the true story of how his life was forever altered when 16 skunks took up residence beneath his 200-year-old farm house. This calamitous event and the deed of evicting the skunks (with the care of a die-hard environmentalist) is a hilarious chapter that was the basis for the film, The Skunk Whisperer, which aired on three national networks. Also up for discussion are the subjects of fog, drumlins, lichen, fools, baseball, class reunions, hair, the origin of the SurfPoets and the nature of the "drowned coast" that is a stone's throw from the author's back door.

Lesley Choyce recently edited Nova Scotia: A Traveller's Companion. He is the author of The Republic of Nothing and numerous other novels. Choyce also hosts the literary TV show, Off the Page. His popular history, Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea is published by Penguin.

Shipwrecks of New Brunswick

Robert C. Parsons

$19.95
224 pages, includes index and photographs
ISBN 1-895900-82-4
Order this book.

Shipwrecks of New Brunswick is about a time when one of Canada's most thriving provinces staked out a claim on that great element of nature forever pounding its shores. But the 2,250 kilometres of coastline along these shores have always held many dangers to shipping. The captains and the mariners sailing here have been prey to shifting ocean currents, dramatic tidal changes, high winds and impenetrable fog. The coastline itself is broken by many deep bays, inlets and estuaries, each with its own dangers of rocks, cliffs or sandbars.

Many areas of coastline lie in wait for ships: the Richibucto islands and bars, the Caraquet and Shippagan coast, Cape Tormentine, Miramichi Bay, Chaleur Bay and the ever-changing Bay of Fundy. In the era of sail, the number of ships traversing Fundy was enormous. Dangers in the great bay lurked at points like Partridge Island, Yellow and Murr Ledges, Grand Manan Island, the myriad rock, crags, islets and islands that ring Passamaquoddy Bay and the tricky approaches to the busy port of Saint John.

Countless ships and sailors came to grief in these New Brunswick waters in the days before long-range weather forecasting and reliable navigational instruments. Adverse winds and rocks claimed many a ship. But human error also lay at the root of marine disasters. Shipwrecks of New Brunswick preserves these stories in word and image.

In the past 20 years, Robert Parsons has become one of Atlantic Canada's most popular and prolific writers, specializing in the stories of shipwreck, rescue and survival. He devotes much of his time to researching, writing and promoting the sea-going history of Canada's eastern provinces, their ships and the people who sailed them. His books include Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster, In Peril on the Sea and The Edge of Yesterday: Sea Disasters of Nova Scotia.

Back Roads of Membertou County

Alfred Silver

$19.95
6 x 9 paperback
ISBN 1-895900-81-6
Order this book.

Bonnie and Ben Marsden are back - Back Roads of Membertou County picks up where Clean Sweep left off.

Forty-something Bonnie Marsden didn't intend to become a professional charwoman or an amateur detective. Both Bonnie and Ben Marsden have lost their steady jobs but manage to get by with Bonnie working as a cleaning lady and Ben as an all-purpose pair of hands and strong back.

Ben's methods of employment sometimes involve dealing with people on the wrong side of the law. Ben barely knows Jack Burton, but knows him well enough to explain to Bonnie, "If you play around the edges of the law, you'll sometimes run across a guy who's smart and tough and crazy. All you can do with somebody like that is stay the hell away from him and hope he gets caught or shot before he runs over somebody you care about." But law enforcement will put the squeeze on anybody even remotely connected with Jack Burton, and now even Bonnie's friend, Corporal Kowalchuck at the local RCMP detachment, can't prevent Ben from going to jail.

The complex situation tests the Marsdens' marriage and it looks like they are both about to lose. Bonnie's amateur detecting helps resolve one crisis but lands them in another more dangerous predicament that puts their marriage and their lives in jeopardy.

Alfred Silver has published 10 novels, including Clean Sweep, Acadia, Three Hills Home, and The Haunting of Maddie Prue.

The New Brunswick Phrase Book: Old Sayings, Expressions & Odd Names of New Brunswick

Dan Soucoup

$13.95
ISBN 1-895900-84-0
Order this book.

So let's all go dulsin' and winklin' down at the wangan, over at the shimshack and go breakin' the jam. And then we can set the dogs, find a twitching horse, go sparking, sacking with our Kennebecers, or wait for the May run as long as there are no gewgaws or swampers coming along. Or we may want to try fly beer or cockaninny with our hodge podge at the sit-down supper. What's the difference between the walking boss and the main man? Or between a Richibucto goose and a Shippegan turkey? And perhaps we can take a trip to Pull and Be Damned Narrows, Petit Large and Hole-in-the-Wall.

Each region of Canada has its own distinctive dialects and colourful language. New Brunswick is no exception. This handy book has captured the essence of the province, the words and phrases that are so often heard but not really understood or explained. This informative and funny book includes more than 1,000 sayings, phrases, descriptions, and curious names that are listed in alphabetical order and defined in plain English.

Dan Soucoup is the author of several books including Historic New Brunswick, The Maritime Book of Days and the best-selling Maritime Firsts.