Canada's Sharon Wood became the first woman from the Americas to summit Mount Everest after she had spent 62 days climbing the mountain, sometimes on all fours. "I reached deeper than ever before and still had something left," she said afterwards. "Makes you wonder what our limits really are."This is one of the memorable stories, plucked from the front-page headlines of the time, that best-selling social historian Brian Brennan tells in this book about people and e...

William "Bible Bill" Aberhart is remembered as one of the oddest political leaders in Canadian history. During the Great Depression, he emerged from the obscurity of a religious sect he founded himself to preach a radical new economic doctrine. He fulfilled none of his pre-election promises during his eight years as premier. Yet the force of his personality was such that at the time of his death, while still serving in office, he had more believers than doubters. The political dyna...

A married Alberta premier, John Brownlee, lost his job after enticing a junior government clerk to have sex with him. He was fifty, she was twenty. After Canada's Supreme Court endorsed the trial jury's guilty verdict, Brownlee took the case to the British Privy Council, then the court of last resort for Canadians. He lost again. The courts awarded his accuser, Vivian MacMillan, $10,000 plus costs, and Brownlee's United Farmers party never won another election.That...

In Dublin, 1966, 23-year-old Jerry Burke quits his soul-destroying job in the Irish civil service to make a new life for himself in Canada and put behind him a dark secret from his republican past.At the same time, he undertakes to find out what happened to his ancestor, Diarmuid Burke, who came to Canada in 1847, the most devastating year of the Irish potato famines.Far as Jerry can discover, his ancestor did make it over to Canada, but why was he never heard from again?

Famous actors, writers and singers invariably let their guard down when Brian Brennan interviewed them for the Calgary Herald and Toronto Star because they didn't think a Canadian journalist would be out to "get" them like the tabloid reporters in Britain and the U.S. As a result, Brennan learned little-known facts about their lives and careers that the stars had never revealed publicly before.For this collection, Brennan has drawn from more than five dozen timeless conversations h...

Jack Brennan is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Chairman and CEO of The Vanguard Group, the world's second-largest mutual fund company. With over two decades of experience, Brennan has made a career out of helping people successfully manage their investments. This invaluable guide cuts through all the hype, offering a sensible plan for building a long-term investment portfolio.

Rogues and Rebels introduces us to dozens of larger-than-life Westerners--some infamous, some obscure--who dared to be different.Brian Brennan chronicles the mavericks, iconoclasts, and adventurers who threw away the rulebook, thumbed their noses at convention, and let their detractors howl. They never retracted, never explained, never apologized, and they got things done.Discover the unforgettable characters who made the West what it is today. You...

"...despite flying bullets and cannon shots, Ben had his crew hastily tossing evidence over the side of the boat. Bullet-riddled, the Maritimas finally came to a stop, but even then, the crew continued to throw the beer overboard." This book will be especially fascinating for all readers interested in: the history of crime or prohibition. It is safe to say that America would have been a much drier place during Prohibition if Canadians had not rushed to the aid of their neighbours. While th...

**NATIONAL BESTSELLERWinner of the RBC Taylor PrizeFinalist for Canada ReadsFinalist for Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-Fiction**Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King’s critical examination of the history and experience of Native peoples in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since t...

Here in one big book is all the trivia and facts about Canada anyone needs to know. The Big Book is jam-packed with facts and stories. There are stories of important Canadian artifacts and history including what became of Canada's World War II spy camp. All regions and provinces are covered, as well as important Canadian figures like John Molson, Elizabeth Arden and Russ Jackson. If that isn't enough there will also be pieces explaining whatever happened to such Canadian icons as ...

Exploring Toronto’s history through the stories of its most fascinating and shadowy deaths.If these streets could talk…With morbid tales of war and plague, duels and executions, suicides and séances, Toronto’s past is filled with stories whose endings were anything but peaceful. The Toronto Book of the Dead delves into these: from ancient First Nations burial mounds to the grisly murder of Toronto’s first lighthouse keeper; from the rise and fall o...

The legendary Canadian book editor presents this "remarkable, four-decade romp through the back rooms of publishing" ( Toronto Sun).Scottish-born Douglas Gibson was drawn to Canada by the writing of Stephen Leacock—and eventually made his way across the Atlantic to find a job in book publishing, where he edited a biography of none other than Leacock. But over the decades, his stellar career would lead him to work with many more of the country's leading lit...