The problem with lists rather than real time is the fall-off of memory and the books getting re-scattered.
102. Ottawa’s Farm: A History of the Central Experimental Farm by Helen Smith (General Store Publishing, 1996)
Got at St. Vincent de Paul Thift store.
This was full of fascinating stories and details about the development of the farm, where buildings were, what people remember of the days as Ottawa developed towards that area, and around it. People in streetcars used to come by and steal the fruit from trees which they couldn’t begrudge much in the dirty 30s but it did make hybridizing research harder.
Did you know the cattle are there just for pleasing the public now? They don’t have a mandate, or didn’t at the time of writing, to research dairy cattle anymore. Volunteers look after the flower beds, which also aren’t part of the research anymore. The sunken flower bed uses the foundation of a house that became derelict and kept the foundation plantings. At one point, someone tried to abscond with flagstones. Can you imagine. Of all the things to steal.
It does some research to advance agriculture but is partly supported by the general public and Friends of the Farm.
103. Kathleen’s Caroliole Ride by Margaret Kell Virany (Virany & Virany, 2014)
Got at the Ottawa Small Press fair.
This was a story of her parent’s young life, from just before they met, continuing mostly though their early marriage in the native north where her father worked as a preacher. Although a curtailed version of her earlier book, A Book of Kells, it feels right-sized and with very little exact overlap. Both are good and complementary books.
From Jack’s journals we see him realize that the HBC was not out to support the natives but get as much fur with as much profit. He was left to pick up the pieces as people died of TB, VD and goodbye gifts of children from traders who were going back south. When he first arrived picked a nice piece of 75 acres as his, and built a cabin, which as it turned out was a holy hill where the progenitor or all otters came from. (p.12-13). Life was often harsh, with him getting used to frost bite. His skin will turn waxy and white and then burn and then flake off. He read novels, recorded Cree family structures. (Wish more of that had been pushed forward).
104. George Eliot by Marghanita Laski (Thames and Hudson, 1973)
Used library books sale.
The main thing about this book is the details. Every life every in tangential or 5 steps removed from George Eliot is named. People family worked for, people who worked for the family, school teachers, people who are speculated to be based on characters, including the author who sees her 1st cousin, 4 times removed as the real life source. A lot of the focus is establishing the real life counterpart to events in novels. An accountant’s zeal to pass forward every financial transaction, amount and address. It is lush with sketches, engravings, first hand quotations. Fascinating stuff. The who, where, when and what are accounted for. The underlying why and how are not interjected so much. Lots of character witnesses/assassinations to say she came across as false, mean and cold in later years while she was a pariah and socialite combined.
Certainly there’s a lot to track, with her travelling frequently and far and oh, the dramas of a life of swingers and free thinkers turned more puritanical later and denying fangirls who professed love. One even dedicated her tombstone to the legacy of George. George (and her name thru the book takes on whatever dominant spelling or pen name which dominated in the era being talked about) took the name of her husband who couldn’t divorce because of some legal loophole of permitted his ex to have children with another man with his knowledge. A consequence of this relationship her brother blacklisted her for 23 years, only speaking to her again once she was clearly wed to the next man, 20 years her junior for the few months before she died.
I’ve poked away on and off at Middlemarch for years. I got rid of my print edition for the sake of shelf space but got an ebook to see how I’ll get on this time.
105. Further Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer by Stuart Ross (Anvil Press, 2015)
Got at the Ottawa small press fair.
Much more contemporary than the previous collection that went further back. Essays — but don’t let the word essays scare you because they aren’t academic bafflegab but talking around a subject— on themed books vs. miscellaneous collectons, with thumbs ups to particular ones, 35 years of memories of Crad Kilodney, musing on what is good and bad literature anyway, one on Michael Dennis. A lot of it is resume and shout outs. Interesting perspectives on the long look at the League of Canadian Poets.
The postscripts that update the columns are a fun element. A favourite is one that starts with a poem by Stephen Crane and ponders on the goals that got away; it concludes —**spoiler alert**— that the point is process of going towards the next horizon. Somehow this sequel feels more like memoir than Confessions of a Small Press Racketeer.
106. The Library Book: An Overdue History of the Ottawa Public Library 1906-2001 by Phil Jenkins (Ottawa Public Library, 2002)
Gifted by the library for doing workshops, or was it judging a contest? I forget.
Fascinating bit of history. Hands up who knew that the first Ottawa Public Library was a Carnegie that was torn down to build the current main branch which may be replaced for the same reason. Too small and ugly by the standards of the day. Glad they kept the stained glass and hope they do that the next time they move.
All the dramas of getting the bookmobile going. Did you know there were a few writer-in-residence positions over the years sporadically from 1987-2000 with Joan Finnegan, Gabrielle Poulin, Elisabeth Harvor, Charles de Lint and Jan Andrews?