Bøger udgivet af ROCKS MILLS PR

It happened one cold December morning...Writer John Passfield leaves his home, buys a coffee and drives down to the shores of Lake Erie to perform a Christmas ritual---strolling along the beach at Port Maitland. It's something he's done for many years. But this year is different. This year John suddenly finds himself in the writing room of famed Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, who sets out his new idea for a Christmas tale. Dickens invites John to watch rehearsals for the writing of the story, but as Dickens struggles through contentious negotiations with his amazingly independent characters, John wonders whether A Christmas Carol will ever be written!Together, this short novel and its companion journal and notebook comprise the thirty-second installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which the author is exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st century. Readers seeking further insight into John and Dickens: A Christmas Mystery may enjoy The Making of John and Dickens: A Christmas Mystery---A Reflective Journal, which records the author's reflections on the process of crafting the novella, as well as Planning John and Dickens: A Christmas Mystery---A Planning Notebook, which records the day-by-day development of the novel as it found its shape and style. The notebook reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished. All of the journals and notebooks are available for free download at the author's website.

Set in landscapes both terrible and fantastic-yet uncomfortably close to home-Jimmy Crack Corn: A Novel in C Minor recounts the journeys of exhausted urban warrior and DoGooder Jimmy the Bleeder as he explores what it means to be good at something you did not set out to do. Along the way, innocence is remembered, transformed, oppressed, stolen, and restored in both self and other. Inspired by the rhythms of the poignant 19th-century folk song, Jimmy Crack Corn is in the end both an entertaining read and an acute meditation on the preservation of meaning in our everyday lives."Like the folk song on which it draws, Glenn Carley's latest novel lays bare line after line of deeply felt, often achingly familiar truth. In Jimmy Crack Corn, Carley assembles a chorus of vivid, precisely imagined characters grappling with questions of freedom and innocence as only a writer with four decades of social work experience can. Still, the plot, which traces the lived rhythms of 'DoGooder Jimmy the Bleeder, ' plays second fiddle to Carley's full-bodied, typically playful and always poignant language to produce a raw, warm, and lyrical work." ---In the Hills Magazine

Wracked by fever, tormented by boils, devastated by the loss of his entire family, the wretched Job cries out to the heavens. Why has God forsaken him? Who do such things happen here on earth? Why is the universe so flawed? Why are human beings subjected to such agonizing torments? He shakes his fist at the sky and demands a personal audience. His agony has given him the questions. He insists on hearing the answers from the mouth of God.Together, the novel as well as an accompanying reflective journal and planning notebook comprise the seventeenth installment in an ongoing novel-writing project by author John Passfield in which he explores the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download on the author's website at www.johnpassfield.ca.

Celebrate Canada's sesquicentennial by celebrating Canadian creativity! In this exciting new book, noted author and cultural scholar D. Paul Schafer tackles the subject of Canadian creativity in every field of human endeavour, from the arts and entertainment through transportation, communications and industry to science, technology, sports, and conservation of the natural environment. As Schafer notes, creativity has been the foundation both of Canada's high standard of living and its much admired quality of life. In the years ahead, Canadian creativity can serve as a model and inspiration for other nations, and as the principal means of ensuring Canada's future shines as brightly as its past. Accomplishments profiled in Celebrating Canadian Creativity include: - The remarkable achievements of Canada's Indigenous peoples in transportation (the canoe), shelter (the igloo, teepee, and longhouse), foodstuffs (maple syrup and pemmican) and many other fields - How Canada helped feed the world through the development of Marquis wheat - Little-known Canadian pioneers in the development of the electric light bulb, radio, and the electronic music synthesizer - Alexander Graham Bell's little-known achievements in early aeronautics and the development of the hydrofoil boat - Canada's role in shaping the modern sporting world through the invention of basketball and contributions to curling and to the country's national sport of hockey - Strategic breakthroughs in medicine and health care by William Osler, Emily Stowe, Tommy Douglas, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Till, Ernest McCulloch, and many others - Canada's remarkable role in the early development of Hollywood and Broadway as well as recent contributions to pop music through such talents as Céline Dion, Michael Bublé, Drake, and many other singers and songwriters - Canadian writers who have achieved global recognition, from Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Stephen Leacock, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Gabrielle Roy, Robert Service, and Morley Callaghan to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Lawrence Hill, and Nobel prize-winner Alice Munro "A celebration of Canadian creativity over many centuries!" -Walter Pitman, former MP, MPP and president of Ryerson University "Far from being unimaginative and unexciting, Canadians are among the world's most creative people. This book explains why." -James Gillies, professor emeritus, York University "A perfect point of departure for the rebranding of Canada as a proud, dynamic, innovative, and forward-looking nation." -John Hobday, former director, Canada Council for the Arts "Anyone proudly Canadian will find this book fascinating, but teachers will find it particularly helpful in fostering their students' creativity. It will not be necessary to coax pupils to read this book; it is full of surprising facts and stories about how Canadian creativity has bound together a vast and challenging country and in the process enriched the entire world." -Salvatore Amenta "This book not only sends a message about Canadian creativity, but looks at Canadian history as it has been impacted by that creativity. Paul Schafer shows that Canadians are, indeed, citizens of (and for) the world." -Bill Crothers

Six decades of insights into Canadian politics, politicians, and Canada's place in the world from award-winning author and scholar Denis Smith ... Since the days when John Diefenbaker was prime minister, Denis Smith has studied and written about the innermost workings of Canadian government as well as the men and women who make it work. Rogue Tory, his biography of John Diefenbaker, was acclaimed by Books in Canada as "finely written, thoroughly researched, superbly organized, and scrupulously fair. It rivals Donald Creighton on Sir John A. Macdonald as the best biography of a Canadian prime minister."Now Smith celebrates his many years as an observer of -- and sometime participant in -- the Canadian political arena with this collection of essays, addresses, reviews, polemics and diversions written between 1959 and 2015. The topics range from Canada's participation in the first Gulf War to efforts to reform the institution of Parliament. Along the way, the author considers the place in history of such figures as Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Michael Ignatieff, Jean Chretien, Stephen Harper, and many others. The result is a collection that is intriguing, thought-provoking, sometimes amusing, and always insightful."Denis Smith has been writing about Canadian politics for pushing sixty years, since 1959, indeed. Rock's Mills Press has just brought out an anthology, A Dissenting Voice, with selections from that impressive run." --Christopher Moore's History News

Is the road to hell paved with good intentions? Or maybe it's paved with questionable actions. Perhaps there is no hell, never mind a road to it.Phil has a problem, and he calls his two best friends to join him from the other side of the world, as he attempts to determine the way forward. Phil presses his friends Max and Michal to provide him with perspective, and maybe a healthy dose of hope or faith as well.This is a tale of tea, sake, bourbon, rain, golden fields, special guest stars, ants, omelets, and most importantly, potholes -- both the literal potholes of the neglected road to Phil's ryokan and metaphorical potholes of doubt as the three friends struggle to find truth. Along the way, all three will have their beliefs challenged by inner demons -- as well as by others who make a more tangible appearance -- as they try to find the answer to Phil's question, "What do you believe -- and why?"

Simon Newcomb rose from poverty to become one of the most distinguished and widely known scientists of the late 19th century. He was also one of the most accomplished science popularizers of his day, writing on everything from the canals of Mars to the geometry of hyperspace.This new collection of his most enduring work is designed to introduce Newcomb to a new generation - indeed, century - of readers. Among the pieces included are his famous essay on the impossibility of heavier-than-air flight, which remains a compelling example of the pitfalls of technological prognostication; "The Fairyland of Geometry," an introduction to non-Euclidean geometry, then in its infancy; overviews of the state of astronomical knowledge at the start of the 20th century, including a surprisingly modern look at "Life in the Universe"; and the results of his investigations into parapsychology. An overview of Newcomb's career and an afterword placing the essays in the context of scientific advances since Newcomb's time round out the volume.The frontiers of science may have moved on since Newcomb set down his pen for the last time, but the spirit of discovery embodied in these essays remains fresh.This book is part of the Milestones in Science and Discovery series, whose mandate is to bring classic works of popular science back into print for today's readers.

"In publishing Frederick Philip Grove's The Adventure of Leonard Broadus, Rock's Mills Press has brought to light a boys' adventure novel that some will regard as a Canadian classic. Recommended." -- Ruth Latta, CM Magazine."This novel is a fast-paced action adventure in which a thirteen-year-old boy, Leonard Broadus, works with the police to detect and capture a gang of thieves who are operating near the Lake Erie shoreline of Ontario in the 1930s. Leonard uses the skills of a farmboy in attempting to avoid capture by an unknown enemy and the intuition of a detective to solve what appears to be a mystery without an answer. The author, Frederick Phillip Grove, tells a tale which features the towns and topography of the area just north of the Lake Erie shoreline and the ambiance of the Depression of the 1930s and connects young Leonard Broadus with the visit, and the persons, of the King and Queen in their visit to Toronto and Niagara Falls in 1939." --John Passfield, author of Pinafore ParkFrederick Philip Grove (1871-1948) wrote a single children's novel in his lifetime, a gripping tale of survival, resourcefulness, and intrigue set in Depression-era Ontario. The novel was first published in 1939 as installments in a church magazine, heavily redacted and poorly publicized. The Adventure of Leonard Broadus is now available here, in Grove's original composition.The coming-of-age story begins with a robbery and a runaway raft adventure. In the style of classic children's literature like Swallows and Amazons and Huckleberry Finn, the danger that follows soon begins to feel very real. The fast-moving and very readable narrative depicts Leonard's resourcefulness and endurance, qualities that enable him to survive some alarming circumstances.Grove was a first-rate writer and story-teller, with keen abilities as a realist. He was also a man of many sides who had emigrated to Canada from a dark past in Europe. Ontario in the late 1930s is depicted as a very different society than today, with impoverished "hobos" travelling the countryside. Leonard's adventure may well recall some of Grove's own early travels in the new world.

An exciting new annotated edition of the only novel ever published that depicts the 1866 invasion of British-ruled Canada by Irish republicans, an event that would help set the stage for Confederation ... New notes provide fascinating insight into this intriguing narrative of Canadian-American relations. The two countries clash in this fast-paced comedy of manners by Scottish-Canadian-American writer Robert Barr (1849-1912). In 1866, a group of Irish-Americans known as the Fenian Brotherhood carried out cross-border raids into British-ruled Canada. The main reason was to take over Canada-or part of it-in order to hold it hostage, with a view to forcing Britain's political exit from Ireland. Battle-hardened veterans fresh from fighting in the American Civil War crossed the border, and were surprised by the resistance they met. In the context of the novel, a vacationing American journalist is equally surprised by feisty Canadians who are ever willing to push back against stereotypes.It is no coincidence that Confederation took place the year following the raids, as Canadians realized their vulnerability to invasion.

"A celebration of Canadian creativity over many centuries!" -Walter Pitman, former MP, MPP and president of Ryerson University "Far from being unimaginative and unexciting, Canadians are among the world's most creative people. This book explains why." -James Gillies, professor emeritus, York University "A perfect point of departure for the rebranding of Canada as a proud, dynamic, innovative, and forward-looking nation." -John Hobday, former director, Canada Council for the Arts In this exciting new book, noted author and cultural scholar D. Paul Schafer tackles the subject of Canadian creativity in every field of human endeavour, from the arts and entertainment through transportation, communications and industry to science, technology, sports, and conservation of the natural environment. The result is a lively look at the many ways Canadians have helped shape the modern world-some well-known, others hidden in the mists of history. Schafer traces Canadian creativity from its origins in the cultures of the indigenous peoples to the present day. He considers creative inventions large and small-everything from the Robertson screw to the International Space Station's Canadarm. As Schafer notes, Canadian creativity has been the foundation both of Canada's high standard of living and its much admired quality of life. In the years ahead, Canadian creativity can serve as a model and inspiration for other nations, and as the principal means of ensuring Canada's future shines as brightly as its past. More rave reviews ... "Anyone proudly Canadian will find this book fascinating, but teachers will find it particularly helpful in fostering their students' creativity. It will not be necessary to coax pupils to read this book; it is full of surprising facts and stories about how Canadian creativity has bound together a vast and challenging country and in the process enriched the entire world." -Salvatore Amenta "This book not only sends a message about Canadian creativity, but looks at Canadian history as it has been impacted by that creativity. Paul Schafer shows that Canadians are, indeed, citizens of (and for) the world." -Bill Crothers SOME OF THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS PROFILED IN CELEBRATING CANADIAN CREATIVITY -The remarkable achievements of Canada's First Nations peoples in transportation (the canoe), shelter (the igloo, teepee, and longhouse), foodstuffs (maple syrup and pemmican) and many other fields -How Canada helped feed the world through the development of Marquis wheat -Little-known Canadian pioneers in the development of the electric light bulb, radio, and the electronic music synthesizer -Yes, Alexander Graham Bell was the man who invented the telephone-but did you know he also played a major role in early aeronautics and in the development of the hydrofoil boat? -Canada's role in the shaping of the modern sporting world through the invention of basketball and contributions to curling and to Canada's national sport of hockey -The creation by Sir Adam Beck and Thomas Ahearn of the Canadian hydroelectric industry, which helped drive the country's rapid industrial growth in the early twentieth century -Strategic breakthroughs in medicine and health care by William Osler, Emily Stowe, Tommy Douglas, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Till, Ernest McCulloch, and many others -Canada's remarkable role in the early development of Hollywood and Broadway as well as recent contributions to pop music through such talents as Céline Dion, Michael Bublé, Drake, and many other singers and songwriters -Canadian writers who have achieved global recognition, from Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Stephen Leacock, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Gabrielle Roy, Robert Service, and Morley Callaghan to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Lawrence Hill, and Nobel prize-winner Alice Munro

Daniel Fischlin, General Editor Preface by Judith Thompson In an age of power politics, Donald Trump and ethical depravity, Macbeth remains one of the most compelling dramas of overwhelming political ambition in the English language. The events that follow Macbeth's "ambition without conscience" can still shock a modern audience. This new edition includes an original playtext and extensive notes. Other features of the Shakespeare Made in Canada series include character and plot synopses, a note on the text, and tips on reading Shakespeare. A new preface by playwright Judith Thompson reveals her own troubled interaction with the play. Professor Daniel Fischlin's compelling new introduction explores key topics in Macbeth; his research into the play's production history also reveals some fascinating Canadian connections to Macbeth that take us into a world of political ambition, corruption and assassination.