No comments about Legacy in Wood: The Wahl Family Boat Builders.

1 comments about Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger.

1. Everyone knows who Al Capone is. Not many recognize the name Rocco Perri. It's ironic, because they both ran multimillion dollar gambling, extortion, and prostitution rackets, inspired comparable heights of fear among their enemies and subordinates, and became so ominipotent that their respective governments were the only ones who succeeded in taking them down. But Perri never demolished the competition via Thompson-wielding firing squads, so his name has been lost to history and knowledge of his career is confined to Canadian historians and a handful of American researchers who rightly sensed that someone formidable was calling the shots north of the border during the Prohibition years.
   
   Rocco Perri was a Calabrian immigrant who came to Canada as the nineteenth century was yielding to the twentieth. He and his common-law wife, a financial genius named Bessie Starkman, built a criminal empire whose nucleus was in Hamilton, Ontario, but whose tentacles of influence reached all over the rest of Canada and into the United States. Al Capone and Joseph Kennedy were among their best customers.
   
   Antonio Nicaso had a tough act to follow when he took on the story of Canada's 'King of the Bootleggers'. Robin Rowland and James Dubro's 'King of the Mob', which was published in 1988, was the first book-length treatment of Rocco Perri's rise to power in post-World War One Canada, his carefully crafted alliances with Italian crime families in both Canada and the U.S., his profitable association with the indomitable Bessie Starkman and Annie Newman, and his gradual decline after Canadian authorities branded him a potential Fascist and put him in a internment camp. Perri disappeared from the public record in April 1944, when he left his cousin's Hamilton residence, and never returned. The conclusion that Rowland and Dubro came to is that professional killers working for Stefano Maggadino's Buffalo mob snatched Perri during his stroll and disposed of him. That's the theory that subsequent writers and researchers have been accepting... until now, when Nicaso comes forward with evidence that Perri survived until at least 1953.
   
   "Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger" pays tribute to the research done by Rowland and Dubro, but also expands on it. Nicaso interviewed not only the surviving relatives of Rocco Perri but also his victims, which include a young woman who gave birth to his two daughters and then committed suicide when he refused to marry her. There's a powerful human element to this book that was absent from "King of the Mob", although Nicaso does not give in to sentiment.
   
   The only reason why I'm giving this book four stars instead of five is that Nicaso's writing style is solid but lacks depth. It's like reading one long magazine article. A well-researched one, mind you, but there's a sparseness there that is not to my personal taste. Other than this stylistic issue, I found "Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger" to be an engaging read. Recommended!

1 comments about Jedediah Days: One Woman's Island Paradise.

1. This is one of the best reads I have found in a long time. Very intertaining and very funny. Mary Palmer is a real woman. This book makes me sad that I will never be able to experience the things that Mary did. After reading this book I am going to have to find Jedediah Island.

1 comments about Joe Norris: Painted Visions of Nova Scotia.

1. I picked this book up a few years ago after seeing an exhibition of Joe Norris's work. This book is a really great tribute to Joe Norris and you get beautiful reproductions of quite a lot of his art. If you can't go to an exhibition to see his work in person then this is definitely the book to buy.
   
   However, like all great art, you really have to see his work in person to appreciate it fully. The colours are so bright and the images wonderful but, for me, Joe Norris's art is definitely not just a visual experience. The wood panel paintings he made, the furniture he painted, they all have such a great smell to them and all of the colours seem that much more vibrant in person. It may sound really odd but the smell of his work alone makes me feel very comfortable & cozy (reminds me of my family's cabin).
   
   Looking at Joe Norris's artwork in this book reminds me of that & makes me feel happy & content.
   Highly recommended.

5 comments about The Long Road Home: The Autobiography of a Canadian Soldier in Italy in WWII.

1. Mr.Cederberg brings his experiences to life as you read this book.A very vivid tale as Cederberg shares blood,sweat and tears,in the Italian theatre of World War Two.



2. The book is a novelization of Mr. Cederberg's experiances in Italy during the second World War. I couldn't put it down, I kept imagining myself there. A fantastic book. I hope this is not Mr. Cerderberg's last.



3. This book is not about warfare by the usual rules, of people being nice as seen in "Saving Private Ryan." It may even upset some folks. But, it is like the stories sometimes told by combat veterans in the Legion Halls after they've had a few beers, are feeling relaxed and are with someone they trust.

   It is a story about soldiers who were fiercely proud to be Canadians. Americans were fighting for grand ideas such as "saving the world for democracy" and the Four Freedoms of Norman Rockwell. Canadians were there to do a job. They did it, with kindness, compassion and brutality as the occasion required. Sgt. Cederberg never brags about being Canadian; it was tacitly assumed that if one had to ask, they couldn't understand even if it was explained to them.

   Read this, and you'll understand why Americans described Canadian soldiers "going about their job like hockey players."

   They are like the Australians and Israelis, known for having an incredible espirit de corps. Americans are great for show, such as Patton insisting that all American troops wear ties and show proper respect for officers. One American mucky-muck, appalled by the easy-going attitude, remarked to a Canadian officer, "Your troops don't seem to have much discipline, such as saluting officers." In reply he was told, "Well, when a salute is needed I wave at them, and they generally wave back." So much for formal procedures. But, when it came to fighting, they were unsurpassed.

   The US has a formal definition of a country, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, Salute to the Flag, and a national anthem which is played more than Coca Cola commercials. Canadians are less formal, but no less proud of their country. It's called pride.

   In another story, Cederberg tells of the Germans firing propaganda leaflets which showed a naked woman sitting on the edge of a bed, while a soldier without his pants is getting ready to take off his shirt. The message was that while British troops were in Italy, others were having fun in England. "That a Canadian?" one of the men asked Cederberg, who replied, "It can't be, the guy's wearing a tie."

   Don't ever mistake the Canadians for the British. As Cederberg writes, "I went out that afternoon with Albert and Alex-Joe, drank six pints of mild and bitters and threw up twice (once after punching out a Scottish corporal who had insisted we were a disgrace to British arms).

   "He had it coming," said Alex-Joe. "because we aren't even British, we're Canadians."

   Time and again, that spirit and typically Canadian humor shows through. So does the grim determination to get the job done. When stationed near an Italian town, they were warned that lone Allied soldiers were sometimes attacked by die-hard fascist youths. Sure enough, a Canadian was knifed in the neck. When his buddies couldn't find his attackers, they went back to camp.

   A few minutes later, the Canadians began a mortar barrage on the town. Officers tried to stop it, and were gently restrained. Once they learned the reason for the barrage, they joined the cover-up to protect their men. When the Italian police came to investigate, every weapon was spotless with no sign of recent use. They left, empty handed. The Italians buried their nine (or 34) dead (depending on whose version was accepted). There were no further assaults on Canadians.

   Wonderful book, wonderful story. Rest assured, Spielberg will never make a movie of it. It's too good, and too real.




4. This book ranks with the other great classic memoirs of World War II: The Forgotten Soldier, If You Survive, The Other Side of Time, The Road to Huertgen, and the greatest, Those Devils in Baggy Pants. Cederberg writes in a manner that vividly describes the force and horror of war, painting images in the mind that are not easily forgotten. An excellent read!



5. The Long Road Home is the fascinating, if somewhat racy, account of Fred Cederberg's travels from his home in Canada to the war in Italy. Cederberg spares few details of the courage and the horror of war, and shows how love and lust often bloomed among the destroyed buildings and shattered souls. Cederberg's memoir is first-hand and first-rate, a must-read for anyone interested in seeing how our boys fared in the forgotten war in Italy.

No comments about The Betrayal of Faith: The Tragic Journey of a Colonial Native Convert (Harvard Historical Studies).

No comments about Buck McNair: Canadian Spitfire Ace, The Story of Group Captain R W McNair DSO, DFC & 2 Bars, Ld'H, CdG, RCAF.

No comments about Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester) (Canadian university paperbooks).

No comments about Spies in Our Midst: The Incredible Story of Igor Gouzenko, Cold War Spy (Amazing Stories).

No comments about Forgotten Highways: Wilderness Journeys Down the Historic Trails of the Canadian Rockies.