As it is Remembrance Day, I am posting a few photos of my and my sister Elinor’s father, Flight Lt. J. A. L. Johnston. He served in the RCAF during the Second World War. These photos, and many more, are now in the collections of the Aero Space Museum of Calgary.
I’m very pleased to see that Cape Breton University Press has placed an ad for Crossings in Canada’s History Magazine (formerly The Beaver). I like to think that readers across the North American continent, and farther afield, would enjoy my interpretation of a gritty and adventurous 18th century.
Thanks to Cape Breton University Press for the striking advertisement it has placed in the 2015 Atlantic Books for the Holidays. That booklet went into today’s Globe & Mail, and I think it goes in other Atlantic newspapers this weekend.
Bookstores hold a special interest for writers and readers everywhere. They are the stuff of an important part of life.
While in France during the second half of October 2015 I must have seen a few dozen, especially in Paris where they are so very specialized. Two in Alsace piqued my curiosity more than usual. One in Ribeauville had a lighthearted exterior, where the illustration of the little boy seems to be standing on the boîtes à lettres. The other was in Strasbourg, down a dark alley that had more than average vegetation. The shop was all but hidden, with an inconspicuous sign announcing that it sold Livres. Old books, that is, if and when the shop owner was there to open the door.
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I received an email this week about a book club that had chosen to read Thomas, A Secret Life but was having some trouble finding copies of the book.
I know copies of the book are not in all bookstores. However, for those who have an e-reader, all of my novels and some of my history books are just a click away.
Here below are the links one can copy and paste to download the book on either Indigo ($8.99 for Thomas, A Secret Life) or Amazon ($7.99 for Thomas, A Secret Life).
Indigo https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/thomas-a-secret-life-a/9781897009895-item.html?ref=item_page%3avariation
Amazon http://www.amazon.ca/Thomas-Secret-Life-J-B-Johnston-ebook/dp/B00CFM6K9Q/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1446296925&sr=8-1&keywords=Thomas%2C+A+Secret+Life
As I said above, all of my fiction and some of my history are similarly available in digital form.
The other day I posted a photo I had taken of Joe and Melanie Ballard proudly pointing at Onslow on the Colchester County road map that is now on the floor of the entrance to the updated Historeum in Truro, NS. Work is continuing by Camus Productions in other areas on the ground floor as I write this. Today I share a photo taken yesterday by JP Camus of the main room on the ground floor.
It gives a good idea as to how things are moving along. Camus Productions is getting closer every day to the full installation. The interpretive banners, when hung, will change the look of the room again, and carry the story of the county. Then there are the artifact cases and the sound environment and the media corner. We think it’ll be a captivating package to tell a rich story in innovative ways, and encourage people to return time and again.
I hope this early peek will encourage many of you to check out the dramatically revitalized Colchester Historeum in the days and weeks to come.