Soon after its publication in 1972, Read Canadian was acclaimed as a seminal guide to books by and about Canadians. It remains a landmark guide to the headwaters of Canadian society, its history and literature. It is an absorbing, helpful guide to the books that have been written (to the time of publication) about this country, its people, politics, history and arts. It also explores the world of Canadian fiction and poetry with distinguished literary critics who discuss the best novels and poetry the country had produced. Read Canadian remains a valuable sourcebook for people who want to learn more about Canadaand Canadian books

At the beginning of 1793 Toronto was the gateway to a distant portage to the Upper Great Lakes, its permanent population a lone fur trader. One hundred and twenty-five years later it was a solid, vibrant metropolis, an industrial powerhouse supporting half a million residents. Toronto is a city built by its people, from the original colonial aristocracy of the Family Compact, to the masses of British and Irish migrants who forged its profound links with Empire, to the polyglot flow of international migration that would ultimately transform the city in the twentieth century. This book recounts their stories, and their stories are the history of Toronto's emergence as a world-class city. In Toronto to 1918, distinguished historian J.M.S. Careless expertly draws Toronto's stories together, creating an illuminating and entertaining portrait of the city. The text is complemented with more than 150 historical illustrations.

Maud (English, Simon Fraser U.) offers a narrative account of the life and work of poet Charles Olson, focusing on the poet's lifelong reading material as a basis for understanding his work. Drawing on an annotated listing of his library, as well as his childhood books and poetry by his contemporaries, he links the books to the poet's intellectual and poetic development at each stage of his career. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Treating poverty not simply as a theme in literature but as a force that in fact shapes the texts themselves, Rimstead adopts the notion of a common culture to include ordinary voices in national culture, in this case the national culture of Canada.