This book is a must-have for any school administrator. It has everything you could possible need in it. Actually, anyone in a leadership position could benefit from this book.

It All Began With Daisy is an inspiring book filled with humour, local colour and excellent storytelling. It is encouraging to read of the adventures of such an entrepeneurial couple and their "vigourous muddling" through the years of establishing their yoghurt company. Characters come alive and conversations quiver with the skill of the author's recounting. Highly recommended for light, inspirational reading.

Landon Covington Bell's Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg County, Virginia 1746-1816 is an excellent research tool and historical account of the area. Included are family descendants of the Rev. James Craig and the Rev. John Cameron. Many other families are included in this work: Gee, Hardy, Bacon, Claiborne, Stokes and many more. The second part of this book includes the Vestry Book 1746-1816. This is a valuable source of marriages, tithes and property information.

This is a compelling, often surprising, book about the murder of a white woman in Virginia near the turn of the 20th century. Compelling because it sometimes has the suspense of a mystery, and surprising for the courageous actions it depicts about people black AND white.

One of the suspects in the case, "Pokey" Barnes, was a particularly intriguing character. Ms. Barnes informed a white woman (in Virginia in 1895!) that, "I walk where I please," and acted in her own defense for part of her trial proceedings.

But that shouldn't stop anyone from reading this comprehensively researched book. Indeed, the author's near-obsession with the case is infectious.

First and foremost - this is a fascinating book. The author's research is phenomenal. Furthermore, the book is very readable.

Here's my problem: There are two ways that one can describe events that happened in the past. The most objective way is to simply tell the people what happened based upon the facts.

The second way leads to a better story, but it results in a question of credibility of what is being said. This second method is to enhance the story by use of adjectives and other techniques. An example: "By the scant light of a crescent moon they kept moving, splashing through creeks and stumbling over roots, ducking into the brush whenever they thought they heard voices."

My problem with the preceding sentence (not necessarily a problem for others) is that it is highly unlikely that this trip has been described this specifically in any documents. Therefore, if the author is making up minor details to make the book more readable, how does the reader distinguish between fact and fiction?

Just one more example: "Enter Captain Frank Cunningham. Major Derbyshire war the regiment's commander, but Captain Frank was its impressario, the master of morale, the chieftan of charm. Broad-shouldered and tall, the captain cut an impressive figure."
I believe that this description is excessive and unnecesary.

BUT, as I said at the beginning, this is a fascinating story and well-worth reading.

END

Probably the best book ever to come out of the South Shore of Nova Scotia, this book was compiled in the late 1970's by Peter Barss, a local photographer. The inshore fishery was coming to an end at that time, and Peter tape-recorded the tales of his old neighbours and friends, rendering them faithfully in the local dialect, and illustrated them with his own pictures of the slips and sheds, boats and buoys, but most remarkably the faces of the men who worked the sea handlining for a tough living. This era was passing then, is just a memory now, but we have Peter's book to keep it alive.