Books published by Goose Lane Editions

Science has long been considered the very definition of modernity, the source of the empiricism and skepticism, openness and civility that distinguishes modern societies from previous social orders. Lately this view of science has come under intense scrutiny, as historians, philosophers, and scientists themselves have begun to ask fundamental questions about the institution of science. In this collection of invigorating interviews, David Cayley talks to some of the world's most provocative thinkers about the nature of scientific knowledge. Touching upon a rich array of subjects, he probes how our understanding of science has begun to shift and alter our view of the world.

At 31 years of age, Cyrus F. Inches set off to fight in the Great War, soon afterwards joining the First Canadian Heavy Battery. He was determined to survive without losing his sense of humour and love of story, despite the horrors and deprivations that he witnessed. By the time the War had concluded, he had written hundreds of letters, detailed diary entries, and a short history of the battles and movements of his artillery unit. Undisturbed for more than 90 years, Cyrus Inches's voluminous papers, compiled and edited for Uncle Cy's War, provide a compelling, human, and sometimes humorous portrait of life on the front lines during the First World War, including first-person observations of the battles at Ypres, the Somme, and Mons.

Once a work is completed, when and how do writers and other artists embrace their next creative work? In this fascinating book, Monique LaRue gives a tantalizing glimpse of the contour of time shaped by inspiration rather than the movement of the clock. Moving from the philosophical to the personal, she provides a view of how each of her novels has come into existence -- the personal context in which each came to be and the social context in which each was received.LaRue uses two important words in her approach to this "between-time" of creative possibility. The first, "meander," from the Greek name for Maiandros, has come to signify "wandering at random." Like Northrop Frye, she distinguishes between "Kairos," the mysterious, unpredictable moment when the creative impulse is released, and "chronos," or passing time. This ephemeral moment, as explained by LaRue, is of time but not in it. Given this paradox, it should come as no surprise that LaRue's between-time of writing creatively has no name. Mortality brings time and its passage unceasingly to mind. Yet, the mental action of moving freely through meandering associations during the time between works becomes the criterion for thinking creatively.Une fois une oeuvre achevée, quand et comment écrivains et artistes abordent-ils leur prochaine création? Dans cet ouvrage passionnant, Monique LaRue nous donne un avant-goût alléchant des contours du temps tracés, dans ce cas, par notre imaginaire et non par les aiguilles de l'horloge. Naviguant entre la philosophie et l'expérience personnelle, elle nous livre un aperçu de la genèse de chacun de ses livres -- tant les circonstances personnelles dans lesquelles chacun a vu le jour que le contexte social qui les a accueillis.Deux mots clés émergent de la démarche de LaRue dans son exploration de cet « entre deux temps » du potentiel créatif. Le premier, « méandre », provenant du terme grec « Maiandros » qui veut dire « errer au hasard ». À l'instar de Northrop Frye, elle distingue entre « Kairos », le moment mystérieux et imprévisible où l'élan créateur est libéré, et « Chronos », le temps qui passe. Pour Larue, ce moment éphémère, surgit du temps sans toutefois en faire partie. De par ce paradoxe, il n'est guère surprenant de constater que l'« entre-temps » de l'écriture créative dont traite LaRue est innommé, Notre mortalité nous renvoie inlassablement au temps. Pourtant, la pensée créative exige une activité mentale qui évolue librement, serpentant, au cours de ce temps entre deux oeuvres, au gré des aléas des associations méandres.

Written over a twenty-month period, this book of poetry is an elegant testimony to the beautiful and the good. Serge Patrice Thibodeau's One pays homage to the vibrancy and vigor of the natural world and the precarious immediacy of the everyday.

Cottage Craft has long held a strong reputation for its fine wool, dyed to the palette of the local landscape, and the fine craftsmanship of the women who weave and knit its quality materials. Behind Cottage Craft is the story of a woman of vision and remarkable resolve. Grace Helen Mowat looked upon traditional rural crafts -- knitting, weaving, and rug hooking -- as cash crops for the farm women of Charlotte County, New Brunswick. In 1911, unmarried and with limited means, she commissioned a handful of women to make rugs according to her designs. The Arts and Crafts movement was in full swing -- the rugs sold quickly and Cottage Craft grew into a home-grown business from its base in St. Andrews. Since then, Cottage Craft has continued to grow and, now, three generations later, it attracts customers the world over.

True Concessions charts the moments where beauty is glimpsed like a carnival through a crack in a fence. In verse inhabited by living toys and daylight ghosts, Craig Poile captivates his readers with texture and sound and a language grounded in the quotidian yet informed by tradition. There are no rules when making a poem that sings and shimmers.

In 1942, RAF Flight Controller Robert Wyse became a Japanese prisoner of war on the Indonesian island of Java. In this no-holds-barred account, Wyse describes the harsh conditions he and his fellow prisoners suffered. Subjected to beatings, starvation, debilitating illness, and unbelievably harsh work, Wyse struggled to describe the brutalities he witnessed. Although the punishment for keeping a diary would have been severe, Wyse persevered, scrounging for bits of paper and slivers of pencil and hiding his writing wherever he could until it became too dangerous to continue. Then, in December 1943, he buried his notes in a bottle under his prison hut. Robert Wyse's diaries were retrieved by the Dutch authorities after the war. An historical goldmine of information on life as a prisoner of war, these diaries reveal both the worst and the best of human nature.

An invasion? For teenagers Dryfly Ramsey and Shadrack Nash, poor and ignorant in the world's terms but rich in the lore of the magical Miramichi, the annual influx of American anglers, with their money, fishing gear, and thirst for salmon seems like one. A cast of quirky, unforgettable characters -- Nutbeam, a large-nosed, floppy-eared hermit; Shirley, Brennan Siding's toothless postmistress and Ramsey family matriarch; and Buck, who appears once a year to sire another child -- conspire to capture the imagination in Herb Curtis's now classic novel. In The Americans Are Coming, the voices of Brennan Siding ring out in the rich vernacular of New Brunswick's Miramichi region, a world immersed in myth, folklore, and the sulpherous belch of a nearby pulp mill -- where ghosts and demons are as real as the Lone Ranger or the spring run of gaspereaux.

Imagine you're a young British or European woman caught up in the dramatic reality of war. You fall in love with and marry a soldier from a foreign country. When the war ends, you leave behind all you've ever known -- family, friends, and way of life -- for a new life in Canada. This is the story of nearly two thousand war brides who made their way to New Brunswick to join their servicemen husbands at the end of the Second World War. Arriving in a mainly rural province, these city girls faced culture shock, and social, religious and linguistic differences that would have tested the mettle of many relationships. More than sixty years later, their stories paint a compelling portrait of love, passion, perseverance, and hope in a world torn apart by war.

Rich with literary awards and honours, Alberto Manguel extends his literary genius to address and complete a thoughtfully crafted extrapolation on a paper left unfinished by Northrop Frye in 1943. The result is a succinct yet densely multilayered examination of how various readings of Homer throughout the annals of history cast light upon the human tendency towards war rather than peace and asks what roles writing and reading play to bring the world into better equilibrium. Central to this lecture is the concept of re-binding, a word drawn from the Latin roots for the word religion, which Manguel posits is the essential definition of poetry. Homer's writings, the point of origin of all written verse, are also the first written instance of the binding of imagined, written, and read realities. The semantics of Homer's name and the literal and figurative ramifications of his blindness are investigated as Manguel builds the scaffold for unveiling our own blindness through our desire to read Homer in our own image. We are left to examine our own assumptions.Comblé de prix littéraires et d'honneurs, Alberto Manguel prête son génie littéraire à l'étude et au parachèvement d'une extrapolation songée que Northrop Frye avait laissée en plan en 1943. Il en résulte une analyse succincte mais en replis serrés des multiples lectures d'Homère léguées par les siècles, qui révèle comment ces interprétations éclairent la propension humaine à la guerre plutôt qu'à la paix, ce qui le mène à s'interroger sur le rôle que jouent l'écriture et la lecture quand il s'agit de créer un monde plus équilibré. La notion de re-lier, un mot dont les racines latines sont les mêmes que le mot religion, est au coeur de cette conférence, et Manguel en fait la définition essentielle de la poésie. Les écrits d'Homère, point d'origine de toute la poésie écrite, fournissent aussi la première occurrence d'un lien entre les réalités imaginées, écrites et lues. La valeur sémantique du nom d'Homère et les répercussions concrètes et figurées de sa cécité font partie des éléments que Manguel scrute pour fonder son évocation de notre aveuglement à nous quand nous insistons pour lire Homère à notre propre image. Nous n'avons plus qu'à remettre nos hypothèses.

Dramatizing the lives of Indian women from 1919 to the present, from India to North America, Shauna Singh Baldwin travels from the intimate sphere of family to the public space of office and university. In this powerful collection, some characters say little but know much. Others, imprisoned by silence, use it with bloody force against their oppressors. A few harness the power of wordlessness to seize freedom.

The trip of a lifetime, this unusual collection of stories has something for everyone. Filmmakers, politicians, stand-up comedians, poets, journalists, and carpenters come together through the shared experience of hitching a ride. Governor General Award winner Margaret Avison and American sci-fi novelist Piers Anthony rub shoulders with Randy Bachman and Steven Pinker. Jello Biafra's farcical encounter with shoe-eating cows rivals Alan Dean Foster's whale shark ride and Kage Baker's hilarious account of actors broken down on Interstate 5. Since the '60s and '70s -- the heyday of hitching -- people have thumbed rides worldwide. Money never changes hands, but all manner of social transactions take place. These tales will open your eyes and take you back -- or forward. Just when you think you've heard it all, turn the page. You'll discover you haven't!