Literary Non Fiction - Humour

From the acclaimed author of The ABCs of Farming: A Lighthearted Dictionary of Stubble-jumper Jargon comes a hilarious new guide to the various challenges, follies and pitfalls of retirement and the pleasures of loafing. Whether it is the niceties of retirement income, athletic activities for seniors, or the crisis of health care, Chamberlain renovates the aging process with a truly youthful awareness of life's many ironies.

When the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan celebrated its centenary in 2006, it looked back on the people and events that helped to shape the city’s fortunes, cultural climate and philosophy. Here, in editor and journalist Ned Powers’ interviews with some of Saskatoon’s most notable citizens, those of you who love Saskatoon and call it home can discover more about the personalities who have recently helped to shape the social climate of the city.

The interviews conducted over the past ten years include: Al Anderson, Dr. Marc Baltzan, Greg Barnsley, Sid Buckwold, Jack Chrones, Bob Corrigall, Pay and Mel Dahlen,Sylvia Fedoruk, Dennis Fisher, Robert Hinitt, W.D. (Bill) Hunter, David Kaplan, Skip Kutz, Dr. Samd Landa, Spero Leakos, Howard Nixon, Bill Perehudoff, Ross and Herb Piner, Lloyd Saunders, Ed Sebestyen, Tillie Taylor, Mary Tkachuk, Nelson Warner, Cliff Wright, and Joe Young.

Funny in a light-hearted, satirical way, Joe Campbell’s essays do not miss any of his social targets. From the multiculturality of chicken to the literary quality of legislation, Campbell gleefully slides from one idea to another. Though his subjects are as Canadian as a boy’s dream to play in the NHL, or as universal as music, he always writes with a gently urbane edge showing the potential pitfalls and hilarity of clichéd dreams and ritualized customs.

Take Me Out of the Ball Game reworks articles previously published in Gilbert, as well as in Stitches, the Journal of Medical Humour, Western People, Western Report, Canadian Author, the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Calgary Herald. Drawing from his experiences as a writer, editor, musician, tourist, failed athlete, husband, parent, and somewhat bemused observer trying to make sense of the contradictions of the world in which he lives, Campbell’s essays will make even the stiffest lip quiver, and the most rigid conservative groan.

168 pages/ trade paper

What happens when a group of  Saskatchewan’s most successful artists come together to create an innovative new project? Friday After 5: The Feast is a unique new title born out of an artisan mentality: a miscellany of art and literature mixed with a sprinkling of wine lore & recipes. Friday After 5 is a metaphorical feast produced by these artists — writers, dramatists, painters, photographers and craftspeople — in celebration of the arts community in Saskatoon.

Some artists represented are:
David Alexander, Grant McConnell, Sharon Riis, Henry Woolf, Susan Williamson, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Margaret Vanderhaeghe, Marie Lanoo, Ann Newdigate, John Livingstone Clark, Taras Polataiko, R.P. MacIntyre and David Carpenter.

The text is printed on fine, textured paper and the reproductions on coated stock. It has a wrap around coil bound and die cut cover. 168 pp 48 pp of colour reproductions.

Leacock merit medallist Gordon Kirkland drives the point home with funny-bone accuracy. Kirkland’s syndicated newspaper column is no stranger to Canadian and US audiences, and in this premium collection, Kirkland fans will find it all.

Drawing humour out of everyday situations such as trying to stay awake while on an all-night drive through the mountains, or the skewed memory of a long-lost office affair, Kirkland keeps the lines rolling and the laughs churning.

“Spoof is stronger than fiction” says For Better of For Worse humorist Lynn Johnston, and in Never Stand Behind A Loaded Horse

“ . . . If life is a load then laugh at it. This is Gordon Kirkland’s take on the stress of survival. His writing is an affirmation that we’re all in the same boat — it just leaks in different places Nothing is safe from his crack-the-wit columns, which is why I love to read his stuff . . . I just wouldn't want to be married to him!” — Lynn Johnston (For Better or For Worse)

• One of five finalists for the 2005 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour

So you’re driving down the highway on a prairie evening in mid-summer with your cousin from Sarnia. Or it’s a grid road on the way to the family reunion with your aunt from Nanaimo. Everything’s fine until the relative asks: “What’s that crop in the field there?” or “What’s that farmer pulling behind his tractor?” This is the nightmare for prairie people not raised on a farm. What is that stuff anyway? We may think we know culture, but not agriculture.
And what about visitors to this fair land who hurtle down Number One as quickly and grimly as possible, completely ignorant of the wealth of life and activity that surrounds them? Live in fear and haste no more. Terry Chamberlain — farmboy, farmer, teacher, man of the land and small-town streets — lays it out in this easy-to-understand, sometimes irreverent, and always hilarious guide to the farming life.

Born in Smeaton, Saskatchewan, Terry Chamberlain still lives in rural Saskatchewan. He was a teacher for thirty-two years and farmed for thirteen of those years. Chamberlain is a well-known columnist and narrator of a series of commentaries for CBC Radio.