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A feast for the mind, heart

Ernest Lapointe, Liberal politician.
“In Alberta, the only protection
the Liberals had were the Game
Laws.” — John D. Diefenbaker.
“With the Liberals in power,
what we have is a case of the
bland leading the bland.” — F.H.
Underhill, historian. ‘

. “After all, it was the Conser-
vatives who invented the game of
‘Swallow the Leader’ .”” — Charles
Lynch, columnist.

3

from Liberals and Conservatives .
sniping at each other, which ex-
plains the absence of the New
Democratic Party in the melee
below). .

“| do not say that all Grits are.
horse thieves, but | feel quite sure
that all horse thieves are Grits.” —
Sir John A. Macdonald.

“A Liberal is a Liberal because he
likes something or somebody; a
Tory is a Tory because he hates

Aart
REAL
6 :

4
t

THIS NEW publishing season is going to tax readers’ deci-
sion-making abilities to the limit: the volume of new titles
either released or scheduled for release in the coming
months is nothing less than staggering.

It's a bit of the ‘good news — aerial combat I’ve ever read"; it
bad news’ sort of situation, with spent 28 weeks on the New York
the good news being that the Times bestseller list) and his se-
selection is as broad as one could —_ cond novel, Final Flight, is just as

f

ask, but this very same profusion exciting and compelling. The ac-
of books on every conceivable tion sequences, whether in the

RES
€

after another, but it’s all great tun
if you don’t take your politics
seriously — and political follies
and foibles are but a drop in the
greater sea of New Canadian
Quotations (Hurtig; 480 pp.;
$29.95 in hardcover.)

topic requires that choices be skies or onboard the carrier
‘United States’, have a gritty real-
ism thai totally absorbs the reader.

If this novel has a flaw it may lie
in the tendency of the author to
lean too heavily on stereotypes in.
his portrayal of the terrorists, a
weakness revealed early enough
that some readers may initially
question the whole.

But stay with it because what
feSlows is first-rate thriller writing
by an ex-Naval Air Commander
who definitely has the ‘Right
Stuff’. (Final Flight; Doubleday;
387 pp.; $24.95 in hardcover).

New Canadian Quotations

Colombo’s New Canadian
Quotations is one of those rare
reference books that can be read
for pure enjoyment. It contains an
alphabetical subject listing of

uotations from notable Cana-

ians and references to Canada
and Canadians by others.

In all, New Canadian Quotations
offers over 4,000 entries that cover
a range of topics that can only be
descri as eclectic: sex, philos-
ophy, love, war, civil rights and so
on.

New Canadian Quotations is a
must for every Canadian .
beokshelf. Some of the material is
hilarious, as the following political
quotations demonstrate in topical
fashion (note: the best quips are

made,

With some 90,000 different titles
hitting bookstore shelves this year,
choosing books from this
bewildering cornucopia may ac-
tually be as daunting as paying for
them.

MIKE
STEELE

book reviewer

This week we have three solid
works to look at: the new Pierre
Berton book, The Arctic Grail; a
top-notch thriller, Final Flight, by
Stephen Coonts; and a book that
in part proves that Canadians are
not such a dour lot after all, John
Colombo’s New Canadian Quota-
tions. . .

The Arctic Grail

The Arctic Grail (McClelland and
Stewart; 672 pp.; $29.95 in hard-
cover) is Berton’s most ambitious
exploration of Canadian history to
date. Subtitled “The Quest For
The Northwest Passage and The
North Pole — 1818-1909", The
Arctic Grail stands far above any
other work or series of works deal-
ing with a fascinating period of this
continent's northern frontier.

While The Arctic Grail happily
complies with the Berton formula
of melding fact with personality,
the attention to detail in this book
is, in a recently much-abused
word, awesome,

Thanks in major part to several
years’ study of the diaries and cor-
respondence of the participants,
Berton has breathed life into fig-
ures otherwise doomed to reside
in the one-dimensional, arid do-
main that was presented to most
of us in the guise of history.

While conventional history is
seldom more than a conglomera-
tion of dates, facts and figures,
Berton takes us behind the scenes
for an intimate study of the pas-
sions that drove people to risk
their lives for a place in the history
books. He uncovers the hatreds,
the biases, the loves (won and lost)
and the ambitions of the men and
women of the time.

This is a far more interesting ap-
proach to history, one that fully
reveals the human drama in a fac-
tual, accurate context.

It holds the reader’s interest
because (in many cases for the first
time) we are permitted to briefly
step into the private lives of histor-
ical figures and to see them as
people whose motivations, fears,
joys and sorrows were not at all
unlike our own. The Arctic Grail is
a feast both for the mind and the
heart.

Final Flight

The time is the near-future. The
place: the Mediterranean and the
Middle-east. The plot? An attempt
by Arab terrorists to hijack nuclear
warheads from an American air-
craft carrier. The verdict? Ex-
cellent, but don’t take my word for
it; one of the finest writers of war-
fare fiction today, Tom Clancy
(The Hunt For Red October), gave
it an unqualified ‘thumbs up’.

Author Stephen Coonts won
rave reviews for his first book,
Flight of The Intruder (a former
Secretary of the U.S. Navy called it
“the best first-person narration of

somebody or something.”” —

An interview with Pierre Berton :

PIERRE BERTON ...special inter-
pretation of Canadian history.

Author Pierre Berton, Canada’s
most prolific writer-historian, is
now engaged in an exhaustive
cross-country tour promoting his
just-released book on northern
exploration, The Arctic Grail.
Reviewer Mike Steele caught up
with Berton last week during the
author's western leg of television,
radio and print interviews.

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And on it goes: one nasty jibe

GIVEN THE tight scheduling of
Pierre Berton’s promotional tour it
came as no surprise that the 68 .
year-old author (34 books to date),
columnist and television panelist
(Front Page Challenge) seemed
weary and more in need of a
respite than yet another interview
at day’s end. Still, the outspoken
Berton found no difficulty in rally-
ing to deliver the following per-
sonal insights and opinions.
His own reading preferences?
“1 read Gore Vidal, John LeCarre,
Len Deighton, Anthony Burgess; !
very much like the Spenser series.
lread quite widely actually, no
specific types — I just go into
bookstores and see what's there. J
just read for my own enjoyment
and relaxation.’’
Canadian writers he admires?
“| always was influenced quite
strongly by Bruce Hutchison...he
wrote some very good popular
history in his time.”
Current Canadian history
writers he admires?
“Canadian? No.”

Are Canadians aware of, let
alone interested in their own his-
tory?

“The Centennial (1967) made us
realize that we had a history. Be-
fore that we really weren't aware
that we even had. a history.” (by
way of proof, Berton pointed out
that his publisher baulked at prin-
ting 10,000 copies of his first his-
torical work, Klondike (1958) as
most successful Canadian books
had sates of only 3,500 to 5,000 up
until that time. Now Berton ties
regularly achieve sales of FS
70,000 copies and the Mational
Dream and its sequel, fie Last _
Spike, have accounted for sales of
roughly 130,000 since their release
in 1970 and 1971, respectively.)
“4 think people are very con-
cerned about the Canadian identi-
ty and the Free Trade discussion .
has obviously brought that to the
fore, 1 think that it mattess that we
have an identity and part of that
identity is that we have an in-

See Berton Page 27

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