Product Description
This book is not intended to persuade you to take up writing novels or short stories – “It’s going to be a lot of work,” Jack Hodgins warns. Nor will it tell you how to market your stories. But it will take you through the problems facing any fiction writer and show you how some of the best writers in English have solved them.

The chapters are clear and comprehensive: Finding Your Own Stories; One Good Sentence After Another – on the skills of writing well; Setting; Character – how to make your characters come alive; Plot; Structure – “The Architecture of Story”; Point of View and Voice; Metaphors, Symbols and Allusions; Revising – an all-important chapter that also deals with the impact of writing on a computer; The Story of a Story – where Jack Hodgins talks of his own experience with one of his most famous stories; and the final chapter, And Now What? – Creating Your Own Workshop, which builds on the fact that every chapter in the book contains writing exercises to help you work away at home at “the mysterious business of writing fiction.”

As an award-winning novelist and short-story writer Jack Hodgins is uniquely qualified to preach what he practises. As a trained teacher, he has been giving creative lessons for thirty years, at high schools and universities and to writers’ summer schools. In recent years his creative writing courses at the University of Victoria have become discreetly famous. Now, anyone who buys this book can share in the experience of learning fiction-writing from a master.

With its scores of examples of first-class writing this lively, truly fascinating book will almost certainly make you be atter writer; it is guaranteed to make you a better reader.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

helpful for my writers craft class,
There were too many jumps and blotches between Jack Hodgins' wrtten words and the paraphrases.Very useful for the short story segment in OAC Writers Craft with Mr. Gorman.Many thanks for a much used book. ... Read more

Product Description
Spit Delaney’s Island is Vancouver Island, and its settings – the lush green forests, the pulp mills, the all-encompassing sea, and the ferries crossing to the mainland – permeate this stunning collection of short fiction. Opening and closing with stories about Spit Delaney himself, the operator of Old Number One steam locomotive in the local mill, the volume travels between the harsh world of its people’s reality and the comforts of their fantasies.

Humane and compassionate, Spit Delaney’s Island, the first collection of fiction from Jack Hodgins, established him as a writer of extraordinary imagination and dazzling humour.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jack Hodgins' Island
Okay, first off, I stole the title of my review. It was the title of a piece that Canada's National Film Board made about Jack Hodgins and his work, particularly Spit Delaney's Island.

One of the most importantmeasures of a book is whether you understand and care about the characters.By the time you finish Spit Delaney's Island, you will feel like you knowthe folks who inhabit the stories, and you will be saddened by theirtragedies and overjoyed by their triumphs.Hodgins peoples his storieswith characters that could have come from your own life, or at least thatyou will wish did.

The stories in this volume, and indeed much ofHodgins' work, are set on the section of Vancouver Island where the authorgrew up. Their stories rise organically through Hodgins clear, exquisiteprose. These are not loud stories, but they resonate with the strength ofprecise observation and the wonderful talent to tell a tale in which thereader cannot help but empathize with and indeed root for thecharacters.

If you enjoy this book, you should also check out the BarclayFamily Theatre, and selection of stories by Hodgins. ... Read more

Product Description
When an unknown woman steps off a beached Peruvian freighter and walks into the Vancouver Island town of Port Annie, nothing can ever be quite the same. Stalwart citizens, tired of their milltown routine, grasp at a fresh subject for gossip. Others are suddenly prepared to make momentous decisions. But eccentric old Joseph Bourne, who knows that the endless rain is going to bring a landslide down on the town, is certain that the mysterious woman has come looking for him.

Jack Hodgins’ comic masterpiece is filled with social satire, and it is also filled with love, which permits this ordinary town to recollect the past with affection, and to begin its history again.

First published in 1979, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction.
... Read more

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It is the summer of 1956, and although Rusty Macken is eager to leave rural Vancouver Island – and his family – for university, the events of Glory’s funeral will not make it easy. Over the course of a single day, the rambunctious Macken clan gathers at the site of the burned-down seaside hotel that was once the family base to mourn and remember the glamorous city girl who married the wildest Macken of all but never quite adapted to their country ways. By the time the sun comes up on the following day, Rusty may have participated in something of a miracle. At the very least, he will have been forced to confront the uneasy secrets of his own heart. Compassionate, hilarious, and wise, The Macken Charm brilliantly captures the joys, the frustrations, and the rich human drama of family life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A family madness. . .
Writing of events in small, isolated communities is inherently difficult.While many booksare produced depicting that environment, the results are too often contrived stories, lackingreality.The true existence of such communities, on the other hand, is usually too mundane forsuccessful story telling.Drama seems lacking; the people's lives seem too common for awriter to tackle and present in a way to capture reader attention.Unless the writer hasexceptional ability.

If you pick up The Macken Charm you will encounter such a writer. You will meet a manwho's spent his life in such a place, yet who has the aptitude to convey how much dramasuch lives can endure.There's nothing false or contrived in the events surrounding Glory'sfuneral or the times preceding it.Hodgins has given us the lives of this remote communitythrough the eyes of the youthful Randy Macken.Randy, torn in many directions overrelations with his family, the blood relatives and the married-in ones, coincidental with hiswish to escape the isolation in the nearest big city - Vancouver.It's an old story, but Hodginsdeals with it in ways rarely achieved by today's urban writers.His ability to see the family'sinteractions through the eyes of this young, if discerning, man reveals the talent of this writer.

Although Hodgins' portrait of Randy Macken is valid and captivating, it's the presentation ofRandy's cousin Toby that shows Hodgins at his best.A figure that could have been buried indramatic surrealism, Hodgins brings this tragi-comic figure to life in subtle steps.Toby'sentry is sly, almost a backstage insertion into the day's events.But he's a central figure inRandy's life and in the minds of Barclays, Mackens, Aaltos and the rest.To discover why,pick up this book and spend a quiet day reading and reflecting on people you probablyknow.You will discover one of North America's finer authors, one whose books you willseek out as treasures to be added to your shelves. ... Read more

Product Description
A Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year


Sonny Aalto, a restless middle-aged businessman, has spent his life running away from those closest to him. When his estranged, larger-than-life father, Timo, becomes too sick to care for himself, Sonny reluctantly returns to his childhood home of Vancouver Island, where he learns his father is not only dying but wants to die on his own terms – with Sonny’s help. But before facing the gravity of what’s ahead, the two embark on a journey to Australia, in search of a woman from their past, and over the course of the next few months their adventures will reveal difficult truths about fathers and sons, about families, about how we live and how we die – and about the good and bad things that distance can sometimes provide. Wise and irreverent, deeply moving, at times comic, and with vivid settings ranging from the frozen banks of Ottawa’s Rideau Canal to the lushness of Vancouver Island, from the bustle of downtown Sydney to the sun-baked desolation of the Queensland outback, Distance is Jack Hodgins’s most rewarding novel to date.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A painful but rewarding round-trip
Hodgins is a skillful writer, and he's in top form here. The dialog is excellent, as are the character potrayals, and the descriptive passages are both compelling in their own right, anchoring the reader into scenes with a vivid sense of physical immediacy, and in terms of the way landscape echoes and refracts the protagonist's sensibility and changing pyschological states. This is not an easy book. The relationship of the protagonist to his father is shot through with pain, a pain that is all the more excruciating for the reader because it is so resonant. But in the end this is a rewarding and redemptive read. It is an intimate story painted in bold colors, with a bigger heart than alot of the psychologically minimalist fiction coming out these days. Highly recommended!

Guilt trips
Unlike the common run of North American writers, Jack Hodgins' vistas are unconfined by borders, real or imaginary.His book on writing fiction, A Passion for Narrative, is among the finest of the genre.It is unique in its consideration of Pacific Rim writing.His latest novel, Distance, exhibits his extended outlook brilliantly."Distance" can impart many meanings and Hodgins weaves geographical and personal themes here with his usual skill."Distance" may be narrowed, and the issues of personal reconciliation and defining "home" are important ones in this book.

We follow Sonny Aalto from Ottawa to Vancouver Island, then across the Pacific.There's even a side journey to the woods of Finland, his family's origins.The journey confronts us with Sonny's family."Confront" is fraught with meaning, since Sonny's interactions with his family are tense and acerbic.Pleasant words don't often appear and "dislike" is the mildest epithet available.Yet the hostility is tempered with another side to all the characters.Family life, no matter how conflict-filled, still carries an undercurrent of mutual respect and tenderness.Sonny, who has strenuously resisted communicating with his father while seeking closer ties with his own children, is induced to return home.

Why is Sonny so frequently on the move?He's spent a lifetime edging eastward, following various careers, seeking his children.He travels incessantly - ruined cathedrals, shrines to pagan gods, remote villages.The driving force is his father, Timo - "Swampy" Aalto.Abandoned by his wife Viira, Timo, quite unprepared for the role, becomes a single parent.In a remote corner of Vancouver Island, missing part of a leg, and virtually unemployable, he resents the role and his life.Sonny is either left to his own devices or forced to clean up after Timo's drunken debauches with whichever women will tolerate him.Leaving home wasn't a hard decision for Sonny.Once departed, he just never stopped.Ottawa is his latest refuge - "he wanted to belong" .Will it be his last?

Skating the Rideau Canal on one of Ottawa's notorious February days, Sonny is confronted by a stranger claiming to be his brother."Believe me, mate. I would not risk frozen gonads for a prank!"Jerrod has travelled half way around the planet to deliver an invitation: come to Australia and visit his mother.And shoot boar - they kill sheep.Sonny demurs.He hasn't used a rifle in thirty years.Far more significantly, he's uncertain how to deal with his long-vanished mother.Lured to Victoria by his ailing father, the island continent beckons.Timo, who has his own reasons to confront Viira, endorses the journey.Crippled, seriously ill, he embraces the idea of the adventure.Timo as a travelling companion is compounding risk.

Family relationships, especially those dominated by confrontation, make compelling reading.Sonny has inherited his father's tendency to steer away from family ties - his son is "up the Valley" running a craft store while his daughter Charlotte returned to Vancouver pursuing a photographic career.Charlotte scorns Sonny, while son Warren seems to communicate only to request money.Under Jack Hodgins' perceptive eye and skilled narrative style, these characters become vividly staged in this engrossing tale.The family gathering in the Australian bush becomes a cockpit of conflicting experiences and interests.For all his mother-deprived upbringing, Sonny is a successful businessman.He must hold his own against half-siblings, and on their home turf.Hodgins doesn't invoke a false hero in Sonny, but there's strength and motives to persevere against stiff odds.Timo also shows unexpected drive, his patriarchal role may be challenged, but rarely relinquished.

Hodgins' characters are finely drawn - he has a keen sense of details about people and their habitats.His ability to convey idiosyncrasies of local speech borders on the uncanny.You can hear the bushman's voice of Jerrold Hawkins.Timo's irascibility echoes the stress of years struggling in Vancouver Island's own bush environment.Sonny's firewood supplier's laconic observations reflecting life in the upper Ottawa Valley.This isn't stereotyping, it's identification.

Hodgins draws more than characters.In tracing Sonny's wanderings, each locale is characteristically depicted.Ottawa's chip wagons, Vancouver Island's isolated "up-island" towns, and the novelty of the island continent.His Australian visits enable a special talent for conveying the contrasting environments.When he takes Sonny to the vastness of Australia's desert, he pictures it both with the eye of a casual visitor and established resident.You share Sonny's role as the intruder into both family and place with sympathy.The vast stretches and novel circumstances of that distant and unusual land.Jack Hodgins introduces us to people and places we may never encounter.Follow his lead into journeys of mind and space.It's a rewarding jaunt. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada] ... Read more

Product Description
Set in Victoria, B.C., in 1881, Innocent Cities brilliantly weaves together the lives and lies of an entire community. Logan Sumner is a young widower and architect who dreams of transforming the tiny port city of Victoria into one of the great cities of the world. When he’s not chiseling a record of his life onto his tombstone, Sumner awkwardly courts the daughter of James Horncastle, an inveterate gambler and the swaggering proprietor of The Great Blue Heron Hotel. Their lives – and those of the bizarre group of guests who frequent the hotel – are changed forever when a mysterious widow from Australia arrives in Victoria with startling revelations from her past. Rich with intrigue, warm humour, and a memorable cast of characters, Innocent Cities is a compelling tale from one of Canada’s finest writers. ... Read more

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The Master of Happy Endings is a powerful new novel about memory, belonging, helping others, and the vagaries of the human heart. It is also a compelling story about how a man in his late seventies manages to conjure one more great adventure for himself.

Product Description
Every story is so different that there is something for everyone here. “Balance” is a story about a bored and (we think) boring orthotics sculptor – until we find that he has fallen in love with the feet of one of his distant patients, and has done something about it. “This Summer’s House” describes a Vancouver Island family that rents a new summer house each year for the central event, a great family get-together that reminds us of a modern version of Chekhov. “Over Here” is an innocent story told by a 10-year-old boy who tries to keep the secret that the girl next door is an Indian.

“Damage Done by the Storm” shows us Ottawa picking up after a snowfall as the central character, a retired senator, tries to keep his word to his grandson by getting to an important event. “Galleries” has a Faulkner scholar and her photographer son touring Mississippi to learn about the writer, and learning about themselves. “Promise” shows what happens when a former high-school principal visits a former pupil twenty years on. “The Crossing” is a taut story of an “ordinary” woman’s life exploding. “Inheritance” tells how a Vancouver Island couple learn that their uncle in Ottawa plans to leave everything to them, in what proves to be a mixed blessing. “Astonishing the Blind” has a Canadian pianist in Germany writing home to congratulate her parents on their wedding anniversary, only to reveal terrible secrets about two marriages – and to reveal links between some of the stories.

The geographic range is wide – Australia, Germany, Ottawa, Edmonton, Mississippi and, as home base, the Vancouver Island logging and farming communities that feature in Spit Delaney’s Island and other books by Jack Hodgins.The range of characters is just as wide, and many of these people are unforgettably larger than life, while still being utterly believable. In summary, a terrific collection of stories that will delight readers and renew the Jack Hodgins debate about the comparative excellence of his novels and his short stories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Whatever happened to Dora?
Relating short stories must be the most ancient form of human communication.From that far-off time when evolution granted us a "voice box" and a brain capable of expanded memory, "telling tales" clearly became a feature in our lives.The hunting expedition, the new discovery resulting from a random trek, "what happened to Og during the storm", was surely the way time was spent around the campfire after the evening meal.When speech moved to print, the tradition was carried on to the page.Nearly supplanted by books growing ever bulkier, filled with too-often turgid text, the short story, in the hands of the right author, returns us to readable prose.

Jack Hodgins is the "right author" in nearly every sense.His entry into Canadian literature was through a prize-winning collection of tales of his home ground - Spit Delaney's Island.There was a phase of fusion with The Barclay Family Theatre, a set of vignettes of Canadian life.From that book, almost as if waiting in the wings, came The Macken Charm, in which another family is portrayed in rather unsettling circumstances.Yet another family situation, covering vast distances, is his recently released Distance When "family values" are considered an important aspect, Hodgins is able to convey many facets of that ideal.

This collection of ten fine stories combines and enlarges on Hodgins' frequently applied theme of family.His long writing experience has granted him abilities to characterise matched by few, if any, authors.The opening story will jolt most readers, yet the young man depicted is anything but a fantasy.This story of compulsion is followed by a "cottage season" tale - the consummate Canadian situation.In Hodgins' account, there are some new twists to what likely would become mundane in the hands of a lesser talent.In yet another tale, the Mackens' return to confront what, for them, is the least desireable circumstance.Distant events compel attention to off-Island issues.Mackens must not only leave their little Island habitat, but travel to that, for them, most inauspicious place - Ottawa.It's a question of inheritance, perhaps the one thing that can disrupt family life the most severely.

Of course, the title story compels the Ottawa reader to wonder - "Is this another Ice Storm collection?Are we going to read about snapped hydro lines, treacherous streets, chilled houses and shattered aboreal stands?"Not quite.There is a storm, but it's the more typical deposition of a metre of snow.There's a downed tree, but it reclines in solitary insolence on a railroad track.The damage lies elsewhere, in the memories of a retired Senator still living in Ottawa.Coming from British Columbia, Alfred Buckle is still uneasy with snow after all these years.It's not negotiating snow-covered streets that impairs him, but the recollections of other times and places.He's on his way to the Grand Opening of his grandson's new establishment.It's a meaningful event, but one tree may disrupt the journey.Will he arrive on time?More important to Alfred, will he be welcome when he does show up?

There is a gem tucked away in these pages.In Australia, Russell Drysdale produced his renowned painting, The Drover's Wife.It qas long celebrated as typifying the bleak existence of those mustering cattle or sheep.Australian author Murray Bail finally "identified" the subject in the painting with a hilarious account of a deserting wife.In Hodgins' collection, her career takes yet another step with her emigration to Canada.In his portrait, the Drover's Wife typifies the problems and promise British Columbia faces in dealing with its most precious natural resource.Hodgins does more than simply graft West Coast conditions to an outstanding and humourous Australian episode.He brings "Hazel" to life in ways that lie beyond what even Bail accomplished.In fact, this lively story has many messages.

Not all the tales here are rollicking family disputes or clashes over distant possessions.In "The Crossing", Hodgins follows a passenger on the BC Ferries system.She stands alone, at first, contemplating the approaching coast and mountain background.She's done this trip before.It seems to be a family trait to travel - sometimes great distances.Her father, deluded that he would fare better in the South Pacific, slips away in a sailboat.Her sister Dora, convinced that she's received secret messages from an alien spaceship, fled into those mountains backdropping the city.What then, is Leanne's purpose in making this crossing?Is this truly the shopping trip she announced before departing?

Hodgins is a unique talent, possessed of strengths any writer will admire and any reader will encounter with delight.We need more such.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada] ... Read more

Product Description

Jack Hodgins begins The Invention of the World with a ferry worker waving you aboard a ship that will take you not onlyto Vancouver Island but into a world of magic. The far west coast of Canada has always been regarded as a “land’s end” where the eccentrics of the world come to plot out the last best utopia.Hodgins both invents a world and shows how we continually invent that world in all its multiplicity.Past and present intermingle while hilarious farce rubs up against epic tragedy. Intertwined are a love story, a portrait of a nineteenth-century village, a clash between wild loggers and weight-watching town folk who have to wear a pig when they fail to meet their weight goals. Pagan myths rub shoulders with the harsh pioneer days of the British Columbia rainforest. As always with Hodgins this novel is based incharacter and characters. At the centre of the mystery is Donal Keneally, the mad Irish messiah who eighty years ago persuaded an entire Irish village to emigrate to Canada, there to become his slaves in the Revelations Colony of Truth. His heir is Maggie Kyle and her collection of boarders in the old Colony of Truth building. Here truly is a novel that is itself an invention of the world.

Customer Reviews (1)

The Invention of the World
Personally, I found this book to be tedious. It was too chopped up for my tastes. The plot seemed to go every where. Unless I missed something, the title was very misleading as to the content of the novel. However, theending was hilarious and a good reward for the rest of the novel. ... Read more

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Broken Ground is a riveting exploration of the dark, brooding presence of the First World War in the lives of the inhabitants of a “soldier’s settlement” on Vancouver Island. From out of a stubborn, desolate landscape studded with tree stumps, the settlers of Portuguese Creek have built a new life for themselves. But when an encroaching forest fire threatens this fledgling settlement, it also intensifies the remembered horrors of war. The story of Portuguese Creek is told by several of its citizens, including a boy trying to recover from the sudden loss of his father, and a former teacher haunted by what happened to the soldiers he led in France. With a memorable cast of characters, and by turns heart-rending and tragic, humorous and humane, Broken Ground is a powerful novel that immerses us in the lives of an entire community. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Broken ground and broken hopes
Jack Hodgins once recalled a writing seminar attended by William Golding.When a studentmentioned she'd heard authors should "write what they know", Golding "mounted histransparent Nobel pedestal" to thunder that he'd never been marooned on a desert island norconstructed a cathedral.Jack Hodgins may have listened to his relatives relate land clearingon Vancouver Island.He may even have blown a few tree stumps.Certainly, he neverslogged through muddy trenches on the Western Front in France in 1916.Good thing; wemight never have had the opportunity to relish his descriptions of the agonies of livingthrough and having to remember that conflict in later years.For Hodgins is a master ofwriting "what he knows" in combination with what he learns or conjures.The result is anengaging read, writing not to be missed.

Broken Ground's account of veteran resettlement in Canada strikes a touchy spot.Seeing theremnants of post-World War I rural allotments [don't grace them with the name 'farm'], alongcountry lanes in the US and Canada or in bleak isolation in Australian paddocks, induces theconjuring of ghosts.Cramped houses, wretched and sagging, roofless or home to hay baleswere once inhabited by families seeking a promised future.These abandoned sites are vividtestimony of how fragile that futurevalid rewards given men who'd survived Western Civilization's [sic] most horrendous conflict.Hodgins gives us a fresh reminder of the impactof that strife and the pitiable acknowledgment given its participants.They had just spentyears combating enemies both human and natural, only to return home and learn strugglingto survive remained central to their lives.

Hodgins, who has a fine knack for portraying people, here expresses several voices indepicting those post-Great War conditions in rural Vancouver Island.The common thread ofthose voices is Matt Pearson, veteran, farmer, teacher.Hodgins' style makes it easy toconsider Pearson a projection of Hodgins himself, thrust back in time, living an imagined life. Pearson isn't hardened by the war, although he's certainly toughened.Disillusionmentassaults, but doesn't overwhelm him.Pearson's role grows as the book wends its way to aconclusion in modern times.Throughout the book, Hodgins' portrayal of the survivors ofthat era of unfulfilled promises reflects what he knows, yet hasn't lived.It's a fine expressionof writing talent.You needn't be either Canadian nor World War I veteran to enjoy whatHodgins has produced.Reading this book requires no more than to be sympathetic to humanvalues.

A book worth the trouble of getting
I realy enjoyed this novel. Sometimes it was difficult but always worth the effort. A settlement on Vacouver island in the 1920's is the setting.It was mainly for soldiers returning fromWWI. So in addition to the grindof removing huge stumps and trying to farm the land they worked in thewoods as loggers, or shop keepers; WWI was always in the background. Thecharacters did not especially become close to me but I still liked the overall flavor of them. I don't think they were well developed in the sense ofgetting real close to them.The main character, Matt Pearsonisdeveloped and you understand him as the ending is disclosed... ... Read more

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Affectionately combining both the idyllic and ironic, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock’s most beloved book. Set in fictional Mariposa, an Ontario town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti, these sketches present a remarkable range of characters: some irritating, some exasperating, some foolhardy, but all endearing. Painted with the skilful brushstrokes of a great comic artist, the delightful inhabitants of Mariposa represent the people of small towns everywhere.

As fresh, funny, and insightful today as when it was first published in 1912, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is Stephen Leacock at his best – colourful, imaginative, and thoroughly entertaining. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

It made me homesick for a little town that never existed.
Leacock wrote in the introduction that Mariposa represented seventy or eighty different towns throughout Canada. The residents were composite characters of people he knew. Leacock did a great job of making the town seem alive. I wished I were there for the picnics, the cruises on the lake and the poker games. The plots of vignettes were good. The writing was too cute sometimes. His classical references were over my public school education at times. The characters were drawn fairly well. What the author did very well was the throw away descriptions of the characters. He would almost insult the characters he was describing in such endearing terms that I immediately felt drawn to the character.

Leacock was amazing talent. The book wasn't deep, but it was a fun, enjoyable ride down memory lane.

very nice book
Nice book. But in this edition, there is no chapter title on each page, so it's a littledifficult to track the chapters.

funniest book i've ever read
no hype. i couldn't stop laughing as i was reading this. and i mean laughing out loud. in a cafe. with everyone staring at me. but i didn't care. and i couldn't help it if i did. it's just too hilarious.

It Soothes the Soul
There is at least one author who may remind you of Stephen Leacock, namely Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon fame, but Leacock should be recognized as the ultimate master of quaint, bucolic humor. Leacock, who died in 1944, became arguably the most prominent Canadian humorist of his day (and probably of all time). What is ironic about that claim is that Leacock worked for most of his life as a professor of economics. We do not usually equate economics with humor, preferring to think of that profession as one of bow ties and supply and demand charts. Throw that presumption out the window and pick up a copy of "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town," Leacock's best known work available through the New Canadian Library series.

For me, one of the funniest sections of the book was the introduction written by Leacock, where he gives you some background about himself and his profession. This short piece of writing quickly gives you an idea of the type of humor you will find in the actual sketches: a very sly, very quiet and clever type of humor that often takes a while to sink in. Leacock does not rely on rim shot jokes or manic posturing in his writings. Instead, he creates the fictional Canadian town of Mariposa and populates it with small town archetypes that are wonders to behold.

All of the characters are hilarious in their own way: Mr. Smith, the proprietor of the local hotel and bar, full of schemes to earn money while trying to get his liquor license back. Then there is Jefferson Thorpe, the barber involved in financial schemes that may put him on the level of the Morgans and the Rockefellers. The Reverend Mr. Drone presides over the local Church of England in Mariposa, a man who reads Greek as easy as can be but laments his lack of knowledge about logarithms and balancing the financial books of the church. Peter Pupkin, the teller at the local bank, has a secret he wants no one to know about, but which eventually comes out while he is courting the daughter of the town judge. All of these characters, and several others, interact throughout the sketches.

Leacock has the ability to turn a story, to make it take a crazy, unexpected twist even when you are looking for such a maneuver. That he accomplishes this in stories that rarely run longer than twenty pages is certainly a sign of great talent. By the time you reach the end of the book, you know these people as though you lived in the town yourself, and you know what makes them tick.

Despite all of the crazy antics in Mariposa, Leacock never lets the reader lose sight of the fact that these are basically good people living good lives. There seems to be a lot of feeling for the citizens of Mariposa on the part of Leacock, which comes to a head in the final sketch in the collection, "L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa," where he recounts traveling back to the town after being away for years, with all of the attendant emotions that brings as recognizable landmarks come into view and the traveler realizes that his little town is the same as when he left it years before.

I suspect there is a historical importance to "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." These writings first appeared in 1912, a time when many people living in the bigger Canadian cities still remembered life in a small town. In addition to the humorous aspects of the book, the author includes many descriptive passages concerning the atmosphere and layout of Mariposa, something instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up in such a place. Nostalgia for the simpler life of the small town probably played a significant role in the book's success.

I look forward to reading more Stephen Leacock. While much of the humor in the book is not belly laugh funny, it does provide one with a deep satisfaction of reading clever humor from an author who knows how to tickle the funny bone. You do not need to be Canadian to enjoy this wonderful book.

the funniest book i've ever read
Like the heading says, this is the funniest book I've ever read.Leacock was a comic genius and this is his best work.Buy it, read it, love it. ... Read more

Product Description
These studies of Canadian authors fulfill a real need in the study of Canadian literature. Each monograph is a separately bound study of about 55 pages. Each contains a biography of the author, a description of the tradition and milieu that influenced the author, a survey of the criticism on the author, a comprehensive essay on all the author's key works, and a detailed bibliography of primary and secondary works. ... Read more

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Chapters: Margaret Atwood, Roch Carrier, Timothy Findley, Carol Shields, Jane Urquhart, Morley Callaghan, Jack Hodgins, Alistair Macleod, W. O. Mitchell, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Jane Eaton Hamilton, Isabel Huggan, W. P. Kinsella, Mavis Gallant, Duncan Campbell Scott, M. Nourbese Philip, Peter Watts, Hugh Hood, Maria Campbell, Ethel Wilson, Susanna Moodie, Barbara Gowdy, Pierre Sévigny, Suzanne Jacob, Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite, Angie Abdou, Charles G.d. Roberts, Sui Sin Far, J. Timothy Hunt, Stephen Henighan, Colin Mcdougall, Sun Bo, Matt Cohen, R.j. Harlick, Raymond Fraser, Joseph Boyden, Russell Smith, David Bezmozgis, Brenda Chapman, Mary Jane Maffini, Rebecca Hendry, Michael Crummey, Evelyn Eaton, Crad Kilodney, Sasenarine Persaud, Theodore Odrach, Joan Clark, Moe Berg, Hugh Garner, Ven Begamudré, Rebecca Rosenblum, Ibi Kaslik, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Pan Bouyoucas, Margaret Gibson, Barbara Murray, Sky Lee, Karen X. Tulchinsky, C.b. Forrest, Rick Rofihe, Austin Clarke, Michael Redhill, Betty Lambert, Sheree-Lee Olson, Nellie Mcclung, Sheila Heti, H. Bedford-Jones, Olive Senior, Anne Fleming, Kevin Patterson, Lynn Coady, Derek Mccormack, Bronwen Wallace, Cathleen With, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Vincent Lam, Beverley Daurio, Anne Cameron, Nicolas Dickner, David Watmough, Ted Russell, Donald Alarie, Bill Gaston, Guillermo Verdecchia, Peter Mcgehee, Cynthia Flood, Madeline Sonik, Lance Blomgren, Audrey Thomas, Diane Schoemperlen, Heather O'neill, Steven Hayward, Chris Hutchinson, Norman Levine, Isabella Valancy Crawford, Raymond Knister, Nadine Mcinnis, Sandra Birdsell, Andy Quan, Zsuzsi Gartner, Elyse Gasco, Christopher Meades, Rick Hillis, Linda Svendsen, Katherine Govier, Russell Wangersky, Sandra Sabatini, List of Canadian Short Story Writers, Xiaowen Zeng, Jaspreet Singh, Jon Papernick, John Patrick Gillese, Gayla Reid, Marina Endicott, George Elliott, Nancy Lee, Makeda Silvera, Emily Schultz, Peter Behrens, Holley Rubin...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=60280 ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: List of Bones Characters, Temperance "Bones" Brennan, Lance Sweets, Seeley Booth, Zack Addy, Angela Montenegro, Jack Hodgins, Camille Saroyan, the Gormogon. Excerpt:Angela Montenegro Angela Pearly-Gates Montenegro is a fictional character in the television series Bones . She is portrayed by Michaela Conlin . Personality Throughout the series, Angela Montenegro is described as a "free spirit", "good-time girl" and is a "wild-child" at heart. During Season 2 episode "The Man in the Cell", Hodgins was quoted as saying Angela "was the heart of the team." She is the center of life and passion in the team, although not quite of normalcy and stability. While she may not exhibit the same social traits as her colleagues, she is well suited intellectually to the team. Angela also provides a sense of balance to the team as a whole. While Hodgins , Brennan, and Addy all have science deeply ingrained into their thought patterns, Angela is an artist at heart. In one episode she is even quoted as saying "this time, art made science her bitch". Early on in Season 1, she considered leaving the Jeffersonian, feeling that her work was unimportant, and that she was unsure if she could handle the graphic nature of the work done there. While every member of the team tried (in vain) to convince her otherwise, it was Dr. Goodman, the director of the Jeffersonian, who managed to change her mind. He spoke of the vital importance of her work in the respect that it provides an element of humanity to the victim. Of how she gives a face to the victim, returning their identity. This rather emotionally provocative description by Dr. Goodman seemed to satisfy Angela. She is open, friendly, and caring, seeming to have taken on a nurturing role in the team: she has befriended and constantly tries to draw out Dr... ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Jack Hodgins, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1346 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Jack Hodgins, Emmanuel Brunet Jailly, Tim Lilburn, John L. Climenhaga, Patrick Lane, Dorothy E. Smith, Ian Macpherson, Stephen Arthur Jennings, Arif Dirlik, E. Paul Zehr, David D. Balam, Rona Murray, Werner Israel, Anne Zeller, Lorna Crozier, Serhy Yekelchyk, Wu Guoguang, Aaron Devor, James Tully, Amy Ashurst Gooch, Christine Welsh, Don Vandenberg, David Turner, Chris Gainor, Taiaiake Alfred, Julio Navarro, Angus Taylor, Andrew Rippin, Rudolf Komorous. Excerpt:Aaron H. Devor (born 1951) is a Canadian sociologist and sexologist known for research into the transgender community. Devor has taught at the University of Victoria since 1989 and is currently dean of graduate studies. Maclean's described Devor as "an internationally respected expert on gender, sex and sexuality." Life and career Devor earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from York University in 1971, a master's degree in communications from Simon Fraser University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington in 1990. A transman , Devor transitioned in 2002. Devor was a member of the HBIGDA task force which created the sixth edition of The Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders . He has collected first-person narratives of transsexual experiences and has done extensive biographical research on transman Reed Erickson . Selected publication References (URLs online) Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Amy Ashurst Gooch is an assistant professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia , Canada. Life He earned her BS in Computer Engineering and MS in Computer Science from the University of Utah , and her PhD in Computer Science June 2006 at Northwestern University , where she was also a researcher and instructor. While working on her Masters degree ... ... Read more

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In this collection of essays, the achievements of Jack Hodgins are celebrated by contributors who include Ron Hatch, Linda Morra, Joel Martineau, Jeanne Delbaere, Tim Struthers, Elizabeth Galway, Duffy Roberts, Travis Mason, and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz. With commentary on Hodgins’s individual works, an extensive interview with him, and a critical introduction to the collection, this compilation provides a unique analysis and biography of a prolific Canadian writer.