Staff Picks
At FriesenPress, we celebrate each and every book we help our authors publish. Here are some of our team’s recent favourites – happy reading!
The Plutonium Files
America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War by
Eileen Welsome
The Plutonium Files is the shocking exposé of the US government’s medical experiments on unwitting citizens during the Cold War. Americans recoiled when they learned of the brutal experiments conducted by Nazi doctors. But as the world was learning about those horrors, US scientists were injecting eighteen patients in hospital wards with plutonium, a deadly substance used to make the atomic bomb. The patients were given code numbers and went to their graves without knowing what had been done to them. In The Plutonium Files, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Eileen Welsome describes how she uncovered the identities of these patients and goes on to chronicle the web of deceit that enabled the experiment to remain largely unknown for fifty years. It’s a searing, cautionary tale about what can happen behind the cloak of secrecy In this new edition, the book returns to the July 16, 1945, Trinity Test in southern New Mexico. Trinity was not only the world’s first atomic bomb, but the world’s first dirty bomb. Survivors and their descendants in the path of the fallout experienced a huge increase in radiation-linked cancers and are still fighting for reparations. The Plutonium Files also traces the murky origins of other radiation experiments. Like the plutonium injectees, the subjects were surreptitiously followed for years. They included children in Massachusetts, pregnant women in Tennessee, and prisoners in Oregon and Washington. “A fierce expose of governmental duplicity and dangerous science …The literature on the official crimes of the Cold War is large and growing. Welsome’s stunning book adds much to that literature, and it makes for sobering reading.” Kirkus Reviews
Running with the Angels
A bereaved mother's journey from hopelessness to HOPE by
Colette (Ruel) Howery
"Running with the Angels" is the story of a mother's sudden loss of her son; a loss that shattered her to the core of her being. Writing a book did not enter her mind as she worked through her intense grief. However words seemed to write themselves as the author studied, journaled, jotted notes on scrap paper, recorded her thoughts and feelings, wiped the tears off her face and documents, kept writing in a confused mixture of English, French and occasional swear words. Persisting through the mess, paragraphs appeared, some chapters lined up; a book took shape as the mother's grief became reconciled and integrated over the years. Now it has evolved into a completed memoir. May this book serve as a survival guide and a source of hope for all bereaved mothers and fathers.
The Society of Masterless Men
A Love Story by
W.D. Bursey
Around the year 1749, a young Irishman named Peter Kerrivan deserted the British Navy by jumping ship in a small fishing village on the east coast of the Avalon Peninsula of New Founde Lande. The Society of Masterless Men follows the true story of Kerrivan and a ragtag band of young Irish runaways as they are forced to live together in a remote, unsettled area of the island known as the ’Butter Pot.’ Running from harsh slave-like conditions imposed upon them by cruel fishing masters and brutish naval officers, this small group of deserters learn to survive the harsh and unforgiving environment of a yet untamed land. As the men become a society unto themselves, they survive by trading with the indigenous people and by raiding the homes and fishing rooms of local citizens. This is first and foremost a love story. It is the tale of Peter Kerrivan and his fierce love for his friends and his newfound home, exceeded only by his undying love for freedom. It is also a story of reckless romantic love, as Peter finds himself charmed by the well-bred English lady Abigail, fiancée to the very man leading the hunt to try to capture his men: Englishman Sir James Freeman. As the Society’s infamy and renown spreads rapidly across the Avalon Peninsula, Kerrivan’s secret affair with Abigail puts his life and the lives of his small community in great danger. The Society of Masterless Men is an exciting tribute to the human will to survive, to our need for community and belonging, and to our innate desire to triumph over tyranny and oppression. It is also a tribute to Irish Canadians and immigrants from other cultures, many of whom were forced to come to Newfoundland and Labrador. It is a nod to their undying spirit that, perhaps unknowingly, has become the backbone of the greatest province in Canada.
Sleepy Bears
by
E. Katalin Zamberg
This sweet family of bears is getting ready to sleep. Come along and take a peek in their tiny forest home. Can you count the objects in their house while walking the bears to bed? A charming tale of winding down for little ones...and not so little ones.
Consciouspreneur
What To Do When The Hard Work Stops Working by
Gavin McHale
As a high performer, you know what you’re good at, whether it’s school, sport, business, or life. Driven by the need to win and love of success, you stick to what you’re good at, until suddenly it’s not enough. You’re not enough. When your go-to strategies fail, when you start to fail, how do you get back on top? Author Gavin McHale knows this feeling all too well. A high performer in hockey, school, and later in business, he didn’t know how to fail—until that was all he knew. Gavin tanked his professional hockey career after it barely started. When he started his personal training business, he found himself self-sabotaging once again. He didn’t realize it wasn’t enough to do the work; he had to embody it. Stuck in a vicious cycle of negative self-talk and limiting beliefs, Gavin learned that he had to stop looking outward for answers. Instead, he needed to turn inward. Consciouspreneur: What To Do When The Hard Work Stops Working is a self-improvement guide for anyone ready to invest in their personal growth. Hard lessons and practical tips based on research and the author’s hockey career will help readers understand how making the unconscious become conscious will transform themselves and their lives. If you’re looking for another fluffy, superficial self-help book, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you’re ready to get your emotions in check and rewrite the stories holding you back, Consciouspreneur is for you.
My Song is My Testimony
Autobiography of Bennie Lucille Williams As Told to Jacquelyn Benton by
Bennie Lucille Williams and Jacquelyn Benton
“I see that as such a powerful testimony, since you’re not just singing a song but also telling a story, and it’s your own story.” Bennie Lucille Williams was born in Marshall, Texas—a city split not into two, she would argue, but into three. First, of course, there was racial segregation, but growing up with dark skin Bennie saw a second split within her own black community: a split between those who were lighter-skinned and those who looked like Bennie. There, sitting at the feet of former slaves, Bennie learned the songs that would carry her through her life. “Dem songs,” is what the woman she knew as Aunt Clay called spirituals they sang to her, and those songs would first carry her into music and then into teaching. Bennie recalls working with black, white, and later desegregated church choirs, teaching school choirs with forced busing mandates, and directing public performances. Woven into those stories are the loves and heartbreaks of a vivid and compassionate woman’s life—bittersweet at times, but never half-hearted. Bennie’s love for her music and for her students touched lives from Marshall to Dallas to Denver. Later, when she lay at home with a Do Not Resuscitate sign on her front door, she received calls from former students whose lives she had touched decades before, returning to her the love she had always given them.
Every Cell In My Body
Self-Empowerment for Youngsters by
Fran Janes
In this second book in the Self-Empowerment for All Ages series, the concepts of Awareness, Inner Being, and Imagination are introduced. I expand on the Breath as a tool to go inside and calm the monkey mind. Although this book is directed toward preteens and teens, the entire family will benefit from discussions that arise out of these words imbued with wisdom. The images in this book were chosen from my garden gallery for their symbolic connection with the ideas on each page. My hope is that this book plants seeds in the garden of your family, and that you water them with Love, feed them with Joy, and shine the Light of Appreciation on them. They will grow and blossom and awaken to their own inner power, and perhaps one day BE the cells in the body of a new earth.
The Red Knight Aircraft
Includes Civilian Revivals and Static Display Aircraft by
John Charles Corrigan
The Red Knight was the product of thirty years of meticulous research by aviation historian John Charles Corrigan. It is arguably the most comprehensive account ever written about the Royal Canadian Air Force’s legendary solo jet-aerobatics program. Now the author follows up that important work with The Red Knight Aircraft, a careful documentation of the triumphs and tragedies of each of the aircraft used by the program between 1958 and 1969. John digs into the stories of the four Silver Stars and two Tutors. He pays tribute to the pilots who gave their lives trying to push the limits of aerobatics, and the people connected to this colourful part of Canada’s past. Also included are the civilian revivals of the Red Knight and the static display aircraft painted in the colours of the RCAF’s famous aerial performer. Readers who saw the Red Knight in action will deepen their knowledge and be swept up in nostalgia as they peruse rare photos, clippings, and remembrances, all gathered together in one beautiful book. Aviation and air show aficionados will be treated to behind-the-scenes details of a bygone era, as they appreciate the achievements of the Red Knight pilots – and their metal steeds.