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 Investors' Advocate
Practical Counsel for Successful Investing by
Payson Y. Hunter
You might wonder why you need this book if you already have a financial professional looking after your investments. The answer is simple. Because it is highly probably that you are among the 90% of individual investors whose portfolios underperform their benchmarks, destroying capital in the process. This book can benefit you in two ways. First, it will give you tools to evaluate the quality of your investment advisory relationship. How do you know that the investment advice you receive is the best possible? Measure your investment process against the standards of practice provided in this book. Second, The Investors’ Advocate provides tools for you to use to make more money over time. A great deal more. And reduce risk while you do. Most portfolios significantly underperform, destroying capital because of mistaken assumptions, policies, practices, and processes. Author Payson Hunter has crafted the one guide that you need to ensure this doesn’t happen to you. The Investors’ Advocate examines the primary issues that hurt investors—including over-diversification—and then shares the philosophy and processes needed to be a successful investor. This includes creating a Statement of Investment Objectives, a Financial Plan, and Investment Policy Statement for you to direct your financial advisor. In addition, Hunter explains the characteristics of a great investment candidate and how using the Graham Formula can help investors estimate the value of securities, enabling the investor to focus on finding great investments at discounted prices that provide wide margins of safety to help protect capital and enhance returns. The proprietary “Deals of the Dow” investment strategy is an example of how to identify opportunity. After reading this book, and incorporating the tips and tools provided, you will have what you need to be in control of your investment advisory relationship and ensure your portfolio is travelling the path to financial independence.
Walking Two Worlds
Poems and Drawings by
Betty Nadine Thomas
This book has been a profound, personal journey across time, space and dimensions. Most of the poems have been given to me directly from my Spirit Guides, their words, ideas and concepts have not been altered in anyway. My role has only been to transcribe their messages, I am just the person holding the pencil. Recently, I was asked to read a few poems to an audience from Walking Two Worlds. After reading them, I realized these poems should not be read in an audience setting. The poems and drawings are so interrelated that one misses out experiencing the totality of both art forms. This book of poems is a journey that needs to be experienced and enjoyed by each person on an individual personal basis. As with all of my writing and drawings, my goal is to teach compassion, broaden narrow minds and motivate people to accept all peoples for who they are regardless of culture, race, religion and/ or sexual orientation. If only one person's life or ideas are changed in a positive way as a result of reading Walking Two Worlds I will consider it an outstanding accomplishment.
Corn Island Rundown
by
Chip Hunter
Two college chums, Chance Hooker and Dave Kipling, hatch a bold plan to establish a fishing business on a remote Caribbean island. Their 3600 mile road trip takes them through the United States, Mexico and Central America to the banks of the "hidden" Rio Escondido. Arriving at the end of the road they discover their journey has only just begun. "Corn Island Rundown" is a story of love, loss and learning set in a country teetering on the brink of revolution. "All grammatical irregularities are to be attributed to Corn Island's multilingual patois. We ask readers to accept this unique and casual Caribbean dialect."
Instagram Moms are Full of Sh*t
To Hell With Mom Shaming by
Lesley Prosko
Are you done with reels that show moms who make it look so easy when some mornings you don’t even manage to get your hair brushed before taking your kids to school? Have you ever been mom shamed for something you’ve done or haven’t done for your children? Or have you—even unintentionally—mom shamed someone else? Are you tired of the unrealistic expectations of motherhood that is portrayed all over social media? The truth is, momming isn’t about having it all figured out. No mom has it all figured out. Instagram Moms are Full of Sh*t, To Hell With Mom Shaming shows the honest, often chaotic, realities of being a mom, and knowing that in all the wonderful craziness, they are doing a great job! Writing from personal experience and input from other moms, Lesley Prosko, mother of two little ones, takes an in-depth look at some of the most common mom-shaming themes, considering cultural, generational, historical, and parenting style differences, including: • birth plans • breastfeeding vs formula • vaccinations • child sleep habits • working mom vs stay-at-home mom • exercising while pregnant • navigating screen time • and more Told with insight, humour, and sporadic sarcasm, this practical resource is designed to help real moms stop comparing themselves to other moms who want the world to think that every day is a great one—because those moms are full of sh*t.
Mindful Landscape Sketching
by
Hiroshi Shimazaki
“Visit the old and learn anew without preconceived ideas”—the meaning of the seal on many of Hiroshi Shimazaki’s paintings encapsulates his creative and contemplative approach to landscape sketching. In Mindful Landscape Sketching, with language as poetic as it is informative, he emphasizes the importance of the artist’s underlying thought processes and encourages readers to expand their imaginations, world views, and historical perspectives. Mindful Landscape Sketching is also, however, an invaluable hands-on resource for artists and would-be artists. Brushes, papers, perspective, focus—all these and more are discussed in detail. He guides the reader through sketching everything from sacred structures to cities, from mist to water to wind, and discusses painting live versus painting from memory or photographs. Over a hundred full-colour examples of the artist’s work from all over the globe illustrate his approach. Practical and inspirational, Mindful Landscape Sketching will appeal to anyone interested in watercolour landscape sketching and painting. It is also a work of art in its own right. First published in Japanese in 2020 by TokyoTosho Shuppan as FukeiShasei no Kokoro, Mindful Landscape Sketching is the first in a three-part series.
All the Stars in the Sky
by
Hubert E. Devine
It is 1950 in the seaport town of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Celeste Alexander, the daughter of a poor lobster poacher, dreams of something more than the life she leads cleaning the houses of her wealthy neighbours. When opportunity comes knocking, she leaps at the chance to take a waitressing job in the nearby town of Kentville, forever changing the arc of her life. Soon after arriving in Kentville to work at Sadie’s Restaurant, she meets William Lockhart. An aspiring architect and admirer of Shakespeare, William sweeps her off her feet, and their romance blooms with first-love quickness and intensity. Though they have only been seeing each other for a few months, the lovers envision a future together. But Celeste’s bright dreams of a happy life with William are cast under an ominous cloud when he joins the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, a regiment of the Canadian army, hoping that a short stint in the military will help him further his career in the future. Celeste’s worst fears are realized when William is sent off to fight in the Korean War, and she learns that she is pregnant with his child. Set against the backdrop of small-town Canada and the Korean War, this sweeping family saga gives voice with compelling sensitivity and grace to the cascading effects of loss and hardship across generations—and how hope, love, and the enduring power of family bonds can lift people up in the lowest moments of their lives.
What is a Beau?
by
Deborah Louanne Grey
What is a Beau? How should I know? I’m too busy to understand. Up Beau. Down Beau. I’m always in demand. Beau is an adorable young basset hound dog, but he doesn’t know that! He sees all of the animals around him and wonders…could he be like them? After all, they have so many things in common! Beau loves to play in the mud just like a little pig, run in the woods like a deer, and even flap his ears like an elephant! But which of these animals is Beau? What is a Beau? is a charming rhyming story about the power of dress up and make-believe. It helps children realize they can also try on different costumes to find their identity, and shows them how much we have in common with people who, on the surface, seem different than ourselves. The search for self-discovery and acceptance is turned into a fun romp through the animal kingdom. And at the end of the day, a little voice reassures Beau of exactly who he is and why.
The Legend of the Blue Boy
The Promise by
Kayla Phair
The Earth, scorched and tarnished, can no longer sustain life. Geodesic domes protect food plants and produce desperately needed oxygen, while children don breathing tanks for the ride to school. Archer Larson, a bitter, lonely teenager with the legacy of unethical experiments implanted in his body, finds himself drawn from his antisocial funk when a new student joins his class. Something is familiar about her. Why does he feel they’ve met before? Trying to forget the déjà vu slowly overtaking him—as old prophecies of ruin start to sound like memories and the names of people he’s never met start ringing bells—Archer sets aside his disinterest in his classmates. He makes a couple of new friends and reconnects with an old one. But eventually, he realizes what he has to do and disappears back into the most dangerous moment in all of time: the apocalypse. After all, he knows now that if he doesn’t go, the people he’s coming to care about will never be born. It will be a struggle to survive—if he survives at all. But the young man with the bruised and traumatized heart has something to care about now. Meanwhile, left behind in their own time, Archer’s new and old friends try to get to grips with the strange things going on in their school, and face the growing suspicion that there’s a plan behind all of them...