On May 23, 1947, the musicians in the Commodores Orchestra opened Club Commodore, their newly winterized big band nightclub on the fairgrounds in Belleville, Ontario, a city of roughly 17,000 souls.  The musicians had created their own co-operative, and had each invested the modern equivalent of $25,000 into what wass by today’s standards a million-dollar operation.  Incredibly, they had done the hard physical labour themselves.

How did this collection of small-city accountants. mechanics, insurance men, clerks and carpenters do it?  The nine-decade story of the Commodores Orchestra, told by Andy Sparling after two decades of collecting information and photographs, is as intriguing and unique as it is improbable, no matter where you live.

“A town is not a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul”—English author Neil Gaiman.

Lakes define not only Canada’s landscape but the national imagination. Blending writing on nature, travel, and science, award-winning journalist Allan Casey systematically explores how the country’s history and culture originates at the lakeshore. Lakeland describes a series of interconnected journeys by the author, punctuated by the seasons and the personalities he meets along the way including aboriginal fishery managers, fruit growers, boat captains, cottagers, and scientists. Together they form an evocative portrait of these beloved bodies of water and what they mean, from sapphire tarns above the Rocky Mountain tree line to the ponds of western Newfoundland.