Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on
bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Champlain's Dream
by David Hackett Fischer
In this enthralling biography, acclaimed historian David Hackett Fischer brings to life the remarkable Samuel de Champlain—soldier, spy, master mariner, explorer, cartographer, artist, and Father of New France.
Bury Your Dead
by Louise Penny
BURY YOUR DEAD has come out to some spectacular results - hitting the extended New York Times bestseller list, as well as the USA Today and bestseller lists in Canada! It has been named one of the Top Ten Mysteries/Thrillers of 2010 by Amazon! This sixth Gamache mystery is set partly in the tiny fictional (and oddly murderous) village of Three Pines, in Québec’s Eastern Townships. However, most of the action takes place in Quebec City, a vibrant and sophisticated fortress city that lives in the present while guarding its past. It’s February and bitterly cold in Quebec City, but Chief Inspector Gamache barely notices. He's consumed with grief and guilt over his past mistakes. He spends his time with his now-retired mentor in the peaceful library of the Literary and Historical Society, a bastion of the dwindling English population. If Gamache thought death was finished with him, he was wrong. The body of a celebrated eccentric is found in the Lit and His, and Gamache is drawn again into hunting a murderer. The victim was an amateur archeologist with a monomaniacal pursuit to find the body of Samuel de Champlain. This is the great mystery that has haunted Quebec for centuries - Where is Champlain? The founder of Quebec died 400 years ago, and while the burial places of nuns, farmers and minor functionaries of the time are known, no one knows what became of the Father of Quebec. How could this be? As Chief Inspector Gamache digs through the crime and the venerable old city, it becomes clear the murder is rooted in this 400 year old mystery, and in people long dead but perhaps not buried. It also becomes clear to the Chief Inspector that to find the truth he needs to confront his own ghosts, and bury his own dead.
Montreal & Quebec City Guide - Lonely Planet
by Montreal-based author
Montreal and Quebec City really serve it up. You've got old-world grandeur, new-world sensibilities and big-city charms - there's enough neighbourhoods, restaurants and festivals to keep you mon-dieu'ing for months. This guide, penned by a Montreal-based author, gets you straight to the action.
Pick & Mix: buy and download individual chapters from this book
You could download free: Introducing Montreal (Very interesting!)
The Two Solitudes
by Hugh MacLennan
First published in 1945, and set mostly in the time of the First World War, this story revolves around the life and times of the fictional character Paul Tallard and his struggles in reconciling the differences between his English and French Canadian identities.
A short history of Quebec
by John Alexander Dickinson and Brian J Young
A Canadian classic, A Short History of Quebec offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of the province from the pre-contact native period to present-day constitutional struggles. The authors bring a refreshing perspective to the history of Quebec, focusing on the social and economic development of the region and its diverse peoples.
Shadows on the Rock
by Willa Cather
Set in seventeenth-century Canada, an evocation of North American origins highlights the men and women who struggled to adapt to the new world even as they clung to the one they left behind. The novel covers one year of the lives of Cecile Auclair and her father Euclide, French colonists in Quebec.
A People's History of Quebec
by Jacques Lacoursiere
A People's History of Quebec is a lively guide to a little-known part of North American history. It tells of the settlement of the St. Lawrence Valley, but also of the Montreal and Quebec-based explorers and traders who travelled, mapped, and inhabited most of North America, and embrothered the peoples they met.