Canada 150 Books

by Jim Bell
On July 1, 2017, Canada will mark its Sesquicentennial – our country’s 150th birthday. To help celebrate, the Canadian Aviation Historical Society hopes to publish a list of 150 recommended aviation books by Canadians, about Canadians.
All we need to build the list are names of books you would recommend. Just provide the title, name of author, publisher, and date of publication. That will help make it easy for anyone to locate a recommended book to read.
Books can be histories, memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, stories of aviators, stories about aircraft builders, airlines or any aspect of aviation. Civil aviation, military aviation, general aviation, fact or fiction – we welcome them all! With all the books about Canadian aviation in print, we hope you will have titles to recommend as worth reading. We especially welcome books written by CAHS members.
We’re not making any judgment! We are just asking for books you personally recommend. The first 150 titles get on the list, and then the project is done! We hope to publish the list in June, before our 150th birthday!
To get us started, here in no particular order, are 15 books worth your time to read. They represent many types of aviation stories from Canada. Only 135 spaces are left now for our list of 150! Send your recommendations now to 150books@cahs.ca.
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Here are some examples, and now they are on the list!
  • The Great Escape: The Untold Story, by Ted Barris, Dundurn Publishers, 2014
  • Kittyhawk Pilot, by J.F. “Stocky” Edwards, Turner-Warwick Publications, 1983
  • Bush Pilot With a Briefcase, by Ronald A. Keith, Doubleday, 1972
  • The De Havilland Canada Story, by Fred Hotson, Canav Books, 1983
  • For the Love of Flying: The Story of Laurentian Air Services, by Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail, Robin Brass Studio, Inc., 2010
  • Wings Over High River: Conversations with A. Gordon Jones, by Anne Gafiuk, Bomber Command Museum of Canada, 2012
  • More Stories About Wop May, by Denny May, Maycroft, 2011
  • Wings Over Calgary, 1906-1940, by Bruce Gowans, Historical Society of Alberta, 1990
  • The Bonnie: HMCS Bonaventure, by J. Allan Snowie, The Boston Mills Press, 1987
  • The Lindbergh of Canada: The Erroll Boyd Story, by Ross Smith, General Store Publishing House, 1997
  • Bird’s Eye View, by Elinor Florence, Dundurn, 2014
  • Captain Roy Brown: A True Story of the Great War, (1914-1918), by Alan Bennett, Brick Tower Press, 2012
  • Baz: The Biography of Ian Bazalgette VC, by Dave Birrell, Nanton Lancaster Society, 2014
  • Skippers of the Sky: The Early Years of Bush Flying, by William Wheeler, Fifth House Books, 2000
  • GUS: From Trapper Boy to Air Marshal, by Suzanne K. Edwards, General Store Publishing House, 2007
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