Helen Humphreys

Canwood, Saskatchewan, 1947. Leonard Flint, a lonely boy in a small farming town befriends the local tramp, a man known as Rabbit Foot Bill. So his shock is absolute when he witnesses Bill commit a sudden violent act and loses him to prison. Fifteen years on, as a newly graduated doctor of psychiatry, Leonard arrives at the Weyburn Mental Hospital, the massive institution known for its experimental LSD trials. To Leonard's great surprise, at the Weyburn...

When Charles Sainte-Beuve, an ambitious French journalist, meets Victor Hugo, a young writer on the verge of fame, he finds himself in a world of great passions, a world in which words can become swords. Soon Charles finds himself attracted to Victor's long-suffering wife, Adele. Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, and sweeping from France to the Channel Islands, to Halifax and back, this book draws on a rich portrait of the old city,...

Resigned to living out the Second World War in a German POW camp, James Hunter, an English officer, begins studying a pair of redstarts near the camp. His interest in the birds captures the attention of the Kommandant and gives James cause to fear for his life. Meanwhile, back in England, James's young wife, Rose, falls headlong into a passionate affair with another man. With wonderfully developed characters, exquisitely shaped by and reflected in...

On August 1, 1933, two young women, the famous aviatrix Grace O'Gorman and the inexperienced Willa Briggs, take off in a tiny Moth biplane to break the world flight endurance record. Their plan: to circle above the city of Toronto for twenty-five days. So begins Leaving Earth, a haunting evocation of an era when heroic women defied the limitations of their sex by embarking on perilous ventures. Sponsored by the Adventure Girl Almanac, "Air Ace...

For more than a decade Humphreys has owned a small waterside property on a section of the Napanee River in Ontario. A gorgeous and moving meditation that uses fiction, non-fiction, natural history, archival maps and images, and full-colour original photographs to get at the truth.

This is award-winning author Helen Humphreys' fascinating journey into the secret history of an iconic food. Delving deep into the storied past of the apple, Humphreys explores the intricate link between agriculture, settlement, and human relationships. In telling this hidden history, Humphreys writes movingly about the experience of her research. The result is a book that is both personal and universal, combining engaging storytelling, historical...