Hockey Book Reviews.com

Here's an old book. It's from 1972, published by McGraw Hill Ryerson and written by Andy O'Brien. O'Brien wrote a few books in the 1970s. To give you a better feeling for the book, here's a few of the more interesting chapter titles: 1. Plante versus Russia 3. I Started Roving In Self-Defence 8. Life With A Legend: Rocket Richard 10. Only Three Bruins Could Make '58 Habs 11. When Hull Shoots I Must Not Blink The Jacques Plante Story is this week's Hockey Book Reviews.com Classic Hockey Book Of The Week!

There are two new collectible edition Montreal Canadiens magazines available at your favorite newsstand. The Hockey News has released A Century Of Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years Of Excellence. It retails at $9.99 Cdn. The best part of this photographically spectacular 146 page publication is the 1-100 feature. THN takes look back at each of Montreal's 100 seasons, as well as numerous features corresponding to each number. It is a potpourri of fast facts, records, jersey numbers, and famous players. For all the action packed pages, there really is not a whole lot to the magazine besides of the great photo collection, to be honest. Outside of Ken Campbell's introductory 100 Years of Glory article and Brian Costello's back page story about Uncle Herb Gardiner, there is not enough of the usual feature content expected from Jason Kay's top notch crew. Also just released is Sports Illustrated's The Canadiens Century , available for sale at amazon.ca Feature content is not ...

First it was Lions In Winter. Now it's Tough Guys. The book by former NHL defenseman Jim Kyte has been indefinitely postponed. Not surprisingly Red Deer Press offered no real reason for the delay, only reassuring me that the project is still very much in their plans. Releasing a hockey book in January is an odd decision. After all you miss out on the NHL season opening and the all important Christmas sales season. My guess is this book will still hit bookstore shelves in 2009, but in the much more traditional autumn months of October and November.

Chances are extremely good that if you are reading this article, you love books. Hockey books in particular, but also books in general. Who does not like hanging out at bookstores? Perhaps it is the big national chain store, complete with a Starbucks and author signings. Of course we equally enjoy those small used bookstores, eagerly searching for that surprise find. If you are like me you collect too many books, and are eager to display them. And the only thing you are more proud of is your library card. But is the book, at least as we've known it for 100s of years, on the endangered species list? That was the question posed by CBC Radio 's Ottawa morning host Kathleen Petty. She looks into the fast-approaching world of the E-Book, where we will simply download books to our laptops, our iPods, and, if Oprah gets her way , our Kindles . Kathleen Petty's interview is available on podcast , and is interesting. I encourage everyone to listen to it. E-Books have been around for...

I have a confession to make. When former US Navy pilot Bruce Valley told me about his personal hockey memories, I was not expecting a whole lot. His book reminisces about his lifelong love affair with the game of hockey, but more specifically his youth playing with the local team in small town New Hampshire. Who is going to want to read that, was my silent question. The answer turns the answer is every real hockey fan and then some. The book is called Seahawk: Confessions Of An Old Hockey Goalie . Remember that name because it is an early 2009 release, but it will get a lot of attention in hockey circles, not to mention serious consideration for the 2009 HockeyBookReviews.com Hockey Book Of The Year Award. Upon receipt of the book I was shocked to see the ringing endorsements on the book's back cover and opening page. Dave Bidini, author of Tropic of Hockey and The Best Game You Can Name , not to mention one of few true literary geniuses in the world of sports literature, absolute...

Amazon and Chapters have listed January 15th, 2009 as the day we get to see the updated and republished Montreal Canadiens classic book Lions In Winter. Now comes word that we will not be seeing this book anytime soon. I got this message from a Wiley representative: "We received notice before the holidays that, unfortunately, Lions In Winter has been cancelled with no immediate plans to pick up the project at a later date. If that should change, I’ll let you know." Wiley has no further comment. January is an odd time to release a hockey book anyways. Hopefully we will see this project picked up for autumn 2009. Lions In Winter, written by Chrys Goyens and Allan Turowetz, was released in the mid-1980s in hard cover and in paperback. You can continue to get copies of those versions commonly in used bookstores.

Back in 2008, I raved about an unorthodox hockey book, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems . It was a collection of Randall Maggs poetry. Though each poem was written individually, when put altogether in the right order, Maggs created a brilliant look at the life and career of one of hockey's most famous players, Terry Sawchuk. That book was put out by Brick Book. Well it turns out Penumbra Press had already experimented in combining the worlds of hockey and poetry. The Hockey Player Sonnets was released first back in 1991, with the Overtime Edition coming out in 2003. Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com The book features the poetry of John B. Lee. In the world of poetry, he's really big. He has won over 60 international awards for his work. He has a masters in English and teaches at the University of Windsor in southern Ontario. He also serves as a visiting professor and a very-in-demand guest speaker at a number of universities and private schools across North Ameri...

Author Jason Farris (see also Hockey Play-by-Play ), a goalie at heart, set out to take a fresh approach to writing a hockey book. He certainly accomplished just that in his homage to his favorite hockey player since childhood - Cesare Maniago . Perhaps homage is not quite the right word. He has created an absolute shrine to a goalie best remembered for his days with the Minnesota North Stars and the Vancouver Canucks. This book is an interesting undertaking, as it hints at several formats all in one. In doing so the book is visually appealing though quite unconventional. Maniago was a very popular player in both Minnesota and Vancouver, as well as his many minor league stops where he served as arguably the best goalie outside of the 6-team NHL. His unique name and his valiant efforts made him the fan favorite of some real weak teams. He was at times as spectacular as his teams were bad. Because he played on so many weak teams, he never received many accolades or notable succes...

Dave Bidini is quite well known in hockey literary circles. He is best known as the author of Tropic of Hockey and The Best Game You Can Name , and here in Canada we also know him for his band, the Rheostatics, and for his hockey documentary, the Hockey Nomad. Bidini penned three other books. Baseballissimo is about baseball, while On a Cold Road is about life in a band. Both were, not surprisingly, critical and commercial successes. But did you know Bidini had another hockey book out? Back in 2006 he released 6 fictional short stories under the title The Five Hole Stories . Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Amazon.com - Chapters Here's the publisher's promo sheet on this lesser known book: Each of the six stories in Dave Bidini’s playful, irreverent new book takes a headlong run at the hockey dressing room, and each knocks the door down. What’s happening when the door opens next is anyone’s guess. In one story, a chronic minor-leaguer discovers the wonders—and the pitfalls—of the...

As you can see by the cover, this hockey book is far different than most hockey books I usually take a look at. Penned by poet-turned-author John Degen, The Uninvited Guest is a novel about a whole mess of things you would think would never work well together. But through the author's masterful crafting they do, neatly tying together hockey, backgammon, Canada, and Eastern European history. Buy The Book - Amazon.ca - Amazon.com - Chapters A fellow named Dragos Petrescu is the first Romanian-born player to win the Stanley Cup. As is tradition, Petrescu gets to celebrate with the Cup, so he brings the trophy back to Romania for his wedding day. The Cup can not travel alone, of course. In this piece of fiction the Cup's guardian is a fellow by the name of Tony Esposito Chiello. Hmm....perhaps the author is a fan of the Chicago Blackhawks? Chiello is new to this Cup guardianship job, handpicked by the long time Cup keeper "Two Second" Stan Cooper. Cheillo will never f...

The traditional release period for hockey books is October 1st to December 15th, or thereabouts. This makes perfect marketing sense, coinciding with the beginning of the NHL and local hockey seasons, and capitalizing on the Christmas shopping periods. But hockey books are released after Christmas too, and January 2009 looks to be a busy time. Here's a look at what is coming out next: Tough Guys: Hockey's 50 All-Time Toughest Players, as selected by NHL Players and Alumni by Jim Kyte with Dave Best. Fitzhenry and Whiteside. Release Date: January 19th, 2009. Lions in Winter by Chrys Goyens and Allan Turowetz. Wiley. Release Date: January 15th, 2009. The Greatest Hockey Records by Matt Doeden. Edge Books. Release Date: January, 2009. Collins Gem Hockey 2008-09 by Andrew Podnieks. Collins. Release Date: February 2009. There are some new instructional books: 101 Youth Hockey Drills by Stuart Dempster and Dennis Hay. A&C Black. Release Date: January 15th, 2009. Backyard Spor...