Author Ron Brown wins 2015 TWUC Freedom to Read Award
Monday June 13, 2016

Author Ron Brown wins 2015 TWUC Freedom to Read Award

FEBRUARY 9, 2015 BY FTREDITOR

– Free speech advocate who founded the award becomes its 16th recipient –

>>From The Writers’ Union of Canada

Toronto – February 9, 2015 – The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC) is extremely pleased to announce that Ron Brown, Past Chair of TWUC, journalist, and author of 25 books, is the 2015 recipient of TWUC’s Freedom to Read Award. The award is presented annually in recognition of advocacy on behalf of free expression in Canada. Past recipients include John Ralston Saul, Patsy Aldana, and Lawrence Hill.

“Ron actually created the Freedom to Read Award 16 years ago,” noted TWUC Chair Harry Thurston, “and he’s dedicated a couple of decades to the cause of freedom of expression in Canada. I can’t think of a more deserving recipient, especially in this year when the world has seen such distressing attacks on free speech.”

Brown has served on the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee since the early 1990s, and has been integral to the planning of the annual Freedom to Read Week, a national celebration of Canadians’ freedom of expression, which this year runs from February 22 to 28. His passionate defence of free speech has included protests against the banning of books from Canadian schools and libraries and the blocked importation of books at Canadian borders.

The 2015 Freedom to Read Award will be presented to Ron Brown on February 25, at READ. WRITE. SPEAK., a special Freedom to Read Week event at Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue) in Toronto. The evening (beginning at 7:30pm, doors open at 7pm) features an on-stage discussion between media lawyer Brian MacLeod Rogers and investigative journalist and author Paula Todd.

For more information, see the press release at writersunion.ca

Authors

Vegetable Perfection

100 delicious recipes for roots, bulbs, shoots and stems

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More than ever before modern chefs use interesting new cooking techniques and ingredients to boost texture, add depth of flavour and make so much more of humble carrots, kale and cauliflower. Vegetable dishes are now storming the menus at some of the world’s best restaurants where chefs are treating fresh vegetable produce with the reverence it deserves and turning ingredients that used to be reserved for side dishes into centrepieces. Organized by type of produce, there are recipes for root veg, alliums and bulbs, potatoes and squash, legumes and pods, sweet vegetables, shoots and stems, mushroom and funghi, as well as basic recipes for a well-stocked chef's storecupboard. Choose from Smoked Parsnips with Blue Cheese, Cauliflower & Truffle Pate, Red Cabbage & Burnt Aubergine Baba Ganoush, Kale Gnocchi, Kimchi, Spring Pistou Soup, Nettle & Wild Garlic Soup with Gruyere Toasts, Red Onion Tarte Tatin, Pea Panna Cotta, Pizza Bianca, Spaghetti Puttanesca, Artichoke Frittata, Champagne Mushrooms, Fennel & Roast Tomato Lasagne or a selection of versatile sauces, ketchups, chutneys, pickles, pestos and oils. Whether you want a revitalizing juice to start the day, a quick summer salad, a slow-roasted winter bake or to preserve an abundance of seasonal produce, you'll find plenty of fresh inspiration here.

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Backroads of Ontario

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Fabulous excursions via backroads explore and celebrate Ontario in special ways.

Backroads of Ontario gives travelers the information and maps they need to explore Ontario in a new and creative way. It invites them to exit the noisy busy highways and take a trip through Ontario's countryside and its history: silent ghost towns, charming villages, century-old mills and farmhouses, dramatic cliffs, prime picnic spots, architectural curiosities, an amethyst mine, an underwater graveyard of shipwrecks and so much more.

This guidebook has been used by thousands of travelers as they have discovered some of the province's most unexpected places. In this third edition, new information updates the old, including new attractions and the most current routes and directions.

There are 24 trips, each illustrated with photographs and accompanied by an easy-to-follow map. Trips range in length from afternoon outings to weekend excursions and all lead to out-of-the-way places within easy driving distance of Ontario's major cities.

Along with the Lake Simcoe Steeple Chase, there is a tour of Ontario's prettiest, most historic and most unusual country churches, and a lock-by-lock tour of the Welland Canal, an engineering marvel lauded around the world. Here are some of the sites on these tours:

  • An 1811 Quaker Meeting House, one of the oldest buildings on Toronto's Yonge Street
  • Lagoon City, a community on Lake Simcoe built entirely upon a system of canals and known as "Ontario's Venice"
  • A historically important First Nations site of significance later known as the Toronto Carrying Place Trail
  • Oro African Church, the 1845 church built by black settlers, descendents of militiamen who served Britain in the 1812 war, likely the oldest surviving log African church in North America.

REVIEWS

I was surprised by the number of interesting drives in regions of the province that I know very little about.
- Lisa Goodmurphy Gone With The Family Blog  on 29/04/2016

Get the book, and plan new overnight adventures or make that long trip slower but a lot more fun.
- JB Cottage Country Reflections Blog  on 04/04/2016

[Review of previous edition:] There are twenty-two places featured in the book, and we dare you not to take Brown up on his offer to visit at least one of them. Once you do, you will be setting aside days to visit many more... These destinations are impossible to resist either alone or with family and friends.
- Shelf Life  on 01/01/2014

[Review of a previous edition] Compiled by Ron Brown, who must know more about Ontario's towns, past and present than anyone else.
- Joanne Bury Community Voices  on 14/05/2004

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