Boreal Books |
Reality
Paperback, 198 pages In a posting on my website a few months after my wife's passing I wrote that I needed to explain why, when I told her that a young African working girl was crashing at my apartment in Montréal, all she said was she would like to meet her. My explanation took on a life of its own and that is how I found myself writing, during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, a book about love, sex and Islam. The dozen or so adult situation stories in PART I – Sex in the Here-And-Now, some of which may bring more than a smile to your face, are not gratuitous. PART II – Sex in the Hereafter compares the experiences revealed in PART I with what a martyr can expect in Paradise. A must-read for anyone contemplating martyrdom because of what they have been told about sex in the Hereafter. Excerpts: Prologue | Anne Part 2 | Mary | Sex by the Numbers |
Children and the Koran The End of Empathy - Second Edition Paperback, 136 pages A lack of empathy, whether it be an instilled pathology or a manifestation of loyalty to one’s religionist community, which our governments and our courts have encouraged by favouring religious distinctiveness over shared secular values, means we can no longer count that love of country or respect for Western civilization and what it stands for will see us through. The threat that an absence of empathy and tribalism poses could be significantly reduced if we made the Koran for adults only. By having you read what children who should be enjoying Babar the Elephant or Cinderella are reading, I hope to convince you to try to do just that—for their sake, and ours. Excerpts: The End of Empathy | Getting Kids To Feel Nothing |
Let Me Rephrase That! Your Layman's Guide to Abrogations - Second Edition Paperback, 100 pages The second edition is a lot shorter than the first. Gone are the excerpts; in their place you will find reading recommendations. I wanted this edition to be the book you turn to when reading any book on the Koran, including the Koran itself, that don’t identify revelations God abrogated, i.e., modified or nullified. For example, earlier in Muhammad’s Call, Allah showed a measure of respect for other religions. 2:62 The believers (Muslims), the Jews, the Christians and the Sabians whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does what is good, shall receive their reward from their Lord. They shall have nothing to fear and they shall not grieve. As Islam became a force to be reckoned with, God's position towards other religions hardened and He sent down another immutable fact, which invalidated what He said earlier about Jews, Christians and an obscure sect having nothing to fear. 3:85 Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers. Losers go to Hell. Scholars have identified more than two hundred revealed truths that were abrogated by subsequent communications from Allah to Muhammad. These ephemeral immutable facts and their abrogator(s), most of which, like Revelation 3:85 reflect a God's growing intolerance, is what Let Me Rephrase That! wants to bring to your attention. Excerpts: A Harvest of Contradictions |
The Koran
Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice The Koran by topic, explained in a way we can all understand Paperback, 828 pages, comprehensive index If what you are looking for is a quick and complete reference to what Allah revealed to Muhammad in His Koran, or a coffee table book that is bound to spark a spirited discussion about a timely topic, look no further than Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice. -------- Brings order to chaos. Anonymous AMAZON: USA UK Canada Australia Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice may be too cumbersome or expensive for some, even as a paperback, which is why it has been broken up into six smaller books, all priced under $18.00. |
The Prophet
1,001 Sayings and Deeds of the Prophet Muhammad Second Edition Paperback, 454 pages Improved presentation, contents cross-referenced to Boreal Books on the Koran, appendices, additional footnotes, etc. Within the house of Islam, the penalty for learning too much about the world—so as to call the tenets of the faith into question—is death. While the Koran merely describes the punishment that awaits the apostate in the next world, the hadith is emphatic about the justice that must be meted out in this one: 'Whoever changes his religion, kill him.' Given the fact that [hadiths are] often used as the lens through which to interpret the Koran, many Muslim jurists consider [them] to be even a greater authority on the practice of Islam. Sam Harris, The End of Faith - Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, 2004, W. W. Norton & Company. In learning about the hadiths, you will also become acquainted with the real Muhammad as his closest friends and his child-bride, Aisha, remember him. |
Plays/Scripts
All venues - a pub, a mosque - make for inexpensive productions on a timely subject.
Remembering Uzza If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub Paperback, 452 pages Remembering Uzza is meant to make learning about Islam a mostly pleasant experience while not sugar-coating or leaving out the nasty bits. And, is there a better place to get acquainted with a religion that has everyone talking than in the relaxed atmosphere of a favourite pub, in the company of friends and a troubled but engaging young woman to give you an insider's perspective? Uzza is a story for our time that has the potential to change the course of things to come. Except for Uzza, and a short appearance by a couple from a neighbouring municipality, all other characters, including Archie the bartender, are modeled on real patrons of a once-popular Ottawa nightspot. To keep the conversation between Uzza, Johnny, Gerry, Bob and Archie as unaffected as possible, implicit and explicit references to verses of the Koran and the sayings and actions of the Prophet are explained in a substantial supplement of endnotes. Excerpt: Dedication | Acknowledgment | No Scarf, No Service! A Shirley Temple, Anyone? |
Alice Visits a Mosque to Learn About Judgment Day Paperback, 80 pages The dialogue is made up, but the revelations are real, as are the sayings of Muhammad. The character of Alice only bears a remote resemblance to the heroine of Lewis Carroll's tale of a young girl "who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures." Alice Visits a Mosque to Learn About Judgement Day is a short, often brutal play/script (it could not be otherwise) about an important concept in Islam on which the Koran expounds at length. Alice is not meant to offend but to enlighten. It is both a play and an invitation to learn more about the Koran and the Prophet. We hope you will read it (or see it, if it ever makes it to the stage or the screen) in the spirit in which it was written. AMAZON: USA UK Canada Australia
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Canada
Canada - The Fractured Nation Interviews An Inquiry Into the Breakup Paperback, 228 pages 2006 nominee for The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. In The Fractured Nation Interviews, I did not anticipate the impact of social media on the mainstream media. Apart from that, and a few other details, much of what they contain is as valid today, if not more so; the interview with the Ayatollah about Islam's contribution to the breakup of the country in particular. A timely reprint.
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Teach Your Children Well The future as a truism and a cliché Bill 21 Edition Paperback, 82 pages It is both a truism and a cliché that children are the future. Where that future will be shaped is in the classroom. Teach Your Children Well looks at the long term implications of introducing the teaching of religion in the public school system, and the granting of exceptions to the general curriculum for religious reasons. In March 2020, the government of François Legault, with the passing of Bill 21, “An Act respecting the laicity of the State” ended the teaching of religion in the Québec secular public school system, in part, because of the deleterious impact it was having on students' intellectual development. This has not stopped other jurisdictions, including the Canadian Government, from favouring teaching empirical truths in conjunction with opposing revealed truths, i.e., alleged immutable facts communicated to a mortal by a god and letting primary and secondary school kids sort them out for themselves. Teach Your Children Well is there to remind you why this is a bad idea. |
Essays
Between a Pillar and a Hard Place Paperback, 274 pages A collection of essays and commentaries on Islam to mark the 10th anniversary of the Boreal website. Like its early twentieth century contemporaries, Nazism and Communism, political Islam is grounded in a totalitarian idea of purity, in this case of religion rather than of race or class. Faith at War, A Journey On The Frontlines of Islam (Henry Holt, 2005) by Yaroslav Trofimov. Jews could not change their race to save themselves, unlike those confronted by the Five Pillars supremacists. For those unfortunate, death, the hard place, is a choice. Islam's immutable obligations known as the Five Pillars: 1. declaring your allegiance to God 2. daily prayers 3. Zakat (obligatory charity), 4. Ramadan, month-long fasting 5. pilgrimage to Mecca. |
BOREAL 2016 Paperback, 432 pages A commemorative recreation of comments, articles and extracts from a period when headlines and scriptures came together like at no other time since Boreal went live in April of 2003. |
A Personal Journey
Shooting the Messenger Till Death Do Us Part Paperback, 245 pages One of her last requests was that I make one more attempt at telling my story; now, our story. I should not have been surprised that my firing by Foreign Affairs still bothered her considering the surroundings in which she died. At the heart of Shooting the Messenger – Till Death Do Us Part is the story of my discovery of a multi-million dollar fraud and my subsequent dismissal for failing to report the theft of additional millions. Till Death Do Us Part ends with Lucette's passing on the afternoon of July 5, 2019, away from where she had hoped to die. AMAZON: USA UK Canada Australia Should I join my wife before some of the better known accomplices, among my generation, I did not want to miss expressing how I would feel about their passing including that of the proverbial shooter. Shooting the Messenger also led to the unexpected discovery of the sorry state of Canadian journalism. Examples: |
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