Another find from the library book sale, and another brick in the wall of fiction. Cavalcade of the North, published in 1955, is still an impressive-looking tome. I only just winched it off the bed of a truck, so I can’t tell if I will be as surprised and delighted as I was when I read A Treasury of Short Stories from the same decade.

However, I have owned this book long enough to have uncovered some warning signs.

• There are only two women in the lineup.
• There are zero indigenous writers.
• French Canada has been cordoned off in its own 19-page ghetto (leaving 621 pages French-free).
• The French stuff was written by Thomas B. Costain, who was a best-selling author but not in any way French.
• Costain begins his introduction with “I have been convinced that few readers pay much attention to the introductions prepared for volumes of this character” before plowing on for 10,000 words that I know I won’t read.

(I would’ve written, “Here’s why you should read this introduction,” but it’s easy to play the Monday-morning quarterback. It’s hard to write a best-seller.)

I will, as always, report back. If there’s one thing that makes me cheerful, it’s a long book of short fiction.