The journalist and author Tom Hawthorn discusses his new book The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967 (Douglas & McIntyre, 2017), Canada, bookselling and more, with Joseph Planta.

The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967 by Tom Hawthorn (Douglas & McIntyre, 2017). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Tom Hawthorn joins me again. The award-winning journalist and author has a new book out, and it’s just terrific: The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967. It’s a book replete of lovely writing. He’s cultivated a lot of marvelous anecdotes, history, and colourful characters that made this a remarkable year, and such a defining year for Canada and its people. 50 years later, we still live in the shadow of the centennial: there are monuments and buildings, music and lore, and more. Our sense of ourselves can be traced to that year when Canadians embraced their identity and cast off the indifference of what it meant to be Canadian. The centennial year culminated with Expo ’67 held in Montreal. Young Tom Hawthorn went to the Expo and shares some of his experiences in this book, as well as outlines just how big an event this was for the country. Tom Hawthorn’s work has appeared in such publications as Reader’s Digest and Canadian Geographic. He has regularly contributed to the Globe and Mail since 1984. His previous book, Deadlines: Obits of Memorable British Columbians was published in 2012, and it was around that time that he first appeared on this program. The website for more is at www.tomhawthorn.blogspot.ca. The Twitter handle is @tomhawthorn. This new book is published by Douglas & McIntyre. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, from here in Vancouver today, Tom Hawthorn; Mr. Hawthorn, good morning.

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