Worth Repeating — Pierre Berton

This glorious miscellany of many of Pierre Berton's most sparkling pieces brings back lost treasures from his years as a journalist covering Canada and the world. Worth Repeating is a treat to read, but it's also a valuable reminder of Berton's fifty years of extraordinary contributions to reporting and social commentary.

Writing, as Berton acknowledges in a lively introduction, has been an obsession for him. Wonderful vignettes, book excerpts, essays, sketches and satires -- some out of print for decades -- take us back into the days when television had not yet arrived and the Eaton's catalogue was eagerly awaited. From portraits of Canadian eccentrics and British royalty to sharp, crusading reflections on Canadian society, on religion and on the media, Worth Repeating is Berton at his best -- accessible, funny, polemical and wise.

"This is more than an anthology.  It is a resurrection.  The various pieces that follow -- essays, articles, bits of history, chapters from out-of-print books, the occasional verse, a stage sketch or two -- were written over a period of fifty years.  All have long since been interred in the graveyard of dead manuscripts; gone, yes -- but hopefully not forgotten, at least by me."