For as long as Blue Heron Books has staged its annual Books & Authors Night – that’s since 1990 – Ted Barris has MCed the event. So, on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, he returns to interview a handful of authors whom bookstore owner/operator Shelley Macbeth has lined up specially for the event. The list of authors has yet to be announced, but Shelley Macbeth always snags a who’s who of authors in any given season.

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But to make it interesting, since Ted Barris has a new book out this fall as well, Shelley has lined up someone to turn the tables on Ted to interview him about his new book Battle of Britain: Canadian Airmen in Their Finest Hour.

In his 22nd book of nonfiction Ted Barris has assembled unknown stories of Canadian airmen, ground crew, as well as engineers, aeronautical designers, medical officers and civilians, who answered the call and turned back the very real threat of Nazi invasion. You know the outcome of the Battle of Britain, but now you’ll meet the Canadians who helped secure victory in the first last-stand of WWII.

Ted Barris has published 22 non-fiction books, half of them wartime histories. His book The Great Escape: A Canadian Story won the 2014 Libris Award as Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His book Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany received the 2018 NORAD Trophy from the RCAF Association. And his book Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. And his book Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory was published in 2022, the same year that Barris was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.