_Design in Canada: Fifty Years from Teakettles to Task Chairs_ delivers a feel-good overview of Canadian industrial design highlights in a package that combines serious historical research and loads of photographs. The description of Hugh Spencer’s revolutionary 1963 stereo console is typical: “In the sixties, Clairtone’s Project G stereo was the epitome of ‘bachelor pad’ cool…. Frank Sinatra endorsed it (‘Listen to Sinatra on Project G; Sinatra does’), and G series models appeared in films such as _The Graduate_ and _A Fine Madness_, with Sean Connery. Hugh Hefner reportedly bought a unit for the Playboy mansion.” All the big hits are here, from the first all-plastic Thermos through the wedge-shaped 70s Contempra phone to Karim Rashid’s award-winning, champagne-bucket-inspired Garbo garbage can. The period photos–like that of a beehive-coifed model stretching her legs on the ottoman of the 1967 Habitat chair–are priceless. This is much more than just a coffee table book. Winner of the Alcuin Society Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. _-Deirdre Hanna_