Service Alert
Delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials
You may experience a delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials. All requests for materials will be delivered as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
You may experience a delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials. All requests for materials will be delivered as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Showing 1 - 20 of 87 items
By Sharon Butala. 2008
In 1962, Alexandra Wiwcharuk was found murdered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River. Nearly 50 years later, her murder…
still haunts Saskatoon residents, especially those who, like Butala, were Alexandra's friends. Compelled by her memories of Alex, Butala returns to that still-unsolved murder, writing an in-depth investigation of the tragic death, a nostalgic coming-of-age story, and an exploration of the nature of good and evil. Some descriptions of sex and violence. 2008.By Tima Kurdi. 2018
Alan Kurdi's body washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea on September 2, 2015, and overnight, the political…
became personal, as the world awoke to the reality of the Syrian refugee crisis. Tima Kurdi first saw the shocking photo of her nephew in her home in Vancouver, Canada. Tima recounts her idyllic childhood in Syria, where she grew up with her brother Abdullah and other siblings in a tight knit family. A strong willed, independent woman, Tima studied to be a hairdresser and had dreams of seeing the world. At twenty two, she emigrated to Canada, but much of her family remained in Damascus. As Tima struggled to adapt to life in a new land, war overtook her homeland. Caught in the crosshairs of civil war, her family risked everything and fled their homes. Tima worked tirelessly to help them find safety, but their journey was far from easy. Although thwarted by politics, hounded by violence, and separated by vast distances, the Kurdis never gave up hope. And when tragedy struck, Tima suddenly found herself thrust onto the world stage as an advocate for refugees everywhere, a role for which she had never prepared but that allowed her to give voice to those who didn't have an opportunity to speak for themselves. Bestseller. 2018.By Ian Brown. 2009
Walker Brown was born with a genetic mutation so rare that perhaps 300 people around the world also live with…
it. Walker turned twelve in 2008, but he weighs only 54 pounds, is still in diapers, can't speak and needs to wear special cuffs on his arms so that he can't continually hit himself. Expanded from Brown's Globe and Mail series about Walker, he sets out to discover his son. Some strong language. Canada Reads 2012. 2009.By Steve Coll. 2008
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Ghost Wars" (DC26423) outlines the history of the Arabian Peninsula's Bin Laden family. Begins with patriarch…
Mohamed Bin Laden, an illiterate Yemeni bricklayer who established a building company in Saudi Arabia in 1931 and fathered fifty-four children. Charts the path of son Osama. Some descriptions of violence. Bestseller. c2008.By Joe Friesen. 2016
In 2008, Danny Wolfe, a Winnipeg Aboriginal man, was 31-years-old and awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree murder in…
at the Regina Correctional Centre. In spite of his young age, Danny had found himself in and out of correctional facilities since his teenage years, sometimes even finding his own way out. Now, fifteen years after his last break out of prison, Danny was orchestrating a bigger escape from a jail where the notion was inconceivable. This biography traces the early years of Daniel Wolfe's life, from his birth in Regina to his mother Susan Creeley, a First Nations woman; to his first brush with the law at the age of four and then his subsequent arrests; to the birth of the Indian Posse--the Aboriginal street gang in Canada that would eventually claim the title of the largest street gang in North America with over 12,000 members (from BC to Ontario, and even Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona) and Danny at the helm; to Danny's death in 2010. Bestseller. 2016.By Daniel Sekulich. 2009
Award-winning journalist investigates high-seas piracy, incidents of which occur on a near-daily basis worldwide and can involve detention, robbery, and…
violence. Interviews professional mariners, victims, and even perpetrators themselves to uncover the inner workings of criminal enterprises and gauge international economic and security threats in the early twenty-first century. Some strong language and some descriptions of violence. 2009.By Alexandra Popoff. 2010
As Leo Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Tolstoy experienced both glory and condemnation during their forty-eight-year marriage. Drawing on newly available archival…
material, including Sophia's unpublished memoir, Alexandra Popoff presents a dramatically different and accurate portrait of the woman and the marriage. Some descriptions of sex. c2010.By Mary Loudon. 2006
The author's quest to find her sister Catherine, a schizophrenic, in Catherine's home, in her last hospital room, her paintings,…
her letters, her clothes. But in facing the truths about Catherine's life and death, she asks hard questions about sanity, family responsibility, love, and about what it means to say that a life is - or is not - worth living. 2006.By Charlotte Gray. 2006
Biography of Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone and champion of the deaf. Discusses his temperament; creativity; marriage…
to Mabel Hubbard, who was deaf; family life; and friendship with Helen Keller. Covers his many inventions, years living in Washington, D.C., and association with the National Geographic Society. 2006.By Karyn L Freedman. 2014
Philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent…
hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, from a trauma centre in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman's book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere. Winner of the 2015 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. 2014.By Rudy Henry Wiebe. 2006
Author Wiebe describes the vanished world of Speedwell, Saskatchewan, an isolated, poplar-forested, mostly Mennonite community - and Rudy's first home.…
Too young to do heavy work, Rudy witnessed a way of life that was soon to disappear, including clearing the stony land and digging wells, and remembers sorrow at the death of a beloved sister and the sweet discovery of the power of reading. Some descriptions of sex and some strong language. 2006.By Debbie Travis. 2008
Debbie Travis, the home decorating icon, launched her career when she had two kids at home under two. She describes…
the rollercoaster ride of raising two feisty little boys at the same time as working with her husband to create two TV production companies and three TV series. Full of laughter, tears, survival strategies and reality checks from other moms who've also had their meltdown moments, Debbie's book will help you lose the guilt and enjoy the ride. Some descriptions of sex. 2008.By Terry Gould. 2009
Over four years, Terry Gould has travelled to Colombia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Russia and Iraq - the countries in which…
journalists are most likely to be murdered on the job. Through conversations with their colleagues, their families and in some cases their murderers, he uncovers the lives of local reporters and broadcasters who stayed on a story to the point of death, and discovers the complex reasons for their bravery. Explicit descriptions of violence. c2009.By Carys Cragg. 2017
A powerful and emotional memoir about a woman whose father was brutally murdered at home by an intruder. Twenty years…
later, she decides to contact his murderer in prison, and learns startling new information about the crime. "Dead Reckoning" follows the author’s determination to confront the man who destroyed her world in order to find peace. 2017.By Mark Sakamoto. 2014
The heart-rending true story of two families on either side of the Second World War, and a moving tribute to…
the nature of forgiveness. Bestseller. Winner of Canada Reads 2018. 2014.By Annick Cojean. 2013
Soraya was just fifteen, a schoolgirl in the coastal town of Sirte, when she was given the honour of presenting…
a bouquet of flowers to Colonel Gaddafi on a visit he was making to her school. This one meeting changed Soraya's life forever. Soon afterwards, she was summoned to Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafi's palatial compound near Tripoli, where she joined a number of young women who were violently abused, raped and degraded by Gaddafi. Sex and rape remain the highest taboos in Libya, and women like Soraya risk being disowned or even killed by their dishonoured family members. Tragic but ultimately redemptive, Soraya's story is the first of many that are just now beginning to be heard. 2013.By Kate Lines. 2015
A criminal profiler, former Chief Superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), recounts her remarkable story using pivotal cases she…
worked on during the course of her career. Always taking care not to aggrandize in any way the notorious criminals whose names we know all too well, Kate knows that it is much more important to focus on the courage of the victims and their families. Bestseller. 2015.By Peter Edwards, Antonio Nicaso. 2015
Until Vito Rizzuto went to prison in 2006 for his role in a decades-old Brooklyn triple murder, he ruled the…
Port of Montreal, the northern gateway to the major American drug markets. A master diplomat, he won the respect of rival mafia clans, bikers and street gangs, and criminal business thrived on his turf. His family prospered and his empire grew--until one of North America's true Teflon dons finally lost his veneer. As he watched helplessly from his Colorado prison, the murders of his son and father made international headlines; the killings of his lieutenants and friends filled the pages of Canadian news; and the influence of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia, spread across Montreal faster than the blood of Rizzuto's crime family. In 2012, Vito Rizzuto emerged from prison, a 66-year-old man who could carefully rebuild his criminal empire or seek bloody revenge and damn the consequences. Bestseller. 2015.After a tour in Vietnam and a stretch in prison, Alex Caine fell into the cloak-and-dagger world of a contracted…
agent or "kite": infiltrating criminal groups that cops across North America and around the globe were unable to penetrate themselves. Over twenty-five years, his assignments ran the gamut from bikers to triad toughs. He describes the toll such a life takes, one that often left Caine wondering who he really was, and whether justice was ever truly served. Descriptions of violence, some strong language, and some descriptions of sex. c2008.By Elizabeth Hay. 2018
Jean and Gordon Hay were a formidable pair. She was an artist and superlatively frugal; he was a proud and…
well-mannered schoolteacher with a temper that could be explosive. Elizabeth, their oldest daughter, was said to be a difficult and selfish child. Elizabeth always suspected she would end up caring for her parents in their final years, a way of making up for the sins of her childhood, proving herself to be a good daughter after all. But as her parents, who had been ferociously independent people, became increasingly dependent on her, their lives changed utterly and so did hers. Philip Roth once said, "Old age is a massacre." This book takes you inside the massacre. Bestseller. Winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. 2018.