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The great escape: the untold story
By Ted Barris. 2014
On the night of March 24, 1944, eighty airmen crawled through a 400-foot-long tunnel, code-named "Harry," and dashed from Stalag…
Luft III, the infamous WWII German POW camp. It became known as The Great Escape. The breakout had taken a year to plan, involved 2,000 POWs, and prompted a massive manhunt across occupied Europe. All but three escapees were recaptured, and on Hitler’s orders, fifty were murdered. The author recounts this battle of wits and determination through the voices of those involved, assembles original interviews, memoirs, letters and diaries to reconstruct the Great Escape’s untold story. Bestseller. 2014.The great Boer War
By Byron Farwell. 1977
A definitive history of the great conflict that raged from 1899 to 1902 between the British Empire, at its peak…
of power and arrogance, and a tiny nation, stubbornly fighting to maintain its independence. 1977.The golden spruce: A True Story Of Myth, Madness And Greed
By John Vaillant. 2005
In 1997, when a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an Alaskan island north of the Canadian border,…
they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. The author braids together the strands of this mystery and brings to life the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida and the harrowing world of logging. Canada Reads 2012. Winner of the 2005 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Bestseller. 2005.The great escape
By Paul Brickhill. 2000
The Great Escape tells how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner of war camp worked together to…
achieve an extraordinary break-out. Every night for a year they dug tunnels, and those who weren't digging forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes to wear once they had escaped. All of this was conducted under the very noses of their prison guards. When the right night came, the actual escape itself was timed to the split second - but of course, not everything went according to plan... 2000.The glory game
By Hunter Davies. 1972
The girl in Saskatoon: a meditation on friendship, memory and murder
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.The galleys at Lepanto
By Jack Beeching. 1982
The ghosts of Medak Pocket: the story of Canada's secret war
By Carol Off. 2004
In 1993, Canadian peacekeepers in Croatia were plunged into the most significant fighting Canada had seen since the Korean War.…
In September 1993, in a tiny corner of Croatia known as Medak Pocket, a unit of Canadian peacekeepers planted themselves between besieged Serbs and the advancing Croat army, driving them from the area under United Nations protection. The soldiers should have returned home as heroes, but instead, they arrived under a cloud of suspicion and silence. Descriptions of violence and some strong language. 2004.The game
By Ken Dryden. 2005
Former Montreal Canadiens goalie and former President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Dryden captures the essence of hockey and what…
it means to its fans. He gives us vivid portraits of the characters - Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, coach Scotty Bowman - that made the Canadiens of the 1970s one of the greatest hockey teams in history. Dryden also reflects on life on the road, in the spotlight, and on the ice, offering up a rare inside look at the game. This edition marks the 20th anniversary of book’s original publication. Strong language, some descriptions of violence. 2005.The Gardner heist: a true story of the world's largest unsolved art theft
By Ulrich Boser. 2009
Journalist recounts the 1990 robbery of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in which two crooks posing as policemen nabbed art…
worth $500 million, including five Degas paintings, three Rembrandts, and a Vermeer. Traces the investigation of art detective Harold Smith and explores case links to mobsters and the IRA. Strong language. 2009.The first season: 1917-18 and the birth of the NHL
By Bob Duff. 2017
2017-18 marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the National Hockey League. But the league almost didn't survive its…
first year. Duff chronicles the trials and tribulations of that first season, and tells the story of that first generation of hockey heroes who lent their names to the game they loved, and helped to make it great. 2017.The fog of war: censorship of Canada's media in World War Two
By Mark Bourrie. 2011
The Canadian government censored the news during World War II for two main reasons: to keep military and economic secrets…
out of enemy hands and to prevent civilian morale from breaking down. But in those tumultuous times - with Nazi spies landing on our shores by raft, U-boat attacks in the St. Lawrence, army mutinies in British Columbia and Ontario, and pro-Hitler propaganda in the mainstream Quebec press - censors had a hard time keeping news events contained. Now, with freshly unsealed World War II press-censor files, many of the undocumented events that occurred in wartime Canada are finally revealed. c2011.The first Tour de France: sixty cyclists and nineteen days of daring on the road to Paris
By Peter Cossins. 2017
The first Tour de France was a far cry from the polished international sporting event we see on television today.…
Organized by the financially free falling L'Auto magazine, the desperate editors thought that organizing a grand cycling tour was the only thing that could save their publication. There was no indication that a ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did, and cycling would never be the same again. 2017.In the early morning hours of August 6, 2011, a United States Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter, call sign "Extortion 17,"…
sped alone into eastern Afghanistan's deadly Tangi Valley. Shot out of the sky by a rocket propelled grenade, everyone onboard died instantly, the single greatest loss of life in the history of the Navy SEALs. Ed Darack provides a detailed account of the dramatic, deadly final moments of the Chinook, followed by the swift response to those who caused the tragedy, as well as the enduring legacies of those lost. 2017.The fighting Newfoundlander: a history of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (Carleton library series ; #209)
By G. W. L Nicholson. 2006
When the First World War began, Newfoundland had been without any kind of military organisation for more than half a…
century, so public-spirited citizens immediately formed themselves into a Patriotic Association, and within sixty days had recruited, partially equipped and dispatched 537 officers and men overseas. Nicholson details the harrowing experiences of the Newfoundland Regiment at Gallipoli, Beaumont Hamel, the Third Battle of Ypres and Cambrai, for which they were granted the title "Royal" - the only army unit to receive such a distinction during World War I. Some descriptions of violence. 2006.The fix: soccer and organized crime
By Declan Hill. 2010
The forgotten dead: why 946 American servicemen died off the coast of Devon in 1944 - and the man who discovered their true story
By Ken Small, Mark Rogerson. 1993
The night of 27 April 1944: Exercise Tiger, a rehearsal for the D-Day landings, is held off Slapton Beach in…
Devon. As the mock assault is under way, 946 American servicemen die. Under wartime restrictions the story is concealed and in time forgotten, until local hotelier Ken Small finds American bullets and money while beachcombing and decides to find the truth. 1993.The flying carpet of small miracles: a woman's fight to save two orphans
By Hala Jaber. 2009
Jaber, a Lebanese-British foreign correspondent, describes covering the Gulf War and her personal engagement with an Iraqi family caught in…
the crossfire. Reporting on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jaber took up the cause of hospitalized children wounded in the bombing, and helped start a fund to provide them with better medical attention and supplies. In particular, she learned the extraordinary story of two orphans and decided to adopt them. Some descriptions of violence. 2009.The First World War
By John Keegan. 1998
The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unparalleled ferocity which extended far beyond its European epicentre,…
it broke the century of relative peace and prosperity which we associate with the Victorian era and unleashed the demons of the twentieth century - pestilence, military destruction and mass death - and also the ideas which continue to shape our world today - modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, and radical ideas about economics and society. Includes violence. 1998.In the winter trenches and flak-filled skies of World War I, soldiers and pilots alike might avoid death, only to…
find themselves imprisoned in Germany's archipelago of POW camps, often in abominable conditions. The most infamous was Holzminden, a land-locked Alcatraz of sorts that housed the most troublesome, escape-prone prisoners. Its commandant was a boorish, hate-filled tyrant named Karl Niemeyer who swore that none should ever leave. Desperate to break out of "Hellminden" and return to the fight, a group of Allied prisoners led by ace pilot (and former Army sapper) David Gray hatch an elaborate escape plan. Their plot demands a risky feat of engineering as well as a bevy of disguises, forged documents, fake walls, and steely resolve. Once beyond the watch towers and round-the-clock patrols, Gray and almost a dozen of his half-starved fellow prisoners must then make a heroic 150 mile dash through enemy-occupied territory towards free Holland. Drawing on never-before-seen memoirs and letters, Bascomb brings this narrative to cinematic life, amid the twilight of the British Empire and the darkest, most savage hours of the fight against Germany. At turns tragic, funny, inspirational, and nail-biting suspenseful, this is the little-known story of the biggest POW breakout of the Great War. 2018.