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Showing 1 - 8 of 8 items
Shake hands with the devil: the failure of humanity in Rwanda
By Roméo A Dallaire, Brent Beardsley. 2003
As former head of the 1993 U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Canadian general Dallaire's initial proposal called for 5,000 soldiers,…
to permit orderly elections and the return of the refugees. Nothing like this number was supplied, and the result was an outright attempt at genocide against the Tutsis that nearly succeeded, with 800,000 dead over three months. Dallaire's argument that Rwanda-like situations are fires that can be put out with a small force if caught early enough will certainly draw debate, but the book documents in horrifying detail what happens when no serious effort is made. Explicit descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. Canada Reads 2012. 2003.Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's war against big oil
By Andrew Nikiforuk. 2002
Dutch-born Wiebo Ludwig, former leader of a Christian Reformed Church in Goderich, Ontario, and his entourage, which consisted of his…
ever-growing family and a few sympathizers, decamped for Alberta in 1985 and bought a place called Trickle Creek - in oil country. What ensued was a long, nasty, and often violent conflict between Ludwig and the oil and gas industry over its legal right to drill on private land, regardless of landowners' concerns over the contamination of air and water by the pollutants that spew out of the wells. Some strong language and descriptions of violence. Winner of the 2002 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 2002.100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka: a memoir
By Arthur Schaller. 1998
Arthur Schaller was eleven years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, a time when the reward for turning in…
a Jew was 100 cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. Separated from his family in the Warsaw Ghetto, Arthur managed to escape to the other side of the Ghetto wall, and posed until the end of the war as a Catholic orphan. Winner of the 1999 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. 1998.Vimy
By Pierre Berton. 1986
In 1917, the Canadian Corps seized and held the best-defended German bastion on the Western Front, a feat thought impossible…
by the British, French and German forces. The author believes they succeeded because the men were civilians, with flexible minds unfettered by military rules. Bestseller 1986. Winner of the 1987 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award.The armies of the night: history as a novel, the novel as history
By Norman Mailer. 1968
The story of the 1967 march on the Pentagon, skirmishes between armed guards and anti-war demonstrators, and the subsequent arrest…
of hundreds of people. The author describes his own experience as a demonstrator and also gives a historical account of the action. Winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. 1968.War is: soldiers, survivors, and storytellers talk about war
By Marc Aronson, Patty Campbell. 2009
Anthology of memoirs, poems, letters, and fiction that illustrate the life of a soldier at war. Servicemen and servicewomen, family…
members, journalists, and others depict experiences of adventure, terror, boredom, and mental and physical duress. Some violence and some strong language. For senior high readers. 2008Armageddon in retrospect: and other new and unpublished writings on war and peace
By Kurt Vonnegut. 2008
Twelve fiction and nonfiction pieces representing Vonnegut's views on violence and war and his desire for world peace. Contains both…
a 1945 letter to his family summarizing his prisoner-of-war experience in Germany and his last speech, written in 2007. Introduction by his son Mark Vonnegut. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2008Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms: Stories And Essays
By Tim McLoughlin. 2022
An enthralling collection of short fiction and nonfiction that draw upon McLoughlin's three-decade career in the criminal justice system. In…
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Tim McLoughlin draws upon his three-decade career in the criminal justice system with his characteristic wit and his fascination with misfits and malfeasance. A lifetime immersed in New York City feeds short stories that evoke a landscape of characters rife with personal arrogance and misjudgment; and nonfiction essays about toeing the line when the line keeps disappearing. An opioid-addicted catsitter electronically eavesdrops on his neighbors only to hear devastating truths. A degenerate gambler stakes his life on a long shot because he sees three lucky numbers on the license plate of a passing car. In the nonfiction essays, we learn that the system plays a role in supporting vice, as long as it gets a cut. Altar boys compete to work weddings and funerals for tips in the shadow of predatory priests. Cops become robbers, and a mob boss just might be a civil rights icon. McLoughlin shines a light on worlds that few have access to. A recurring theme in his urban, often New York–centric work is chronic displacement, people standing still in a city that is always changing. These are McLoughlin’s ghosts, these casualties of progress, and he holds them dear and celebrates them.