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John A. Macdonald: the young politician, the old chieftain (Rich: Reprints In Canadian History Ser.)
By Donald Creighton. 1998
Covers the entire life of Sir John A. Macdonald, from his childhood and days as a young lawyer to his…
swift rise to political influence, 1867 election as Prime Minister, and death in 1891. Winner of the Governor General's Award for Non-fiction.Fail better: Why Baseball Matters
By Mark Kingwell. 2017
Taking seriously the idea that baseball is a study in failure--a very successful batter manages a hit only three of…
every ten attempts--Mark Kingwell explores ways in which the game teaches us lessons on fragility, contingency, and community. Weaving elements of memoir, philosophical reflection, sports writing, and humour, "Fail Better" serves as an unofficial follow-up to "Catch and Release: Trout Fishing and the Meaning of Life", which won over readers by offering an intelligent but accessible look into the deep waters of angling. 2017.Island of the blue foxes: disaster and triumph on Bering's great voyage to Alaska
By Stephen R Bown. 2017
The Great Northern Expedition was the most ambitious and well-financed scientific expedition in history, lasting nearly ten years and spanning…
three continents. Conceived by Peter the Great in the 1730s and led by Danish mariner Vitus Bering, the enterprise involved a cavalcade of nearly three thousand scientists, secretaries, interpreters, artists, surveyors, naval officers, mariners, soldiers and labourers, all of whom had to be brought across five thousand miles of roadless forests, swamps and tundra, along with tools, supplies, libraries and scientific implements--as well as the clavichord belonging to Bering's wife, Anna. Scientific objectives included investigating flora, fauna and minerals as well as outlandish rumours about the Siberian peoples. After the expedition reached the eastern coast of Asia, Bering oversaw the construction of two ships, the St. Peter and St. Paul, and sailed for America with one hundred and fifty men. The voyage was plagued by ill fortune--a supply ship failed to arrive, officers quarrelled and the ships were separated in a storm. While St. Paul reached Alaska and reported back to Russia, Bering's ship, St. Peter, was wrecked on a desolate island in the Aleutian Chain inhabited by feral foxes. A true-life adventure story of personal and cultural animosities, unimaginable Gothic horrors and ingenuity in the face of adversity. Winner of the 2018 Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction. 2017.Embers: one Ojibway's meditations
By Richard Wagamese. 2016
Wagamese finds lessons in both the mundane and sublime as he muses on the universe, drawing inspiration from working in…
the bush, sawing and cutting and stacking wood for winter, as well as the smudge ceremony to bring him closer to the Creator. He explores the various manifestations of grief, joy, recovery, beauty, gratitude, physicality and spirituality--concepts many find hard to express. But for Wagamese, spirituality is multifaceted. Within these pages, readers will find hard-won and concrete wisdom on how to feel the joy in the everyday things. Wagamese does not seek to be a teacher or guru, but these observations made along his own journey to become, as he says, "a spiritual bad-ass," make inspiring reading. Bestseller. Winner of the 2017 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award. 2016.Friend or foe: the whole truth about animals that people love to hate
By Etta Kaner. 2015
Rats, mosquitoes, bats, cockroaches, leeches, vultures - it’s easy to fear and despise them. But are they all bad? You…
probably know that rats destroy food supplies and can cause house fires when they gnaw on electrical wires, but did you know their supersensitive noses can help detect tuberculosis or even land mines? Are these conventionally icky critters really public enemies, or do they have merits worth appreciating? Takes a close look at what we dislike about each of 10 unpopular animals, and then presents the flip side: these very same animals are often smart, helpful to humans and the environment, or inspiring to scientists. Grades 2-4. Winner of the 2017 Silver Birch Non-Fiction Honour Book Award. 2015.Indian Arm
By Henrik Ibsen, Hiro Kanagawa. 2016
Rita and Alfred Allmers live in an isolated family cabin on native leasehold land overlooking Indian Arm, a still untamed…
glacial fjord just north of Vancouver, BC. With Alfred now struggling with his latest work, Rita has been tasked with caring for their adopted son Wolfie, a sensitive First Nations teen who has been designated as 'special needs' for much of his life. Rita's resentments and frustrations are further embittered by her younger half-sister, Asta, a constant reminder of the innocence, idealism and sexual allure Rita once had and yearns for again. Winner of the 2017 Governor General’s Award for Drama. 2016.I've got a home in glory land: a lost tale of the underground railroad (Griot audio)
By Karolyn Smardz Frost. 2007
In 1985, archeologists in downtown Toronto discovered the remains of a house belonging to former slaves Thornton and Lucie Blackburn,…
who were key figures in the Underground Railroad. Fleeing Louisville, Ky., in 1831, shortly before Lucie was to be sold, the Blackburns settled in Detroit until they were recognized and arrested. Before they could be convicted and returned to slavery, the first racial uprising in Detroit - a crowd of friends and abolitionists who marched on the jail - gave them the opportunity to escape. Fleeing to Toronto, they founded the city's first taxi business while working with prominent abolitionists. Winner of the 2007 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 2007.Infinite citizen of the shaking tent
By Liz Howard. 2015
The mechanisms we use to make sense of our worlds – even our direct intimate experiences of it – come…
under constant scrutiny and a pressure that feels like love. The waters of Northern Ontario shield country are the toxic origin and an image of potential. A subject, a woman, a consumer, a polluter; an erotic force, a confused brilliance, a very necessary form of urgency – all are loosely tethered together and made somehow to resonate with our own devotions and fears; made “to be small and dreaming parallel / to ceremony and decay.” Winner of the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize. 2015. Uniform title: Poems.In the sleep room: the story of the CIA brainwashing experiments in Canada
By Anne Collins. 1988
In the 1950s and 1960s, an eminent Canadian psychiatrist was funded by the CIA to use his patients in brainwashing…
experiments. In 1977, when his work was exposed, nine Canadians sued the CIA. A story of misuse of medical power, unchecked ambition and undercover skulduggery. Winner of the 1988 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 1988.In the jaws of the black dogs: a memoir of depression
By John Bentley Mays. 1995
Journalist and art critic John Bentley Mays portrays what it is to live in the shadow of depression. With observations…
on the ideas of cure and normality, and excerpts from the diaries he has kept for thirty years, Mays describes living through the ravages of his depression, breakdowns, and therapy -- life with the black dogs. Winner of the 1996 CNIB Talking Book of the Year Award. c1995.In a sunburned country
By Bill Bryson. 2000
The author of "A Walk in the Woods" now chronicles his exploration of Australia. This good-humoured traveller relates his outback…
adventures with anecdotes about the history and local inhabitants. Describes the harsh terrain and hostile wildlife including crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and attacking seashells. Some strong language. Bestseller. Co-winner of the 2002 CNIB Torgi Award. 2000.Imperial reckoning: the untold story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
By Caroline Elkins. 2005
Recovers the lost history of the last days of British colonialism in Kenya. In the aftermath of World War II…
and the triumph of liberal democracy over fascism, the British detained and brutalised hundreds of thousands of Kikuyu - the colony's largest ethnic group - who had demanded their independence. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Explicit descriptions of sex and violence, some strong language. 2005.Black asserts that Nazi Germany used IBM punch-card technology to improve the efficiency of its persecutions during World War II…
and that IBM actively enabled the Holocaust and profited financially from collaboration with the Third Reich. Black also recounts how IBM aided the Allies, especially in code-breaking techniques. Bestseller. Winner of the 2003 CNIB Torgi Award. 2001.Canada year by year
By Elizabeth MacLeod. 2016
A unique look at Canadian history. Captures milestones and many more in ten chapters filled with biographies, quotes and trivia.…
It's the story of the people, places and events that have shaped the country--one year at a time. Grades 3-6. Winner of the 2017 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction. 2016.Child soldier: when boys and girls are used in war (CitizenKid)
By Jessica Dee Humphreys, Michel Chikwanine. 2015
It's 1993, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is going through major political changes. Five-year-old Michel is playing with friends…
one day when, without warning, a group of rebel soldiers pulls up to the school grounds. Forced onto trucks, the frightened boys are taken to a camp in the hills. There they are thrust into a terrifying and violent world. Grades 5-8. Winner of the 2017 Red Maple Non-Fiction Award. 2015.It was a time of unregulated madness, and nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the…
roaring 1920s. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination, Chicago's corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and yellow journalism only contributed to the excesses. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million in phantom timberland and non-existent oil wells in Panama. When Leo's scheme finally collapsed in 1923, he vanished and the Chicago State's Attorney began an international manhunt that lasted almost a year. When finally apprehended, Leo was living a life of luxury in Nova Scotia under an assumed identity. His mysterious death in a Chicago prison topped anything in his almost-too-bizarre-to-believe life. Bestseller. Winner of the 2016 Arthur Ellis Best Non-fiction Crime Book Award. 2015.Buffalo Bill Cody (Legends of the Wild West)
By Ronald A Reis. 2010
William "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a bullwhacker, cattle driver, and American Indian fighter on the Great Plains of the 1850's,…
all before becoming a teenager. He claimed to have killed 5,000 buffalo and to have ridden with the Pony Express. Later, he started his Wild West Show - part circus, part rodeo, part history - that played across the United Stares and Europe for three decades. Some descriptions of violence. Grades 5-8. 2011 Spur Award for Best Western Juvenile Nonfiction. 2010. (Legends of the Wild West)Doubt: a parable
By John Patrick Shanley. 2005
The Bronx, 1964. Sister Aloysius, stern principal of St. Nicholas Catholic School, is convinced that school chaplain Father Flynn is…
a pedophile, and that instead of mentoring the school's only black student, he has seduced him. Through meetings with Flynn, young teacher Sister James, and the student's mother, she gathers her evidence and plans a course of action. No one is totally right or truthful, keeping everyone in a state of doubt. Pulitzer Prize winner. 2005.Delights & shadows: poems
By Ted Kooser. 2004
Kooser, American poet laureate, is a poet of place, that being eastern Nebraska. Seasons rotate and weather matters, natural disasters…
are real. The visible world informs the verbal one, yet there are also spiritual presences. In his poetry, every described delight is shadowed by darkness in poems of small wonders and hard dualisms. Pulitzer Prize winer 2005. 2004.