National Network for Equitable Library Service

Ottawa Book Award 2015 — Shortlisted Between 1918 and 1921 a great storm blew through Canada and raised the expectations of a new world in which all things would be possible.|The years after World War I were among the most tumultuous in Canadian history: a period of unremitting change, drama, and conflict. They were, in the words of Stephen Leacock, “a time such as there never was before.” The war had been a great crusade, promising a world made new. But it had cost Canada sixty thousand dead and many more wounded, and it had widened the many fault lines in a young, diverse country.

Commemorating the Rideau Club’s 150th anniversary, this richly illustrated book celebrates the history of Ottawa’s premier private club since its founding in 1865. Co-founded by Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier, the history of Ottawa’s premier private club — the Rideau Club — is intertwined in so many ways with the development of Canada over the past 150 years.

Polar Winds traces a century of northern flight from balloonatics to bush pilots and beyond. "They were all gamblers and fortune seekers. They did things on their own — were independent people who wanted to be free to roam. They were good people, but, of course, some were loners or escapists.

An exploration of Canadian Remembrance Day history, customs, and traditions. Who are the people who offered their lives in war? Why do we remember them? How do we honour their memory? For children learning about remembrance and the human toll of war, there can be hard questions to answer. This book is meant to answer the questions kids ask about Remembrance Day and to explain how and why we honour the men and women who have served our country. Canada has developed unique ways of honouring and demonstrating respect for its war dead and veterans.

The first in-depth book that sheds light on Canada’s elite warriors who operate in the shadows. In 2001, the Canadian government sent elements of its Joint Task Force 2 counterterrorist unit to Afghanistan to assist the Americans with Operation Enduring Freedom and the global war on terror. Withdrawn a year later, after a brief hiatus JTF 2 returned to Afghanistan in 2005, beginning a continuous tour of duty for Canadian Special Operation Forces (CANSOF) up to the cessation of Canadian combat operations in 2011.

A comprehensive history of roads and road-building in Ontario. In this beautifully illustrated book, virtually every facet of the road building industry in Ontario is discussed, from labour relations to safety, politics, and financing. Follow the history of road-building technology from the first crude trails hacked through dense forests by homesteaders to the corduroy roads, planks roads, stone roads, macadam pavements, hot mix asphalt pavements, and concrete roads.

Heritage Toronto Book Award — Shortlisted, Non-Fiction Book Illuminates Toronto’s early history through its small heritage museums. A portrait of William Lyon Mackenzie stares from a mural at Queen subway station, his face as round and orange as a wheel of cheese. He served as Toronto’s first mayor, led the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, and was grandfather to William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s tenth prime minister, whose own orange-pink visage graces the Canadian fifty-dollar bill.

Many of the airmen of the First Word War who challenged both the enemy and death did not survive. These are their stories. In the clinging mud and trench warfare of WWI, it was soon clear that the cavalry — the elite of the elite — would be of little use. The dashing men and officers of the cavalry searched for a way to be front and center in the conflict, and found it in the new air forces being established on both sides of the Western Front. Soon lances and sabres were replaced by silk scarves and machine guns.

At a crucial moment in the Second World War, an obscure French general reaches a fateful personal decision: to fight on alone after his government’s flight from Paris and its capitulation to Nazi Germany. Amid the ravages of a world war, three men — a general, a president, and a prime minister — are locked in a rivalry that threatens their partnership and puts the world’s most celebrated city at risk of destruction before it can be liberated.

This ebook bundle contains five books that chronicle Canada’s participation in the conflict that gripped the Korean peninsula from 1950–53 and resulted in two very different nations that remain at odds today. This bloody and traumatic face-off between capitalist and communist ideologies highlighted the tensions of the Cold War that drew in nations from many parts of the world. Canadian soldiers did their part and many sacrificed their lives for the democratic cause.