National Network for Equitable Library Service

100 years of love, celebration, heartbreak, and even parades. On December 19, 2017, the Toronto Maple Leafs officially turn 100. In the spirit of the centenary celebrations, Toronto and the Maple Leafs explores the city's relationship with its most beloved sports team. No matter how many times the Jays and Raptors make the playoffs, it's a Leafs game that still brings the city together on a cold Saturday night and fuels the talk shows all summer. But why are fans so absorbed by a team that has not won a Cup in 50 years?

A forgotten musical and cultural history of drunks and miscreants, future country stars and political strategists. Perfect Youth is the story of the birth of Canadian punk, a transformative cultural force that reared its head across the country at the end of the 1970s. Bands like D.O.A., the Subhumans, the Viletones, and Teenage Head--alongside lesser-known regional acts from all over Canada--reshaped a dull musical landscape, injecting new energy and new sounds into halls, bars, and record stores from Victoria to St. John's.

Was the world’s first fatal nuclear accident — the 1961 explosion of a SL-1 military test reactor in Idaho — the result of a crime of passion? Was the disaster promptly covered up to protect the burgeoning nuclear industry? Idaho Falls documents one of America’s best-kept secrets and investigates the question of conspiracy.

Grunge Is Dead weaves together the definitive story of the Seattle music scene through a series of interviews with the people who were there. Taking the form of an “oral” history, this books contains over 130 interviews, along with essential background information from acclaimed music writer Greg Prato.

For over 100 years, kids of all ages have enjoyed the thrill of collecting sports cards. Whether it was souvenirs from their parents’ cigarette packs, pieces that came in bubble gum packages, or the modern dazzlers, the simple formula of pictures and text on cardboard have been a part of North American society for over a century.

Changing the Game: A History of NHL Expansion celebrates an often-overlooked aspect of hockey history. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the NHL’s spread across the North American market in the 1920s along with the memorable expansions that began in 1967.

Mixed martial arts (MMA) fighting pits masters of every kind of combat--street fighting, sumo, judo--in matches broadcast around the world. This book chronicles the turbulent history of MMA fighting from its inception in the Greek Olympic Games, through its glorification in Japan to its growing popularity as an American sport. Through personal interviews with legendary fighters, Krauss offers a detailed look into that world of absolute intensity, the MMA--a world of honour, vendettas, and drunken back-alley scraps.

Hockey’s rich history explored through some of its most fascinating documents

The films that society has termed pornographic movies have been with us for over a century now, since the first flickering kinetoscopes stumbled into life in 1889. Yet beyond a handful of scholarly tracts, and a few glancing references in certain Hollywood histories, there is no modern history of the subject available. Black and White and Blue fills that void.

Big Bear, chief of a Plains Cree community in western Canada in the late nineteenth century, was a transitional figure between the height of Plains Indian culture and the modern era. During the 1870s and early 1880s, Big Bear became the focal point of opposition for Cree and Saulteaux bands that did not wish to make treaty with Canada. During the early 1880s, he spearheaded a Plains diplomatic movement to renegotiate the treaties in favour of the Aboriginal groups whose way of life had been devastated by the disappearance of the buffalo.