National Network for Equitable Library Service

Picture a busy avenue. Now plant trees along the boulevard, paint a mural by the empty lot, and add a community garden. Set up benches along the sidewalks and make space for kids' chalk drawings, and you've set the scene for a thriving community. Placemaking-personalizing public and semi-private spaces like front yards-is a growing trend in cities and suburbs around the world, drawing people out of their homes and into conversation with one another.

No government jurisdiction in Canada has so radically transformed its public policies over the past decades as Ontario, and yet the province has also maintained a striking degree of political stability in its party system. Since the 1990s, neoliberalism has been the point of reference in constructing policy agendas for all of Ontario's political parties.

Over the last few decades, politicians in Europe and North America have fiercely debated the effects of a growing Muslim minority on their respective national identities. Some of these countries have prohibited Islamic religious coverings in public spaces and institutions, while in others, legal restriction remains subject to intense political conflict. Seeking to understand these different outcomes, social scientists have focused on the role of countries' historically rooted models of nationhood and their attendant discourses of secularism.

An Indigenous leader who has dedicated her life to Indigenous Rights, Jody Wilson-Raybould has represented both First Nations and the Crown at the highest levels. And she is not afraid to give Canadians what they need most - straight talk on what has to be done to move beyond our colonial legacy and achieve true reconciliation in Canada. In this powerful book, drawn from speeches and other writings, she urges all Canadians - both Indigenous and non-Indigenous - to build upon the momentum already gained or risk hard-won progress being lost.

Indigenous Peoples in Canada are continuing to assert their right to self-determination in this era of reconciliation. While dozens of Indigenous communities have signed varying forms of self-government agreements with the federal government, Indigenous Nations still face many obstacles along the path to true self-determination. As a former Chief of Siksika Nation in southern Alberta, Leroy Wolf Collar dealt with many of the same problems other Indigenous Nations face across the country.

In 1947, grocer Johnny Lombardi went on air for the first time to share the sounds of "sunny Italy" with the radio listeners of Toronto. Meanwhile, in cities across the country, a handful of theatres began to show films in foreign languages. In the decade after the Second World War, these events were some of the earliest indications of the nationwide changes taking place in Canadian media as it responded to the new cultural, political, and economic visibility of cultural and linguistic minorities.

Longlisted, RBC Taylor PrizeThe Mongolia you never knew existed. Mongolia beyond Genghis Khan.In the shadows of the Altai Mountains live the Kazakh nomads of western Mongolia. These hard-living nomads survive on windswept steppes, grazing their herds and keeping an ancient practice alive: hunting not with traps or guns, but on horseback with golden eagles.The Mongolian Chronicles recounts a story of this untamed world, seen through the eyes of artist, writer, and traveller Allen Smutylo.

Don't be afraid to try! Make connections! Be persistent! Ask questions and never take no for an answer! Learn the secrets and amazing stories of successful inventors! How to Become an Accidental Genius is full of inspiring tales of famous and lesser-known inventors who have changed the world, from George Washington Carver, Mary Anderson (inventor of the windshield wiper) and inventor and actress Hedy Lamarr to Frank Epperson (of Popsicle fame) and Mary Sherman Morgan (The Woman Who Saved the U.S. Space Race). Readers will be amazed at the inventiveness of these geniuses.

Canada's representative democracy is confronting important challenges. At the top of the list is the growing inability of the national government to perform its most important roles: namely mapping out collective actions that resonate in all regions as well as enforcing these measures. Others include Parliament's failure to carry out important responsibilities, an activist judiciary, incessant calls for greater transparency, the media's rapidly changing role, and a federal government bureaucracy that has lost both its way and its standing.

How can we imagine a future not driven by capitalist assumptions about humans and the wider world? How are a range of contemporary artistic and popular cultural practices already providing pathways to post-capitalist futures? Authors from a variety of disciplines answer these questions through writings on blues and hip hop, virtual reality, post-colonial science fiction, virtual gaming, riot grrrls and punk, raku pottery, post-pornography fanzines, zombie films, and role playing.