National Network for Equitable Library Service

Into the Hurricane invites Canadians to consider how their political opinions and options are manipulated today by considering how they were manipulated yesterday. As Canadians fight for the future of health care, public education, and social programs that have become woven into the fabric of our political culture, when CCF leader Tommy Douglas is lauded as the Greatest Canadian, Into the Hurricane asks Canadians to consider the hurricane that destroyed the party that was attempting to bring forward the ideas that so many now consider our birthright.

A Tale of Two Divas tells the story of two Canadian singers who began as soloists in church choirs, but eventually moved on to spectacular careers. Soprano Jean Forsyth and contralto Edith Miller knew each other well. They met when nineteen-year-old Edith studied vocal music with Jean, almost twenty-five years her senior, in Winnipeg in 1894. After that their paths crisscrossed. This tale of two voices contrasts the ways in which Jean and Edith achieved success. Edith Miller's path was clear and committed.

From biographer Joe Mackintosh comes a second work of non-fiction, an inspirational and heart-rending story of an icon in the world of running. As an elite All-America runner from Oklahoma, Chris McCubbins won the gold medal in the 3000-metre steeplechase at Winnipeg’s 1967 Pan American Games attaining a time that placed him among the world’s best. After serving as a member of the U.S. Army’s Modern Pentathlon Team, Chris moved to Winnipeg in 1970 bringing his passion for running, his enthusiasm for coaching and his rigorous training regimes.

In 1904, Assiniboine Park was conceived as a peoples playground, a place devoid of commercial amusements where all classes of Winnipeggers could relax andrejuvenate in idyllic and Arcadian surroundings. The book traces the development of the park and its infrastructure the layout of fields, forests and gardens, the two pavilions, the conservatories and the zoo and how this corresponded with an ever-evolving Winnipeg. It explains the actions, conflicts and arguments of a colourful cast of politicians and bureaucrats who made the park what it is today.

War, genocide, rape, looting, violence – the makings of nightmares is the daily reality for millions in contemporary Africa. To survive often means abandoning everything in a quick escape. If it were you, what would you do to survive? Could you flee? Could you leave behind belongings, memories, valuables, children, mothers, fathers? In 2012, more than a thousand refugees to Manitoba, most from Africa, did just that. They are the lucky ones.

Gordon Goldsborough returns with more compelling abandoned sites from across Manitoba. Armed with a drone and a deep curiosity about local history, Gordon had more stories to share than could fit into one book. Adventure into abandoned quarries, dance halls, hospitals and more!

Why do people join gangs? Once entrenched in a life of crime with its realities of incarceration, addiction, power, and money, is it possible to ever walk away? This triumphant collection of ten personal life stories from ex-gang members enlightens, surprises and inspires. These first-person accounts illuminate the harsh reality of living as a marginalized person, often neglected and in poverty. Unexpectedly, their stories share heartfelt commentary on topics such as peace, joy, forgiveness and hope.

Desired and reviled, adulated and condemned, Winnipeg inspires intense and contradictory emotions from residents, visitors and people who have never even ventured within wading distance of the Manitoba capital. The city at the centre of North America inspires a profound sense of ambivalence, stuck as it is between a colourful and triumphant early history, a long period of 20th-Century decline and an uncertain if optimistic future.

Travel with Gordon Goldsborough from Rapid City School to Mallard Lodge to Union Stockyards and many places in between as the author helps us reclaim some of our long-lost heritage. This full colour, richly illustrated book looks at abandoned sites around Manitoba, describing their features, what caused them to be abandoned, and what they tell us about the history of the province.

Somewhere between North Dakota and Nunavut sits a curious land with a coastline patrolled by polar bears, highways lined with monuments to household produce and dinner plates drenched in a gluey condiment known as honey dill sauce. This is Manitoba, a province that has captured the imagination of ̥well, maybe dozens of people around the world for more than a century. To many Canadians, Manitoba is nothing but canola, snow and mosquitoes. To people in Winnipeg, its capital and largest city, it's that place where the flood happens three out of every five years.