National Network for Equitable Library Service

“It’s tempting Providence, it is!” he kept saying. “Sail this here ship on Friday the thirteenth? With all them blinkin’ mines still loose in the sea? It’s only askin’ for trouble, that’s all!” This was the warning given to Nurse Myra Grimsley in 1921 prior to her departure from England to her new assignment in Newfoundland. In May of that year, she arrived in the small fishing hamlet of Daniel’s Harbour, which remained her home for the rest of her life. Here she became the only medical help along 200 miles of storm-swept coast and an invaluable member of this spread-out community.

Although primarily associated with filling doctors' prescriptions and selling medicines and other items for self-care, historically drugstores have also been operated as general stores, selling an intriguing range of toiletries, perfumery, confectionery, seeds for the garden, and household items. For many years, the shopping experiences of customers owed a good deal to the distinctive drugstore aura created by a store's elegant wooden fixtures, rows of attractive glass containers, and a characteristic aroma arising from drugs and the preparations compounded on the premises.

Jeremy Bennett is a motivational speaker, mentalist, and entertainer who has appeared in television series filmed in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. In this book he speaks out for the first time about his struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder. At the age of twelve, he developed a severe case of anxiety and an overwhelming need to exert control over it. Doctors said it was one of the worst cases of OCD they had ever seen.

Ever since their early twentieth-century “Golden Age,” postcards on both sides of the Atlantic have recorded popular culture. Through humour, views of urban and rural places, photographs of individuals, fantasy, advertising, and succinct messages, they have documented art and entertainment, social events, commercial practices, reform movements, political propaganda, and countless byways of society.

Like other children of the 1930s, I read about the adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who worked among fishermen in a very cold, icy place way up north called Newfoundland and Labrador . . . It was many years later, during my student-nursing days at Columbia-Presbyterian, that I really learned what the Grenfell Mission was all about. I was intrigued at the thought of, someday, using my nursing skills there. After graduating in 1951, I remained at the medical centre for another year of nursing experience.

Avant et Après La Prostatectomie Radicale is a research-based, comprehensive, and comprehensible resource on prostate surgery in Canada. Aimed at men with concerns about prostate surgery and their partners, this invaluable guide includes chapters on preparing for prostate surgery, the surgery itself, recovery in hospital and at home, a list of recommended resources, and special sections to record personal notes and important contact information.

"[The Groundwork Guides] are excellent books, mandatory for school libraries and the increasing body of young people prepared to take ownership of the situations and problems previous generations have left them." -- Globe and Mail Hundreds of books deal with young women's sexuality. This book is different in that it is an unabashed and forthright guide to the sexual concerns of young men. Author Manne Forssberg knows what young men want to know. Sex for Guys is a book about love, desire, feelings, and sex that is geared towards young men and other curious people.

Her weakest moment spawned a crusade for change. Julie Devaney takes us on a journey through the health care system as she is diagnosed and treated for ulcerative colitis. In and out of emergency rooms in Vancouver and Toronto, she’s poked, prodded, and abandoned to a closet at one point, bearing the helplessness and indignities of a system that seems hell-bent on victimizing the sick. Raw, harrowing, and darkly funny, Julie Devaney argues convincingly for fixes to the system and better training for all medical personnel.

Lorna Drew thought her partner was carrying his absent-minded professor status too far, until, two years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease. A thoughtful memoir and a wide-ranging handbook, Different Minds is an illuminating side-by-side account of life with Alzheimer Disease. Prepared with the assistance of the Alzheimer Society of New Brunswick, it offers practical advice on everything from reorganizing finances to dealing with emotions.

The twenty true tales in Amazing Medical Stories give a rich and entertaining picture of the ways in which medical workers (both real and fake) have used the keys to the mysterious kingdom of life: health, disease, and physical anomaly, birth, death, and post-mortem diagnosis. The stories run the gamut from tragedy to hilarity, from satisfaction of curiosity to evocation of terrible pity.