National Network for Equitable Library Service

An ancient Arab proverb states, "When Allah made the Sudan, he laughed." Had he known the country’s future, he would have done better to cry. To most of the world, Sudan means Darfur and the tragedy of atrocities and ethnic cleansing that has occurred there. Canada’s first involvement in Sudan was in 1884, when Canadian voyageurs were recruited to help rescue General Gordon, who was besieged in Khartoum by the Mahdi.

The first-ever comprehensive book written on early English immigration to Canada, Planters, Paupers, and Pioneers introduces a series of three titles on The English in Canada. Focusing on factors that brought the English to Atlantic Canada, it traces the English arrivals to their various settlements in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, and considers their reasons for leaving their homeland. Who were they? When did they arrive? Were they successful? What was their lasting impact?

Ontario’s African-Canadian Heritage is composed of the collected works of Professor Fred Landon, who for more than 60 years wrote about African-Canadian history. The selected articles have, for the most part, never been surpassed by more recent research and offer a wealth of data on slavery, abolition, the Underground Railroad, and more, providing unique insights into the abundance of African-Canadian heritage in Ontario.

On 22 April 1915, the men of the 1st Canadian Division faced chlorine gas, a new lethal weapon against which they had no defence. In defiance of a particularly horrible death, or, at the very least, severe lung injury, these untested Canadians fought almost continuously for four days, often hand-to-hand, as they clung stubbornly against overwhelming odds to a vital part of the Allied line after the French units on their left fled in panic.

Shrouded in the mists of history and legend, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a land of mysteries. Its waters are a graveyard for countless wrecked ships. Its lore is full of tales about treachery and murder. And it was once the haunt of pirates. Haunt, indeed! Newfoundland and Labrador has tales of the supernatural that date back centuries, to a time before Canada even existed as a nation. Here the ghosts not only lurk in old houses and forlorn cemeteries, they come up out of the sea to walk the decks of ships before the eyes of terrified crewmen.

This is the story of six of Canadas Warships HMCS NAPANEE, HMCS BELLEVILLE, HMCS HALLOWELL, HMCS TRENTONIAN, HMCS QUINTE (I), and the HMCS QUINTE (II). These histories give a unique account of the small ships that have been the backbone of the Canadian Navy during the Second World War and the Cold War. The stories record the accomplishments of these hardworking ships as well as the mistakes.

Who committed Toronto’s Silk Stocking Murder? Why did a quiet accountant in Guelph, Ontario, murder his wife and two daughters? When did police in Alberta hire a self-styled mind reader to solve a mass murder? How did an American confidence man from Arizona find himself facing a murder charge in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia? These questions and more are answered in Murder: Twelve True Stories of Homicide in Canada, the latest collection of thrilling true Canadian crime stories by Edward Butts.

Advance Praise for Doing the Continental: "Everyone has opinions about the state of Canada-U.S. relations, but few have the knowledge to provide informed judgments. Professor Dyment happily falls into the latter category. While some of the prescriptions are controversial, this concise book has been carefully thought out and provides excellent grist for the Canadian policy mill. Doing the Continental is a must read for those interested in Canadian-American relations." Michael Kergin, Canada’s Ambassador to the United States, 2000 to 2005.

Limited time offer. A local library, passport to a larger world for its individual patrons, is also a democratic institution whose contribution to the strength of a community is out of all proportion to its size or membership. Several thousand Carnegie libraries were built a century ago when Andrew Carnegie, who had risen from poverty to become "the richest man in the world" vowed to donate all his money before he died and set about giving millions of people around the world the same "gift of reading" he had with access to a library as a factory working boy.

This is the story of the creation and first four decades of one of Canada's pre-eminent cultural organizations. While it documents the history of Canada's National Arts Centre in Ottawa, it also tells the story of the arts in Canada from the 1960s to 2006.