National Network for Equitable Library Service

From the days when proto-humans lashed animal jawbones to sticks and whacked wildebeest-poop slapshots in Olduvai Arena to today’s super-high-tech computer-assisted extravaganzas, one by-product of the hockey game has gone unnoticed and untapped. Until now . . . In 50 Things to Make with a Broken Hockey Stick, Peter Manchester transforms the agony of a fractured stick into the thrill of creation. Instructions and explicit cartoons show woodworkers of all abilities how to fashion items for outdoors, items for indoors, and items without any purpose at all.

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.

In The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma, CBC reporter Jacques Poitras provides a journalist’s account of how Bernard Lord rose to the top in provincial politics and why his path could lead to Ottawa. The clean sweep of Frank McKenna’s Liberals in 1987 shook the foundations of the New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party, but election night 1991 utterly shattered the Tory dream. As expected, the Liberals won a second majority, but the fervently anti-bilingualism Confederation of Regions (COR) Party formed the official Opposition.

A recreational canoeman in his native Texas, Rick Sparkman thought he knew all about the sport when he moved to Nova Scotia in 1981. The swift, cold rivers and streams of his new home adjusted his thinking in the most personal way: he got dumped. That’s when he started learning to paddle in earnest. Woodlands Canoeing explains the fundamentals of recreational canoeing in the woods of the Maritimes, New England, and anywhere else where the waterways are small, the water is swift and at times shallow, and canoeing varies with the seasons.

Born in 1889, Gertrude Harding spent a boistrous childhood on a Welsford, New Brunswick, farm. She travelled to Hawaii to live with her sister, and, when her sister moved to London in 1912, Harding went with her. One day, from the top of a London bus, she saw a parade of women carrying large white posters. Attended by a policeman, they walked in single file on the street close to the curb as passersby stared and shouted rude remarks. It was a poster-parade of Militant Suffragettes demanding votes for women; after more than two decades of mild action, the Suffragettes were on the warpath.

Great Maritime Inventions 1833-1950 is a delightful look at how innovative Maritime ideas changed the world. Between 1833 and 1950, over 3,300 patents were granted to residents of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI. From the scuba tank to the variable pitch propeller to two-piece long underwear, Great Maritime Inventions profiles the best of the best.

At his death in 1985, Alden Nowlan stood in the first rank of Canadian writers. Today, his poetry is beloved by Maritimers and popular across Canada and in the US as well. If I Could Turn and Meet Myself tells his life story, from his birth to a 14-year-old mother in 1933 through his impoverished childhood, his disturbed adolescence, his newspaper career, his struggle with cancer, and his tenure as writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick. Nowlan founded his success and peace of mind on his belief that he was a composite of many selves.

Want to know the secrets behind Canada's most popular coffee-and-donuts chain? Read all about them in a new book chronicling the rise of Tim Hortons, from its humble beginnings to the national institution it is today. Written by former Tim Hortons marketing director Ron Buist, Tales from Under the Rim: The Marketing of Tim Hortons is an engrossing, fast-paced business memoir.

Goose Lane Editions has released a biography that reveals the private world of one of Canada’s most fascinating politicians. Almost four years after stepping down as Premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna is as much on the minds of political watchers across Canada as ever. The question today, however, is will he or won’t he get back into the political ring. While the guessing game continues, Philip Lee’s new book Frank: The Life and Politics of Frank McKenna provides fresh insights into the man and his politics.

Shortlisted, Toronto Book AwardsOn May 2, 1967, Montreal and Toronto faced each other in a battle for hockey supremacy. This was only the fifth time the teams had ever played each other in the Stanley Cup finals. Toronto led the series 3-2. But this wasn't simply a game. From the moment Foster Hewitt announced "Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States," the game became a turning point in sports history. That night, the Leafs would win the Cup. The next season, the National Hockey League would expand to twelve teams.