National Network for Equitable Library Service

Terry Ryan was poised to take the hockey world by storm when he was selected eighth overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1995 NHL draft, their highest draft pick in a decade. Expected to go on to become a hockey star, Ryan played a total of eight NHL games for the Canadiens, scoring no goals and no assists: not exactly the career he, or anyone else, was expecting.

Straight from the Hart is the no-holds-barred book about the often surreal, physically and psychologically brutal and politically cutthroat world of professional wrestling that fans everywhere — from the most casual or skeptical observer to the most rabid, hardcore aficionado of the action from the squared circle — have truly been waiting for.

Picking up where his first memoir, Young Hunting, left off, Martin Hunter writes of his return to Toronto in the 1960s. He marries his teenage sweetheart, goes to work for the family paper company, fathers three children, and settles into a bourgeois lifestyle. But not for long.

A vivid look inside the elite and cutthroat classical music world

When Patti Niemi was 10 years old, all the children in her school music class lined up to choose their instruments. Boy after boy chose drums, and girl after girl chose flute — that is, until it was Patti’s turn. From that point onward, Niemi devoted her life to mastering the percussive arts. Cymbals, snare drum, marimba, timpani, chimes: she practised them all, and in 1983, she entered Juilliard, the most prestigious music conservatory in the world.

Any look at Stephen Harper and the new Conservative party requires an examination of the evangelical Christian legacy coming out of both the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. In Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance, award-winning journalist Lloyd Mackey discovers how Harper handles this legacy carefully, tracing the influence of the writings of such religious icons as C.S. Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge on Harper's world view.

His women were tens, his guns were .38s, and his collection of jewel-encrusted walking canes numbered in the hundreds. For nearly 50 years, Jay Bernstein was a Hollywood fixture, owning one of the most powerful PR firms in Hollywood, making stars of Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers, and producing dozens of television films and series.

The story of the enigmatic beauty who captured the hearts of two extraordinary men. At 22, Marianne Ihlen travelled to the Greek island of Hydra with writer Axel Jensen. While Axel wrote, Marianne kept house, until Axel abandoned her and their newborn son for another woman. One day while Marianne was shopping in a little grocery store, in walked a man who asked her to join him and some friends outside at their table. He introduced himself as Leonard Cohen, then a little-known Canadian poet.

Documenting the rise of women's wrestling from sideshow to WWE main event Sisterhood of the Squared Circle presents the fascinating history of women's wrestling, from the carnival circuit of the late 1800s to today's hugely popular matches. With more than 100 wrestler profiles, find out how backstage politics, real-life grudges, and incredible personalities shaped the business.

Shooters recounts the stories of athletes like Brock Lesnar and Gene LeBell, men who have lived their lives on the border between 'works' and 'shoots,' between the routines of the professional wrestling circuit and the legitimate confrontations that made their reputations.

Reflections from a rabbi who has explored other faiths and spiritual paths

Jerry Steinberg’s spiritual quest started at a young age. Explorations of Christian and Hindu faiths led Steinberg to a specialization in psychotherapy (past–life regression, dreams, and psychogenic illness). He became a rabbi, while continuing to explore all aspects of faith with an emphasis on Kabbalah.