Prisoner 4374


A.J. Griffiths-Jones - 2015
     For more than a century, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream has been listed as a potential 'Jack the Ripper' suspect. He was a sinister character, preying on the unfortunate souls who were forced to make a living as streetwalkers in Victorian London, and ultimately led those poor women to an untimely and torturous death. These crimes eventually branded him the 'Lambeth Poisoner'. However, during the time of the heinous Ripper murders, Dr. Cream was incarcerated in Joliet Prison, Illinois. Over the decades, this fact alone has caused debate as to whether or not he deserves to be under suspicion of being the Whitechapel fiend. Was it possible that Dr. Cream bribed his way out of jail, perhaps using a doppelganger to take his place while secretly finding a passage to England with murder in mind? This fascinating book, told from the standpoint of Cream himself, explains the twisted logic behind his actions. The author has done considerable and meticulous research, tracing Cream's life from his adolescent years in Canada to his last moments on the gallows at Newgate.

True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness


Elliott Merrick - 1989
    One exception was twenty-four-year-old Elliott Merrick, who in 1929 left his advertising job in New Jersey and moved to Labrador, one of Canada’s most remote regions. First published by Scribner’s in 1933, True North tells the captivating story of one of the high points of Merrick’s years there: a hunting trip he and his wife, Kay, made with trapper John Michelin in 1930. Covering 300 miles over a harsh winter, they experienced an unexplored realm of nature at its most intense and faced numerous challenges. Merrick accidentally shot himself in the thigh and almost cut off his toe. Freezing cold and hunger were constant. Nonetheless, the group found beauty and even magic in the stark landscape. The couple and the trappers bonded with each other and their environment through such surprisingly daunting tasks as fabricating sunglasses to avoid snow blindness and learning to wash underwear without it freezing. Merrick’s intimate style, rich with narrative detail, brings readers into a dramatic story of survival and shares the lesson the Merricks learned: that the greatest satisfaction in life can come from the simplest things.

The Voyage of the Northern Magic: a Family Odyssey


Diane Stuemer - 2002
    A year later they had sold their business, rented out their house, and were setting out to circumnavigate the globe in a 40-year-old yacht. Their entire sailing experience consisted of six afternoons on the Ottawa River.Over the next four years, squeezed into quarters no bigger than the Stuemers’ old bedroom, the family of five would become seasoned mariners. They would battle deadly storms at sea and evade real-life pirates. Dodge waterspouts and lightning strikes and witness the bombing of the USS Cole. See the staggering beauty of Borneo’s rainforest, and its destruction from logging. Be arrested at gunpoint and entertained like visiting royalty. In all, they would visit 34 countries and cover 35,000 nautical miles.Almost everywhere they went, the family made lasting friendships. They learned to trust each other and embrace opportunity, and in Kenya they learned the true meaning of humanity. As Northern Magic pushed onward, many thousands followed the family’s progress in Diane’s dispatches to the Ottawa Citizen, and thousands more turned out to cheer when the amazing Stuemers came home.

Belonging: Home Away from Home


Isabel Huggan - 2003
    Shifting from memoir to fiction, it focuses on the commonplace experiences underlying our lives that are the true basis for storytelling. At the book’s core is Isabel Huggan’s old house in rural France, from where she contemplates the real meaning of “home,” and the mysterious manner in which memory gives substance to ordinary things around us. With a light touch, she brings to life the people she has met in her travels from whom valuable lessons have been learned.Isabel Huggan writes with the candour and compassion that made her earlier books so well loved, and here she speaks even more clearly from the heart. Belonging is an intimate conversation between the narrator who needs to examine her life because it has not turned out as she expected, and her readers, who will find their own concerns illuminated in surprising ways. Slowly, a pattern emerges as certain motifs become apparent: happiness, friendship, landscape, language, heartache. As the book draws to a close, readers will understand the fictional character who says, “There is nothing in our lives that doesn’t fit.”

Naked Imperfection: A Memoir


Gillian Deacon - 2014
    So when the all-natural, vegetarian, yoga-practising, marathon-running mother of three young boys was diagnosed with breast cancer, the world stopped making sense.In an increasingly perilous environment, the promise of order amid chaos is so tantalizing.Every busy woman will recognize herself in Gill’s striving—if we just get through our to-do list of achievements and improvements, we can get our lives under control …can’t we? The illusion of perfection is a powerful motivator, propelling so many of us on a breakneck pace toward somewhere other than where we are right now. But as only a brush with death can teach us, Gill learns the folly of believing we are in control.Readers will be inspired to appreciate the ragged imperfection of right now and learn to find glimpses of gratitude in every moment of any day.

The Care Factor


Ailsa Wild - 2021
    As a nurse, her skill is to care. When Covid-19 began to spread across the world in 2020, Sim volunteered to retrain to work in Melbourne’s intensive care units. And as she prepared to go back to ICU and case numbers began climbing, Sim started talking to her friend Ailsa. Through the exhaustion, the confusion, the many tears and the surprising moments of hilarity, Sim kept talking. And Ailsa started writing.  In The  Care Factor, Ailsa walks behind Sim as she faces the realities of the coronavirus. The result is a deeply human account of what the pandemic has really meant, not just for Sim and her fellow health professionals, but also for their patients, their families and friends, and the many who faced life in lockdown. This is a celebration of nursing, of friendship, and of the layers of connection and care that allow us to keep going when it feels impossible.  'This book has single-handedly restored my faith in humanity. Offering a rare and thrilling glimpse into the life of a frontline healthcare worker during the COVID-19 Pandemic, The Care Factor is full to bursting with spirit, guts, empathy and love. It humbled and moved me in so many ways. I can’t recommend it enough!' – Emily Bitto, author of Stella Prize winning novel The Strays

Cabin at Singing River: One Woman's Story of Building a Home in the Wilderness


Chris Czajkowski - 1991
    There, she single-handedly cleared the land and — despite a total lack of experience in construction — built her own house.More than simply a lyrical celebration of the natural world, Cabin at Singing River is a story of courage, perseverance and imagination. From the moment Chris sets her inexperienced foot into an unsteady canoe until the triumphant day she stands back to survey the log house she has built, we are irresistibly drawn into her remarkable journey toward independence.

David Suzuki's Green Guide


David Suzuki - 2008
    With this indispensable guide, readers will learn to consume fewer resources and become part of the solution as stewards of the planet. This book recommends actions for individuals to be more green in the homes where we live, the way we travel, the food we eat, and the things we buy. It also describes how all of us can ensure that governments support sustainable lifestyles. Suzuki and Boyd provide vital tips for readers to:create a healthy indoor environmentdecrease energy and water usechoose eco-friendly transportationmake simple diet changes to eat fresher, healthier foodPublished in partnership with the David Suzuki Foundation.

Amateur: An inexpert, inexperienced, unauthoritative, enamored view of life. (How To Be Ferociously Happy Book 2)


Dushka Zapata - 2016
     It's meant to be a very easy read; not a book you read systematically from beginning to end but rather a book to read during those times you find reading a book overwhelming. How we choose to look at something is essential to our happiness, and the author, Dushka Zapata, hopes to leave readers with a little of that.

Before the Lights Go Out: A Season Inside a Game on the Brink


Sean Fitz-Gerald - 2019
    It's become more expensive, more exclusive, and effectively off-limits to huge swaths of the potential sports-loving population. Youth registration numbers are stagnant; efforts to appeal to new Canadians are often grim at best; the game, increasingly, does not resemble the country of which it's for so long been an integral part. These signs worried Sean Fitz-Gerald. As a lifelong hockey fan and father of a young mixed-race son falling headlong in love with the game, he wanted to get to the roots of these issues. His entry point: a season with the Peterborough Petes, a storied OHL team far from its former glory in a once-emblematic Canadian city that is finding itself on the wrong side of the country's changing demographics. Fitz-Gerald profiles the players, coaches and front office staff, a mix of world-class talents with NHL aspirations and Peterborough natives happy with more modest dreams. Through their experiences, their widely varied motivations and expectations, we get a rich, colourful understanding of who ends up playing hockey in Canada and why. Fitz-Gerald interweaves the action of the season with portraits of public figures who've shaped and been shaped by the game: authors who captured its spirit, politicians who exploited it, and broadcasters who try to embody and sell it. He finds his way into community meetings full of angry season ticket holders, as well as into sterile boardrooms full of the sport's institutional brain trust, unable to break away from the inertia of tradition and hopelessly at war with itself. Before the Lights Go Out is a moving, funny, yet unsettling picture of a sport at a crossroads. Fitz-Gerald's warm but rigorous journalistic approach reads, in the end, like a letter to a troubled friend: it's not too late to save hockey in this country, but who has the will to do it?

The Dogs Who Came to Stay


George Pitcher - 1995
    Capturing the wonderful and wise changes wrought in human and canine lives as they try to learn each other's ways, this endearing memoir is a love story with a difference. Photos.

Lost at Thaxton: The Dramatic True Story of Virginia's Forgotten Train Wreck


Michael E. Jones - 2013
    An earthen fill that carried the railroad over the creek could not withstand the power of the rising water, and Norfolk & Western passenger train Number Two plummeted into a hole in the earth. There in the valley beneath the shadow of the towering Peaks of Otter, passengers and crew scrambled from the wreckage and water in a life-or-death struggle. The best and worst of humanity were on display in the small hours of the night, as some worked heroically to rescue those trapped in the debris while others stood by concerned only for themselves. A terrible fire ensued, and those who remained trapped were consumed by the flames. The bloodied and battered survivors suffered through four more hours of isolation and torture in the rain alongside the burning wreckage before help would finally arrive.Written and extensively researched by the great-great grandson of the railroad section master at Thaxton, Lost at Thaxton tells the forgotten true story of one of the worst railroad accidents in the history of Virginia and the people who lived and died that night.

Everyday Hockey Heroes: Inspiring Stories On and Off the Ice


Bob McKenzie - 2018
    Meet Philadelphia Flyer Wayne Simmonds and Paralympian gold medalist Greg Westlake, who wouldn’t be at the top of their sport without the never-ending support of their families and communities. See how they’re giving back to show young hockey hopefuls that anything is possible. Read about players like Ben Fanelli, who overcame catastrophic injury to keep playing the game he loved and is using his story as a platform to help others, or the renowned Canadian neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Tator, who is leading the charge to protect athletes from the dangers of brain trauma and concussion. From hockey commentators Andi Petrillo and Harnarayan Singh, who broke down barriers to be on air, to Karina Potvin, the youth hockey coach welcoming Syrian boys and girls to Canada by introducing them to our national pastime, these are the stories of everyday hockey heroes—those who defy the odds, advocate for inclusion, and champion the next generation of hockey. From small-town rinks to big city arenas across the country, this collection celebrates everyone who loves our great game. Heartwarming and entertaining, Everyday Hockey Heroes is a must-read for every hockey fan.

Stallion Challenges


Kelly Wilson - 2015
    From the author of the bestselling book For the Love of Horses, comes an epic new journey to rescue wild Kaimanawa horses from the biennial cull.Follow television stars Vicki, Kelly and Amanda Wilson on their quest to train 10 wild, difficult and sometimes dangerous Kaimanawas for competition in the first national Stallion Challenges.Can the Wilsons change these horses' fate? Share the heartbreak, the pain, the elation and the success as they take on their greatest challenge yet.

Confidence: The Secret


Katie Piper - 2016
    She has overcome more than anyone else I know' CHERYL'Katie Piper has an attitude to life that can make anything bearable. She's a hero' MARIAN KEYESWith her warm and honest voice that has captivated us all, Katie Piper shares her experiences of becoming happier and braver than ever - and shows how you can achieve the confidence you never thought possible. 'I believe that you decide what you want in life, and then you go out and make it happen. Breaking down taboos is one of my goals, and I know there are other people who feel the same way. Who writes the rules? We do! I was never going to give my attackers the satisfaction of being the girl whose life they ruined. Instead I chose what I wanted to be and then I went out there and did everything I could to be it. You can, too. Success is a journey, not a destination. It doesn't happen in a straight line, the path goes off to one side and then the other all the time. But when it veers off track you just get back on it and keep going. Create your own future, and your own closure. Don't look for happiness in other people, find it in yourself.' Katie Piper Join Katie on her journey to inner confidence - with her help and guidance, the true, deep-down confidence you deserve is within your reach.