|
History and Current Events April 2021
|
|
|
|
|
Catastrophe : Stories and Lessons from the Halifax Explosion
by T. Joseph Scanlon
On December 6, 1917, the Canadian city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was shattered when volatile cargo on the SS Mont-Blanc freighter exploded in the bustling wartime harbour. More than nineteen hundred people were killed and nine thousand injured. Across more than two square kilometres some 1200 homes, factories, schools and churches were obliterated or heavily damaged....Rich in firsthand accounts gathered in decades of research in Canada, the US, the UK, France and Norway, the book examines the disaster from all angles. It delivers an inspiring message: the women and men at “ground zero” responded speedily, courageously, and effectively, fighting fires, rescuing the injured, and sheltering the homeless.
|
|
|
How We Go Home : Voices from Indigenous North America
by Sara Sinclair
Hear from Jasilyn Charger, one of the first five people to set up camp at Standing Rock, which kickstarted a movement of Water Protectors that roused the world; Gladys Radek, a survivor of sexual violence whose niece disappeared along Canada’s Highway of Tears, who became a family advocate for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; and Marian Naranjo, herself the subject of a secret radiation test while in high school, who went on to drive Santa Clara Pueblo toward compiling an environmental impact statement on the consequences of living next to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Theirs are stories shaped by loss, injustice, resilience, and the struggle to share space with settler nations.
|
|
|
Dragons in the snow : avalanche detectives and the race to beat death in the mountains
by Edward Power
""Dragons in the Snow" explores the world of avalanches. Journalist Power sets the reader down in the midst of a February 2017 blizzard that raked the Uinta Range as nine snowboarders made their way into the backcountry for a day of intense adventure. Meanwhile, Craig Gordon, one of the lead avalanche forecasters at the Utah Avalanche Center in. Salt Lake City, was tracking the storm and its impact, and found himself posting one of the most dire avalanche forecasts and warnings in his seventeen years of forecasting. From this fast-paced opening sequence, Power expands his focus, to include perspectives and experiences of men and women who have been caught in avalanches, the R&D of avalanche forecasting and equipment, the role of avalanche dogs, the effects of climate change on winter sports, and so much more"
|
|
|
Cold case north : the search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett
by Michael Wallace Nest
In 1967, prospectors James Brady and Absolom Halkett disappeared in northern Saskatchewan while looking for the next big claim, but fifty years later, they are still missing and their Indigenous community is still searching for answers.
|
|
|
Globish : how the English language became the world's language
by Robert McCrum
The coauthor of the bestselling book and television series The Story of English discusses how Anglo-American has become the language of the world, and describes the changes that English has brought to far-away cultures in distant places.
|
|
|
The professor and the madman : a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English dictionary
by Simon Winchester
The Professor and the Madman is masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
|
|
|
The meaning of everything : the story of the Oxford English Dictionary
by Simon Winchester
The creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary was an extraordinary endeavour, lasting over 70 years. In The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester recounted one fascinating episode; in The Meaning of Everything, he tells the whole story of the host of characters who carried out 'the greatest enterprise of its kind in history'.
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|