It’s 1942 and Hitler’s armies stand astride Europe like a colossus. Germany is winning on every front. This is the story of how one of the world’s first commando units, put together for the invasion of Norway, helped turn the tide in Italy.1942. When the British generals recommend an audacious plan to parachute a small elite commando unit into Norway in a bid to put Nazi Germany on the defensive, Winston Churchill is intrigued. But Britain, fighting for its life, c...

The First World War lasted for four years and three months. And when it ended on November 11, 1918, the people of Pine Street, a sleepy avenue on the outskirts of Winnipeg, came to a startling realization. During the course of the conflict, young Leo Clarke, Robert Shankland, and Fred Hall, all from their street, had each received the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery at that time. Such a phenomenon has never been repeated anywhere in the former British empire.Accessing...

From journalist John Nadler comes a real-life Romeo and Juliet story set in war-torn Kosovo.Nadler has stumbled upon a bitter epic romance in the ashes of inter-ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia. The cast: a pair of star-cross’d lovers, a young Kosovar man and a Serb woman; the girl’s father, a local militiaman who is determined to crush the relationship; and a war correspondent in the role of Friar Lawrence, entrusted with the commission of reuniting the lovers.Gjorg ...

2009 Christy Award finalist!After a series of kidnappings and murders in Virginia Beach, newspaper reporter Catherine O'Rourke experiences disturbing dreams that detail each crime. In an effort to aid the investigation, she shares them with her confidential source—a detective working on the case. Catherine's intimate knowledge of the crimes immediately makes her a prime suspect. When scientific evidence corroborates her guilt, she's arrested and charged with murder....

Red is a brilliantly told, captivating history of red hair throughout the ages. A book that breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, with a look at multiple disciplines, including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art.With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in pr...

SHORTLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2017The Right to Be Cold is a human story of resilience, commitment, and survival told from the unique vantage point of an Inuk woman who, in spite of many obstacles, rose from humble beginnings in the Arctic community of Kuujjuaq, Quebec—where she was raised by a single parent and grandmother and travelled by dog team in a traditional, ice-based Inuit hunting culture—to become one of the most influential and decorated environmental, cu...

At the birth of Radar Radmanovic, all of the hospital electricity mysteriously fails. When the lights are turned on again, the staff is startled to see the healthy baby boy--with unusually black skin--born to the two stunned Caucasian parents. Despite the father’s joy at the successful delivery, it is the mother, Charlene, who bears the brunt of the gossip and speculation, and who becomes overwhelmed with her need to ‘fix’ the skin color of her beloved Radar. Though Charlene has her own pr...

In this darkly comical look at the sinister side of our relationship with the natural world, Stewart has tracked down over one hundred of our worst entomological foes—creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. From the world’s most painful hornet, to the flies that transmit deadly diseases, to millipedes that stop traffic, to the “bookworms” that devour libraries, to the Japanese beetles munching on your roses, Wicked Bugs delves into the extraordin...

NOMINATED FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZEA profoundly moving literary novel about the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, A Short History of Women chronicles five generations of women from the close of the 19th century through the early years of the 21st century.Beginning in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Trevor Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause, the novel traces the echoes of her c...

For nearly 100 years Canada's role in ending WWI sooner than anyone thought possible has gone largely unrecognized. The Canadian Corp led by citizen soldier, Arthur Currie, became the premiere fighting force on the Western Front. The fact that Canada was not yet a formalized nation but a Dominion at the close of the war may be the reason for the absence of recognition yet the record of the Canadian WWI military accomplishments is irrefutable.Canadian soldiers unlike British "city b...

“In June a few years ago I set out to visit some of the World War One battlefields of Europe – the slope and valley and river and plain that the Newfoundland Regiment trained on, and fought over and through and under.”So begins Michael Winter’s extraordinary narrative that follows two parallel journeys, one laid on top of the other like a sketch on opaque paper over the lines of an old map. The first journey is that of the young men who came from Newfoundland’s outports, f...

Terry Boyle unveils the eccentric and bizarre in these mini-histories of Ontario's towns and cities: the imposter who ran the Rockwood Asylum in Kingston; Ian Fleming's inspiration for James Bond; the Prince of Wales's undignified crossing of Rice Lake; the tragic life of Joseph Brant; the man who advertised his wife's death before poisoning her; as well as Ontario's first bullfight and the answer to the question, "Why did so many lumberjacks sport beards?"The colourful characters,...