Wherever people can read, there are stories about the magic, mystery, and power of what they read. Val Ross presents a history of reading that is, in fact, the story of the monumental, on-going struggle to read. From Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, the world’s oldest signed author to Empress Shotoku of Japan who in 764 ordered the printing of one million Buddhist prayers; from the story of Hulagu, Ghengis Khan’s nasty brother who destroyed the library of Baghdad to Bowdler and th...

**Winner of the 2004 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian children’s non-fictionHonor Book for the Society of School Librarians International’s Best Book Award – Social Studies, Grades 7-12****Shortlisted for the Children's Literature Roundtable Information Book of the Year2003 winner of the Mr. Christie’s Book Award Seal****Shortlisted for the 2004 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-fictionIncluded on VOYA’s ninth annual Nonfiction Hon...

National bestseller and a Globe and Mail Best BookA fascinating, larger-than-life character, Davies left a treasure trove of stories about him when he died in 1995 — expertly arranged here into a revealing portrait.From his student days onward, Robertson Davies made a huge impression on those around him. He was so clearly bound for a glorious future that some young friends even carefully preserved his letters. And everyone remembered their encounte...

Centrifugal Pumps: Design and Application, Second Edition focuses on the design of chemical pumps, composite materials, manufacturing techniques employed in nonmetallic pump applications, mechanical seals, and hydraulic design. The publication first offers information on the elements of pump design, specific speed and modeling laws, and impeller design. Discussions focus on shape of head capacity curve, pump speed, viscosity, specific gravity, correction for impeller trim, model law, and d...

Born in Thamesville, Ontario, a student at Queen’s University in Kingston in the 1930’s, and editor and later publisher of the Peterborough Examiner from the 1940s to the mid-1960s, playwright, essayist, critic, professor, and novelist Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was one of Canada’s pre-eminent literary voices for more than a half-century.Davies, with his generous beard and donnish manner, was the very epitome of the "man of letters," a term he abhorred. Best known for his Deptfor...

Father Tom Christmas moves to the picturesque English hamlet of Thornford Regis to become its new vicar and to seek a peaceful haven. But inside the empty village hall, the huge Japanese o-daiko drum that’s featured in the May Fayre festivities has been viciously sliced open—and curled up inside is the bludgeoned body of Sybella Parry, the daughter of the choir director. Realizing this village is not the refuge he’d hoped for, Father Tom comes to a disturbing conclusion: Sybella’s...

Before internationally acclaimed author Joseph Boyden penned his bestselling novel Three Day Road and his Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning novel, Through Black Spruce, he published a powerful collection of thirteen stories about modern Aboriginal life that made readers and reviewers take notice. These stories of love, loss, rage and resilience match virtuosic style with clever wit to turn stereotypes on their head and reveal the traditions and grace of our First Peoples. R...

"Enlightenment meets On the Road in this witty, insightful novel." — The Boston Sunday GlobeWhen his sister tricks him into taking her guru on a trip to their childhood home, Otto Ringling, a confirmed skeptic, is not amused. Six days on the road with an enigmatic holy man who answers every question with a riddle is not what he'd planned. But in an effort to westernize his passenger—and amuse himself—he decides to show the monk some "American fun" ...

What if the best morning of your life suddenly turned into your worst nightmare? Sam Case is about to find out. Saving Rachel is the story of what happens when killers force a man to choose between his wife and his mistress...and the one he rejects must die. "If Dean Koontz collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock at the circus, this would be their brain child." –Vintage DM Book Reviews

In this extraordinary account of life as midwife in 1950s London, Jennifer Worth recounts her experiences - and those of the women she helped - in all their stark, colourful and at times shocking reality.Life in London's East End in the 1950s was tough. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray brothers and gang warfare, the meths drinkers in the bomb sites - this was the world that Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of twenty-two. Babies were...

Explore the true resilience of the heart and our raw determination to find goodness in a world fraught with adversityOne Woman’s Courage in the face of personal tragedy is at the heart of Heather A. Clark’s debut novel. Thirty–three–year–old Nicky Fowler thought her whole life was mapped out — a rewarding career as a third grade teacher, an adoring husband, and the perfect house in the suburbs — but complicated fertility issues lead to a devastating tragedy. Nicky’s marria...

In the early 1950s, an eleven-year-old boy in Colombo boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the “cat’s table”—as far from the Captain’s Table as can be—with a ragtag group of “insignificant” adults and two other boys, Cassius and Ramadhin. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, bursting all over the place like freed mercury. But there are other diversions as we...