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History and Current Events April 2025 |
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Oceans of Fate : Peace and Peril Aboard the Steamship Empress of Asia
by Dan Black
The remarkable story of how one ship -- doomed by war -- intersected lives and crossed into history. Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly thirty years. Built for peacetime travel, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive bombers destroyed her off Singapore in 1942. Through the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multi-million-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a "Greyhound of the Pacific," encountering enormous storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers and weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so idle rich.
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| Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by Alexander ClappJournalist Alexander Clapp's disturbing and well-researched debut explores the history of the global trash trade. Further reading: Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis. |
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| The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second... by Kevin FaganAward-winning San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan's moving and intimate social history explores homelessness through the experiences of a pair of individuals trying to get by in San Francisco, California. Further reading: Seeking Shelter: A Working Mother, Her Children, and a Story of Homelessness in America by Jeff Hobbs. |
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| Disposable: America's Contempt for the Underclass by Sarah JonesNew York magazine senior writer Sarah Jones' moving and impassioned debut examines how inequities during COVID-19 exacerbated the "social murder" of poor, disabled, and elderly Americans. Further reading: The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher. |
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| Propaganda Girls: The Secret War of the Women in the OSS by Lisa RogakBestselling biographer Lisa Rogak's evocative blend of history and collective biography chronicles the courageous exploits of four women who worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II: American reporter Betty MacDonald, Czech polyglot Zuzka Lauwers, American navy wife Jane Smith-Hutton, and German American film star Marlene Dietrich. For fans of: Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham. |
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Hitman : The Untold Story of Canada's Deadliest Assassin
by Julian Sher
An assassin for the Hells Angels in the '70s and '80s, Yves Trudeau was known as Apache, the Mad Bumper and the Mad Bomber. As a contract killer, he did his job so well that the bikers sometimes lent him out to other organized-crime empires in Montreal, including the east-end French gangs led by the deadly Dubois brothers and the upstart Irish Mafia in the west end. When he narrowly missed being assassinated because he was in rehab, he turned government informant, but as a witness, Trudeau was a disaster. His testimony led to so many acquittals that prosecutors avoided him. Award-winning writers Julian Sher and Lisa Fitterman tell the incredible story of how this assassin escaped the police and the justice system for over a decade.
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| Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America by Russell ShortoDrawing on never-before-seen archival materials, bestselling author Russell Shorto's (The Island at the Center of the World) lively social history explores the early days of New York City, from its 1626 purchase by the Dutch to its capture by the English four decades later. For fans of: The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village by John Strausbaugh. |
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Mining Camp Tales of the Silvery Slocan : A History of British Columbia's Silver Rush
by Peter Smith
Mining Camp Tales of the Silvery Slocan tells the often-overlooked story of British Columbia's silver rush and its accompanying boom towns. In the 1890s, mining camps like Sandon, Three Forks, Whitewater and their neighbours, New Denver, Silverton, Slocan City, Kaslo and Nakusp, thrived. Prospectors, miners and capitalists flooded in from investment centres across North America and the world. At its height, the silver rush ushered in a frenzy of activity, where "cities" sprang up out of nowhere, cultures clashed, greed and racism prevailed, law and order was a matter of perspective, and yet, somehow, people still united in song, dance, and a spirit of community. Although the boom era was short-lived, the rush left a legacy that endures to this day.
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| Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine StewartJournalist Katherine Stewart's (The Power Worshippers) thought-provoking latest is an eye-opening exploration of the often disparate factions that comprise the American far right and "offers urgently needed background on the 2024 election results" (Publishers Weekly). Try this next: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta. |
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| American Poison: A Deadly Invention and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice by Daniel StoneIn this lively and unputdownable account, science writer Daniel Stone (Sinkable) spotlights physician and researcher Alice Hamilton's courageous but ultimately doomed efforts to ban leaded gasoline in the 1920s, a battle that pitted her against the booming automotive industry. Try this next: The Cancer Factory: Industrial Chemicals, Corporate Deception, and the Hidden Deaths of American Workers by Jim Morris. |
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Douglas Lake Ranch : Empire of Grass
by Donna Yoshitake Wuest
Explore the rich history of Canada's largest ranch. Douglas Lake is the largest ranch in Canada, encompassing over one million acres of BC's south-central interior, and thousands of people have worked there since it was founded in the mid 1880s. Douglas Lake now includes BC's first cattle ranch, Alkali Lake Ranch, as well as Circle S Ranch, Quilchena Ranch, Riske Creek Ranching and the infamous Gang Ranch. It has had a succession of wealthy owners including Charles "Chunky" Woodward of Woodward's Stores and current owner, US real estate and sports mogul Stan Kroenke. It has recreational facilities and is known for hosting celebrity guests like Prince Philip, billionaire media mogul Malcolm Forbes and others but, as this book shows, it is a serious working cattle ranch. Having grown up on a BC ranch, author Donna Yoshitake Wuest brings an insider's understanding to the subject. The book is rich with stories about the ranch's wealthy owners, celebrity guests and hard-working cowhands."
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