Maus by Art Spiegelman

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A biography of the author’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek’s life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek’s later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of New York City. It is the only comic book ever to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

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Blankets by Craig Thompson

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This sensitive memoir recreates the confusion, emotional pain and isolation of the author’s rigidly fundamentalist Christian upbringing, along with the trepidation of growing into maturity. Skinny, naive and spiritually vulnerable, Thompson’s a lost, socially battered and confused soul-until he meets Raina and her clique of amiable misfits at a religious camp. Beautiful, open, flexibly spiritual and even popular (something incomprehensible to young Thompson), Raina introduces him to her own less-than-perfect family; to a new teen community and to a broader sense of himself and his future.

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Laika by Nick Abadzis

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Following the story of plucky Laika — the first dog in space — the reader experiences her entire life from a mongrel living in the streets to the tragic loss of her canine companion, her captivity in the government lab, her endearing relationship with the unwavering caretaker Yelena and her tragic fatal mission. Evincing the cruelty and sadness of her life, Laika’s striving to be loved echoes, and the strong bond between man — or woman — and his best friend resound off every page of her journey. The striking palette of earth tones works in concert with the compelling historically fictive prose — a luminous masterpiece filled with pathos and poignancy.

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Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, who has often been called the first comic book journalist.

Sacco’s insightful reportage takes place at the front lines, where busy marketplaces are spoiled by shootings and tear gas, soldiers beat civilians with reckless abandon, and roadblocks go up before reporters can leave. Sacco interviewed and encountered prisoners, refugees, protesters, wounded children, farmers who had lost their land, and families who had been torn apart by the Palestinian conflict.

Library2go is an entire virtual branch that you can access from anywhere (provided you have an Internet connection) and check out digital materials from.

You can access this virutal branch by going to the Palliser Regional Library site and clicking on the Library2go banner.

If you are uncertain of how to check out and download digital materials, library2go has a comprhensive set of video tutorials that take you through the process step by step.

You can also read a Quick Start Guide that outlines how to download and activate the free software you need to enjoy digitial items and how to check out items from library2go. 

If you have more questions about Library2go, you can visit out Palliser Help Site or ask a librarian for assistance.

The Yes Men Fix the World

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The Yes Men again pull off one bold prank after another in an effort to raise political consciousness. Posing as top executives of giant corporations, they lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks.

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Capitalism: A Love Story

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Capitalism: A Love Story examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). The film moves from Middle America, to the halls of power in Washington, to the global financial epicenter in Manhattan. With both humor and outrage, the film explores the question: What is the price that America pays for its love of capitalism?

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Food, Inc.

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Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and its employees.

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RUSH: Beyond the Lighted Stage

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An in-depth look at the Canadian rock band Rush, chronicling the band’s musical evolution from their progressive rock sound of the ’70s to their current heavy rock style.

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It Might Get Loud

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A documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: the Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White. Viewers will hear fresh music from each artist and witness intimate moments as they discuss what influences how they write and play. It also looks back at their individual lives and careers.

Building Our Future: A People’s Architectural History of Saskatchewan by Joe Ralko

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Produced in cooperation with The Saskatchewan Architectural Heritage Society (SAHS), Building Our Future is an historical account that researches not just monuments, but also the history of individuals to provide a unique glimpse into the tightly–woven fabric of prairie society, not just the bricks and mortar of the buildings. It accurately reflects Saskatchewan’s unique growth over 100 years in confederation, providing snapshots of history in rural and urban environments, in business, faith and farming.

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Everett Baker’s Saskatchewan: Portraits of an Era

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Everett Baker’s Saskatchewan is a book filled with photos of the province as Baker saw it starting in 1937, when he traveled from town to town as a field man for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. With his German-made 35mm Leica camera, Baker took Kodachrome colour slide pictures of the people, towns, and farms he visited, immortalizing a unique chapter in Saskatchewan’s history. It was the golden age of the co-operative movement in the province, as well as a time of change with the rise of Tommy Douglas’s Co-operative Commonwealth Federation government. The old world was slipping into the shadow of the new, and Baker was there to capture it before it disappeared altogether.

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Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw by Edward Willett

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A century and a quarter ago, Regina was literally a “Pile O’ Bones” and Moose Jaw nothing but a fur traders’ camp. Today Regina is Saskatchewan’s thriving capital, and Moose Jaw is the province’s fourth largest city. Now you can stroll through both cities’ sometimes turbulent, sometimes triumphant histories with Historic Walks of Regina and Moose Jaw. Edward Willett, a Regina writer with a keen interest in history and architecture, points out the buildings and historic sites that have played an important role in the development of these sister cities. You’ll get a feel for the way the cities looked in the past, and learn how they’ve developed into what they are today.

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Saskatchewan: A New History by Bill Waiser

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In Saskatchewan: A New History, award-winning author and historian Bill Waiser presents a fresh, entertaining account and interpretation of Saskatchewan’s unique and captivating history. Writing with clarity, candor, and compassion, Waiser describes in detail his province and its people through the stimulating, often tumultuous years since joining Confederation in 1905.

You can get a head start on the Canada Reads Nominees by checking them out at your library!

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

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The novel’s protagonist, Dan Addison, has had his fill of Parliament Hill propaganda and backbench manoeuvring. A former speechwriter for the leader of the Liberal Opposition, he’s disillusioned by the discrepancy between what’s said on the Hill and what’s done behind the scenes. Now in his 30s, he’s washing his hands of the whole thing. Dan Addison is dropping out of politics for the relatively tame world of academe.

Not so fast, say his former employers. Before Dan can cast off politics once and for all he’s given a Herculean task: find the party a new Liberal candidate to run in the next federal election.

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The Birth House by Ami McKay

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The novel is set in a small Nova Scotia community during a period of great change: in Europe, the First World War is raging. In North America advances in medicine and social organization are radically altering they way people live. It’s an era charged with tumult, destruction and social revolution.

Dora Rare is the daughter of an East Coast shipbuilder. As the first female in five generations of Rares, young Dora more than lives up to her singular surname. As a teenager, she becomes apprenticed to the local midwife, the peculiar Acadian-Creole, Marie Babineau, from whom she learns about the ancient, almost mystical traditions of midwifery. Under Marie’s care, the babies of Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, are born at home, among friends and family. Together, Dora and Marie serve the local women not simply as midwives, but as confessors and healers, too. But when Dr. Gilbert Thomas sets up an obstetrics practice in the same community, Dora and Marie must fight to preserve the sanctity of their efforts and the validity of their traditions.

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The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou

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Sadie and Digger are amateur athletes with the same goal: to make it to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Sadie is a swimmer, Digger a wrestler. Both have spent an inordinate amount of time training and training and then training some more. They’ve made sacrifices, both personal and physical, over many years to achieve their dreams. But life will get in the way of dreams. Sadie, in particular, deals with tragic unforeseen circumstances, which threaten to undermine her dreams of Olympic glory. 

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Essex County by Jeff Lemire

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After the death of his mother, 10-year-old Lester, the central character of Tales from the Farm, is sent to live with his Uncle Ken, a rural bachelor and a man of few words. For the sensitive boy, comic books and superheroes are a welcome distraction from the painful circumstances of his life.

Lou LeBeuf, protagonist of Ghost Stories, is an aged hockey player living out his last days alone at his farm. Isolated and full of regret, he replays the turning points of his life once again.

Anne Quenneville is the focus of The Country Nurse. A travelling nurse in Essex County, she has seen her share of suffering. Perhaps that’s what makes her such a force for good. Through Anne, the trilogy finds resolution and its heartbreaking characters find much-needed connection.

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Unless by Carol Shields

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Reta Winters is going through a period of “great unhappiness.” The successful writer, wife and mother appears to have every gift life can offer, and yet, she’s miserable, consumed utterly by the sudden change in her 19-year-old daughter, Norah.

Without warning, the pretty, confident young university student has chucked it all — school, love, her family — for a life on the streets. Norah now spends her nights in a homeless shelter, and her days plunked on a street corner in downtown Toronto. Around her neck hangs a sign that reads “goodness.” She collects money from strangers, which she then distributes to the homeless of Toronto. The question that haunts her family: Why?

If you would like to request one of these titles, just click on the link or the DVD cover to be redirected to the library catalogue. DVDs can only be requested within your own region (Palliser Regional Library). As of now, DVDs from other regions are not available through SILS.

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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

Book 1 in series: Hunger Games

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City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

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In search of a potion for her dying mother, Clary sneaks into the City of Glass and is immediately caught up in a life-and-death battle. As the children of the Moon (werewolves), Night (vampires), and Faerie gather for a war that will rend the heavens, Clary calls upon her untrained powers to control an angel who will save or destroy them all. Readers should be familiar with the first two installments in the Mortal Instruments series, but there is nevertheless plenty of romance, loss, honor, and betrayal to make the journey worthwhile.

Book 1 in series: City of Bone

Book 2 in series: City of Ashes

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Heist Society by Ally Carter

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After a childhood spent assisting her father, one of the world’s most talented art thieves, Katarina Bishop tries to leave the family business behind when she forges her way into a New England boarding school. She quickly discovers, though, that her past is inescapable. Her father has been accused of stealing already stolen masterpieces from a dangerous Italian billionaire. Certain that her father is innocent, Kat resolves to find the missing paintings and return them to their unsavory owner, who has given her a two-week deadline.

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Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

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Grace, 17, loves the peace and tranquility of the woods behind her home. It is here during the cold winter months that she gets to see her wolf—the one with the yellow eyes. Grace is sure that he saved her from an attack by other wolves when she was nine. Over the ensuing years he has returned each season, watching her with those haunting eyes as if longing for something to happen. When a teen is killed by wolves, a hunting party decides to retaliate. Grace races through the woods and discovers a wounded boy shivering on her back porch. One look at his yellow eyes and she knows that this is her wolf in human form. Fate has finally brought Sam and Grace together, and as their love grows and intensifies, so does the reality of what awaits them. It is only a matter of time before the winter cold changes him back into a wolf, and this time he might stay that way forever.

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Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

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High school sophomore Nora Grey, a dedicated student striving for a college scholarship, lives with her widowed mother in a country farmhouse outside Portland, ME. When Patch, her new biology partner, is suddenly thrust into her life, Nora is both attracted to his charm and put off by his inexplicable awareness of her thoughts. Eventually, she learns that he is a fallen angel who wants to become human. She is susceptible to his control, but other forces are at work as well, and Nora finds herself caught in the middle of dangerous situations and unexplainable events.

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Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

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Ethan Wate, a high school sophomore, plans to escape his small Southern town as soon as he can. Life has been difficult since his mother died; his father, a writer, has withdrawn into his study. Then Lena Duchannes arrives, and this strange new girl is the very one who has been occupying his dreams. She and her kin are Casters, beings who have supernatural powers. Getting to know her exposes Ethan to time travel, mortal danger, and love. The teens can hardly bear to be apart, but Lena’s 16th birthday, when she will be Claimed for dark or light, is only 6 months away. To save her, they fight supernatural powers and the prejudice of closed-minded people.

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Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

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Auden is about to start college in the fall, and decides to escape her control-freak professor mom to spend the summer with her novelist father, his new young wife, and their brand-new baby daughter, Thisbe. Over the course of the summer, Auden tackles many new projects: learning to ride a bike, making real connections with peers, facing the emotional fallout of her parents’ divorce, distancing herself from her mother, and falling in love with Eli, a fellow insomniac bicyclist recovering from his own traumas. The cover may mislead readers, as despite the body language of the girl in pink and the hunky blue-jeaned boy balanced on a bike, this is no slight romance: there’s real substance here. Dessen’s many fans will not be deterred by the length or that cover; they expect nuanced, subtle writing, and they won’t be disappointed.

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If I Stay by Gayle Forman

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The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents’ corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live.

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Fire by Kristin Cashore

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This fantasy, shot through with romance and suspense, is set in the same world as Graceling (Dial, 2008), but on the far side of the mountain barrier in the kingdom of the Dells. Here there are monsters, enhanced and exceptionally beautiful versions of various animal species. Fire is a human monster, so beautiful that she has to hide her hair for fear of attack by both raptor monsters and human men. She is able to enter other people’s minds and exert power over them. It is a tumultuous time in the kingdom, as various lords are preparing to overthrow the king, and Fire is drawn into the fray.

Booke 1 in Series: Graceling

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Lia and Cassie had been best friends since elementary school, and each developed her own style of eating disorder that leads to disaster. Now 18, they are no longer friends. Despite their estrangement, Cassie calls Lia 33 times on the night of her death, and Lia never answers. As events play out, Lia’s guilt, her need to be thin, and her fight for acceptance unravel in an almost poetic stream of consciousness in this startlingly crisp and pitch-perfect first-person narrative. The text is rich with words still legible but crossed out, the judicious use of italics, and tiny font-size refrains reflecting her distorted internal logic. All of the usual answers of specialized treatment centers, therapy, and monitoring of weight and food fail to prevail while Lia’s cleverness holds sway.

Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize:

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud

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Haunted by the vivid horrors of the Vietnam War, exhausted from years spent battling his memories, Napoleon Haskell leaves his North Dakota trailer and moves to Canada.

He retreats to a small Ontario town where Henry, the father of his fallen Vietnam comrade, has a home on the shore of a man-made lake. Under the water is the wreckage of what was once the town – and the home where Henry was raised.

When Napoleon’s daughter arrives, fleeing troubles of her own, she finds her father in the dark twilight of his life, and rapidly slipping into senility. With love and insatiable curiosity, she devotes herself to learning the truth about his life; and through the fog, Napoleon’s past begins to emerge.

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Short list finalists:

The Matter with Morris by David Bergen

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When Morris Schutt, a prominent newspaper columnist, surveys his life over the past year, he sees disaster everywhere. His son has just been killed in Afghanistan, and his newspaper has put him on indefinite leave; his psychiatrist wife, Lucille, seems headed for the door; he is strongly attracted to Ursula, the wife of a dairy farmer from Minnesota; and his daughter appears to be having an affair with one of her professors.

What is a thinking man to do but turn to Cicero and Plato and Socrates in search of the truth? Or better still, call one of those discreet dating services in search of happiness? But happiness, as Morris discovers, is not that easy to find.

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Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod

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Light Lifting, Alexander MacLeod’s long-awaited first collection of short stories, offers us a suite of darkly urban and unflinching elegies for a city and community on the brink. These are stories of work and its bonds, of tragedy and tragedy barely averted, but also of love and beauty and fragile understanding.

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This Cake is for the Party by Sarah Selecky

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These are stories about friendships and relationships confused by unsettling tensions bubbling beneath the surface. A woman who plans to conceive ends up in the arms of her husband’s best friend; a man who baby-sits a neglected four-year-old ends up questioning his own dysfunctional relationship; a chance encounter at a gala event causes a woman to remember when she volunteered for a nightmarish drug-testing clinic; another woman discovers that her best friend who is about to get married has just had an affair.

Sarah Selecky is a talented young writer who evokes a generation teetering on the shoals of consumerism and ambiguous mores. Reminiscent of early Atwood, with echoes of Lisa Moore and Barbara Gowdy, these absorbing stories are about love and longing, stories that touch us in a myriad of subtle and affecting ways.

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Annabel by Kathleen Winter

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In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret — the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self — a girl he thinks of as Annabel — is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life. Haunting, sweeping in scope, and stylistically reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, Annabel is a compelling debut novel about one person’s struggle to discover the truth in a culture that shuns contradiction.