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Taking care : the story of nursing and its power to change our world / by DiGregorio, Sarah,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In this sweeping cultural history of nursing from the Stone Age to the present, the critically acclaimed author of Early pays homage to the profession and makes an urgent call for change. Nurses have always been vital to human existence. A nurse was likely there when you were born and a nurse might well be there when you die. Familiar in hospitals and doctors' offices, these dedicated health professionals can also be found in schools, prisons, and people's homes; at summer camps; on cruise ships, and even at NASA. Yet despite being celebrated during the Covid-19 epidemic, nurses are often undermined and undervalued in ways that reflect misogyny and racism, and that extend to their working conditions--and affect the care available to everyone. But the potential power of nursing to create a healthier, more just world endures. The story of nursing is complicated. It is woven into war, plague, religion, the economy, and our individual lives in myriad ways. In Taking Care, journalist Sarah DiGregorio chronicles the lives of nurses past and tells the stories of those today--caregivers at the vital intersection of health care and community who are actively changing the world, often invisibly. An absorbing and empathetic work that combines storytelling with nuanced reporting, Taking Care examines how we have always tried to care for each other--the incredible ways we have succeeded and the ways in which we have failed. Fascinating, empowering and significant, it is a call for change and a love letter to the nurses of yesterday, today, and tomorrow."--
Subjects: Nursing;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Hotshot : a life on fire / by Selby, River,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-326)."From 2000 to 2010, River Selby was a wildland firefighter whose given name was Anastasia. This is a memoir of that time in their life -- of Ana, the struggles she encountered, and the constraints of what it means to be female-bodied in a male-dominated industry. An illuminating debut from a fierce new voice, Hotshot is a timely reckoning with both the personal and environmental dangers of wildland firefighting. By the time they were nineteen, Selby had been homeless, addicted to drugs, and sexually assaulted more than once. In a last-ditch effort to find direction, they applied to be a wildland firefighter. Two years later, they joined an elite class of specially trained wildland firefighters known as hotshots. Over the course of five fire seasons, Selby delves into the world of the people -- almost entirely men -- who risk their lives to fight and sometimes prevent wildfires. Simultaneously hyper visible and invisible, Selby navigated an odd mix of camaraderie and rampant sexism on the job and, when they challenged it, a violent closing of ranks that excluded them from the work they'd come to love. Drawing on years of firsthand experience on the frontlines of fire and years of research, Selby examines how the collision of fire suppression policy, colonization, and climate change has led to fire seasons of unprecedented duration and severity. A work of rare intimacy, Hotshot provides new insight into fire, the people who fight it, and the diversity of ecosystems dependent on this elemental force"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Selby, River.; Fire extinction; Fire fighters; Fire prevention.; Forest fire fighters; Gender-nonconforming people; Wildfire fighters; Wildfires;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Overdose : heartbreak and hope in Canada's opioid crisis / by Perrin, Benjamin,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An astonishing and powerful look at the ongoing opioid health crisis--the only book of its kind in Canada. North America is in the middle of a health crisis. The word 'Fentanyl' only recently entered common usage, and yet it has become a looming presence in news reports and conversations across Canada. It is an opioid more powerful and pervasive--and deadly--than any previous street drug. Often those suffering are marginalized people. Consider that in 2003, the SARS epidemic killed 44 people in Canada and launched a massive mobilization of public funds and resources to contain the outbreak. Over 100 times that number have been killed between 2016 and 2017 during the opioid crisis in Canada. Yet, the response has been far from proportionate. In fact, our policies are making things worse. The victims are many, and as we learn here, not only who we might expect. They are our neighbours: professionals, students, parents, and even health care workers. Despite the thousands of deaths, these victims remain largely invisible. But not anymore. Benjamin Perrin, a law and policy expert in Vancouver, BC--ground zero for the crisis--shines a light in this darkest of corners. What he finds challenges many assumptions about the people who use opioids, and the factors fuelling the crisis. Why do people use Fentanyl, where does it come from, and why can't we stop it? These questions, and many others being asked by all Canadians, are answered here in this urgent and humane look at the worst health crisis in recent history."--
Subjects: Opioid abuse; Fentanyl; Fentanyl; Opioids;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The mostly true story of Tanner & Louise / by Oakley, Colleen,author.;
"A wildly entertaining road trip novel featuring a college dropout and an eighty-four-year-old woman off on the adventure of their lives, full of tremendous heart, wit, and wisdom from the USA Today bestselling author of The Invisible Husband of Frick Island. Twenty-three-year-old Tanner Quimby needs a place to live. Preferably one where she can continue sitting around in sweatpants and playing video games nineteen hours a day. Since she has no credit or money to speak of, her options are limited, so when an opportunity to work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman falls into her lap, she takes it. One slip on the rug. That's all it took for Louise Wilt's daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Tanner wants nothing to do with the uptight old woman until she starts to notice things--weird things. Like, why does Louise keep her garden shed locked up tighter than a prison? And why is the local news fixated on an international jewelry thief that looks eerily like Louise? This is the (mostly) true story of a not-to-be-underestimated elderly woman who may have perpetuated one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history and an aimless young woman who--if they can outrun the mistakes of their past--might just have the greatest adventure of their lives"--
Subjects: Chick lit.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Caregivers; Female friendship; Jewelry theft; Older women; Secrecy; Young women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Black dove : a novel / by McAdam, Colin,author.;
"In a tall and narrow house, on a stained and busy street, live twelve-year-old Oliver and his father, a story-loving writer. Haunted by the ghost of his alcoholic mother, Oliver finds comfort in his father's impromptu tales: the Black Dove, an elusive flower that gives strength; the girl who consumes it as she battles attackers and yearns for happier realms. Stories where lonely souls keep searching despite their losses and grief. Running from a bully one night, Oliver finds refuge in a junk shop owned by an enigmatic man. Soon, instead of hiding in the janitor's closet after school, Oliver spends afternoons in the shop, a cavernous place full of storied oddities and grubby wonders where creatures rise up from the basement. A snake in the shape of a boy. A hunter named Night, part panther, part hound, who proves to Oliver that the world holds invisible wonder. Wanting to forget his mother, afraid of his own genes, constantly harassed by bullies, Oliver decides to follow the shop-owner down the path of genetic editing. As he begins his transformation he meets the girl from across the street, and their friendship grows in a neighbourhood where magic is real, where murderers gather, and where the darker consequences of fantasies play out. A twisting story of grief and revenge, Black Dove is a thrilling read with its own kind of magic. In rich but tightly reined prose, McAdam celebrates the value and shortfalls of storytelling, finding a light in all the darkness to conjure a tender portrait of childhood's end"--
Subjects: Magic realist fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Authors; Boys; Fathers and sons; Genetic engineering; Revenge; Storytelling; Victims of bullying;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Random acts of medicine : the hidden forces that sway doctors, impact patients, and shape our health / by Jena, Anupam B.,author.; Worsham, Christopher,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Why do kids born in the summer get diagnosed more often with A.D.H.D.? How are marathons harmful for your health, even when you're not running? What do surgeons and salesmen have in common? Which annual event made people 30 percent more likely to contract COVID-19? As a University of Chicago-trained economist and Harvard medical school professor and doctor, Anupam Jena is uniquely equipped to answer these questions. And as a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General who researches health care policy, Christopher Worsham confronts its impact on the hospital's sickest patients. In this singular work of science and medicine, Jena and Worsham work together to reveal the hidden side of medicine, and its effect on everyone that touches the health care system. Relying on ingeniously devised natural experiments--random events that unknowingly turn us into experimental subjects-Jena and Worsham do more than offer readers colorful stories. They help us see the way our health is shaped by forces invisible to the untrained eye. Do you choose the veteran doctor or the rookie? Do you take the appointment on Monday or on Friday? Do you get the procedure now or wait a week? These questions are rife with significance; their impact can be life changing. In a style that's animated and enlightening, this book empowers you to see past the white coat and find out what really makes medicine work-and how it could work better"--
Subjects: Inference.; Medicine; Observation (Scientific method); Probabilities.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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No place to go : how public toilets fail our private needs / by Lowe, Lezlie,1972-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."This book is Number One in addressing the politics of where we're allowed to "go" in public. Adults don't talk about the business of doing our business. We work on one assumption: the world of public bathrooms is problem- and politics-free. No Place To Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs reveals the opposite is true. No Place To Go is a toilet tour from London to San Francisco to Toronto and beyond. From pay potties to deserted alleyways, No Place To Go is a marriage of urbanism, social narrative, and pop culture that shows the ways - momentous and mockable - public bathrooms just don't work. Like, for the homeless, who, faced with no place to go sometimes literally take to the streets. (Ever heard of a municipal poop map?) For people with invisible disabilities, such as Crohn's disease, who stay home rather than risk soiling themselves on public transit routes. For girls who quit sports teams because they don't want to run to the edge of the pitch to pee. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen have protested bathroom bills that will stomp on the rights of transpeople. And where was Hillary Clinton after she arrived back to the stage late after the first commercial break of the live-televised Democratic leadership debate in December 2015? Stuck in a queue for the women's bathroom. Peel back the layers on public bathrooms and it's clear many more people want for good access than have it. Public bathroom access is about cities, society, design, movement, and equity. The real question is: Why are public toilets so crappy?"--
Subjects: Public toilets; Restrooms;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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City of windows / by Pobi, Robert,author.;
"City of Windows introduces Lucas Page, a brilliant, reluctant investigator, matching wits with a skilled, invisible killer. To identify and hunt down this ruthless, seemingly unstoppable killer, Page must discover what hidden past connects the victims before he himself loses all that is dear to him"--"During the worst blizzard in memory, an FBI agent in a moving SUV in New York City is killed by a nearly impossible sniper shot. Unable to pinpoint where the shot came from, as the storm rapidly wipes out evidence, the agent-in-charge Brett Kehoe turns to the one man who might be able to help themformer FBI agent Lucas Page. Page, a university professor and bestselling author, left the FBI years ago after a tragic event robbed him of a leg, an arm, an eye, and the willingness to continue. But he has an amazing ability to read a crime scene, figure out angles and trajectories in his head, and he might be the only one to be able to find the sniper's nest. With a new wife and family, Lucas Page has no interest in helping the FBIexcept for the fact that the victim was his former partner. Agreeing to help for his partner's sake, Page finds himself hunting a killer with an unknown agenda and amazing sniper skills in the worst of conditions. And his partner's murder is only the first in a series of meticulously planned murders carried out with all-but-impossible sniper shots. The only thing connecting the deaths is that the victims are all with law enforcementthat is until Page's own family becomes a target. To identify and hunt down this ruthless, seemingly unstoppable killer, Page must discover what hidden past connects the victims before he himself loses all that is dear to him"--Jacket flap.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation; Murder; Private investigators;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The secrets we kept / by Prescott, Lara,author.;
A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--the real-life story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago. At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dares publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world--using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops and invisibly ferry classified documents. The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story--the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara--with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak's country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, DC, to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature--told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the centre of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.
Subjects: Spy fiction.; Historical fiction.; Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich, 1890-1960.; United States. Central Intelligence Agency; Cold War; Private secretaries; Man-woman relationships;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Message in a bottle : ocean dispatches from a seabird biologist / by Hogan, Holly(Biologist),author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the heart of the Labrador Current to the furthest reaches of our global oceans, Message in a Bottle conjures an exquisite diversity of marine life and warns of a central threat to its survival: ocean plastic. The dovekie is a stocky seabird the size of a child's heart that spends its winters on the coast of Newfoundland, thriving in one of the toughest climates on Earth. The polar bear is an apex predator, designed to persevere in the Arctic's extreme conditions. The North Atlantic right whale outweighs the humpback by more than twenty tons and feeds on enormous quantities of tiny plankton in northeastern waters before migrating south for the winter. In Message in a Bottle, wildlife biologist and writer Holly Hogan brings to extraordinary life the wonder and resilience of these creatures and many other birds, fish and marine mammals she has encountered in sea voyages from the Arctic to the Antarctic oceans. However, in her travels she has noticed a troubling pattern: the constant presence of plastic, in the form of adrift fishing gear ("ghost gear"), garbage and micro-plastics which form an invisible but pervasive smog in our oceans and threaten even the most seemingly resilient forms of sea life. Bringing together nature, science and adventure writing, Hogan shines a light on our plastic-addicted lifestyle and offers a compelling, eyewitness account of its devastating effects on the marine environment--70% of our planet. With lyrical prose and a reverential eye for the majesty and fragility of our natural world, Message in a Bottle is a clarion call to protect global oceans and the life they sustain, including our own."--
Subjects: Marine ecology.; Marine pollution; Marine pollution.; Plastic marine debris; Plastic marine debris.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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