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History and Current Events September 2021 |
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| The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the... by Major General Mari K. EderWhat's inside: profiles of 15 barrier-breaking women whose contributions to the Allied war effort have been largely forgotten by history, accompanied by photos and firsthand accounts of their exploits.
Featuring: Alice Marble, a Grand Slam-winning tennis champion turned spy; Marion Armstrong Frieswyck, a cartographer whose maps aided U.S. military operations.
Read it for: a lively and propulsive chronicle befitting a thriller. |
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| New Women in the Old West: From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American Story by Winifred GallagherWhat it's about: From 1840-1920, women from all walks of life helped shape the culture and politics of the American West.
Why you should read it: Journalist Winifred Gallagher's richly detailed history offers fresh insights on the evolution of the suffragist movement.
Did you know? White women in 11 of the 14 Western states secured voting rights six years before the passage of the 19th Amendment. |
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| Golden Boy: A Murder Among the Manhattan Elite by John GlattHow it began: In 2015, New York City socialite Thomas Gilbert, Jr., who had battled mental health issues for years, murdered his father.
What happened next: Bestselling author John Glatt (The Family Next Door) investigated how Gilbert's struggles went largely unchecked -- and the lengths his family went to keep his disturbing behaviors a secret.
Reviewers say: "A tragic character study at the intersection of wealth, privilege, and mental illness, told with empathy for Gilbert's victims" (Library Journal). |
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| Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away by Ann HagedornStarring: American-born Russian sleeper agent George Koval, the only Soviet spy with security clearance for the Manhattan Project.
Read it for: a fast-paced, little-known slice of espionage history, supplemented with primary sources including FBI reports.
For fans of: TV's The Americans, John Le Carré novels, and Ben Macintyre's nonfiction spy stories. |
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| Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine by Geoff ManaughWhat it is: a thought-provoking six-century study on the role quarantine has played in human, animal, plant, and chemical history.
Topics include: the Black Death; COVID-19; space exploration; immigration; the "chocpocalypse."
Don't miss: the authors' well-researched and common-sense recommendations for how to navigate future quarantine scenarios. |
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| The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn... by Deborah BlumWho it's about: USDA chemist Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, whose tireless efforts to improve food safety regulations led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
Who it's for: Fans of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and readers who aren't faint of heart will appreciate Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum's stomach-churning chronicle that reveals the disturbing food preservation practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. |
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| Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah ChurchwellWhat it is: an evocative social history that explores how "the crime of the decade," an unsolved 1922 double homicide, may have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby.
Why you might like it: Thrilling, rich in detail, and sprinkled with a hint of gossip, Careless People blends aspects of biography, history, and true crime to vividly recreate the glamorous milieu of the Roaring Twenties. |
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| The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and... by David EnrichWhat it's about: In 2006, "rogue" British trader Tom Hayes and a handful of his colleagues began manipulating the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) to maximize their own returns.
Read it for: a lively narrative starring larger-than-life characters.
Try this next: For more on white collar crimes, pick up Sheelah Kolhatkar's Black Edge, about a Wall Street insider trading investigation. |
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| Sex with Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor HermanWhat it is: a gossipy history of presidential sex scandals, from Thomas Jefferson to Donald Trump.
Is it for you? Laced with racy humor and sordid anecdotes pulled from letters, memoirs, and court records, this latest from historian Eleanor Herman also examines the power dynamics of White House trysts and the relationship between political ambition and sexual misconduct. |
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| The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris by Tom SanctonHow it began: In early 2000s Paris, aging L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt's longtime entanglement with artist François-Marie Banier raised the suspicions of her daughter Françoise.
What happened next: When Françoise accused Banier of elder abuse, the allegations kicked off a dramatic saga whose ripple effects would reach all the way to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Book buzz: Tom Sancton's well-researched expansion of his 2010 Vanity Fair article about the scandal was an NPR Best Book of 2017. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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