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Biography and Memoir September 2020
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| Life of a Klansman: A Family History in White Supremacy by Edward BallWhat it is: the follow-up to Edward Ball's National Book Award-winning Slaves in the Family that focuses on the author's great-great-grandfather, a member of the Ku Klux Klan in late 19th-century New Orleans.
Read it for: Ball's sobering and incisive reckoning with a family legacy of white supremacy.
Reviewers say: "It won't be a comfortable reading experience, and it's not meant to be, but it's a necessary one" (Booklist). |
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Home Baked : My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco
by Alia Volz
What it is: during the 70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life. Each was devoted to the occult, and they regularly consulted the oracles for information on the police.
Why you might like it: Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, HOME BAKED celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.
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American Dreams : Portraits & Stories of a Country
by Ian Brown
What it is: A powerful, moving photography collection of Americans from all walks of life paired with their handwritten statements about their American dreams.
Read it for: 175 portraits of people of all backgrounds paired with their handwritten "American dreams." Beautifully packaged, and inclusive of a multitude of ages, races, identities, classes, religions, and ideologies, American Dreams is a poignant, defining look at American life and identity during one of the most important moments in our history.
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Agent Sonya : Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy
by Ben Macintyre
What it is: a thrilling true story of the most important female spy in history: an agent code-named "Sonya," who set the stage for the Cold War.
The setting: In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life.
What sets it apart: with unparalleled access to Sonya's diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a page-turning history of a legendary secret agent.
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Ghost Flames : Life and Death in a Hidden War, Korea 1950-1953
by Charles J Hanley
What it is: A powerful, character-driven narrative of the Korean War from the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who helped uncover some of its longest-held and darkest secrets.
Read it for: an intimate, deeper kind of history, whose meticulous research and rich detail, drawing on recently unearthed materials and eyewitness accounts, bring the true face of the Korean War, and the vastness of its human tragedy, into a sharper focus than ever before.
The "forgotten war" becomes unforgettable.
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My Life As a Villainess : Essays
by Laura Lippman
What it is: A first non-fiction compilation by the award-winning author of The Lady in the Lake features original and previously published essays on subjects ranging from her childhood and education to her achievements as a reporter and crime-fiction author.
Essays include: · Men Explain The Wire to Me · Game of Crones · My Life as a Villainess · My Father's Bar · The 31st Stocking. These candid essays offer long-time readers insight into the experiences that helped Lippman become one of the most successful crime novelists of her generation.
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| Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented... by Charles KingWhat it is: a sweeping group biography of the women who studied cultural anthropology under Franz Boas in the early 20th century.
Why you might like it: This engaging history explores how these trailblazing scientists challenged notions of Western cultural superiority.
On the roster: Ruth Benedict, Ella Cara Deloria, Margaret Mead, and Zora Neale Hurston. |
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| Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle KuoWhat it's about: the transformative power of literature, movingly experienced by Teach for America volunteer-turned-law student Michelle Kuo and her former pupil Patrick Browning, who met regularly for book discussions while the latter was in jail on a murder charge.
On the syllabus: The pair discussed works by Frederick Douglass, Rita Dove, C.S. Lewis, Marilynne Robinson, Derek Walcott, and Walt Whitman, among others. |
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| Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football by John UrschelWhat it's about: John Urschel's adventures in academia (he's currently pursuing a PhD in mathematics at MIT) and athletics (he was a Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman for three seasons).
Read it for: Urschel's infectious enthusiasm for his passions.
Want a taste? "So often, people want to divide the world into two. Matter and energy. Wave and particle. Athlete and mathematician. Why can't something (or someone) be both?" |
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| Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy WickendenWhat it's about: In 1916, two well-to-do best friends, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, left their homes in Auburn, New York to teach in the remote settlement of Elkhead on the Colorado frontier.
Author alert: Dorothy Wickenden is the executive editor of The New Yorker and the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff; she conducted interviews and used letters and newspaper articles to inform this fascinating fish-out-of-water tale. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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