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Biography and Memoir April 2021
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Pappyland : a story of family, fine bourbon, and the things that last
by Wright Thompson
Documents the story of the highly respected Kentucky bourbon magnate behind the $3,000-per-bottle Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, chronicling the remarkable story of his fight to protect the authentic, founder-inspired legacy of his family’s distillery. Maps.
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| Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa BrooksWhat it's about: In 2016, to the dismay of her family and colleagues, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks enrolled in the Washington, D.C. police academy, becoming a reserve officer upon her graduation.
Why she did it: Brooks hoped to gain a firsthand understanding of the complex issues surrounding police reform, eventually creating a fellowship program to educate her fellow officers on issues like racial discrimination and implicit bias.
Is it for you? No matter where you stand on policing, Brook's nuanced and well-researched account offers plenty of food for thought. |
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Breaking Ground : From Landmines to Grapevines, One Woman's Mission to Heal the World
by Heidi Kuhn
Heidi Kuhn's commitment to fostering peace and raising awareness has been a driving force in her life--from her early days as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, to her time as a reporter in Juneau, Alaska, covering the Exxon Valdez oil spill and US-Russia relations. After overcoming a potentially terminal cancer diagnosis that threatened everything she held dear, Heidi became determined to rid the world of another form of cancer that has plagued the world for decades--landmines--in regions as far-flung as Croatia Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
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| Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn; foreword by Michelle AlexanderHow it began: After her five-year-old son was hit by a car and killed, Susan Burton turned to drugs, spending the next decade in and out of prison.
What happened next: Burton founded the nonprofit A New Way of Life, dedicated to helping women re-enter society after incarceration.
Book buzz: Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Burton's candid and moving memoir offers clear-eyed suggestions for prison reform. |
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| Notes on a Silencing by Lacy CrawfordWhat it's about: In 1990, 15-year-old Lacy Crawford was sexually assaulted by two male classmates at her New Hampshire boarding school, an act that school administrators tried to cover up.
Is it for you? Crawford's powerful account of the trauma she endured offers an unflinching examination of rape culture and the institutions that condone it.
Food for thought: "I believe, in fact, that the slur slut carries within it, Trojan-horse style, silence as its true intent." |
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| A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa; translated by Risa Kobayashi and Martin BrownWhat it's about: Born in Japan to a Korean father and a Japanese mother, a teenaged Masaji Ishikawa and his family moved to North Korea in 1960 as part of the country's repatriation program.
What happened next: Ishikawa spent three decades enduring poverty, starvation, and ostracism under Kim Il-Sung's totalitarian rule before making a daring escape back to Japan.
Reviewers say: "[a] painful story with sardonic humor and unwavering familial love even in the depths of despair" (Booklist Reviews). |
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| We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy PearlmanWhat it is: a sobering yet hopeful oral history of Syrian refugees' experiences in the aftermath of 2011's Arab Spring protests.
Book buzz: Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, this eye-opening collection offers a diverse array of perspectives from "a population that meets with too few opportunities to represent itself."
Further reading: For more intimate firsthand insights into the Syrian civil war, pick up Alia Malek's The Home That Was Our Country. |
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Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
by Haben Girma
Starring: disability rights lawyer Haben Girma, the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School.
What sets it apart: Emboldened by her Eritrean refugee parents' stories of surviving war-torn Ethiopia in the 1980s, Girma has faced the setbacks of living in an ableist society with wit and optimism.
Reviewers say: "an absolute must-read" (Library Journal).
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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