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History and Current Events September 2020
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The Gay Agenda: A Modern Queer History & Handbook
by Ashley Molesso
What it is: A joyful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community's development, history, and culture, packed with facts, trivia, timelines, and charts, and featuring 100 full-color illustrations.
Topics include: The Pink Triangle, the Rainbow Flag, the Aids Crisis, Stonewall, Drag, Transitioning, The Kinsey Scale, and the ongoing fight to gain and maintain equality.
Read it for: Engaging descriptions, interesting facts, and helpful features such as historical queer icons and events and LGBTQ+ acronym definitions.
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| The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession With... by Colin DickeyWhat it's about: the hows and whys of humans' enduring fascination with fringe beliefs and unexplained paranormal phenomena.
Topics include: the lost civilization of Lemuria; the 1876 Kentucky meat shower; Bigfoot; the Jersey Devil; the Loch Ness Monster.
What sets it apart: author Colin Dickey's thought-provoking exploration of how these myths appropriate and erase Native cultures. |
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| To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq by Robert DraperWhat it is: an eye-opening history of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Read it for: a richly detailed and evenhanded account of how hubris, Bush administration infighting, congressional support, and favorable media coverage facilitated this fateful policy decision.
What's inside: interviews with key officials including Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, and Condoleezza Rice. |
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| After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica GoudeauWhat it is: an intimate interwoven chronicle of two refugee families' disparate experiences seeking asylum in America.
Starring: Mu Naw, a Christian woman from Myanmar who found success in America as a businesswoman; Hasna, a Syrian Muslim who became separated from her family after the Trump administration's travel ban was implemented in 2017.
About the author: Texas journalist and activist Jessica Goudeau has spent over a decade working with refugee resettlement organizations. |
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| Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle... by Matthew Van MeterThe background: In 1966 Louisiana, Black teen Gary Duncan attempted to stop a fight and was charged with battery, a decision he appealed after he was denied a trial.
What happened next: The landmark Supreme Court decision Duncan v. Louisiana (1968) established the right to a jury trial and became a key victory for the civil rights movement.
Book buzz: This engaging history has earned comparisons to Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy; a documentary is in development at HBO. |
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Exploration and Exploitation
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The Last Days of the Incas
by Kim MacQuarrie
What it's about: The epic conquest of the Inca Empire as well as the decades-long insurgency waged by the Incas against the Conquistadors, in a narrative history that is partially drawn from the storytelling traditions of the Peruvian Amazon Yora people.
Reviewers say: "highly detailed, extremely readable work..." (Library Journal.)
Read it for: Vivid and energetic prose that provides a balanced account of the events.
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| Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood... by William CarlsenWhat it's about: In 1839, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British architect Frederick Catherwood explored the jungles of Yucatán, where they encountered 1,500-year-old Mayan ruins.
Why it matters: Stephens and Catherwood's findings challenged their contemporaries' notions of Indigenous cultural inferiority.
Read it for: a lively and evocative tale of friendship, adventure, and rediscovery. |
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| The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure by Carl HoffmanWhat it's about: two enigmatic Westerners -- one a "buccaneer," the other a "do-gooder" -- who called Borneo home in the 1970s and '80s.
Starring: American art dealer Michael Palmieri, who made a fortune acquiring native relics for museums; and Swiss environmentalist Bruno Manser, who lived among the Penan tribe, fought logging efforts in the region, and mysteriously disappeared in 2000.
Awards buzz: This haunting cautionary tale from travel writer Carl Hoffman was a 2019 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime and a Banff Mountain Book Awards Finalist. |
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| To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age... by Edward J. LarsonWhat it is: a breathless account of a pivotal year for exploration, which saw concurrent expeditions led by Ernest Shackleton, Robert Peary, and Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi.
Where they went: Shackleton headed to Antarctica, where he set a new Farthest South record; Peary embarked on his eighth North Pole expedition; the Duke of the Abruzzi led a summit of K2 in Asia.
Read it for: an evocative narrative that's "so well-related as to make you feel the chill" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| Endeavour: The Ship That Changed the World by Peter MooreWhat it is: a comprehensive history of the HMS Endeavour, the British ship that circumnavigated the globe from 1768-1771.
Why you might like it: This accessible page-turner details Endeavour's complicated legacy as a symbol of remarkable discovery and destructive imperialism.
Reviewers say: "History at its most exciting and revealing" (Kirkus Reviews); "Maritime history that opens onto much more" (Booklist). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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