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History and Current Events April 2021 |
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Until the World Shatters : Truth, Lies, and the Looting of Myanmar
by Daniel Combs
In Myanmar, where civil war, repressive government, and the $40 billion a year jade industry have shaped life for decades, everyone is fighting for their own version of the truth. Until the World Shatters, takes us deep into a world in which journalists seek to overcome censorship and intimidation, ethnic minorities wage guerilla war against a government they claim refuses to grant basic human rights; devout Buddhists launch violent anti-Muslim campaigns; and artists try to build their own havens of free expression.
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The Good girls: an ordinary killing
by Sonia Faleiro
A work of investigative journalism, The Good Girls slips behind political maneuvering, caste systems and codes of honour in a village in northern India to tell the real story behind the tragic deaths of two teenage girls and an epidemic of violence against women.
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| We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption by Justin FentonWhat it's about: the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a corrupt Baltimore police department unit created in 2007 that targeted the city's Black population, committed robberies, planted evidence, and much more.
About the author: Baltimore Sun reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Justin Fenton covered the city's 2015 protests in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death in police custody.
Who it's for: Fans of TV's The Wire will be captivated by this fast-paced and sobering true-crime chronicle. |
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| Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal by Nicole LaPorteWhat it is: a gossipy exposé of Operation Varsity Blues, the 2019 college admissions scandal that resulted in the arrest of actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin.
Read it for: a well-researched indictment of the toxic (and systemic) competition among the wealthy and privileged.
Try this next: Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz. |
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When in French : love in a second language
by Lauren Collins
Describing how, after moving to Geneva, the author decided to learn French in order to become closer to her husband and his family, a laugh-out-loud effort marked by the complexities of the language, the nature of French identity and her growing appreciation for French-specific communication nuances.
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Babel no more : the search for the world's most extraordinary language learners
by Michael Erard
An engaging assessment of famous historical "hyperpolyglot" linguistic high achievers who demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for learning and speaking languages explains the sources of such abilities and what their collective talents reveal about the nature of memory and language. By the author of Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean.
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| The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit FoxWhat it's about: the decades-long quest to decipher Linear B, a long-lost Mycenean (c.1400 BCE) script that resurfaced in 1900 Crete.
Cracking the code: Though British architect Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B in 1952, his efforts were aided by the work of American scholar Alice Kober, who painstakingly constructed syllabic grids at her kitchen table in the 1940s but died before she was able to solve the mystery.
Who it's for: This suspenseful history will appeal to language geeks, armchair archaeologists, and puzzle addicts. |
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A cultural history of the Arabic language
by Sharron Gu
"This is a multimedia history of literary Arabic that describes the evolution of Arabic poetry and prose in the context of music, ritual performance, the arts, and architecture. This work focuses on what is unique about Arabic compared to other languagesand how the distinct characteristics of Arabic took shape at various points of its history"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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