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History and Current Events April 2021
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Inferno: The True Story of a B-17 Gunner's Heroism and the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History
by Joe Pappalardo
What it's about: Tells the true story of the men who flew the deadliest missions of World War II, and an unlikely hero who received the Medal of Honor in the midst of the bloodiest military campaign in aviation history.
Why you might like it: This is both a thrilling and horrifying story of the air war over Europe during WWII and a fascinating look at one of America's forgotten heroes.
Reviewers say: "Mr. Pappalardo, a veteran journalist, has a nice way with words. The mission itself, targeting German submarine pens in France, is fairly routine and brilliantly described...a wonderful yarn." ―Wall Street Journal
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American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950-2000
by Peter Vronsky
What it's about: Narrative accounts of prominent serial killer cases from the latter half of the 20th century include case histories for notorious figures ranging from Ted Bundy and the Golden State Killer to the Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer.
Who it's for: Fans of Mindhunter and true crime podcasts will devour these chilling stories of serial killers from the American "Golden Age" (1950-2000).
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The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
by Henry Louis Gates
The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series.
What it's about: From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and one of our most important voices on the African American experience comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America.
Reviewers say: “[An] invaluable illumination of the many ways the Black church has been an ongoing epicenter of inspiration and action.” —Booklist (starred)
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Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation
by Peter Cozzens
Winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Biography
What it's about: The first biography of the great Shawnee leader in more than twenty years, and the first to make clear that his misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States.
Reviewers say: "Engrossing... Cozzens' biography is solidly researched, fluently written, and bound to stand as the best history to date about the Shawnee brothers' lives and effort to rally pan-Indian resistance." —Booklist (starred)
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Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
by W. Caleb McDaniel
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History
What it's about: Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage.
Why you might like it: Chronicles the unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice—and reparations.
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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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Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language
by Seth Lerer
What it's about: Seth Lerer's Inventing English is a masterful, engaging history of the English language from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of our grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments in the larger history of English, America, and literature.
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Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts
by Andrew Robinson
What it's about: A landmark study of the world's most important undeciphered writing systems and the current race to crack them
Why you might like it: Andrew Robinson reports from the front lines of the global efforts now under way to crack the Meroitic hieroglyphs of ancient Nubia, the Etruscan alphabet, the Indus Valley Sealstones, the Zapotec scriptthe earliest in the Americasand five other major "lost languages."
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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