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History and Current Events April 2021
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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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| The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice by Gayle Tzemach LemmonWhat it's about: the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female militia established in 2013 to combat the Islamic State in Syria.
Don't miss: a pulse-pounding account of the Siege of Kobani; profiles of four YPJ fighters instrumental in retaking the city.
Reviewers say: "A well-told story of contemporary female warriors and the complex geopolitical realities behind their battles" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy LowerHow it began: In 2009, historian Wendy Lower saw a World War II-era photograph capturing the execution of a Ukrainian Jewish family.
What happened next: Lower spent years researching the photograph's origins and the identities of the victims, perpetrators, and photographer, constructing a compelling narrative of what happened that day.
Further reading: For another heartwrenching investigation of the atrocities committed against Ukrainian Jews during the Holocaust, check out Esther Safran Foer's memoir I Want You to Know We're Still Here. |
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| The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 by Ritchie RobertsonWhat it is: a sweeping chronicle of the Enlightenment, the reason-based intellectual movement popularized in 17th- and 18th-century Europe that shaped contemporary Western values.
What sets it apart: Oxford professor Ritchie Robertson's well-researched revisionist history debunks common misconceptions about the "Age of Reason," including the belief that Enlightenment thinkers were dispassionate and irreligious. |
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Remembering Chernobyl - April 26, 1986 |
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Voices from Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich
A journalist by trade, who now suffers from an immune deficiency developed while researching this book, presents personal accounts of what happened to the people of Belarus after the nuclear reactor accident in 1986, and the fear, anger, and uncertainty that they still live with.
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Manual for survival : a Chernobyl guide to the future
by Kate Brown
"A chilling expos©♭ of the international effort to minimize the health and environmental consequences of nuclear radiation in the wake of Chernobyl. Governments and journalists tell us that though Chernobyl was "the worst nuclear disaster in history," a reassuringly small number of people died (44), and nature recovered. Yet, drawing on a decade of fine-grained archival research and interviews in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, Kate Brown uncovers a much more disturbing story--one in which radioactive isotypes caused hundreds of thousands of casualties. Scores of Soviet scientists, bureaucrats, and civilians documented stunning increases in cases of birth defects, child mortality, cancers, and a multitude of prosaic diseases, which they linked to Chernobyl. Worried that this evidence would blow the lid on the effects of massive radiation release from weapons testing during the Cold War, international scientists and diplomats tried to bury or discredit it. A haunting revelation of how political exigencies shape responses to disaster, Manual for Survival makes clear the irreversible impact on every living thing not just from Chernobyl, but from eight decades of radiation from nuclear energy and weaponry."
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Radiation : what it is, what you need to know
by Robert Peter Gale
A forefront radiation expert who consulted during the Chernobyl and Fukushima crises and the author of The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat identify the radioactive fundamentals of the planet while correcting myths to reveal the role of radiation in everyday life and what should and should not raise concern.
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Midnight in Chernobyl : the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster
by Adam Higginbotham
"Journalist Adam Higginbotham's definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster--and a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth century's greatest disasters. Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded, triggering history's worst nuclear disaster. In the thirty years since then, Chernobyl has become lodged in the collective nightmares of the world: shorthand for the spectral horrors of radiation poisoning, for a dangerous technology slipping its leash, for ecological fragility, and for what can happen when a dishonest and careless state endangers its citizens and the entire world. But the real story of the accident, clouded from the beginning by secrecy, propaganda, and misinformation, has long remained in dispute. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. The result is a masterful nonfiction thriller, and the definitive account of an event that changed history: a story that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth. Midnight in Chernobyl is an indelible portrait of one of the great disasters of the twentieth century, of human resilience and ingenuity, and the lessons learned when mankind seeks to bend the natural world to his will--lessons which, in the face of climate change and other threats, remain not just vital but necessary"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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