History and Current Events
May 2022
Recent Releases
The Trayvon Generation
by Elizabeth Alexander

What it is: A concise exploration of how Black artists reckon with generational trauma and racist violence.

Who it's for: Readers looking for a hopeful guide to engaging with social justice issues will find much to ponder in this thought-provoking treatise.  

Book buzz: Poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elizabeth Alexander's bittersweet expansion of her titular New Yorker article was named one of TIME's Most Anticipated Titles of 2022. 
You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation
by Julissa Arce

What it's about: How the myth of the "American Dream" harms people of color and reinforces white supremacy.

Read it for: Journalist Julissa Arce's candid account of her own experiences as an undocumented Mexican immigrant and how she learned to reject assimilation into white American culture.
 
Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II
by Alex Kershaw

What it's about: The wartime exploits of the United States Army's Third Infantry Division, whose soldiers were among the most decorated of World War II. 

Featuring: Profiles of four Medal of Honor recipients, including Audie Murphy, who found postwar success as an actor in Westerns.

Also available in eBook on Libby
In on the Joke: The Original Queens of Stand-Up Comedy
by Shawn Levy

Who it's about: The trailblazing women who made their mark on the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy from the 1940s to the 1970s.

What's inside: Moving tributes to Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Belle Barth, Elaine May, Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers, and more.   

Also available in eBook on CloudLibrary
Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything -- Even Things That...
by Jane McGonigal

What it is: A practical guide to understanding what challenges the future may hold, supplemented with meticulous research and author Jane McGonigal's experiences as a future forecaster and game designer.

Featuring: Illuminating thought experiments and simulations.

Also available in eAudiobook on Hoopla
Also available in eAudiobook on CloudLibrary
The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation
by Cathy O'Neil

What it is: A thought-provoking exploration of the uses (and misuses) of the "shame industrial complex" in the social media age.

Read it for: A clear-eyed look at how institutions capitalize on shaming by blaming societal ills on individuals to avoid addressing systemic issues.

Also available in eBook on CloudLibrary
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