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Nonfiction

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136

Bringing icons back to life

Posted by Molly W on Apr 2, 2023 - 1:58pm

Andy Warhol and Truman Capote planned to write a smash Broadway play together in 1978. The two friends recorded approximately 80 hours of their conversations as an artistic experiment. The project was never completed and the tapes were filed away and inaccessible to the public at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. After Andy Warhol's death in 1987, over 3,000 cassettes recorded on Andy's Sony Walkman were discovered. The tapes were undated and had little or no notations and had been recorded by somewhat stealthy means so were not "legal" to listen to until 2037 under New York law.

2023 Plutarch Award Longlist announced

Posted by Kathy K on Jan 31, 2023 - 8:49am
A review of New Biographies by

Are you a reader of biographies? Then check out the longlist for the 2023 Plutarch Award. This is the 10th annual award given by the Biographers International Organization (BIO).  "Named after the famous ancient Greek biographer, the Plutarch is awarded to the best biography of the year by a committee of five distinguished biographers from nominations received by BIO members and publishers."

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2023

Posted by Kathy K on Jan 19, 2023 - 3:22pm
A review of New Holocaust Titles by

"The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides."

Truth and consequences

Posted by Rebecca M on Jan 17, 2023 - 4:25pm

Unicorns, human bats, and two-legged beavers have been discovered on the moon!! Really? Well no… but I made you look? Sorry, librarians are supposed to be dispellers of fake news, not shouting ridiculous headlines for the sake of humor in their book reviews. But fake news is everywhere, and if you don’t have a handy, humorous librarian around to help identify truth from fiction - don’t despair! Elise Gravel’s hilarious new graphic novel for kids breaks it down into bite size, understandable concepts: What is fake news? Why do people spread it? How can it be dangerous?

Caldecott Honor Book: Choosing Brave

Posted by Holly SP on Jan 7, 2023 - 3:02pm

This book opens on August 31, 1955, when Emmett Till's body was found and his mother, Mamie, chose to have him sent home - the braver thing. We then jump back in time to Mamie's childhood, learning about her family, her schooling, her marriage, and Emmett's birth, with each of Mamie's brave choices highlighted. Emmett's childhood comes next, noting his stutter of speech that came from polio, and his trick of whistling to calm him down.

Beyond Bestsellers - Nonfiction, Winter 2023

Great recent titles you may have missed, selected by our librarians.

January - March 2023 Issue

       

See also:

Aviv, Rachel.   Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make UsDownloadable audiobook

Basinger, Jeanine and Wasson, Sam.  Hollywood: The Oral History.  
Bee, Vanessa A.  Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging.
Bella, Timothy.  Barkley: A Biography.  
Bingham-Risher, Remica.  Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions that Grew Me Up.  
Braude, Mark.  Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris.  
Brinkley, Douglas.  Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening
Brookshire, Bethany.  Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains.  
Brown, Nancy Marie.  Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland's Elves Can Save the Earth.  

Chaudry, Rabia.  Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and FamilyDownloadable audiobook
Copeland, Misty.  The Wind at My Back: Resilience, Grace, and Other Gifts from My Mentor, Raven Wilkinson.  
Corcoran, Katherine.   In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, A Coverup, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press

Daniel, Mary-Alice.  A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents
Davis, Kenneth C.  Great Short Books: A Year of Reading―Briefly.  
Delmont, Matthew F.  Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and AbroadDownloadable audiobook
Désir, Alison Mariella.  Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport That Wasn’t Built for UsEbook
Diemer, Andrew K.  Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad.  
Dionne, Evette.  Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul.  
Dylan, Bob.  The Philosophy of Modern SongEbook, downloadable audiobook

Freedland, Jonathan.  The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the WorldEbook

Gage, Beverly.  G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American CenturyEbook
Gaskill, Malcolm.  The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New WorldEbook
Gay, Ross.  Inciting Joy: EssaysEbook
Geanacopoulos, Daphne Palmer.  The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd.  
Gordon, Lyndall.  The Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot’s Hidden Muse
Greenidge, Kerri K.  The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family.  
Gristwood, Sarah.  The Tudors in Love: Passion and Politics in the Age of England's Most Famous Dynasty.  
Grose, Jessica.  Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American MotherhoodDownloadable audiobook

Hardy, Alyssa.  Worn Out: How Our Clothes Cover Up Fashion’s Sins.  
Hastings, Max.  The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962.
Hickman, Katie.  Brave Hearted: The Women of the American West.  
Hill, Jemele.  Uphill: A Memoir.  
Hornby, Nick.  Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius
Hotta, Eri.  Suzuki: The Man and His Dream to Teach the Children of the World.  
Humes, Edward.  The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder.  
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne.  My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives

Imbler, Sabrina.  How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures.  
It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror. (Ed. by Joe Vallese.)  

Kepner, Tyler.  The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series.  
Kumar, Priyanka.  Conversations with Birds.  

Levy, Aidan.  Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins
Levy, Buddy.  Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk.  
Linn, Susan.  Who’s Raising the Kids? Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of ChildrenEbook
Lithwick, Dahlia.  Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America
Livingstone, Natalie.  The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty.  

MacGregor, Iain.  The Lighthouse of Stalingrad: The Hidden Truth at the Heart of the Greatest Battle of World War II.  
McInerny, Nora.  Bad Vibes Only: (And Other Things I Bring to the Table): EssaysEbook, downloadable audiobook  
Morin, Brandi.  Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising.  

Nevala-Lee, Alec.  Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
Nors, Dorthe.  A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast.  

Paranque, Estelle.  Blood, Fire, & Gold: The Story of Elizabeth I & Catherine de Medici.  
Parkin, Simon.  The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp.  
Pearlman, Jeff.  The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson.  
Philip, Leila.  Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America
Phillips, Maya.  Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse
Pinckney, Darryl.  Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan

Quammen, David.  Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus.  

Radke, Heather.  Butts: A Backstory
Rauch, Arianna Warsaw-Fan.  Declassified: A Low-Key Guide to the High-Strung World of Classical Music.  
Ressa, Maria.  How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight For Our FutureEbook, downloadable audiobook
Rodgers, Mary and Jesse Green.  Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary RodgersEbook
Ruffin, Amber and Lamar, Lacey.  The World Record Book of Racist Stories.  
Rutherford, Adam.  Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics.
Ryan, April.  Black Women Will Save the World: An AnthemEbook

Samatar, Sofia.  The White Mosque: A Memoir.  
Sassoon, Joseph.  The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire.  
Scott, James M.  Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb.  
Setiya, Kieran.  Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way.  
Strachey, Nino.  Young Bloomsbury: The Generation That Redefined Love, Freedom, and Self-Expression in 1920s England.  

Tamblyn, Amber.  Listening in the Dark: A Reclaiming of Women's Intuition
Tarantino, Quentin.  Cinema SpeculationEbook, downloadable audiobook
Tetro, Tony and Ambrosi, Giampiero.  Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger.   

Wilkinson, Alec.  A Divine Language: Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age.  
Wulf, Andrea.  Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self

Young, R.J.  Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.  

Gender Queer: A Memoir

Cover of Gender Queer: A Memoir
Maia
Kobabe
2019

Maia's intensely cathartic autobiographal graphic novel charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.