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History and Current Events March 2026 |
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The Dreaded Pox: Sex and Disease in Early Modern London
by Olivia Weisser
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, venereal disease, or the "pox," was a dreaded diagnosis. This remarkable history invites readers into the teeming, pox-riddled streets of everyday early modern London, uncovering the lives of the poxed elite as well as of the maidservants and prostitutes who left few words behind.
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| Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling by Danny FuntWashington Post contributor Danny Funt's illuminating debut chronicles the evolution of legalized sports betting in the United States, detailing the rise of companies like FanDuel and DraftKings and how they prey upon consumers and athletes alike. Further reading: The Bookie: How I Bet It All on Sports Gambling and Watched an Industry Explode by Art Manteris and Matt Birkbeck. |
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| Football by Chuck KlostermanJournalist Chuck Klosterman (The Nineties) ruminates on his lifelong love of football in this funny and wide-ranging cultural history that's "a transcendent appraisal of America's favorite sport" (Publishers Weekly). For fans of: Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated by Shea Serrano. |
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| Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood by William J. MannBiographer William J. Mann's (Bogie & Bacall) well-researched true crime account offers fresh insights on the 1947 murder of actress Elizabeth Short, who posthumously came to be known by the moniker "Black Dahlia." Further reading: Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter by Eli Frankel. |
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| Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish... by Julian SanctonHistorian Julian Sancton's sweeping maritime saga chronicles how the 2015 discovery of the San José, a Spanish galleon that sank off the coast of Colombia in 1708, was mired by accusations that Roger Dooley, the archaeologist who found the wreckage, was a con artist and grave robber. Featuring interviews with Dooley, this compelling adventure tale will appeal to fans of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. |
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Focus on: Women's History Month
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| The Six: The Extraordinary Story of the Grit and Daring of America's First Women Astronauts by Loren GrushBloomberg News reporter Loren Grush's inspiring history spotlights the first six American women astronauts: Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Judy Resnik, Sally Ride, Rhea Seddon, and Kathy Sullivan. Grush's accessible reportage blends biographical sketches with engrossing accounts of the women's triumphs and trials. Try this next: The New Guys: The Historic Class of Astronauts That Broke Barriers and Changed the Face of Space Travel by Meredith Bagby. |
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Starry and Restless: Three Women Who Changed Work, Writing, and the World
by Julia Cooke
In language as lively and nimble, in passages as intimate and adventurous, and with conviction as fierce and indefatigable as her subjects’ own, Julia Cooke’s Starry and Restless plays out the stories of three women across three decades and five continents. Martha, Mickey, Rebecca―journalists, authors, mothers, lovers, friends. These women didn’t just bear witness to the great changes of the twentieth century; their curiosity, grit, ambition, and stories changed the world.
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| Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line by Elizabeth LovattElizabeth Lovatt's moving debut spotlights the Lesbian Line, a London-based, volunteer-run helpline founded in 1977 to offer support for queer and questioning women and girls that remained in operation until the early 2000s. Drawing upon handwritten phone logs from volunteers, this well-researched chronicle "makes a modern declaration of love to queer folks throughout time" (Kirkus Reviews). Try this next: Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton. |
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| Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya MilesAward-winning historian Tiya Miles (All That She Carried) thoughtfully explores how 19th-century Black and Indigenous women were shaped by their relationship to the natural world, which freed them from the oppressive confines of domestic spaces. Try this next: Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy. |
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Women Who Ruled the World: 5000 Years of Female Monarchy
by Elizabeth Norton
Women Who Ruled the World covers an exhilarating expanse of time and space: from the lush oases of Ancient Egypt to the cherry blossomed islands of Japan, from the 19th century Queens of Madagascar who defied French attempts to colonise them to Tamar the Great, who presided over a golden age in Georgia. From the familiar - Boudicca, Cleopatra, Catherine to Great - to the unfamiliar - Urracca of Castile and Leon, Kushite queen Shanakdakhete, Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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