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History and Current Events January 2021
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| Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism by Sharyl AttkissonWhat it is: a sobering and provocative investigation into the ways in which modern news media is manipulated.
About the author: Sharyl Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist and a recipient of the Edward R. Murrow Award.
Is it for you? Readers may see Attkisson's discussion of Donald Trump's presidential misdeeds as apologia. |
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| The Killer's Shadow: The FBI's Hunt for a White Supremacist Serial Killer by John Douglas and Mark OlshakerWhat it's about: serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin's three-year crime spree, which began with a shooting at a St. Louis synagogue in 1977.
Read it for: FBI profiler John Douglas' breakneck pursuit of Franklin; the pair's confrontation once the latter was imprisoned.
Reviewers say: "This is a must read for those looking for insight into the minds of those instigating racial violence today" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen... by Rachel Maddow and Michael YarvitzStarring: disgraced vice president Spiro Agnew, who resigned in 1973 after he was caught committing tax fraud and running a bribery and extortion ring in his office.
Why you might like it: This well-researched examination of a lesser-known political scandal, which happened concurrently (but unrelatedly) with Watergate, offers striking parallels to current events.
Media buzz: Bag Man is an engaging expansion of the authors' podcast of the same name, which was nominated for a Peabody Award in 2018. |
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| The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State by Declan WalshWhat it is: an incisive debut exploring the tumult of modern Pakistan, written by Guardian and New York Times journalist Declan Walsh, who spent nearly a decade living and reporting in the country.
What sets it apart: Walsh's profiles of nine individuals (the titular "nine lives") whose experiences offer illuminating perspectives on Pakistan's ongoing ails.
Reviewers say: "This masterfully reported account deserves a wide readership" (Publishers Weekly). |
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Signs of Life : A Doctor's Journey Around the Edges of the World
by Stephen Fabes
When Stephen Fabes left his job as an emergency-room doctor and set out to cycle around the world, frontline medicine quickly faded from his mind. The daily challenges of life on the road stack up as he navigates deserts--coaxing a few more miles from 'Ol' Patchy' (his most faithful innertube)--and learns to live with the seeming constant threat posed by local wildlife, be it mangy dogs in Indonesia, grizzly bears in Alaska, or, in Australia, the common death adder, three words he was dismayed to find exist in sequence.
But leaving medicine behind was not as easy as it seems.
As Stephen crossed continents--on a journey that would take six years and cover more than 53,000 miles--he finds people whose health has suffered through exile, stigma, or circumstance and others, whose lives have been saved through kindness and community.
After encountering a frozen body of a monk in the Himalayas, he is drawn ever more to healthcare at the margins of the world, to crumbling sanitoriums and refugee camps, to city dumps and war-torn hospital wards.
Stephen learns the value of listening to lives--not just solving diagnostic puzzles.
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We Could Perceive No Sign of Them : Failed Colonies in North America, 1526-1689
by David MacDonald
Historians David MacDonald and Raine Waters tell the fascinating stories of the many attempts to establish a European foothold in the New World, from the first Spanish colony in 1526 on the coast of Georgia to the final disastrous French endeavors near the arctic.
Using primary source texts, the authors synthesize the shared experiences of Europeans to better understand the very fine line between success and failure and the varieties of Native American responses.
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Two Trees Make a Forest : In Search of My Family's Past Among Taiwan's Mountains and Coasts
by Jessica J. Lee
A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan.
There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars.
She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall.
Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Carrollton Public Library 1700 Keller Springs Road, Carrollton Texas 75006 4220 North Josey Lane, Carrollton Texas 75010
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