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History and Current Events May 2026 |
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| Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to '90s Sitcoms by Geoff BennettPeabody Award-winning PBS NewsHour co-anchor Geoff Bennett's sweeping and incisive debut explores the origins and evolution of Black comedy in the United States, spotlighting individual performers like minstrel Billy Kersands, vaudevillian Stepin Fetchit, actress/comedian Hattie McDaniel, and more. Further reading: Black TV: Five Decades of Groundbreaking Television from Soul Train to Black-ish and Beyond by Bethonie Butler; Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers by Donald Bogle. |
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| This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly GagePulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage's engaging travelogue surveys 250 years of American history via visits to 13 places that have shaped the country, from Independence Hall to Disneyland and everything in between. Try this next: American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed by Isaac Fitzgerald. |
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London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden KeefeFrom the bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain comes a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London's glittering surface. London Falling is an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.
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Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online
by Fortesa Latifi
Like, Follow, Subscribe shines a spotlight on the deeply troubling world of the child influencer industry. Journalist Fortesa Latifi dives into the lives of children whose parents mine their everyday activities for monetizable content, exposing issues like privacy violations, financial abuse, and the absence of child labor protections. Through expert interviews with psychologists, labor scientists, and even former child influencers and family vloggers, she uncovers the pressures, trauma, and consequences for children thrust into the spotlight. This timely and eye-opening book doesn't just reveal the harm of toxic social media culture: it also provides a roadmap to better regulating influencer families, safeguarding children, and questioning the role of audiences in perpetuating these cycles of exploitation.
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| How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okayby Jenny LawsonBestselling humorist and popular blogger Jenny Lawson's witty and upbeat follow-up to Broken (in the Best Possible Way) draws on the author's personal experiences with ADHD, anxiety, and depression, offering practical advice and motivational quotes for readers navigating mental health challenges. For fans of Samantha Irby and Augusten Burroughs. |
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| The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz InonIn their hopeful travelogue that "powerfully demonstrates that fellowship can bridge seemingly intractable divides" (Kirkus), friends and peace activists Aziz Abu Sarah, who is Palestinian, and Maoz Inon, who is Israeli, spend eight days traveling the region, sharing both local and personal histories throughout their journey. For fans of: The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan. |
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Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr.
by Lerone Martin
We know who Martin Luther King, Jr. became, but who was he at the beginning of his life? How did his youth inform his outlook and activism?Before Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights leader, a Nobel Laureate, and a global hero, he was an emotional boy, a middling high school student devoted to fashion, dancing, and dating. Lerone A. Martin, Faculty Director of the Martin Luther King Institute at Stanford University, traces these roots to develop a fuller understanding of the influential preacher's emotional life, his youthful confusion about his future and career direction, his teenage missteps, and his inspiration to fight for justice.
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The People Can Fly: American Promise, Black Prodigies, and the Greatest Miracle of All Time
by Joshua Bennett
In The People Can Fly, Dr. Joshua Bennett explores the complex position of black prodigies in a society that has, all too often, defined blackness as absence, as lack of intellect or inner life. Through this hybrid work of memoir and cultural history, Dr. Bennett shares how his own academic journey reflected the ebb and flow of being seen as both promising and as a problem. He turns to the childhood archives of Malcolm X, Stevie Wonder, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and others to further explore this theme: highlighting the role of cultural institutions, and loving communities, in shaping the lives of leading lights within African American culture.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Forsyth County Public Library
660 W. Fifth St., Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336-703-2665forsythlibrary.org |
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