History and Current Events December 2025 |
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A Short History of Nearly Everything: 2.0
by Bill Bryson
The #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER, updated for 2025 - A wonder-filled quest to understand everything that has happened in the history of the Earth, from the Big Bang theory to the rise of civilization and beyond--revised to reflect the last two decades of scientific advancement.
In this completely revised update, Bill Bryson returns to answer these questions and many more. Bryson brings a groundbreaking account of life itself to a new generation of readers, as he takes subjects often passed off as boring and incomprehensible and renders them accessible, fascinating, and outright amusing to anyone who's ever wondered about the world around them. His revamped "Short History" is a thrilling journey through time and space, and his writing will make readers both new and old see the world in a whole new way.
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The Work of Our Hands: A Cree Meditation on the Real World
by Adrian Sutherland
In a world yearning for meaning, the path to spiritual renewal may lie through the discipline and freedom that only hard work can show us. Life is hard in Attawapiskat. Outsiders see the poverty and despair, the sagging, mold-filled houses with generations packed into each one. The substance abuse and the suicides. The decaying water system, that has come to symbolize the everyday injustice faced by First Nations communities. So why does Juno-nominated Cree musician Adrian Sutherland live there? "The Work of Our Hands" reveals a dimension of his own experience that headlines cannot capture and outsiders cannot see. By exploring his world through the concrete experience of his hands, as they hold a guitar, a hammer, a rifle, or a cannister used to carry water to his family home, and the materials from which the traditional Cree sweat lodge is constructed, Sutherland not only paints a portrait of a world few of us have ever seen, he also lays out the way the world itself can teach us right and wrong as clearly as we can detect a musical note that is off-key. Gritty, personal, and above all attuned to the meaning that we can discern only when we carefully hold the physical world in our hands, Sutherland's story pulls us away from the abstractions and false promises of the disembodied reality we have stumbled into to approach deeper truth and meaning.
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Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime
by Sarah Weinman
From Sarah Weinman, author of "Scoundrel", comes an eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions it raised about women's rights that would reverberate for decades. In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in United States history to accuse her husband of rape, at a time when the idea of marital rape seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four states. After a quick and conservative trial acquitted John Rideout and a defense lawyer lambasted that maybe rape is the risk of being married, Greta was ridiculed and scorned from public life, while John went on to be a repeat offender. Thrust into the national spotlight, Greta and her story would become a national sensation, a symbol of a country's unrelenting and targeted hate toward women and a court system designed to fail them at every turn. Oregon v. Rideout directly inspired feminist activists, who fought state by state for marital rape laws, a battle that was not won in all fifty until as recently as 1993. Mixing archival research and new reporting involving Greta, those who successfully pressed charges against John in later years, as well as the activists battling the courts in parallel, "Without Consent" embodies vociferous debates about gender, sexuality, and power, while highlighting the damaging and inherent misogyny of American culture then and still now.
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| Dead and Alive: Essays by Zadie Smith
In the past two decades, few writers have mastered the craft and art of the essay in the way that Smith has. Her writing, at once an occasion for personal reckoning and communal reflection, studies the fault lines that divide is and consistently finds grounds for solidarity and compassion. This eagerly awaited new collection brings Smith's dexterity as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in 5 thematic sections - eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning and confession - she unspools intimate dialogues with various sources of inspiration. |
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Unconditional: Break Through Past Limits to Transform Your Future
by Samra Zafar
In an inspirational, practical self-help book, bestselling author of "A Good Wife" Samra Zafar weaves together research and personal stories to share how she has broken free of beliefs that held her back, and how readers can too. After escaping an abusive marriage in her twenties with her two daughters in tow, Samra Zafar thought the biggest challenges she would face would be supporting her family, putting herself through school, working in the corporate world, and rebuilding a support system for herself and her daughters. But she discovered the hardest challenge of all was within her own heart. Her childhood conditioning to criticize her every move paralyzed her from pursuing what she truly wanted, landed her in relationships that held her back rather than lifting her up, and constrained the way she wanted to mother her children. Finally, when she couldn't take it anymore, she sought help. In "Unconditional", Samra shares everything she has learned, as a woman, physician and mother, about unlearning the harmful beliefs we store deep within ourselves. Through the hard work of digging out past trauma, unpacking faulty ideas that no longer serve you, creating healthier neural pathways, and embracing who you truly want to be, you can learn to love yourself--unconditionally.
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Ask library staff for more great recommendations! |
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