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New History & Biography January releases |
Click on the title to check availability or to log in and place holds online. To place holds by phone, please call us at (708) 366-5205, ext. 316. |
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The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB by Gordon CoreraThe story of how one man--a librarian for the KGB--became a traitor to the intelligence agency, stealing the most prized Soviet-era archives and smuggling them to the West. The Spy in the Archive tells the remarkable story of how Vasili Mitrokhin--an introverted archivist who loved nothing more than dusty archives--ended up changing the world. As the in-house archivist for the KGB, the secrets he was exposed to inside its walls turned him first into a dissident and then a spy; a traitor to his country but a man determined to expose the truth about the dark forces that had subverted Russia, forces still at work in the country today. Historian and journalist Gordon Corera tells of the operation to extract this prized asset from Russia for the first time. This is narrative nonfiction at its absolute best.
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The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan by Lyse DoucetWhen the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolized a dream of a modernizing country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls. Lyse Doucet, crafts a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan. The result is a remarkably vivid history of how Afghans have survived a half century of destruction and disruption. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.
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Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire by Julian SanctonThe riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk off the coast of Colombia with over $1 billion in gold and silver--and one man's obsessive quest to find it. Roger Dooley wasn't looking for the San José. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive led him to the story of a lifetime, the tale of a great eighteenth-century treasure ship loaded with riches from the New World and destined for Spain. But that ship, the galleon San José, was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena, and the San José and its bounty had disappeared into the ocean. Neptune's Fortune is a thrilling adventure, taking readers from great naval battles on the high seas to the sun-soaked shores that nurtured history's most notorious treasure hunters, to the archives that held the secret keys to lost fortune on the ocean floor.
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Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America by Howard BryantA path-breaking work of biography of two American giants, Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, whose lives would forever be altered by the Cold War, from one of the best sports and culture writers working today. Kings and Pawns is the untold story of sports and fame, Black America and the promise of integration through the Cold War lens of two transformative events. In a time of great division, with America in the midst of a new era of retrenchment and Black athletes again chilled into silence advocating for civil rights, the story of these two titans reverberates today within and beyond Black America. From the revival of government overreach to curb civil liberties to the Cold War-era rhetoric of the enemy within levied against fellow citizens, this is a story of a moment that remains hauntingly present.
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Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle BurdenA gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage. In 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. Here, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
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The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza GriffithsOn September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, Griffiths' closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. As Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day. Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures.
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After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace by Robert PolitoBlending biography and archival history, After the Flood asks of Bob Dylan, "If your dreams are fulfilled at twenty, what do you do with the rest of your life?" Polito reveals Dylan’s creative output during the last three decades as his most ambitious and accomplished yet.
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Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind by Jason ZengerleFrom a seasoned political journalist, an eye-opening examination of Tucker Carlson's rise through conservative media and politics, and his ideological transformation over the past thirty years, tracking the concurrent shifts in the political and media landscapes which have both influenced and succumbed to the hyperpartisan politics of today. Zengerle reveals how Carlson's career offers a unique lens into the radical transformation of American conservatism and, just as importantly, the media that covers and ultimately shapes it.
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Two Women Living Together: The Bestselling Korean Memoir by Kim HanaThe big-hearted, bestselling South Korean memoir co-written by two best friends flouting gender norms and societal expectations with their decision to grow old together under one roof. When most of their peers were moving in with romantic partners and having children, Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo chose independence. But in their forties, something shifted, and they were met with a new, unexpected loneliness. Refusing to settle for the outdated choice between marriage or isolation, Hana and Sunwoo made a radical decision: to buy a home and live together--not as lovers, not as roommates, but as chosen family. With warmth, wit, and sharp social insight, Hana and Sunwoo share their blueprint for building a life outside the scripts of marriage and society's expectations for women.
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