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History and Current Events February 2026 |
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| Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster by Jacob SoboroffMSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff's urgent and affecting chronicle of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires blends personal reflections (Soboroff's childhood home was destroyed) with accounts from meteorologists, firefighters, politicians, and area residents. For fans of: Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson. |
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The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal about American Justice
by Elizabeth Vartkessian
A groundbreaking new take on the American justice system from one of its unknown revolutionaries, offering a powerful new vision of responsibility, punishment, and repair. The first book I'm aware of to pull back the curtain on a life-saving field most have never heard of: mitigation. --Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, from the foreword
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Focus on: Black History Month
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| HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience by Ayesha Rascoe (editor)Edited by NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, this inspiring essay collection features 16 pieces penned by graduates of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), detailing how their college experiences shaped them. Further reading: Historically Black Colleges and Universities' Guide to Excellence by William R. Harvey. |
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Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
by Michael Harriot
TheGrio columnist and former The Root writer Michael Harriot offers an irreverent and "essential" (Kirkus Reviews) retelling of American history that eschews Eurocentric narratives by placing Black lives and achievements front and center. Read-alike: Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies by Dick Gregory.
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Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon
by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison's lectures on the American canon, illuminating the relationship between race, the arts, and life beyond the page. From Herman Melville's Moby Dick to Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin to the works of Faulkner and Hemmingway, Morrison interrogates major works of American literature as only she can. With an introduction from Morrison's colleague, Claudia Brodsky, Language as Liberation is a revelatory book that once again displays Morrison's intellectual and literary greatness-- Provided by publisher.
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Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America by Eugene RobinsonPulitzer Prize-winning former Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tells our nation's torturous racial history through his own family's story, starting with his great-grandfather's freedom from slavery and threading his way to his own narrative and reaching today's Black Lives Matter movement, asking whether this time will be different.
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| A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped... by Juanita TolliverJournalist Juanita Tolliver's evocative and illuminating debut chronicles the little-known story of a fundraiser actress Diahann Carroll hosted for presidential hopeful Shirley Chisholm in 1972, whose attendees included Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton, comedian Flip Wilson, and future congresswoman Maxine Waters. Try this next: Shirley Chisholm: Champion of Black Feminist Power Politics by Anastasia C. Curwood. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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