|
|
|
|
Serving Up Scripture: How to Interpret the Bible for Yourself and Others
by Jennifer Garcia Bashaw
Using the metaphor of cooking, Serving Up Scripture explains how the reader (or interpreter) of Scripture can make solid meals (trustworthy, insightful interpretations) from the ingredients (chapters and verses) in the Bible, putting the biblical text back into the hands of anyone who's ever felt it's been abused or its message mischaracterized.
|
|
|
|
Upside-Down Love: A Memoir in Two Voices
by Sari Bashi
With a message of hope that is both timely and timeless, Upside-Down Love is an extraordinary memoir--irreverent, funny, and profoundly uplifting--of an Israeli lawyer, a Palestinian professor, and a love that transcends all division.Osama is a Palestinian professor, originally from Gaza, who cannot leave the West Bank city of Ramallah. Sari is an Israeli-American lawyer and long-distance runner who petitions Israel's Supreme Court for his right to travel freely. When the case began, neither expected to fall in love--and when it was over, nobody expected their love to endure.First published in Hebrew in 2021, Osama and Sari's star-crossed romance--an intimate, vulnerable portrait of an astoundingly resilient Israeli-Palestinian relationship--has since become a beacon of hope in the aftermath of October 7, 2023. Now on its way to becoming an international cult sensation, Upside-Down Love speaks to the unique circumstances of this specific moment in history, while also illustrating a timeless truth: Love will triumph over bigotry and destruction.
|
|
|
|
Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America
by Howard Bryant
I loved this book.... I looked forward to [it] more than any other in a long time, and Howard Bryant exceeded my great expectations. Kings and Pawns is brilliantly conceived and powerfully written. -- David Maraniss, author of Path Lit by LightningA path-breaking work of biography of two American giants, Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, whose lives would forever be altered by the Cold War, and would explosively intersect before its most notorious weapon, the House Un-American Activities Committee -- 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. The first occurred July 18, 1949 in Washington, D.C., when a reluctant Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball star who integrated the game and at the time was the most famous Black man in America, appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to discredit Paul Robeson, the legendary athlete, baritone, and actor -- himself once the most famous Black man in America. The testimony would be a defining moment in Robinson's life and contribute heavily to the destruction of Robeson's iconic reputation in the eyes of America.The second occurred June 12, 1956, in the midst of the last, demagogic roar of McCarthyism, when a battered, defiant Robeson - prohibited from leaving the United States - faced off in a final showdown with HUAC in the same setting Robinson appeared in seven years earlier. These two moments would epitomize the ongoing Black American conflict between patriotism and protest. On the cusp of a nascent civil rights movement, Robinson and Robeson would represent two poles of a people pitted against itself by forces that demanded loyalty without equality in return - one man testifying in conflicted service to and the other in ferocious critique of a country that would ultimately and decisively wound both.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, Kings and Pawns is a story of a moment that remains hauntingly present.
|
|
|
|
Fly, Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China
by Jung Chang
In this follow-up to Chang's Wild Swans, Deng Xiaoping opened the door of Communist China, and Jung--twenty-six years old and unstoppably curious, despite years of brainwashing--seized the propitious moment and became one of the first Chinese to leave the tightly sealed country and come to the West. [This memoir] chronicles her journey and that of her family, along with that of China, as it rose from a decrepit and isolated state to a world power challenging American dominance. During those decades, although she lives in the West, Jung's life intertwines with her native land in unexpected ways, a rare relationship made more complex because all her books are banned there. Her family story mirrors the ups and downs of China's transformation, right up to today, as it enters another watershed. Chairman Xi Jinping's attempt to return China to the anti-American Maoist past has a devastating impact on Jung's life: she is unable to go to her mother's deathbed.
|
|
|
|
Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People's Politician
by Dan Chiasson
The early days and inexorable rise of the young Bernie Sanders, the one-of-a-kind visionary who changed American politics forever, told by a son of the People's Republic of Burlington, Vermont The more I read of Dan Chiasson's book, the more moved I was by how absolutely unwavering Bernie's message has been across the many decades of his career. --Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home, on creating the cover art for Bernie for Burlington A fascinating portrait. --Ian Frazier, author of Paradise Bronx In this symphonic origin story of an era-defining politician, Dan Chiasson, a Burlington native who had a ringside seat to Bernie Sanders's development, reconstructs the rise of an American icon. With in-depth reporting and remarkable remembered scenes, Chiasson tracks a faint political signal that traveled from the Vermont communes, hardluck neighborhoods, traditional businesses, and county fairs to the town meetings and ballot boxes of his home state, and finally to Washington, D.C., to transform our national political landscape. Sanders, insisting on a socialist platform that hasn't changed to this day, defied a corrupt Democratic machine to find his coalition among Burlington's often feuding communities: the conservative French-Canadian Catholics whose grandparents and great-grandparents--including Chiasson's own--had worked in the mills; the puppeteers, hippies, and NYC transplants who'd moved to Vermont to find land and authenticity; the anti-nukers, activist nuns, baseball fans, developers, cops, and small businessmen like Ben and Jerry, who became Ben & Jerry's right there in town. Bernie captivated them all, running on the slogan Burlington Is Not for Sale to become the modern era's first socialist mayor, one who got the streets plowed but also boasted a foreign policy and a bullhorn to speak directly to Ronald Reagan. In the tradition of J. Anthony Lukas's Common Ground, this people's epic shows us an American city transformed one diner coffee and one neighborhood door-knock at a time, even as the analog era wanes and a new digital politics appears on the horizon. Full of Sanders himself, reflecting and raging, hitting his themes, Bernie for Burlington is a mesmerizing portrait of a politician, a place, and a movement that would change America.
|
|
|
|
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
by Ann Foster
*A Washington Post Notable Book for February *The dramatic, absolutely outrageous story of Caroline of Brunswick, a beloved icon of the Regency era, who uplifted the voice of the public and unabashedly defied society's expectations, yet was shockingly robbed of her crown, from the host of the Vulgar History podcast.Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, Princess of Brunswick, was born in the northern German town of Braunschweig. Her mother and father, the duke and duchess, instantly knew one thing: there was something irrefutably untamable about their daughter. She grew up a wild child, sequestered from others to protect her family's reputation--an 18th-century Rapunzel.She was freed from this gilded cage by an unexpected marriage proposal from George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales and the eldest son of George III and Queen Charlotte. Caroline was entirely unprepared for the backstabbing mean girls of the royal court. Always staying true to herself, she stepped into her role of queen-to-be without compromising her character, showing off her affinity for fashion, her many eccentric hobbies, and ultimately, her infallible spirit, despite being ostracized as an outsider by her in-laws.And so Caroline became the unlikely figurehead of the anti-monarchists, aided by the just-emerging tabloid press. Yet, despite her status as a revolutionary heroine, Caroline's name faded away following her death. Until now.For fans of Normal Women, Ann Foster brings us the riveting story of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's uncrowned queen, through an empowering examination of womanhood and autonomy that feels just as relevant today.
|
|
|
|
Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling
by Danny Funt
This jaw-dropping book pulls back the curtain on the alluring yet perilous world of American sports gambling. Built around explosive interviews with the power players of the betting boom at FanDuel, DraftKings, and beyond, it reveals the troubling methods that are being used to bleed gamblers dry. Everybody Loses is the first major investigation into America's sports gambling industry. Journalist Danny Funt has obtained wild stories and stunning admissions from the people trying to transform our nation of sports fans into a nation of sports gamblers, including: - Former sportsbook executives who cop to misleading customers, with one admitting they're selling that you can win, but you can't. - VIP hosts at the gambling companies who divulge the extravagant perks they offer their biggest losers to keep them hooked. - Insiders who recall secret meetings where NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB executives learned how much money their leagues stood to make if they abandoned their opposition to gambling. - Lobbyists who detail how they converted skeptical politicians into gambling industry cheerleaders. This riveting narrative will captivate sports fans, concerned parents, and anyone intrigued by the intersection of money and morals. Everybody Loses is the crucial book for understanding why sports gambling is suddenly everywhere--and why the odds are so great that the problems it's creating will soon spiral out of control.
|
|
|
|
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
[An] extraordinary and urgent book. --Jonathan Haidt The Mattering Instinct is a masterpiece. I wept, I laughed out loud, I came face-to-face with the wellsprings of my life, but mostly I marveled at Rebecca Goldstein's genius. This book should ignite a revolution. --Martin Seligman, best-selling author of Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being A paradigm-shifting work that explores humanity's most fundamental desire.
|
|
|
|
The Flower Bearers
by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles of away, Griffiths' closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, 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. As trauma compounded trauma, 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. In the process of rebuilding a self, Griffiths chronicles her friendship with Moon, the seventeen years since their meeting at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, they embraced their literary foremothers-Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, to name a few-and fought to embrace themselves as poets, artists, and Black women. Alongside this unbreakable bond, Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures.
|
|
|
|
Seeing Into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter
by Rodger Kamenetz
It needed to be written, and needs to be read, now more than ever. A real gem. - Henry Shukman, author of One Blade of Grass and Original Love The author of The Jew in the Lotus seeks to answer the Dalai Lama's question.During the historic dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama, as told in his international bestseller The Jew in the Lotus, Rodger Kamenetz heard a penetrating question from His Holiness to the rabbis, How does your spiritual practice purify afflictive emotions?To Kamenetz this seemed the most fundamental question to ask of any religion or philosophy of life. How do your practices help you with negative emotions like anxiety, envy, resentment and shame?Taking the reader with him on an exhilarating intellectual and emotional journey, he finds a natural spiritual path in the imagination.Kamenetz connects daily life to spiritual longing, from the musical rhythms of his beloved New Orleans to his tender bond with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, visionary founder of Jewish Renewal and a central figure in the Dharamsala dialogue.Embedded in a rich poetic narrative. Seeing into the Life of Things offers down to earth practices from count your blessings, to savoring perception, from dwelling on powerful memories, to the sacred encounters in dreams. Kamenetz shows how giving birth to our images restores us to an imagination of the sacred.
|
|
|
|
Football
by Chuck Klosterman
A hilarious but nonetheless groundbreaking contribution to the argument about which force shapes American life the most. For two kinds of readers: those who know it's football and those who are about to find out.
|
|
|
|
Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood
by William J. Mann
Illuminating and captivating, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown and Bogart offers the first definitive account of the Black Dahlia murder--the most famous unsolved true crime case in American history--which humanizes the victim and situates the notorious case within an anxious, postwar country grappling with new ideas, demographics, and technologies. The brutal murder of Elizabeth Short--better known as the Black Dahlia--in 1947 has been in the public consciousness for nearly eighty years, yet no serious study of the crime has ever been published. Short has been mischaracterized as a wayward sex worker or vagabond, and--like the seductive femme fatales of film noir--responsible for and perhaps deserving of her fate. William J. Mann, however, is interested in the truth. His extensive research reveals her as a young woman with curiosity and drive, who leveraged what little agency postwar society gave her to explore the world, defying draconian postwar gender expectations to settle down, marry, and have children. It's time to reexamine the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia. Using a 21st-century lens, Mann connects Short's story to the anxious era after World War II, when the nation was grappling with new ideas, new demographics, new technologies, and old fears dressed up as new ones. Only by situating the Black Dahlia case within this changing world can we understand the tragedy of this young woman, whose life and death offer surprising mirrors on today. Mann has strong opinions on who might've killed her, and even stronger ones on who did not. He spent five years sifting through the evidence and has found unknown connections by cross-referencing police reports, District Attorney investigations, FBI files, court documents, military records, and more, using the deep, intense research skills that have become his trademark. He also spoke with the families of the original detectives, of Short's friends, and even of suspects, and relied on advice from experienced physicians and homicide detectives. Mann deftly sifts through the sensationalized journalism, preconceived notions, myths, and misunderstandings surrounding the case to uncover the truth about Elizabeth Short like no book before. The Black Dahlia promises to be the definitive study about the most famous unsolved case in American history.
|
|
|
|
Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest
by James Martin
In this humorous memoir, New York Times bestselling author and podcast host of The Spiritual Life, Father James Martin tells the story of a busboy, dishwasher, caddy, usher, factory worker, bank teller, and corporate tool and, finally, a Jesuit priest.Funny, charming, inspiring and wise--this is a memorable memoir. -- Stephen Colbert, Comedian and writerWork in Progress is a snapshot of several years--first as a boy, then as a teenager, and finally as a young adult--of being thrown into a series of jobs for which Martin had zero training. He had never set foot in a restaurant kitchen before working as a busboy and dishwasher; never stepped onto a golf course before working as a caddy; and had never seen a factory floor before working as an assembly-line worker. He almost always felt uncomfortable, unsettled, and uneasy. But, like many of us, he needed the money.This coming-of-age story is set in the 1960s and 1970s, a lighthearted tale for readers who enjoy personal narratives, and it's unlike anything Father Martin has written before. As he puts it, This is a spiritual memoir from a different angle ... told 'slant' as Emily Dickinson might say.Each chapter features photos of memories and milestones throughout Father Martin's young life. If you're an aficionado of snafus, you won't be disappointed. He's not the hero of these stories, more a hapless teenager who learns in each job, even the ones he loathes, something about the value of work, about what it means to be an adult, about people, and about life overall.Work in Progress teaches us small but important life lessons such as: work hard and be on time, don't be mean, apologize when you need to, and forgive frequently, ask if you don't know something, don't misuse power, pay attention to those who are struggling, listen and, above all, be kind.Martin shares, My summer jobs, crazy and funny and varied as they were, had something to do with who I am. As we Jesuits would say, the lessons I learned helped to 'form me.
|
|
|
|
The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution
by Gregory E. O'Malley
By a prize-winning historian: The dramatic story of a Black man's relentless search for freedom in Revolutionary-era America When most Americans think of slavery, they do not picture the colonial or revolutionary eras. Yet, in fact, one of six inhabitants of the thirteen original colonies was enslaved. The Escapes of David George: an Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution reveals a remarkable, untold experience of the American revolutionary period--a Black man's quest for the freedom espoused by our Founders, but denied him and other enslaved people. In 1762, at the age of 19, David George escaped from a plantation in Virginia. Running southwest by night, fording rivers and crossing borders, he embarked on a decades-long journey in and out of captivity that spanned multiple colonies and thousands of miles. George lived among White, Black, Creek, and Natchez settlements, fled to the British Army for the promise of liberty, founded what might have been the first Black Baptist church, helped to hack a settlement for refugees out of the Nova Scotia wilderness, and died as a leader of an experimental anti-slavery community in Sierra Leone. Piecing together archival records and David George's own brief account of his life--the earliest written testimony by a fugitive enslaved person in North America--Gregory O'Malley presents a thrilling narrative and a unique perspective on our nation's origins, principles, and contradictions.
|
|
|
|
Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire
by Julian Sancton
The 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--from the New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth 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, met a darker fate. It was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena, and when the smoke cleared, the San José and its bounty had disappeared into the ocean, its coordinates lost to time. Though a diver at heart, Dooley was an unlikely candidate to find the San José. He had little in the way of serious credentials, yet his tenacity and single-minded devotion to finding and excavating the ship powered him across four decades, even as he became a man in exile from the country of his birth. As Dooley jousted with famous treasure hunters and well-funded competitors, he slowly homed in on a patch of sea that might contain a three-hundred-year-old shipwreck--or nothing at all. 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.
|
|
|
|
Conversations on Faith
by Martin Scorsese
From his Italian-American upbringing as a Catholic in New York to the meditations on religion, belief, and the divine found in his filmography, Martin Scorsese's relationship to his faith has touched every aspect of his life and work. When Italian journalist Father Antonio Spadaro and Martin Scorsese first sat down together in Scorsese's home, neither could have predicted the depth of the conversation, intellectual exchange, or friendship that would result. While discussing the acclaimed director's film Silence, about the persecution of Jesuits in Japan, they began a dialogue about faith that continues to this day. In their often-profound conversations, he and Father Spadaro have left no stone unturned, discussing this relationship along with everything from Scorsese's childhood to the concept of the soul. And as a result of their long friendship and communication, Scorsese met with Pope Francis. Readers will gain new insight into one of the most famous directors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in these honest, moving, and ultimately inspiring Conversations on Faith--
|
|
|
|
Michelangelo and Titian: A Tale of Rivalry and Genius
by William E. Wallace
From the acclaimed author of Michelangelo, God's Architect, a dual biography of two towering artists of the Renaissance, whose decades-long rivalry spurred both to greater heights In 1529, Michelangelo was in Venice when he first met Titian, Venice's famed painter of princes, gods, and goddesses. Coming face-to-face with Titian's drama-infused, richly colored works, the creator of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling realized he had met a worthy opponent. Twenty-five years later, Titian came to Rome to paint the pope, and the two met again. Painting in the Vatican, Titian experienced the full power of Michelangelo's work and vowed to surpass the achievements of his older contemporary. Michelangelo and Titian is the untold story of history's greatest artistic rivalry, a competition between two monumental figures more admiring of one another than either would ever admit. William Wallace brings the world of the sixteenth century to life, and in particular its culture of gossip and intrigue. Wallace challenges the established narrative of this relationship as mostly one-sided, with the younger artist in competition with the reigning master. He shows how the artists moved in overlapping courtly and papal circles, sharing the patronage, power, and sometimes friendship of the most important people of their era, including members of the Medici, Este, and Farnese families. Wallace traces how, over the span of some forty years, this unspoken rivalry was reciprocal and mutually beneficial, with each learning from the other's brilliance, quietly seeking to best the other's work and secure his own legacy. An extraordinary achievement, Michelangelo and Titian is a compelling account of two supremely gifted rivals who inspired each other to test the limits of their creative genius, and in doing so created some of the most astonishing works of art the world has ever known.
|
|
|
|
Uncomplicate It: Permission to Enjoy God in Your Unique Way
by Hosanna Wong
What if enjoying life with God is simpler than you've been told? What if your personality, the way you learn, the things you enjoy, your season of life, and your many roles aren't roadblocks to overcome but instead shortcuts to real connection with your Creator?
|
|
|
|
|
Morton Grove Public Library
6140 Lincoln Ave
Morton Grove, Illinois 60053
(847) 965-4220www.mgpl.org |
|
|
|