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History and Current Events August 2018
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| Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation by Robert W. FieselerWhat it's about: In June 1973, 32 people died after an arsonist set New Orleans' Up Stairs Lounge ablaze. The tragedy remained the deadliest attack on a gay club in the United States until the Pulse shooting in 2016.
Why it's significant: Debut author Robert W. Fieseler's vivid account of the attack's aftermath -- in which indifferent authorities failed to identify the perpetrator -- spotlights a forgotten moment in the gay rights movement and the costly toll of the uphill battle to equality. |
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| Conan Doyle for the Defense: The True Story of a Sensational British Murder, a Quest for... by Margalit FoxWhat it is: a page-turning true crime account of the 1908 wrongful murder conviction of Jewish German immigrant Oscar Slater, featuring an unlikely hero at its center -- Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle.
Don't miss: New York Times writer Margalit Fox's extensive research richly reconstructs how Doyle used his famous creation's deduction methods to exonerate Slater. |
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The Perfectionists : How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
by Simon Winchester
What it's about: Precision is so essential a component of modern human life and existence that we seldom stop to think about it. [This book] examines the relatively recent development of the notion of precision--the people who developed it and the ways in which it has shaped the modern world--and the challenges posed and losses risked by our veneration and pursuit of increasingly precise tools and methods.
The audience: People with an interesting engineering, and people who think finding out how things work is neat.
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| Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America by Alissa QuartWhat it is: an in-depth and ambitious look at the systemic hardships faced by the American middle class, offering policy-based solutions.
About the author: Alissa Quart is the executive editor of the nonprofit Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Book buzz: Nickel and Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich calls Squeezed "a keen, elegantly written, and scorching account of the American family today". |
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| Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History... by Lynn Vincent and Sara VladicWhat it's about: On July 30, 1945, a Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank the USS Indianapolis, with all but 317 of the 1,196 crew perishing after the initial attack and in the four days before help arrived.
Did you know? The Indianapolis was torpedoed mere days after the completion of its highly classified mission to deliver the atomic bomb "Little Boy" to the Pacific Islands. Little Boy, the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare, was dropped on Hiroshima one week after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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