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Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull
by Tom Clavin
A dramatic new look at Custer's Last Stand in time for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. On June 25-27, 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was fought between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. Along the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, the battle resulted in the devastating defeat of U.S. forces and was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. This dramatic look at the Little Bighorn battle includes not only the Native American point of view-with two dynamic Native figures, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, on prominent display-but also the impact it had on the Plains Indians. It turned out to be their last stand too because a vengeful nation quashed any remaining resistance, with a conclusive massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, almost simultaneous with the murder of Sitting Bull. In addition, Custer's character by June 1876 is at the heart of this world-famous disaster. For all his celebrated bravery, especially at Gettysburg 13 years earlier, Custer became a devout media hound, desperate to gain fame. Even, some say, his own demise was a misguided attempt at grabbing national headlines: He envisioned a massacre - just not his own. As both the camera and the tabloid came of age, George Armstrong Custer became America's first bona fide celebrity. Vengeance is a thrilling read, filled with action, legendary characters, and poignance for the impact this had on Native Americans and the shape of the American West.
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Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
by Pamela Colloff
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women--some at the same time. When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men's wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik's account of his confession helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused. By then, Skalnik had caused untold damage: to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than finding the truth.
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The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness
by Cal Flyn
From the blacksand beaches of Iceland, to river crossings deep in the Amazon jungle, to the barren beauty of Antarctica, wildernesses make up some of the world's more alluring natural landscapes. But what is a wilderness, really? It is a powerful, ancient concept, lying at the intersection of landscape, philosophy, and ecology. And for thousands of years, people have sought out uncontrolled, unknown, or uncharted nature in search of religious epiphany, self-actualization, and an escape from modern life. More recently these “pristine” places have been seen as the subject of a last effort to repair a planet imperiled by humans. The Savage Landscape takes us into these breathtaking wilds--deep into dark forests, to the tops of mountains, and into the hearts of deserts--asking provocative questions about the nature of wilderness, its preservation, and its meaning.
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Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I've Cried about: A Memoir
by Isabel Klee
From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she got her chance, ditching her college upstate and moving into a grungy basement apartment in Manhattan. Dog-obsessed since childhood, her first post-grad job was becoming an assistant to a dog photographer, and something clicked into place: a career focused on helping dogs was the new dream. Isabel quickly found a passion for rehabilitating rescue dogs and helping them get adopted. At the same time, she was caught up in a whirlwind of friendships, parties, fickle boyfriends and grand romances, which she recounts in honest, tender, and sometimes devastating chapters about the search for love and belonging.Isabel's first true love, though, was Simon, a fluffy puppy who'd been saved from the meat trade. As the highs and lows of her twenties hit Isabel in wave after wave, it was Simon who kept her grounded. Together, Isabel and Simon created a community of dog-lovers and a tight-knit group of friends pursuing their dreams.In this honest and moving memoir, Isabel weaves together the stories of her foster dogs--and the challenges she helped them overcome--with tales of complicated relationships, hard decisions, and great loves in New York City, all leading to a happy ending not only for the rescue pups, but for Isabel herself.
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Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register
by Ann Larson
Grocery stores may all seem the same. But the supermarket as an institution is anything but ordinary or one-dimensional. At the supermarket where I worked, I found a microcosm of society: a place of brutality and violence as well as solidarity and the promise of change. Unemployed and looking for work during the pandemic, journalist and activist Ann Larson found a job as a cashier at a supermarket in Utah. Though she had written about low-wage work for years, nothing could have prepared her for what she experienced. Informed by her time behind the register, Cleanup on Aisle Five is Larson's deep dive into supermarkets and how they operate from the inside out: from the low-wage workers stocking the shelves and the customers coming through at all hours, to the communities these stores serve and the larger capitalist forces and corporate interests at play that control how we shop for food. In the process, she chronicles the evolution of the grocery store, unpacks the political implications of the battles between shoppers and staff, and invites us to imagine grocery stores as places where one can foster community and even equity--if we can separate food distribution from profit motive. Deeply reported and refreshingly insightful, Larson follows the interactions between the workers, including Stanley who can't afford a sandwich, Nick who doesn't have health insurance, and Scarlet who is all out of patience, and customers, including the old lady who finds comfort in tidying the shelves to the one homeless guy who only comes in to use the facilities. From the unforgettable characters to the common challenges we face when it comes to food, Cleanup in Aisle Five will forever change the way we look at grocery stores.
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The Others: Ufos, Ai, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny
by D. W. Pasulka
Author and religious studies scholar D. W. Pasulka uncovers a hidden history of alleged contact between human and nonhuman intelligences--some framed as angels, others as UFOs/UAP--interwoven with the rise of artificial intelligence and the dream of immortality. Pasulka examines the science of life extension and the beliefs of people who have experiences of UFOs. She unveils a hidden architecture of belief and influence--one in which human consciousness is being reimagined and extended. Pasulka begins the book with a fascinating and unexpected historical origin story. In the early twentieth century, a censured Catholic visionary predicted that humanity would soon encounter a new form of intelligence--one that would appear alien but was something far stranger. By the mid-twentieth century, other Catholic mystics and science fiction visionaries, echoed similar prophecies, naming the twenty-first century as the critical threshold . . . and we are now at that unparalleled point in human history. It's time for The Others. Drawing on first-person interviews, suppressed histories, and access to insiders in science and tech, The Others explores a startling new terrain: where the sacred meets the synthetic, and where the next phase of human evolution may already be underway.
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Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate
by Roopika Risam
With our earliest tools like ancient cave markings and knotted strings, to colonial record-keeping and the algorithmic state, Data Empire reveals how data has always been the seed of power: a technology of control that has shaped civilizations and upheld empires. Empire was never just about weapons or ships. It was built on collecting information on us, to rule us. Both a sweeping history and a sharp critique, Data Empire is a call to recognize the power data holds--and to imagine what resistance looks like in an age defined by it. In looking at the history of data, readers will understand: Data made civilization possible: Long before algorithms and AI, systems of counting, recording, and organizing information enabled everything from agriculture to taxation. From clay tablets in Mesopotamia to colonial censuses to modern databases, data determines who is visible, who is legible, and who can be governed. The modern data state was built in moments of crisis: In the twentieth century, governments became vast information-processing systems. Today's digital systems inherit the logics of earlier recordkeeping regimes, including those shaped by colonialism, racial classification, and forms of government that extract from land and from populations. The biases we see in algorithms are not new but continuations of a long history. We are living through a transformation in who controls data--and therefore power: For most of history, data infrastructures were largely state-driven. Today, they are increasingly owned and operated by private corporations, even as they structure public life. This shift raises urgent questions about accountability, sovereignty, and the future of public life.
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Dressing the Queen: Two Hundred Years of Craft, Couture, and Monarchy
by Kate Strasdin
A revealing history that explores the artistry, craftmanship, and traditions behind the royal wardrobe. A truly wonderful and fascinating book --Lady Anne Glenconner From tours and walkabouts to the dazzling spectacle of a wedding or Coronation, the clothes worn by royal women have always been a fascination. Starting with Queen Victoria and moving to the modern Elizabethan age, Dressing the Queen hows the incredible craftmanship and painstaking effort that go into the making of what is known as the Royal Wardrobe, from handmade boots to Crown Jewels; country tweeds to delicate stockings. Dress historian Kate Strasdin reveals a tribe of previously unsung women and men. Some may be more renowned--such as designer Norman Hartnell or suitcase-maker Louis Vuitton--but most are ordinary, highly talented working people from across the British Isles. From rural straw plaiters to wartime coat-makers and refugee glovers, their skilled labour is a vital part of our country's history. As we see modern princesses sally forth in fantastically arranged ensembles, we can think again of the vanishing trades that once employed millions--and still remain integral to royal life today.
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The Everest Mystery: Sandy Irvine, George Mallory, and the Truth Still Buried on Everest
by Julie Summers
There is no mystery more compelling in the history of mountaineering than the disappearance of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine close to the summit of Mount Everest on June 8, 1924. Over 100 years after they were last seen 'going strong for the top, ' the question of exactly what happened to them on that fateful day has not been answered. George Mallory's frozen remains were discovered in 1999. But in September 2024, a climber found an old boot lying out in the open on the Central Rongbuk Glacier on Mount Everest, several miles from where Mallory lay. The boot contained a foot, and a sock bearing a nametape spelled out in red: A.C. IRVINE. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit--becoming the first to do so--or did they perish while ascending? What happened to the camera that Irvine may have carried, which would have documented their climb? Written by Julie Summers, Sandy Irvine's great-niece, and Jochen Hemmleb, the world's leading authority on the Mallory and Irvine Everest expedition, The Everest Mystery explores the life of Sandy Irvine, his relationship with George Mallory, and the many theories about what happened to them so close to the summit of Mount Everest. Above all, it restores Sandy Irvine to his rightful place in the great mystery of Everest 1924.
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The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece
by Stephan Talty
From the New York Times bestselling author, the incredible true story of the American archaeologists and classicists who went undercover as OSS spies during World War II to fight the Nazis and protect the world's most precious relics. In 1942, as head of the newly formed OSS, Wild Bill Donovan deployed spies across Europe and around the world to try to thwart the Nazis. In Greece, Nazis weren't just taking over territory; they were seizing and threatening to destroy some of the world's most important and valuable historical monuments and artifacts. So, Donovan tapped a young Ivy League-trained archaeologist named Rodney Young to assemble and lead a team of spies to collect intel. Young set about recruiting the most unlikely of spies--academics, classicists, epigraphers, and other specialists and scholars--who would come to be kown as the Greek Desk. These men and women, along with their Greek allies, went undercover and tried desperately to protect some of the world's most significant treasures. The archaeologists hid priceless artifacts in ancient caves, bank vaults, and even underneath the city of Athens itself. They created fakes to give over to the Nazis to appease their lust for these remarkable works. Ultimately, when it became clear the cat-and- mouse game on its own wasn't going to save Athens, they brought in an army of Greek American soldiers to beat back the Nazi regime and save their homeland.
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Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination
by Cassandra Vieten
Imagination is not a childish indulgence but "the seed of every breakthrough, new solution, social movement, and invention, as well as every dream," according to this energetic blend of neuroscience, psychology, and self-help. Debut author Vieten, the director of research at the Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, argues that imagination, a "foundational capacity that allows us to simulate reality and transcend it to explore possibilities beyond the known," powers not only creativity but memory, planning, emotional regulation, physical health, and relationships. She unpacks how imagination can fuel problem-solving and the construction of meaning (in difficult times, it can allow one to find "meaning your suffering, empower you to keep going... and make your way through it with purpose"), and suggests ways for readers to understand and harness different "modes" of imagination.
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Blizzard of Lies: Karen Read, John O'Keefe, and the Shocking Unsolved Murder in Cop Town, USA
by Dave Wedge
In January 2022, a Boston police officer turned up dead in the snow, seemingly a victim of a simple hit-and-run. But Officer John O'Keefe's death kicked off a scandalous whodunit that invited federal scrutiny and triggered nationwide outrage. The explosive story of O'Keefe's death, and the subsequent accusation and trial of his girlfriend Karen Read, ignited one of the most high-profile true crime mysteries in decades. The apparently open-and-shut manslaughter case quickly devolved into a chaotic mixture of lies, institutional corruption, and police cover-ups that threw the Massachusetts law enforcement scene into turmoil. And Read's 2025 acquittal left O'Keefe's death an unresolved mystery, with more questions than answers. With dramatic twists including a rogue journalist, a mistrial, and polarizing public protests--along with revelations that called several other murder cases into question--Blizzard of Lies is a Boston-area veteran reporter's detailed and immersive account of one of the most controversial crime stories of his career. Featuring interviews with people on both sides of the case, including law enforcement, Read and her legal team, and the O'Keefe family, investigative journalist Dave Wedge shares inside stories and new details on: John O'Keefe's turbulent relationship with Karen Read. Evidence excluded from the courtroom Additional cases now in jeopardy because of misconduct uncovered during Read's trial. Heroic acts from O'Keefe's policing career. The O'Keefe family's civil suit and ongoing pursuit of the truth.
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