|
History and Current Events May 2019
|
|
|
|
| Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do by Jennifer L. Eberhardt, PhDWhat it's about: supplemented with research and the author's own experiences with prejudice, this eye-opening work explores how readers can combat unconscious racial bias in their everyday lives.
Author alert: MacArthur fellow Jennifer L. Eberhardt is a Stanford University psychology professor and an expert on the topic of racial bias.
Book buzz: Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson calls Biased "groundbreaking." |
|
| Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London by Claire HarmanLondon, 1840: Penny dreadfuls are surging in popularity and are believed to be a corrupting influence on the city’s lower-class residents. When aristocrat Lord William Russell is brutally murdered in his home, is a book to blame?
Starring: prime suspect François Corvoisier, a valet of Russell's who claimed in court that William Harrison Ainsworth's crime novel Jack Sheppard drove him to the violent deed. |
|
| The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara RobertsonWhat it is: a fast-paced account of the notorious 1893 Lizzie Borden murder trial that utilizes court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and recently discovered letters written by Borden herself to argue that the jury who acquitted her got it wrong.
About the author: Debut author Cara Robertson is a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk who spent 20 years researching the Borden case.
Who it's for: true crime aficionados and amateur sleuths. |
|
|
Never a lovely so real : the life and work of Nelson Algren
by Colin Asher
An in-depth portrait of the first National Book Award winner analyzes his life experiences and literary themes against a backdrop of mid-20th-century American politics and culture to offer insight into Algren's abrupt departure from fame into obscurity.
|
|
|
América : the epic story of Spanish North America, 1493-1898
by Robert Goodwin
"An epic history of the Spanish empire in North America from 1493 to 1898 by Robert Goodwin, author of Spain: The Centre of the World. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, half the modern United States was part of the vast Spanish Empire. The year after Columbus's great voyage of discovery, in 1492, he claimed Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for Spain. For the next three hundred years, thousands of proud Spanish conquistadors and their largely forgotten Mexican allies went in search of glory and riches from Florida to California. Many died, few triumphed. Some were cruel, some were curious, some were kind. Missionaries and priests yearned to harvest Indian souls for God through baptism and Christian teaching. Theirs was a frontier world whichSpain struggled to control in the face of Indian resistance and competition from France, Britain, and finally the United States. In the 1800s, Spain lost it all. Goodwin tells this history through the lives of the people who made it happen and the literature and art with which they celebrated their successes and mourned their failures. He weaves an epic tapestry from these intimate biographies of explorers and conquerors, like Columbus and Coronado, but also lesser known characters, like the powerful Gálvez family who gave invaluable and largely forgotten support to the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War; the great Pueblo leader Popay; and Esteban, the first documented African American. Like characters in a great play or a novel, Goodwin's protagonists walk the stage of history with heroism and brio and much tragedy"
|
|
|
Daniel Morgan : A Revolutionary Life
by Albert Louis Zambone
On January 17, 1781, at Cowpens, South Carolina, the notorious British cavalry officer Banastre Tarleton and his legion had been destroyed along with the cream of Lord Cornwallis's troops. The man who planned and executed this stunning American victory was Daniel Morgan. Once a barely literate backcountry laborer, Morgan now stood at the pinnacle of American martial success. Born in New Jersey in 1736, he left home at seventeen and found himself in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. There he worked in mills and as a teamster, and was recruited for Braddock's disastrous expedition to take Fort Duquesne from the French in 1755. When George Washington called for troops to join him at the siege of Boston in 1775, Morgan organized a select group of riflemen and headed north. From that moment on, Morgan's presence made an immediate impact on the battlefield and on his superiors. Washington soon recognized Morgan's leadership and tactical abilities. When Morgan's troops blocked the British retreat at Saratoga in 1777, ensuring an American victory, he received accolades from across the colonies.
|
|
| One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill BrysonWhat it's about: how a single pivotal season signaled American's ascent to the world stage.
Topics include: Charles Lindbergh's ambitious transatlantic flight; Babe Ruth's career-best record of 60 home runs; the production of The Jazz Singer (the first "talking picture"); Al Capone's reign of terror.
Read it for: Bill Bryson's sly humor and unusual factoids (for instance, Calvin Coolidge enjoyed having Vaseline applied to his head). |
|
| Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah ChurchwellWhat it is: an evocative social history that explores how "the crime of the decade," an unsolved 1922 double homicide, may have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby.
Why you might like it: Thrilling, rich in detail, and sprinkled with a hint of gossip, Careless People blends aspects of biography, history, and true crime to vividly recreate the glamorous milieu of the Roaring Twenties. |
|
| The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political... by Linda GordonWhat it's about: the "second Ku Klux Klan," which attracted millions of middle-class northern and midwestern Americans throughout the 1920s.
How it happened: Klan leaders, many of whom were elected government officials, amplified xenophobic fears by arguing for "100 percent Americanism" amid the country's influx of immigrants.
Don't miss: Linda Gordon's incisive discussion of the Klan's 500,000 women members, who played significant roles in the organization. |
|
| When Paris Sizzled: The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter... by Mary McAuliffeWhat it is: a vibrant year-by-year chronicle of Paris' rollicking Années folles ("Crazy Years") and the larger-than-life personalities that populated the city during its creative boom.
What sets it apart: Mary McAuliffe's breezy vignettes include the exploits of lesser-known figures like cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubenstein and automobile manufacturer André Citroën, who hoped to be the French Henry Ford. |
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
Patchogue-Medford Library 54-60 East Main Street Patchogue, New York 11772 (631) 654-4700www.pmlib.org/ |
|
|
|