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History and Current Events April 2021
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| We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption by Justin FentonWhat it's about: the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a corrupt Baltimore police department unit created in 2007 that targeted the city's Black population, committed robberies, planted evidence, and much more.
About the author: Baltimore Sun reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Justin Fenton covered the city's 2015 protests in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death in police custody.
Who it's for: Fans of TV's The Wire will be captivated by this fast-paced and sobering true-crime chronicle. |
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| Guilty Admissions: The Bribes, Favors, and Phonies Behind the College Cheating Scandal by Nicole LaPorteWhat it is: a gossipy exposé of Operation Varsity Blues, the 2019 college admissions scandal that resulted in the arrest of actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin.
Read it for: a well-researched indictment of the toxic (and systemic) competition among the wealthy and privileged.
Try this next: Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz. |
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Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
by David Zucchino
What it's about: the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, when white supremacist Democrats in Wilmington, North Carolina stoked racist ire to overthrow the city's mixed-race government and disenfranchise thousands of black citizens, killing an estimated 60 black people.
Why you should read it: Drawing upon numerous primary sources including diaries and witness testimonies, Pulitzer Prize winner David Zucchino's sobering and resonant history rightly corrects the historical record -- for decades, the coup was viewed as a race riot instigated by Wilmington's black population.
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| The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy LowerHow it began: In 2009, historian Wendy Lower saw a World War II-era photograph capturing the execution of a Ukrainian Jewish family.
What happened next: Lower spent years researching the photograph's origins and the identities of the victims, perpetrators, and photographer, constructing a compelling narrative of what happened that day.
Further reading: For another heartwrenching investigation of the atrocities committed against Ukrainian Jews during the Holocaust, check out Esther Safran Foer's memoir I Want You to Know We're Still Here. |
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The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice
by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
What it's about: the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female militia established in 2013 to combat the Islamic State in Syria.
Don't miss: a pulse-pounding account of the Siege of Kobani; profiles of four YPJ fighters instrumental in retaking the city.
Reviewers say: "A well-told story of contemporary female warriors and the complex geopolitical realities behind their battles" (Kirkus Reviews).
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Focus on: Asian American Experience |
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The Making of Asian America: A History
by Erika Lee
What it is: a sweeping survey of Asian immigration in the United States that won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Adult Nonfiction in 2016.
Why you might like it: Erika Lee's well-researched history eschews monolithic conceptions of Asian identity by detailing the specific experiences of people from various ethnic groups.
Don't miss: the overview of Asian immigration in Canada and Latin America.
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Asian American dreams : the emergence of an American people
by Helen Zia
A stirring account of the emergence of the "Asian-American" consciousness in America explores the often tragic history that led to disparate groups of Asians seeing themselves as a single, cohesive ethnic community with political and social power. Reprint.
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Driven Out : The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans
by Jean Pfaelzer
Chronicles the shocking campaign of ethnic cleansing that targeted Chinese Americans from the Gold Rush era to the turn of the twentieth century, documenting the systematic attempts to purge Chinese enclaves across the West, as well as the tenacious efforts of the Chinese Americans to achieve reparations, attain rights, and launch campaigns of civil disobedience to accomplish their goals. 25,000 first printing.
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Not quite not white : losing and finding race in America
by Sharmila Sen
In a book that is part memoir and part manifesto, the author, who emigrated from India to the U.S. in 1982, shares her funny and candid story of how she discovered that non-whiteness can be the very thing that makes us American. Original.
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Minor feelings : an Asian American reckoning
by Cathy Park Hong
"Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country, a tenuous alliance of people with roots from South Asia to East Asia to the Pacific Islands, from tech millionaires to service industry laborers. How do we speak honestly about the Asian American condition--if such a thing exists? Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively confronts this thorny subject, blending memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays togetheris Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity. With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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