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History and Current Events July 2025 |
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Daughters of the bamboo grove / : From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins
by Barbara Demick
"On a warm day in September 2000, a twenty-eight-year-old woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut nestled in bamboo behind her brother's rural home in China's Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her young family but also not her first children. Hidden in the hut, they were born under the shadow of China's notorious one-child policy. Fearing the ire of family planning officials, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in late 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away from her aunt's care. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn't imagine she could be sent to the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world. Following her stories written as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick, author of National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy, embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long term impact of China's one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther--formerly Fangfang--is a photographer in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, having no idea that she was kidnapped. Through Demick's indefatigable reporting and the activist work to find these lost children, will these two long-lost sisters finally find each other, and if they do, will they feel whole again? A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country's most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families' determination and one reporter's dogged work"
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No more tears : the secret history of Johnson & Johnson
by Gardiner Harris
"When reporter Gardiner Harris met a woman at an airport bar whose entire family has been shattered by her nephew's use of the drug Risperdal, one she sold to his doctor as a drug sales rep, he began to wonder how many similar stories are out there. This was in 2004, and since then, Harris has been investigating one of the largest players in Big Pharma, continuously reporting on it despite simultaneous landmark journalistic accomplishments, like exposing the extremely toxic mining conditions ignored by coal companies. For decades, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson was seen as a paragon of ethical conduct, especially considering the company's child-friendly products like baby powder and tearless shampoo. However, Harris has uncovered reams of evidence of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that reveal a historic threat to the health of the American public. He covers several disasters: tissue death caused by J & J's touted hip replacements, their coverup of baby powder's linkage to cancer, the teen-directed marketing of the life-altering drug Risperdal, and more. The Hatch-Waxman Bill, which is meant to pave the way for lower-priced generic drugs, passed in 1984, and inadvertently created loopholes in the drug approval process which allowed urgency and profit maximization to take precedence over diligence and patient protection. Johnson & Johnson's subsequent lack of oversight, money-grubbing, and flat out lies have resulted in the death or serious injury of millions of people. To many, the peril of falsified science seems distant, but Harris reveals how a combination of misrepresented data and bribe culture directly impact doctors' decisions-which are devastatingly revealed to be not at all in the interests of patients"-- Provided by publisher
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Every purchase matters : how fair trade farmers, companies, and consumers are changing the world
by Paul Rice
"Fair Trade CEO Paul Rice has spent his life and career exploring the issue of how to benefit from our planet's resources without destroying them or each other and pushing businesses to take responsibility for the way their products are sourced and encouraging consumers to buy them. In a world of labor strife, climate disasters, and unpredictable markets, this book is a reminder of how far we've come already, and makes the case that we don't have to despair. This is a story not merely about sourcing and business, but about the power of ideas and what it takes to make them real"
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Blood in the water : the untold story of a family tragedy
by Casey Sherman
"From New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman, a gripping contemporary true crime narrative for everyone fascinated by the Murdaugh murders, about Nathan Carman, who was found floating on a raft in the North Atlantic and was later accused of murdering his mother to gain access to his family's fortune of more than $40 million"
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These strange new minds : how AI learned to talk and what it means
by Christopher Summerfield
"An insider look at the Large Language Models (LLMs) that are revolutionizing our relationship to technology, exploring their surprising history, what they can and should do for us today, and where they will go in the future--from an AI pioneer and neuroscientist. In this accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative examination of the world's most radical technology, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores what it really takes to build a brain from scratch. We have entered a world in which disarmingly human-like chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Bard, appear to be able to talk and reason like us--and are beginning to transform everything we do. But can AI 'think', 'know' and 'understand'? What are its values? Whose biases is it perpetuating? Can it lie and if so, could we tell? Does their arrival threaten our very existence? These Strange New Minds charts the evolution of intelligent talking machines and provides us with the tools to understand how they work and how we can use them. Ultimately, armed with an understanding of AI's mysterious inner workings, we can begin to grapple with the existential question of our age: have we written ourselves out of history or is a technological utopia ahead?"
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Into the ice : the Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-year-old mystery
by Mark Synnott
Determined to navigate the treacherous Northwest Passage solo, an internationally certified mountain guide and Air Force Pararescuemen trainer embarks on a pulse-pounding journey to both complete this rare feat and investigate the 250-year-old mystery of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. Illustrations.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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