Furious Minds: The Making of the Maga New Right
by Laura K. Field

Donald Trump is not a big thinker, but his 2016 presidential victory presented a grand opportunity for people who are, and it set off a radicalization and reconfiguration of the American conservative intellectual world. ... Laura Field, who spent close to a decade in conservative academic circles, chronicles the rise of the New Right--the network of academics, public intellectuals, and influencers who provide ideological fuel to Trumpism. This movement includes figures such as Patrick Deneen, Christopher Rufo, Peter Thiel, and JD Vance. Their agenda is built to last, and it has dire long-term implications for liberal democracy. The New Right has precedents in American history, but it is distinct for its youthfulness, misogyny, and extraordinary successes--most notably the elevation of Vance to the vice presidency.

Do More in Four: Why It's Time for a Shorter Workweek
by Joe O'Connor

What if we could accomplish more while working fewer days? A shortened workweek once seemed like a radical idea. Today, it's embraced by innovative business leaders, forward-thinking politicians, and a new generation of workers demanding more meaningful work. In Do More in Four, Joe O'Connor, a pioneer in designing and leading four-day-workweek pilots around the globe, and journalist Jared Lindzon, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Fortune, and TIME Magazine, present a groundbreaking, data-driven exploration of why a four-day workweek isn't merely possible—it's necessary in the age of artificial intelligence. O'Connor and Lindzon draw on extensive research, compelling case studies, and personal interviews with experts to reveal how organizations are reimagining work.

The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth
by Nicolas Niarchos

Swaths of Congo lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of a veritable periodic table of resources that has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global energy transition—the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. With unparalleled, original reporting, Nicolas Niarchos reveals how the scramble to control these metals and their production is overturning the world order, just as the global race to drill for oil shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the advent of the lithium-ion battery and tracing the supply chain for its production, Niarchos tells the story both of the people driving these tectonic changes and those whose lives are being upended. He reveals the true, devastating consequences of our best intentions and helps us prepare for an uncertain future.

Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid
by Emily Mendenhall

From lupus to Lyme, invisible illness is often dismissed by everyone but the sufferers. Why does the medical establishment continually insist that, when symptoms are hard to explain, they are probably just in your head? Inspired by her work with long COVID patients, medical anthropologist Emily Mendenhall traces the story of complex chronic conditions to show why both research and practice fail so many. Mendenhall points out disconnects between the reality of chronic disease—which typically involves multiple intersecting problems resulting in unique, individualized illness—and the assumptions of medical providers, who behave as though chronic diseases have uniform effects for everyone. And while invisible illnesses have historically been associated with white middle-class women, being believed that you are sick is even more difficult for patients whose social identities and lived experiences may not align with dominant medical thought. Weaving together cultural history with intimate interviews, Invisible Illness upholds the experiences of those living with complex illness to expose the failures of the American healthcare system—and how we can do better.

Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling
by Danny Funt

Washington Post contributor Danny Funt's illuminating debut chronicles the evolution of legalized sports betting in the United States, detailing the rise of companies like FanDuel and DraftKings and how they prey upon consumers and athletes alike. Further reading: The Bookie: How I Bet It All on Sports Gambling and Watched an Industry Explode by Art Manteris and Matt Birkbeck.

Until the Last Gun Is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America's Soul
by Matthew F. Delmont

Award-winning civil rights historian Matthew F. Delmont weaves together the stories of two Black heroes of the Vietnam War era: Coretta Scott King, who bravely championed the antiwar cause—and eventually persuaded her husband to do the same—and Dwight “Skip” Johnson, a Medal of Honor recipient whose life ended tragically after returning from battle to his native Detroit. Together, these extraordinary accounts expose the contradictions of Black activism and military service during the Vietnam War. Through rich storytelling, Delmont offers a portrait of this period unlike any other, shedding light on a fractured civil rights movement, a generation of veterans failed by the country they served, and the valor of Black servicemen and peace advocates in the midst of it all.

Traversal
by Maria Popova

In Traversal, Maria Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with the bewilderment of being alive—our telescopes and our treatises, our postulates and our poems—through the intertwined lives, loves, and legacies of visionaries both celebrated and sidelined by history, people born into the margins of their time and place who lived to write the future: Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Fanny Wright, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Marie Tharp, Alfred Wegener, Humphry Davy, Ruth Benedict, and Margaret Mead. Woven throughout their stories are other threads—the first global scientific collaboration, the Irish potato famine, the decoding of the insulin molecule, the invention of the bicycle, how nature creates blue—to make the tapestry of meaning more elaborate yet clearer as the book advances, converging on the ultimate question of what makes life alive and worth living. By turns epic and intimate—as concerned with the physical laws binding atoms into molecules as with the psychic forces binding us to one other—Traversal explores the universe between cells and souls to reveal the world, and our lives, in a dazzling new light.

The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World
by Tilar J. Mazzeo

Summer, 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband Joshua were young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win [a] race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach. It would mean freedom. And the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit—into the most treacherous waters in the world. As their ship, Neptune's Car, left New York Harbor and sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious. ... With no obvious option for a new captain and heartbroken about her husband, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. ... Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, The Sea Captain's Wife finally gives Mary Ann Patten—the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain—her due.

The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster
by Shelley Puhak

There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady—a countess, from one of Europe's oldest families—is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king's men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her. Told and retold in many languages, the legend of the Blood Countess has consumed cultural imaginations around the world. But despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim—of one of the most successful disinformation campaigns known to history. So, was Elizabeth Bathory a monster, a victim, or a bit of both?

Our next discussion:
Tuesday, March 31, 6:30 pm
Library Conference Room on the Lower Level
If you're a history buff and enjoy reading non-fiction, you might enjoy our new History Book Club! The club meets on the last Tuesday of each month at 6:30pm, but we do recommend confirming details on our events calendar in case of changes. Copies of our next book are on reserve at the Circulation Desk. We hope to see you there!

Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
by James D. Hornfischer

The Battle of Guadalcanal has long been heralded as a Marine victory. Now, with his powerful portrait of the Navy's sacrifice, James D. Hornfischer tells for the first time the full story of the men who fought in destroyers, cruisers, and battleships in the narrow, deadly waters of Ironbottom Sound. Here, in stunning cinematic detail, are the seven major naval actions that began in August 1942, a time when the war seemed unwinnable and America fought on a shoestring, with the outcome always in doubt. Working from interviews with survivors, unpublished eyewitness accounts, and previously unavailable documents, Hornfischer paints a vivid picture of the officers and enlisted men who opposed the Japanese in America's hour of need. Neptune's Inferno does what all great battle narratives do: It tells the gripping human stories behind the momentous events and critical decisions that altered the course of history and shaped so many lives.