June 2024 list by Elizabeth Hanby
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After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations
by Eric H. Cline
Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed — why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever.
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Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food
by Michelle Tien King
In 1949, a young Chinese woman arrived in Taiwan, fleeing from the chaos of war on the mainland. At the time, Fu Pei-mei had no idea how to cook. Yet as a young housewife she taught herself and launched a career as a television instructor that would last four decades, entrancing millions of viewers. Woven into this lively account of Fu's life and times are author King's own family stories, personal reflections, and contemporary oral history, raising questions about food, gender, diaspora, and cultural identity.
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The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Eugene Rogan
A Middle East historian, drawing on never-before-seen eyewitness accounts, offers a vivid picture of an ancient city's descent into unprecedented communal violence in 1860, leaving 5,000 Christians dead — an event that marked the end of the old Ottoman order and beginning of the modern Middle East.
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The Eagle in the Mirror: The Greatest Spy Story Never Told
by Jesse Fink
Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, this gripping book unravels a real-life international mystery involving the longest serving spy for the Secret Intelligence Service (M16) who was accused of having operated as a “triple agent” for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union — and being the traitor of the century.
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Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders
by Vanessa Angâelica Villarreal
A poet and essayist explores the many complicated girlhoods of being a working-class, first-generation, Mexican American daughter of cumbia musicians, in this brilliant collection that examines migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of music and pop culture.
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My Mama, Cass: A Memoir
by Owen Elliot-kugell
In this long-awaited memoir nearly 50 years since of her mother's untimely death, the daughter of legendary rock star“Mama” Cass Elliot illuminates the complex truths of her mother's life, sharing interviews with the high-profile figures who orbited Cass as well as never-before-heard stories of her mother and this legendary period of American history.
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Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk
by Kathleen Hanna
The original rebel girl and legendary front woman of Bikini Kill, which embodied the punk scene of the 90s, shares how the relationships and friendships she developed during those years reminded her that, despite the odds, the punk world could still nurture and care for its own.
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The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City's Anexos
by Angela Garcia
In this first book ever written on the anexos of Mexico City, anthropologist Garcia takes readers into the informal treatment centers for addiction and mental illness where mothers send their children to escape the violence of the drug war, while recounting her own story of family, homelessness, and drugs.
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