History and Current Events
August 2022
Recent Releases
No escape : the true story of China's genocide of the Uyghurs
by Nury Turkel

Laying bare Chinas repression of the Uyghur people, the former president of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and now a commissioner for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, drawing on his own personal story, exposes the historic injustice that is still happening today. 
Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
by Ken Auletta

What it is: a sobering account of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's decades of unchecked sexual assault that situates his crimes within the context of his evolving career.

Author alert: Journalist Ken Auletta reported on Weinstein's abuses in a 2002 New Yorker profile; here, he expands on his previous coverage with new interviews and research.

Who it's for: Readers who enjoyed She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey or Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.
Before the big bang : the origin of the universe and what lies beyond
by Laura Mersini-Houghton

One of the worlds leading experts on the multiverse and the origins of the universe presents a revolutionary new account of the events leading up to the Big Bang.
Black & White : An Intimate, Multicultural Perspective on "White Advantage" and the Paths to Change
by Stephen Dorsey

As a bilingual, biracial man, straddling Black and white, English and French Canada, Stephen Dorsey lives in a world of dualities. In his deeply personal and insightful debut, he offers readers intimate and unfiltered access to his lived experience of anti-Black racism around the world, including Canada, the United States, and Europe, focusing on his formative years growing up in 1970s Montreal as a Black child in a white family headed by a racist stepfather, and details his personal awakening inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks
by Patrick Radden Keefe

What's inside: a thought-provoking collection of 12 previously published New Yorker articles by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe that focus on crimes and the schemers who commit them.

Why you might like it: Keefe's incisive profiles of notorious figures like Mexican drug lord El Chapo and Dutch gangster Wim Holleeder reveal their stories without glamorizing their misdeeds.

Don't miss: updates at the end of each essay.
We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys
by Erin Kimmerle

What it is: a sobering investigation of the Dozier School for Boys, the abusive Florida reform school featured in Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys.

What happened: After the school was shuttered in 2011 due to allegations of torture and murder, author and forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle located its cemetery and uncovered dozens of bodies buried in unmarked graves, utilizing forensic and DNA testing to reunite the victims with their families and reveal the causes of their deaths.
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China's Civil War
by Zhuqing Li

Starring: Hong and Jun Chen, two close-knit sisters who became separated during the Chinese Civil War and who were unable to reunite for decades.

Author alert: Zhuqing Li is a professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University and the niece of Hong and Jun.

Further reading: For more books on how the tumultuous changes of 20th-century China impacted family relationships, read The House of Yan by Lan Yan or Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang.
Sisters in Resistance: How a German Spy, a Banker's Wife, and Mussolini's Daughter...
by Tilar J. Mazzeo

How it began: After he became disillusioned with the Third Reich, Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano began pouring his frustrations into his diaries, documenting numerous state secrets.

What happened next: An unlikely trio of women helped deliver Ciano's diaries to the Allies; these documents later became crucial evidence during the Nuremberg trials.

Read it for: a pulse-pounding narrative worthy of a John le Carré novel.
Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic
by Michael Smith and Jonathan Franklin

What it's about: the ill-fated journey of the Zaandam, the Holland America cruise ship which set sail from Buenos Aires on March 7, 2020 and quickly became stranded during the early days of COVID-19.

What's inside: a vivid you-are-there narrative offering firsthand accounts from passengers and crew who fought to maintain hope in the midst of illness, isolation, and dwindling provisions.

Reviewers say: "A harrowing thriller that brings the wide-ranging impacts of the COVID pandemic into the microcosmic enclosed world of a cruise ship" (Library Journal).
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