Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/04/2012
ISBN-13: 9780871404077
ISBN-10: 0871404079

Political humorist Gail Collins thought she had a grip on the divide between America's conservative center and its liberal left and left-er coasts -- until she met Texas. Collins argues that Texas justifies wildly erratic, self-involved politics by claiming a "historic" legacy of independence and last-stand patriotism, and offers hilarious proof that the 19th-century "independent republic" of Texas was a flash-in-the-panhandle. As Texas Goes cautions that before America further embraces Texas' swagger as a model for its national politics, we must "remember the Alamo" -- it, too, was a preventable headstrong rush toward self-defeat. If you like the dry wit and dissident political humor of late Texan Molly Ivins, you'll love this!

Publisher: Viking
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/14/2012
ISBN-13: 9780670023769
ISBN-10: 0670023760

Granted insider-access to President Barack Obama's foreign policy team and other White House staff, journalist Jim Mann analyzes key events, ideas, and conflicts that have defined the 44th President's tenure to date. Refusing to perpetuate George W. Bush's now-unpopular war initiatives, yet fearful that public perceptions of an overtly antiwar stance could doom Obama's 2012 bid (as it did, famously, for fellow Democratic George McGovern) the current administration has struggled to enact strong and cohesive policies in response to both global turmoil and domestic unrest. Based on interviews with hundreds of top government officials, The Obamians offers pundits an early report card on a still-evolving presidential legacy.

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Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/19/2012
ISBN-13: 9781608199136
ISBN-10: 1608199134

Popular historian Kate Summerscale delves once more into Victorian society's dirty little secrets. Legal divorce was made available to England's common citizens for the first time in 1858. The same year, Henry Robinson sued for divorce after finding a secret diary in which his wife had allegedly penned erotic musings about her doctor. Isabella dared to counter-sue, presenting the court with (among other evidence of marital neglect) Henry's two illegitimate children as evidence of his adultery. Summerscale seamlessly weaves private letters, newspaper stories, public documents, and Isabella's infamous diary into a moving portrait of history's real "Mrs. Robinson."

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Publisher: Amistad
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/19/2012
ISBN-13: 9780061999864
ISBN-10: 0061999865

New York Times reporter Rachel Swarns meticulously combed genealogy archives and conducted years of interviews to trace five generations of Michelle Obama's family through its multiracial roots. This skillfully crafted narrative transport readers from Africa, through slavery, Emancipation, and the Great Migration of blacks from the South to the North. Swarns discovered links between the First Lady and previously unknown black, white, Native American, and multiracial family members: for example, a 19th-century woman named Melvinia, who bore several children whose father was white. For a similarly fascinating look at the African roots of Michelle's presidential spouse, try Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family by P. L. Firstbrook.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/18/2011
ISBN-13: 9780375408892
ISBN-10: 0375408894

Into the Silence comprehensively examines cultural forces that drove Great Britain's determination to conquer Mount Everest, as well as the burning personal ambitions of the team's climbers. Drawing upon their personal letters and diaries, anthropologist and author Wade Davis poignantly targets how the men's harrowing World War I experiences led many to view the expedition's success as a gauge of their personal redemption. In 1924, British climbers George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine, as part of that year's British Mount Everest Expedition, disappeared as they attempted to be the first climbers ever to reach the summit. The last of Britain's imperial ambition seemed to vanish along with them -- a fit parallel for the end of the Victorian's world order.

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Publisher: W. W. Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 12/05/2011
ISBN-13: 9780393070217
ISBN-10: 0393070212

Extra Virginity is a surprisingly hard-hitting look at corruption in the trade of adulterated olive oil around the world, interspersed with tasty vignettes from the history of olive oil. One of the world's oldest commodities, olive oil adorned the bodies of Greek athletes, and Romans considered its consumption the essential test of a culture's civilization. And trouble with dishonest trade goes way back, too: the first record of olive oil "tampering" dates back 5,000 years. Today, imbalances between trade quality and quantity, and the problematic roles of politics, government, and regulation make olive oil trade a slippery business, indeed. Gobble this up, if you liked Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma or Peter Singer and Jim Mason's The Way We Eat.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/25/2011
ISBN-13: 9780307266514
ISBN-10: 0307266516

An epic history of the holy city at the heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is presented through the lives of its creators and conquerors from King David and Jesus to the Maccabees and Sir Moses Montefiore, in a chronicle that draws on new archival materials, current scholarship and family records. By the award-winning author of Stalin. 60,000 first printing.

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Publisher: W.W. Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/14/2011
ISBN-13: 9780393068139
ISBN-10: 0393068137

Pacific Crucible focuses on the tense months between Japan's lethal attack on Pearl Harbor and America's pivotal victory at Midway. A prize-winning naval historian delivers fresh insights into Japan's oft-obscured reasons for inciting a war that its own high command felt was unwinnable, and brings to light many unsung examples of bravery, heroism, and sacrifice by combatants from both sides of the Pacific. Superb storytelling and captivating details (drawn from primary materials in both Japanese and Allied archives) will make Pacific Crucible an especially "approachable and compelling read" (Publishers Weekly) for readers new to the topic. (For a comprehensive WWII history with similar appeal, try Anthony Beevor's The Second World War.)