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History and Current Events August 2026 |
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| On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear by Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-MeyerPulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin and former White House senior advisor Ami Fields-Meyer expand on their The New Yorker essay "So You Want to Be a Dissident?" in this inspiring and accessible book featuring profiles of people throughout the globe who have resisted tyrannical governments. Further reading: Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy by Joyce Vance. |
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| Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl: Essays by Amena BrownIn her upbeat and conversational essay collection celebrating Black womanhood, spoken-word poet Amena Brown offers pop culture commentary, advice, poetry, and personal reflections. For fans of: Samantha Irby and Phoebe Robinson. |
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Riding the Trail: Cherokees Remember the Removal
by Traci Sorell
Follow Cherokee youths on a 950-mile bike journey retracing the Trail of Tears--from Georgia to Oklahoma--on the annual Remember the Removal Ride. This inspiring photo-rich nonfiction book follows Native youth riding to remember history, linking past and present through culture, resilience, and activism. Here are 112 pages of photo-illustrated nonfiction penned by enrolled Cherokee Nation coauthors. While Cherokee people suffered that grim chapter in history, they thrive today.
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Changing Gender
by Susan Stryker
That gender is a hotly contested topic becomes ever clearer as antigender ideology continues to be mobilized by the far right and transgender people's lives are increasingly targeted. But what are we talking about when we talk about gender? Where did the concept come from, and where might it go? In Changing Gender, the leading trans scholar Susan Stryker invites readers to ride along on her lifelong quest to uncover what gender means and does. She traces the gender concept's roots in grammar and tells the story of how it transformed into a battleground of the culture wars
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| The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America by Justin EllisIn his sweeping debut that blends family history with exposé, journalist and Minnesota native Justin Ellis chronicles two centuries of anti-Black racism in Minneapolis, Minnesota, culminating in the 2020 murder of George Floyd. It's an "urgent critique of 'polite' racism that demands attention" (Kirkus Reviews). Further reading: Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm by Robin DiAngelo. |
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How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words
by Sophia Smith Galer
An urgent, globe-spanning exploration of languages at risk, from Kichwa to Ukrainian, that asks: What do we lose--culturally, politically, and personally--when a language is silenced? With half of our 7,000 languages due to disappear this century, linguicide is one of the most pressing cultural emergencies of our age. In How to Kill a Language, journalist Sophia Smith Galer travels across continents and generations to chart this phenomenon. Part investigation, part travelogue from a disappearing world, How to Kill a Language exposes the true costs of this mass extinction event.
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| The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK... by Kaitlyn TiffanyThe Atlantic staff writer Kaitlyn Tiffany's compelling and well-researched history details how three fearless American women became amateur detectives in the 1960s and '70s and antagonized the government to reveal the truth about John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s 1963 assassination. Try this next: The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home by Heath Hardage Lee. |
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| I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World by Sarah WilsonIn her bracing follow-up to This One Wild and Precious Life: A Hopeful Path Forward in a Fractured World, bestselling author Sarah Wilson draws upon conversations with philosophers, poets, futurists, scientists, and more, offering insights on how to find joy amid humanity's uncertain future. Try this next: Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse by Luke Kemp. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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