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History and Current Events May 2026 |
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| Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to '90s Sitcoms by Geoff BennettPeabody Award-winning PBS NewsHour co-anchor Geoff Bennett's sweeping and incisive debut explores the origins and evolution of Black comedy in the United States, spotlighting individual performers like minstrel Billy Kersands, vaudevillian Stepin Fetchit, actress/comedian Hattie McDaniel, and more. Further reading: Black TV: Five Decades of Groundbreaking Television from Soul Train to Black-ish and Beyond by Bethonie Butler; Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers by Donald Bogle. |
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A Killing in Cannabis: A True Story of Love, Murder, and California Weed
by Scott Eden
An exhilarating, deeply reported true-crime murder mystery and love story that moves like a Netflix thriller.--The New York Times Book ReviewA deeply reported literary nonfiction masterpiece.--Wright ThompsonA shocking murder at the nexus of Silicon Valley, California surf culture, and the cannabis gold rush exposes the dark side of the legal weed business in this revelatory work of investigative journalism.Santa Cruz is one of the country's surf meccas and a favored getaway of the Silicon Valley elite. For decades, marijuana has been cultivated, consumed, and trafficked in these mountains, one of the most important regions in the country for the crop. It's where Ken Kesey threw his wild parties, where back-to-the-land types came to live off the grid, and where Tushar Atre, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was found brutally murdered.Charismatic, ambitious, arrogant, and rich, Atre was the leader among a clutch of tech execs and venture capitalists with a voracious appetite for risk, work, and money, riding waves at dawn and then putting in fourteen-hour days. When he met Rachael Lynch, a maverick cannabis grower and mover of product, he had a vision of how their lives could come together in business and in love. Atre sought to disrupt the newly legal cannabis trade by funding a start-up with black-market capital. This illegal pursuit would entangle him with an array of colorful and dangerous characters, many of whom had compelling reason to want him dead.Award-winning journalist Scott Eden's panoramic investigation exposes the symbiotic relationship between the legal weed world and its shadowy, black-market counterpart. It is a story of love, greed, and betrayal, set in a world where visionaries, hippies, masters of the universe, and stone-cold killers are all stakeholders, eager to exploit the power of the plant.
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| London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden KeefeIn his richly detailed latest, award-winning journalist Patrick Radden Keefe (Say Nothing) chronicles the shocking death of 19-year-old Zac Brettler in 2019 London, revealing how Brettler's secret life posing as the son of a Russian oligarch led to his involvement in the city's seedy underworld. For fans of: Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn. |
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The Science of Second Chances: A Revolution in Criminal Justice
by Jennifer Doleac
Freakonomics for criminal justice, The Science of Second Chances presents a groundbreaking approach to criminal justice reform, revealing how small-scale interventions can reduce people's chances of reoffending and break the incarceration cycle. When criminal justice expert Jennifer Doleac thinks about reform, she's not just hopeful, she's optimistic that second chances are possible--for the justice-involved population and the system as a whole. In The Science of Second Chances, she reveals her powerful approach to reducing crime and incarceration. Drawing on cutting-edge economic research and real-world experiments, the book presents a blueprint for reform that runs all the way through the system. Doleac shows how economists like herself approach big, complicated problems as if they were scientists in a lab, carefully testing different approaches and following the data to maximize impact. She explains how shifting the incentives people face can produce dramatic changes in the decisions they make, significantly reducing the number of people cycling through the prison system. From DNA databases that increase the likelihood of catching reoffenders to leniency programs for first-time defendants, she reveals a series of surprising interventions that actually work, along with cautionary tales about great ideas that never panned out. Doleac doesn't have a burn it all down mentality but seeks to empower readers with practical, achievable solutions. She demonstrates that we can have both public safety and a smaller, less intrusive justice system--without waiting for big, structural reforms that might never come. By shifting focus from the enormity of the problem to the power of small, evidence-based changes, she offers a transformative approach to prosecution and punishment. The Science of Second Chances is essential reading for anyone seeking data-driven strategies to revolutionize the criminal justice system and create the society we want and need.
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| The Future Is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz InonIn their hopeful travelogue that "powerfully demonstrates that fellowship can bridge seemingly intractable divides" (Kirkus), friends and peace activists Aziz Abu Sarah, who is Palestinian, and Maoz Inon, who is Israeli, spend eight days traveling the region, sharing both local and personal histories throughout their journey. For fans of: The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan. |
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| The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control by Jacob SiegelManifesto! podcast host and former United States Army intelligence officer Jacob Siegel's wide-ranging debut examines how America's post-9/11 surveillance state has spurred the rise of disinformation and misinformation. Further reading: Lies that Kill: A Citizen's Guide to Disinformation by Elaine C. Kamarck and Darrell M. West. |
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Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises
by Katie Benner
T.M. Landry College Prep, a small private school in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, boasted a 100-percent college acceptance rate, placing students at nearly every Ivy League university in the country. The spectacle of Landry students opening their acceptance letters to Harvard and Stanford was broadcast on television and even celebrated by Michelle Obama. It became a national ritual to watch the miraculous success of these youngsters--miraculous because Breaux Bridge is one of the poorest counties in the country, ranked close to the bottom for test scores and high school graduation rates. T.M. Landry was said to be 'minting prodigies,' and the prodigies were often Black. How did the school do it? It didn't. It was a scam, pulled off with fake transcripts and personal essays telling fake stories of triumph over adversity. Worse: Landry's success concealed a nightmare of alleged abuse and coercion. In a years-long investigation, Katie Benner and Erica L. Green explored the lives of the students, the school, the town, and Ivy League admissions to understand why Black teens were pressured to trade racial stereotypes of hardship for opportunity
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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