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New Non-Fiction Arrivals at MPL |
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Welcome to NEXTREADS, the Mobile Public Library's e-mail newsletter service. Are you looking for a few good books to read? Sign up for our e-newsletters and get great book suggestions by email. We'll deliver reading lists right to your inbox along with new gems, bestsellers and related titles. You'll also be able to check immediately whether the items are available at your favorite Mobile Public Library Location or whether they've been checked out.
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Here are our new arrivals, click the title to view in our catalog:
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Arsenio: A Memoir
by Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall, America's beloved late-night TV host, reveals the ups and downs of his remarkable career as a trailblazing pioneer with this behind-the-scenes, star-studded, no-holds-barred memoir of celebrity, race, and show business. Arsenio Hall holds a uniquely prominent place in American culture--celebrated late-night host and comedic actor, famed for starring roles in the cultural touchstones Coming to America and Harlem Nights. Now, he pulls back the curtain and takes us to a different time in Hollywood. Iconic scenes include: starting out as a young magician in Cleveland; hosting his first talk show in the basement of his apartment building when he was in elementary school; cutting his teeth at the world-famous Comedy Store in Hollywood, learning about comedy and life from legendary comedian Richard Pryor; forming lifelong bonds with legendary icons Muhammad Ali, Luther Vandross, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Eddie Murphy; tasting superstar success with Coming to America, the film that preceded The Arsenio Hall Show; conducting unforgettable, groundbreaking interviews with Magic Johnson, Bill Clinton, Tupac Shakur, Maya Angelou, Madonna, and Minister Louis Farrakhan; rescuing a family from a home-fire with Jay Leno; sharing hot sauces and blackjack with Patti LaBelle; and chilling with Prince. And then, he made the difficult decision to walk away. This bracingly candid memoir offers a new appreciation for this raw talent and gifted storyteller, who nightly, for six years, hosted what felt like a televised party that changed the landscape of late-night television and brought Black culture into living rooms across America. With this book, he does it one more time.
also available in audio
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The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World
by Vicky Osterweil
A provocative history of Disney's rise to cultural dominance, pulling skeletons from the corporate closet to decode the political messages hidden in all of your favorite childhood movies. In The Extended Universe, Vicky Osterweil takes us on a quest to discover how Disney's imagineers have made it impossible to reflect on the wonders of growing up without thinking of Disney's movies, amusement parks, and merchandising. Drawing on extensive interviews with filmmakers, screenwriters, union organizers, and Disney adults alike, Osterweil unearths reactionary political commitments and maleficent legal maneuvers so cartoonishly evil they would make one of Walt's own animated villains blush. Along the way, Osterweil braids together corporate skullduggery with a not entirely unsympathetic analysis of some of Disney's most famous movies. The result is an entertaining and convincing case that Disney's entire business model has been built upon a ruthless and fanatical insistence on intellectual property rights--from Steamboat Willie to Avengers: Infinity War and beyond
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Famesick: A Memoir
by Lena Dunham
In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. For the last decade, as she's spent countless hours in doctor's waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham's body has felt, as she puts it, like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight. It's not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you--as a twenty-five-year-old--are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist's office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it--even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she's meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her--because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again--if only she could remember who that self was. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame--from selling the pilot of Girls to the present--in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can't protect you from pain--and begins to control your every move--being famous doesn't stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience. In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can't change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.
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Freeze Fresh Meal Prep: 160 Meal Starters and Make-Ahead Dishes for the Freezer
by Crystal Schmidt
Freeze your fresh ingredients as mealtime essentials From the best-selling author of Freeze Fresh. Using garden fresh vegetables and fruits, Crystal Schmidt offers a unique approach to meal prep, with 160 recipes for complete meals as well as meal starters--dishes that can be partially prepared and frozen, then combined with pantry ingredients to make a complete meal. These original recipes range from soups, dips, beverages, and main dishes to veggie sides, baked goods, frozen treats, jams, and pie fillings. Going well beyond the idea of simply pulling a casserole out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, Freeze Fresh Meal Prep gives home cooks the tools and flexibility they need to make a delicious, fresh meal--breakfast, lunch, or dinner--in a pinch. Because she's a serious gardener, Schmidt treats meal prep as a way to preserve the bounty from her vegetable garden and includes a separate index that organizes recipes by fruit or vegetable type. Recipes include: Chicken Tortilla Soup Starter Spicy Roasted Carrot Dip Summer Harvest Soup Thai-Inspired Pumpkin Veggie Curry Supreme Pizza Casserole Cheesy Fire-Roasted Poblano Breakfast Tacos Sweet Potato Casserole Cups Zucchini Peanut Noodles Cinnamon Breakfast Apples Roasted Peach and Amaretto Jam Double Chocolate Beet Cookies Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwiches
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I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention
by Jennie Garth
An inspiring roadmap to navigating life's challenges with grace, grit, and a refusal to settle for anything less than your worth. -Chelsea Handler, comedian and #1 bestselling author Beloved actress, designer, and entrepreneur Jennie Garth opens up in this fiercely honest book about pursuing happiness, aging with confidence, and learning to love and prioritize yourself.Jennie Garth is best known for playing the iconic role of Kelly Taylor in the hit television series Beverly Hills, 90210. Now in her 50s, she invites readers into the real story of growing up on screen, facing Hollywood's impossible beauty standards, and losing--and finding--herself through heartbreak, loss, and the challenge of motherhood. She shares the raw truths of the moments that broke her open and shows the resilience it takes to walk through grief and begin again.Jennie writes with warmth and candor about learning to quiet the voice that says not enough, rediscovering her strength after loss, and daring to take up space, speak her truth, and want more. She opens up about the unglamorous, deeply human moments and finally letting go of the need for perfection and other people's approval.Through personal stories, practical advice, and the wisdom earned through her own hard lessons, Jennie lights a path back to self-love and clarity. I Choose Me is for anyone who's ever felt lost in their roles, struggling to give themselves permission to ask, What do I want now? It's an invitation to honor your own journey, embrace self-care, and believe with compassion that choosing yourself is the bravest, kindest thing you can do.
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Intimate Audrey: An Authorized Biography
by Wendy Holden
The deeply personal official biography of Audrey Hepburn, full of untold stories, exclusive photos, and cherished memories from her son Sean Hepburn Ferrer, one of the people who knew her best. To those who appreciate her work and legacy, Audrey Hepburn was many things. She was a child survivor of the Second World War. She was a fashion icon who made the little black dress the symbol of elegance that it is today. She played a runaway princess, an eccentric socialite, and a nun struggling with her faith. But perhaps her greatest contribution to the world was as a selfless humanitarian in the final years of her life, proving that fear and trauma can be transmuted into kindness and art. For Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Audrey was also his mother. In Intimate Audrey, he candidly recounts how the shy girl from across the landing became the star we remember and love today. Featuring never-before-seen photographs and excerpts from her personal letters, this book is an intimate portrait of Audrey: as an icon, as a mother, and as an altruist who drew on her own experience of hunger and suffering to advocate fiercely for children in war-torn and famine-stricken countries. Audrey shines in this moving portrait of a mother by her son; a lyrical ode to a visionary woman who continues to defy all expectations decades after her death.
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Israel: What Went Wrong?
by Omer Bartov
A leading Israeli American scholar of the Holocaust explores and explains his native country's intensifying turn toward violence and exclusion. The distinguished historian Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv, and served in the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become a leading scholar of the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country. In Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov sketches the tragic transformation of Zionism, a movement that sought to emancipate European Jewry from oppression, into a state ideology of ethno-nationalism. How is it possible, he asks, that a state founded in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, an event that gave legitimacy to a national home for the Jews, stands credibly accused of perpetrating large-scale war crimes? How do we come to terms with the fact that Israel's war of destruction is being conducted with the support, laced with denial and indifference, of so many of its Jewish citizens? Tracing the roots of the violent events currently unfolding in Israel and the occupied territories, Bartov tracks his country's moral tribulations and considers the origins of Zionism, the intertwining of Israel's independence with Palestinian displacement, the politics of the Holocaust, controversies over the term genocide, and the uncertain future. The result is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today's debates over Zionism and the future of Israel with rigor and depth.
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Keep It Simple Y'All: Every Day: Foolproof Recipes to Make Your Life Delicious: A Cookbook
by Matthew Bounds
Boost your confidence in the kitchen with 80 foolproof recipes for busy weeknights, lazy weekends, date nights, and other special occasions--from the beloved creator of Your Barefoot Neighbor and New York Times bestselling author of Keep It Simple Y'all With his delicious and doable recipes, Matthew Bounds proves that the comfort of a home cooked meal is easier than you think. In Keep It Simple Y'all: Every Day, Matthew is back with a brand-new set of easy-to-follow recipes for every occasion, delivered with his signature Southern charm and laid-back attitude. Along with more of his popular weeknight-friendly dinners, he shares next-level comfort food dishes perfect for cozy date nights and larger gatherings so you can impress your guests with minimal fuss. Matthew walks you through foundational basics, like how to reverse sear a steak and cook perfect-every-time rice, and offers tons tips for success and tasty recipes to inspire your next meal, including: Every Damn Day: Zesty Sheet-Pan Caprese Chicken; Shortcut Air Fryer Taquitos; One-Pan French Onion PastaDate Night: Honey-Butter Lamb Chops; Pan-Fried Scallops over Polenta; Lemon-Asparagus RisottoSunday Best: Skillet Eggplant Parmesan; Classic Pork Roast with Vegetable Gravy; Buttermilk Fried ChickenA Lil Sugar in the Tank: Truvy-Style Peach Cobbler; Cookie Butter Blondies; Mamaw's Coconut CakeKeep It Simple Y'all: Every Day is your go-to cookbook for creating comforting, delicious meals with ease. Whether you want a quick, no-frills dinner or a luxurious Sunday supper, Matthew's friendly guidance and reliable recipes will inspire you to cook with confidence.
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King Arthur Baking Company's Book of Pizza: Recipes for Every Pizza Maker
by King Arthur Baking Company
From the team behind the #1 New York Times bestseller The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread, comes the definitive book dedicated to the key elements of making pizza in any home oven, countertop pizza oven, or backyard oven or grill. The bakers at King Arthur Baking Company researched, tested--and tasted --hundreds of pizzas and cooking methods to develop the most comprehensive book yet dedicated to the art and science of making pizza at home. Organized around twelve distinct styles--New York, New Haven, Chicago Tavern, Grandma, Neapolitan, and more--King Arthur Baking Company's The Book of Pizza goes deep on every element of a great pie, from dough and sauce to the cheese and the bake. Comprehensive yet accessible, the book is packed with innovative topping suggestions to match each crust style (don't sleep on the Prosciutto and Hot Honey Neapolitan pie). But it also empowers bakers to mix and match sauces and toppings, allowing them to customize pizzas exactly to their liking. Rounding out the pizza recipes are four quintessential pizza night salads and an entire chapter of desserts, including Spumoni Semifreddo, an array of Italian-inspired cookies, and simple cakes, like Olive Oil Cake with Chocolate Ganache, to end pizza night with a bang.
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London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
by Patrick Radden Keefe
From the bestselling, prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London's glittering surface In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain's spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river. In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as Indian Dave. As the Brettlers set about investigating their son's death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they'd always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac's life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable--or unwilling--to bring the perpetrators to justice. In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers' quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.
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Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
by Quinn Slobodian
A Financial Times Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of the Year - A Kirkus Most Anticipated Nonfiction Book of Spring 2026- A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year A pyrotechnic examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal ageEveryone's got an Elon take. He's a messiah. A menace; a genius; a clown. The verdicts differ, but they share one theme: they treat him as an individual.Muskism argues otherwise. Elon Musk isn't a glitch in the system--he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His cars run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us.Muskism sells itself as the future but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It's pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy.Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff cut through the hype and the hate to reveal what Musk really represents: a new political economy, where to be free means to serve a Technoking. Muskism isn't about the man. It's about the machine that made him--and the world he's making next.
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The Oracle's Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult
by Harrison Hill
A gripping chronicle of the rise and fall of a woman-led cult--and the enduring allure of extremism across America's turbulent religious history. On a cool fall night in 1999, twenty-six-year-old Sarah Green crept out of her house, retrieved a backpack from its hiding place, and ran for her life. She was escaping not just the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a paramilitary religious cult operating out of the New Mexico desert, but also the punishments and cruelty of the cult's leader--her mother, Deborah. In The Oracle's Daughter, Harrison Hill traces the fascinating beginnings and violent end of ACMTC, from its early days as an outgrowth of the 1960s counterculture to its descent into conspiracy-fueled abuse. This is the story of three women--Deborah, the group's founder and self-proclaimed oracle; Maura, one of its first members; and Sarah, Deborah's daughter--bound together by a punitive, baroque set of radical beliefs and practices, including exorcism, kidnapping, and the horrific mistreatment of those who fell out of the leaders' favor. With a dramatic, deeply researched narrative tracing the strange twists and turns of the country's religious development, The Oracle's Daughter illuminates the porous boundary between the fringe and the mainstream--and shows how much more vulnerable we are to extremism than we might like to think.
also available in audio
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Rasputin: The Downfall of the Romanovs
by Antony Beevor
From one of our most acclaimed historians, a major new biography of one of history's most disturbing, dubious masterminds, showing how a Siberian peasant, through his seduction of the imperial household, contributed to the collapse of the greatest autocracy in the world When Russia's Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she 'lived under the pressure of the prophecy'. Did the prophecy come true with the arrival at court of a mysterious, barely literate moujhik from Siberia, Grigori Rasputin? In this extraordinary portrait of an enigmatic character, Antony Beevor brings readers closer than ever before to Rasputin's scandalous life and death. Though he had no official position at court, Rasputin's hold over the Romanovs became the stuff of legend. Exaggerated accounts of political and financial corruption swirled around him, to say nothing of the stories of his debauchery with the Empress and even her daughters. The consequences of the rumor and conspiracy theories were devastating--when the February revolution broke out in 1917, hardly a sword was raised in the Tsar's defense. Through extensive use of previously unpublished reports, interviews, and interrogations, Beevor shows the truth of Rasputin's rampant lust and opportunism, victimization of poor and vulnerable women, and deep hypocrisy and corruption. Part political thriller, part gothic mystery, Rasputin is a fascinating story of human perversity.
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The Rolling Stones: The Biography
by Bob Spitz
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times From the award-winning, bestselling author of classic histories of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, a groundbreaking reckoning with the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band All great music is a threat. What left is there to say about The Rolling Stones? A hell of a lot, it turns out. Bob Spitz has brought his indefatigable energy and five decades of experiences in the fields and hollows of rock 'n' roll to bear on his five-year journey to reexamine one of popular music's greatest stories. There are myriad revisions to the conventional narrative which underscore just how in control of that narrative the band has been up to now--small example: no, Muddy Waters was not mopping the floors at Chess Records when the Stones showed up. But in a larger sense, as with the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Spitz's greatest gift is for the big picture. He knows where the magic is, and why it is. He is as clear-eyed a connoisseur of the show business, the spectacle and the collateral damage of this whirlwind as anyone alive, and that lucid gaze pierces a lot of incrusted bullshit, but the ultimate goal is to connect with a creative force whose power shows no signs of fading, over sixty years on. At its heart the story is about two boys, Mick and Keith, and their unique, fraught, alchemical bond, often tested, never sundered. The Glimmer Twins. The bandmates, like Charlie Watts, who found their groove in relation to this double star made the trip intact, while those who struggled, like Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, were chewed up and spit out. This is a story with many dark corners, including a surprising number of deaths. But whether Jagger and Richards sold their souls to the devil is at the crossroads for blues greatness or just squeezed their heroes for every drop of inspiration, in the end their connection to their music and to each other put them in a category of one, where they very much remain.
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Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef
by Brigid Washington
With mouthwatering storytelling and open-hearted honesty, Brigid Washington serves The Devil Wears Prada for the yes, chef generation. What truly makes Salt, Sweat & Steam exceptional is that it is told from the point of view of a young, female, Trinidadian student. It is a fascinating narrative that is a welcome addition to the list of coming-of-age tales.--Jessica B. Harris, Ph.D. Professor emeritus Queens College/CUNY, Lecturer, culinary historian, and author of High on the HogRich with detail, Salt, Sweat & Steam takes readers inside America's top culinary school and shows what's really required to become a chef: from brutal unpaid internships and gruelling practical exams to late-night vending machine dorm-room dinners while trudging through the rarefied world of fine wine. As editor of the school's newspaper, La Papillote Washington, a Trinidadian, meets and interviews food-world luminaries such as Jerome Bocuse, Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller and savors the joys of a life devoted to food. She puts us all in her kitchen clogs as she finally achieves the perfect mise-en-place both in and out of the dignified kitchen of The Culinary Institute of America. Unwilling to accept a future that was anything but delicious, readers follow along Washington's high-octane journey through the rigors and rewards of the country's most elite cooking school.
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A Terrible Intimacy: Interracial Life in the Slaveholding South
by Melvin Patrick Ely
From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, a revelatory new account of slavery, uncovering a surprising web of relationships between Black and white people that ranges far beyond the familiar template of master-slave dynamics A white man hosts a wedding party for his Black servant and finds himself charged with a criminal offense; an overseer ends up dead after getting drunk with a slave; two men, one poor and white and the other enslaved, team up to plot a murder. A Terrible Intimacy recounts six criminal cases in one Virginia county in the years preceding the Civil War. Witnesses of both races describe a startling variety of encounters between white and Black that reconfigures the binary terrain of master-slave relations. Contrary to our common assumption, fully half the enslaved people in the South lived not on sprawling plantations but on small properties. Cruelty was baked into the system, yet in households of five, ten, fifteen, or twenty people, exploiters and exploited knew each other well, sharing religious worship, folkways, and complex domestic dynamics. Slaves, slave owners, overseers, and poor whites drank, played, slept, and even committed crimes together. Yet whippings happened often, enslaved families were split up, and in 1861, most white men in Prince Edward County were ready to fight to defend their right to own other human beings. These webs of interaction make clear that white Americans recognized the humanity of their Black neighbors, even as they remained committed to a system that abused and sometimes terrorized them. Offering striking new insights into the true complexity of life in the old South, A Terrible Intimacy expands our understanding of this darkest of histories.
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Thank You, Teachers: True Stories from America's Teachers, Our Last Line of Defense and Our First Line of Hope
by James Patterson
The son of a teacher himself, the world's #1 bestselling author James Patterson blows the lid off what is happening in today's schools with firsthand stories, highlighting the heroic efforts of the world's teachers. Teachers are the heroes we too often forget to thank. And we need heroes more than ever. From across the country, from kindergarten to high school, from public, private, religious, or military schools, teachers tell us: What it takes to teach kids day in and day out What it takes to improve kids' lives What it takes to foster a lifelong readers and lifelong learners If you can read this, someone cared about you. If you can read this, you want a brighter future for our kids. If you can read this, thank a teacher.
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This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History
by Beverly Gage
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage takes the ultimate road trip into the American past. Ride along with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn--and fight--about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America's greatest successes and challenges. The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon--or live up to--those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history--to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it--in the places where it happened. Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country. Toss the book in the back seat--or listen on audio with the windows down--and join the journey.
also available in audio
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This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark
by Craig Fehrman
Original, compelling, and memorable...Fehrman sheds new light on a fabled story, and tells it in a way that puts all of us back in a vanished but resonant world. --Jon Meacham - Here, at long last, is the Lewis and Clark expedition presented in living technicolor. --Hampton Sides - Spectacular...Fehrman paints an incredible, vivid, you-are-there portrait. --Garrett M. Graff A major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: For the first time in a generation, This Vast Enterprise offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes in American history, humanizing forgotten figures and shattering long-held myths. In 1806, when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return from their yearslong journey--having led the Corps of Discovery across eight thousand miles of rapids, mountains, forests, and ravines--they bring an incredible tale starring themselves as courageous explorers, skilled survivalists, underrated scientists, and peaceful ambassadors. While there is truth in those descriptions, there is also distortion. From one of the most exciting new historians to emerge in the past decade, This Vast Enterprise offers a bold and novel take on the expedition: a gripping narrative that draws on lost documents, stunning analysis, and Native perspectives. Craig Fehrman spent five years visiting more than thirty archives, interviewing more than a hundred sources, and collecting oral history passed down over centuries. He came to see that the success of Lewis and Clark depended on much more than just Lewis and Clark. We all know Sacajawea, and some of us know York, the Black man Clark enslaved. But This Vast Enterprise introduces us to John Ordway, a working-class soldier who fought fearsome grizzlies and towed the captains' hulking barge. It introduces us to Wolf Calf, a Blackfoot teenager who watched his friend die in a tense battle with Lewis and his men. To capture this cast of characters, each chapter in This Vast Enterprise moves to a different person's point of view, describing their desires and contradictions with an unprecedented level of care. One chapter shows Thomas Jefferson operating in an age of bitter partisan unrest--his secret political maneuvers to fund the expedition, revealed here for the first time, are a case study in presidential power. Another chapter shows the strategy and strength of Black Buffalo, completely upending our understanding of Lakota-American diplomacy. York, in his chapters, finds ways to wield power and make choices in an era that didn't allow him much of either. Clark is not a folksy Kentuckian but a student of the Enlightenment. (Fehrman discovered his college notebook; no previous biographer even realized that he went to college.) Lewis is someone willing to sacrifice everything for his country, his mission, and his mentor, Jefferson; in Fehrman's subtle yet heartbreaking analysis, Lewis's legendary strengths are inseparable from his lifelong weaknesses. In the end, the captains are men who needed help--from Sacajawea, from the Corps, and from each other. Mile after mile, the expedition pushes on through dramatic hailstorms and flash floods, life-threatening frostbite and infections, rattlesnakes and rabid wolves, with the Spanish cavalry in fierce pursuit. Fehrman bal-ances the story's inherent adventure with the humanity of its protagonists. This Vast Enterprise is more than just a work of history--it's a testament to the power of innovative research and emotional storytelling, and a thrilling reminder that even the most familiar moments in history can still surprise us.
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Transaction Denied: Big Finance's Power to Punish Speech
by Rainey Reitman
Exposes how companies like Visa, Chase, PayPal, Bank of America, and Mastercard use their power to silence dissenting voices and hurt democracy through the practice of financial censorship Civil liberties activist Rainey Reitman introduces readers to the concept of financial censorship--a form of privatized censorship where banks and payment intermediaries act as censors in ways the government couldn't do directly without violating the First Amendment. Reitman examines financial companies and the role they have played in policing speech, as well as the laws and corporate policies that have enabled this form of censorship. Weaving together over a decade of research with interviews and narratives from those personally impacted by financial censorship, Reitman reveals how financial exclusion has become a tool to pressure marginalized voices into silence. From the executive director of a voting rights nonprofit to a teacher of Iranian poetry, to adult content creators and the cannabis community, Reitman uplifts the voices of those who have been targeted by these powerful institutions. She uses their stories as a launching point to explore larger issues about who should have the power to censor in a democratic society. Insightful and fresh, Transaction Denied exposes this new and alarming form of censorship and offers a path forward by advocating for communities affected by financial exclusion and calling for more transparency of our financial systems.
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Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents
by Valerie Fridland
A fun, smart and surprising dive into the past, present and future of accents - and the enduring power of sounding different Accents have long held our fascination. As far back as the 7th century BCE, Egyptian pharaohs experimented with babies to test out theories about the original accent and the Old Testament relays how a small difference in the pronunciation of s became a fatal litmus test of tribal belonging. Still today, from dinner parties to job interviews, you'll find people kicking up dust about things like where and how to pronounce a 't, ' as in, never in often, but with proper British poshness, as in t(y)une. In Why We Talk Funny, linguist Valerie Fridland unlocks the secrets of what linguistic science, psychology and history can tell us about the evolution of human speech, why accents develop, and how they shape our professional and social lives. With a healthy dose of her signature humor and captivating anecdotes, Fridland explores how the twin forces of physiology and psychology along with the need to fit in changes the trajectory of speech over languages and lifetimes, diving deep into the history and social forces driving the way people talk. Along the way, she emphasizes that accents don't always set us apart, they can also bring us together. Whether it's the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we've been - even for those who might think they have no accent at all. The story of language is the story of humanity, and as Fridland reminds us, the funny sounds we make - whether from the mouths of ancient ancestors or the tongues of screenbound teens - all come from the same powerful desire to communicate and belong. Why We Talk Funny will change the way you think about your own accent - and transform the way you listen to the sounds of others.
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Witches: A History of Witchcraft, Witch-Hunters, and a King's Obsession: 1562-1735
by Steven Veerapen
A vivid history of witches from the explosion of trials under King James VI to the end of the witch-hunting phenomenon in the early 1700s. Witches--whether broomstick-riding spell-casters or Wiccan earth-worshippers--have been culturally relevant for centuries. For centuries, too, belief in the potency of witchcraft has been debated; accused witches have been hunted and punished; and film productions have brought the witch and the witch-hunter to the heights of popular culture. But where did our perception of witches--good and bad--come from? What motivated wide-scale panics about witchcraft during certain periods? How were alleged witches identified, accused, and variously tortured and punished? Steven Veerapen traces witches, witchcraft, and witch-hunters from the explosion of mass-trials under King James VI and I in the late sixteenth century to the death of the witch-hunting phenomenon in the early eighteenth century. Based on documents and the latest historical research, he explores what motivated widespread belief in demonic witchcraft throughout Britain and Europe, what caused mass panics about alleged witches, and what led, ultimately, to the relegation of the witch--and the witch-hunter--to the realm of fantasy and the fringes of society.
also available in audio
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