|
|
New Non-Fiction Arrivals at MPL |
|
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.
Sign Up For More Newsletters |
|
|
Here are our new arrivals, click the title to view in our catalog:
|
|
|
|
An African History of Africa
by Badawi, Zeinab
This sweeping historical survey traces Africa's rich legacy from prehistory to the present, exploring ancient civilizations, medieval empires and colonialism's impact, while highlighting African voices and perspectives to offer a long-overdue account of the continent's global significance.
also available in audio
|
|
Before Elvis
by Lauterbach, Preston
This exploration of the Black musicians who shaped Elvis Presley's music focuses on four overlooked artists while examining their influence, legacies and the systemic injustices that kept them in poverty as others profited from their work.
|
|
|
|
|
Black in Blues
by Perry, Imani
A National Book Award winner examines the connection of the color blue to Black history, weaving together themes of hope, melancholy and personal experience to examine race in ways that transcend politics and ideology.
also available in audio
|
|
Borgata:Clash of Titans
by Ferrante, Louis
This epic three-volume history of the mafia continues with Borgata: Clash of Titans, covering 1960 to 1985, as the mob comes into conflict with the American political elite--and confronts internal wars that will shake the organization to its foundations.
|
|
|
|
|
The Containment
by Adams, Michelle
The epic story of Detroit's struggle to integrate schools in its suburbs--and the defeat of desegregation in the North.
|
|
Defy
by Sah, Sunita
This comprehensive exploration of defiance examines the pressures that silence us and offers research-based strategies to resist compliance, featuring real-world examples and practical tools to empower individuals to speak up and act in alignment with their values.
|
|
|
|
|
The Dose Effect by Power, T. J.Describes a framework for enhancing mental and physical well-being by regulating the brain's key hormones—Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins—through lifestyle changes, offering science-backed strategies to improve cognitive performance, manage stress, elevate mood, and promote overall wellness by biohacking brain chemistry.
also available in audio
|
|
Everything Must Go
by Lynskey, Dorian
This darkly humorous cultural history explores the evolution of apocalyptic thought, examining how literature and film reflect societal anxieties, science and politics, tracing the secularization of doomsday predictions from the 19th century to today's climate crisis and technological fears.
|
|
|
|
|
Happy to Help
by Wilson, Amy
Amy Wilson, co-host of the award-winning podcast What Fresh Hell, takes a funny and insightful look at how women are conditioned to be "happy to help"--and what happens when things don't go that way.
|
|
The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You
by Case, Neko
Chronicles the Grammy-nominated artist's evolution from an isolated, poverty-stricken childhood in rural Washington to a revered international figure, emphasizing themes of loneliness, nature, camaraderie, and the transformative impact of music and art on personal identity amidst obstacles.
|
|
|
|
|
How to Share an Egg
by Reichert, Bonny
A moving culinary memoir about the relationship between food and family--sustenance and survival--from a chef, award-winning journalist, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
|
|
I Am Nobody's Slave
by Hawkins, Lee
This memoir examines a Black family's pursuit of the American Dream, exploring generational trauma from slavery and systemic racism, revealing how racial violence shaped their lives, and uncovering the emotional toll and resilience passed down through generations.
|
|
|
|
|
A Man on Fire
by Egerton, Douglas R.
""Colonel Higginson was a man on fire," read one obituary. "He had convictions and lived up to them in the fullest degree." The obituary added that he had "led the first negro regiment, contributed to the literature of America, and left an imprint upon history too deep to be obliterated." Thomas Wentworth Higginson would have been pleased to have been referred to as "colonel." He was proud of his military service and happily used the title for many decades after the end of the Civil War, and up to his death in May 1911 at the age of eighty-seven. Nonetheless, his time in the army was just one of many things for which he hoped to be remembered. "I never shall have a biographer, I suppose," he mused to his diary in 1881. Just in case somebody took up the challenge, however, he wished to provide a hint about his career. "If I do" find a chronicler, he wrote, "the key to my life is easily to be found in this, that what I longed for from childhood was not to be eminent in this or that way, but to lead a wholelife, develop all my powers, & do well in whatever came in my way to do." It was a life marked by numerous struggles for social justice and progressive causes, from abolitionism to women's rights, from religious tolerance to socialism, and from physical fitness for both genders to temperance. Yet almost alone among his contemporaries and reform-minded friends, Higginson refused to devote himself to a single crusade. Even as a young man, he warned his mother that his "greatest intellectual difficulty has been having too many irons in the fire." Some of his colleagues disapproved of this, having dedicated all their efforts to ending slavery or advancing women's social and political rights. Then there were disputes about tactics. Some relied on the pen or the spoken word to garner support for their chosen cause. Abolitionists who followed the lead of Boston publisher William Lloyd Garrison, for example, typically declined to vote and believed that moral suasion and Christian pacifism would bring about an end to slavery. Frederick Douglass argued that violent means might be necessary to liberate four million enslaved Americans, of which he had once been one. John Brown went farther still and urged his supporters to take the fight into the contested territories of the Midwest or even the South, which the government of Abraham Lincoln effectively did in late 1862, when the War Department authorized a regiment of contraband soldiers on the Carolina coast. At one point or another, Higginson embraced all of thesecauses and employed all of these tactics to advance them, using the written page, his eloquent voice, his Sharps rifle, and, on one occasion, even a makeshift battering ram"
|
|
New Prize for These Eyes
by Williams, Juan
In this highly anticipated follow-up to Eyes on the Prize, bestselling author Juan Williams turns his attention to the rise of a new 21st-century civil rights movement.
|
|
|
|
|
No Human Involved
by Neely, Cheryl L.
"An urgent examination of the invisibility of Black women and girls as victims of targeted killings, and the lack of police intervention and media coverage."
|
|
Outragedby Gray, Kurt"In this insightful tour of the moral mind, Gray provides a groundbreaking new framework for our moral foundations that rewrites our understanding of where moral judgments come from, and how we can overcome the feelings of outrage that so often divide us."
|
|
|
|
|
People Pleaser
by Vuolo, Jinger
Are you a people pleaser? Can you even begin to measure how the approval of others has shaped your heart and mind? Your faith and relationships? Your habits and identity? In People Pleaser, New York Times bestselling author Jinger Vuolo shares her personal journey of constantly seeking approval from others and how she found her true identity.
|
|
Protecting Whitney
by Roberts, David
David Roberts was Whitney Houston's bodyguard, the real one. His heart was ultimately shattered as he witnessed her succumb to the one threat he could not protect her from: herself.
|
|
|
|
|
Realm of Ice and Sky
by Levy, Buddy
National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship--and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.
|
|
Save Our Souls
by Pearl, Matthew
In this true story, on December 10, 1887, the Walker family's shark fishing boat was split in two by a storm, and they awoke in the morning on an island inhabited by a ragged man named Hans who seemed helpful but had a dark secret.
also available in audio
|
|
|
|
|
The Sinners All Bow
by Dawson, Kate Winkler
Revisits the mysterious 1832 death of Sarah Maria Cornell, intertwining historical investigation with modern forensic techniques to uncover the truth behind her demise and the trial of Reverend Ephraim Avery, while reflecting on the impact of women who challenged societal norms in their pursuit of justice.
|
|
Tidy up Your Life
by Moore, Tyler
Shares guiding principles and practical routines for organizing and prioritizing both physical and emotional spaces, drawing from his experiences as a busy parent living in a small apartment, aiming to help overwhelmed individuals create a more joyful and manageable home life.
|
|
|
|
|
Two Sisters
by Whitehouse, Rosie
This riveting book is an astonishing testimony of what befell two sisters, Whitehouse's own mother-in-law and aunt, who managed to escape the killing fields in Vichy France against all odds.
|
|
Where Madness Lies
by Spence, Lyndsy
Beginning in 1953, when Leigh suffers a nervous breakdown, Where Madness Lies tells the moving story of the actress as she attempts to rebuild her life, salvage her career, and save her marriage.
|
|
|
|
|
Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything
by Shade, Colette
A nostalgic yet critical exploration of the early 2000s, reflecting on its pop culture and socio-political landscape through artifacts like flip phones and early internet phenomena, revealing how this era shaped contemporary issues while examining the mixed legacy of a decade marked by both optimism and disillusionment.
also available in audio
|
|
|
|
|
|