LibGuides: Booklists for Adults & Teens: Linkable Non-Fiction Lists

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Cottagecore

The best of both worlds! A printable list with links.

Books to Soothe Your Cottagecore Soul

humor

Humorous Reads

Mostly non-fiction.

While many of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

Trust No Aunty by Maria Qamar Based on her popular Instagram @Hatecopy and her experience in a South Asian immigrant family, artist Maria Qamar has created a humorous, illustrated "survival guide" to deal with overbearing "Aunties," whether they're family members, annoying neighbors, or just some random ladies throwing black magic your way. We've all experienced interference from our Aunties--they are at family parties and friendly get-togethers, finding ways to make your life difficult, trying to get you to marry their sons, and telling you to lose weight while simultaneously feeding you a second dinner--and it has stunted our social growth and embarrassed us in front of our friends and cool cousins for years. This tongue-in-cheek guide is full of advice designed to help you manage Aunty meddling and encourages you to pursue your passions--from someone who has been through it all. Qamar confesses to throwing sweatshirts over crop-tops to get out of the house without being questioned, hiding her boyfriend in a closet, and enduring overbearing parents endless pressuring her to become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Holding onto your cultural identity is tough. Always interfering Aunties make it even harder. But ultimately, Aunties keep our lives interesting. As an Aunty-survivor and a woman who has lived the cross-cultural experience, Qamar defied the advice of her aunties almost every step of the way, and she is here to remind you: Trust No Aunty.
You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein From Emmy award-winning comedy writer Jessi Klein, You'll Grow Out of It hilariously and candidly explores the journey of the 21st-century woman. As both a tomboy and a late bloomer, comedian Jessi Klein grew up feeling more like an outsider than a participant in the rites of modern femininity. In You'll Grow Out of It, Klein offers - through an incisive collection of real-life stories - a relentlessly funny yet poignant take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond. These include her "transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man," attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called "ma'am" and "miss" ("miss sounds like you weigh 99 pounds"). Raw, relatable, and consistently hilarious, You'll Grow Out of It is a one-of-a-kind book by a singular and irresistible comic voice.
Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir This Random House Reader's Circle edition includes a reading group guide and a conversation between Firoozeh Dumas and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner! "Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant immigrant embrace of America."--San Francisco Chronicle In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since. Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas's wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?--a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?--an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh's parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don't get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi). Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing--without an accent. Praise for Funny in Farsi "Heartfelt and hilarious--in any language."--Glamour "A joyful success."--Newsday "What's charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It's the brilliance of true sophistication at work."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "Often hilarious, always interesting . . . Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, this book describes with humor the intersection and overlapping of two cultures."--The Providence Journal "A humorous and introspective chronicle of a life filled with love--of family, country, and heritage."--Jimmy Carter "Delightfully refreshing."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "[Funny in Farsi] brings us closer to discovering what it means to be an American."--San Jose Mercury News
Heartburn by Nora Ephron Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter. Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher An uproarious look at bestselling author Carrie Fisher's Hollywood hangover, adapted from the sold-out one-woman show of the same name which the Los Angeles Times called a 'Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes'.
Life among the Savages by Shirley Jackson In a hilariously charming domestic memoir, America's celebrated master of terror turns to a different kind of fright: raising children. In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist's gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures.
Half Empty by David Rakoff The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times bestselling author of Don't Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you'll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) book, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true. The book ranges from the personal to the universal, combining stories from Rakoff's reporting and accounts of his own experiences: the moment when being a tiny child no longer meant adults found him charming but instead meant other children found him a fun target; the perfect late evening in Manhattan when he was young and the city seemed to brim with such possibility that the street shimmered in the moonlight--as he drew closer he realized the streets actually flickered with rats in a feeding frenzy. He also weaves in his usual brand Oscar Wilde-worthy cultural criticism (the tragedy of Hollywood's Walk of Fame, for instance). Whether he's lacerating the musical Rent for its cutesy depiction of AIDS or dealing with personal tragedy, his sharp observations and humorist's flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the power of negativity.
Cool, Calm and Contentious by Merrill Markoe "This is so well written. [When a book like this] comes along, it's, like, 'Thank you!' What a great way to spend an afternoon, an evening, reading these essays. . . . Absolutely great."--Jon Stewart nbsp; "[Merrill] Markoe is easily as funny as David Sedaris. She's capable of manic riffs and acerbic skewering. Still, her good nature shines through."--The Washington Post nbsp; In this hilarious collection of candid essays, including two pieces new to this edition, New York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe reveals much about her personal life--as well as the secret formula for comedy: Start out with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men, toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and unappeasable people, and--voilà--you're funny! Cool, Calm & Contentious is honest, unapologetic, sometimes heartbreaking, but always shot through with Merrill Markoe's biting, bracing wit. nbsp; "This has been a great year for funny women. . . . Let's call Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling exhibits A and B. Both owe a debt to those who came before, including Merrill Markoe."--The Boston Globe nbsp; "Markoe's goal is to find the absurdity in everyday life. That, coupled with her sharp wit, makes her writing sublime."--BookPage nbsp; "Laugh-out-loud humor."--Tampa Bay Times nbsp; "Not only crazy-funny, but crazy-heartbreaking."--The New York Times
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby A New York Times Bestseller This essay collection from the "bitches gotta eat" blogger, writer on Hulu's Shrill, and "one of our country's most fierce and foulmouthed authors" (Amber Tamblyn, Vulture) is sure to make you alternately cackle with glee and cry real tears. Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making "adult" budgets; explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette (she's "35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something"); detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father's ashes; sharing awkward sexual encounters; or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms (hang in there for the Costco loot!); she's as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
Hark! a Vagrant by Kate Beaton FEATURED ON MORE THAN TWENTY BEST-OF LISTS, INCLUDING TIME, AMAZON, E! AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY! Hark! A Vagrantis an uproarious romp through history and literature seen through the sharp, contemporary lens ofNew Yorker cartoonist and comics sensation Kate Beaton. No era or tome emerges unscathed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha," and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old.Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classicNancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 500,000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilariously as Beaton.
In God We Trust by Jean Shepherd The beloved, bestselling classic that became the movie, A CHRISTMAS STORY -- humorous and nostalgic Americana, reissued in a strikingly designed paperback edition. Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant--and utterly hilarious--works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations. In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth. A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.
Call Number: eBook
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford A sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars. Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, the fearsome and ambitious Lady Montdore. But Polly, with her stunning good looks and impeccable connections, is bored by the monotony of her glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, where her father served as Viceroy, she claims to have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love affairs. The apparently aloof and indifferent Polly has a long-held secret, however, one that leads to the shattering of her mother's dreams and her own disinheritance. When an elderly duke begins pursuing the disgraced Polly and a callow potential heir curries favor with her parents, nothing goes as expected, but in the end all find happiness in their own unconventional ways. Featuring an introduction by Flora Fraser.
Adrian Mole, the Early Years by Sue Townsend British adolescent angst has never been so "laugh-out-loud funny" (The New York Times)--the journey begins with these first two books in the heartbreakingly hilarious series. Commiserate with "one of literature's most endearing figures" (The Observer)--a sharp-witted, pining, and achingly honest underdog of great expectations and dwindling patience who knows all (or believes he does) and tells all. First published in 1982, Adrian Mole's chronicle of angst has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, spawned seven sequels, been adapted for television, and staged as a musical--truly "a phenomenon" (The Washington Post). The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13and ¾: Adrian Mole must amass his grievances--his acne vulgaris is grotesque; his crush, Pandora, has received seventeen Valentine's Day cards (seventeen!); his PE teacher is a sadist; he fears his parents' marriage is over since they no longer smoke together; his dog has gone AWOL; no one appreciates his poetry; and Animal Farm has set him off pork for good. If everyone were as appalled as Adrian Mole, it would be a better world. For now, for us, it's just "screamingly funny" (The Sunday Times). The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole: Growing up among inferiors in Great Britain isn't easy for a sensitive "poet of the Midlands" like Adrian, considering everything in the world is conspiring to scar him for life--his hormones are in a maelstrom; his mother is pregnant (at her age!); his girlfriend is in shut down; and he's become allergic to non-precious metals. As his "crisply hilarious saga" (Booklist) continues, the changes Adrian undergoes will surely be profound. "Townsend's wit is razor sharp" (Daily Mirror) as she shows us the world through the haunted eyes of her luckless teenage diarist and self-proclaimed "undiscovered intellectual," proving again and again why she's been called "a national treasure" (The New York Times Book Review).
Call Number: eBook
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks. With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment--the one we pretend is normal five days a week.
Call Number: eBook
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat remains one of the best-loved and most entertaining comic novels ever penned. Join our young heroes J., George and Harris (not forgetting Montmorency, the mischievous, irascible fox terrier) as they take a boating holiday along the Thames. Their aim is to escape the weary workaday world and improve their health, but they are ill prepared for the various escapades, difficulties and vicissitudes that they encounter along the watery way. The adventures of these incompetent innocents abroad are magnified to epic proportions by the storyteller, J. His narration gives the book not only a wonderful endearing freshness but also a series of hilarious moments of timeless comedy.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty Winner of the Man Booker Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature New York Times Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year byTheNew York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year byNewsweek,The Denver Post,BuzzFeed,Kirkus Reviews, andPublishers Weekly Named a "Must-Read" byFlavorwire andNew York Magazine's "Vulture" Blog A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty'sThe Selloutshowcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality--the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens--on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles--the narrator ofThe Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident--the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins--he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
Grown Ups by Marian Keyes INSTANT #1 BESTSELLER! A brand-new book from the #1 bestselling author of The Break and The Woman Who Stole My Life. They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together--birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie--who has the most money--insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much . . . Still, everything manages to stay under control--that is, until Ed's wife, Cara, gets a concussion and can't keep her thoughts or opinions to herself. One careless remark at Johnny's birthday party, with the entire family present, and Cara starts spilling all their secrets. As everything unravels, each of the adults finds themselves wondering if it's--finally--the time to grow up.
Call Number: eBook
The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams "The Liar's Dictionary is the book I was longing for. So eudaemonical, so felicific and habile! A harlequinade of cachinnation! It's hilarious and smart and charming and I loved it. Read it. It's the book you're longing for." --Andrew Sean Greer, 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner for Less An exhilarating and laugh-out-loud debut novel from a prize-winning new talent which chronicles the misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world. Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement. Peter Winceworth, Victorian lexicographer, is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby's multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. His disaffection compels him to insert unauthorized fictitious entries into the dictionary in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young intern employed by the publisher, is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels before the work is digitized. She also has to contend with threatening phone calls from an anonymous caller. Is the change in the definition of marriage really that upsetting? And does the caller really intend for the Swansby's staff to 'burn in hell'? As these two narratives combine, both Winceworth and Mallory discover how they might negotiate the complexities of the often nonsensical, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, and undefinable path we call life. An exhilarating debut novel from a formidably brilliant young writer, The Liar's Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language.
Don't Point That Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli "A rare mixture of wit and imaginative unpleasantness" --Julian Barnes "You couldn't snuggle under the duvet with anything more disreputable and delightful" --Stephen Fry "Just read the first page of this book and try to keep a straight face. Then try to put the book down. You won't be able to do either one. This cult classic (the first of a trilogy), about louche, sybaritic Charlie Mortdecai, an art dealer largely untroubled by conscience, draws readers into its unpolitically comic world and keeps them there. The plot concerns Mortdecai's efforts to keep one step ahead of nemesis Martland, a policeman vested with the power to work outside the law, and to deliver a stolen Goya he has concealed in the headliner of his Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. The plot takes him to America (where is he much bemused by the locals, and they by him) and back again, ending in a most intriguing predicament. Wry and dry, picaresque and profane, a book like this can be so hard to describe that efforts to do so--invoking some or all of P. G. Wodehouse, Kingsley Amis, Vladimir Nabokov, even Hunter S. Thompson and John Kennedy Toole--give the impression that it's a Frankenstein's monster. Not true. Bonfiglioli's Mortdecai is a true original, and there's nothing quite so hard to describe as that." --Booklist (Starred Review) "What are the books like? They are darker, stranger and more interesting than any film of them (or at least any film cleared for general release) could be...The novels are extremely funny, first of all. They deal, like Wodehouse, in sentence-by-sentence sparkle, in gestures of grand insouciance. " --Sam Leith, The Guardian
Call Number: eAudiobook
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym; A. N. Wilson (Introduction by) "The finest introduction to Barbara Pym" (The New York Times): a hilarious comedy of manners by the shrewdly observant British novelist often compared to Jane Austen One of Barbara Pym's richest and most amusing high comedies, Excellent Women has at its center Mildred Lathbury, a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those "excellent women," the smart, supportive, repressed women who men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors--anthropologist Helena Napier and her handsome, dashing husband, Rocky, and Julian Malory, the vicar next door--the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived in a vanishing world of manners and repressed desires.
Oreo by Fran Ross; Danzy Senna (Introduction by); Harryette Mullen (Afterword by) Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman; Terry Pratchett The classic collaboration from the internationally bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, now a Prime original series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. "Good Omens . . . is something like what would have happened if Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and Don DeLillo had collaborated. Lots of literary inventiveness in the plotting and chunks of very good writing and characterization. It's a wow. It would make one hell of a movie. Or a heavenly one. Take your pick."--Washington Post According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon--both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle--are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal One ofGoodreads' Best Books of the Month (May 2017) One of BuzzFeed's 31 Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Spring One ofThe Millions' Most Anticipated Books of the Year A HUMOROUS AND TENDER MULTIGENERATIONAL NOVEL ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND OUTSIDERS--THOSE TRYING TO FIND THEIR PLACE IN AMERICAN SOCIETY AND WITHIN THEIR OWN FAMILIES In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can't pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. Harit, a lonely Indian immigrant in his mid forties, lives with his mother who can no longer function after the death of Harit's sister, Swati. In a misguided attempt to keep both himself and his mother sane, Harit has taken to dressing up in a sari every night to pass himself off as his sister. Meanwhile, Ranjana, also an Indian immigrant in her mid forties, has just seen her only child, Prashant, off to college. Worried that her husband has begun an affair, she seeks solace by writing paranormal romances in secret. When Harit and Ranjana's paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears. Rakesh Satyal'sNo One Can Pronounce My Name is a distinctive, funny, and insightful look into the lives of people who must reconcile the strictures of their culture and traditions with their own dreams and desires.
Old Records Never Die by Eric Spitznagel; Jeff Tweedy (Foreword by) In Old Records Never Die, Eric Spitznagel sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artefacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records. As he embarks on his hero's journey, he reminisces about the actual records, the music and the people he listened to it with: old girlfriends, his high school pals and, most poignantly, his father and his young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record-culture with questions about our connection to our past and whether we can ever really recapture it.
Mrs Fry's Diary by Stephen Fry THE HILARIOUS DIARY BY MRS STEPHEN FRY - THE WIFE YOU NEVER KNEW HE HAD 'Hilarious' - Daily Express 'Buy the wife's book or I'll never hear the end of it' Stephen Fry Stephen Fry's secret wife speaks out at last... Enjoyed a nice cuppa this morning with a HobNob and Jeremy Kyle. There was a woman on there who'd been married 16 years without realising her husband was gay. Extraordinary! Which reminds me, it's our 16th anniversary in a few weeks. What a coincidence. Stephen Fry - actor, writer, raconteur and wit. Cerebral and sophisticated, a true Renaissance man. Or is he? Finally, his secret double life - the womanizing, the window-cleaning, the kebabs, the karaoke - is exclusively revealed by Edna, his devoted wife and mother of his five, six or possibly seven children. These diaries take us through a year in the life of an unwitting celebrity wife, and are rumoured to include: - scandalous nocturnal shenanigans - advice on childcare - 101 things to do with a tin of Spam. 'A good diary should be like a good husband - a constant companion, a source of inspiration and, ideally, bound in leather.' - Edna Fry twitter.com/MrsStephenFry
The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park "Indeed the perfect escape from, well, pretty much everything."--SARAH HENNING, author of Throw Like a Girland the Sea Witch duology Love is a battlefield in this hysterical romantic comedy, perfect for fans of Jenny Han and teen romance books. Nate Jae-Woo Kim wants to be rich. When one of his classmates offers Nate a ridiculous amount of money to commit grade fraud, he knows that taking the windfall would help support his prideful Korean family, but is compromising his integrity worth it? Luck comes in the form of Kate Anderson, Nate's colleague at the zombie-themed escape room where he works. She approaches Nate with a plan: a local tech company is hosting a weekend-long survivalist competition with a huge cash prize. It could solve all of Nate's problems, and she needs the money too. If the two of them team up,Nate has a real shot of winning the grand prize. But the real challenge? Making through the weekend with his heart intact... A great pick for: Readers of YA romance and romantic comedy books Parents who need gifts for teens and reluctant readers Fans of Sarah Dessen, Kasie West and Christina Lauren People who love both the Hunger Games and rom-coms and didn't know they needed a crossover Praise for The Perfect Escape: A Junior Library Guild selection! "Pure fun! A hilarious rom-com that head-fakes you into tumbling headlong into a techno-zombie survival thriller propelled by banter and plenty of heart."--David Yoon, New York Timesbestselling author of Frankly in Love "The Perfect Escapeis just that--perfect. Filled with humor and heart, it won't let you go until you're smiling."--Danielle Paige, New York Timesbestselling author of the Dorothy Must Die series and Stealing Snow "An adorable, laugh-out-loud YA romcom with a lovable hero and an action-packed zombie-themed escape room--what more could you want?"--Jenn Bennett, author of Alex, Approximately
Call Number: eBook
It Came from the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti From bestselling author Chelsea Sedoti comes the unforgettable story of the one small town's biggest hoax and the two brothers who started it all, perfect for readers who want funny books for teens. This is the absolutely true account of how Lansburg, Pennsylvania was invaded by aliens and the weeks of chaos that followed. There were sightings of UFOs, close encounters, and even abductions. There were believers, Truth Seekers, and, above all, people who looked to the sky and hoped for more. Only...there were no aliens. Gideon Hofstadt knows what really happened. When one of his science experiments went wrong, he and his older brother blamed the resulting explosion on extraterrestrial activity. And their lie was not only believed by their town--it was embraced. As the brothers go to increasingly greater lengths to keep up the ruse and avoid getting caught, the hoax flourishes. But Gideon's obsession with their tale threatens his whole world. Can he find a way to banish the aliens before Lansburg, and his life, are changed forever? Told in a unique report format and comprised of interviews, blog posts, text conversations, found documents, and so much more,It Came from the Sky is a hysterical and resonant novel about what it means to be human in the face of the unknown. A great pick for readers looking for: funny, quirky, and wholly original stories that will stick with you books for teen boys alien invasion fiction conversation starters about the meaning of facts and truth teen books for boys ages 13-16 gifts for teen girls 16-18 Praise forIt Came from the Sky: "A page-turneras engrossing as any classic Twilight Zone starring two spirited brothers who run circles around the Hardy Boys."--Ben Philippe, Morris Award-winning author ofThe Field Guide to the North American Teenager "Well written...Believable characters facing realistic teenage issues coupled with a thematic exploration of wishes, fears, and principles of honesty and ethics will help to keep readers' attention."--School Library Connection "A balanced explorationof maturity, vulnerability, human connection, and our innate desire to believe."--Kirkus Reviews "Sedoti will draw readers inwith the outrageous situation and the town's amusing aspects, such as a 63-foot lava lamp, but she truly excels with Gideon-a unique character whose desire for recognition and achievement is universal."--Publishers Weekly "[A]quirky, intelligentnovel ... Big questions of morality, cosmic insignificance, and human connection ground this novel even as it ponders the stars."--Booklist Also by Chelsea Sedoti: The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett As You Wish
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia A handsome stranger. A dead billionaire. A citywide treasure hunt. Tuesday Mooney's life is about to change...forevermore. Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching oldTwin Peaks andX-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston's most eccentric billionaire, dies--leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe--Tuesday's adventure finally begins. Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their mettle, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize--a share of Pryce's immense wealth--they must move quickly. Pryce's clues can't be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some morevivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams. A deliciously funny ode to imagination, overflowing with love letters to art, fromThe Westing Gameto Madonna to the Knights of the Round Table,Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is the perfect read for thrill seekers, wanderers, word lovers, and anyone looking for an escape to the extraordinary.

bakeoff

So you love the Great British Baking Show...

Try having a bake off in your own home with a little help from these cookbooks!

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

Time to Eat by Nadiya Hussain From the host of the beloved Netflix series Time to Eat and winner of The Great British Baking Show come over 100 time-smart recipes to tackle family mealtime. Nadiya Hussain knows that feeding a family and juggling a full work load can be challenging. Time to Eat solves mealtime on weeknights and busy days with quick and easy recipes that the whole family will love. Nadiya shares all her tips and tricks for making meal prep as simple as possible, including ideas for repurposing leftovers and components of dishes into new recipes, creating second meals to keep in the freezer, and using shortcuts--like frozen foods--to cut your prep time significantly. In Time to Eat, Nadiya teaches you to make recipes from her hit Netflix show, including Peanut Butter & Jelly Traybake, Instant Noodles, Egg Rolls, and zesty Marmalade Haddock. Each recipe also notes exactly how long it will take to prepare and cook, making planning easy. Helpful icons identify which recipes can be made ahead, which ones are freezer-friendly, and which ones can be easily doubled.
Baking with Mary Berry by Mary Berry A sweet and savory collection of more than 100 foolproof recipes from the reigning "Queen of Baking" Mary Berry, who has made her way into American homes through ABC's primetime series, The Great Holiday Baking Show, and the PBS series, The Great British Baking Show. Baking with Mary Berry draws on Mary's more than 60 years in the kitchen, with tips and step-by-step instructions for bakers just starting out and full-color photographs of finished dishes throughout. The recipes follow Mary's prescription for dishes that are no fuss, practical, and foolproof--from breakfast goods to cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies, to special occasion desserts such as cheesecake and soufflés, to British favorites that will inspire. Whether you're tempted by Mary's Heavenly Chocolate Cake and Best-Ever Brownies, intrigued by her Mincemeat and Almond Tart or Magic Lemon Pudding, or inspired by her Rich Fruit Christmas Cake and Ultimate Chocolate Roulade, the straightforward yet special recipes in Baking with Mary Berry will prove, as one reviewer has said of her recipes, "if you can read, you can cook."
How to Bake by Paul Hollywood From the star of Netflix's Great British Baking Show, a delicious, easy to follow cookbook for every home chef who wants to avoid soggy pie bottoms or win star baker. Paul Hollywood was the son of a baker long before he became a household name as a judge on The Great British Baking Show. Raised to make perfect breads, scones, and sponges, he advanced from his father's kitchen to become head baker at hotels around the world. As he worked, Hollywood became passionate about busting the myths that surround baking, sharing his finely honed skills, and showing that with the right guidance, anybody can achieve success time after time. Now, in How to Bake, Hollywood introduces readers to his tried and true techniques. He has filled this book with easy-to-follow, clearly explained, utterly delicious recipes for an abundance of breads, pastries, cakes and biscuits from ciabatta to focaccia and fresh croissants to a classic Victoria sponge. As they say on Great British Baking Show: "Ready, Set, BAKE!"
The Story of the Great British Bake Off by Anita Singh Take one tent. Fill with 12 amateur bakers. Garnish with one venerable cookery writer, one blue-eyed bread-maker, and two comedy queens with a love of innuendo. And there you have the recipe for the most popular show of our times. When The Great British Bake Offmade its debut in August 2010, it had the makings of a modest hit. But nobody - not the programme-makers and certainly not those first contestants - could have predicted what was to come. Here was a show in which the biggest weekly drama was whether or not a sponge cake would sink in the middle. And oh, how we loved it. Here is the ultimate Bake Offfan book: from bread lion to bin-gate; heart throbs to Twitter trolls; soggy bottoms to sticky buns. This is the celebration of Britain's most popular cookery contest.
Call Number: Check it out now - only available through hoopla digital!

Great British Bake Off by Linda Collister; Mary Berry (Foreword by); Paul Hollywood (Foreword by); Love Production Staff Ten new amateur bakers are ready to rise to the Great British Bake Off challenge. While they don their aprons, adjust to their new ovens and get used to baking in a tent, this book takes you through the challenges from the series and shows you how to achieve baking perfection. Throughout the book, Mary and Paul are on hand with expert advice and practical tips to help you create perfect cakes, biscuits, breads, pastries, pies and teatime treats every time. Each chapter begins with a specific baking skill, which, once mastered, allows you to tackle Mary and Paul's technical challenges with confidence - can you make perfect puff pastry? Try Paul's recipe for croissants. Have you mastered the creamed sponge? Take up Mary's chocolate and vanilla Battenberg challenge. There are over 120 recipes in this book, including traditional British bakes and imaginative twists using classic ingredients, as well as the best contestant recipes from the series. There is plenty to challenge keen bakers here, from brandy snaps to baguettes, pavlovas to iced celebration cakes, and with a sensuous and yet practical design and full-colour photography, this really will become the baking book that you will turn to for years to come. To ensure that the final result isn't revealed before the winner is announced, all How to Bake book buyers will receive an exclusive digital booklet of the finalists' recipes at the end of the series. More details about the digital booklet to follow.
Great British Bake Off by Linda Collister Bake your way through the much-loved BBC1 series with this beautiful, fully photographic cookbook of 120 original recipes, including those from both the judges and the bakers. This book is for every baker - whether you want to whip up a quick batch of easy biscuits at the very last minute or you want to spend your time making a breathtaking showstopper, there are recipes and decoration options for creating both. Using straightforward, easy-to-follow techniques there are reliable recipes for biscuits, traybakes, bread, large and small cakes, sweet pastry and patisserie, savoury pastry, puddings and desserts. Each chapter transports you on set and showcases the best recipes from the challenges including Mary and Paul's Signature Bakes, Technical Challenges and Showstoppers, plus the best bakers' recipes from the show. There are step-by-step photographs to help guide you through the more complicated techniques and stunning photography throughout, making this the perfect gift for all bakers and Bake Off fans.
Comfort by Candice Brown Simply delicious bakes for every day of the year. 'I'm so excited about this beautiful book. Delicious, cozy recipes that are pure comfort on a plate' Fearne Cotton Secondary school teacher and pub landlord's daughter Candice Brown stole the show with her amazing bakes and weekly lipstick change in The Great British Bake Off tent of 2016. This year the Sunday Times columnist will be bringing out her first cookbook - all about home comforts. These are the recipes Candice learned to bake from her nan and mum, recipes close to her heart, that should be served up as a big generous slice - and preferably on a vintage plate if you have one. Candice's recipes are easy to make, no nonsense and hearty. She has a recipe up her sleeve for every occasion - for baking with kids, birthday parties for all ages, Christmas, afternoon tea, quick savoury bakes for weeknights and fancier recipes for weekends.
Prue by Prue Leith Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith draws on a life-long passion for food with a hundred recipes from her own kitchen table. Whether it's Halibut with Green Linguine, Fast Roast Teriyaki Lamb or Slow-cooked Rat-a-tat-touille, these are delicious, fuss-free dishes that Prue has cooked countless times for family and friends. Inside are quick-to-whip-up suppers and dinner party showstoppers that are as much a pleasure to cook as to eat. Expect firmly established favourites, lazy leftovers, meat-free meals, exciting new flavour combinations and fresh takes on classic dishes. There's also a chapter of puds inspired by Prue's time on Bake Off - every one guaranteed to be 'worth the calories'.This is Prue's first cookery book in twenty-five years, and she has woven intimate and witty stories from her life around many of the recipes. Celebrating the food we all want to make at home, Prue gives an unparalleled view into the cooking life and style of one of the nation's best-loved cooks.
Twist: Creative Ideas to Reinvent Your Baking by Martha Collison Martha Collison amazed the judges and viewers alike as the youngest ever contestant in the 2014 series of The Great British Bake Off. Martha shone with her Showstopper skills and extraordinary 'Technical Challenge' knowledge. Here in her first book, she offers a brilliant new approach to baking - a way to master baking, while adding 'twists' to recipes to make contemporary bakes that everyone will love. With clever illustrations and know-how throughout, alongside beautiful photography, Martha demonstrates how to take basic recipes and alter them into something new. Whether it's a cake, a biscuit or even a pastry recipe, she shows how to alter the method, the balance of ingredients or the mixture of flavours to ensure exciting, magical bakes every time. Transform her Never-Fail Vanilla Cupcakes into Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes, for example, or Caramel Macchiatos. Try Pink Grapefruit Drizzle Cake, instead of the usual Lemon, and then mix it up with Gin & Tonic flavours. Or take Macarons to a whole new level and try Peach Bellini Macarons or even a Macaron Shell Ice-Cream. Fresh, innovative and genuinely exciting, Twist looks set to make adventurous bakers of us all.
The Cardamom Trail by Chetna Makan Chetna Makan is known for her unique recipes, which introduce colorful spices, aromatic herbs and other Indian ingredients into traditional Western baked favorites. Whether it's a sponge cake with a cardamom and coffee filling; puff pastry bites filled with fenugreek paneer; a swirly bread rolled with citrusy coriander, mint and green mango chutney; or a steamed strawberry pudding flavoured with cinnamon, Chetna's Indian influences will transform your baking from the familiar to the exotic, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Discover rare but precious traditional bakes from India, as well as new spice-infused recipes. Delve into the history of Indian herbs and spices and learn how to match foods and flavors.
Bake It Like You Mean It by Gesine Bullock-Prado; Tina Rupp (By (photographer)) In Sugar Baby, Gesine Bullock Prado took on sweets and confections. In Pie It Forward, she tackled pies. Now, in Bake It Like You Mean It, she turns her attention to cakes; but of course, these aren't your typical cakes, and Gesine presents these creations with her own signature twist and trademark humour. These are cakes that are beautiful on the outside and often on the inside. Some are simply covered in creamy, beautiful frostings and finished with gorgeous garnishes while others actually look like a chessboard when you cut into them; reveal rainbow layers; or offer other stunning surprises once you see what's inside. Get ready for Lemony Angel Food Cake with Strawberry Coulis, Inside Out Red Velvet Super Sponge, Walnut Coffee Cream Torte, Marble Pound Cake, German Chocolate Cake and more. Some easy and some more challenging, these are cake recipes suited for every occasion.
Pieometry by Lauren Ko New York Times bestseller The pie-making genius behind the popular Instagram account @lokokitchen reveals the secrets of her mind-blowing creations in this gorgeous full-color cookbook featuring 50 incredible sweet and savory pie and tart designs In a few short years, Lauren Ko made all hell bake loose, going from novice pie baker to internet star and creator of today's most surprising and delightful pie and tart designs. Her unique geometric style uses fruit and dough cut and woven into stunning shapes to highlight color and texture. With an elegant symmetry that matches their knockout flavor, her dazzlingly intricate and inventive designs look difficult to produce, but can be achieved with little more than a knife, ruler, and some patience. In Pieometry, Lauren reveals her secrets, sharing stories about her designs and the inspiration behind them. Warm and funny, she recounts the spectacular piesasters that led to some of her best creations, and breaks down her most beautiful designs, describing how to make naturally-colored dough, intricate weaves, and striking cut-out patterns. Pieometry provides clear, step-by-step instructions, accompanied by helpful photographs, which any patient baker can follow to build these pies from bottom crust to top in their own kitchens. Lauren makes it easy to mix and match doughs, fruits, fillings, and designs, and each recipe includes suggestions for alternative ingredients. Best of all, the beautiful finished pie and tart photos are just as much of a treat to look at as the pies are to eat. But even if you make a mistake here and there, her flavors save the day! When it comes to flavor, Pieometry offers a balance of sweet and savory pies that are a feast for the senses, including: Of a Shingle Mind: Honey ricotta tart with an herbed pastry shell and beets Berried Treasure: Lavender blackberry cream with a shortbread crust and berries Wave of Wonders: Cardamom coffee cream with a shortbread crust and pear Once in a Tile: Pumpkin black sesame pie with a black sesame crust C and Easy: Butternut bacon macaroni and cheese pie with a whole wheat cheddar chive crust Squiggle Room: Grilled cinnamon pineapple pie with a basic butter crust Whether you want to impress at the holidays or just spruce up a family meal, Pieometry is your guide to transforming a rustic traditional dessert into a modern masterpiece.
Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In her first cookbook, Bon Appétit and YouTube star of the show Gourmet Makes offers wisdom, problem-solving strategies, and more than 100 meticulously tested, creative, and inspiring recipes. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Bon Appétit * NPR * The Atlanta Journal-Constitution * Salon * Epicurious "There are no 'just cooks' out there, only bakers who haven't yet been converted. I am a dessert person, and we are all dessert people."--Claire Saffitz Claire Saffitz is a baking hero for a new generation. In Dessert Person, fans will find Claire's signature spin on sweet and savory recipes like Babkallah (a babka-Challah mashup), Apple and Concord Grape Crumble Pie, Strawberry-Cornmeal Layer Cake, Crispy Mushroom Galette, and Malted Forever Brownies. She outlines the problems and solutions for each recipe--like what to do if your pie dough for Sour Cherry Pie cracks (patch it with dough or a quiche flour paste!)--as well as practical do's and don'ts, skill level, prep and bake time, step-by-step photography, and foundational know-how. With her trademark warmth and superpower ability to explain anything baking related, Claire is ready to make everyone a dessert person.
All about Cake by Christina Tosi In All About Cake, Christina Tosi takes us into the sugar-fueled, manically creative cake universe of Milk Bar. From two-minute microwave mug cakes to gooey Crock-Pot cakes, from Bundts and pounds to their famous cake truffles and, of course, their signature naked layer cakes, this book will help bakers of all levels to indulge in flavors like classic Birthday Cake and true originals such as Pretzel Cake with Stout Ganache and Honey Frosting. Along the way, Tosi reveals the method behind her team's creativity--the formulas and matrices that will allow you to invent any cake flavor you can imagine.
Elegant Pie by Karin Pfeiff-Boschek Enjoy 25 edible works of art with this step-by-step guide to creating the perfect pie. Everyone knows that serving a pie for dessert makes guests happy. And serving one with a beautifully designed crust that makes guests swoon is even better. Pies are easy to make as stunningly attractive as the most decorative cakes using some basic techniques and the appropriate care when working with pie dough. The recipes and techniques presented in this book give any home baker the tools they need to create breathtaking works of pie art. From preparation of the dough to the last moments of baking, all methods are clearly presented using step-by-step photographs. A flat surface, rolling pin, sharp knife, different size and shaped cookie cutters make embellishing an ordinary pie crust easy. The 25 designs, arranged by three levels of difficulty, range from graphic art styles to seasonal-inspired florals. Beautifully decorated pies are a hit on social media, and until now there has not been a book on how to create these stunning works of edible art. Karin Pfeiff-Boschek is a master pie designer and explains in detail her textile-based methods used to reproduce her most popular top crust works of art.
Call Number: eBook
Kawaii Sweet World Cookbook by Rachel Fong; Andria Lo (Photographer) Since starting her YouTube career at age 12, Rachel Fong has amassed a huge dedicated following of two million young and hungry aspiring home bakers from around the world. The key to Rachel's success is not just her bevy of bright, easy recipe videos that appeal to bakers of all ages, but also her ridiculously cute final creations. It's not enough to make a delicious layer cake; Rachel turns it into an adorable, smiling California roll. Kawaii is a pop culture phenomenon that has seeped into everything from Japanese fashion to tasty Japanese treats. With this colorful guide to baking the sweetest treats, you'll be whipping Narwhal Cake Pops, Pig Cream Puffs, and Koala Cupcakes in no time.
Eat Up by Ruby Tandoh Think about that first tickle of hunger in your stomach. A moment ago, you could have been thinking about anything, but now it's thickly buttered toast, a frosty scoop of ice cream straight from the tub, some creamy, cheesy scrambled eggs or a fuzzy, perfectly-ripe peach. Eating is one of life's greatest pleasures. Food nourishes our bodies, helps us celebrate our successes (from a wedding cake to a post-night out kebab), cheers us up when we're down, introduces us to new culturesand - when we cook and eat together - connects us with the people we love. In Eat Up, Ruby Tandoh celebrates the fun and pleasure of food, taking a look at everything from gluttons and gourmets in the movies, to the symbolism of food and sex. She will arm you against the fad diets, food crazes and bad science that can make eating guilt-laden and expensive, drawing eating inspiration from influences as diverse as Roald Dahl, Nora Ephron and more. Filled with straight-talking, sympathetic advice on everything from mental health to recipe ideas and shopping tips, this is a book that clears away the fog, to help you fall back in love with food.
Call Number: eBook
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish From Portland's most acclaimed and beloved baker comes this must-have baking guide, featuring scores of recipes for world-class breads and pizzas and a variety of schedules suited for the home baker. In Flour Water Salt Yeast, author Ken Forkish demonstrates that high-quality artisan bread and pizza is within the reach of any home baker. Whether it's a basic straight dough, dough made with a pre-ferment, or a complex levain, each of Forkish's impeccable recipes yields exceptional results. Tips on creating and adapting bread baking schedules that fit in reader's day-to-day lives-enabling them to bake the breads they love in the time they have available-make Flour Water Salt Yeast an indispensable resource for bakers, be they novices or serious enthusiasts.
Sister Pie by Lisa Ludwinski At Sister Pie, Lisa Ludwinski and her band of sister bakers are helping make Detroit sweeter one slice at a time from a little corner pie shop in a former beauty salon on the city's east side. The granddaughter of two Detroit natives, Ludwinski spends her days singing, dancing, and serving up a brand of pie love that has charmed critics and drawn the curious from far and wide. No one leaves without a slice-those who don't have money in their pockets can simply cash in a prepaid slice from the "pie it forward" clothesline strung across the window. With 75 of her most-loved recipes for sweet and savory pies-such as Toasted Marshmallow-Butterscotch Pie and Sour Cherry-Bourbon Pie-and other bakeshop favorites, the Sister Pie cookbook pays homage to Motor City ingenuity and all-American spirit. Illustrated throughout with 75 drool-worthy photos and Ludwinski's charming line illustrations, and infused with her plucky, punny style, bakers and bakery lovers won't be able to resist this book.
Huckleberry by Zoe Nathan; Laurel Almerinda (As told to); Josh Loeb (As told to); Matt Armendariz (Photographer) Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that simply knocks me out. Their book is filled with wonderful tips about life and baking but what inspires me most is that I want to make every single recipe in this book! - Ina Garten "Everything in generosity" is the motto of Zoe Nathan, the big-hearted baker behind Santa Monica's favorite neighborhood bakery and breakfast spot, Huckleberry Bakery & Café. This irresistible cookbook collects more than 115 recipes and more than 150 color photographs, including how-to sequences for mastering basics such as flaky dough and lining a cake pan. Huckleberry's recipes span from sweet (rustic cakes, muffins, and scones) to savory (hot cereals, biscuits, and quiche). True to the healthful spirit of Los Angeles, these recipes feature whole-grain flours, sesame and flax seeds, fresh fruits and vegetables, natural sugars, and gluten-free and vegan options--and they always lead with deliciousness. For bakers and all-day brunchers, Huckleberry will become the cookbook to reach for whenever the craving for big flavor strikes.
BraveTart by Stella Parks; J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (Foreword by) From One-Bowl Devil's Food Layer Cake to a flawless Cherry Pie that's crisp even on the very bottom, BraveTart is a celebration of classic American desserts. Whether down-home delights like Blueberry Muffins and Glossy Fudge Brownies or supermarket mainstays such as Vanilla Wafers and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, your favorites are all here. These meticulously tested recipes bring an award-winning pastry chef's expertise into your kitchen, along with advice on how to "mix it up" with over 200 customizable variations--in short, exactly what you'd expect from a cookbook penned by a senior editor at Serious Eats. Yet BraveTart is much more than a cookbook, as Stella Parks delves into the surprising stories of how our favorite desserts came to be, from chocolate chip cookies that predate the Tollhouse Inn to the prohibition-era origins of ice cream sodas and floats. With a foreword by The Food Lab's J. Kenji López-Alt, vintage advertisements for these historical desserts, and breathtaking photography from Penny De Los Santos, BraveTart is sure to become an American classic.
The Fearless Baker by Erin Jeanne McDowell Top food stylist andFood52's popular baking columnist shares her baking secrets. When people see Erin McDowell frost a perfect layer cake, weave a lattice pie crust, or pull a rich loaf of brioche from the oven, they often act as though she's performed culinary magic. "I'm not a baker," they tell her. But in fact, expert baking is not at all unattainable, nor is it as inflexible as most people assume. The key to freedom is to understand the principles behind how ingredients interact and how classic methods work. Once these concepts are mastered, favorite recipes can be altered and personalized almost endlessly. With the assurance born out of years of experience, McDowell shares insider tips and techniques that make desserts taste as good as they look. With recipes from flourless cocoa cookies and strawberry-filled popovers (easy), through apple cider pie and black-bottom crème brûlée (medium), to a statuesque layer cake crowned with caramelized popcorn (difficult), and "Why It Works," "Pro Tip," and make-ahead sidebars with each recipe, this exciting, carefully curated collection will appeal to beginning and experienced bakers alike.
Flavor Flours by Alice Medrich; Leigh Beisch (Photographer); Maya Klein (As told to) Winner, James Beard Foundation Award, Best Book of the Year in Baking & Desserts In this monumental new work, beloved dessert queen Alice Medrich applies her baking precision and impeccable palate to flavor flours--wheat-flour alternatives including rice flour, oat flour, corn flour, sorghum flour, teff, and more. The resulting (gluten-free!) recipes show that baking with alternate flours adds an extra dimension of flavor. Brownies made with rice flour taste even more chocolaty. Buckwheat adds complexity to a date and nut cake. Ricotta cheesecake gets bonus flavor from a chestnut flour crust; teff is used to make a chocolate layer cake that can replace any birthday cake with equally pleasing results. All of the nearly 125 recipes--including Double Oatmeal Cookies, Buckwheat Gingerbread, Chocolate Chestnut Soufflé Cake, and Blueberry Corn Flour Cobbler--take the flavors of our favorite desserts to the next level. The book is organized by flour, with useful information on its taste, flavor affinities, and more. And because flavor flours don't react in recipes the same way as wheat flour, Medrich explains her innovative new techniques with the clarity and detail she is known for.
The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook by Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez; Julia Turshen Launched in 2007 from Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez's kitchen, Hot Bread Kitchen is now a nonprofit New York City-based bakery that supplies ethnic breads to dozens of retail outlets (both locally and across the country-including seven Whole Foods stores in New York City and Dean & Deluca locations in New York, DC, North Carolina, Kansas, and California) while employing and empowering immigrant women. This cookbook shares the bakery's regional breads from the international locales these women called home, including Fresh Corn Tortillas, Naan, M'smen, and Bialys.
The New Sugar and Spice by Samantha Seneviratne A 2016 James Beard Award nominee featuring more than eighty recipes from New York-based food writer and author of the popular dessert blog Love, Cake. Raise your desserts to a whole new level of flavor with The New Sugar & Spice, a collection of more than eighty unique, unexpected, and uniformly delicious recipes for spice-centric sweets. Veteran baker Samantha Seneviratne's recipes will open your eyes to a world of baking possibilities: Her spicy, pepper-flecked Chile-Chocolate Truffles prove that heat and sweet really do go hand-in-hand, and a fresh batch of aromatic, cinnamon-laced Maple Sticky Buns will have the whole family racing into the kitchen. Discover new recipes from around the globe, such as Sri Lankan Love Cake or Swedish-inspired Saffron Currant Braid. Or, give your classic standbys a bold upgrade, such as making Raspberry Shortcakes with zingy Double Ginger Biscuits. Filled with fascinating histories, origin stories, and innovative uses for the world's most enticing spices--including vanilla, cinnamon, peppercorns, and cardamom--The New Sugar & Spice guarantees that dessert will be the most talked-about part of your meal.
Black Girl Baking by Jerrelle Guy Jerrelle's Honey Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread smells of the sweet bread her father would use to pack his lunch every morning. Her Bruleed Buttermilk Pie mimics the cracking surface of the crème brulee her great aunt used to make for her on special occasion. Drenched in imagery, these healthy recipes are like therapy, bringing the reader back in time to appreciate the simple pleasures of childhood using the five senses. Jerrelle Guy is the creator of Chocolate For Basil, a vegetarian blog that has been featured on Vogue.com, Food52 and in the Boston Globe, to name a few. Her Instagram is full of stunning photography and has over 41,000 followers. These recipes tell Jerrelle's story while urging the reader to step away from the book and submerge themselves in the senses of baking--feel for clumps in the dough, smell when the nuts are toasted, hear the hollow knock of a perfectly cooked loaf of bread. With incredible baked goods with a soul food twist like Five Spice Baked Rice Pudding, Brown Sugar Plantain Galette, Corn and Serrano Soufflé and Sticky Date Sheet Cake, Black Girl Baking is a book to be remembered. This book will contain 75 recipes and 75 photos, each with vegan alternatives.
Rose's Baking Basics by Rose Levy Beranbaum The ultimate baking book for everyone from best-selling author and "diva of desserts" Rose Levy Beranbaum In this book of no-fuss recipes everyone should know, trusted baking expert Rose Levy Beranbaum guides you through every recipe for can't-fail results--with a streamlined, simplified approach and more than 600 mouthwatering and instructive photos. Whether you're a baking enthusiast or just want to whip up the occasional treat, you will be able to easily make perfect brownies, banana bread, holiday pies, birthday cakes, homemade bread, and more, with recipes including: Chocolate Sheet Cake with Ganache Frosting, Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints, Beer Bread, Apple Walnut Muffins, Peach Cobbler, Milk Chocolate Caramel Tart, and more. Throughout, Rose shares her unique tips and methods for unlocking the secrets to the best flavors and foolproof results, for a treasury of essential recipes you'll use forever.
The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook by Tom Douglas New York Times Bestseller When it comes to delectable, freshly baked cakes, pies, cookies, and muffins, nobody beats the world famous Dahlia Bakery of Seattle, Washington. Owner, Iron Chef, and James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Tom Douglas offers up the best loved recipes from this incomparable bread and pastries mecca in The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook--featuring everything from breakfast to cookies and cake to soups and jams and more--demonstrating why the West Coast wonder has long been a favorite of foodies and celebrities, like Food Network's Giada De Laurentiis and Serious Eats founder Ed Levine.
The Vintage Baker by Jessie Sheehan; Alice Gao (Photographer) This cookbook features fetching retro patterns and illustrations, alongside luscious photography, and an e-booklet at the end rendered in a vintage-style. Blue-ribbon recipes inspired by baking pamphlets from the 1920s to the 1960s are rendered with irresistible charm for modern tastes in this ebook. Here are more than 50 cookies, pies, cakes, bars, and more, plus informative headnotes detailing the origins of each recipe and how they were tweaked into deliciousness. For home bakers, collectors of vintage cookbooks or kitchenware, this is a gem.
Call Number: Check it out now - only available on hoopla digital!
Bread Toast Crumbs by Alexandra Stafford Alexandra Stafford grew up eating her mother's peasant bread at nearly every meal-the recipe for which was a closely-guarded family secret. When her blog, Alexandra's Kitchen, began to grow in popularity, readers started asking how to make the bread they'd heard so much about; the bread they had seen peeking into photos. Finally, Alexandra's mother relented, and the recipe went up on the internet. It has since inspired many who had deemed bread-baking an impossibility to give it a try, and their results have exceeded expectations. The secret is in its simplicity- the no-knead dough comes together in fewer than five minutes, rises in an hour, and after a second short rise, bakes in buttered bowls. But this book isn't just about baking bread. It's about what to do with the slices and heels and nubs from those many loaves you'll bake-it's bread-baking and bread-eating. After you master the famous peasant bread, you'll work your way through its many variations, both in flavor (Cornmeal, Jalapeno, and Jack; Three Seed) and form (Cranberry Walnut Dinner Rolls; Cinnamon Sugar Monkey Bread). You'll enjoy bread's usual utilities with Food Cart Grilled Cheese and the Summer Tartine with Burrata and Avocado, but then you'll discover its true versatility when you use it to sop up Mussels with Shallot and White Wine or juicy Roast Chicken Legs. Finally, you'll find ways to savor every last bite, from Panzanella Salad Three Ways to Roasted Tomato Soup to No-Bake Chocolate-Coconut Cookies.
Pie in the Sky Successful Baking at High Altitudes by Susan G. Purdy Do your cakes collapse, soufflés slump, cookies crumble, and fruit pies fail? For those living at high altitude, baking can be a challenge at best, or a total disaster. More than thirty-four of the fifty United States, plus many Canadian regions, have cities and towns at altitudes of more than 2,500 feet, yet there are hardly any cookbooks that address the special needs of these local bakers. Until now. Award-winning cookbook author Susan G. Purdy has finally written the first-ever foolproof guide to high-altitude baking. Purdy has actually "gone there and done that," staying as long as it took to bake these recipes to perfection at five different locations -- and elevations -- across thecountry. In Pie in the Sky, Purdy leaves behind old conversion tables, disproves many oft-repeated calculations and adjustments, and presents reliable recipes in their entirety for each altitude. She takes out the tinkering and guarantees success at any height. In addition, she explains the hows and whys, gives tips and hints for problems specific to every altitude, and generally demystifies the subject of atmospheric obstacles that cause favorite recipes to flop. Whether they live in the eastern mountains or the far west, in Boston, Massachusetts; Boone, North Carolina; or Santa Fe, New Mexico; home bakers as well as experienced chefs will love the wide range of easy-to-make treats including Mile-High Lemon Meringue Pie, Coconut Cake with Coconut Icing, Paradise Peak Chocolate Soufflé, Vail Lemon-Poppy Seed Loaf, Celestial Challah, and Sour Cream Streusel Coffee Cake. Every recipe was tested at sea level (Connecticut), 3,000 feet (North Carolina and Virginia), 5,000 feet (Idaho and Colorado), 7,000 feet (New Mexico), and 10,000 feet (Colorado) and can be used at these elevations or any points in between.
Tartine (Baking Cookbooks, Pastry Books, Dessert Cookbooks, Gifts for Pastry Chefs) by Elisabeth M. Prueitt An utterly fresh, inspiring, and invaluable cookbook: Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that instantly says "classic." This is one of them. Acclaimed pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt and master baker Chad Robertson share their secrets, fabulous recipes, and expertise to create a truly priceless collection of culinary delights. "One peek into Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson's sensational cookbook whisks you into their popular Tartine Bakery and reveals everything you need to know to create their superb recipes in your own home." -Flo Braker, author ofThe Simple Art of Perfect Baking and Sweet Miniatures It's no wonder there are lines out the door of the acclaimed Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Tartine has been written up in every magazine worth its sugar and spice. Here, the bakers' art is transformed intoeasy-to-follow recipes for the home kitchen. The only thing hard about this cookbook is deciding which recipe to try first. Features easy-to-follow recipes meant to be made in your home kitchen. There's a little something here for breakfast, lunch, tea, supper, hors d'oeuvres and, of course, a whole lot for dessert. Includes practical advice in the form of handy Kitchen Notes, that convey the authors' know-how. Gorgeous photographs are spread throughout to create a truly delicious and inspiring party cookbook. Makes a delectable gift for any dessert lover or aspiring pastry chef. Pastry chef Elisabeth Prueitt's work has appeared in numerous magazines, includingFood & Wine,Bon Appétit, andTravel & Leisure, and she has appeared on the television programMartha Stewart Living. France Ruffenach is a San Francisco-based photographer whose work has appeared in magazines and cookbooks includingMartha Stewart Living,Real Simple, andBon Appétit magazines, and inCupcakes,Everyday Celebrations, andRos.
Modern Art Desserts by Caitlin Freeman "Taking cues from works by Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and Matisse, pastry chef Caitlin Freeman, of Miette bakery and Blue Bottle Coffee fame, creates a collection of uniquely delicious dessert recipes (with step-by-step assembly guides) that give readers all they need to make their own edible masterpieces. /B> rom an Ellsworth Kelly sculpture-inspired fudge pop to a pristinely segmented cake fashioned after Mondrian's best known composition, Caitlin Freeman's stunning desserts will delight frequent entertainers, hobby bakers, and contemporary art lovers. These show-stopping desserts exhibit the charm and sophistication of works by Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Avedon, and other revered modern artists. Each recipe project includes an image of the original artwork alongside perspective on the piece from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Janet Bishop, Curator of Painting and Sculpture. With detailed, easy-to-follow directions that simplify even the most elaborate creations, Modern Art Desserts is an all-encompassing guide that will inspire kitchen galleries of gorgeous treats."
Joy the Baker Cookbook by Joy Wilson In her first cookbook, popular caterer and blogger Joy the Baker brings together a celebration of sugar and butter as she approaches baking with inspiration and heart. Joy the Baker's website is extremely popular as is her Los Angeles based catering company. Now in JOY THE BAKER COOKBOOK, she shares her incredibly delicious recipes for all kinds of sweet dishes: pancakes, cupcakes, brownies, cookies and much more. All this is achieved with her usual warm, humorous and irreverent style.
A World of Cake by Krystina Castella Take your sweet tooth on a global tour! Whether you're indulging in Australian pavlova, Japanese mochi, or Italian panettone, it's just not a celebration without cake. In this delectable cookbook, Krystina Castella offers more than 150 irresistible cake recipes from around the world, accompanied by mouthwatering photographs and insights into unique cultural traditions. Discover exciting new flavors and innovative twists on your favorite desserts as you explore the sweet delights of a variety of chiffons, fruitcakes, meringues, and more.
Call Number: eBook
The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum The latest and most comprehensive baking book yet from best-selling author and "diva of desserts" Rose Levy Beranbaum and winner of the 2015 IACP Cookbook Award for Baking Legendary baker Rose Levy Beranbaum is back with her most extensive "bible" yet. With all-new recipes for the best cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, candies, pastries, breads, and more, this magnum opus draws from Rose's passion and expertise in every category of baking. As is to be expected from the woman who's been called "the most meticulous cook who ever lived," each sumptuous recipe is truly foolproof--with detail-oriented instructions that eliminateguesswork, "plan-aheads," ingenious tips, and highlights for success. From simple everyday crowd-pleasers (Coffee Crumb Cake Muffins, Gingersnaps, Gooseberry Crisp) to show-stopping stunners (Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Tart, Mango Bango Cheesecake, White Christmas Peppermint Cake) to bakery-style pastries developed for the home kitchen (the famous French Kouign Amann), every recipe proves that delicious perfection is within reach for any baker.
The Joy of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau; Colleen Patrick-Goudreau Whether you want to bake dairy- and egg-free for health, ethical, or environmental reasons, The Joy of Vegan Baking lets you have your cake and eat it, too! Featuring 150 familiar favorites -- from cakes, cookies, and crepes to pies, puddings, and pastries -- this book will show you just how easy, convenient, and delectable baking without eggs and dairy can be. A seasoned cooking instructor and self-described "joyful vegan," author Colleen Patrick-Goudreau puts to rest the myth that vegan baking is an inferior alternative to non-vegan baking, putting it in its rightful place as a legitimate contender in the baking arena. More than just a collection of recipes, this informative cookbook is a valuable resource for any baker -- novice or seasoned. Learn just how easy it is to enjoy your favorite homespun goodies without compromising your health or values: Chocolate Chip Scones Cranberry Nut Bread Lemon Cheesecake Dessert Crepes Strawberry Pie with Chocolate Chunks Cinnamon Coffee Cake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes Raspberry Sorbet Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Soft Pretzels Blueberry Cobbler Chocolate Almond Brittle Free of saturated fat, cholesterol, and lactose, but full of flavor, flair, and familiarity, each and every recipe will have you declaring I can't believe it's vegan! Complete with luscious color photos, this book will be an essential reference for every vegan.
Call Number: eBook

inclusive

Inclusive Histories of the United States

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 2015 Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them." Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, as exalted by widely taught formulations such as "manifest destiny" and "Jacksonian democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism. In precise detail, Ortiz traces this untold history from the Jim Crow-esque racial segregation of the Southwest, the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, International Workers' Day, when migrant laborers-Chicana/os, Afro-Cubanos, and immigrants from nearly every continent on earth-united in resistance on the first "Day Without Immigrants." Incisive and timely, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a bottom-up history told from the viewpoint of African American and Latinx activists and revealing the radically different ways people of the diaspora addressed issues still plaguing the United States today.
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present. In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to "Publick Universal Friend," refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized "female marriage." And in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP's magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. These are just a few moments of queer history that Michael Bronski highlights in this groundbreaking book. Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, A Queer History of the United States is more than a "who's who" of queer history: it is a book that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, noted scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the 1990s, and has written a testament to how the LGBT experience has profoundly shaped our country, culture, and history. A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history--the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today. At heart, A Queer History of the United States is simply about American history. It is a book that will matter both to LGBT people and heterosexuals. This engrossing and revelatory history will make readers appreciate just how queer America really is.
A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry; Kali Nicole Gross In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today. A Black Women's History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices- enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women's history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.
The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject. In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day. An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a "despised minority," Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States. Published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the United States' Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that has remade our "nation of immigrants," this is a new and definitive history of Asian Americans. But more than that, it is a new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today.
White Trash by Nancy Isenberg In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society and shows how poor whites have been deeply ingrained in the country's history for the past 400 years. They were central to the both the Civil War itself and the rise of the Republican Party, and still today feature in reality TV as entertainment. White trash have always been an integral part of the American identity, and here their history in both culture and politics in explored in depth. A fascinating work that's timely to today's public debate about rich and poor.
Impossible Subjects by Mae M. Ngai (Foreword by) This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy--a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s--its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.
Call Number: eBook
The Other Slavery by Andrés Reséndez A myth-shattering work that draws on new evidence to reveal the massive enslavement of tens of thousands of North American Indians, from its beginnings in the early 1500s to its last gasp in the late 1800s Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as historian Andres Resendez illuminates in 'The Other Slavery', it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors and later forced to serve as domestics for Mormons and rich Anglos, or to descend into the "mouth of hell" of eighteenth-century silver mines, where, if they didn't die quickly from cave-ins, they would die slowly from silica in their lungs. Resendez builds the incisive, original case that it was mass slavery, more than epidemics, which decimated Indian populations across North America. New evidence, including testimonies of courageous priests, rapacious merchants, Indian captives, and Anglo colonists, sheds light on Indian enslavement of other Indians -- as what started as a European business passed into the hands of indigenous operators and spread like wildfire across vast tracts of the American Southwest. 'The Other Slavery' is nothing less than a key missing piece of American history, one that changes an entire national narrative. AUTHOR: Andres Resendez is a professor and historian at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of 'A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca', which Carolyn See called "impossible to put down" (Washington Post Book World). REVIEWS: "This eye-opening exposure of the abuse of the indigenous peoples of America is staggering; that the mistreatment continued into the 20th century is beyond disturbing." - Kirkus January 15 "Every now and then a new book comes along that throws a switch on our historical valences and makes us see ourselves anew. 'The Other Slavery' is one such book. Much as 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee' did when it first appeared in the early 1970s, Andres Resendez's carefully sifted work fundamentally reshapes our understanding of a great enduring mystery: 'What really accounts for the swift and tragic demise of our continent's indigenous peoples?'" --Hampton Sides, author of 'Blood and Thunder' and 'In the Kingdom of Ice' 23 b/w photos, 17 maps, 7 charts
Women, Race and Class by Angela Y. Davis A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. From the widely revered and legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a new standard for reporting on poverty" (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review). In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as "wrenching and revelatory" (The Nation), "vivid and unsettling" (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama * The New York Times Book Review * The Boston Globe * The Washington Post * NPR * Entertainment Weekly * The New Yorker * Bloomberg * Esquire * BuzzFeed * Fortune * San Francisco Chronicle * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Politico * The Week * Chicago Public Library * BookPage * Kirkus Reviews * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * Booklist * Shelf Awareness WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction * The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction * The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism * The PEN/New England Award * The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE "Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books."--Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth "Gripping and moving--tragic, too."--Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones "Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty."--San Francisco Chronicle
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important - and successful - history books of our time. Having sold over two million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship and was heralded on the front page of the New York Times in the summer of 2006. For this new edition, Loewen has added a new introduction that shows how inadequate history courses in high school help produce adult Americans who think Donald Trump can solve their problems.
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn THE CLASSIC NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A wonderful, splendid book--a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." -Howard Fast Historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools--with its emphasis on great men in high places--to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, it is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles--the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality--were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. This edition also includes an introduction by Anthony Arnove, who wrote, directed, and produced The People Speak with Zinn and who coauthored, with Zinn, Voices of a People's History of the United States. This beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition features French flaps and deckle-edge pages.
A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis Recommended by The Nation, the New Republic, Current Affairs, Bustle, In These Times "Entertaining, tough-minded, strenuously argued." --The Nation A thrilling and timely account of ten moments in history when labor challenged the very nature of power in America, by the author called "a brilliant historian" by The Progressive magazine Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment. For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past. In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers' struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up. Strikes include: Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 1830-40) Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 1861-65) The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886) The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902) The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912) The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937) The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946) Lordstown (Ohio, 1972) Air Traffic Controllers (1981) Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)
These Truths by Jill Lepore New York Times Bestseller In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history. Written in elegiac prose, Lepore's groundbreaking investigation places truth itself--a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence--at the center of the nation's history. The American experiment rests on three ideas--"these truths," Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation's truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism, and technology, from the colonial town meeting to the nineteenth-century party machine, from talk radio to twenty-first-century Internet polls, from Magna Carta to the Patriot Act, from the printing press to Facebook News. Along the way, Lepore's sovereign chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues' gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism. Americans are descended from slaves and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can't be shirked. There's nothing for it but to get to know it."
America's Women by Gail Collins America's Women tells the story of more than four centuries of history. It features a stunning array of personalities, from the women peering worriedly over the side of the Mayflower to feminists having a grand old time protesting beauty pageants and bridal fairs. Courageous, silly, funny, and heartbreaking, these women shaped the nation and our vision of what it means to be female in America. By culling the most fascinating characters -- the average as well as the celebrated -- Gail Collins, the editorial page editor at the New York Times, charts a journey that shows how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work. She begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes -- thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate -- wound up marrying their way through three or four. Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, America's Women describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics. While keeping her eye on the big picture, Collins still notes that corsets and uncomfortable shoes mattered a lot, too. "The history of American women is about the fight for freedom," Collins writes in her introduction, "but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's roles that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders." Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.
The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution -- the nation's original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America's later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the span of a single lifetime, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations to a continental cotton empire, and the United States grew into a modern, industrial, and capitalist economy. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history.
When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson A groundbreaking work that exposes the twisted origins of affirmative action. When Affirmative Action Was White demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. This was no accident. With the United States still in an era of legal segregation, the powerful southern wing of the Democratic Party provided the framework for Social Security, the GI Bill, and landmark labor laws that helped create the foundations of the modern middle class. Through mechanisms that specifically excluded maids and farmworkers and through laws that kept administration in local hands, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity. The publication of this deeply disturbing work promises to create a national debate on the meaning of affirmative action and the responsibility of government.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein New York Times Bestseller * Notable Book of the Year * Editors' Choice Selection One of Bill Gates' "Amazing Books" of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award This "powerful and disturbing history" exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review). Widely heralded as a "masterful" (Washington Post) and "essential" (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law offers "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation" (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, "virtually indispensable" study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
1491 by Charles C. Mann A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus's landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong. In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them: * In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. * Certain cities-such as Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital-were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlán, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. * The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids. * Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering." * Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it-a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge. * Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings. Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman As Lillian Faderman writes, there are "no constants with regard to lesbianism," except that lesbians prefer women. In this groundbreaking book, she reclaims the history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to more recent diverse lifestyles. She draws from journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, media accounts, novels, medical literature, pop culture artifacts, and oral histories by lesbians of all ages and backgrounds, uncovering a narrative of uncommon depth and originality.
The Three-Cornered War by Megan Kate Nelson A dramatic, riveting, and deeply researched narrative account of the epic struggle for the West during the Civil War, revealing a little-known, vastly important episode in American history. In The Three-Cornered War Megan Kate Nelson reveals the fascinating history of the Civil War in the American West. Exploring the connections among the Civil War, the Indian wars, and western expansion, Nelson reframes the era as one of national conflict--involving not just the North and South, but also the West. Against the backdrop of this larger series of battles, Nelson introduces nine individuals: John R. Baylor, a Texas legislator who established the Confederate Territory of Arizona; Louisa Hawkins Canby, a Union Army wife who nursed Confederate soldiers back to health in Santa Fe; James Carleton, a professional soldier who engineered campaigns against Navajos and Apaches; Kit Carson, a famous frontiersman who led a regiment of volunteers against the Texans, Navajos, Kiowas, and Comanches; Juanita, a Navajo weaver who resisted Union campaigns against her people; Bill Davidson, a soldier who fought in all of the Confederacy's major battles in New Mexico; Alonzo Ickis, an Iowa-born gold miner who fought on the side of the Union; John Clark, a friend of Abraham Lincoln's who embraced the Republican vision for the West as New Mexico's surveyor-general; and Mangas Coloradas, a revered Chiricahua Apache chief who worked to expand Apache territory in Arizona. As we learn how these nine charismatic individuals fought for self-determination and control of the region, we also see the importance of individual actions in the midst of a larger military conflict. The Three-Cornered War is a captivating history--based on letters and diaries, military records and oral histories, and photographs and maps from the time--that sheds light on a forgotten chapter of American history.
Trace by Lauret Savoy Through personal journeys and historical inquiry, this PEN Literary Award finalist explores how America's still unfolding history and ideas of "race" have marked its people and the land. Sand and stone are Earth's fragmented memory. Each of us, too, is a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. One life-defining lesson Lauret Savoy learned as a young girl was this: the American land did not hate. As an educator and Earth historian, she has tracked the continent's past from the relics of deep time; but the paths of ancestors toward her--paths of free and enslaved Africans, colonists from Europe, and peoples indigenous to this land--lie largely eroded and lost. A provocative and powerful mosaic that ranges across a continent and across time, from twisted terrain within the San Andreas Fault zone to a South Carolina plantation, from national parks to burial grounds, from "Indian Territory" and the U.S.-Mexico Border to the U.S. capital, Trace grapples with a searing national history to reveal the often unvoiced presence of the past. In distinctive and illuminating prose that is attentive to the rhythms of language and landscapes, she weaves together human stories of migration, silence, and displacement, as epic as the continent they survey, with uplifted mountains, braided streams, and eroded canyons. Gifted with this manifold vision, and graced by a scientific and lyrical diligence, she delves through fragmented histories--natural, personal, cultural--to find shadowy outlines of other stories of place in America. "Every landscape is an accumulation,"" reads one epigraph. ""Life must be lived amidst that which was made before." Courageously and masterfully, Lauret Savoy does so in this beautiful book: she lives there, making sense of this land and its troubled past, reconciling what it means to inhabit terrains of memory--and to be one.
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire," exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories--the islands, atolls, and archipelagos--this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century's most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.
Children of Fire by Thomas C. Holt Ordinary people don't experience history as it is taught by historians. They live across the convenient chronological divides we impose on the past. The same people who lived through the Civil War and the eradication of slavery also dealt with the hardships of Reconstruction, so why do we almost always treat them separately? InChildren of Fire, renowned historian Thomas C. Holt challenges this form to tell the story of generations of African Americans through the lived experience of the subjects themselves, with all of the nuances, ironies, contradictions, and complexities one might expect. Building on seminal books like John Hope Franklin'sFrom Slavery to Freedomand many others, Holt captures the entire African American experience from the moment the first twenty African slaves were sold at Jamestown in 1619. Each chapter focuses on a generation of individuals who shaped the course of American history, hoping for a better life for their children but often confronting the ebb and flow of their civil rights and status within society. Many familiar faces grace these pages--Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama--but also some overlooked ones. Figures like Anthony Johnson, a slave who bought his freedom in late seventeenth century Virginia and built a sizable plantation, only to have it stolen away from his children by an increasingly racist court system. Or Frank Moore, a WWI veteran and sharecropper who sued his landlord for unfair practices, but found himself charged with murder after fighting off an angry white posse. Taken together, their stories tell how African Americans fashioned a culture and identity amid the turmoil of four centuries of American history.
This Chair Rocks by Ashton Applewhite Author, activist, and TED speaker Ashton Applewhite has written a rousing manifesto calling for an end to discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. In our youth obsessed culture, we're bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and olders should just step aside forthe new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched,This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism in history and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function, looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the all-American myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action. It's time to create a world of age equality by making discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind of bias. Whether you're older or hoping to get there, this book will shake you by the shoulders, cheer you up, make you mad, and change the way you see the rest of your life. Age pride! "Wow. This book totally rocks. It arrived on a day when I was in deep confusion and sadness about my age. Everything about it, from my invisibility to my neck. Within four or five wise, passionate pages, I had found insight, illumination, and inspiration. I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me." --Anne Lamott,New York Timesbestselling author
A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn't to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience-from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing-at times horrific-narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation's past- from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all.
Seizing Destiny by Richard Kluger From the Pulitzer Prize-winning social historian Kluger comes this comprehensive and balanced chronicle of how the vast territory of the United States was assembled to accommodate the aspirations of its people--regardless of who objected.
No Stopping Us Now by Gail Collins The beloved New York Times columnist "inspires women to embrace aging and look at it with a new sense of hope" in this lively, fascinating, eye-opening look at women and aging in America (Parade Magazine). "You're not getting older, you're getting better," or so promised the famous 1970's ad -- for women's hair dye. Americans have always had a complicated relationship with aging: embrace it, deny it, defer it -- and women have been on the front lines of the battle, willingly or not. In her lively social history of American women and aging, acclaimed New York Times columnist Gail Collins illustrates the ways in which age is an arbitrary concept that has swung back and forth over the centuries. From Plymouth Rock (when a woman was considered marriageable if "civil and under fifty years of age"), to a few generations later, when they were quietly retired to elderdom once they had passed the optimum age for reproduction, to recent decades when freedom from striving in the workplace and caretaking at home is often celebrated, to the first female nominee for president, American attitudes towards age have been a moving target. Gail Collins gives women reason to expect the best of their golden years.
Leadership by Doris Kearns Goodwin NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "After five decades of magisterial output, Doris Kearns Goodwin leads the league of presidential historians. Insight is her imprint."--USA TODAY "A book like Leadership should help us raise our expectations of our national leaders, our country and ourselves."--The Washington Post "We can only hope that a few of Goodwin's many readers will find in her subjects' examples a margin of inspiration and a resolve to steer the country to a better place."--The New York Times Book Review In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership. Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader? In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely--Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)--to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope. Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times. No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others. This seminal work provides an accessible and essential road map for aspiring and established leaders in every field. In today's polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of apprehension and fracture take on a singular urgency.
The Red and the Blue by Steve Kornacki From MSNBC correspondent Steve Kornacki, a lively and sweeping history of the birth of political tribalism in the 1990s--one that brings critical new understanding to our current political landscape from Clinton to Trump In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him Speaker. The Clinton/Gingrich battles were bare-knuckled brawls that brought about massive policy shifts and high-stakes showdowns--their collisions had far-reaching political consequences. But the '90s were not just about them. Kornacki writes about Mario Cuomo's stubborn presence around Clinton's 1992 campaign; Hillary Clinton's star turn during the 1998 midterms, seeding the idea for her own candidacy; Ross Perot's wild run in 1992 that inspired him to launch the Reform Party, giving Donald Trump his first taste of electoral politics in 1999; and many others. With novelistic prose and a clear sense of history, Steve Kornacki masterfully weaves together the various elements of this rambunctious and hugely impactful era in American history, whose effects set the stage for our current political landscape.
The Second Amendment by Michael Waldman By the president of the prestigious Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the life story of the most controversial, volatile, misunderstood provision of the Bill of Rights. At a time of renewed debate over guns in America, what does the Second Amendment mean? This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers. The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men--who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present. As the country spread to the Western frontier, violence spread too. But through it all, gun control was abundant. In the 20th century, with Prohibition and gangsterism, the first federal control laws were passed. In all four separate times the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to own a gun. The present debate picked up in the 1970s--part of a backlash to the liberal 1960s and a resurgence of libertarianism. A newly radicalized NRA entered the campaign to oppose gun control and elevate the status of an obscure constitutional provision. In 2008, in a case that reached the Court after a focused drive by conservative lawyers, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual right to gun ownership. Famous for his theory of "originalism," Justice Antonin Scalia twisted it in this instance to base his argument on contemporary conditions. In The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman shows that our view of the amendment is set, at each stage, not by a pristine constitutional text, but by the push and pull, the rough and tumble of political advocacy and public agitation.

scarier

Reality Is Scarier than Fiction

Creepy and disturbing non-fiction.

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

The Witches by Stacy Schiff The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra, the #1 national bestseller, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story -- the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.
The Bone Woman by Clea Koff In 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since World War II to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley, California, to serve as one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations to unearth the physical evidence of the Rwandan genocide. Over the next four years, Koff’s grueling investigations took her across geography synonymous with some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century. The Bone Woman is Koff’s unflinching, riveting account of her seven UN missions to Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, as she shares what she saw, how it affected her, who was prosecuted based on evidence she found, and what she learned about the world. Yet even as she recounts the hellish nature of her work and the heartbreak of the survivors, she imbues her story with purpose, humanity, and a sense of justice. A tale of science in service of human rights, The Bone Woman is, even more profoundly, a story of hope and enduring moral principles.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara; Gillian Flynn (Introduction by); Patton Oswalt (Afterword by) THE BASIS FOR THE MAJOR 6-PART HBO® DOCUMENTARY SERIES #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post | Maureen Corrigan, NPR | Paste | Seattle Times | Entertainment Weekly | Esquire | Slate | Buzzfeed | Jezebel | Philadelphia Inquirer | Publishers Weekly | Kirkus Reviews | Library Journal | Bustle Winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards for Nonfiction | Anthony Award Winner | SCIBA Book Award Winner | Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence The haunting true story of the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California during the 70s and 80s, and of the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case--which was solved in April 2018. Introduction by Gillian Flynn * Afterword by Patton Oswalt "A brilliant genre-buster.... Propulsive, can't-stop-now reading." --Stephen King For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was. I'll Be Gone in the Dark--the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death--offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it has been hailed as a modern true crime classic--one which fulfilled Michelle's dream: helping unmask the Golden State Killer.
The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Montillo The Lady and Her Monsters by Roseanne Motillo brings to life the fascinating times, startling science, and real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley's gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Montillo recounts how--at the intersection of the Romantic Age and the Industrial Revolution--Shelley's Victor Frankenstein was inspired by actual scientists of the period: curious and daring iconoclasts who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it might be reanimated after death. With true-life tales of grave robbers, ghoulish experiments, and the ultimate in macabre research--human reanimation--The Lady and Her Monsters is a brilliant exploration of the creation of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's horror classic.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.
The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.
Hell's Princess by Harold Schechter "A deeply researched and morbidly fascinating chronicle of one of America's most notorious female killers." --The New York Times Book Review An Amazon Charts bestseller. In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana "murder farm." Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace. When their bodies were dug up, they hadn't merely been poisoned, like victims of other female killers. They'd been butchered. Hell's Princess is a riveting account of one of the most sensational killing sprees in the annals of American crime: the shocking series of murders committed by the woman who came to be known as Lady Bluebeard. The only definitive book on this notorious case and the first to reveal previously unknown information about its subject, Harold Schechter's gripping, suspenseful narrative has all the elements of a classic mystery--and all the gruesome twists of a nightmare.
We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named One of The Best Books of 2020 by NPR's Fresh Air * Publishers Weekly * Marie Claire * Redbook * Vogue * Kirkus Reviews * Book Riot * Bustle A Recommended Book by The New York Times * The Washington Post * Booklist * The Boston Globe * Amazon * Goodreads * Buzzfeed * Town & Country * Refinery29 * BookRiot * CrimeReads * Glamour * Popsugar * PureWow * Shondaland Dive into a "tour de force of investigative reporting" (Ron Chernow): a "searching, atmospheric and ultimately entrancing" (Patrick Radden Keefe) true crime narrative of an unsolved 1969 murder at Harvard and an "exhilarating and seductive" (Ariel Levy) narrative of obsession and love for a girl who dreamt of rising among men. You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government. You have to remember because Harvard doesn't let you forget. 1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious twenty-three-year-old graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President J. Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment. Forty years later, Becky Cooper a curious undergrad, will hear the first whispers of the story. In the first telling the body was nameless. The story was this: a Harvard student had had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology because she'd threatened to talk about the affair. Though the rumor proves false, the story that unfolds, one that Cooper will follow for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, a 'cowboy culture' among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims. We Keep the Dead Close is a memoir of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman's past onto another's present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history.
The Last Stone by Mark Bowden On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyon, age 10 and 12, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, D.C. As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware. As a cub reporter for a Baltimore newspaper, Mark Bowden covered the frantic first weeks of the story. InThe Last Stone, he returns to write its ending. Over months of intense questioning and extensive investigation of Welch's sprawling, sinister Appalachian clan, five skilled detectives learned to sift truth from determined lies. How do you get a compulsive liar with every reason in the world to lie to tell the truth?The Last Stone recounts a masterpiece of criminal interrogation, and delivers a chilling and unprecedented look inside a disturbing criminal mind.
The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth by Thomas Morris "Delightfully horrifying."--Popular Science One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in all its jaw-dropping weirdness. A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the nineteenth century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled. Witness Mysterious Illnesses (such as the Rhode Island woman who peed through her nose), Horrifying Operations (1781: A French soldier in India operates on his own bladder stone), Tall Tales (like the "amphibious infant" of Chicago, a baby that could apparently swim underwater for half an hour), Unfortunate Predicaments (such as that of the boy who honked like a goose after inhaling a bird's larynx), and a plethora of other marvels. Beyond a series of anecdotes, these painfully amusing stories reveal a great deal about the evolution of modern medicine. Some show the medical profession hopeless in the face of ailments that today would be quickly banished by modern drugs; but others are heartening tales of recovery against the odds, patients saved from death by the devotion or ingenuity of a conscientious doctor. However embarrassing the ailment or ludicrous the treatment, every case in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth tells us something about the knowledge (and ignorance) of an earlier age, along with the sheer resilience of human life.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty--a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre--took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life's work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn't know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).
Unspeakable Acts by Sarah Weinman; Patrick Radden Keefe (Introduction by) An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Times New & Noteworthy Book A brilliant anthology of modern true-crime writing that illustrates the appeal of this powerful and popular genre, edited and curated by Sarah Weinman, the award-winning author of The Real Lolita The appeal of true-crime stories has never been higher. With podcasts like My Favorite Murder and In the Dark, bestsellers like I'll Be Gone in the Dark and Furious Hours, and TV hits like American Crime Story and Wild Wild Country, the cultural appetite for stories of real people doing terrible things is insatiable. Acclaimed author ofThe Real Lolita and editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s (Library of America) and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives (Penguin), Sarah Weinman brings together an exemplary collection of recent true crime tales. She culls together some of the most refreshing and exciting contemporary journalists and chroniclers of crime working today. Michelle Dean's "Dee Dee Wanted Her Daughter To Be Sick" went viral when it first published and is the basis for the TV showThe Act and Pamela Colloff's "The Reckoning," is the gold standard for forensic journalism. There are 13 pieces in all and as a collection, they showcase writing about true crime across the broadest possible spectrum, while also reflecting what makes crime stories so transfixing and irresistible to the modern reader.
Cursed Objects by J. W. Ocker They're lurking in museums, graveyards, and private homes around the world. Their stories have inspired countless horror movies, reality TV shows, campfire tales, books, and even chain emails. They're cursed objects, and in order to unleash a wave of misfortune, all they need...is you. As a culture, we can't seem to get enough of cursed objects. But never before have the true stories of these infamous real-life items been compiled into a fascinating and chilling volume. Entries include- Annabelle the Doll, a Raggedy Ann doll which inspired the acclaimed horror franchise The Conjuring The Tomb of Tutankhamen, the discovery of which kicked-started media hysteria over a rumored "Curse of the Pharaohs" The Ring of Silvianus, a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit The Hope Diamond, which was owned by kings and inspired the Heart of the Ocean in James Cameron's Titanic The Dybbuk Box, which was sold on eBay and inspired the horror film The Possession Whether you believe in curses or not, the often tragic and always bizarre stories behind these objects will fascinate you. Many of them have intersected with some of the most notable events and people in history. But beyond Hollywood and beyond the hysteria, author J. W. Ocker suggests that cursed objects are simply objects which have been witness to great human tragedy, and thereafter operate as mechanisms for remembering and retelling those stories. Cursed Objects will be equally appealing to true believers as well as history buffs, horror fans, and anyone who loves a good spine-tingling tale.
Morgue by Vincent DiMaio; Ron Franscell In this clear-eyed, gritty, and enthralling narrative, Dr. Vincent DiMaio and veteran crime writer Ron Franscell guide us behind the morgue doors to tell a fascinating life story through the cases that have made Di Maio famous-from the exhumation of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to the complex issues in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Beginning with his street-smart Italian origins in Brooklyn, the book spans 40 years of work and more than 9,000 autopsies, and Di Maio's eventual rise into the pantheon of forensic scientists. One of the country's most methodical and intuitive criminal pathologists will dissect himself, maintaining a nearly continuous flow of suspenseful stories, revealing anecdotes, and enough macabre insider details to rivet the most fervent crime fans.
18 Tiny Deaths by Bruce Goldfarb Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dioramas that appear charming--until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, a blood-spattered comforter. And then, of course, there are the bodies--splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs--clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins.Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today. 18 Tiny Deathsis the story of a woman who overcame the limitations and expectations imposed by her social status and pushed forward an entirely new branch of science that we still use today.
The Nature of Life and Death by Patricia Wiltshire A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative that explores the valuable but often shocking interface between crime and nature--and the secrets each can reveal about the other--from a pioneer in forensic ecology and a trailblazing female scientist. From mud tracks on a quiet country road to dirt specks on the soles of walking boots, forensic ecologist Patricia Wiltshire uses her decades of scientific expertise to find often-overlooked clues left behind by criminal activity. She detects evidence and eliminates hypotheses armed with little more than a microscope, eventually developing a compelling thesis of the who, what, how, and when of a crime. Wiltshire's remarkable accuracy has made her one of the most in-demand police consultants in the world, and her curiosity, humility, and passion for the truth have guided her every step of the way. A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative, The Nature of Life and Death details Wiltshire's unique journey from college professor to crime fighter: solving murders, locating corpses, and exonerating the falsely accused. Along the way, she introduces us to the unseen world all around us and underneath our feet: plants, animals, pollen, spores, fungi, and microbes that we move through every day. Her story is a testament to the power of persistence and reveals how our relationship with the vast natural world reaches far deeper than we might think.
Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Thomas Mu tter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anaesthesia, the sterilisation of surgical tools and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed with the sentiments of the mid-nineteenth century. Brilliant, outspoken and handsome, Mutter was flamboyant in every aspect of his life. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his surname just because he could and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form Philadelphia's Mutter Museum.
A Is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup; Bloomsbury Publishing Staff Agatha Christie's detailed plotting is what makes her books so compelling. Christie used poison to kill her characters more often than any other murder method, with the poison itself being a central part of the novel, and her choice of deadly substances was far from random; the chemical and physiological characteristics of each poison provide vital clues to discovery of the murderer. With gunshots or stabbings the cause of death is obvious, but not so with poisons. How is it that some compounds prove so deadly, and in such tiny amounts? Christie demonstrated her extensive chemical knowledge (much of it gleaned from her working in a chemists during both world wars) in many of her novels, but this is rarely appreciated by the reader. A is for Arsenic celebrates the use of science in Christie's work. Written by Christie fan and research chemist Kathryn Harkup, each chapter takes a different novel and investigates the poison (or poisons) the murderer used. A is for Arsenic looks at why certain chemicals kill, how they interact with the body, and the feasibility of obtaining, administering and detecting these poisons, both at the time the novel was written and today. This book is published as part of the 125th anniversary celebration of Christie's birth. Fourteen novels. Fourteen poisons. Just because its fiction doesn't mean its all made-up ...
Dead Girls by Alice Bolin A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 An Edgar Award nominee for best critical / biographical Best of 2018 according to Kirkus, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Portland Mercury, Bustle, Thrillist, and Electric Lit A New York Times Editor's Choice, a best of summer 2018 according to Bitch Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, The Millions, Esquire, Refinery29, Nylon, PopSugar, The Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, and CrimeReads In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men's stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator. Bolin chronicles her life in Los Angeles, dissects the Noir, revisits her own coming of age, and analyzes stories of witches and werewolves, both appreciating and challenging the narratives we construct and absorb every day. Dead Girls begins by exploring the trope of dead women in fiction, and ends by interrogating the more complex dilemma of living women - both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate. Reminiscent of the piercing insight of Rebecca Solnit and the critical skill of Hilton Als, Bolin constructs a sharp, perceptive, and revelatory dialogue on the portrayal of women in media and their roles in our culture.
Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and '80s Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who've faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
Season of the Witch by David Talbot In a kaleidoscopic narrative, the New York Times bestselling author of Brothers recounts the gripping story of the civil strife and tragedies that beset San Francisco between 1967 and 1982—and led to the city’s ultimate rebirth and triumph. Salon founder David Talbot chronicles the cultural history of San Francisco and from the late 1960s to the early 1980s when figures such as Harvey Milk, Janis Joplin, Jim Jones, and Bill Walsh helped usher from backwater city to thriving metropolis.
The Penguin Book of Witches by Katherine Howe (Editor, Introduction by, Notes by) A chilling, truly authoritative anthology of real-life accounts of witches, from medieval Europe through colonial America From a manual for witch hunters written by King James himself in 1597, to court documents from the Salem witch trials of 1692, to newspaper coverage of a woman stoned to death on the streets of Philadelphia while the Continental Congress met, The Penguin Book of Witches is a treasury of historical accounts of accused witches that sheds light on the reality behind the legends. Bringing to life stories like that of Eunice Cole, tried for attacking a teenage girl with a rock and buried with a stake through her heart; Jane Jacobs, a Bostonian so often accused of witchcraft that she took her tormentors to court on charges of slander; and Increase Mather, an exorcism-performing minister famed for his knowledge of witches, this volume provides a unique tour through the darkest history of English and North American witchcraft.
Call Number: eBook
Haunted by Leo Braudy An award-winning scholar and author charts four hundred years of monsters and how they reflect the culture that created them Leo Braudy, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has won accolades for revealing the complex and constantly shifting history behind seemingly unchanging ideas of fame, war, and masculinity. Continuing his interest in the history of emotion, this book explores how fear has been shaped into images of monsters and monstrosity. From the Protestant Reformation to contemporary horror films and fiction, he explores four major types: the monster from nature (King Kong), the created monster (Frankenstein), the monster from within (Mr. Hyde), and the monster from the past (Dracula). Drawing upon deep historical and literary research, Braudy discusses the lasting presence of fearful imaginings in an age of scientific progress, viewing the detective genre as a rational riposte to the irrational world of the monstrous. Haunted is a compelling and incisive work by a writer at the height of his powers.
Atlas of Cursed Places by Olivier Le Carrer This alluring read includes 40 locations that are rife with disaster, chaos, paranormal activity, and death. The locations gathered here include the dangerous Strait of Messina, home of the mythical sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis; the coal town of Jharia, where the ground burns constantly with fire; Kasanka National Park in Zambia, where 8 million migrating bats darken the skies; the Nevada Triangle in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where hundreds of aircraft have disappeared; and Aokigahara Forest near Mount Fuji in Japan, the world's second most popular suicide location following the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier "An ideal pairing of talent and material.... Engrossing.... A deft and ambitious storyteller." - Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors. In this gripping narrative, New York Times bestselling author Daniel James Brown sheds new light on one of the most legendary events in American history. Following every painful footstep of Sarah's journey with the Donner Party, Brown produces a tale both spellbinding and richly informative.
The Trials of Nina Mccall by Scott W. Stern The nearly forgotten story of the American Plan, one of the largest and longest-lasting mass quarantines in American history, told through the lens of one young woman's story. In 1918, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, Nina McCall was told to report to the local health officer to be examined for sexually transmitted infections. Confused and humiliated, Nina did as she was told, and the health officer performed a hasty (and invasive) examination and quickly diagnosed her with gonorrhea. Though Nina insisted she could not possibly have an STI, she was coerced into committing herself to the Bay City Detention Hospital, a facility where she would spend almost three miserable months subjected to hard labor, exploitation, and painful injections of mercury. Nina McCall was one of many women unfairly imprisoned by the United States government throughout the twentieth century. The government locked up tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of women and girls--usually without due process--simply because officials suspected these women were prostitutes, carrying STIs, or just "promiscuous." This discriminatory program, dubbed the "American Plan," lasted from the 1910s into the 1950s, implicating a number of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Earl Warren, and even Eliot Ness, while laying the foundation for the modern system of women's prisons. In some places, vestiges of the Plan lingered into the 1960s and 1970s, and the laws that undergirded it remain on the books to this day. Scott Stern tells the story of this almost forgotten program through the life of Nina McCall. Her story provides crucial insight into the lives of countless other women incarcerated under the American Plan. Stern demonstrates the pain and shame felt by these women and details the multitude of mortifications they endured, both during and after their internment. Yet thousands of incarcerated women rioted, fought back against their oppressors, or burned their detention facilities to the ground; they jumped out of windows or leapt from moving trains or scaled barbed-wire fences in order to escape. And, as Nina McCall did, they sued their captors. In an age of renewed activism surrounding harassment, health care, prisons, women's rights, and the power of the state, this virtually lost chapter of our history is vital reading.
The Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth A sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885 In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair,Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.
The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman "The Real Lolita is a tour de force of literary detective work. Not only does it shed new light on the terrifying true saga that influenced Nabokov's masterpiece, it restores the forgotten victim to our consciousness." --David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner's full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita. Sally Horner's story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel's creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry Lucie Blackman--tall, blond, twenty-one years old--stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000, and disappeared forever. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, covered Lucie's disappearance and followed the massive search for her, the long investigation, and the even longer trial. Over ten years, he earned the trust of her family and friends, won unique access to the Japanese detectives and Japan's convoluted legal system, and delved deep into the mind of the man accused of the crime, Joji Obara, described by the judge as "unprecedented and extremely evil." The result is a book at once thrilling and revelatory, "In Cold Blood for our times" (Chris Cleave, author of Incendiary and Little Bee). The People Who Eat Darkness is one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012
Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century by Peter Graham On June 22, 1954, teenage friends Juliet Hulme--better known as bestselling mystery writer Anne Perry--and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a New Zealand park with Pauline's mother, Honora. Half an hour later, the girls returned alone, claiming that Pauline's mother had had an accident. But when Honora Parker was found in a pool of blood with the brick used to bludgeon her to death close at hand, Juliet and Pauline were quickly arrested, and later confessed to the killing. Their motive? A plan to escape to the United States to become writers, and Honora's determination to keep them apart. Their incredible story made shocking headlines around the world and would provide the subject for Peter Jackson's Academy Award-nominated film, Heavenly Creatures. A sensational trial followed, with speculations about the nature of the girls' relationship and possible insanity playing a key role. Among other things, Parker and Hulme were suspected of lesbianism, which was widely considered to be a mental illness at the time. This mesmerizing book offers a brilliant account of the crime and ensuing trial and shares dramatic revelations about the fates of the young women after their release from prison. With penetrating insight, this thorough analysis applies modern psychology to analyze the shocking murder that remains one of the most interesting cases of all time.
Woman at the Devil's Door by Sarah Beth Hopton Discover the haunting untold true story of the woman whose crimes inspired speculation that Jack the Ripper was a woman. On October 24, 1890, a woman was discovered on a pile of rubbish in Hampstead, North London. Her arms were lacerated and her face bloodied; her head was severed from her body save a few sinews. Later that day, a blood-soaked stroller was found leaning against a residential gate, and the following morning the dead body of a baby was found hidden underneath a nettle bush. So began the chilling story of the Hampstead Tragedy. Eventually, Scotland Yard knocked on the door of No. 2 Priory Street, home to Mary Eleanor Pearcey, the pretty 24-year-old mistress whose dying request was as bizarre and mysterious as her life. Woman at the Devil's Door is a thrilling look at this notorious murderer and the webs she wove.
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The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg *** A NEW YORK TIMES "100 Notable Books of 2020" *** A stunning, complex narrative about the fractured legacy of a decades-old double murder in rural West Virginia -- and the writer determined to put the pieces back together. In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders" though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. As time passed, the truth seemed to slip away, and the investigation itself inflicted its own traumas -- turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming the fears of violence outsiders have done to this region for centuries. In The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about it. Weaving in experiences from her own years spent living in Pocahontas County, she follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations, shaping their fears, fates, and desires. Beautifully written and brutally honest, The Third Rainbow Girl presents a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America -- divided by gender and class, and haunted by its own violence.