New on the Shelves at Albert Wisner Public Library: Non-Fiction & Biography
New adult and children's materials that are in high demand or which have received critical acclaim.
NON-FICTION TITLES OF PARTICULAR INTEREST
Back Roads and Better Angels by
ISBN: 9781586423889Publication Date: 2024-06-04A year into his marriage and having never driven an RV, Frank and his wife Laurel set out from New York City in a Winnebago to drive the nation's first transcontinental route, the Lincoln Highway, which zigzags through small towns and big cities from Times Square to San Francisco. Using the spirit of Abraham Lincoln to guide them across the land, they hope to see more clearly what holds the country together - and how we can keep it together, even amidst political divisions have grown increasingly rancorous, bitter, and exhausting. Along the way, Frank and Laurel meet Americans whose personal experiences help humanize the nation's divisions, and they encounter historical figures and events whose legacies are still shaping our sense of national identity and the struggles over it. This unforgettable journey is full of what makes any great road trip memorable and enjoyable- music, conversation, and laughter. By the end, readers will have a clearer picture of how we have arrived at a period that carries echoes of the Civil War era, and - using Lincoln as a guide - where the path forward lies.The Genius of Judy by
ISBN: 9781668010907Publication Date: 2024-07-16In “The Genius of Judy,” her remarkable story is revealed as never before, beginning with her as a mother of two searching for purpose outside of her home in 1960’s suburban New Jersey. The books she wrote starred regular children with genuine thoughts and problems. But behind those deceptively simple tales, Blume explored the pillars of the growing women's rights movement, in which girls and women were entitled to careers, bodily autonomy, fulfilling relationships, and even sexual pleasure. Blume wasn't trying to be a revolutionary--she just wanted to tell honest stories--but in doing so, she created a cohesive, culture-altering vision of modern adolescence. Blume's bravery provoked backlash, making her the country's most-banned author in the mid-1980’s. Thankfully, her works withstood those culture wars and it's no coincidence that Blume has resurfaced as a cultural touchstone now. Young girls are still cat-called, sex education curricula are getting dismissed as pornography, and entire shelves of libraries are being banned. As we face these challenges, it's only natural we look to Blume, the grand dame of so-called dirty books. This is the story of how a housewife became a groundbreaking artist, and how generations of empowered fans are her legacy, today more than ever.The Presidents and the People by
ISBN: 9781324006275Publication Date: 2024-07-02Constitutional law and political science professor, Corey Brettschneider, provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by five presidents: John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic. In the lead-up to the Civil War, James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans. Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents as he sought to guarantee a white supremacist republic after the Civil War. In the 1910’s, Woodrow Wilson popularized and nationalized Jim Crow laws. In the 1970’s, Richard Nixon committed criminal acts that flowed from his corrupt ideas about presidential power. Through their actions, these presidents illuminated the trip wires that can damage or even destroy our democracy. Brettschneider shows how citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution. This is a book about citizens - Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more - who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.The Death of Truth by
ISBN: 9780525658313Publication Date: 2024-06-04As the cofounder of NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation, Steven Brill has observed the rise of fake news from a front-row seat. In “The Death of Truth,” he explains how we got here - and how we can get back to a world where truth matters. Brill takes us inside the decisions made by executives in Silicon Valley to code the algorithms embedded in their social media platforms to maximize profits by pushing divisive content. He unravels the ingenious creation of automated advertising buying systems that reward that click-baiting content and penalize reliable news publishers, and describes how the use of these ad-financed, misinformation platforms by politicians, hucksters, and conspiracy theorists deceives ordinary citizens. The stakes are high for all of us, including Brill himself, whose company's role in exposing Russian disinformation operations resulted in a Russian agent targeting him and his family. Crucially, Brill lays out a series of provocative but realistic prescriptions for what we can do now to reverse course - proposals certain to stir debate and even action that could curb the power of big tech to profit from division and chaos, tamp down polarization and restore the trust necessary to bring us together.My Mama, Cass by
ISBN: 9780306830648Publication Date: 2024-05-07In the nearly 50 years since Cass Elliot's untimely death at the age of 32, rumors and myths have swirled about, shading nearly every aspect of her life. In her long-awaited memoir, Owen Elliot-Kugell shares the groundbreaking story of her mom as only a daughter can tell it. In ”My Mama, Cass,” Owen pulls back the curtains of her mother's life from the sold-out theaters to behind the closed doors of her infamous California abode. Born Ellen Naomi Cohen, the woman who was known to the world as Cass Elliot was decades ahead of her time: an independently minded, outspoken woman who broke through a male-dominated business, a forward-thinking feminist, and a single parent who embraced motherhood from the moment Owen entered the world. From the closely guarded secret of Owen's paternity to Cass's lifelong struggles with self-esteem and weight, to rumors surrounding her mother's death, Owen illuminates the complex truths of her mother's life, sharing interviews with the high-profile figures who orbited Cass, as well as never-before-heard tales of her mother and this legendary period of American history.Carrie Carolyn Coco by
ISBN: 9781638930464Publication Date: 2024-07-09On the night of September 28, 2016, twenty-five-year-old Carolyn Bush was brutally stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by her roommate Render Stetson-Shanahan, leaving friends and family of both reeling. In life, Carolyn was a gregarious, smart-mouthed aspiring poet, who had seemingly gotten along well with Render, a reserved art handler. Where had it gone so terribly wrong? This is the question that has plagued acclaimed author Sarah Gerard and driven her obsessive pursuit to understand this horrific tragedy. In Sarah's exploration of Carolyn's life and death, she spent thousands of hours interviewing Carolyn's and Render's friends and family, poring over court documents and news media, reading obscure writings and internet posts and attending Carolyn's memorials and Render's trial. What emerged from Sarah's relentless instinct to follow a story and its characters to their darkest ends is a book that is at once a striking homage to Carolyn's life, a chilling excavation of a brutal crime, and a captivating whydunit with a shocking conclusion.The Bluestockings by
ISBN: 9780393881387Publication Date: 2024-07-23In England in the 1700’s, a woman who was an intellectual was considered unnatural, and would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women. Elizabeth Montagu established one of the most famous salons of the Bluestocking movement, with everyone from royalty to revolutionaries clamoring for an invitation to attend. Her younger sister, Sarah Scott, imagined a female-run society and created a women's commune. Meanwhile, Hester Thrale, who also had a salon, saved her husband's brewery from bankruptcy and, after being widowed, married a man she loved. Other women made a name for themselves through their publications, including Catharine Macaulay, author of an eight-volume history of England, and Frances Burney, author of the audacious novel Evelina. Gibson reveals their close and complicated relationships, and uncovers how a group of remarkable women slowly built up an eviscerating critique of their male-dominated world that society was not yet ready to hear.Radiant by
ISBN: 9780062698261Publication Date: 2024-03-05In the 1980’s, the subways of New York City were covered with art. In the stations, black matte sheets were pasted over outdated ads, and unsigned chalk drawings often popped up on these blank spaces. These temporary chalk drawings numbered in the thousands and became synonymous with a city as diverse as it was at war with itself, ravaged by poverty and oppression but alive with art and creative energy. And every single one of these drawings was done by Keith Haring. Keith Haring was one of the most emblematic artists of the 1980’s, a figure described by his contemporaries as "a prophet in his life, his person, and his work." Part of an iconic cultural crowd that included Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Basquiat, Haring broke down the barriers between high art and popular culture, creating work that was accessible for all and using it as a means to provoke and inspire radical social change. Haring died of AIDS in 1990. To this day, his influence on our culture remains incontrovertible, and his glamorous, tragically short life has a unique aura of mystery and power. Brad Gooch, noted biographer of Flannery O'Connor and Frank O'Hara, sets out to capture the magic of Keith Haring: a visionary and timeless icon.1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left by
ISBN: 9781636142067Publication Date: 2024-07-02“1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left” explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy who is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school as he reaches the age of thirteen - just as Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band explodes. When he arrives in January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for the comforts of home and his family's loving au pair, Teresa. By December 1967, he's mutated into a 6'2? tall rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really high and fly to Nashville. In between - as the hippie revolution blossoms in the world outside - Hitchcock adjusts to the hierarchical, homoerotic world of Winchester, threading a path through teachers with arrested development, some oafish peers and a sullen old maid - a very English freak show. On the way he befriends a cadre of bat-winged teenage prodigies and meets their local guru, the young Brian Eno. At the end of 1967, all the ingredients are in place that will make Robyn Hitchcock a songwriter for life. But then again, does 1967 ever really end?The Devil Behind the Badge by
ISBN: 9780062962966Publication Date: 2024-08-0612 days is all it took: Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez and Janelle Ortiz were marginalized women striving to make ends meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another. When Melissa was found dead, the other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe. 12 days later, they too were dead and police had detained an unlikely suspect - Juan David Ortiz, a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where he carried a badge, a service revolver and was entrusted to protect the community in which he eventually killed. From September 3 through September 15, 2018, Ortiz, a husband and doting father, lured his victims into his white Dodge truck and drove them to the outskirts of town where he violently executed them, leaving them dead or dying on the sides of dark, rural roads. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Jervis tells the gripping story of the murders that shook the small border town of Laredo, and the quest to unmask a cold, calculated killer who was hiding in plain sight. The book is also a deeply human portrait of the 4 lives lost and an attempt to uncover what motivated Ortiz's descent into darkness; and it raises serious questions about the border crisis, the abuse of law enforcement and the challenges of a federal agency to police its own ranks.Alexander at the End of the World by
ISBN: 9780062869685Publication Date: 2024-07-16By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world. Alexander's unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror's physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander's legacy and shape the empire he left behind. In “Alexander at the End of the World,” renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander's labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes and nearly insurmountable obstacles.The Latino Century by
ISBN: 9781668015261Publication Date: 2024-06-18In 2020, Latinos became the second largest ethnic voting group in the country. Fitting neither the stereotype of the aggrieved minority voter nor the traditional assimilating immigrant group, Latinos are challenging both political parties' notions of race, religious beliefs, economic success and the American dream. Given their exploding numbers - and their growing ability to determine the fate of local, state and national elections - you'd think the two major political parties would understand Latino voters. After all, their emergence on the national scene is not a new phenomenon. But they still don't. In “The Latino Century,” veteran political consultant Mike Madrid uses thirty years of research and campaign experience at some of the highest levels on both sides of the aisle to address what might be the most critical questions of our time: Will the rise of Latino voters continue to foment the hyper-partisan and explosive tribalism of our age or will they usher in a new pluralism that advances the arc of social progress? How and why are both political parties so uniquely unprepared for the coming wave of Latino votes? And what must each party do to win those votes?Cue the Sun! by
ISBN: 9780525508991Publication Date: 2024-06-25In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of "dirty documentary" Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. “Cue the Sun!” explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake. Nussbaum traces the jagged fuses of experimentation that exploded with Survivor at the turn of the millennium. She introduces the genre's trickster pioneers, from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; cynical Bachelor ringmaster Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, the visionaries behind The Real World - along with dozens of stars from An American Family, The Real World, Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor. “Cue the Sun!” also celebrates reality's peculiar power: a jolt of emotion that could never have come from a script. Nussbaum explores reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, the dark truth behind The Apprentice, and more. A shrewd observer who adores television, Nussbaum is the ideal voice for the first substantive history of the genre that, for better or worse, made America what it is today.1974 by
ISBN: 9780063314092Publication Date: 2024-06-18The first memoir from critically acclaimed, bestselling author Francine Prose, about the close relationship she developed with activist Anthony Russo, one of the men who leaked the Pentagon Papers - and the year when our country changed. During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories - and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York. What happens to them mirrors the events and preoccupations of that historical moment: the Vietnam war, drugs, women's liberation, the Patty Hearst kidnapping. At once heartfelt and ironic, funny and sad, personal and political, “1974” provides an insightful look at how Francine Prose became a writer and artist during a time when the country, too, was shaping its identity.F. Scott Fitzgerald by
ISBN: 9781517915858Publication Date: 2024-07-16Bringing together 23 leading writers and scholars on Fitzgerald, each focusing on two years of his life, this volume takes its cue from Henry James's remark, cited by preeminent Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson: "The whole of anything is never told; you can only take what groups together." F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography presents a new way of "grouping together" biographical material and perspectives, considering from various angles the author's best-known works as well as understudied writings, including neglected stories and forays into autobiography such as "What I Think and Feel at 25" and "How to Live on $36,000 a Year." The glamor and fame that made F. Scott and Zelda mythic figures of their time appear here alongside the personal experiences that he occasionally included in his writing: the beginnings as well as the poignant end; the literary relationships that informed and framed his work, set against solitary effort, fame, and failures. This remarkable study of F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects the multifaceted whole of a "life in many parts" in new and revelatory ways.Docile by
ISBN: 9781668003664Publication Date: 2024-07-16“Docile” is one woman's story of subverting the model minority myth, contending with mental illness, and finding her self-worth by looking within: a daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father and a beautiful, yet domineering and resentful mother. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than for love. When the family's fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother's dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But then she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms. Years of self-erasure take a toll and Song experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything.Kent State by
ISBN: 9781324066255Publication Date: 2024-08-13On May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, political fires that had been burning across America during the 1960’s exploded. “Kent State” meticulously re-creates the divided cultural landscape of America during the Vietnam War and heightened popular anxieties around the country. On college campuses, teach-ins, sit-down strikes, and demonstrations exposed the growing rift between the left and the right. Many students opposed the war as unnecessary and unjust and were uneasy over poor and working-class kids drafted and sent to Vietnam in their place. Some developed a hatred for the military, the police, and everything associated with authority, while others resolved to uphold law and order at any cost. Focusing on the thirteen victims of the Kent State shooting and a painstaking reconstruction of the days surrounding it, historian Brian VanDeMark draws on crucial new research and interviews--including, for the first time, the perspective of guardsmen who were there. The result is a complete reckoning with the tragedy that marked the end of the sixties.