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"A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But...
Author
Language
English
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"Stifled by tragedy, thirteen-year-old Grace Mockingbird yearns to escape her mother's controlling, grieving hand and find her voice in a small Kentucky coal mining town. A tragic family loss has driven a wedge between Grace and her mother, who seems to be silently punishing Grace by withholding her love. Grace does penance in every chore while doubting she'll ever earn her mother's forgiveness. But change arrives with the hot winds of summer as the...
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Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
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"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas -- until now. James Patterson shows the real Vegas in a dazzling journey through true stories of excess, drama, and hope. In What Really Happens in Vegas, full of surprises for both newcomers and Las Vegas regulars, James Patterson and Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Seal transport readers from the thrill of adrenaline-fueled vice to the glitter of A-list celebrity and entertainment." --Goodreads.
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English
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2023 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists - Fiction
New Releases—September 19, 2023
Readalikes for 'The Vaster Wilds'
New Releases—September 19, 2023
Readalikes for 'The Vaster Wilds'
Description
"When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...
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English
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"While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture's most insightful music critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the '90s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make...
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Pub. Date
2024.
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English
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"Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous -- like the Salem witch trials -- and some lesser-known: on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country's last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a "witch"; in Lesotho...
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English
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"Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing--and least understood--people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical preacher, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday...
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"Sophia Alexander, the beautiful daughter of a famous surgeon in Berlin, has had to grow up faster than most young women. When her mother falls ill, Sophia must take charge of her younger sister, Theresa, and look after her father and the household, while also volunteering at his hospital after school. Meanwhile, Hitler's rise to power and the violence in her very own town have Sophia concerned, but only her mother is willing to share her fears openly....
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English
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2024 Reading Challenge: Book about a topic you don't know much about
Book Picks—October 2023
Most Anticipated Fall Releases—Nonfiction
Book Picks—October 2023
Most Anticipated Fall Releases—Nonfiction
Description
"Many of us are worried (or at least we should be) about the impacts of globalization, pollution, and biotechnology on our diets. Whether it's monoculture crops, hormone-fed beef, or high-fructose corn syrup, industrially-produced foods have troubling consequences for us and the planet. But as culinary diversity diminishes, many people are looking to a surprising place to safeguard the future: into the past. The Lost Supper explores an idea that is...
Author
Series
Hereward volume 2
Publisher
Pegasus Books
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Description
The Battle of Hastings has been lost and the iron fist of William the Bastard has begun to squeeze the life out of England, but there is one who still stands against the foreign invasion --Hereward, The Winter Warrior.
Author
Publisher
University Press of Kansas
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
"Iowa is largely unappreciated and often misunderstood. It has a small population and sits in the middle of a huge country. Historian Frank I. Herriott asked "Is Iowa's History Worth While?" in The Annals of Iowa in 1903. It didn't have large cities, rugged mountainous regions, or the "rough and boisterous" history of Western mining camps. If you needed "seismic convulsions" you had to study somewhere else. But Herriott argued that all residents "declare...
Author
Publisher
Skyhorse Publishing
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
The history of the United States is, like it or not, interwoven with the history of firearms. The young colony needed technologically advanced arms to hunt for food for survival and to maintain a secure base in the face of Native American opposition to European settlers. As the Vikings discovered several centuries earlier, the Indians were tough opponents expert in the use of bladed weapons and bows. The advent of firearms gave European settlers an...
Author
Pub. Date
2024.
Language
English
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Description
"Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara's family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the...
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"America Redux explores the themes that create our shared sense of American identity and interrogates the myths we've been telling ourselves for centuries. With iconic American catchphrases as chapter titles, these twenty-one visual stories illuminate the astonishing, unexpected, sometimes darker sides of history that reverberate in our society to this very day--from the role of celebrity in immigration policy to the influence of one small group of...
Author
Language
English
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2023 National Book Award Nonfiction Longlist
2024 Reading Challenge February Bonus Category: Nonfiction by a Black Author
2024 Reading Challenge February Bonus Category: Nonfiction by a Black Author
Description
"The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan's war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey's exacting work exposes the undeniable links between the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement and the consequences we live with today-a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality. When...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
"London, 1815. Lady Petra Forsyth, daughter of the Earl of Holbrook, has made a shocking proclamation. After losing her beloved fiancé in an accident three years earlier, she announces in front of London's loosest lips that she will never marry. A woman of independent means--and rather independent ways--Petra sees no reason to cede her wealth and freedom to any man now that the love of her life is gone. Instead, she plans to continue enjoying the...
Author
Publisher
Tuttle Publishing
Pub. Date
[2022]
Language
English
Description
"A comprehensive guide to understanding Vietnam's long and tumultuous history. A Brief History of Vietnam explores the turbulent history of a land that has risen from the ashes of war to become the newest Asian tiger economy. This book expertly examines the history of a people and a nation with ancient roots which only took its current shape in the 19th century under French colonial rule, and its current name in 1945. Before that, Vietnam was known...
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