Nonfiction

Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump

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The most in-depth analysis to date of America's current political polarization and the forces that led to a Trump presidency

Alan I. Abramowitz has emerged as a leading spokesman for the view that our current political divide is not confined to a small group of elites and activists but a key feature of the American social and cultural landscape. The polarization of the political and media elites, he argues, arose and persists because it accurately reflects the state of American society. Here, he goes further: the polarization is unique in modern U.S. history. Today's party divide reflects an unprecedented alignment of many different divides: racial and ethnic, religious, ideological, and geographic. Abramowitz shows how the partisan alignment arose out of the breakup of the old New Deal coalition; introduces the most important difference between our current era and past eras, the rise of "negative partisanship"; explains how this phenomenon paved the way for the Trump presidency; and examines why our polarization could even grow deeper. This statistically based analysis shows that racial anxiety is by far a better predictor of support for Donald Trump than any other factor, including economic discontent.

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9780300245738
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Great Discoveries in Medicine

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$16.95

Sickness and health, birth and death, disease and cure: medicine and our understanding of the workings of our bodies and minds are an inextricable part of how we know who we are. With the science of healing now more vital than ever, as our bodies face new challenges from the globalizationof disease, environmental change, and increased longevity, Great Discoveries in Medicine is a timely guide to medicine's achievements and its prospects for the future.

An international team of distinguished experts provides an unrivaled account of the evolution of medical knowledge and practice, from ancient Egypt, India, and China to today's latest technology, from bloodletting to keyhole surgery, from the theory of humors to the genetic revolution, from the stethoscope to the development of vaccines. They explain medicine's turning points and conceptual changes in a refreshingly accessible way and answer some key questions: How has the bubonic plague influenced the course of human history? What effect did the birth control pill have on the lives of women and on society? What challenges does medicine face in our changing world?

ISBN/SKU: 
9780500291221
0
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Greatest Invention: A History of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts

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$19.00

In this exhilarating celebration of human ingenuity and perseverance--published all around the world--a trailblazing Italian scholar sifts through our cultural and social behavior in search of the origins of our greatest invention: writing.

The L where a tabletop meets the legs, the T between double doors, the D of an armchair's oval backrest--all around us is an alphabet in things. But how did these shapes make it onto the page, never mind form complex structures such as this sentence? In The Greatest Invention, Silvia Ferrara takes a profound look at how--and how many times--human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language, traveling back and forth in time and all across the globe to Mesopotamia, Crete, China, Egypt, Central America, Easter Island, and beyond.

With Ferrara as our guide, we examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts, including famous cases like the Phaistos Disk and the Voynich Manuscript; we touch the knotted, colored strings of the Inca quipu; we study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions; we watch in awe as Sequoyah single-handedly invents a script for the Cherokee language; and we venture to the cutting edge of decipherment, in which high-powered laser scanners bring tears to an engineer's eye.

A code-cracking tour around the globe, The Greatest Invention chronicles a previously uncharted journey, one filled with past flashes of brilliance, present-day scientific research, and a faint, fleeting glimpse of writing's future.

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9781250862990
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Greek Ancient Origins

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$14.99
A striking companion volume to Greek Myths and Legends, exploring the ancient origins of Ancient Greek culture, from its tribal beginnings to its foundational impact on modern life.

Gorgeous Collector's Edition. The period of the first Ancient Greek peoples, the Mycenaean civilization, from the 1700s BCE, through to the Greek Dark Ages and the rise of Classical Antiquity more than a thousand years later is one of profound significance for Western modes of thought. The first cities, works of art, the stories of Olympic Gods and heroic warriors in classical literature find their origins in the traditions of this era. This new book is the perfect companion to Greek Myths & Legends in the same series of beautiful Collector's Editions, and sits alongside the other great cultures of the early world.

Flame Tree Collector's Editions present the foundations of speculative fiction: authors, myths, tales and history without which the imaginative literature of the twentieth century would not exist, bringing the best, most influential and most fascinating works into a striking and collectable library. Each book features a new Introduction and a Glossary of Terms or lists of Ancient Leaders.

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9781804175774
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Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World

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$26.00
The definitive book on helping kids navigate growing up in a world where nearly every moment of their lives can be shared and compared

With social media and constant connection, the boundaries of privacy are stretched thin. Growing Up in Public shows parents how to help tweens and teens navigate boundaries, identity, privacy, and reputation in their digital world.
We can track our kids' every move with apps, see their grades within minutes of being posted, and fixate on their digital footprint, anxious that a misstep could cause them to be "canceled" or even jeopardize their admission to college. And all of this adds pressure on kids who are coming of age immersed in social media platforms that emphasize "personal brand," "likes," and "gotcha" moments. How can they figure out who they really are with zero privacy and constant judgment? Devorah Heitner shows us that by focusing on character, not the threat of getting caught or exposed, we can support our kids to be authentically themselves.
Drawing on her extensive work with parents and schools as well as hundreds of interviews with kids, parents, educators, clinicians, and scholars, Heitner offers strategies for parenting our kids in an always-connected world. With relatable stories and research-backed advice, Growing Up in Public empowers parents to cut through the overwhelm to connect with their kids, recognize how to support them, and help them figure out who they are when everyone is watching.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593420966
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Guinness World Records 2024

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$29.95
"Fully updated and revised ... This year's edition compiles the very best of the thousands of new records approved over the past year--
ISBN/SKU: 
9781913484378
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Happy-Go-Lucky

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$18.99

David Sedaris, the "champion storyteller," (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask--or not--was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.

But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he's stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger's teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone's son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780316392433
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Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation): Life in Native America

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$19.99
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name.

Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated--if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today--and the fight to preserve language and traditions.

Adapted for young readers, this important young adult nonfiction book is perfect educational material for children and adults alike.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593203477
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History Smashers: Christopher Columbus and the Taino People

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$8.99
Myths! Lies! Secrets! Uncover the hidden truth about Christopher Columbus, and learn all about the Taino people. Perfect for fans of the I Survived books and Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean and discovered America. Right? WRONG! Columbus never actually set foot in what is now the United States. His voyages took him to islands in the Caribbean and along the coast of South America.

The truth is, when Columbus first arrived, Indigenous peoples, including the Taino, had been living there for thousands of years, raising their families, running their societies, and trading with their neighbors. He didn't "discover" the lands at all! And his name? Not even really Christopher Columbus! Cowritten by bestselling author Kate Messner and our country's premier Taino scholar, this fascinating addition to the series is the one that teachers have been asking for and that kids need to read.

Discover the nonfiction series that demolishes everything you thought you knew about history. Don't miss History Smashers: The Mayflower, Women's Right to Vote, and Pearl Harbor.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593564264
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Hitler's Girl

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$19.99

A timely, riveting book that presents for the first time an alternative history of 1930s Britain, revealing how prominent fascist sympathizers nearly succeeded in overturning British democracy--using the past as a road map to navigate the complexities of today's turn toward authoritarianism.

Hitler's Girl is a groundbreaking history that reveals how, in the 1930s, authoritarianism nearly took hold in Great Britain as it did in Italy and Germany. Drawing on recently declassified intelligence files, Lauren Young details the pervasiveness of Nazi sympathies among the British aristocracy, as significant factions of the upper class methodically pursued an actively pro-German agenda. She reveals how these aristocrats formed a murky Fifth Column to Nazi Germany, which depended on the complacence and complicity of the English to topple its proud and long-standing democratic tradition--and very nearly succeeded.

As she highlights the parallels to our similarly treacherous time, Young exposes the involvement of secret organizations like the Right Club, which counted the Duke of Wellington among its influential members; the Cliveden Set, which ran a shadow foreign policy in support of Hitler; and the shocking four-year affair between socialite Unity Mitford and Adolf Hitler.

Eye-opening and instructive, Hitler's Girl re-evaluates 1930s England to help us understand our own vulnerabilities and poses urgent questions we must face to protect our freedom. At what point does complacency become complicity, posing real risk to the democratic norms that we take for granted? Will democracy again succeed--and will it require a similarly cataclysmic event like World War II to ensure its survival? Will we, in our own defining moment, stand up for democratic values--or will we succumb to political extremism?

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9780062936745
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How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

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$18.99
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A leading political scientist examines the dramatic rise in violent extremism around the globe and sounds the alarm on the increasing likelihood of a second civil war in the United States

"Required reading for anyone invested in preserving our 246-year experiment in self-government."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

WINNER OF THE GLOBAL POLICY INSTITUTE AWARD - THE SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Financial Times, The Times (UK), Esquire, Prospect (UK)

Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country.

Perhaps surprisingly, both autocracies and healthy democracies are largely immune from civil war; it's the countries in the middle ground that are most vulnerable. And this is where more and more countries, including the United States, are finding themselves today.

Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs--where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them--and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won't look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind.

In this urgent and insightful book, Walter redefines civil war for a new age, providing the framework we need to confront the danger we now face--and the knowledge to stop it before it's too late.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593137802
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How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion

$27.00
The 2022 Porchlight Marketing and Sales Book of the Year

A brain-bending investigation of why some people never change their minds--and others do in an instant--by the bestselling author of You Are Not So Smart

What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW MINDS CHANGE is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation.

When self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney began a book about how to change someone's mind in one conversation, he never expected to change his own. But then a diehard 9/11 Truther's conversion blew up his theories--inspiring him to ask not just how to persuade, but why we believe, from the eye of the beholder. Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, HOW MINDS CHANGE explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing. Told with McRaney's trademark sense of humor, compassion, and scientific curiosity, it's an eye-opening journey among cult members, conspiracy theorists, and political activists, from Westboro Baptist Church picketers to LGBTQ campaigners in California--that ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy?

An expansive, big-hearted journalistic narrative, HOW MINDS CHANGE reaches surprising and thought-provoking conclusions, to demonstrate the rare but transformative circumstances under which minds can change.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593190296
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How to Be an Antiracist

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$18.99
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves--now updated, with a new preface.

"The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind."--The New York Times

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR--The New York Times Book Review, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews

Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism--and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas--from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities--that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

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9780525509301
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How to Go Waste Free: Eco Tips for Busy People

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No more waste! These 100 tips provide insight, practical advice, and a painless approach to joining the zero-waste revolution.

Every year, people dump over two billion tons of waste--which does untold damage to the environment, wildlife, and our health. How can we, as individuals, stem this tide of trash? How to Go Waste Free helps you change your habits, so you throw nothing away, replace non-sustainable products with reusable ones, compost or reuse everything, and live a simple, cost-effective, and eco-friendly life.

One hundred easy-to-implement, painless tips cover everything from shopping locally, avoiding wastefully packaged takeout, and carrying your own shopping bags to buying LED lightbulbs, ecogifting, and throwing a waste-free wedding. Plus, there's advice on doing a waste audit so you know where you stand right now!

ISBN/SKU: 
9781787393479
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How to Measure Anything: The Science of Measurement

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$26.00
Learn about scales of measurement used in everything from meteorology to music notation in this comprehensive and informative reference guide.

Measurement is constantly all around us. It forms the foundations of science -- the ohms and amps of physics and the moles and isotopes of chemistry -- and shapes our every day.

Our relationships with measurement start the moment we wake and check the day's temperature and continue until the precise second we go to sleep. But beyond the familiar measurements, hundreds more are listed in this entertaining and revealing reference book.

Packed with unusual and fascinating facts ranging from everyday amounts, such as how much salt is there in a pinch (1/8 teaspoon), to key scientific measurements, including the parsec, which is equivalent to 3.26 light-years, or just over 19.26 trillion miles, How to Measure Anything's entries are accompanied by diagrams, symbols, and illustrations to help demonstrate these concepts and measurements in action.

The methods used to measure food, photography, finance, commerce, magnetism, and atomic physics are just a fraction of the areas covered in this essential guide that helps us to better understand how our world works.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780711268036
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How to Raise an Antiracist

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$18.00
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The book that every parent, caregiver, and teacher needs to raise the next generation of antiracist thinkers, from the author of How to Be an Antiracist and recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant.

"Kendi's latest . . . combines his personal experience as a parent with his scholarly expertise in showing how racism affects every step of a child's life. . . . Like all his books, this one is accessible to everyone regardless of race or class."--Los Angeles Times (Book Club Pick)

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar

The tragedies and reckonings around racism that are rocking the country have created a specific crisis for parents, educators, and other caregivers: How do we talk to our children about racism? How do we teach children to be antiracist? How are kids at different ages experiencing race? How are racist structures impacting children? How can we inspire our children to avoid our mistakes, to be better, to make the world better?

These are the questions Ibram X. Kendi found himself avoiding as he anticipated the birth of his first child. Like most parents or parents-to-be, he felt the reflex to not talk to his child about racism, which he feared would stain her innocence and steal away her joy. But research and experience changed his mind, and he realized that raising his child to be antiracist would actually protect his child, and preserve her innocence and joy. He realized that teaching students about the reality of racism and the myth of race provides a protective education in our diverse and unequal world. He realized that building antiracist societies safeguards all children from the harms of racism.

Following the accessible genre of his internationally bestselling How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi combines a century of scientific research with a vulnerable and compelling personal narrative of his own journey as a parent and as a child in school. The chapters follow the stages of child development from pregnancy to toddler to schoolkid to teenager. It is never too early or late to start raising young people to be antiracist.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593242551
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How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth

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$18.00
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Now in paperback and featuring new material, the definitive guide to telling an unforgettable story in any setting, from the storytelling experts at The Moth

"From toasts to eulogies, from job interviews to social events, this book will help you with ideas, structure, delivery and more."--CNN

LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD

Over the past twenty-five years, the directors of The Moth have worked with people from all walks of life--including astronauts, hairdressers, rock stars, a retired pickpocket, high school students, and Nobel Prize winners--to develop true personal stories that have moved and delighted live audiences and listeners of The Moth's Peabody Award-winning radio hour and podcast. A leader in the modern storytelling movement, The Moth inspires thousands of people around the globe to share their stories each year.

Now, with How to Tell a Story, The Moth will help you learn how to uncover and craft your own unique stories, like Moth storytellers Mike Birbiglia, Rosanne Cash, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Gilbert, Padma Lakshmi, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Hasan Minhaj, Tig Notaro, Boots Riley, Betty Reid Soskin, John Turturro, and more.

Whether your goal is to make it to the Moth stage, deliver the perfect wedding toast, wow clients at a business dinner, give a moving eulogy, ace a job interview, be a hit at parties, change the world, or simply connect more deeply to those around you, stories are essential. Sharing secrets of The Moth's time-honed process and using examples from beloved storytellers, a team of Moth directors will show you how to

- mine your memories for your best stories
- explore structures that will boost the impact of your story
- deliver your stories with confidence
- tailor your stories for any occasion

Now featuring new prompts for engaging storytelling and filled with empowering, easy-to-follow tips for crafting stories that forge lasting bonds with friends, family, and colleagues alike, this book will help you connect authentically with the world around you and unleash the power of story in your life.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593139028
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I Have Never Failed...: But I Do Have Extensive Experience with Things That Absolutely Won't Work

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$16.95
Throughout his life, Dr. Bill has found guidance in the blue-collar adaptations of centuries-old wisdom: I have never failed, but I have extensive experience with things that do not work; there is no such thing as bad weather, just a poor choice of clothes; and shut up and do your work. He has modeled the exemplary lives of his parents and been tailwinded by the unconditional support of his wife, Sheila. Dr. Bill shares stories about OCD Shepherd crosses and a German Shorthaired Pointer with three testicles. There are tributes to a one-eyed mechanic, the Pike County Jesus, and Certified Nursing Assistants. Dr. Bill shines a light on the plight of loneliness among the elderly, calls into question the dehumanizing effect of technology, and respectfully opposes The Wall Street Journal and Princeton Professor Emeritus Harry W. Frankfurt. Dr. Bill lives each day to earn the words said, and the tears shed at a Baptist church in Atlanta in April 1999. The two hundred stories he's written leading up to ADB were only a warmup to properly honor the legacy of The Amazing Dick Bass.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781942586890
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I'll Forget It When I Die!: The Bisbee Deportation of 1917

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$18.00

Did you ever hear the story about 1,186 men kidnapped in Arizona and dumped in a desert 200 miles away?

On July 12, 1917, in the mining town of Bisbee Arizona, twelve hundred striking miners and their supporters were rounded up by forces organized by the town sheriff and the mining companies, marched through the town, parked in the town's baseball field, and then put in boxcars and shipped into the New Mexican desert. The deportees were largely members or supporters of the radical IWW labor union and mostly foreign-born. The roundup and deportation was part of a xenophobic and anti-radical campaign being carried out by bosses and the government throughout the country in the early days of US participation in World War I. The mine owners then took control of the town and patrols prevented any union miners from even entering it. This little-known story is a shocking and fascinating one on its own, but the sentiments exploited and exposed in Bisbee in 1917 speak to America today.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781849353700
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Illustrated History of Ghosts

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$19.99
From haunted ranches to epic maritime legends of the 19th century, devour stories of our world's oldest hauntings and unexplainable phenomena in hair-raising accounts of the afterlife.

Get to the heart of the unexplainable in Adam's third addition to the "llustrated History" series filled with private seances and ectoplasm to spiritual mediums and spirit photography galore. Fans of conspiracy and strange phenomena will transport themselves across the centuries through diagrammatic illustrations paired with well-researched facts about exorcism, mediums, ghost photos, talking boards, and connections to after life.

Whether you are a ghost fanatic or simply piqued by curiosity, you'll get a robust deep dive into the experiences of paranormal occurrences, alternative explanations for these occurrences, and our culture's fascination with them. Prepare to embark on a strange journey that allows skeptical inquiry, or perhaps the possibility of believing in the afterlife!

ISBN/SKU: 
9781913123079
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Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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$18.00
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "The story of modern medicine and bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and movingly."--Entertainment Weekly

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO(R) STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE - ONE OF THE "MOST INFLUENTIAL" (CNN), "DEFINING" (LITHUB), AND "BEST" (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE - ONE OF ESSENCE'S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS - WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - Entertainment Weekly - O: The Oprah Magazine - NPR - Financial Times - New York - Independent (U.K.) - Times (U.K.) - Publishers Weekly - Library Journal - Kirkus Reviews - Booklist - Globe and Mail

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family--especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781400052189
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In Transit: Being Non-Binary in a World of Dichotomies

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$24.99

For decades, our cultural discourse around trans and gender-diverse people has been viewed through a medical lens, through diagnoses and symptoms set down in books by cisgender doctors, or through a political lens, through dangerous caricatures invented by politicians clinging to power. But those who claim non-binary gender identity deserve their own discourse, born out of the work of the transsexual movement, absorbed into the idea of transgender, and now, finally, emerging as its own category.

In tracing the history and theory of non-binary identity, and telling of their own coming out, non-binary writer Dianna E. Anderson answers questions about what being non-binary might mean, but also where non-binary people fit in the trans and queer communities. They offer a space for people to know, explore, and understand themselves in the context of a centuries-old understanding of gender nonconformity and to see beyond the strict roles our society has for men and women.

In Transit looks forward to a world where being who we are, whatever that looks like, isn't met with tension and long-winded explanations, but rather with acceptance and love. Being non-binary is about finding home in the in-between places.

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9781506479248
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Inaugural Ballers: The True Story of the First US Women's Olympic Basketball Team

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$18.99
From the New York Times bestselling author of Strong Inside comes the inspirational true story of the birth of women's Olympic basketball at the 1976 Summer Games and the ragtag team that put US women's basketball on the map. Perfect for fans of Steve Sheinkin and Daniel James Brown.

A League of Their Own meets Miracle in the inspirational true story of the first US Women's Olympic Basketball team and their unlikely rise to the top.

Twenty years before women's soccer became an Olympic sport and two decades before the formation of the WNBA, the '76 US women's basketball team laid the foundation for the incredible rise of women's sports in America at the youth, collegiate, Olympic, and professional levels.

Though they were unknowns from small schools such as Delta State, the University of Tennessee at Martin and John F. Kennedy College of Wahoo, Nebraska, at the time of the '76 Olympics, the American team included a roster of players who would go on to become some of the most legendary figures in the history of basketball. From Pat Head, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers, Lusia Harris, coach Billie Moore, and beyond--these women took on the world and proved everyone wrong.

Packed with black-and-white photos and thoroughly researched details about the beginnings of US women's basketball, Inaugural Ballers is the fascinating story of the women who paved the way for girls everywhere.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780593351246
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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age

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$17.95

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book--it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.

Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Duncan uncovers how it has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office, and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists' living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and--of course--indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart--and we have been for eight hundred years.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781324050513
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Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America

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$22.00

There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus "discovers" a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing "New World" as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists are destined to rule the continent, and history is an irreversible march toward Indigenous destruction.

Yet as with other long-accepted origin stories, this one, too, turns out to be based in myth and distortion. In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals. From the Iroquois in the Northeast to the Comanches on the Plains, and from the Pueblos in the Southwest to the Cherokees in the Southeast, Native nations frequently decimated white newcomers in battle. Even as the white population exploded and colonists' land greed grew more extravagant, Indigenous peoples flourished due to sophisticated diplomacy and leadership structures.

By 1776, various colonial powers claimed nearly all of the continent, but Indigenous peoples still controlled it--as Hämäläinen points out, the maps in modern textbooks that paint much of North America in neat, color-coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial boasts for actual holdings. In fact, Native power peaked in the late nineteenth century, with the Lakota victory in 1876 at Little Big Horn, which was not an American blunder, but an all-too-expected outcome.

Hämäläinen ultimately contends that the very notion of "colonial America" is misleading, and that we should speak instead of an "Indigenous America" that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. The evidence of Indigenous defiance is apparent today in the hundreds of Native nations that still dot the United States and Canada. Necessary reading for anyone who cares about America's past, present, and future, Indigenous Continent restores Native peoples to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781324094067
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