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Michael L. Printz Awards
2021 (Fiction)
The Night Watchman
Click to search this book in our catalog   Louise Erdrich
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2021 (History)
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
Click to search this book in our catalog   Les Payne

Library Journal While other fast food companies make appearances, the primary focus of this book by Chatelain (history, African American Studies, Georgetown Univ.; South Side Girls) is the role of McDonald's in African American communities. The author describes the black businessmen and women who ran early franchisees and looks at their relationships with the company. The roles of fast food restaurants as employers, nutritional battlegrounds, sites of community activism, and charitable contributors are thoroughly explored, though at times the writing lacks narrative focus to tie together the details. The strongest chapters touch on the relationship between the civil rights movement and fast food, including sit-ins and boycotts, as well as the reasons some activists promoted franchising opportunities for black business leaders. The well-written conclusion emphasizes how today's conversations around fast food in America were shaped by government policies, and examines how the fast-food industry is connected to Black Lives Matter and other social change movements. VERDICT The book sticks close to its focus of franchising McDonald's restaurants among black communities in the 20th century, and covers the topic well. This niche subject may not have wide-ranging appeal, but the research is invaluable for those studying the intersections of race, economics, and business in the United States.—Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Library Journal The fast food industry, with a special emphasis on the McDonald's franchise, is the focus of this innovative approach to cultural history. In her first book, Chatelain (history and African American studies, Georgetown Univ.) uses the fast food industry as a prism through which to glean a richer, more nuanced understanding of the history of black America. This mix of business, politics, and race relations serves up moments of hope and disillusionment in the many characters that have a story to tell along with their order of burgers and fries. The audiobook is read excellently by Machelle Williams. This is a genuinely novel study that combines ideas of food justice with the subject of black history. VERDICT Overall, the book offers a fresh and rewarding history lesson for those looking for new insight into black history, and for an interesting take on the promises and failures of capitalism.—Denis Frias, Mississauga Lib. Syst., Ont.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Book list The relationship between McDonald's, the undisputed champion in the fast food realm, and Black America has been complicated, even fraught. The company's marketing and outreach efforts have presented its business as responsive to the needs of Black communities contending with generational poverty and political disenfranchisement. Chatelain (South Side Girls, 2015) undercuts this narrative, however, by contextualizing, from an arguably Marxist perspective, the historical advantages that enabled McDonald's to rise above the competition, the charges of racist practices and exploitation that led Black communities to protest its presence in their neighborhoods, and its multigenerational campaign to repair its image, particularly in promoting Black franchises and supporting Black franchisees. But to what extend can African Americans participate in larger capitalist structures when they are so often derailed to protect the interests of predominantly white businesses? Furthermore, does economic stability necessarily translate into social and political power for Black communities? Chatelain doesn't flinch from addressing these difficult questions, and readers will be inspired to rethink the role of capitalism in black empowerment.--Parker Daniel Copyright 2020 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Kirkus An exploration of the complicated role of fast-food restaurants in low-income black urban neighborhoods, with an emphasis on McDonald's.Though most of the book covers the 20th century, Chatelain (History and African American Studies/Georgetown Univ.; South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration, 2015) begins in August 2014, when a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown. The resulting unrestsome of it violent, some peaceful, all of it racially chargedtook place in and around a McDonald's location owned by a black businessman. "The Florissant Avenue McDonald's," writes the author, "was both an escape from the uprising and one of its targets." Chatelain characterizes her book, in part, as "the story of how McDonald's became black." She makes a convincing case that racial tension, the civil rights movement, and fast food all combined to change the dynamic of mostly black communities ignored by white power structures. Fast food is generally unhealthy and can certainly lead to obesity. Chatelain realizes that low-income blacks are regularly demonized by whites for making poor nutritional choices. However, as she clearly explains, those apparent "choices" are not often real choices because residents lack access to supermarkets stocking healthy food offerings or eateries offering healthy, affordable menu items. "Today, fast-food restaurants are hyperconcentrated in the places that are the poorest and most racially segregated." As McDonald's became the dominant fast-food chain across the country, the white management began awarding franchises to black businesspeople. Almost never, however, did blacks receive locations in economically viable neighborhoods. Through case studies, with Cleveland as one extended example, Chatelain explores the relationships between black franchisees and black residents. In addition to nutritional value and the prices of menu items, the author also cogently examines franchisee support for neighborhood initiatives, such as breakfast feeding programs aimed at low-income children, financing of community centers, and the number of jobs, minimum wage or otherwise, for black residents. Chatelain's impressive research and her insertion of editorial commentary will prove educational and enlightening for readers of all backgrounds.An eye-opening and unique history lesson. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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2021 (Biography)
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
Click to search this book in our catalog   Les Payne
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2021 (General Nonfiction)
Wilmington??s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
Click to search this book in our catalog   David Zucchino
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2020 (Fiction)
The Nickel Boys
Click to search this book in our catalog   Colson Whitehead
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2020 (History)
Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
Click to search this book in our catalog   W. Caleb McDaniel

Library Journal The life of Henrietta Wood (1818–1912) was an odyssey. Born into slavery, Wood tasted freedom once, but was kidnapped, reenslaved, and then freed again. From her home state of Kentucky, she journeyed to New Orleans; Cincinnati; Natchez, MS; Texas; then back to Cincinnati, finally settling in Chicago. After being reenslaved in 1853, Wood sued unsuccessfully for her freedom. She sued again for reparation of lost wages after the Civil War. With the help of others, and in spite of many hurdles and stumbling blocks, she managed to win a judgment for a tenth of the wages for which she sued. McDaniel (history, Rice Univ.; The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery) renders an enthralling biography of a determined, resilient woman. Using creative fiction techniques, he builds on Wood's story, which she recounted in interviews with two Ohio newspapers in 1876 and 1879. Wood's primary antagonist, Zebulon Ward, against whom she sued for reparation, was a wealthy man, principally through leasing prison labor in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas for manufacturing various products. VERDICT A well-researched, well-told story that also contributes to the debate about reparations. Recommended for both academic and general readers.—Glen Edward Taul, formerly with Campbellsville Univ., KY

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly In this gripping study, Rice University historian McDaniel recounts the painful but triumphant story of one enslaved woman’s long fight for justice. Henrietta Wood, born into bondage, was freed by her owner in 1848. Seven years later, she was kidnapped and reenslaved by Kentucky horse breeder Zebulon Ward, and did not regain her freedom until the end of the Civil War. Wood was determined to gain compensation for her additional years of servitude and for the fact that her son Arthur had been born into slavery, and sued Ward in 1868. Nearly a decade later, Wood was victorious; although the $2,500 in damages the court awarded her were far less than she had requested, the funds, “the largest known ever awarded by a U.S. court in restitution for slavery,” helped to establish Arthur as a lawyer in Chicago. The two extensive interviews Wood gave to reporters during her lawsuit illuminate her remarkable life. Nearly a century after Wood’s lawsuit, McDaniel recounts, Martin Luther King warned his supporters that the civil rights project would remain incomplete until African-Americans gained economic as well as political equality, and that any such improvements must be “demanded by the oppressed.” McDaniel tells this story engrossingly and accessibly. This is a valuable contribution to Reconstruction history with clear relevance to current debates about reparations for slavery. Photos. (Sept.)

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Kirkus A professor of history pulls back the curtain on a hidden episode in the annals of American slavery. Henrietta Wood, writes McDaniel in this excellent history, was born into servitude thanks to a Kentucky law that decreed a child of an enslaved mother, no matter who the father or the hue of their skin, to be also a slave. She was sold, sent to New Orleans, and then brought to Cincinnati, where her owner freed her. Five years later, she was hoodwinked by a supposedly sympathetic white woman, driven across the river into the slave state where she was born, and sold into “a decade of reenslavement in the Deep South.” Even as she was sent to the cotton fields, friends in Cincinnati undertook to free her, and the ensuing lawsuits lasted decades; as the author writes, “the news spread quickly across abolitionist networks,” reported by none other than Frederick Douglass. Eventually, Wood sued sometime owner and middleman Zeb Ward, a loathsome fellow who made his fortune by leasing prisoners and working them to death. Ward bragged even after losing the suit that he was “the last man to pay for a negro slave in this country,” as a reporter at the trial noted. Wood won a settlement of $2,500, which enabled her son to buy a home in Chicago and attend law school, after which he worked for decades as a trial lawyer. As for Ward, he “was reborn in the national press as a harmless, walking stereotype: that of the genial Kentucky colonel who liked to sip mint juleps and talk about horses.” Wood’s victory was significant, writes McDaniel. The payout was small considering the grave injustices she had suffered, but it remains “the largest known sum ever awarded by a US court in restitution for slavery.” The author writes nimbly of past events while giving a clear view of present concerns—including whether restitution is a possibility today, more than 150 years after emancipation. A superb work of historical detection, admirably well written and full of surprises. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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2020 (Biography)
Sontag: Her Life and Work
Click to search this book in our catalog   Benjamin Moser

Kirkus A sweeping biography reveals personal, political, and cultural turbulence.Drawing on some 300 interviews, a rich, newly available archive of personal papers, and abundant published sources, biographer, essayist, and translator Moser (Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, 2009) offers a comprehensive, intimateand surely definitivebiography of writer, provocateur, and celebrity intellectual Susan Sontag (1933-2004). Sympathetic and sharply astute, Moser recounts the astonishing evolution of Susan Rosenblatt, an impressively bright and inquisitive child of the Jewish middle class, into an internationally acclaimed, controversial, and often combative cultural figure. Even as a child, Sontagshe changed her name after her mother's second marriagesaw herself as exceptional: smarter than her classmates, so widely read and articulate that she astonished her professors. Nevertheless, although certain that she was destined for greatness, she was tormented by an abiding fear of inadequacy. Moser recounts Sontag's education, friendships, and sexual encounters; her realization that she was bisexual; and her wide-ranging interests in psychoanalysis, politics, and, most enduringly, aesthetics. He offers judicious readings of all of Sontag's works, from her 1965 "Notes on Camp,' " which, according to Nora Ephron, transformed her from a "highbrow critic" to "a midcult commodity"; to the late novels of which she was proudest. Her private life was stormy. At 17, she married her sociology professor, Philip Rieff, after they had known each other for 10 days, and within two years, she was a mother. Neither marriage nor motherhood suited her. Devoid of maternal instinct, she was unable to care about anyone, said Jamaica Kincaid, "unless they were in a book." Instead, among her many loversRichard Goodwin, Warren Beatty, Joseph Brodsky, Lucinda Childs, Annie Leibowitz, to name a fewshe sought those who would care for her: publisher Roger Straus, who sustained her "professionally, financially, and sometimes physically"; and women who kept her fed, housed, and clean. Difficulties with basic hygiene, Moser notes, "suggest more than carelessness" but rather a persistent sense of alienation from her bodyand exaltation of her mind.A nuanced, authoritative portrait of a legendary artist. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly In this doorstopper biography, Moser (Why This: A Biography of Clarice Lispector), for whom Susan Sontag was "America's last great literary star," exhaustively and sometimes exhaustingly chronicles his subject's life. Between recounting Sontag's birth to a prosperous Manhattan couple in 1933 and her death from cancer in 2004, Moser fully details her prolific career as an author of novels, plays, films, and, most notably, essays, including "Notes on 'Camp''" the 1964 "essay that made her notorious." He conveys the diverse range of subjects about which she wrote, encompassing photography, film, fascism, and pornography, among others. Moser follows Sontag's private life as well-her troubled early marriage to Philip Rieff; her parenting of their son, David, whose job as her editor she later secured; her attraction to women, "of which she was deeply ashamed"; and her final long-term relationship, with photographer Annie Leibovitz. He does not neglect Sontag's detractors, such as poet Adrienne Rich, who charged Sontag with inaccurately criticizing second-wave feminism. However, Moser's tone is admiring: Sontag, "for almost fifty years... set the terms of the cultural debate in a way no intellectual had done before or has done since." His book leaves readers with a sweeping, perhaps definitive portrait of an acclaimed author, though one likely to deter all but her most ardent admirers with its length. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list In all the complex splendor of her brilliance and controversial intrepidness, Sontag has inspired numerous profiles and explications. Moser, whose superb Why This World (2009) cast new light on writer Clarice Lispector, draws on all of it in this watershed biography of America's last great literary star, and breaks new ground by virtue of his access to private archives, sagacious close-readings of Sontag's radical writings, and conducting of hundreds of interviews. Moser discerns fresh significance in Sontag's venturesome life and troubled psyche, from her precocious ardor for books and her youth in Hollywood to her sadomasochistic relationship with her alcoholic mother, her disassociation from her body, her lifelong reluctance to fully acknowledge her lesbianism, and her deep insecurity behind the glamorous façade of her renown. In clear-cut and supple prose, Moser avidly presents provocative facts and insights as he chronicles Sontag's brief early marriage, how she raised her son, her amphetamine use, political evolution, tempestuous affairs with men and women, bouts with cancer, and crucial bond with photographer Annie Leibovitz. Moser also offers thrillingly clarifying analysis of the fiction of which Sontag was so proud, and her culture-altering criticism in which she broke down the barrier between popular and fine arts, interrogated the ethics of photography, scrutinized the implications of fame, metaphor, and pain, and declared that ""literature is freedom.""--Donna Seaman Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Library Journal For this exceptional biography, critic Moser (Why This World) gains rare access to the closed archives of Susan Sontag (1933–2004), conducting interviews with those who knew her best, including son David Rieff and partner Annie Leibovitz. Moser synthesizes historical events with moments in Sontag's life while comprehensively analyzing her major works. After a difficult childhood with an inattentive mother, Sontag quickly rose to prominence as an essayist (On Photography), novelist (In America), filmmaker (Promised Lands), and "authoritative blurber" who could bring authors and artists fame by expressing admiration for their work. Sontag bravely battled cancer three times and openly supported Salman Rushdie (after Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa against the author) while others stayed silent. She also criticized postmodernism despite its mass acceptance in academia. Moser skillfully describes how Sontag often struggled with basic everyday responsibilities, showing compassion and support for war victims (visiting Bosnia and North Vietnam) yet treating those closest to her cruelly, always considering herself an outsider. VERDICT This excellent portrait of a complicated, brilliant individual will appeal to those interested in late 20th-century culture, LGBTQ studies, and literary scholarship. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/19.]—Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA

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2020 (General Nonfiction)
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Click to search this book in our catalog   Greg Grandin
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2019 (Fiction)
The Overstory
Click to search this book in our catalog   Richard Powers

Library Journal Standing as silent witnesses to our interweaving genealogies, cyclical wars, and collapsing empires, trees contain our collective history in addition to our climate record. Here, the acclaimed Powers (Orfeo; The Time of Our Singing) employs literary dendrochronology to weave the stories of nine strangers connected through their collective action in preventing a forest from falling to industrial harvesting and ruination. From a chestnut in Iowa to a banyan in Vietnam, trees function as a central theme for each character's backstory. As a corollary, foliage becomes a multivalent symbol of family struggle, divine intervention, and community. Just as Douglas firs connect their underground root structures to provide mutual support and protection, each character moves across disparate landscapes to find him- or herself joined in solidarity against an unstoppable force of environmental destruction. VERDICT Whereas Powers dissected the human brain's mysterious capacity to prescind subject from object in his National Book Award-winning The Echo Makers, here he pens a deep meditation on the irreparable psychic damage that manifests in our unmitigated separation from nature.-Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Powers' (Orfeo, 2014, etc.) 12th novel is a masterpiece of operatic proportions, involving nine central characters and more than half a century of American life.In this work, Powers takes on the subject of nature, or our relationship to nature, as filtered through the lens of environmental activism, although at its heart the book is after more existential concerns. As is the case with much of Powers' fiction, it takes shape slowlyfirst in a pastiche of narratives establishing the characters (a psychologist, an undergraduate who died briefly but was revived, a paraplegic computer game designer, a homeless vet), and then in the kaleidoscopic ways these individuals come together and break apart. "We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men," Powers writes, quoting the naturalist John Muir. "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." The idea is important because what Powers means to explore is a sense of how we become who we are, individually and collectively, and our responsibility to the planet and to ourselves. Nick, for instance, continues a project begun by his grandfather to take repeated photographs of a single chestnut tree, "one a month for seventy-six years." Pat, a visionary botanist, discovers how trees communicate with one another only to be discredited and then, a generation later, reaffirmed. What links the characters is survivalthe survival of both trees and human beings. The bulk of the action unfolds during the timber wars of the late 1990s, as the characters coalesce on the Pacific coast to save old-growth sequoia from logging concerns. For Powers, however, political or environmental activism becomes a filter through which to consider the connectedness of all thingsnot only the human lives he portrays in often painfully intricate dimensions, but also the biosphere, both virtual and natural. "The world starts here," Powers insists. "This is the merest beginning. Life can do anything. You have no idea."A magnificent achievement: a novel that is, by turns, both optimistic and fatalistic, idealistic without being nave. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Occupying the same thematic terrain as Annie Proulx's Barkskins, the latest from Powers (Orfeo) is an impassioned but unsatisfying paean to the wonder of trees. Set primarily on the West Coast, the story revolves around nine characters, separated by age and geography, whose "lives have long been connected, deep underground." Among these are a wheelchair-bound computer game designer; a scientist who uncovers the forest's hidden communication systems; a psychologist studying the personality types of environmental activists; and a young woman who, after being electrocuted, hears voices urging her to save old-growth forests from logging. All are seduced by the majesty of trees and express their arboreal love in different ways: through scholarship, activism, art, and even violent resistance. Some of the prose soars, as when a redwood trunk shoots upward in a "russet, leathery apotheosis," while some lands with a thud: "We're cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling." Powers's best works are thrilling accounts of characters blossoming as they pursue their intellectual passions; here, few of the earnest figures come alive on the page. While it teems with people, information, and ideas, the novel feels curiously barren. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list *Starred Review* Nick, an artist, grew up on a family farm in Iowa famous for its regal chestnut tree. Patricia, born in Ohio with speech and hearing problems, finds inspiration in the plant world, studies forestry, and makes a controversial discovery. Adam, a science-struck boy enamored of ants, ends up majoring in social psychology and focusing on people risking their lives for plants. Douglas' life is saved by a tree when his plane is shot down during the Vietnam War; he later joins a tree-planter squad, attempting to compensate for the ravages of clear-cut logging. Engineer Mimi's father, a Chinese immigrant who invented the earliest prototype for the cell phone, planted a mulberry tree in their backyard in Illinois. Neelay, another child of a brilliant immigrant parent, a pioneering computer designer in San Jose, takes to coding as a boy like a leaf to sunlight, and even though he loses the use of his legs after falling out an oak, trees inspire the nature-based virtual realms he creates, which make him a video-game game god. All of these magnetic characters, and others, are introduced separately in Roots ; they then converge in Trunk, Crown, and Seeds, each a section in MacArthur Fellow and National Book Award winnerPowers' twelfth novel, a magnificentsaga of lives aligned with the marvels of trees, the intricacy and bounty of forests, and their catastrophic destruction under the onslaught of humanity's ever-increasing population on our rapidly warming planet. A virtuoso at parallel narratives, concurrent micro and macro perspectives, and the meshing of feelings, facts, and ideas, Powers draws on his signature fascination with the consequences, intended and otherwise, of science and technology as he considers the paradox of our ongoing assaults against nature in spite of all the evidence indicating impending disasters. The gripping, many-branched drama that unfolds here is a grand inquiry into how our hubris and unrelenting consumption and decimation of natural resources drives environmental activists to enact extreme and dangerous forms of civil disobedience. Olivia, a college student in Boston is oblivious to trees until a freak accident leaves her receptive to strange beings of light who, as the year 1990 begins, induce her to pack up her car and start driving west. Olivia has no idea why she's on this mysterious journey until she sees television coverage of people forming a ring around an enormous tree in Solace, California. The presences tell her: The most wondrous products of four billion years of life need help. Olivia finds her way to Nick in Iowa, and when they reach California, the lovers, like the real-life tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, ascend 200 feet off the ground to live for months on precarious platforms erected on an ancient, majestic redwood under siege by loggers. Another bond is forged when Douglas and Mimi's paths cross at an endangered grove of trees outside her high-rise Portland, Oregon, office. Adam's tree-hugger research also puts him on the scene as they all arrive at the same place. And once each either witnesses or is subjected to vicious attacks by enraged loggers and contemptuous law-enforcement agents, they join forces and embark on acts of what they define as ecotage (vandalizing equipment to sabotage logging operations) and which logging corporations and the authorities deem ecoterrorism. Meanwhile, Patricia writes Rachel Carson-style books about the complex interconnectedness and intelligence of forests that galvanize the world. But can anyone stop or even slow the devastation wrought by the relentless tide of human growth and need? Powers' sylvan tour de force is alive with gorgeous descriptions; continually surprising, often heartbreaking characters; complex suspense; unflinching scrutiny of pain; celebration of creativity and connection; and informed and expressive awe over the planet's life force and its countless and miraculous manifestations. Powers elevates ecofiction with this profound and symphonic novel even as he pays subtle tribute to the genre's defining title, Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), which, in turn, inspired T. C. Boyle's ecowarrior tale, A Friend of the Earth (2000). The Overstory takes a crowning position on a list of earlier novels about trees and tree-huggers and about the terrible consequences of ecotage or ecoterrorism as well-meaning convictions precipitate calamities and crises of conscience. Diverse in voice and timbre, the list includes The Living, by Annie Dillard (1992); The Tree-Sitter, by Suzanne Matson (2006); The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman (2010); The Widower's Tale, by Julia Glass (2010); Barkskins, by Annie Proulx (2016); and At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier (2016). Powers wants us to see trees and forests in verdant and exhilarating detail, and feel the despair of those who know the magnitude and significance of all that is being irrevocably lost as forests everywhere are destroyed. As we rip apart the forest'sgreen web, we immerse ourselves in the cyberweb. Powers wonders, Will data guide us in reversing our doomsday folly? Will stories help us fully perceive, cherish, and preserve life? The Overstory and its brethren seed awareness and hope.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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2019 (History)
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
Click to search this book in our catalog   David W. Blight

Kirkus A lengthy but easily digestible biography of the famed ex-slave, abolitionist, and autobiographer.In this superbly written book, Civil War and Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895) scholar Blight (American History/Yale Univ.; American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era, 2011, etc.), a winner of the Bancroft, Abraham Lincoln, and Anisfield-Wolf prizes, ably captures his complex subject from all angles. While many readers may be familiar with Douglass' escape from slavery, self-education, and early life (thanks to his autobiographies), most nonscholars are not as well-versed in the details of his later lifee.g., his role in the Civil War, political campaigning, fight for suffrage, complicated family relationships, and more. It's in these later years that Blight's work really shines; in fact, Douglass' early slave life and escape only cover roughly the first 100 pages of the 760-page narrative (followed by 100 pages of notes). From there, Blight makes the case for Douglass as an American prophet in the mold of the Old Testament's Jeremiah or Isaiah. Though he often scolded and admonished in his speeches and writings, often in King James-style vernacular, he also never gave up hope of a coming time of freedom for his black brethren. Douglass truly was the "prophet of freedom" all the way until his death in 1895, fighting for civil rights until the very end. While some readers may want more coverage of his early life, and perhaps more analysis of what Douglass means today, Blight viscerally captures the vitality, strength, and determination of his subject. For such a renowned figure, who was perhaps the most photographed and recognizable person of the 19th century, there is surprisingly little in the way of modern, full-scale, accessible biographies. Blight delivers what is sure to be considered the standard-bearer for years to come.A masterful, comprehensive biography, particularly of Douglass' Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age years and occupations. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list *Starred Review* Any biography of Douglass must compete with his own passionate memoirs, which vividly illustrate the anguish of slavery and testify to the humanity and intelligence of African Americans. Yet, as prizewinning historian Blight (American Oracle, 2011) demonstrates in this brilliant and compassionate work, Douglass could never escape the ingrained racism tainting even abolitionist circles. When he disagreed with Liberator William Lloyd Garrison's policy of combating slavery with suasion, as opposed to outright political activism, Garrison suggested that slaves lacked the sophistication to understand the philosophy of the antislavery cause. A pained Douglass replied, Who will doubt hereafter the natural inferiority of the Negro, when the great champion of the Negroes' rights thus broadly concedes all that is claimed respecting the Negroes' inferiority? In Douglass' resistance to the paternalism of white abolitionists, we hear premonitions of Martin Luther King's denunciation of mealymouthed white gradualism. Douglass' support for violent resistance against slave catchers and slave owners prefigures the King versus Malcolm X polarization of the 1960s as well as contemporary debates over radicalism and the Black Lives Matter movement. Blight's Douglass is an unapologetic prophet and radical, and the eloquent voice of this sacred extremist has never been more relevant. A must-read.--Lesley Williams Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Yale historian Blight's study of runaway slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass-a "radical patriot" and "prophet of freedom," a "great voice of America's terrible transformation from slavery to freedom"-benefits not only from Blight's decadeslong immersion in the history of American slavery and abolitionism, but also from his access to privately owned sources unavailable to previous scholars. To Blight, Douglass's character and ideology were rife with paradox, and in this huge and meticulously detailed study he unpacks apparent contradictions: Douglass's unexpected happiness as an urban slave in Baltimore; his devotion to his wife, Anna, and their children, whom he rarely saw due to his constant travels as an abolitionist orator; his love for the promise he saw in America and hatred of how slavery had degraded it; his repeated revisions of his autobiographical writings as he reinterpreted his experiences; his second marriage to a white woman, an act both socially transgressive and opposed by his children. The Douglass who emerges from this massive work is not always heroic, or even likable, but Blight illuminates his personal struggles and achievements to emphasize what an extraordinary person he was. Though one might wonder, given Douglass's extensive writings and the numerous works of scholarship discussing him, about the need for yet another biography, it turns out that there was much more to be learned about him. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Blight (Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director, Gilder Lehrman Ctr., Yale Univ.; Race and Reunion) has produced a comprehensive chronicle of Frederick Douglass (1818-95), abolitionist, orator, writer, and diplomat, using an exhaustive survey of existing research, including newspaper articles and family letters. Offering original insights into a man born on a plantation into the slave society of Maryland's Eastern Shore, the author presents Douglass as the oratorical and written voice of a generation who carried the fury and faith of African Americans to three continents throughout his varied public life. Blight also shares how Douglass went on to counsel U.S. presidents such as Ulysses S. Grant. VERDICT This magnum opus surpasses previous singular biographies in heft and depth, establishing an essential text for students and educators seeking to understand Douglass's complex and expansive narrative. It will appeal to general audiences and specialists alike.-John Muller, Dist. of Columbia P.L. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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2019 (Biography)
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke
Click to search this book in our catalog   Jeffrey C. Stewart

Book list *Starred Review* Stewart, professor of black studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presents a definitive biography of an intellectual who philosophically helped shape the Harlem Renaissance, Alain Locke (1885-1954). Stewart writes about the direct and indirect influences Locke had on the lives of many writers and artists of that dynamic, world-changing era, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richmond Barthé, and others. Stewart traces Locke's life, from his birth into a black bourgeoisie family struggling to hold onto its class standing and reputation to his formative years under the overprotective and dominating rigor of his mother to his years at Harvard, where he received his doctorate in philosophy. The first African American to be named a Rhodes Scholar, in 1907, Locke went on to study in Oxford, where Stewart describes Locke's first taste of academic failure. Stewart documents, with extensive use of primary sources, the highs and lows in Locke's life, his extensive world travels, his long professional teaching career at Howard University, and his personal life as a closeted homosexual. Those who love biographies or reading about important yet undercelebrated Americans will enjoy Stewart's comprehensive, richly contextualized portrait of a key writer, educator, philosopher, and supporter of the arts.--Jackson-Brown, Grace Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Stewart (Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen) offers a detailed, definitive biography of Alain LeRoy Locke (1885-1954), the godfather of the Harlem Renaissance and all around "renaissance man in the finest sense... a man of sociology, art, philosophy, diplomacy, and the Black radical tradition." A Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in philosophy, Locke became the first black Rhodes Scholar, studying in England and Germany; Stewart chronicles those travels as well as Locke's travels in Egypt, Haiti, and the Sudan. The book also explores Locke's personal life as a gay man who was attracted to the young intellectuals who inspired him, including sculptor Richmond Barthé and poet Langston Hughes. Stewart details Locke's misogyny toward writers Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as his complicated relationships with W.E.B. Du Bois and his Howard colleagues, who resented Locke's influence. Stewart creates a poignant portrait of a formidable yet flawed genius who navigated the cultural boundaries and barriers of his time while nurturing an enduring African-American intellectual movement. (Feb. 2018) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Kirkus A magisterial biography of the 20th-century philosopher, curator, and prime mover of the Harlem Renaissance.Alain Locke (1885-1954) is a criticaland complexfigure in any discussion of African-American intellectual history. In his youth, he was the quintessential black Victorian, impeccably dressed and mannered, as if comportment alone could conquer racism. That posturing made him blinkered at times; he tried to deny the prejudice he experienced as a Rhodes scholar and would later submit to a wealthy patron's condescending celebration of black "primitivism" for the sake of financial support. But Locke also wrote forcefully about the value of black artists and advocated strongly for writers like Jean Toomer and Langston Hughes. He edited the landmark 1925 issue of Survey Graphic, which put Harlem on the map as black America's artistic center, argued for black artists' central place in American culture in his selections for the book The New Negro, and curated African art exhibits that persuasively fitted that work within modernism. Stewart (Black Studies/Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen, 1998, etc.) often frames his subject's life as a series of one-on-one conflicts: with his mother, whose apron strings he found hard to untangle himself from; with more vocal black activists like W.E.B. Du Bois, who wanted more from a racial movement than Locke's oft-aloof aestheticism; with institutions like Howard University, which had a hot-and-cold relationship with him; and with the lovers the closeted gay, peripatetic Locke endlessly pursued, not to mention writers like Hughes who rejected his advances. This hefty, deeply researched book is sometimes overwhelming in its detail about Lockeevery letter he wrote seems to be quotedbut it brilliantly doubles as a history of the philosophical debates that girded black artistic triumphs early in the 20th century.A sweeping biography that gets deep into not just the man, but the movements he supported, resisted, and inspired. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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2019 (General Nonfiction)
Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America
Click to search this book in our catalog   Eliza Griswold

Library Journal Fracking, the extraction of natural gas from rocks up to one mile deep, made some residents of the small, impoverished western Pennsylvania towns of Amity and Prosperity, rich, while others became victims of potentially fatal environmental hazards. Griswold (The Tenth Parallel) offers a compelling portrayal of Stacey Haney and her fight against fracking operation Range Resources, whose secretive activities unleashed airborne toxins and poisoned ponds that killed Haney's farm animals, sickened neighbors, and nearly took the life of her son, Harley. Deep research into court records and interviews with family members and neighbors, many of whom turned against Haney, a single mother and nurse, make for a compelling family tragedy narrative. Descriptions of the various individuals are memorable, although Griswold's recounting of Haney v. Range Resources (2013) gets bogged down in detail. This precedent-setting trial was not decided until 2018. -VERDICT An important addition to the emerging genre of works about fracking and its environmental and human costs. This will find large audiences among concerned citizens and warrants the attention of public officials as well as fans of J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.-Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Griswold (The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, 2010, etc.) immerses herself with a few Pennsylvania families in rural areas near Pittsburgh to chronicle their life-threatening battles against the fracking industry.To extract natural gas deposits from deep within the ground, giant energy companies employ processes and chemicals that can disseminate dangerous substances into drinking water sources and into the air. The author, an extraordinarily versatile wordsmith as a poet, translator, and journalist, visited a region of Pennsylvania that had become a fracking crossroads. At a meeting of concerned citizens receiving payments for fracking on their land but angry about unforeseen environmental degradation, Griswold met Stacey Haney. A lifelong citizen of Amitynear the nearly depopulated town of ProsperityHaney, a nurse, has been worried that harmful elements from the fracking process have yielded chronic illnesses in herself and her children. Neither Haney nor most of her neighbors wanted to become social activists (many of them usually vote Republican and support Donald Trump). However, the increasing financial debt of the citizens from both towns, combined with the puzzling chronic ailments, led them to hire a team of lawyers to craft a court challenge or at least force the state's environmental protection agency to halt fracking operations of for-profit corporations. Because no scientific consensus has emerged about the societal benefits versus the public health hazards of fracking, the Haneys, as well as the other plaintiffs, worry that they will never prevail on technical grounds. Surprisingly, several Pennsylvania courts ruled against the fracking industry, but the Haneys and other plaintiffs received little in the way of tangible benefits. As the author inserts herself into the narrative about one-third of the way through, she becomes a character with apparent sympathies for the individual plaintiffs and their hardworking lawyers, but her reporting is, for the most part, evenhanded.A solid addition to the burgeoning literature on the social and health-related effects of fracking. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list *Starred Review* The names Amity and Prosperity conjure up images of tranquility and abundance, and, indeed, historically, the good life was found within these southwestern Pennsylvania towns. Where once coal was king, now hydraulic fracking rules the day, with mining companies competing for rights to drill into the Marcellus Shale's abundant natural-gas reserves. Along with other landowners, single-mother Stacey Haney wrestled with her conscience before signing a lease with Range Resources to drill on her land. She was working multiple jobs to raise two teens and running a farm on her own, so the promised windfall would have been welcome. But when her son manifests a series of inexplicable ailments and farm animals unexpectedly die, Haney painstakingly traces the source of the illnesses back to the water and air pollution generated by the fracking sites. Stonewalled by the mining company, shunned by her community, Haney only finds hope and help with a husband-and-wife legal team willing to take on this powerful adversary. Griswold's (The Tenth Parallel, 2010) empathetic yet analytical account of Haney's indefatigable role as advocate for justice is a thorough and thoroughly blood-pressure-­raising account of the greed and fraud embedded in the environmentally ruinous natural-gas industry. As honest and unvarnished an account of the human cost of corporate corruption as one will find.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist

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2018 (Fiction)
Less
Click to search this book in our catalog   Andrew Sean Greer

Library Journal This hilarious and touching novel follows Arthur Less, a gay man, as he travels around the world in order to avoid attending the wedding of his former lover. The wedding invitation was the final realization for Arthur that he never should have broken up with Freddy, and as Arthur's 50th birthday approaches, he realizes he may be alone forever. Arthur is a novelist, and although his publisher turned down his latest work, he is engaged in literary activities such as receiving an award, speaking at a conference, and teaching writing in such locations as New York City, Mexico, and Germany. He also travels to Morocco and rides a camel out into the desert. All along the way, there are wacky scenes of wrong directions taken, comic misunderstandings, and language barriers left standing. VERDICT Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli; The Impossible Life of Greta Wells) is both clever and compassionate as he steers Arthur through this rough period in his life, and while the book focuses on gay men and their relationships, the search for love and meaning is universal. [See Prepub Alert, 1/28/17.]-James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Facing his erstwhile boyfriend's wedding to another man, his 50th birthday, and his publisher's rejection of his latest manuscript, a miserable midlist novelist heads for the airport.When it comes to the literary canon, Arthur Less knows he is "as superfluous as the extra a in quaalude," but he does get the odd invitationto interview a more successful author, to receive an obscure prize, to tour French provincial libraries, that sort of thing. So rather than stay in San Francisco and be humiliated when his younger man of nine years' standing marries someone else (he can't bear to attend, nor can he bear to stay home), he puts together a patchwork busman's holiday that will take him to Paris, Morocco, Berlin, Southern India, and Japan. Of course, anything that can go wrong doesfrom falling out a window to having his favorite suit eaten by a stray dog, and as far as Less runs, he will not escape the fact that he really did lose the love of his life. Meanwhile, there's no way to stop that dreaded birthday, which he sees as the definitive end of a rather extended youth: "It's like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won't ever be back." Yet even this conversation occurs in the midst of a make-out session with a handsome Spanish stranger on a balcony at a party in Parishinting that there may be steaks and coffee on the other side. Upping the tension of this literary picaresque is the fact that the story is told by a mysterious narrator whose identity and role in Less' future is not revealed until the final pages. Seasoned novelist Greer (The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, 2013, etc.) clearly knows whereof he speaks and has lived to joke about it. Nonstop puns on the character's surname aside, this is a very funny and occasionally wise book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly In Greer's wistful new novel, a middle-aged writer accepts literary invitations around the world-making his way from San Francisco to New York, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan-so that he will have an excuse not to attend the wedding of a long-time lover. Arthur Less is not known primarily for his own work but for his lengthy romantic association with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, an older man who was married to a woman when their liaison began, and he believes himself to be the butt of many cosmic jokes and that he is "less than" in most equations. This is partially proven true, but not entirely. And even in Less's mediocrity, when aided by a certain amount of serendipity (and displayed by the author with ironic humor), he affects people. Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli), an O'Henry-winning author, writes beautifully, but his occasionally Faulknerian sentences are unnecessary. He is entirely successful, though, in the authorial sleights of hand that make the narrator fade into the background-only to have an identity revealed at the end in a wonderful surprise. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list *Starred Review* While such luminaries as Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, and John Irving have praised Greer's previous novels, including The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (2013), Less is perhaps his finest yet. It follows Arthur Less, a novelist whose longtime boyfriend is getting married. In order to avoid the ceremony, Less accepts invitations to all the literary events he has been invited to. The subsequent tale moves across not only space from San Francisco to New York, Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, India, and Japan but also time, as Less looks back at his life as he approaches his fiftieth birthday. Once on the periphery of an artistic movement, the Russian River School, and involved with one of the founders, Less now exploits this connection to enable his journey.Through numerous flashbacks, Greer signals his debt to Proust (something he shares with Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, 2010) and paints a comic yet moving picture of an American abroad. As Greer explores Less' lovelorn memories, he also playfully mocks the often ludicrous nature of the publishing industry, as does Percival Everett in his acerbic Erasure (2001). Less is a wondrous achievement, deserving an even larger audience than Greer's best-selling The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004).--Moran, Alexander Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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2018 (History)
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
Click to search this book in our catalog   Jack E. Davis

Kirkus A sweeping environmental history of the Gulf of Mexico that duly considers the ravages of nature and man.In light of the 2010 devastation of the BP oil spill, environmental historian Davis (History and Sustainability Studies/Univ. of Florida; An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century, 2009, etc.) presents an engaging, truly relevant new study of the Gulf as a powerful agent in the American story, one that has become "lost in the pages of American history." Once the habitat of the highly developed, self-sustaining Calusa indigenous people, the rich estuary of the Gulf is the 10th largest body of water in the world, and it forms the sheltered basin that creates the warm, powerful Gulf Stream, which allowed the first explorers, such as Ponce de Len, to make their ways back to the Old World. Davis meanders through the early history of this fascinating sea, which became a kind of graveyard to many early marooned explorers due to shipwrecks and run-ins with natives. Yet the conquistadors took little note of the abundant marine life inhabiting the waters and, unaccountably, starved. A more familiar economy was established at the delta of the muddy, sediment-rich Mississippi River, discovered by the French. The author focuses on the 19th century as the era when the Gulf finally asserted its place in the great move toward Manifest Destiny; it would "significantly enlarge the water communication of national commerce and shift the boundary of the country from vulnerable land to protective sea." The Gulf states would also become a mecca of tourism and fishing and, with the discovery of oil, enter a dire period of the "commercialization of national endowments." The story of this magnificent body of water and its wildlife grows tragic at this pointe.g., the "killing juggernaut" of Gulf wading birds to obtain fashionable feathers. Still, it remains an improbable, valiant survival tale in the face of the BP oil spill and ongoing climate change. An elegant narrative braced by a fierce, sobering environmental conviction. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal "If Jefferson's West was the land of the nation's manifest destiny, the Gulf was its sea." So argues Davis (history, Univ. of Florida; An Everglades Providence) in this magnificent chronicle of the Gulf of Mexico. Spanning a period from the gulf's geological formation to the present, this book is organized around the "natural characteristics of the Gulf" (i.e., its fauna, flora, weather, and landscape). The stories of the Europeans-the Spanish, who found the gulf; the French, who discovered its connection to the Mississippi; and the British, who began to map it-will be familiar to many readers, but Davis's retelling still sticks. The core of the title, though, concerns "America's Gulf" in the 19th century onward: when the Coastal Survey finished charting the coast; when the area's first real industry, commercial fishing, flourished; when sport fishing and beach tourism became popular; and when the petroleum industry took off. Environmental perturbations followed. And lost, like artifacts in the Florida aboriginal Calusa's shell mounds, was the lesson of holding a "prudent relationship with nature." VERDICT This is a work of astonishing breadth: richly peopled, finely structured, beautifully written. It should appeal equally well to Gulf coast residents and snowbirds, students of environmental history, and general readers.-Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Publishers Weekly In this comprehensive and thoroughly researched narrative, Davis, professor of history and sustainability at the University of Florida, positions the Gulf of Mexico as an integral part of American ecology, culture, and-with future good stewardship-economic success. He sprinkles geological and marine history throughout the chronicle of the coast's demographic changes from indigenous inhabitants to European colonizers, Louisiana Cajuns, Texas roughnecks, and Florida's tourists. Davis unflinchingly addresses the decades of oil spills, overfishing, and poor environmental practices that reduced resources. He also describes the decline of coastal marshes, which protect against hurricanes, and the erosion stemming from ill-conceived Army Corps of Engineer projects. Hurricanes Camille and Katrina and the catastrophic BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill poignantly receive their due. Davis also discusses inspired conservation efforts to combat the fashion industry's feather fascination and subsequent decimation of snowy egrets. The density of the fact-packed chapters calls for a deliberate reading pace so as not to overlook any of Davis's thought-provoking commentary and keen descriptions. Rather than advocate an impractical hands-off approach to dealing with the Gulf's myriad issues, Davis makes the convincing argument that wiser, far-sighted practices-including those aimed at combating climate change-could help the Gulf region to remain a bastion of resources for the foreseeable future. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Book list *Starred Review* A perceptive historical survey of America's Gulf Coast, this fascinating work accents the region's nexus between nature and civilization. Chronologically, Davis' account extends from Spanish discoveries of the early 1500s to the present, but organizationally he centers his inquiries on geographical features and seminal episodes of economic activity. Estuaries, he emphasizes, are the most important aspect of the coastline from Florida to Texas. Their abundant marine life, attested to by shell mounds left by ancient native peoples and commercial and sport fishing, as well as real-estate development and oil and gas extraction earn Davis' discerning attention. A close second in topographical significance is the barrier islands' natural role as protectors of estuaries, while their imposed roles as bombing ranges or high-rise-building sites exemplify the tension between environmental preservation and industrial and construction activity. This constitutes Davis' overarching theme, which also applies to the Gulf's third major piece of geography, the Mississippi River delta. Amid these land- and seascapes Davis populates colorful characters, from would-be conquistadors to business and tourism entrepreneurs to environmental activists, who form a gallery of human interest that easily carries the reader from cover to cover. Marked by thorough knowledge and fluid writing, this work will enhance any collection of American and environmental history.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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2018 (Biography)
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Click to search this book in our catalog   Caroline Fraser

Book list *Starred Review* The sesquicentennial observance of the birth of the author of the celebrated Little House books (65 million copies sold in 45 languages) has been the catalyst for the publication of a spate of books, now including this magisterial biography, which surely must be called definitive. Richly documented (it contains 85 pages of notes), it is the compelling, beautifully written story of a life whose childhood and early years of marriage were beset by incredible economic privation and disaster: poverty, hunger, fire, blizzards, invasions of locusts, and more, enough to seemingly eclipse the biblical plagues of Egypt. Somehow, Laura Ingalls Wilder survived it all and grew up to record her experiences in the pages of her Little House books, which as Fraser documents are a genial mixture of truth and fiction. Confronting allegations that Wilder's books were actually written by her daughter, author Rose Wilder Lane, Fraser evidences those claims' untruth, carefully demonstrating that the books were, instead, a sometimes uneasy collaboration of the two women, Wilder laying the foundation, Lane doing the editing and occasional embellishing. One of the more interesting aspects of this wonderfully insightful book is its delineation of the fraught relationship between Wilder and her deeply disturbed, often suicidal daughter. But it is its marriage of biography and history the latter providing such a rich context for the life that is one of the great strengths of this indispensable book, an unforgettable American story.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Library Journal Eighty-five years after Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book in the "Little House" series, she continues to captivate both young readers and scholars. The publication of Pioneer Girl (Wilder's originally rejected autobiography) in 2014 sparked further interest. Fraser (Rewilding the World) edited a two-volume edition of Wilder's works and knows her subject well. In this biography, Fraser provides historical context to many of the events (locusts, railway expansion, economic panics) discussed in Wilder's books. She also describes the lives of Wilder's immediate family, including her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. In this thoroughly researched work, Fraser uses correspondence, diaries, and personal papers to debunk the theory that Lane ghostwrote the "Little House" series. Citing from original manuscripts, Fraser acknowledges that Lane assisted her mother in editing and rewriting certain passages, but the writing was Wilder's at the core. Fraser frequently portrays Lane negatively. Lane embraced libertarianism, despised the New Deal, and often flouted journalistic ethics. Unlike her mother, with whom she had a difficult relationship, Lane was a spendthrift and frequently in debt. Fraser reveals the real people behind the Little House myth. VERDICT An excellent work that will appeal to readers interested in the "Little House" books and the historical events they depict.-Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus A sensitive biography of the author of Little House on the Prairie.Many books about Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) have stirred up controversy about her writing career and political views. William Holtz's The Ghost in the Little House (1993) ascribes considerable authorship to Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane; Christine Woodside's Libertarians on the Prairie (2016) presents compelling evidence for Wilder's ultraconservatism. Fraser (Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution, 2009, etc.), editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House books, offers a cleareyed and well-documented examination of Wilder's life, writings, and career; her relationship with Rose; and her politics. Deeply respectful of Wilder as a writer, she deems Little House on the Prairie "a classic work" and "a cultural monument" that, although fiction, tells "the truth about settlement, about homesteading," and about farmers' "astonishing feats of survival," which Wilder experienced firsthand. As a child, she was "constantly uprooted and often imperiled"; married at 18, she faced years of "exhaustion, failure, and regret." After her husband was crippled in an accident, compromising his ability to farm, Wilder, in addition to farm work, took odd jobs. When Rose, a journalist, suggested publishing as a way to make money, Wilder eagerly recorded memories of prairie life. Rose served as editor. Fraser portrays the domineering Rose as erratic, angry, depressive, and self-destructive, repeatedly causing "ruination to herself, bringing her life down around her ears." She compulsively poured money into house renovations and lavish travel, often leaving herself destitute. Like her mother, she was adamantly opposed to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal; she was anti-Semitic, "an apologist for dictatorial regimes," and a champion of Ayn Rand's work. The literary collaboration between mother and daughter was "a competition" between "Wilder's plain, unadorned, fact-based approach versus Lane's polished, dramatic, and fictionalized one. In Wilder's autobiographical work, truth' would become a battlefield." What emerged was a nostalgic life story, "reimagined as an American tale of progress," that catapulted Wilder to fame. A vivid portrait of frontier life and one of its most ardent celebrants. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Generations of readers believe they learned all about pioneer life on the prairie from Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved "Little House" novels. However, Fraser's brilliant biography of their enigmatic author shows a truth much darker and more complex than her cozy autobiographical children's fiction. This penetrating and heavily researched examination of Wilder's life, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and property and financial records, shows the homesteaders' endless, soul-crushing struggle against starvation and financial ruin as they migrated across the harsh environment of the American West. Squarely placing the novels into their historical, cultural, and ecological context, Fraser, editor of the Library of America editions of the "Little House" books, demythologizes and deepens our understanding of Wilder's sunny tales of American opportunism and self--sufficiency. For instance, the heavy-handed role of the federal government in encouraging westward migration (then often abandoning settlers in times of need) as well as the heartbreaking treatment of Native Americans is only hinted at in Wilder's books. Maintaining a warm, enthusiastic tone for more than 21 hours and smoothly switching between detailed historical accounts and Wilder family stories, narrator Christina Moore offers an exceptional performance. VERDICT This will find a welcome audience in all libraries. ["An excellent work that will appeal to readers interested in the "Little House" books and the historical events they depict": LJ 11/15/17 starred review of the Metropolitan: Holt hc.]-Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly The autobiographical Little House on the Prairie novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) occupy a curious space between national mythology, self-reinvention, and truth, as this overlong but engrossing biography from Fraser (Rewilding the World) makes clear. Lovers of the series will delight in learning about real-life counterparts to classic fictional episodes, but, as Fraser emphasizes, the true story was often much harsher. Meticulously tracing the Ingalls and Wilder families' experiences through public records and private documents, Fraser discovers failed farm ventures and constant money problems, as well as natural disasters even more terrifying and devastating in real life than in Wilder's writing. She also helpfully puts Wilder's narrow world into larger historical context, showing that the books' self-sufficient farmers were more dependent on federal assistance than Wilder depicted in her novels. Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, emerges as an integral character in her mother's later life. Lane, a professional author in her own right, vigorously edited her mother's manuscripts, though Fraser debunks the myth that Lane ghostwrote the books. But their relationship was a fraught one, and Fraser paints an unflattering portrait of Lane's dishonesty and descent into right-wing paranoia. She concludes by examining Wilder's pop cultural legacy. Fraser's exploration of Wilder's life opens her subject to new scrutiny, which, for Wilder's many fans, may be both exhilarating and disconcerting. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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2018 (General Nonfiction)
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
Click to search this book in our catalog   James Forman Jr.

Library Journal Washington, DC, public defender-turned- Yale University clinical law professor Forman traces the growth of the carceral state that now holds behind bars about one in every four adult black males. Taking a different turn from much of the literature on the topic, the author focuses on black-on-black attitudes and actions as he recollects his Washington experience. He argues that beginning in the 1970s, with a rising generation of unprecedented black political power, elected black leaders and their constituents significantly shaped U.S. criminal justice policy, invariably supporting tough on crime measures as fearful black communities sought self-protection. The result in Washington was that a majority black jurisdiction ended up incarcerating many of its own, Forman concludes. VERDICT Forman's series of brief essays deserve reading by policy-makers and practitioners in the criminal justice system, as well as by general readers. His attention to the range of black responses to crime and punishment adds to our understanding of the prison system, while not discounting the enduring role of discrimination. [See Prepub Alert, 10/10/16.]-Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Book list Forman is a former Washington, D.C., public defender, the cofounder of a charter school there, and the son of one of the founders of SNCC, James Forman. He writes about the interrelated topics of the senseless killing of African American men by police; the shocking fact that one-third of young black men (one-half in Washington) are under criminal-justice supervision of some sort; and the larger but equally shocking reality that the U.S. is the world's biggest jailer. Before profiling individuals involved with the criminal-justice system in Washington, from politicians and police to accused criminals and crime victims, he traces the history leading up to the present crisis, noting that in the 1970s many African American leaders favored a tougher criminal-justice system, including strict sentencing laws, but showing how these policies have backfired. His case-study approach, looking closely at these sweeping problems through the lens of one metropolitan area, offers a powerful, gut-wrenching slant on the subject, much like that in Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy (2014). For a broader perspective, readers should also consult Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow (2010).--Levine, Mark Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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2017 (Fiction)
The Underground Railroad
Click to search this book in our catalog   Colson Whitehead
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2017 (History)
Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
Click to search this book in our catalog   Heather Ann Thompson

Choice Thompson (Univ. of Michigan) has written a powerful, balanced account of the inhuman conditions that sparked the 1971 Attica prison riot, the agonizing days of negotiations when the inmates demanded to be treated as human beings, and the prison's armed retaking by New York State troopers and correction officers--despite both sides' wishes for continuing negotiations. A hail of bullets killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages, and wounded over 100 others. Following the retaking, surviving inmates suffered brutal physical, psychological, and racial abuse from both correctional officers and state police. Thompson's impeccable research and writing repulses and sickens readers as she recounts horrific descriptions of inhumanity. She chronicles the next 30 years as first inmates and then hostages or their families sought legal redress from a broken system. Throughout, New York State has remained steadfast in its refusal to accept responsibility. Whether one believes the inmates got what they deserved or that the armed assault was totally unnecessary, readers will find Thompson's objectivity beyond remarkable. Although conditions at Attica are worse today, the author remains hopeful as prisoners continue to struggle for humane treatment. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Library Journal Even after 45 years, the uprising at the New York State prison in Attica holds its fascination. In September 1971, the inmates took over the prison for four days until Gov. Nelson Rockefeller sent in troops to quell it. In the course of events, 43 inmates and guards were killed and many personal stories evolved. In contrast to the far shorter version by Tom Wicker (A Time To Die), Thompson's (history, Univ. of Michigan; Whose Detroit?) full-length account begins with the warning signs that were ignored, a day-to-day chronicle of the uprising, and for most of the book, details of the aftermath of political repercussions. Readers beware: it is a mammoth volume, with no letup of material. For the most part, Thompson is on the side of the inmates, but she does acknowledge that the guards were victims, too. Furthermore, she brings to light the most subtle forms of government corruption within the prison system. All in all, a dramatic retelling of a memorable event in our history and a cry for justice in the face of institutional authority. Verdict A must for anyone involved in the criminal justice system; also for the general reader interested in prisons with a lot of time on their hands.-Frances O. Sandiford, formerly with Green Haven Correctional Facility Lib., Stormville, NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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2017 (Biography)
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
Click to search this book in our catalog   Hisham Matar

Kirkus Novelist Matar (Anatomy of a Disappearance, 2011, etc.) returns to his native Libya in 2012 following a three-decade exile.At the center of this moving and vividly documented memoir is the author's quest to find answers to his father's disappearance in 1990. Jaballa Matar had formerly worked for the Libyan delegation to the United States yet later became an influential political dissident who, in reacting against Muammar Gaddafi's revolutionary regime, was forced to flee with his family from their home in Tripoli to Cairo. A decade later, while the author was a student in London, his father was kidnapped in the streets of Cairo by forces in the Libyan government. Though his eventual whereabouts would remain uncertain, he was likely held prisoner in the notorious Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, where he may have perished in the 1996 massacre of over 1,200 prisoners. Matar provides an intimate and absorbing account of the complex political events that would eventually lead to Gaddafi's downfall. As he shifts his focus between past and present events, allowing details of his father's disappearance to slowly and subtly emerge, he reveals a suspense novelist's seasoned instincts. In his ruminations on returning to a long-forgotten family and country, and the consequences of time passing, he applies a poet's sensibility. "Somebody would be telling an anecdote and midway through I would realize I had heard it before," he writes. "It seemed as if everyone else's development had been linear, allowed to progress naturally in the known environment, and therefore each of them seemed to have remained linked, even if begrudgingly or in disagreement, to the original setting-off point. At times I was experiencing a kind of distance-sickness, a state in which not only the ground was unsteady but also time and space." A beautifully written, harrowing story of a son's search for his father and how the impact of inexplicable loss can be unrelenting while the strength of family and cultural ties can ultimately sustain. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list Matar envies mourners at funerals. Unlike him, they have the luxury of knowing that their loved ones are dead. The uncertainty about what became of his father after he was incarcerated in a prison in Tripoli has haunted Matar's years of living away from his homeland of Libya. After several decades, novelist Matar returns to the country in this elegiac memoir. His father was a high-ranking military officer when Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power, and was imprisoned before being exiled. Those Matar's father associated with in his efforts against the Qaddafi regime many of them relatives met similar fates. Matar recounts their stories, the precious few details he was able to collect about his father, and his own anguish in the twilight of uncertainty following his father's presumed death. It is a testament to the power of his story that his own search campaign, involving human-rights organizations and both the Libyan and British governments, takes second place to the bitter poignance of his journey home. With muscular elegance, Matar demonstrates that hope can be a form of agony.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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2017 (General Nonfiction)
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Click to search this book in our catalog   Matthew Desmond

Choice Harvard sociologist Desmond has written a first-rate ethnography of a surprisingly understudied phenomenon. When he found that most studies of poor people and poor places looked only at the poor, he decided to study where the poor and rich intersect. Eviction is one such place. This study mostly reports the lives of Milwaukeeans, black and white, poor tenants and rich landlords. Desmond spent a year living with them. He then commissioned surveys to bolster the big-picture context of the ethnography, both of renters in general and of evicted tenants in particular. The statistics are used very lightly--readers mostly hear the stories of a few representative people. Policy prescriptions are saved for the end. The constant churning of the slums tears at the social fabric, rippling out from the poor places to all of society. This fine work will shape the discussion of a sharply growing trend, the business of evicting the poor. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Beau Weston, Centre College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Kirkus A groundbreaking work on the central role of housing in the lives of the poor. Based on two years (2008-2009) spent embedded with eight poor families in Milwaukee, Desmond (Sociology and Social Science/Harvard Univ.; On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters, 2007, etc.) delivers a gripping, novelistic narrative exploring the ceaseless cycle of "making rent, delaying eviction, or finding another place to live when homeless" as experienced by adults and children, both black and white, surviving in trailer parks and ghettos. "We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty," writes the author. Once rare, eviction is now commonplace for millions of Americans each year, most often as a result of insufficient government support, rising rent and utility costs, and stagnant incomes. Having gained unusual access to these families, Desmond immerses us in the lives of Sherrena Tarver, a teacher-turned-landlord who rents inner-city units to the black poor; Tobin Charney, who nets more than $400,000 yearly on 131 poorly maintained trailers rented (at $550 a month) to poor whites; and disparate tenants who struggle to make rent for cramped, decrepit units plagued by poor plumbing, lack of heat, and code violations. The latter include Crystal, 18, raised in more than two dozen foster homes, who moved in with three garbage bags of clothes, and Arleen, a single mother, who contacted more than 80 apartment owners in her search for a new home. Their frantic experiencesthey spend an astonishing 70 to 80 percent of their incomes on rentmake for harrowing reading, interspersed with moving moments revealing their resilience and humanity. "All this suffering is shameful and unnecessary," writes Desmond, who bolsters his stories with important new survey findings. He argues that universal housing vouchers and publicly funded legal services for the evicted (90 percent lack attorneys in housing courts) would help alleviate this growing, often overlooked housing crisis. This stunning, remarkable booka scholar's 21st-century How the Other Half Livesdemands a wide audience. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list *Starred Review* It's hard to paint a slumlord as a sympathetic character, but Harvard professor Desmond manages to do so in this compelling look at home evictions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of America's most segregated cities. Two landlords are profiled here: Sherrena, who owns dozens of dilapidated units on Milwaukee's infamous North Side, and Tobin, who runs a trailer park on the South Side. They're in it to make money, to be sure, but they also have a tendency to rent to those in need and to look the other way. More often than not, however, they find themselves hauling tenants to eviction court, and here we meet eight families. Among them are Arleen, a single mother dragging her two youngest sons across town in urgent search of a warm, safe place; Scott, a drug addict desperate to crawl up from rock bottom; and Larraine, who loses all of her belongings when she's evicted. Desmond's natural storytelling style easily moves from engaging narrative (at times a tad florid, particularly when describing events he was not present for) to straight reporting. He does a marvelous job telling these harrowing stories of people who find themselves in bad situations, shining a light on how eviction sets people up to fail. He also makes the case that eviction disproportionately affects women (and, worse, their children). This is essential reading for anyone interested in social justice, poverty, and feminist issues, but its narrative nonfiction style will also draw general readers.--Vnuk, Rebecca Copyright 2016 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Library Journal Desmond's (sociology, Harvard Univ.) eye-opening and revelatory book clearly conveys that one will never truly understand poverty without grappling with the crisis of precarious housing. The narrative follows the lives of several families and individuals living in some of the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee and tracks their harrowing searches for affordable shelter. This nearly futile pursuit of home is made worse by an uncaring bureaucracy. Desmond lays out evidence that the relationships between landlords and low-income tenants and the apparatus that supports the status quo-eviction courts being one conspicuous piece-are thoroughly broken. This timely examination of some of the root causes of systemic poverty is flawlessly read by Dion Graham. VERDICT A copy of Evicted should be in every public library and in the hands of every politician. ["This resource is highly recommended for academic libraries as well as public-policy advocates seeking to understand issues relating to the lack of affordable housing": LJ 1/16 starred review of the Crown hc.]--Denis Frias, -Mississauga Lib. Syst., Ont. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Gripping storytelling and meticulous research undergird this outstanding ethnographic study, in which Desmond (On the Fireline), an associate professor of sociology at Harvard, explores the impact of eviction on poverty-stricken families in Milwaukee, Wis. Living first in a rundown trailer park with predominantly white tenants and then in an African-American inner-city neighborhood, Desmond conducted fieldwork by observing and asking questions of his neighbors; later, he collected extensive data about eviction specifically in the private rental market. The book reveals the concentrated suffering of people repeatedly faced with the loss of their homes. He shares the stories of Lamar, a double amputee raising adolescent boys; Scott, who tries to conquer his heroin addiction and return to his nursing career; single mom Arleen, her sons, and their cat, Little; and five other families. In one gut-wrenching scene, Desmond shadows a moving crew as they evict numerous households in one day, finding in one tenant's face "the look of someone realizing that her family would be homeless in a matter of hours." Desmond identifies affordable housing as a leading social justice issue of our time and offers concrete solutions to the crisis. Agent: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim and Williams. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Realizing that "poverty (is) a relationship," Desmond (social science, Harvard Univ.; Racial Domination, Racial Progress) reflects on the eviction process after spending more than a year living in Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin, and one with a history of segregation. He tells stories of families facing eviction alongside the perspective of their landlords, neither glorifying the poor, nor vilifying the landlords. Finding no data on the frequency and causes of eviction, Desmond designed a study to survey Milwaukee's rental population. He found that one in eight renters had experienced "involuntary housing displacement" and were spending significantly more than 30 percent of their income on housing. The fieldwork and the survey led to his recommendations, which include offering a universal housing voucher program, regulating landlord profit margins, and providing legal counsel for those facing eviction. Extensive notes also make important points surrounding this relevant issue. VERDICT This resource is highly recommended for academic libraries as well as public-policy advocates seeking to understand issues relating to the lack of affordable housing.-Karen Venturella, Union Cty. Coll. Libs, Cranford, NJ © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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