Allow Me to Retort

Allow Me to Retort

Author: Elie Mystal

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2023-05-09

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 162097813X

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Finalist, ABA Silver Gavel Award for Books The New York Times bestseller that has cemented Elie Mystal’s reputation as one of our sharpest and most acerbic legal minds “After reading Allow Me to Retort, I want Elie Mystal to explain everything I don’t understand—quantum astrophysics, the infield fly rule, why people think Bob Dylan is a good singer . . .” —Michael Harriot, The Root Allow Me to Retort is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past. Mystal brings his trademark humor, expertise, and rhetorical flair to explain concepts like substantive due process and the right for the LGBTQ community to buy a cake, and to arm readers with the knowledge to defend themselves against conservatives who want everybody to live under the yoke of eighteenth-century white men. The same tactics Mystal uses to defend the idea of a fair and equal society on MSNBC and CNN are in this book, for anybody who wants to deploy them on social media. You don’t need to be a legal scholar to understand your own rights. You don’t need to accept the “whites only” theory of equality pushed by conservative judges. You can read this book to understand that the Constitution is trash, but doesn’t have to be.


In Love

In Love

Author: Amy Bloom

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2022-03-08

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0593243943

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful memoir of a love that leads two people to find a courageous way to part—and a woman’s struggle to go forward in the face of loss—that “enriches the reader’s life with urgency and gratitude” (The Washington Post) “A pleasure to read . . . Rarely has a memoir about death been so full of life. . . . Bloom has a talent for mixing the prosaic and profound, the slapstick and the serious.”—USA Today ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease. Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace. In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing—its ending. Written in Bloom’s captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.


Killing and Dying

Killing and Dying

Author: Adrian Tomine

Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 1770464298

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Killing and Dying is a stunning showcase of the possibilities of the graphic novel medium and a wry exploration of loss, creative ambition, identity, and family dynamics. With this work, Adrian Tomine (Shortcomings, Scenes from an Impending Marriage) reaffirms his place not only as one of the most significant creators of contemporary comics but as one of the great voices of modern American literature. His gift for capturing emotion and intellect resonates here: the weight of love and its absence, the pride and disappointment of family, the anxiety and hopefulness of being alive in the twenty-first century. "Amber Sweet" shows the disastrous impact of mistaken identity in a hyper-connected world; "A Brief History of the Art Form Known as Hortisculpture" details the invention and destruction of a vital new art form in short comic strips; "Translated, from the Japanese" is a lush, full-color display of storytelling through still images; the title story, "Killing and Dying", centers on parenthood, mortality, and stand-up comedy. In six interconnected, darkly funny stories, Tomine forms a quietly moving portrait of contemporary life. Tomine is a master of the small gesture, equally deft at signaling emotion via a subtle change of expression or writ large across landscapes illustrated in full color. Killing and Dying is a fraught, realist masterpiece.


The Lie

The Lie

Author: Helen Dunmore

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 0802192548

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A British World War I veteran returns to Cornwall in this “enthralling novel of love and devastating loss” from an Orange Prize winner (Good Housekeeping). Cornwall, 1920: Infantry officer Daniel Branwell has returned to his coastal hometown after the war. Unmoored and alone, Daniel spends his days in solitude, quietly working the land. However, all is not as it seems in the peaceful idylls of the countryside; and although he has left the trenches, Daniel cannot escape his dreadful past. As former friendships reignite, Daniel is drawn deeper and deeper into the tangled traumas of his youth and the memories of his best friend and his first love. Old wounds reopen, and old troubles resurface—though none so great as the lie that threatens to ruin Daniel’s life, the lie from which he cannot run. Told with breathtaking poise and exacting suspense, The Lie is a haunting journey through the mind of a tormented man as he tries to fit the pieces of his shattered past together. “Devastating and triumphant . . . wholly satisfying. Endings are often the hardest beast for an author to tame, but Dunmore does it, with elegance, vigor and clarity.” —The Denver Post


The Club

The Club

Author: Ellery Lloyd

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-03-01

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0062997440

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A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Are you ready for the roller coaster ride that is The Club? . . . A beautifully written, densely plotted murder mystery that takes place at a private club off the coast of England. Read about a luxurious, celeb-only island during a weekend of partying and ultimately murder.” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club March ’22 Pick) From the author of People Like Her comes a smart and sinister murder mystery set in the secretive world of exclusive celebrity clubs. Everyone's Dying to Join . . . The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members' clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. The most spectacular of all is Island Home—a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast—and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade. But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide—and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list. Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out.


Fool's Gold

Fool's Gold

Author: Mark Y. Herring

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-09

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0786453931

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This work skeptically explores the notion that the internet will soon obviate any need for traditional print-based academic libraries. It makes a case for the library's staying power in the face of technological advancements (television, microfilm, and CD-ROM's were all once predicted as the contemporary library's heir-apparent), and devotes individual chapters to the pitfalls and prevarications of popular search engines, e-books, and the mass digitization of traditional print material.


Information Literacy and Libraries in the Age of Fake News

Information Literacy and Libraries in the Age of Fake News

Author: Denise E. Agosto

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2018-10-12

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1440864195

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Going beyond the fake news problem, this book tackles the broader issue of teaching library users of all types how to become more critical consumers and sharers of information. As a public, school, or academic librarian or educator, you can help library users to become more conscious and responsible consumers of information. As you read, you'll gain a better understanding and appreciation of the core concepts involved in promoting critical information literacy, such as information ethics, media literacy, and civic education. You'll also learn the history of fake news and come away with practical ideas in mind for strategies to apply in your library. Chapters contributed by leading experts in public, academic, and school library services are written in plain, everyday language that librarians and library school students can easily understand and relate to their own experiences as information users, especially their experiences in social media and other online venues where sharing false information takes only a click.


Palaces for the People

Palaces for the People

Author: Eric Klinenberg

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2018-09-11

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1524761184

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“A comprehensive, entertaining, and compelling argument for how rebuilding social infrastructure can help heal divisions in our society and move us forward.”—Jon Stewart NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • “Engaging.”—Mayor Pete Buttigieg, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn’t seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together and find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done? In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed. Interweaving his own research with examples from around the globe, Klinenberg shows how “social infrastructure” is helping to solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. Richly reported and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People offers a blueprint for bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION “Just brilliant!”—Roman Mars, 99% Invisible “The aim of this sweeping work is to popularize the notion of ‘social infrastructure'—the ‘physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact'. . . . Here, drawing on research in urban planning, behavioral economics, and environmental psychology, as well as on his own fieldwork from around the world, [Eric Klinenberg] posits that a community’s resilience correlates strongly with the robustness of its social infrastructure. The numerous case studies add up to a plea for more investment in the spaces and institutions (parks, libraries, childcare centers) that foster mutual support in civic life.”—The New Yorker “Palaces for the People—the title is taken from the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s description of the hundreds of libraries he funded—is essentially a calm, lucid exposition of a centuries-old idea, which is really a furious call to action.”—New Statesman “Clear-eyed . . . fascinating.”—Psychology Today


The Colored Conventions Movement

The Colored Conventions Movement

Author: P. Gabrielle Foreman

Publisher: John Hope Franklin African

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9781469654263

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"This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century's longest campaign for Black civil rights. Well before the founding of the NAACP and other twentieth-century pillars of the civil rights movement, tens of thousands of Black leaders organized state and national conventions across North America. Over seven decades, they advocated for social justice and against slavery, protesting state-sanctioned and mob violence while demanding voting, legal, labor, and educational rights. Collectively, these essays highlight the vital role of the Colored Conventions in the lives of thousands of early organizers, including many of the most famous writers, ministers, politicians, and entrepreneurs in the long history of Black activism"--