Washoe County Library System

''A fascinating examination of what "the pursuit of happiness" meant to our nation's Founders and how that famous phrase defined their lives and became the foundation of our democracy. The Declaration of Independence identified "the pursuit of happiness" as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center, profiles six of the most influential founders—Benjamin Franklin,...

"The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend...

With her husband and son off at war, and the burden of running the farm falling to her, Joetta, shunned because she doesn't support the Confederacy's position on slavery, finds one act of kindness bringing her family to the edge of even greater disaster.

"A guide to contemporary Judaism by law professor and public intellectual Noah Feldman"-- "A leading public intellectual's timely reckoning with how Jews can and should make sense of their tradition and each other. What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion...

"Part history and part cultural analysis, The Grift chronicles the nuanced history of Black Republicans. Clay Cane lays out how Black Republicanism has been mangled by opportunists who are apologists for racism. After the Civil War, the pillars of Black Republicanism were a balanced critique of both political parties, civil rights for all Americans, reinventing an economy based on exploitation, and, most importantly, building thriving Black communities....

"As culture wars pit us against each other, A Great Disorder looks to the myths that have shaped American identity and reveals how they have brought us to the brink of an existential crisis. Red America and Blue America are so divided they could be two different countries, with wildly diverging views of why government exists and who counts as American. Their ideologies are grounded in different versions of American history, endorsing irreconcilable...

"Lively, timely and gloriously energetic. Each page bursts with life, and every chapter swirls with personalities left out of traditional narratives of Britain’s past. Philippa Gregory has produced something rare and wonderful: a genuinely new history of [Britain], with women at its beating heart." —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets "Stunning. . . . Full of surprises. . . . A brilliant, essential read." —The Independent...

""A work of extraordinary reportage and compassion...[it] will shock you, move you, and leave you changed." ���Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Evicted and Poverty, by America "An enlightening, frightening, unforgettable read." ���Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street An intense, intimate and first-of-its-kind look at the world of human smuggling in Latin America,...

"Amitav Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family-the climax of a yearslong project"-- "Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Foreign Policy, Literary Hub, and The Millions Ghosh unravels the impact of the opium trade on global history and in his own family — the climax of a yearslong project. When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis Trilogy, he was startled...

"A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country's history. Distilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s legendary Harvard introductory course in African American Studies, The Black Box: Writing the Race, is the story of Black self-definition in...