Washoe County Library System

"It’s not just computers―hacking is everywhere. Legendary cybersecurity expert and New York Times best-selling author Bruce Schneier reveals how using a hacker’s mindset can change how you think about your life and the world. A hack is any means of subverting a system’s rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn’t computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them “loopholes.” We call exploits “tax...

Set 15 years after events in the Handmaid's tale, the theocratic regime in Gilead is beginning to show signs of rotting from within. At this crucial moment in time, the lives of three women converge. One is from Gilead, the privileged daughter of an important Commander; one is from Canada, where she marches in protests; and one is an enforcer for the regime, a woman whose power comes from secrets. When secrets bring the women together, there are explosive...

Chronicles the true story of twenty-six men who attempted to cross the Mexican border into the southern Arizona desert known as the Devil's Highway, describing how the men struggled to survive the desert's harsh conditions and why only twelve survived the journey. This important book from a Pulitzer Prize finalist follows the brutal journey a group of men take to cross the Mexican border: "the single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary...

How to Argue With a Racist emphatically dismantles outdated notions of race by illuminating what modern genetics actually can and can’t tell us about human difference. We now know that the racial categories still dividing us do not align with observable genetic differences. In fact, our differences are so minute that, most of all, they serve as evidence of our shared humanity.

''Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Excellence This witty personal and cultural history of travel from the perspective of a Third World-raised woman of color, Airplane Mode, asks: what does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change? The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the color of passports and the color of skin. The color of one’s skin and passport have...

"In this riveting feat of reporting, Kashmir Hill illuminates the improbable rise of Clearview AI and how Hoan Ton-That, a computer engineer and Richard Schwartz, a Giuliani associate, launched a terrifying facial recognition app with society-altering potential. They were assisted by a cast of controversial characters, including conservative provocateur Charles Johnson and billionaire Trump backer Peter Thiel. The app can scan a blurry portrait, and,...

Drought-hit regions bleeding those for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled...

"United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future. Called "one of the nation's most effective communicators on climate change" by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats,...

Pollster Mark Penn argues that the biggest trends in America are microtrends, the smaller trends that go unnoticed or ignored. One million people can create new market for a business, spark a social movement, or effect political change. In 1996, a microtrend identified by Penn ("soccer moms") helped re-elect Clinton. Now, Penn identifies the new microtrends sweeping the world, from Extreme Commuters and Working Retired to Old New Dads, from Bourgeois...

In this concise, lively look at the past, present, and future of voting, a journalist examines the long and continuing fight for voting equality, why so few Americans today vote, and innovative ways to educate and motivate them; included are checklists of what to do before election day to prepare to vote and encourage others.