Nonfiction
Redemption songs : a year in the life of a community prison choir
Andy Douglas
615.85154 /Douglas
Nonfiction
"Redemption Songs" takes the reader inside the walls of a medium-security prison and offers a glimpse at how music and the arts are offering second chances to the incarcerated. For six years, the author volunteered with the Oakdale Community Choir, a performing chorus composed of volunteers and inmates, based in a men's correctional facility in Coralville, Iowa. As the gates clang shut behind choir volunteers each week, and we walk the long halls to the rehearsal room, the reader encounters the rewards and challenges of creating music in this environment, a place usually defined by trauma, danger, and control. But it's also, as we learn, a place where healing, atonement and growth can occur.--
Near the exit : travels with the not-so-grim reaper
Lori Erickson
236.1 /Erickson
Nonfiction
"After her brother died unexpectedly and her mother moved into a dementia-care facility, spiritual travel writer and Episcopal deacon Lori Erickson felt called to a new quest: to face death head on, with the eye of a tourist and the heart of a pastor. Blending memoir, spirituality, and travel, Near the Exit examines how cultures confront and have confronted death, from Egypt’s Valley of the Kings and Mayan temples, to a Colorado cremation pyre and Day of the Dead celebrations, to Maori settlements and tourist-destination graveyards. Erickson reflects on mortality—the ways we avoid it, the ways we cope with it, and the ways life is made more precious by accepting it—in places as far away as New Zealand and as close as the nursing home up the street. Throughout her personal journey and her travels, Erickson helps us to see that one of the most life-affirming things we can do is to invite death along for the ride." (Amazon Summary)
Added by Becky
The myth of Seneca Falls : memory and the women's suffrage movement, 1848-1898
Lisa Tetrault
eBOOK
Nonfiction
"The story of how the women's rights movement began at the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 is a cherished American myth. The standard account credits founders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott with defining and then leading the campaign for women's suffrage. In her provocative new history, Lisa Tetrault demonstrates that Stanton, Anthony, and their peers gradually created and popularized this origins story during the second half of the nineteenth century in response to internal movement dynamics as well as the racial politics of memory after the Civil War"--
Added by Becky
When you learn the alphabet
Kendra Allen
814.6 /Allen
Nonfiction
"Kendra Allen's first collection of essays When You Learn the Alphabet--at its core--is a bunch of mad stories about things she never learned to let go of. Unifying personal narrative and cultural commentary, this collection grapples with the lessons that have been stored between father and daughter as well as mother and daughter. These parental relationships expose the conditioning that subconsciously informed and encouraged her ideas on social issues such as colorism, feminism, war-induced PTSD, homophobia, marriage, and 'the n-word, ' among other things"--
Added by Becky
God land : a story of faith, loss, and renewal in Middle America
Lyz Lenz
261.7 /Lenz
Nonfiction
Through a thoughtful interrogation of the effects of faith and religion on our lives, our relationships, and our country, God Land investigates whether our divides can ever be bridged and if America can ever come together.
Added by Becky
A history of the world in seven cheap things : a guide to capitalism, nature, and the future of the planet
Raj Patel
303.44 /Patel
Nonfiction
"Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today's planetary emergencies. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding--and reclaiming--the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century"--Provided by publisher.
Added by Becky
The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals
Michael Pollan
641.3 /Pollan
Nonfiction
What should we have for dinner? When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods might shorten your life. Pollan follows each of the food chains--industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves--from the source to the final meal, always emphasizing our coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on.
Such an interesting and well-researched book about America's food culture. It really makes you think about where your meals are coming from and the influences surrounding food creation. -Becky
The library book
Susan Orlean
027.4794 /Orlean
Nonfiction
"Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago"--
Added by Beth
Maid : hard work, low pay, and a mother's will to survive
Stephanie Land
331.481 /Land
Nonfiction
A journalist describes the years she worked in low-paying domestic work under wealthy employers, contrasting the privileges of the upper-middle class to the realities of the overworked laborers supporting them.
Added by Beth
Girl, wash your face : stop believing the lies about who you are so you can become who you were meant to be
Rachel (Event planner) Hollis
248.843 /Hollis
Nonfiction, Self Help
Drawing from her life experiences as a lifestyle guru, the author presents a guide to becoming a joyous, confident woman by breaking the cycle of negativity and burnout and pursuing a life of exuberance. With unflinching faith-- and rock-hard tenacity-- Hollis shows readers how to give yourself grace without giving up.
Added by Beth
Added by Becky