Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions

These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.

Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.

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To a mountain in Tibet

By Thubron, Colin

Publishing Date: c2011

Classification: 900

Call Number: 915.1 THU

Offers an intimate travelogue of the author's trek to Kailas, the holiest mountain in Tibet, in the wake of the death of his mother and the loss of his family.

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Sandstone seduction: rivers and lovers, canyons and friends

By Lee, Katie

Publishing Date: c2004

Classification: 900

Call Number: 917.9 LEE

Lee's earthy Arizona memoir, peppered with b&w photos of men, friends, rocks, and rivers, limns her love affair with the Southwest, where she grew up in the 1940s. Lee has been a singer, actress, musicologist, and activist on behalf of wilderness, but it's her skill as a storyteller that's the point here. Essays, recollections, journal entries, and snippets of letters ramble through the years like water through Lee's beloved Glen Canyon. The memoir is not indexed. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News)

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All we know: three lives

By Cohen, Lisa

Publishing Date: 2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 920.72 COH

Chronicles the lives of New York intellectual Esther Murphy, celebrity ephemera collector Mercedes de Acosta, and British Vogue editor Madge Garland and their lifestyles, influence on fashion, and celebrity friendships.

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Stubborn twig: three generations in the life of a Japanese American family

By Kessler, Lauren

Publishing Date: c1993

Classification: 900

Call Number: 929.2 KES

A harrowing recounting of a shameful chapter in American history. Kessler (Journalism/University of Oregon; After All These Years, 1990) is writing as much about one particular immigrant family as about all those malevolent ills that lie beneath the surface only to burst into virulent bloom in times of national stress. By the early 1930's, and despite the Depression, Japanese immigrant Masuo Yasui could be described as a success. Emigrating from Japan at the age of 16, he'd settled in Hood River, Oregon, converted to Christianity, and come to own more than a thousand acres of prime land, a flourishing general store, and numerous franchises. Meanwhile, his son became the first Japanese-American to graduate from law school, while Masuo's six other children were either in, or en route to, college. But Pearl Harbor ended it all, although Kessler notes the growing anti-Asian sentiment in the preceding years: In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that Japanese immigrants could not become naturalized citizens; the Oregon Alien Law made Japanese land-ownership illegal; and the 1924 National Origins Act defined Japanese immigrants as "undesirable.'' After war was declared, Masuo's wife and most of his children were interned, while Masuo himself, arrested and not freed until after the war, lost most of his property, as well as his standing in the community, and later committed suicide. Masuo's son led the legal fight for reparations, his generation understanding how fragile their place was in American society and determined to "prove themselves better in order to be considered equal.'' Now, the third generation, after an "almost aggressive acculturation at the hands of their parents,'' struggles to find its own identity. A somber but illuminating reminder of the perniciousness of prejudice--and of the terrible toll it exacts. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs--not seen) Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews

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Catastrophe 1914: Europe goes to war

By Hastings, Max

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 900

Call Number: 940.311 HAS

"From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: from the breakdown of diplomacy to the dramatic battles that occurred before the war bogged down in the trenches. World War I immediately evokes images of the trenches: grinding, halting battles that sacrificed millions of lives for no territory or visible gain. Yet the first months of the war, from the German invasion of Belgium to the Marne to Ypres, were utterly different, full of advances and retreats, tactical maneuvering, and significant gains and losses. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings re-creates this dramatic year, from the diplomatic crisis to the fighting in Belgium and France on the Western front, and Serbia and Galicia to the east. He gives vivid accounts of the battles and frank assessments of generals and political leaders, and shows why it was inevitable that this first war among modern industrial nations could not produce a decisive victory, making a war of attrition inevitable. Throughout we encounter high officials and average soldiers, as well as civilians on the homefront, giving us a vivid portrait of how a continent became embroiled in a war that would change everything"--

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NEW RELEASE

First to fly: the story of the Lafayette Escadrille, the American heroes who flew for France in World War I

By Flood, Charles Bracelen

Publishing Date: [2015]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 940.4 FLO

Tells the story of the daredevil Americans of the Lafayette Escadrille, who flew in French planes, wore French uniforms, and showed the world an American brand of heroism before the United States entered the Great War.

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NEW RELEASE

Dead wake: the last crossing of the Lusitania

By Larson, Erik

Publishing Date: [2015]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 940.4514 LAR

The #1 New York Times best-selling author of In the Garden of Beasts presents a 100th-anniversary chronicle of the sinking of the Lusitania that discusses the factors that led to the tragedy and the contributions of such figures as President Wilson, bookseller Charles Lauriat and architect Theodate Pope Riddle.

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The unquiet Nisei: an oral history of the life of Sue Kunitomi Embrey

By Bahr, Diana Meyers

Publishing Date: 2007

Classification: 900

Call Number: 940.53 BAH

An oral-history-based biography of a seminal Asian-American activist. The book traces Embrey's life from her youth in the Little Tokyo section of Los Angeles, to her harrowing experiences in the Japanese internment camps, to her many decades of passionate advocacy on behalf of her fellow internees. - (McMillan Palgrave)

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Vanished: the sixty-year search for the missing men of World War II

By Hylton, Wil S.

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 900

Call Number: 940.54 HYL

" From a mesmerizing storyteller, the gripping search for a missing World War II crew, their bomber plane, and their legacy. On September 1, 1944, a massive American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the tiny Pacific archipelago of Palau, leaving behind a trail of mysteries. For more than sixty years, the U.S. government, the children of the missing airmen, and a maverick team of scientists and scuba divers searched the archipelago for clues with cutting-edge technology and unyielding determination. They crawled through thickets of mangrove and slogged into groves of poison trees, flew over the islands in private planes shooting infrared photography, trolled the water with magnetometers and side-scan sonar, and launched grid searches on the seafloor, but the trail seemed to lead nowhere. Now, in a spellbinding narrative, Wil S. Hylton weaves together the true tale of the missing men, their final days, the loved ones left wondering, and the broad sweep of world events that converged upon their last mission. With more than 56,000 troops still missing, the Pacific theater of World War II accounts for two-thirds of all American MIAs over the past century. These soldiers have never been seen again. But our government has never stopped trying to find them, and for two generations, their families have passed down the wounds of war, unable to find closure in a story without an ending. This is the story of those missing soldiers, the families they left behind, and the legion of scientists, explorers, archeologists, and deep-sea divers who offered everything to finally give their story an ending"--

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The Plantagenets: the warrior kings and queens who made England

By Jones, Dan

Publishing Date: c2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 942.0309 JON

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this history, Jones resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world.

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Mayada, daughter of Iraq: one woman's survival under Saddam Hussein

By Sasson, Jean P.

Publishing Date: 2004

Classification: 900

Call Number: 956.7044 SAS

A member of one of the most distinguished and honored families in Iraq, Mayada grew up surrounded by wealth and royalty. But when Saddam Hussein's regime took power, she was thrown into cell 52 in the infamous Baladiyat prison with seventeen other nameless, faceless women from all walks of life. To ease their suffering, these shadow women passed each day by sharing their life stories. Now, through Jean Sasson, Mayada is finally able to tell her story - and theirs - to the world.

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Haiti: the aftershocks of history

By Dubois, Laurent

Publishing Date: 2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 972.94 DUB

Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti was known as a benighted place of poverty and corruption, and has often been blamed for its own wretchedness. But as historian Laurent Dubois makes clear, its difficulties are rooted in its founding revolution, the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world; the hostility that this rebellion generated among the colonial powers; and the intense struggle within Haiti itself to define its newfound freedom and realize its promise. Dubois vividly depicts the isolation and impoverishment that followed the 1804 uprising. He details how the indemnity imposed by the former French rulers initiated a devastating cycle of debt, while frequent interventions by the United States further undermined Haiti's independence. At the same time, Dubois shows, the internal debates about what Haiti should do with its hard-won liberty alienated the nation's leaders from the broader population, setting the stage for enduring political conflict. Yet the Haitian people have never given up on their struggle for true democracy.--From publisher description.

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The barbarous years: the peopling of British North America : the conflict of civilizations, 1600-1675

By Bailyn, Bernard

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.2 BAI

Surveying the founding British settlements of eastern North America, Bailyn, whose laurels include the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes, embeds the stories of Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts in details of the transatlantic demographic movements in play. Uprooting oneself required powerful motivations that Bailyn extracts from the emigrants' social origins in their home countries of England, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Bailyn shows news of the vanguards' fortunes being sent back to Europe to their sponsors, whose particular responses of raising funds, recruiting reinforcements, and propagating the attractions of America as commercial opportunity, escape from social stratification, or religious refuge generate Bailyn's narrative momentum through the first several generations of colonization. With such conceptual themes presiding over his presentation, Bailyn graphically emphasizes the settlement process as one of savage brutality, featuring common contempt for human life aggravated, to be sure, by primitive conditions and appalling death rates but epitomized in continual warfare with Indians, remorselessly tending toward their elimination. In Bailyn's perceptive and erudite hands, the original British, Dutch, and Swedish ventures assume as wild and variegated guises as did the forceful individuals who embarked on them. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Dear Abigail: the intimate lives and revolutionary ideas of Abigail Adams and her two remarkable sisters

By Jacobs, Diane

Publishing Date: [2014]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.4 JAC

"For readers of the historical works of Robert K. Massie, David McCulough, and Alison Weir comes the first biography on the life of Abigail Adams and her sisters. "Never sisters loved each other better than we."--Abigail Adams in a letter to her sister Mary, June 1776 Much has been written about the enduring marriage of President John Adams and his wife, Abigail. But few know of the equally strong bond Abigail shared with her sisters, Mary Cranch and Elizabeth Shaw Peabody, accomplished women in their own right. Now acclaimed biographer Diane Jacobs reveals their moving story, which unfolds against the stunning backdrop of America in its transformative colonial years. Abigail, Mary, and Elizabeth Smith grew up in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the close-knit daughters of a minister and his wife. When the sisters moved away from one another, they relied on near-constant letters--from what John Adams called their "elegant pen"--to buoy them through pregnancies, illnesses, grief, political upheaval, and, for Abigail, life in the White House. Infusing her writing with rich historical perspective and detail, Jacobs offers fascinating insight into these progressive women's lives: oldest sister Mary, who became de facto mayor of her small village; youngest sister Betsy, an aspiring writer who, along with her husband, founded the second coeducational school in the United States; and middle child Abigail, who years before becoming First Lady ran the family farm while her husband served in the Continental Congress, first in Philadelphia, and was then sent to France and England, where she joined him at last. This engaging narrative traces the sisters' lives from their childhood sibling rivalries to their eyewitness roles during the American Revolution and their adulthood as outspoken wives and mothers. They were women ahead of their time who believed in intellectual and educational equality between the sexes. Drawing from newly discovered correspondence, never-before-published diaries, and archival research, Dear Abigail is a fascinating front-row seat to history--and to the lives of three exceptional women who were influential during a time when our nation's democracy was just taking hold. Advance praise for Dear Abigail "In a beautifully wrought narrative, Diane Jacobs has brought the high-spirited, hyperarticulate Smith sisters, and the early years of the American republic, to rich, luminous life. A stunning, sensitive work of history."--Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra "Jacobs is a superb storyteller. In this sweeping narrative about family and friendship during the American Revolution, Abigail Adams emerges as one of the great political heroines of the eighteenth century. I fell in love with her all over again."--Amanda Foreman, New York Times bestselling author of A World on Fire. "Beauty, brains, and breeding--Elizabeth, Abigail, and Mary had them all. This absorbing history shows how these close-knit and well-educated daughters of colonial America become women of influence in the newly begotten United States. Jacobs's feel for the period is confident; so is her appreciation of the nuances of character."--Daniel Mark Epstein, author of The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage"--

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NEW RELEASE

Gateway to freedom: the hidden history of the underground railroad

By Foner, Eric

Publishing Date: [2015]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.7115 FON

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner relates the dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom.

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The patriarch: the remarkable life and turbulent times of Joseph P. Kennedy

By Nasaw, David

Publishing Date: 2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.9092 NAS

"Celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the story of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, in this, the first and only biography based on unrestricted and exclusive access to the Joseph P. Kennedy papers."--

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Days of fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House

By Baker, Peter

Publishing Date: [2013]

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.931 BAK

"From the senior White House correspondent for The New York Times comes the definitive history of the Bush and Cheney White House--a tour de force narrative of those dramatic and controversial eight years. Taking readers into the offices of the West Wing and the cabins of Air Force One, Peter Baker tells the gripping inside story of the Bush and Cheney era. Theirs was the most fascinating American partnership since Nixon and Kissinger, an untested president and his seasoned vice president confronted by one crisis after another as they struggled to protect the country, remake the world, and define their own relationship along the way. Packed with revealing anecdotes and told with in-the-room immediacy, Days of Fire narrates two profoundly significant and conflicted terms marked by 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, jihad, nuclear proliferation, genocide, and economic collapse. George W. Bush was one of the most polarizing presidents of our time, jettisoning decades of foreign policy pragmatism to redefine America's mission as a crusade to bring freedom to the world. Yet his early dream of transforming Republicans into the party of "compassionate conservatism" and building an "ownership society" were dashed by two consuming wars and a devastating financial crash. At his side was Dick Cheney, the trusted adviser who became the most influential vice president in history only to watch as Bush drifted away, leaving the two at odds over a wide array of fundamental issues. Baker's interviews with more than two hundred players--White House aides, cabinet secretaries, generals, senators and congressmen, relatives and friends of both men--help reveal the truth of their complicated and shifting relationship. Days of Fire is the first book to capture in a truly defining way all eight years of the most consequential presidency in a generation. It is an essential history and thrilling reading"--

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Barack Obama: the story

By Maraniss, David

Publishing Date: c2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.932 MAR

Based on hundreds of interviews and documents, this book chronicles the forces that shaped the first black president of the United States and explains why he thinks and acts as he does.

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American tapestry: the story of the black, white, and multiracial ancestors of Michelle Obama

By Swarns, Rachel L.

Publishing Date: c2012

Classification: 900

Call Number: 973.932 SWA

A family history traces the compelling story of Michelle Obama's ancestors, covering a journey from slavery to the White House in five generations that bears witness to the changes in the nation.

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The third coast: when Chicago built the American dream

By Dyja, Tom

Publishing Date: 2013

Classification: 900

Call Number: 977.311 DYJ

Much of what defined the nation as it grew into a superpower was produced in Chicago. Before air travel overtook trains, nearly every coast-to coast journey included a stop there, and this flow of people and commodities made it America's central clearinghouse, laboratory, and factory. And even as Chicago led the way in creating mass-market culture, its artists pushed back in their own distinct voices. Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in its postwar prime and explains its profound impact on modern America.

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