NEW RELEASE

Noise: a flaw in human judgment

By Kahneman, Daniel

Publishing Date: 2021

Classification: 100

Call Number: 153.83 KAH

Discusses why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones by reducing the influence of "noise"--variables that can cause bias in decision making--and draws on examples in many fields, including medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, strategy, and personnel selection.

The gifts of imperfection

By Brown, Brené

Publishing Date: [2020]

Classification: 100

Call Number: 158.1 BRO

Brown explores the psychology of releasing our definitions of an 'imperfect' life and embracing living authentically. In a world where insults, criticisms, and fears are spread too generously alongside messages of unrealistic beauty, attainment, and expectation, she provides ten 'guideposts' that can help anyone establish a practice for a life of honest beauty-- a perfectly imperfect life.

NEW RELEASE

Beyond order: 12 more rules for life

By Peterson, Jordan B.

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 100

Call Number: 170.44 PET

"As a follow-up to 12 Rules for Life, the author provides twelve additional rules related to the overarching theme of how the dangers of too much security and control might be profitably avoided"--

The question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, love, sex, and the meaning of life

By Nicholi, Armand M.

Publishing Date: ©2002

Classification: 200

Call Number: 211 NIC

"Many of history's greatest thinkers have wrestled with the ultimate question of belief and nonbelief in God. Though it might seem unlikely that any new arguments could possibly be raised on either side, the twentieth century managed to produce two men who each made brilliant, new, and lasting arguments, one in favor of belief and one opposed. Few spokesmen have ever championed their respective positions better than Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. Sadly, as far as we know, they never met or debated each other directly." "In The Question of God their arguments are placed side by side, as if they were standing at podiums in a shared room. Both thought carefully about the flaws and alternatives to their positions; each considered the other's views. Both men considered the problem of pain and suffering, the nature of love and sex, and the ultimate meaning of life and death. Here, with their debate made explicit, we can take ringside seats at one of history's most profound encounters."--Jacket.

Chop wood, carry water: a guide to finding spiritual fulfillment in everyday life

Publishing Date: ©1984

Classification: 200

Call Number: 291.44

Discusses the spiritual aspects of learning, sex, family life, work, money, play, health, technology, social action, and ecology.

Never in anger: portrait of an Eskimo family

By Briggs, Jean L.

Publishing Date: 1970

Classification: 300

Call Number: 301.297 BRI

Describes emotional patterning of the Utkuhikhalingmiut, a small group of Eskimos who live at the mouth of the Back River, in the context of their life as seen as lived by the author. Based on field work conducted between June 1963 and March 1965.

Pleasure activism: the politics of feeling good

By Brown, Adrienne M.

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 306.7082 BRO

"How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor Adrienne Maree Brown finds the answer in something she calls "pleasure activism," a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Her mindset-altering essays are interwoven with conversations and insights from other feminist thinkers, including Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Cara Page, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Together they cover a wide array of subjects -- from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs -- building new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own."--

American carnage: on the front lines of the Republican civil war and the rise of President Trump

By Alberta, Tim

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 324.2734 ALB

"Politico Magazine's chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider's look at the making of the modern Republican Party--how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in [this book], to understand Trump's victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence. American Carnage is the story of a president's rise based on a country's evolution and a party's collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party's base. Yet Obama's forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation's rapidly changing societal and demographic identity, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party's identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged--one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell--engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP's internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the GOP--and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period--can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America's current turmoil. How did a party once obsessed with national insolvency come to champion trillion-dollar deficits? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and family separation? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-married philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive? Loaded with explosive original reporting and based off hundreds of exclusive interviews--including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, among many others--American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we've never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era."--Dust jacket.

The education of an idealist: a memoir

By Power, Samantha

Publishing Date: [2019]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 327.73 POW

"What can one person do?" At a time of upheaval and division, Samantha Power offers an urgent response to this question - and a call for a clearer eye, a kinder heart, and a more open and civil hand in our politics and daily lives. The Education of an Idealist brings an unique blend of suspenseful storytelling, vivid character portraits, and shrewd political insight. It traces Power's distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capital Hill and then on his presidential campaign. After Obama was elected president, Power went from being an activist outsider to a government insider, navigating the halls of power while trying to put her ideals into practice. She served for four years as Obama's human rights adviser, and in 2013, he named her US Ambassador to the United Nations, the youngest American to assume the role. A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Power transports us from her chlidhood in Dublin to the streets of war-torn Bosnia to the White House Situation Room and the world of high-stsakes diplomacy. Humorous and deeply honest, The Education of an Idealist lays bare the searing battles and defining moments of her life and shows how she juggled the demands of a 24/7 national security job with the challenge of raising two young children. Along the way, she illuminates the intricacies of politics and geopolitics, reminding us how the United States can lead in the world, and why we each have the opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity. Power's memoir is an unforgettable account of the power of idealism - and of one person's fierce determination to make a difference. --

NEW RELEASE

Building community food webs

By Meter, Ken

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 338.1097 MET

"In Building Community Food Webs, Ken Meter shows how grassroots leaders across the U.S. are constructing civic networks to create healthier and more equitable food systems. Overturning extractive economic structures, these inspired food leaders are engaging low-income residents, farmers, and local organizations in their quest to build stronger communities. Network-building takes a variety of forms and arises out of multiple activities. Farmers and researchers may convene to improve farming practices collaboratively. Food banks engage their clients to challenge the root causes of poverty. Municipalities invest large sums to protect farmland from development. Meter's evocative writing captures the essence of these efforts, and offers pragmatic insights for community food leaders anywhere"--

The conscience of the Constitution: the Declaration of Independence and the right to liberty

By Sandefur, Timothy

Publishing Date: [2014]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 342.7308 SAN

"Timothy Sandefur's insightful new book provides a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law and argues a vital truth: our Constitution was written not to empower democracy, but to secure liberty. Yet the overemphasis on democracy by today's legal community-rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence-has helped expand the scope of government power at the expense of individual rights. Now, more than ever, the Declaration of Independence should be the framework for interpreting our fundamental law. It is the conscience of the Constitution."--Amazon's website.

NEW RELEASE

The premonition: a pandemic story

By Lewis, Michael

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 362.1 LEW

"For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis's taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19. The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl's science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm's-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu...everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work. Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the Internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in"--

NEW RELEASE

Doom: the politics of catastrophe

By Ferguson, Niall

Publishing Date: 2021

Classification: 300

Call Number: 362.1962 FER

"Setting the great crisis of 2020 in broad historical perspective, Niall Ferguson challenges the conventional wisdom that our failure to cope better with disaster was solely a crisis of political leadership, as opposed to a more profound systemic problem. Disasters are by their very nature hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. But when disaster strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted, or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of a number of developed countries, including the United States, to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? The facile answer is to blame poor leadership. While populist leaders have certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, more profound problems have been exposed by COVID-19. Only when we understand the central challenge posed by disaster in history can we see that this was also a failure of an administrative state and economic elites that had grown myopic over much longer than just a few years. Why were so many Cassandras for so long ignored? Why did only some countries learn the right lessons from SARS and MERS? Why do appeals to "the science" often turn out to be magical thinking? Drawing from multiple disciplines, including history, economics, public health, and network science, Doom is a global postmortem for a plague year. In books going back nearly twenty years, including Colossus, The Great Degeneration, and The Square and the Tower, Niall Ferguson has studied the pathologies that afflict modern America, from imperial hubris to bureaucratic sclerosis and online schism. Doom is the lesson of history that this country--indeed the West as a whole--urgently needs to learn--if we want to avoid the doom of irreversible decline"--

NEW RELEASE

Zero fail: the rise and fall of the Secret Service

By Leonnig, Carol

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 363.283 LEO

"Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service for The Washington Post for most of the last decade, bringing to light the gaffes and scandals that plague the agency today--from a toxic work culture to outdated equipment and training to the deep resentment among the ranks with the agency's leadership. But the Secret Service wasn't always so troubled. The Secret Service was born in 1865, in the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but its story begins in earnest in 1963, with the death of John F. Kennedy. Shocked into reform by their failure to protect the president on that fateful day, this once-sleepy agency was rapidly transformed into a proud, elite unit that would finally redeem themselves in 1981 by valiantly thwarting an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But this reputation for courage and efficiency would not last forever. By Barack Obama's presidency, the Secret Service was becoming notorious for break-ins at the White House, an armed gunman firing at the building while agents stood by, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other dangerous lapses. To expose the these shortcomings, Leonnig interviewed countless current and former agents who risked their careers to speak out about an agency that's broken and in desperate need of a reform"--

NEW RELEASE

U.S. national debate topic, 2021-2022: Water resources

Publishing Date: 2021

Classification: 300

Call Number: 363.6109

The great New Orleans kidnapping case: race, law, and justice in the reconstruction era

By Ross, Michael A.

Publishing Date: [2015]

Classification: 300

Call Number: 364.154 ROS

In The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case, Michael Ross offers the first full account of this event that electrified the South at one of the most critical moments in the history of American race relations. Tracing the crime from the moment it was committed, through the highly publicized investigation and sensationalized trial that followed, all the while chronicling the public outcry and escalating hysteria as news and rumors surrounding the crime spread, Ross paints a vivid picture of the Reconstruction-era South, and the complexities and possibilities that faced the newly integrated society.

NEW RELEASE

Nine nasty w*rds: English in the gutter : then, now, and forever

By McWhorter, John H.

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 400

Call Number: 417.2 MCW

"A linguist examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power (and why we love them so much)"--

Vesper flights: new and collected essays

By Macdonald, Helen

Publishing Date: 2020

Classification: 500

Call Number: 508 MAC

"In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate through the Tribute of Light, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, and seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife. By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us"--

The singing wilderness

By Olson, Sigurd F.

Publishing Date: 1997

Classification: 500

Call Number: 508.7767 OLS

As meaningful today as it was when Sigurd F. Olson wrote it, The Singing Wilderness is an essential antidote to the trials of modern life. This unique volume, beautifully illustrated by Francis Lee Jaques, will be a welcome addition to any nature lover's bookshelf or backpack.

NEW RELEASE

The code breaker: Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race

By Isaacson, Walter

Publishing Date: [2021]

Classification: 500

Call Number: 576.5 ISA

The bestselling author of Leonardo Da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and have healthier babies. When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback, titled The Double Helix, on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the building blocks of life. Even though her high school counselor told her girls didn't become scientists, she decided she would. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book's author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his codiscovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned their curiosity into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions. The development of CRISPR and the race to create vaccines for COVID-19 will hasten our transition to the next great innovation revolution. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we are entering a life-science revolution: children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study the code of life. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What a wonderful book that would be! And what about preventing depression? Hmm...should we allow parents, if they can afford it, to enhance the height or muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna became a leader in wrestling with these moral issues and, with her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the Novel Prize in 2020. Her story is a thrilling detective tale that involves the most profound wonders of nature, from the origins of life to the future of our species--From dust jacket.