Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
January 2015 - February 2015
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.
By Finkel, David Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: 300 Call Number: 362.8609 FIN "From a MacArthur Fellow and the author of The Good Soldiers, a profound look at life after war No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel shadowed the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they carried out the infamous surge, a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed all of them forever. Now Finkel has followed many of those same men as they've returned home and struggled to reintegrate--both into their family lives and into American society at large. In the ironically named Thank You for Your Service, Finkel writes with tremendous compassion not just about the soldiers but about their wives and children. Where do soldiers belong after their homecoming? Is it possible, or even reasonable, to expect them to rejoin their communities as if nothing has happened? And in moments of hardship, who are soldiers expected to turn to if they feel alienated by the world they once lived in? These are the questions Finkel faces as he revisits the brave but shaken men of the 2-16. More than a work of journalism, Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding--shocking but always riveting, unflinching but deeply humane, it takes us inside the heads of those who must live the rest of their lives with the chilling realities of war"-- |
Command and control: nuclear weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the illusion of safety By Schlosser, Eric Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 300 Call Number: 363.17 SCH Presents a minute-by-minute account of an H-bomb accident that nearly caused a nuclear disaster, examining other near misses and America's growing susceptibility to a catastrophic event. |
NEW RELEASE Thieves of state: why corruption threatens global security By Chayes, Sarah Publishing Date: [2015] Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.1323 CHA The world is blowing up. Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq and Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage and insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption. Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth and examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), and Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity and the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity. The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke and Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. And it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause not a result of global instability." |
A serial killer in Nazi Berlin: the chilling true story of the S-Bahn murderer By Selby, Scott Andrew Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.152 SEL Describes the true story of a Nazi party member and serial killer who attacked women riding on trains at night in World War II-era Berlin. |
Assassins of the Turquoise Palace By Hakkakiyan, Ru'ya Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.1524 HAK Who was responsible for the machine-gun murders of the Kurdish and Iranian protestors in a Berlin restaurant? Opinions varied, but the federal prosecutor would charge on to a clear verdict. Adapted from jacket flap. |
The skies belong to us: love and terror in the golden age of hijacking By Koerner, Brendan I. Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.1552 KOE A shattered Army veteran and a mischievous party girl, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow commandeered Western Airlines Flight 701 as a vague protest against the war. Through a combination of savvy and dumb luck, the couple managed to flee across an ocean with a half-million dollars in ransom, a feat that made them notorious around the globe. Yet this is more than just an enthralling yarn about a spectacular heist and its bittersweet, decades-long aftermath. It is also a psychological portrait of America at its most turbulent and a testament to the madness that can grip a nation when politics fail.--Publisher's description. |
By Raghavan, Anita Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.16 RAG Depicts the collapse of a multi-billion dollar South Asian hedge fund due to insider trading and describes the case brought against them by the son of Indian immigrants who went up against the corporation's founder. |
America's death penalty: between past and present Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 300 Call Number: 364.6609 Over the past three decades, the United States has embraced the death penalty with tenacious enthusiasm. While most of those countries whose legal systems and cultures are normally compared to the United States have abolished capital punishment, the United States continues to employ this ultimate tool of punishment. The death penalty has achieved an unparalleled prominence in our public life and left an indelible imprint on our politics and culture. It has also provoked intense scholarly debate, much of it devoted to explaining the roots of American exceptionalism. America’s Death Penalty takes a different approach to the issue by examining the historical and theoretical assumptions that have underpinned the discussion of capital punishment in the United States today. At various times the death penalty has been portrayed as an anachronism, an inheritance, or an innovation, with little reflection on the consequences that flow from the choice of words. This volume represents an effort to restore the sense of capital punishment as a question caught up in history. Edited by leading scholars of crime and justice, these original essays pursue different strategies for unsettling the usual terms of the debate. In particular, the authors use comparative and historical investigations of both Europe and America in order to cast fresh light on familiar questions about the meaning of capital punishment. This volume is essential reading for understanding the death penalty in America. - (New York Univ Pr) |
A history of the world in 6 glasses By Standage, Tom Publishing Date: 2005 Classification: 300 Call Number: 394.12 STA From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human history. Throughout human history. certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. This book tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. |
By Bouchentouf, Amine Publishing Date: 2006 Classification: 400 Call Number: 492.7524 BOU Outlines basic Arabic grammar, and introduces useful words and expressions and simplified dialogue which can be used for conversations and traveling. |
The signal and the noise: why most predictions fail-- but some don't By Silver, Nate Publishing Date: c2012 Classification: 500 Call Number: 519.542 SIL Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction. |
By Zitzewitz, Paul W. Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 500 Call Number: 530 ZIT Answers more than eight hundred questions about physics, ranging from everyday life applications to the latest explorations in the field. |
How to teach relativity to your dog By Orzel, Chad Publishing Date: c2012 Classification: 500 Call Number: 530.11 ORZ Explains the principles of relativity, profiling leading minds such as Albert Einstein, Brian Greene, and Stephen Hawking to simplify their theories on time dilation, extra dimensions, and relative motion. |
The amazing story of quantum mechanics: a math-free exploration of the science that made our world By Kakalios, James Publishing Date: c2010 Classification: 500 Call Number: 530.12 KAK Most of us are unaware of how much we depend on quantum mechanics on a day-to-day basis. Using illustrations and examples from science fiction pulp magazines and comic books, this book explains the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics that underlie the world we live in.--From publisher description. |
By Pretor-Pinney, Gavin Publishing Date: 2010 Classification: 500 Call Number: 530.124 PRE Offers information on how all sorts of waves work and how and why they form, including ocean waves, light waves, sound waves, and brain waves. |
By Carroll, Sean M. Publishing Date: c2012 Classification: 500 Call Number: 539.721 CAR Scientists have just announced an historic discovery on a par with the splitting of the atom: the Higgs boson, the key to understanding why mass exists, has been found. Carroll takes readers behind the scenes of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to meet the scientists and explain this landmark event. We only discovered the electron just over a hundred years ago and considering where that took us-- from nuclear energy to quantum computing-- the inventions that will result from the Higgs discovery will be world-changing. |
The age of radiance: the epic rise and dramatic fall of the atomic era By Nelson, Craig Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: 500 Call Number: 539.75 NEL "A riveting narrative of the Atomic Age--from x-rays and Marie Curie to the Nevada Test Site and the 2011 meltdown in Japan--written by the prizewinning and bestselling author of Rocket Men. Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its invisible rays trigger biological damage, birth defects, and cellular mayhem. Written with a biographer's passion, Craig Nelson unlocks one of the great mysteries of the universe in a work that is both tragic and triumphant. From the end of the nineteenth century through the use of the atomic bomb in World War II to the twenty-first century's confrontation with the dangers of nuclear power, Nelson illuminates a pageant of fascinating historical figures: Enrico Fermi, Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, FDR, Robert Oppenheimer, and Ronald Reagan, among others. He reveals many little-known details, including how Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler transformed America from a country that created light bulbs and telephones into one that split atoms; how the most grotesque weapon ever invented could realize Alfred Nobel's lifelong dream of global peace; how emergency workers and low-level utility employees fought to contain a run-amok nuclear reactor, while wondering if they would live or die. Brilliantly fascinating and remarkably accessible, The Age of Radiance traces mankind's complicated and difficult relationship with the dangerous power it discovered and made part of civilization"-- |
By Pretor-Pinney, Gavin Publishing Date: 2006 Classification: 500 Call Number: 551.576 PRE Complemented by striking photographs and line drawings, a witty and eclectic study of clouds captures the character of these natural phenomena while discussing the science behind the different types of clouds, what they mean in terms of climate and weather, their history, and artistic and cultural fascination with their ephemeral beauty. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor) |
The monkey's voyage: how improbable journeys shaped the history of life By De Queiroz, Alan Publishing Date: c2013 Classification: 500 Call Number: 570 DEQ "Throughout the world, closely related species are found on landmasses separated by wide stretches of ocean. What explains these far-flung distributions? Why are such species found where they are across the Earth? Since the discovery of plate tectonics, scientists have conjectured that plants and animals were scattered over the globe by riding pieces of ancient supercontinents as they broke up. In the past decade, however, that theory has foundered, as the genomic revolution has made reams of new data available. And the data has revealed an extraordinary, stranger-than-fiction story that has sparked a scientific upheaval. In The Monkey's Voyage, biologist Alan de Queiroz describes the radical new view of how fragmented distributions came into being: frogs and mammals rode on rafts and icebergs, tiny spiders drifted on storm winds, and plant seeds were carried in the plumage of sea-going birds to create the map of life we see today. In other words, these organisms were not simply constrained by continental fate; they were the makers of their own geographic destiny. And as de Queiroz shows, the effects of oceanic dispersal have been crucial in generating the diversity of life on Earth, from monkeys and guinea pigs in South America to beech trees and kiwi birds in New Zealand. By toppling the idea that the slow process of continental drift is the main force behind the odd distributions of organisms, this theory highlights the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the history of life."-- |
Dodging extinction: power, food, money and the future of life on Earth By Barnosky, Anthony D. Publishing Date: [2014] Classification: 500 Call Number: 576.84 BAR Paleobiologist Anthony D. Barnosky weaves together evidence from the deep past and the present to alert us to the looming Sixth Mass Extinction and to offer a practical, hopeful plan for avoiding it. Writing from the front lines of extinction research, Barnosky tells the overarching story of geologic and evolutionary history and how it informs the way humans inhabit, exploit, and impact Earth today. He presents compelling evidence that unless we rethink how we generate the power we use to run our global ecosystem, where we get our food, and how we make our money, we will trigger what would be. |