Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
May 2021 - July 2021
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.
NEW RELEASE 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"-- |
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. |
Desert notebooks: a road map for the end of time By Ehrenreich, Ben Publishing Date: 2020 Classification: 500 Call Number: 577.54 EHR "A book about the literal and figurative end of time and what that means for us as conscious beings, Desert Notebooks looks at how both the unprecedented pace of destruction to our environment and our increasingly unstable global socio-political institutions have led to an existential crisis orders of magnitude greater than any humankind has confronted before. As inhabitants of the Anthropocene what might some of our own histories tell us about how to grapple with apocalypse? And how might the geologies and ecologies of desert spaces inform how we see and act towards time? Employing an elegant, discursive style that interweaves memoir with science writing, creation myths, and history, National Magazine Award winner and The Nation columnist Ben Ehrenreich uses the desolate landscape of the American desert -the main locales for the book are Joshua Tree and Las Vegas- as a springboard to examine how we formulate our concepts of time and what it means to confront the looming apocalypse. Desert Notebooks is a moving confrontation with Deep Time and a meditation on landscape in the face of climate change. Faced with an uncertain future, Ehrenreich argues there is comfort in reflecting on the role we humans have played in our own demise in the past. The difference is that this time the clock may finally be running out for good"-- |
NEW RELEASE Why peacocks: an unlikely search for meaning in the world's most magnificent bird By Flynn, Sean Publishing Date: 2021 Classification: 500 Call Number: 598.6258 FLY "An acclaimed journalist seeks to understand the mysterious allure of peacocks--and in the process discovers unexpected and valuable life lessons"-- |
Nose dive: a field guide to the world's smells By McGee, Harold Publishing Date: 2020 Classification: 600 Call Number: 612.86 MCG "Smell is such a powerful and revealing sense because it detects actual little pieces of things in the world. It gives us direct evidence of what those things are made of-unlike the indirectness of vision or hearing, which register light waves and air movements. Those little pieces are volatile molecules, so little that they're able to break away from their source and fly invisibly through the air to reach our nose. To begin to understand a thing's smell, then, is to identify the many volatile molecules it emits. Its overall smell is a composite, created by the component smells or "notes" of its most prominent volatile molecules. When different things seem to echo each other with shared component smells, it's a sign that those things have some volatile molecules in common. And the chemical identities of the molecules are keys to why they're there. They're tokens of the processes that created them. Text and 200 tables cover this topic, in a book by an expert on the chemistry and history of food science and cooking"-- |
The salt fix: why the experts got it all wrong--and how eating more might save your life By DiNicolantonio, James Publishing Date: [2020] Classification: 600 Call Number: 613.2852 DIN "We all know the dangers of sugar and salt: but the danger attributed to the second white crystal has more to do with getting too little of it, not too much. A leading cardiovascular research scientist and doctor of pharmacy overturns conventional thinking about salt and explores instead the little-understood importance of it, the health dangers of having too little, and how salt can actually help you improve sports performance, crush sugar cravings, and stave off common chronic illnesses. Too little salt in the diet can shift the body into semi-starvation mode and cause insulin resistance, and may even cause you to absorb twice as much fat for every gram you consume. Too little salt in certain populations can actually increase blood pressure, as well as resting heart rate. We need salt in order to hydrate and nourish our cells, transmit nerve signals, contract our muscles, ensure proper digestion and breathing, and maintain proper heart function. The Salt Fix will show how we wrongly demonized this essential micronutrient as well as explain what the current science really says about this misunderstood mineral and how to maximize its effect so you can enjoy ideal health and longevity"-- |
By Isaacson, Walter Publishing Date: c2011 Classification: 600 Call Number: 621.39 ISA "FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted. Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple's hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values"-- |
NEW RELEASE Rewilding agricultural landscapes: a California study in rebalancing the needs of people and nature Publishing Date: [2021] Classification: 600 Call Number: 630 This work seeks to be accessible to students, activists, and policymakers, as well as researchers and practitioners. The book promotes the potential for rewilding agricultural landscapes in desert and dryland ecosystems. California’s San Joaquin Valley is given as an example. Practitioners in habitat restoration, land management, marine biology, environmental science, restoration ecology, and wildlife biology give details on innovative efforts to restore damaged farmland, water resources, air quality, and species diversity in former agricultural lands of the San Joaquin Valley. Additionally, the book explores social, regulatory, and economic aspects of rewilding the San Joaquin Valley, looking at landowner participation and community environmental education. Lessons learned from the San Joaquin Valley are applied to show how farmland rewilding methods can be applied around the world. The book concludes with a framework for future efforts to restore desert and dryland ecosystems. B&w photos, charts, and maps are included. Annotation ©2021 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) - (Book News) |
Perilous bounty: the looming collapse of American farming and how we can prevent it By Philpott, Tom Publishing Date: 2020 Classification: 600 Call Number: 630.286 PHI An unsettling journey into the United States' disaster-bound food system, and an exploration of possible solutions, from leading food politics commentator and farmer-turned-journalist Tom Philpott. |
Hardy Californians: a woman's life with native plants By Rowntree, Lester Publishing Date: 2006 Classification: 600 Call Number: 635.9 ROW Lester G.E. Rowntree (1879-1979), free-spirited adventurer and pioneering botanist, was fifty-two when she traded a comfortable home for the life of a peripatetic traveler in the California mountains, deserts, and forests. Through hundreds of articles, two books, and uncounted public lectures, Rowntree shared her vast knowledge of California native plants and argued passionately for the protection of the state's bountiful flora. A mountain mystic who worshipped on Sierra peaks, bathed in alpine streams, and lived for months on beans and bread, Rowntree has remained an inspiration in native plant horticulture and plant conservation to this day. This beloved classic, first published in 1936, is Rowntree's poetic sketch of California and its plant life. This new edition includes a biographical essay, a chapter on Rowntree's horticultural legacy, an updated species list, and a complete bibliography of her writings.--From publisher description. |
NEW RELEASE Floret Farm's discovering dahlias: a guide to growing and arranging magnificent blooms By Benzakein, Erin Publishing Date: [2021] Classification: 600 Call Number: 635.9339 BEN "Grow and arrange breathtaking dahlias to enhance every occasion. In this luxe compendium, world-renowned flower farmer and floral designer Erin Benzakein reveals all the secrets to cultivating gorgeous dahlias. These coveted floral treasures come in a dazzling range of colors, sizes, and forms, with enough variety for virtually every garden space and personal preference, making them one of the most beloved flowers for arrangements. In these pages, readers will discover expert advice for planting, harvesting, and arranging garden-fresh dahlias, including a simple-to-follow overview of the dahlia classification system, an A-Z guide with photos and descriptions of more than 350 varieties, and step-by-step how-tos for designing show-stopping dahlia bouquets that elevate any occasion. Full of expert wisdom and overflowing with hundreds of lush photographs, DISCOVERING DAHLIAS is an essential resource for gardeners and a must-have for anyone who loves flowers"-- |