Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
January 2025 - May 2025
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 Harry Publishing Date: [2023] Classification: 900 Call Number: 941.0850 HAR "It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow - and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling - and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness - and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight. At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love. Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family has been an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother... For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief." -- |
The Cambridge illustrated history of Germany By Kitchen, Martin Publishing Date: 1996 Classification: 900 Call Number: 943 KIT The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany provides what has not been available before: an accessible, single-volume account of German history from earliest times to today, presented both chronologically and thematically. The book succeeds in putting into perspective Germany's complex past without shirking the issues it raises. When did German history begin? Who is a German? How was it possible for such an advanced and civilized state to have been responsible for. |
Hitler's people: the faces of the Third Reich By Evans, Richard J Publishing Date: 2024 Classification: 900 Call Number: 943.086 EVA "Through a connected set of biographical portraits of Nazi leaders and followers that tracks power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime's leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question: How does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil? Richard J. Evans, author of the acclaimed Third Reich Trilogy and over a dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler's People he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement--namely, the lives of its important and representative figures. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Hitler's People forms a typological framework of German society under Nazi rule, from the top down. With a novelist's eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal characteristics and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies--such as Goebbels, the regime's propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust's chief architect--to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten, such as the schoolteacher Julius Streicher or the actress and film director Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler's People lays bare the characters whose choices caused the deaths of millions. Nearly a century after Hitler's rise, the leading nations of the west are once again being torn apart by an untamed will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous individuals as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of agency and complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility--and even between pathological evil and rational choice--are never easily drawn"-- |
NEW RELEASE Being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza: a reckoning By Beinart, Peter Publishing Date: 2025 Classification: 900 Call Number: 956.9405 BEI "A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time. In Peter Beinart's view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations' efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future." -- |
9 presidents who screwed up America: and four who tried to save her By McClanahan, Brion T Publishing Date: [2016] Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.099 MCC Americans seem to have resigned ourselves to the exact form of government that the framers and ratifiers of our Constitution feared most: the tyranny of an elected monarch. The executive branch of the United States federal government has grown so far beyond the bounds set for it in our Constitution that Americans can no longer claim to govern ourselves. We only get the chance to pick the man who will spend four years legislating unilaterally with his pen, waging undeclared wars, and usurping still more powers that the people and the states never delegated to the federal government in the first place. But how did we get here? Step by unconstitutional step, as historian Brion McClanahan reveals, ranking presidents on the only true standard: whether they kept their oath of office to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' |
Ruin nation: destruction and the American Civil War By Nelson, Megan Kate Publishing Date: 2012 Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.7 NEL During the Civil War, cities, houses, forests, and soldiers' bodies were transformed into "dead heaps of ruins," novel sights in the southern landscape. How did this happen, and why? And what did Americans--northern and southern, black and white, male and female--make of this proliferation of ruins? Ruin Nation is the first book to bring together environmental and cultural histories to consider the evocative power of ruination as an imagined state, an act of destruction, and a process of change. Megan Kate Nelson examines the narratives and images that Americans produced as they confronted the war's destructiveness. Architectural ruins--cities and houses--dominated the stories that soldiers and civilians told about the "savage" behavior of men and the invasions of domestic privacy. The ruins of living things--trees and bodies--also provoked discussion and debate. People who witnessed forests and men being blown apart were plagued by anxieties about the impact of wartime technologies on nature and on individual identities. The obliteration of cities, houses, trees, and men was a shared experience. Nelson shows that this is one of the ironies of the war's ruination--in a time of the most extreme national divisiveness people found common ground as they considered the war's costs. And yet, very few of these ruins still exist, suggesting that the destructive practices that dominated the experiences of Americans during the Civil War have been erased from our national consciousness.--Publisher website. |
The confidante: the untold story of the woman who helped win World War II and shape modern America By Gorham, Christopher C. Publishing Date: [2023] Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.9109 GOR As Franklin Delano Roosevelt's special envoy to Europe in World War II, Anna Rosenberg went where the president couldn't go. She was among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp, and stood in the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's mountain retreat, days after its capture. She guided the direction of the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Manhattan Project. Gorham shows that Rosenberg was the real power behind national policies critical to America winning the war and prospering afterward. Astonishingly, her story remains largely forgotten. He shows how Rosenberg's career continued after FDR's death, tapped in 1950 to become the assistant secretary of defense, and fighting tirelessly for causes from racial integration to women's equality to national health care until the end of her life. -- adapted from jacket. |
NEW RELEASE The JFK conspiracy: the secret plot to kill Kennedy--and why it failed By Meltzer, Brad Publishing Date: 2025 Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.922 MEL "Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans' most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don't know is that JFK's historic presidency almost ended before it began--at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy's election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car--a parked Buick--on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect's schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan--one that could've changed the course of history. Written in the gripping, page-turning style that is the hallmark of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch's bestselling series, this is a slice of history vividly brought to life. Meltzer and Mensch are at the top of their game with this brilliant exploration of what could've been for one of the most compelling leaders of the 20th century"-- |
By Boot, Max Publishing Date: [2024] Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.927 BOO "Son of the Midwest, movie star, and mesmerizing politician--America's fortieth president comes to three-dimensional life in this gripping and profoundly revisionist biography. In this "monumental and impressive" biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president's aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot provides "the best biography of Ronald Reagan to date" (Robert Mann). The story begins not in star-studded Hollywood but in the cradle of the Midwest, small-town Illinois, where Reagan was born in 1911 to Nelle Clyde Wilson, a devoted Disciples of Christ believer, and Jack Reagan, a struggling, alcoholic salesman. Boot vividly creates a portrait of a handsome young man, indeed a much-vaunted lifeguard, whose early successes mirrored those of Horatio Alger. And contextualizing Reagan's life against American history, Boot re-creates the world in which Reagan transitioned from local Iowa sportscaster to budding screen actor. The world of Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1950s would prove significant, not only in Reagan's coming-of-age in such classics as Knute Rockne and Kings Row but during the twilight of his film career, when he played opposite a chimpanzee in Bedtime for Bonzo, and then his eventual emergence as a television host of General Electric Theater, which established his bona fides as one of the leading conservative voices of the time. Indeed, the leap to California governor in 1966 seemed almost preordained, in which Reagan became a bellwether for a nation in the throes of a generational shift. Reagan's 1980 presidential election augured a shift that continues into this century. Boot writes not as a partisan but as a historian seeking to set the story straight. He explains how Reagan was an ideologue but also a supreme pragmatist who signed pro-abortion and gun control bills as governor, cut deals with Democrats in both Sacramento and Washington, and befriended Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. A master communicator, Reagan revived America's spirits after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate. But Boot also shows how Reagan was armored in obliviousness. He traces Reagan's opposition to civil rights over forty years, reveals how he neglected the exploding AIDS epidemic, and details how America experienced a level of income inequality not seen since the Gilded Age. With its revelatory insights, Reagan: His Life and Legend is no apologia, depicting a man with a good-versus-evil worldview derived from his moralistic upbringing and Hollywood westerns. Providing fresh examinations of "trickle-down economics," the Cold War's end, the Iran-Contra affair, as well as a nuanced portrait of Reagan's family, this definitive biography is as compelling a presidential biography as any in recent decades."-- |
Pearls of wisdom: little pieces of advice (that go a long way) By Bush, Barbara Publishing Date: 2020 Classification: 900 Call Number: 973.928 BUS "The best advice First Lady Barbara Bush offered her family, staff, and close friends"-- |
Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the rise of right-wing extremism By Toobin, Jeffrey Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 900 Call Number: 976.638 TOO Provides an account of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the enduring legacy of Timothy McVeigh, leading to the January 6 insurrection. McVeigh wanted to start a movement. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets. Jeffrey Toobin details how McVeigh's principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001. Based on nearly a million previously unreleased tapes, photographs, and documents, including detailed communications between McVeigh and his lawyers, as well as interviews with such key figures as Bill Clinton, Toobin reveals how the story of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing is not only a retelling of one of the great outrages of our time, but a warning for our future. -- |
NEW RELEASE American oasis: finding the future in the cities of the Southwest By Paoletta, Kyle Publishing Date: [2025] Classification: 900 Call Number: 979 PAO This exploration of the American Southwest's history examines its multicultural settlers, indigenous populations and dependency on water, offering insights into the region's past to better understand its future amid the challenges of mass migration and the climate crisis. |
Cities of gold: a journey across the American Southwest By Preston, Douglas J Publishing Date: 1999 Classification: 900 Call Number: 979 PRE Presents the author's first-hand narrative account of his journey tracing the footsteps of Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's sixteenth century expedition across New Mexico. |
NEW RELEASE Golden State: the making of California By Hiltzik, Michael A Publishing Date: [2025] Classification: 900 Call Number: 979.4 HIL "California has long reigned as the land of plenty, a place where the sun always shines and opportunity beckons. Even prior to its statehood in 1850, it captured the world's imagination. We remember the Gold Rush era for bearded prospectors lured by riches; we think of its early embrace of immigrant labor during the railroad boom as prologue to its diverse social fabric today. But what lies underneath the myth is far more complicated. Thanks to extensive research by Michael Hiltzik, one of our longstanding voices on California, GOLDEN STATE uncovers the unvarnished truth about the state we think we know well. From Spanish incursions into what became known as Alta California to the rise of Big Tech, the history of California is one of stark contradictions. In rich, previously overlooked detail, we see its earliest statesmen wreak havoc among native peoples while racing to draft their own constitution even ahead of statehood. We follow gold-hungry settlers who venture into the Sierra foothills only to leave with little, while a handful of their suppliers turn themselves into millionaire railroad magnates. We witness wars erupt in the name of water as Los Angeles booms and see early efforts to tame the vast landscape create a haven for fossil fuel extraction and environmental conservation alike. Hollywood politicians stoke fear in a centuries-long tradition of anti-Asian violence, and, remarkably, legal redlining and free higher education take root together. Golden State brings a fresh critical eye to the origins of the state against which the rest of the country measures itself. From its very start, Hiltzik shows, the story of the United States was written in California"-- |
The other California: the great central valley in life and letters By Haslam, Gerald W Publishing Date: 1994 Classification: 900 Call Number: 979.45 HAS This expanded edition of The Other California, originally published in 1990, contains nineteen essays (six of them new to this collection) on the landscape, literature, and life in the Great Central Valley of California. The Valley, a vast, flat patchwork of fields and orchards, has become the richest farming region in the history of the world. It also has a rich literary tradition: William Saroyan, Joan Didion, William Everson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gary Soto, and Richard Rodriguez were all raised in this agricultural heartland. Haslam's collection represents the experience of living in the Valley through a variety of writings; some are personal, some regional, others literary. Many of these essays were originally published in national magazines; as a group, they offer readers a fine collection of writings on the landscape and literature of California's Great Central Valley. |
The world almanac and book of facts 2025 Publishing Date: [2024] Classification: R Call Number: R 031 2025 Presents thousands of facts on sports, pop culture, science and technology, U.S. history and government, world geography, and business, and includes a special 2024 U.S. election results, and the top ten news topics of the year. |
NEW RELEASE Famous first facts: a record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in American history Publishing Date: [2025] Classification: R Call Number: R 031.02 |
NEW RELEASE Publishing Date: 2025 Classification: R Call Number: R331.702 2023- 2033 "The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is the premier, nationally recognized source for career information. Especially designed to provide valuable up-to-date information, the Handbook is great for all individuals making decisions about their future including students about to graduate from high school or college, recent graduates, individuals returning to the workforce after an absence, or anyone looking for a career change. It has been used by millions since the 1940s. The completely updated OOH reflects employment information released in August 2024. It includes information on the fastest-growing occupations, number of new jobs, and a summary of the highest-paying occupations."-- |
NEW RELEASE Publishing Date: 2025 Classification: R Call Number: R331.702 2023- 2033 "The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is the premier, nationally recognized source for career information. Especially designed to provide valuable up-to-date information, the Handbook is great for all individuals making decisions about their future including students about to graduate from high school or college, recent graduates, individuals returning to the workforce after an absence, or anyone looking for a career change. It has been used by millions since the 1940s. The completely updated OOH reflects employment information released in August 2024. It includes information on the fastest-growing occupations, number of new jobs, and a summary of the highest-paying occupations."-- |
Current biography yearbook 2024 Publishing Date: 2024 Classification: R Call Number: R920 2024 |