Popular Nonfiction Books for Adults
Hundreds of books are added to the Library's collection each month. Here are the most popular Nonfiction books for adults.
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Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
"What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience--she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us--and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now--and an intellectual adventure story for our times."--Amazon.com.
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The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
"Out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant ... Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man's personal quest"--Back cover.
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Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
"In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. Eve is not just a sweeping revision of human history, it's an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Bohannon's findings, including everything from the way C-sections in the industrialized world are rejiggering women's pelvic shape to the surprising similarities between pus and breast milk, will completely change what you think you know about evolution . . . and women. A 21st-century update of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Eve offers a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is and why it matters"-- Provided by publisher.
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The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year
"In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons -- from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring -- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author--and from us. For, as Renkl writes, 'radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world.' With fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world." -- Publisher's description.
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A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
"A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties -- the Jazz Age -- has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he'd become the Grand Dragon of the state and and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows - their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman - Madge Oberholtzer - who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees"-- Provided by publisher.
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The Joy of Costco: A Treasure Hunt From A to Z
From logistics and merchandising to quality control and warehouse openings, learn about this unique 40 year old retailer. David and Susan Schwartz have traveled over 200,000 miles around the globe to provide a fun-filled behind-the-scenes, look at what makes Costco special.
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Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career
"A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com"-- Provided by publisher.
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The Seattle Book of Dates: Adventures, Escapes, and Secret Spots
"A stylish, design-y, cheeky, curated guidebook of cool places for Seattleites to go on dates/outings/field trips/adventures. These range from 1-hour coffee and ice cream dates to multi-day expeditions around Washington state (and Vancouver)"-- Provided by publisher.
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Class: A Memoir
When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called "an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor" (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie's escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions. Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn't understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line, Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties. Land paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition.
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![A Very Chinese Cookb[o]ok: 100 Recipes From China & Not China (but Still Really Chinese)](https://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=9781954210479/MC.GIF&client=sepup&type=sepup&oclc=)
A Very Chinese Cookb[o]ok: 100 Recipes From China & Not China (but Still Really Chinese)
"James Beard Award winner Kevin Pang and his dad Jeffrey, hosts of the hit America's Test Kitchen series Hunger Pangs, show you the way to delicious Chinese cooking in this accessible, funny, heartfelt cookbook. From American Chinese classics (General Tso's Chicken) to Sichuan street foods (Dan Dan Mian) and Hong Kong dim sum favorites (Shu Mai), A Very Chinese Cookbook is ideal for both the Chinese food-curious and experienced cooks seeking a weekend soup dumpling project. Chock full of tips, techniques, stories, and friendly ingredient guides, with over 100 of ATK's trademark rigorous recipes--and even a magic trick with fortune cookies--the cookbook in your hands is very practical, very personal, and very Chinese indeed"-- Provided by publisher.
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