To find these selections and many other new titles, see the NMC library catalog.
New Non-Fiction
King by Jonathan Eig
In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, Eig gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family’s origins as well as MLK’s complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father—as well as the nation’s most mourned martyr.
Awkwardness by Alexandra Plakias
This offers an account of the psychology and philosophical significance of a ubiquitous social phenomenon. Our aversion to awkwardness mirrors our desire for inclusion. This explains its power to influence and silence us: as social creatures, we don’t want to mark ourselves as outsiders. As a result, our fear of awkwardness inhibits critique and conversation, acting as an impediment to moral and social progress. Even the act of describing people as “awkward” exacerbates existing inequities, by consigning them to a social status that gives them less access to the social goods (knowledge, confidence, social esteem) needed to navigate potentially awkward situations. But awkwardness has a positive side: it can highlight opportunities for moral and social improvement, by revealing areas where our social norms and scripts fail to meet our needs or have yet to catch up with changing social and moral realities.
Melting Point by Rachel Cockerell
On June 7, 1907, a ship packed with Russian Jews set sail for a promised land: not Jerusalem or New York, as many on board had dreamed, but Texas. This was the beginning of the Galveston Plan, a forgotten episode in US history in which ten thousand Jews fled the persecution and brutality of the Russian Empire for the Gulf Coast. Led in their search for a temporary homeland by the renowned novelist Israel Zangwill and by Rachel Cockerell’s great-grandfather, David Jochelmann, they scoured the Earth before reluctantly settling on Galveston. Zangwill feared the Jewish identity would be lost in the great American melting pot, but he saw no other hope. In this book, Cockerell weaves together diaries, letters, newspaper articles, and interviews in a highly inventive style. Constructed entirely of primary sources, with one flowing into the next, the book lets long-dead voices reanimate, jostle for space, and converge to tell their stories with a novelistic vividness and detail. We follow Zangwill and the Jochelmann family through two world wars and to London, New York, and Jerusalem as their lives intertwine with those of memorable figures of the twentieth century—Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, and more.
Derek Jarman edited by Claire Le Restif, with Laetitia Chauvin and Clément Dirié
Gathering newly commissioned essays devoted to specific—and sometimes lesser-known—aspects of the artist’s life and work, and extensive portfolios spanning his oeuvre, this volume offers an accessible overview of Derek Jarman (1942–94), one of the legendary cultural figures of the postwar era. Jarman was an artist, filmmaker, musician and gay activist who powerfully marked British culture, from his first feature film “Sebastiane” (1976) to his videos for the Pet Shop Boys and Marianne Faithfull in the 1980s, from his AIDS activism to his cult film “Blue” (1993). Conceived as a reader, this volume includes essays by cultural critic Elisabeth Lebovici, curator Claire Le Restif and garden historian Marco Martella; an interview with Jarman’s collaborator James Mackay; testimonies by actress Tilda Swinton and musician Simon Fisher Turner; and an illustrated chronology.
The End of War by John Horgan
War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That’s how the argument goes. But longtime American science journalist, John Horgan, disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It’s our choice whether to unmake it or not. In this compact, methodical treatise, Horgan examines dozens of examples and counterexamples—chimpanzees and bonobos, warring and peaceful indigenous people, World War I and Vietnam, Margaret Mead and General Sherman—as he finds his way to war’s complicated origins. Horgan argues for a far-reaching paradigm shift with profound implications for policy students, ethicists, military men and women, teachers, philosophers, or really, any engaged citizen.
New Fiction
The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell
When Elαn trapped a salmon-stealing raven in his cupboard, he never expected it would hold the key to saving his people from the shapeshifting Koosh invaders plaguing their shores. In exchange for its freedom, the raven offers a secret that can save Elαn’s home: the Koosh have lost one of their most powerful weapons, and only the raven knows where it is. Elαn is tasked with captaining a canoe crewed by an unlikely team including a human bear-cousin, a massive wolf, and the endlessly vulgar raven. To retrieve the weapon, they will face stormy seas, cannibal giants and a changing world. But Elαn is a storyteller, not a warrior. As their world continues to fall to the Koosh, and alliances are challenged and broken, Elαn must choose his role in his own epic story.
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist. As reality splits, the everyday details of Cora’s life—her depressing marketing job, her daughter’s new fascination with the afterlife, her husband’s obsession with podcasts about the history of rope—gain fresh perspective. The intersecting and diverging timelines blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy, questioning what might have been and what truly matters.
The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it: a man they called the Black Wolf. But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that the plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning. Perhaps even a deliberate misdirection. One he fell into. Something deeper, darker, and more damaging, is planned. Did he in fact arrest the Black Wolf, or are they still out there? Gamache and his small team of supporters realize that for the Black Wolf to have gotten this far, they must have powerful allies, in law enforcement, in industry, in organized crime, in the halls of government. From the apparent peace of his little village, Gamache finds himself playing a lethal game of cat and mouse with an invisible foe who is gathering forces and preparing to strike.
Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein
Mia and Cricket have always been close. The gifted daughters of a young single mother, the “Lowe girls” are well-known in the small Maine town they call home. Each sister has a role to fill: The responsible and academically minded Mia assumes the position of caregiver far too young, while Cricket, a bouncing ball of energy and talent, seems born for soccer stardom. But the cost of achieving athletic greatness comes at a steep price. As Mia and Cricket grow up, they must grapple with the legacy of their mother’s secret past while navigating their own precarious future. Can Mia allow herself to fall in love at the risk of repeating a terrible history? Will Cricket’s relentless chase of a lifelong goal drive her sister away? When does loyalty become self-sabotage? A sharply observed and tender portrait of sisters, love, and ambition, this novel is a sweeping story about the impossible choices we’re forced to make in pursuit of our dreams.
Gone Before Goodbye by Reese Witherspoon
Maggie McCabe is teetering on the brink. A highly skilled and renowned Army combat surgeon, she has always lived life at the edge, where she could make the most impact. And it was all going to plan…until it wasn’t. Upside down after a devastating series of tragedies leads to her medical license being revoked, Maggie has lost her purpose, but not her nerve or her passion. At her lowest point, she is thrown a lifeline by a former colleague, an elite plastic surgeon whose anonymous clientele demand the best care money can buy, as well as absolute discretion. Halfway across the globe, sequestered in the lap of luxury and cutting-edge technology, one of the world’s most mysterious men requires unconventional medical assistance. Desperate, and one of the few surgeons in the world skilled enough to take this job, Maggie enters his realm of unspeakable opulence and fulfills her end of the agreement. But when the patient suddenly disappears while still under her care, Maggie must become a fugitive herself.
Summaries and images adapted from publishers.