The library has purchased many new books so far this year. You can view a handful here along with descriptions or go here to see the full listing. These books are on display in the library’s lobby.

Title:  The Cost of Being a Girl
Author:  Yasemin Besen-Cassino

Through in-depth interviews and surveys with workers and employees, The Cost of Being a Girl puts this alarming social problem—which extends to race and class inequality—in to bold relief. Besen-Cassino emphasizes that early inequalities in the workplace ultimately translate into greater inequalities in the overall labor force.

Title:  Small Teaching Online:  Applying Learning Science in Online Classes
Author:  Flower Darby; James M. Lang

The concept of small teaching is simple: small and strategic changes have enormous power to improve student learning. Instructors face unique and specific challenges when teaching an online course. This book offers small teaching strategies that will positively impact the online classroom. 

This book outlines practical and feasible applications of theoretical principles to help your online students learn. It includes current best practices around educational technologies, strategies to build community and collaboration, and minor changes you can make in your online teaching practice, small but impactful adjustments that result in significant learning gains.

Title:  The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers who Brought the American Ideal West
Author:  David McCullough

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important and dramatic chapter in the American story—the settling of the Northwest Territory by dauntless pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would come to define our country.

 

Title:  Impeachment: a handbook
Author:  Charles L. Black Jr.; Philip Bobbitt

Originally published at the height of the Watergate crisis, Charles Black’s classic Impeachment: A Handbook has long been the premier guide to the subject of presidential impeachment. Now thoroughly updated with new chapters by Philip Bobbitt, it remains essential reading for every concerned citizen.

Title:  The Nickel Boys
Author:  Colson Whitehead

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is “as good as anyone.” Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides “physical, intellectual and moral training” so the delinquent boys in their charge can become “honorable and honest men.”

Title:  Renewables: The Politics of a Global Energy Transition
Author:  Michael Aklin; Johannes Urpelainen

Wind and solar are the most dynamic components of the global power sector. How did this happen? After the 1973 oil crisis, the limitations of an energy system based on fossil fuels created an urgent need to experiment with alternatives, and some pioneering governments reaped political gains by investing heavily in alternative energy such as wind or solar power. Public policy enabled growth over time, and economies of scale brought down costs dramatically. In this book, Michaël Aklin and Johannes Urpelainen offer a comprehensive political analysis of the rapid growth in renewable wind and solar power, mapping an energy transition through theory, case studies, and policy analysis.

Title:  Michigan Ferns & Lycophytes: a Guide to Species of the Great Lakes Region
Author:  Daniel D. Palmer

Michigan’s ferns and lycophytes are among the state’s most fascinating plants. The species in these groups exhibit incredibly diverse life cycles and an amazing array of morphology. Some species such as the Bracken fern are widespread and aggressive, dominating forest understories throughout much of northern Michigan, while other species are exceedingly rare and adapted to life solely in harsh niche habitats where little else can grow.

Title:  Industry of Anonymity:  Inside the Business of Cybercrime
Author:  Jonathan Lusthaus

Cybercrime seems invisible. Attacks arrive out of nowhere, their origins hidden by layers of sophisticated technology. Only the victims are clear. But every crime has its perpetrator―specific individuals or groups sitting somewhere behind keyboards and screens. Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on the world of these cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead, and the vast international industry they have created.

Title:  Safely to Earth:  The Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home
Author:  Jack Clemons

In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Jack Clemons―a former lead engineer in support of NASA―takes readers behind the scenes and into the inner workings of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs during their most exciting years. Discover the people, the events, and the risks involved in one of the most important parts of space missions: bringing the astronauts back home to Earth.

Title:  The Rise of the Alt-Right
Author:  Thomas J. Main

Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016 suddenly brought to prominence a political movement that few in political circles or the mainstream media had paid much attention to: the so-called Alt-Right. Steven Bannon, Trump’s campaign manager, was a leading figure in the movement, and the election results seemed to give it a real opportunity to gain some political power.

But what is the Alt-Right? Is it a movement, a theory, a trend, or just an unorganized group of people far outside of what used to be the political mainstream in America? Or, could it be all of these things? Why has it suddenly emerged into prominence? What impact is it having on American politics today, and what are the prospects for the Alt-Right in the future?