Books You May Have Missed 2021: Adult Nonfiction

"A collection of poems by Erin Belieu"-- "In Come-Hither Honeycomb, Erin Belieu turns her signature wit and intellectual rigor inward for an unguarded exploration of human vulnerability. The poems meditate on the impact of large and small traumas: the lasting thumbprint of abuse, the collective specter of disease, the achingly sweet humility of parenting. The bodies in these poems are trapped, held hostage, bleeding. And yet there is agency -- structural...

"Grey's Anatomy meets One L in this psychiatrist's funny and moving memoir about his residency at Harvard Medical School"-- Stern was a student at a state medical school before being selected to train as a psychiatry resident at one of the most prestigious programs in the country. His new classmates were high achievers from the Ivy League and other elite universities around the nation. Here he pulls back the curtain on the intense and emotionally...

"An essential tool for individuals, organizations, and communities of all sizes to jump-start dialogue on racism and bias and to transform well-intentioned statements on diversity into concrete actions-from a leading Harvard social psychologist. How can I become part of the solution? In the wake of the social unrest of 2020 and growing calls for racial justice, many business leaders and ordinary citizens are asking that very question. This book provides...

"Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the result of poorly designed systems or are they just bad people? Are tyrants made or born? If you were suddenly thrust into a position of power, would you be able to resist the temptation to line your pockets or seek revenge against your enemies? To answer these questions, Corruptible draws on over 500 interviews with some of the world's top...

"An immersive tale of the killing of a Native American man and its far-reaching consequences for Colonial America. In the summer of 1722, on the eve of a conference between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and British-American colonists, two colonial fur traders brutally attacked an Indigenous hunter in colonial Pennsylvania. The crime set the entire mid-Atlantic on edge, with many believing that war was imminent. Frantic efforts to resolve the case...

An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln's antislavery strategies. Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American...

"A graphic novel exploring Texaco's involvement in the Amazon, as well as the ensuing legal battles between the oil company, the Ecuadorian government, and the region's inhabitants, from the perspective of Ecuadorian lawyer and activist Pablo Fajardo"--

"Divya Victor documents how immigrants and Americans navigate the liminal sites of everyday living: lawns, curbs, and sidewalks, undergirded by violence, but also constantly repaved with new possibilities of belonging. Curb witnesses immigrant survival, familial bonds, and interracial parenting in the context of nationalist and white-supremacist violence against South Asians. The book refutes the binary of the model minority and the monstrous, dark...

"Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planet-but can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book, journalist J.B. MacKinnon investigates how we might achieve a world without shopping"--