Book reviews and excerpts from exceptional books about history, current affairs and religion
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Recommended books found: 445
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Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words
by Anne Curzan
Hardcover: Mar 2024
Paperback: Mar 2025
A kinder, funner usage guide to the ever-changing English language and a useful tool for both the grammar stickler and the more colloquial user of English, from linguist and veteran professor Anne Curzan
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Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights
by Ashley Hope Pérez
Hardcover: Mar 2025
A dazzling YA anthology that spotlights the transformative power of books while equipping teens to fight for the freedom to read, featuring the voices of 15 diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators.
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The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
by David Grann
Hardcover: Apr 2023
Paperback: Feb 2025
Winner: BookBrowse Nonfiction Award 2023
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The ...
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Bloodbath Nation
by Paul Auster
Hardcover: Jan 2023
Paperback: Feb 2025
An intimate and powerful rumination on American gun violence by Paul Auster, one of our greatest living writers and "genuine American original" (The Boston Globe), in an unforgettable collaboration with photographer Spencer Ostrander
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The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History
by Karen Valby
Hardcover: Apr 2024
Paperback: Feb 2025
The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now.
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Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor
by Ronald Drabkin
Hardcover: Feb 2024
Paperback: Feb 2025
In the spirit of Ben Macintyre's greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who ...
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Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
by Tao Leigh Goffe
Hardcover: Jan 2025
A groundbreaking investigation of the Caribbean as both an idyll in the American imagination and a dark laboratory of Western experimentation, revealing secrets to racial and environmental progress that impact how we live today.
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Flee North: A Forgotten Hero and the Fight for Freedom in Slavery's Borderland
by Scott Shane
Hardcover: Sep 2023
Paperback: Dec 2024
A riveting account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and named the underground railroad, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, Scott Shane....
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Around the World in Eighty Games: From Tarot to Tic-Tac-Toe, Catan to Chutes and Ladders, a Mathematician Unlocks the Secrets of the World's Greatest Games
by Marcus du Sautoy
Hardcover: Nov 2023
Paperback: Nov 2024
An award-winning mathematician explores the math behind the games we love and why we love to play them.
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On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
by Caroline Dodds Pennock
Hardcover: Jan 2023
Paperback: Oct 2024
A landmark work of narrative history that shatters our previous Eurocentric understanding of the Age of Discovery by telling the story of the Indigenous Americans who journeyed across the Atlantic to Europe after 1492
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The Message
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hardcover: Oct 2024
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don't—shape our realities.
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The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi
by Wright Thompson
Hardcover: Sep 2024
A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.
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Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II
by Lena S. Andrews
Hardcover: Aug 2023
Paperback: Aug 2024
A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory.
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Kent State: An American Tragedy
by Brian VanDeMark
Hardcover: Aug 2024
A definitive history of the fatal clash between Vietnam War protestors and the National Guard, illuminating its causes and lasting consequences.
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The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
by Evan Friss
Hardcover: Aug 2024
An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest...
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The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World
by Daisy Dunn
Hardcover: Jul 2024
A dazzlingly ambitious history of the ancient world that places women at the center—from Cleopatra to Boudica, Sappho to Fulvia, and countless other artists, writers, leaders, and creators of history
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Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
by Tania Branigan
Hardcover: May 2023
Paperback: Jun 2024
An indelible exploration of the invisible scar that runs through the heart of Chinese society and the souls of its citizens.
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Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
by Christian Cooper
Hardcover: Jun 2023
Paperback: Jun 2024
Central Park birder Christian Cooper takes us beyond the viral video that shocked a nation and into a world of avian adventures, global excursions, and the unexpected lessons you can learn from a life spent looking up.
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We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance
by Kellie Carter Jackson
Hardcover: Jun 2024
A radical reframing of the past and present of Black resistance—both nonviolent and violent—to white supremacy.
The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!
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