Here is The Friday List! Every week, new books are arriving at RLB Library and to keep you up-to-date on what has come in, we’ll be posting the most recent 30 days of arrivals every Friday. The link below will take you to a catalog listing so that you can explore and find titles that interest you. Be sure to check back regularly to see what else has arrived!
THE FRIDAY LIST
If you want some ideas on what to read, here are some highlights:
Eve : how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution, Cat Bohannon, 2023
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.
Dreamland : America’s immigration lottery in an age of restriction (eBook), Carly Goodman, 2023
In 1990, the United States Diversity Visa Lottery became part of U.S. immigration policy. As with many U.S. immigration policies over the years, the actual lived experience of the lottery generated unintended and unexpected consequences, becoming more powerful and important than its creators could envision. Dreamland tells the story of the lottery, correcting the sometimes willful misconceptions of how it works, explaining its importance, and revealing what it has to teach us. Because the program was open to all countries that sent fewer than 50,000 immigrants in the previous five years, nearly all that had previously been shut out of the immigration system were suddenly eligible for consideration, including a vast swath of African nations. The lottery became an economic boon, as Africans provided visa-related services for fees, and used the annual event to bring in needed revenues to their photo shops, print stores, and cyber cafes. The policy fueled a rapid increase in African immigration to the United States, enriching U.S. life in the process.
Fear and insecurity : Israel and the Iran threat narrative (eBook), Jonathan G Leslie, 2023
To observers of the Iran-Israel conflict, its vitriolic rhetoric might suggest an ancient hatred between Jews and Muslims–a biblical feud dating back hundreds, or thousands, of years. But this rivalry is a far more modern development. In this authoritative study, Jonathan G. Leslie examines the origins of the conflict. Drawing on extensive archival and open-source research, he concludes that–despite the animosity surrounding the Iran-Israel relationship–the twenty-first century’s hostilities are not inevitable consequences of these nations’ history, nor of contemporary political events. The intensification of tensions has been largely the product of one nation’s efforts, with Israel viewing Iran as a far greater danger than Iran does Israel. Using a novel theoretical approach considering the power of narrative within historical context, Leslie outlines how Israel’s leaders successfully reimagined their erstwhile ally Iran as an existential threat. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took this further, employing populist strategies in an attempt to rewrite history, depict Iran as a global menace, and recruit allies against the JCPOA nuclear deal. Fear and Insecurity provides important new insights into the history of the Iran-Israel conflict, and offers fresh prospects for defusing the tensions threatening both global and regional security.
Wrong : how media, politics, and identity drive our appetite for misinformation, Dannagal G Young, 2023
In this book, the author offers a new model that identifies social and cultural identity-who we are and who we want to be-as the most important factor driving the American phenomena of being wrong.