Author: Timpf, Kat, author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 306.20973 Format: Books Summary: "In this whip-smart follow-up to the "ruthlessly honest exploration of comedy and cancellation" (Dr. Drew) You Can't Joke About That, New York Times bestselling author Kat Timpf examines the dangers of binary thinking, and how it threatens to take over our institutions, relationships, and even our freedoms."-- "For some reason, when it comes to complex issues, we've largely limited ourselves to just two options, resulting in a society of non-thinkers. After all, once you've picked a side, all the thinking has already been done for you. As an independent, libertarian voter who has spent the last ten years at Fox News, Kat has faced this issue too many times to count. She's learned that surprising things can happen when you refuse to choose a team, especially when you work at a place some people call an existential threat to America." --Amazon.com
Author: Buettner, Russ, author. Craig, Susanne, author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 338 BUETTNER Format: Books Summary: " From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of then-President Trump's finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump's wealth, revealing how one of the country's biggest business failures lied his way into the White House." -- Publisher annotation. "Soon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump told a national television audience that life 'has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.' Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever. Drawing on over twenty years' worth of Trump's confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump's financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he'll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant - the public image that will carry him to the White House. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Lucky Loser is a meticulous, nearly-century spanning narrative, filled with scoops from Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, Atlantic City, and the set of The Apprentice. At a moment when Trump's tether to success and power is more precarious than ever, here for the first time is the definitive true accounting of Trump and his money - what he had, what he lost, and what he has left - and the final word on the myth of Trump, the self-made billionaire." --
Author: Harari, Yuval N., author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 001.09 HARARI Format: Books Summary: "For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI-a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive? Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence"--
Author: Heath, Chris, author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 940.5318 Format: Books Summary: "This by turns shattering and hope-giving account of prisoners who dug their way out of torture and bondage by the Nazis is both a stunning escape narrative and an object lesson in how we remember and continually forget the particulars of the Holocaust. No Road Leading Back is the remarkable story of a dozen prisoners who escaped from the pits where more than 70,000 Jews were shot in the Lithuanian forest after the Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe in 1941, and where they were forced participants in the equally horrific aftermath: anxious to hide the incriminating evidence of the murders, the S.S. enslaved a group of Jews to exhume every one of the bodies and incinerate them all in a months-long labor-an episode whose specifics are staggering and disturbing, even within the context of the Holocaust. From within that dire circumstance emerges the improbable escape made by some of the men who were part of this "burning brigade." They dug a tunnel with bare hands and spoons while they were trapped and guarded day and night-an act not just of great bravery and desperation but of awesome imagination. Based on first-person accounts of the escapees and on each scrap of evidence that has been documented, repressed, or amplified since, this book resurrects their lives and their acts of witness, as well as providing a complex, urgent analysis of why their story has rarely been told, and never accurately. Heath explores the cultural use and misuse of Holocaust testimony and the need for us to face it-and all uncomfortable historical truths-with honesty and accuracy"--
Author: Baker, Stephanie, 1967- author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 337.4 Format: Books Summary: "Undeterred by eight years of timid US sanctions, Vladimir Putin ordered his full-scale assault on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the hours that followed across the world, Western leaders weaponized economic tools to counter an unprecedented land grab by a nuclear-armed power. What followed was an undeniably world-changing financial experiment that risked throwing the world into a devastating recession. The end goal was simple: to sap the strength of Putin's war machine and damage the Russian economy--once the eleventh largest on the planet. Here, Russian expert and veteran journalist Stephanie Baker explains in fascinating detail how this furious shadow-war unfolded: its causes, how it is being executed, and its ability to affect Russia and the course of history. From seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to trying to block the sale of military technology to Russia, we learn how the White House coordinated with top officials in London and Brussels to freeze a staggering $300 billion in foreign currency reserves accumulated in the West by Russia's central bank. Mobilizing an army of white collar-crime investigators and experts on international law, Baker explores how the West has cracked down on illicit Russian money by targeting oligarchs, one superyacht at a time, and their enablers around the world. Filled with propulsive, fly-on-the-wall details, Punishing Putin takes us into the frantic backroom deliberations that led to a whole new era of carefully calculated "economic statecraft" and shows how these new strategies are already radically rearranging global alliances that will influence the world order today, and for generations to come"--
Author: Monaghan, Shannon, author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 940.5486 Format: Books Summary: "The untold story of four special operations officers who fought together behind enemy lines across multiple theaters of World War II, and then continued to serve, officially and unofficially, for decades after in the hottest parts of the Cold War"-- "There have always been special warriors; Achilles and his Myrmidons are the obvious classical examples. What we now think of as "special operations," however, were born in World War II, and one of the earliest and most exciting units formed was Britain's SOE. In the early years of the war, when Britain stood alone against the Nazis, Winston Churchill put them on a mission to "set Europe ablaze": to foment local revolt, to gather intelligence, to blow up bridges, and to do anything that could help to disrupt the Axis cause. A Quiet Company of Dangerous Men follows four SOE officers who distinguished themselves in this fight: the Spanish Civil War veteran Peter Kemp, the demolitions expert David Smiley, the born guerrilla leader Billy McLean, and the political natural Julian Amery..." --Amazon.com
Author: Aster, Alex, author. Sequel to: Aster, Alex. Lightlark. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y ASTER Format: Books Summary: "Isla Crown has secured the love of two powerful rulers and broken the curses that plagued the six realms for centuries, but few know the true origins of her powers. Now, in the wake of a crushing betrayal, Isla finds herself hungry for distraction, preferring to frequent Lightlark's seductive haunts instead of embracing her duties as the newly crowned leader of two separate realms. Worse, her fellow rulers haven't ceded victory quietly, and there are others in Isla's midst who don't believe her ascent to power was earned. As certain death races toward Lightlark and secrets from the past begin to unravel, Isla must weigh her responsibility to her people against the whims of the most dangerous traitor of all: her heart. Alex Aster's intricate world expands after the riveting culmination of the Centennial games, delving more deeply into Isla's memories of her past, as her future hurtles toward two possible fates" --
Author: Maehrer, Hannah Nicole, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F MAEHRER Format: Books Summary: "ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem and terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits. With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn's most infamous Villain results in a job offer--naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don't find evil so attractive, Evie. But just when she's getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat...and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain--and his entire nefarious empire--out. Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work...and ensure he makes them pay. After all, a good job is hard to find"--Back cover.
Author: White, Kate, 1950- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F WHITE Format: Books Summary: "Struggling artist Skyler Moore is flabbergasted when she receives a suspicious phone call from a lawyer she's never met regarding a "private matter." As soon as she arrives at the law firm's office, she learns she's the recipient of a large inheritance, a life-changing sum that will allow her to realize her long-held dream of becoming a mother. But who was her benefactor, Christopher Whaley? The late man's name means nothing to Skyler, and she has no idea why he would leave her such an enormous bequest. Looking into his background, Skyler finally realizes they met once at a hotel bar and shared a one-night stand. But they never exchanged numbers, or even last names, and that was over a decade ago. She wonders if the inheritance is meant to be a message of some kind, but can't imagine what it might be. Chris' family is confused and suspicious too, and his widow accuses Skyler of having an affair with her late husband, then threatens revenge. In order to protect herself, Skyler has to understand the reason the money was left to her. But as she digs for the truth, it becomes clear that Chris Whaley might have taken other secrets to the grave, ones that could have terrifying consequences for her."--Page 4 of cover.
Author: Lark, Sophie, author. Published: 2023 2022 Call Number: F LARK Format: Books Summary: "The Griffins and the Gallos have been battling for control of Chicago's underworld for generations. Their bitter rivalry reignites when Aida, the youngest and wildest Gallo sibling, crashes a party at the Griffin mansion, accidentally setting fire to the library. To stave off all-out war, her father arranges a marriage with Callum Griffin, eldest son and heir. Cold, ambitious, and brutal, Callum is determined to tame his headstrong bride. Aida is more than capable of giving as good as she gets - starting with poisoning Callum on their wedding night. In their struggle for dominance, who will break first?"--Page [4] of cover.
Author: Yee, F. C., author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y YEE Format: Books Summary: "Avatar Yangchen has succeeded in bringing a measure of stability to Bin-Er, but her successes have been limited to a single city, and rumors concerning Unanimity--a weapon capable of total obliteration--have led to increasing tensions among the Four Nations. Desperate to restore diplomacy, Yangchen attempts to de-escalate hostilities between heads of state. But in the wake of a brutal assassination and the freeing of Unanimity, Yangchen is forced to bring Kavik--the trusted former companion whose betrayal crushed her--back into her fold. As the Four Nations teeter on the brink of conflict and she begins to unravel the power-hungry Zongdu Chaisee's true agenda, Yangchen is forced to measure the worth of humanity, and how much can be sacrificed in the name of balance. This taut and provocative fourth installment in the Chronicles of the Avatar series follows Avatar Yangchen as she charts the course of her legacy, finally making peace with her choices and facing Avatarhood with the courage it demands."--Amazon
Author: Goodwin, Sarah, author. Published: 2021 Call Number: F GOODWIN Format: Books Summary: "Eight strangers. One island. A secret you'd kill to keep. When eight people arrive on the beautiful but remote Buidseach Island, they are ready for the challenge of a lifetime: to live alone for one year. Eighteen months later, a woman is found in an isolated fishing village. She's desperate to explain what happened to her: how the group fractured and friends became enemies; how they did what they must to survive until the boat came to collect them; how things turned deadly when the boat didn't come... But first Maddy must come to terms with the devastating secret that left them stranded, and her own role in the events that saw eight arrive and only three leave"--Provided by publisher.
Author: MacArthur, John, 1939- Published: 2005 Call Number: 220.9 MACARTHU Format: Books Summary: Learn more than fascinating information about the women of the Bible-- you'll discover the unmistakable chronology of God's redemptive work in history through their lives.
