These books are being published and released this month. They have been ordered by the Library and will be available soon.

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Biography and Memoir  | General Nonfiction

Biography and Memoir

Accidentally on Purpose: A One-Night Stand, My Unplanned Parenthood, and Loving the Best Mistake I Ever Made
By Mary F. Pols
Describing how she became unexpectedly pregnant after a one-night stand with a man ten years younger than herself, Pols, the daughter of a conservative Irish-Catholic family, chronicles how she developed a lasting friendship with her baby’s father throughout the course of her unconventional pregnancy.

Assisted Loving:  True Tales of Double Dating with My Father
By Bob Morris
A gay New York Times “Styles” columnist, Morris describes his misadventures with managing his widowed octogenarian father’s dating life, an effort marked by his attempts to screen prospects; his father’s obsession with bridge; and the author’s own quest for love.

The Eaves of Heaven:  A Life in Three Wars
By Andrew X. Pham
A searing memoir by the award-winning author of Catfish and Mandala offers a portrait of his father’s experiences over the course of three wars – the French occupation of Indochina, the World War II Japanese invasion, and the Vietnam War – as he captures the trials of everyday life in Vietnam amid the tragedy, violence, and turbulence of war.

George Washington on Leadership
By Richard Brookhiser
The author of Founding Father continues his reexamination of the life of George Washington to reveal the significance of leadership in his diverse careers as a military leader, president, and tycoon, explaining how he maximized his strengths and overcame his flaws to serve as a model for modern-day leaders.

The Girl I Left Behind: A Narrative History of the Sixties
By Judith Niles
The author traces her journey from a docile wife and worker to a staunch activist and writer, a transformation marked by the social upheavals of the 1960s, a devastating FBI investigation, and her emerging feminist convictions.

Petite Anglaise:  A True Story
By Catherine Sanderson
A lifelong Francophile who lands a job in Paris and a handsome Frenchman as a husband, the author describes how she dealt with motherhood, a stale romance, and the daily grind of city life by starting a blog under the name “Petite Anglaise,” which became an outlet for her reflections on expatriate life, her most intimate desires, her personal identity, and her quest to integrate her real life and her virtual one.

Redneck Boy in the Promised Land: The Confessions of “Crazy Cooter”
By Ben Jones
In a colorful account of one man’s unlikely rise to fame, the actor and political pundit describes growing up in the hardscrabble South, his battles with alcoholism and addiction, and his rise to success in his role as Cooter, the amiable mechanic on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and his political career as a former U.S. congressman from Georgia.

Shoot the Damn Dog:  A Memoir of Depression
By Sally Brampton
In an insider’s account that also shares practical advice for fellow sufferers, a prize-winning editor for Elle magazine in the UK describes her long-standing struggles with depression and alcoholism while challenging societal tendencies to blame sufferers of mental illness for their own conditions.

Zachary Taylor:  The 12th President, 1849-1850 (The American Presidents)
By John S. D. Eisenhower
Offering insight into Taylor’s views on slavery, his role in California’s statehood, and his sudden death, a brigadier general son of Dwight Eisenhower presents a detailed profile of the twelfth president that traces his rise in the military and successes in the Mexican war to his election as the first president without a prior political office.

General Nonfiction

1434:  The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance
By Gavin Menzies
Posing a controversial argument that China initiated the Renaissance, the author offers a painstakingly researched chronicle that cites the appearance of Chinese ambassadors in early fifteenth-century Tuscany who met with Pope Eugenius IV and shared history-influencing maps and technology.

The Assassin’s Accomplice:  Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
By Kate Clifford Larson
A critical study of Mary Surratt, executed by the federal government for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, describes the complex workings of the Lincoln conspiracy from the perspective of its only female participant, drawing on long-lost interviews, court testimony, and confessions, to reveal the truth about her actions and their repercussions.

Big Man on Campus:  A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education
By Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
A former president of George Washington University shares lighthearted behind-the-scenes insight into the challenges of running a university in today’s world, in a guide for group leaders and parents of college students that calls for a greater prioritizing of the country’s higher educational interests.

The Classmates:  Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era
By Geoffrey Douglas
A portrait of the class of 1962 at New Hampshire’s elite St. Paul’s school, describes the cultural and political factors that irrevocably altered the world for which the author and his classmates had trained, in a personal account that traces their resistance and adaptation to unprecedented changes while revealing what eventually became of his peers.

End of Days:  Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World
By Sylvia Browne
With her trademark clarity, wisdom, and serenity, a regular on the Montel Williams show tackles the most daunting and difficult predictions about the human race, commenting on the End of Days prophecies, and offering insight into what can be done to prevent a catastrophe of biblical proportions.

Hiding in Hip Hop:  Confessions of a Down Low Brother in the Entertainment Industry
By Terrance Dean
An entertainment industry insider traces his ten-year career in Hollywood and hip hop, where he witnessed the profound influence of sexual orientation on the careers of celebrities who presented themselves as straight while hiding their homosexuality.

Honor Few, Fear None:  The Life & Times of a Mongol
By Ruben “Doc” Cavazos
A history of the Mongols Motorcycle Club challenges negative and sensationalized media perspectives to profile the Mongols as a tightly knit band of enthusiasts who enjoy partying and are willing to fight for their respect.

How the States Got Their Shapes
By Mark Stein
An accessible history of how each of the fifty United States obtained their unique shapes offers insight into such topics as the super-sized geography of Texas, Oklahoma’s panhandle, and Maryland’s unusual layout, in a lighthearted chronicle that features complementary information on land disputes and military skirmishes.

The Last Campaign:  Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America
By Thurston Clarke
Clarke documents Robert Kennedy’s dramatic and ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign, outlining his positions on such issues as the Vietnam war, race, and poverty, as well as his private struggles with the assassination of JFK.

Letters to a Young Sister:  DeFINE Your Destiny
By Harper Hill
Based on the CSI: NY celebrity’s interviews with female role models and young women throughout the country, a guide to becoming empowered in today’s world addresses a wide range of topics, from establishing a unique identity and confronting racism and sexism, to engaging in responsible relationships with the opposite sex and managing finances.

Makers and Takers:  Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less…And Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals
By Peter Schweizer
The author of  Do As I Say (Not As I Do) offers a hard-hitting critique of modern liberalism that examines the repercussions of liberal philosophy for ordinary Americans, tracing political and social changes over the past half-century to argue that the principles of liberalism have corrupted the time-honored personal virtues and community values of America.

The Monster of Florence
By Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi
Preston documents the discovery that his new family home in Florence had been the scene of a recent double-murder committed by an infamous and then-unidentified serial killer; his relationship with the investigative journalist who became his co-author; and the prosecutorial vendetta through which the authors were wrongfully and devastatingly targeted.

My Cousin the Saint:  A Search for Faith, Family, and Miracles
By Justin Catanoso
Catanoso describes his discovery of a cousin from Italy, a priest who possessed healing abilities; his investigation into the divergent paths followed by his ancestors in Italy and America; and his realization about his cousin’s potential for sainthood.

One Man’s America:  The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation
By George F. Will
A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist sheds new light on American politics, culture, and society, in a collection of incisive essays that address such topics as gambling, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, the history of Harley-Davidson, sports, and other colorful aspects of American life.

One Minute to Midnight:  Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
By Michael Dobbs
An eye-opening study of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis offers an hour-by-hour chronicle of the tense standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over the placement of missiles in Cuba, offering an in-depth analysis of the events and personalities involved that reveals how close the world actually came to all-out nuclear war.

The Plot to Save the Planet:  How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming
By Brian Dumaine
An innovative new approach to looking at environmental awareness, global warming, and economic growth examines the possibilities of green technology and the business opportunities available in the field to explain how eco-friendly scientific breakthroughs will become the most lucrative industry of the twenty-first century.

The Political Mind:  Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
By George Lakoff
A New York Times best-selling author explains how the physical nature of the brain affects people’s political decisions, suggesting that changing one’s mind is just as much a physical process as it is a psychological function.

The Pornography of Power:  How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America
By Robert Scheer
A critical indictment of the military-industrial complex’s growing global influence reveals the high profits being generated in the name of national defense at the expense of peace and democracy, in a progressive journalist’s report that also addresses concerns related to nuclear strategy and shares the views of past presidents.

Snoop:  What Your Stuff Says About You
By Sam Gosling
A psychologist offers a witty and thought-provoking study of how one’s private spaces – both at home and on the job – offer unexpected and unplanned keys to one’s personality, explaining how the things we own and how we arrange them can showcase personality traits and how we interpret the world around us.

Touching History:  The Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies over America on 9/11
By Lynn Spencer
A commercial pilot describes her investigation into the events of September 11 after feeling skeptical about the 9/11 Commission report, an effort during which she learned about how, on the morning of the attacks, thousands of fellow pilots improvised a cautionary defense plan that included suicide missions.

The Training Ground:  Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848
By Martin Dugard
Dugard profiles the pre-Civil War relationships among Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and other prominent military leaders, tracing their close-bonding educations at West Point and their shared field experiences during the Mexican War.

When Organizing Isn’t Enough:  SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life
By Julie Morgenstern
Morgenstern outlines radical organizational steps through which people weighed down by physical and mental clutter have the potential to revamp their careers, relationships, and other life areas, in a guide that outlines the author’s four-step program for eliminating mess, prioritizing, and renewing one’s motivation.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames
By David Sedaris
A new collection of essays by the author of  Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim celebrates the foibles of his everyday life in France and America, from an attempt to make coffee with water in a flower vase to a drug purchase in a North Carolina mobile home.

Yes!  50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
By Noah Goldstein
The author reveals how to incorporate subtle changes that can positively affect the ways in which professionals advertise, write, and speak, in a volume of quick-read segments that cover a range of topics, from outmaneuvering a rival and the downside of playing devil’s advocate to the shortcomings of free samples and the ineffectiveness of voice-mail messages.

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