Non-fiction

Fantastic! The stories Trevor Noah tells about growing up as a biracial person in South Africa are sometimes funny, but also point out the injustices of the world as well as the injustices of Apartheid.

Michelle Obama writes about her early life, the campaigns and her time in the White House frankly and with some humor. There were also just some beautiful phrases as well as great nuggets of wisdom. This is now available in a version for young people if the length of the regular version puts you off.

This strangely riveting memoir examines Tara’s childhood in rural Idaho. Her dad, a conservative Mormon puts his children in danger multiple times because of his mistrust of the government and modern medicine. Tara somehow survives and attends college, even though her homeschooling was very spotty.

If you're interested in psychology or in sociopaths, this might be a great read for you. You'll learn a lot about sociopaths and about Mormons.

What a great story of human courage and ingenuity! William Kamkwamba lives in Malawi. He lived through a terrible famine, which is difficult to read about, emotionally. He had to drop out of school, but he taught himself science and learned to build a windmill out of found parts. He wired his family's house with no money, using flip flops and other objects for switches and other parts. Awesome book. Read it.

Me and White Supremacy teaches readers how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.

the talented Jason Reynolds remixes Ibram X. Kendi's longer work, into something that young adults and older children could understand. This is also a great book for adults to read. The chapters are really short, which puts it in digestible chunks.

Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Wilkerson puts forth a valid argument that the US has a caste system. In most chapters, she defines one aspect of a caste system and then gives examples from India, Nazi Germany, and the United States. Her arguments and data, as well as personal examples are compelling and horrifying. This books looks at the racial situation in the US without using the word "racism" or "racist" which are pretty loaded. It is a fresh look at a system of injustice that has been in the USA for four hundred years.

Heather McGhee details the cost of racism to all of us and how fighting the system will benefit all.

This book might give you some insights into the lives of African-American men and the challenges they face. The author spends time looking at some of the topics that are at the forefront- like shooting of young black men, but also talks about the plight of African-American women, and also more hidden issues like repressed emotions and mental illness that often goes unaddressed.

In an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, Lemon shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them. Beginning with a letter to one of his Black nephews, he proceeds with reporting and reflections on his slave ancestors, his upbringing in the shadows of segregation, and his adult confrontations with politicians, activists, and scholars. In doing so, Lemon offers a searing and poetic ultimatum to America. He visits the slave port where a direct ancestor was shackled and shipped to America. He recalls a slave uprising in Louisiana, just a few miles from his birthplace. And he takes us to the heart of the 2020 protests in New York City. As he writes to his young nephew: We must resist racism every single day. We must resist it with love

A shipment of rubber ducks was lost at sea. The author tries to find them and learns tons on the way.

The most interesting questions are raised in this book. When does a supposed advantage become a disadvantage? Is there such thing as having too much money or having a class that is too small? Is it better to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond?

This amazing book uses primary sources to tell the story of a crew team who went to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

In 1944 a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation's success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been painstakingly developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalock's African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions.

You may think you know something about the Lusitania, but you will learn so much more. Specific details such as lunch menus and how much luggage was allowed are folded into the story to establish the background in a way that paints a picture, rather than bogging down the story. Foreshadowing is used without excessive melodrama, and the various story lines (established as locations rather than specific characters) are very effectively kept separate but intertwined until they meet at the final climatic moment. Highly recommend.