Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
September 2023 - November 2023
These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.
Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.
Non-Fiction | Computer science, information & general worksPhilosophy & psychologyReligionSocial sciencesLanguageScienceTechnologyArts & recreationLiteratureHistory & geography |
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NEW RELEASE Anaximander and the birth of science By Rovelli, Carlo Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 100 Call Number: 182 ROV "The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics illuminates the nature of science through the revolutionary ideas of the Greek philosopher Anaximander Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. His legacy includes the revolutionary ideas that the Earth floats in a void, that animals evolved, that the world can be understood in natural rather than supernatural terms, and that universal laws govern all phenomena. He introduced a new mode of rational thinking with an openness to uncertainty and the progress of knowledge. In this elegant work, the renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander's overlooked influence on modern science. He examines Anaximander not from the point of view of a historian or as an expert in Greek philosophy, but as a scientist interested in the deep nature of scientific thinking, which Rovelli locates in the critical and rebellious ability to reimagine the world again and again. Anaximander celebrates the radical lack of certainty that defines the scientific quest for knowledge"-- |
NEW RELEASE On our best behavior: the seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good By Loehnen, Elise Publishing Date: [2023] Classification: 200 Call Number: 248.843 LOE "We congratulate ourselves when we resist the donut in the office breakroom. We celebrate our restraint when we hold back from sending an email in anger. We feel virtuous when we wake up at dawn to get a jump on the day. We put others' needs ahead of our own and believe this makes us exemplary. In On Our Best Behavior, journalist Elise Loehnen explains that these impulses - often lauded as unselfish, distinctly feminine instincts - are actually ingrained in us by a culture that reaps the benefits, via an extraordinarily effective collection of mores known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Since being codified by the Christian church in the fourth century, the Seven Deadly Sins-pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth-have exerted insidious power. Even today, in our largely secular, patriarchal society, they continue to circumscribe women's behavior. For example, seeing sloth as sinful leads women to deny themselves rest; a fear of gluttony drives them to ignore their appetites; and an aversion to greed prevents them from negotiating for themselves and contributes to the 55 percent gender wealth gap"-- |
The need to be whole: patriotism and the history of prejudice By Berry, Wendell Publishing Date: [2022] Classification: 300 Call Number: 303.385 BER "A book length meditation on racism, patriotism, the history of prejudice in America, the impact of violence and war from the Civil War to more recent wars, contemporary events and the struggle to deal with the original sin of racism from colonial America to the present day"-- |
How the world really works: the science behind how we got here and where we're going By Smil, Vaclav Publishing Date: 2022 Classification: 300 Call Number: 303.483 SMI "An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future."-- |
NEW RELEASE Saving time: discovering a life beyond the clock By Odell, Jenny Publishing Date: [2023] Classification: 300 Call Number: 304.237 ODE "In her first book, How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell wrote about the importance of disconnecting from the "attention economy" to spend time in quiet contemplation. But what if you don't have time to spend? In order to answer this seemingly simple question, Odell took a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem like a series of moments to be bought, sold, and processed ever more efficiently. Odell shows us how our painful relationship to time is inextricably connected not only to persisting social inequities but to the climate crisis, existential dread, and a lethal fatalism."--Jacket flap. |
The uninhabitable earth: life after warming By Wallace-Wells, David Publishing Date: [2019] Classification: 300 Call Number: 304.28 WAL "It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, '500-year' storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await -- food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe. But the world will be remade by warming in more profound ways as well, transforming our politics, our culture, our relationship to technology, and our sense of history. It will be all-encompassing, shaping and distorting nearly every aspect of human life as it is lived today. Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation"-- |
The unsettling of Europe: how migration reshaped a continent By Gatrell, Peter Publishing Date: 2019 Classification: 300 Call Number: 304.84 GAT "Migration is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, and it has completely decentered European politics in recent years. But as we consider the current refugee crisis, acclaimed historian Peter Gatrell reminds us that the history of Europe has always been one of people on the move. The end of World War II left Europe in a state of confusion with many Europeans virtually stateless. Later, as former colonial states gained national independence, colonists and their supporters migrated to often-unwelcoming metropoles. The collapse of communism in 1989 marked another fundamental turning point. Gatrell places migration at the center of post-war European history, and the aspirations of migrants themselves at the center of the story of migration. This is an urgent history that will reshape our understanding of modern Europe"-- |
NEW RELEASE Femina: a new history of the Middle Ages, through the women written out of it By Ramirez, Janina Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 305.4094 RAM Through examination of artefacts, writings, and possessions, this reappraisal of medieval femininity presents countless cases of influential women such as Jadwiga, the only female King in Europe, whose names were struck from history. |
The encyclopedia of trouble and spaciousness By Solnit, Rebecca Publishing Date: [2014] Classification: 300 Call Number: 306.0905 SOL "The incomparable Rebecca Solnit, author of more than a dozen acclaimed books of nonfiction, brings the same dazzling writing to the twenty-nine essays in The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness. As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit's concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit's collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Like the women who've pioneered before her-Sontag, Didion, and Dillard-her essays are a beacon."-- |
By Crewes, Eleanor Publishing Date: 2020 Classification: 300 Call Number: 306.76 CRE "Ellie always had questions about who she was and how she fit in. As a girl, she wore black, obsessed over Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and found dating boys much more confusing than many of her friends did. As she grew older, so did her fears and a deep sense of unbelonging. From her first communion to her first girlfriend via a swathe of self-denial, awkward encounters, and everyday courage, Ellie tells her story through gorgeous illustrations--a fresh and funny self-portrait of a young woman becoming herself. The Times I Knew I Was Gay reminds us that people sometimes come out not just once but again and again; that identity is not necessarily about falling in love with others, but about coming to terms with oneself. Full of vitality and humor, it will ring true for anyone who has taken the time to discover who they truly are."--Amazon. |
NEW RELEASE By Egan, Timothy Publishing Date: [2023] Classification: 300 Call Number: 322.4209 EGA "A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan's rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them. The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he'd become the Grand Dragon of the state and and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows--their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman--Madge Oberholtzer--who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees"-- |
The land of open graves: living and dying on the migrant trail By De León, Jason Publishing Date: [2015] Classification: 300 Call Number: 325.73 DEL "Anthropologist Jason De León sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time--the human consequences of US immigration policy. The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and death that take place daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross from Mexico into the United States. Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De León uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of 'Prevention through Deterrence, ' the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death. For two decades, this policy has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field"--Provided by publisher |
By Blumenthal, Max Publishing Date: 2019 Classification: 300 Call Number: 327.7305 BLU THE MANAGEMENT OF SAVAGERY excavates the real story behind America's dealings with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America's imperial designs of a national security state. Washington's secret funding of the Mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has ever since sustained the extremists, including Osama Bin Laden, who have become its enemies. The Pentagon's willingness to make alliances abroad have seen the war coming home with inevitable consequences: by funding, training, and arming jihadist elements in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya since the Cold War and waging wars of regime change and interventions that gave birth to the Islamic State. These failed wars abroad have made the United States more vulnerable at home, to both terrorism as well as native ultra-nationalism. The inevitable conclusion of the Neo Con Imperialism is the rise of the Trump presidency. Trump's dealings in the Middle East are likely only to exacerbate the situation. |
NEW RELEASE The crisis of democratic capitalism By Wolf, Martin Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 330.122 WOL "From the chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, a magnificent reckoning with how and why the marriage between democracy and capitalism is coming undone all over the world, and what can be done to reverse this terrifying dynamic. TARGET CONSUMER: Readers of Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, and Tim Snyder Martin Wolf has long been one of the wisest voices on economic issues on the world stage. He has never been known as a sunny-side-up optimist, yet he has never been as worried in his adult life as he is today. Liberal democracy is in recession, and authoritarianism is on the rise. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are being strained, even spurned, even in democracy's notional heartlands, like America and England. Around the world, powerful voices argue that capitalism is better without democracy. Other voices argue that democracy is better without capitalism. This book is a forceful rejoinder to both views. Even as it offers a deep, lucid assessment of why this marriage has grown so strained, it makes clear why a divorce between capitalism and democracy would be an almost unthinkable calamity for the entire world. Democratic capitalism has many enemies and few true friends. For all its flaws, Wolf argues, it remains the best system for human flourishing the world has seen, but something has gone seriously awry: the growth of prosperity has slowed, and the division of the fruits between the hyper-successful few and the rest has become more unequal. The oligarchs have retreated to their bastions, where they take a dim view of government and its ability to invest in the public goods needed to foster opportunity and sustainability. But the waters will rise to overwhelm them too in the end. Citizenship is not just a slogan or a romantic idea; it's the only force that can save us, Wolf argues. Nothing has ever harmonized political freedom and economic freedom better than a shared faith in the common good, and nothing ever will. This wise and rigorously fact-based exploration of the whole epic human story of the dynamic between democracy and capitalism lands on the lesson that our ideals and our interests not only should align- they must. For everyone's sake"-- |
Holding the line: women in the great Arizona mine strike of 1983 By Kingsolver, Barbara Publishing Date: 1996 Classification: 300 Call Number: 331.8928 KIN Novelist Barbara Kingsolver began her writing career with Holding the Line. It is the story of how women's lives were transformed by an eighteen-month strike against the Phelps-Dodge Copper Corporation. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, the story is partly oral history and partly social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community. |
By Orrell, David Publishing Date: [2016] Classification: 300 Call Number: 332.49 ORR The sharing economy's unique customer-to-company exhanges are possible because of the way in which money has evolved. These transactions have not always been as fluid as they are today, and they are likely to become even more fluid. It is therefore critical that we learn to appreciate money's transition from hard currencies to crytocurrencies like Bitcoin if we are to access its cooperative potential. The Evolution of Money illuminates this fascinating reality, focusing on the tension between currency's real and abstract properties and advancing a vital theory of money rooted in this dual exchange. It begins with the debt tablets of Mesopetamia and follows with the development of coin money in ancient Greece and Rome, gold-back currencies in medieval Europe, and monetary economics in Victorian England. The book ends in the digital era, with the cryptocurrencies and service providers that are making the most of money's virtual side and that suggest a tectonic shift in what we call money. By building this organic time line, The Evolution of Money helps us anticipate money's next, transformative role. -- from dust jacket. |
NEW RELEASE Guardians of the valley: John Muir and the friendship that saved Yosemite By King, Dean Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 333.72 KIN "In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir--iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher--meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course of the rest of his life. Upon their arrival the men are confronted with a shocking vision, as predatory mining, tourism, and logging industries have plundered and defaced 'the grandest of all the special temples of Nature.' While Muir is consumed by grief, Johnson, a champion of society's most pressing debates via the pages of the nation's most prestigious magazine, decides that he and Muir must fight back. The pact they form marks a watershed moment, leading to the creation of Yosemite National Park, and launching an environmental battle that captivates the nation and ushers in the beginning of the American environmental movement. Beautifully rendered, deeply researched, and inspiring, Guardians of the Valley is a moving story of friendship, the written word, and the transformative power of nature. It is also a timely and powerful 'origin story' as the toweringly complex environmental challenges we face today become increasingly urgent"-- |
NEW RELEASE The ghost forest: racists, radicals, and real estate in the California redwoods By King, Greg Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 333.7516 KIN The definitive story of the California redwoods, their discovery and their exploitation, as told by an activist who fought to protect their existence against those determined to cut them down. Every year millions of tourists from around the world visit California's famous redwoods. Yet few who strain their necks to glimpse the tops of the world's tallest trees understand how unlikely it is that these last isolated groves of giant trees still stand at all. In this gripping historical memoir, journalist and famed redwood activist Greg King examines how investors and a growing U.S. economy drove the timber industry to cut down all but 4 percent of the original two-million-acre redwood ecosystem. King first examined redwood logging in the 1980s--as an award-winning reporter. What he found in the woods convinced him to leap the line of neutrality and become an activist dedicated to saving the very last ancient redwood groves remaining in private hands. The land grab began in 1849, when a "green gold rush" of migrants came to exploit the legendary redwoods that grew along the Russian River. Several generations later, in 1987, Greg King discovered and named Headwaters Forest--at 3,000 acres the largest ancient redwood habitat remaining outside of parks--and he led the movement to save this grove. After a decade of one of the longest, most dramatic, and violent environmental campaigns in US history, in 1999 the state and federal governments protected Headwaters Forest. The Ghost Forest explores a central question, an overhanging mystery: What was it like, this botanical Elysium that grew only along the Northern California coast, a forest so spectacular--but also uniquely valuable as a cornerstone of American economic growth--that in the end it would inspire life-and-death struggles? Few but loggers and surveyors ever saw such magnificent trees, ancient sentinels that, like ghosts, have informed King's understanding of the world. On a lifelong journey, King finds himself through the generations, and through the trees. |
NEW RELEASE Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 333.794 Each year, scientists issue ever more dire warnings about the progress of climate change and its disastrous impact on humanity and all life on earth, and for many Americans, combating this destructive trend is a leading priority. One of the most important steps is to reduce dependence on "dirty energy" sources, like fossil fuels, and to shift to using renewable energy. This issue of The Reference Shelf looks at the renewable energy debate and draws from the press and politics to gather opinions about subjects like wind and wave energy, the future of solar energy, the challenge of designing eco-friendly energy storage, and the difficulties in tackling fossil fuel dominance in the energy industry. -- |
NEW RELEASE By Isaacson, Walter Publishing Date: 2023 Classification: 300 Call Number: 338.092 ISA "From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era--a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. Oh, and took over Twitter"-- |
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