Posts

The Address Book explores the fascinating and little-known history of street addresses. It covers a wide range of locations and time periods, ranging from ancient Rome, 19^th-century London, and Gilded Age Manhattan to modern-day Florida, Japan, South Africa, and India.

Action Park is a memoir written by Andy Mulvihill, whose father, Gene, founded the titular amusement park in 1978. Located in New Jersey, Action Park was known for its innovative rides with lax safety standards, and was popularly known by nicknames such as “Traction Park” and “Class Action Park”. This book tells the horrifying, fascinating story of the park from its founding to its eventual closure in 1996 following six deaths and countless personal injury lawsuits.

Award-winning American poet Mary Oliver was once the best-selling poet in the United States (that title now belongs to Rumi). Swan: Poems and prose poems was published in 2010, making it one of her more recent works. I don’t just recommend this particular set of poetry to people who know they enjoy poetry – this is great for anyone who is looking for a short, yet inspiring read, or anyone who has been overcome by the beauty and power of nature.

Mortician Caitlin Doughty does it again with her second book, this time not about cremation, but still about death, don’t worry! In From Here to Eternity, she reviews her experiences in countries around the world, teaching us what she learned about how different cultures care for their dead. We learn about different rituals and ceremonies, and compare them to our own.

I would give Marching for Freedom five stars and highly recommend it. The story of the marchers is really inspiring and made more real to the reader through personal stories, photos, and song lyrics. I am very thankful for the sacrifices of the people in the story. Put this book on your reading list!

Review By Rachael F

The Monopolists explores the fascinating and little-known origins of the board game Monopoly. Though long marketed as the brainchild of an unemployed father during the Great Depression, Monopoly was in fact lifted almost entirely from a game that was invented thirty years earlier by a progressive feminist. Lizzie Magie created The Landlord’s Game to demonstrate how landowners were unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of renters.

Looking back on her life on and off the screen, Sally Field brings a mature, sensitive, and poignant reading to her intimate, hauntingly honest, as well as authentic and fresh memoir, 

In How the Universe Works prominent Astrophysicists, Astronomers, and Scientists including Phil Plait, Michelle Thaller, Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, among others, take viewers on a journey of the incredible, fascinating, and mind-blowing inner workings of the cosmos.

In this comprehensive account, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution,

Co-written by a sportswriter and an economist, Scorecasting uses statistics to examine and debunk popularly held ideas about sports. Focusing primarily on baseball, basketball, and football, it explores such topics as home-field advantage, referee bias, hot streaks, and why certain types of players are overvalued.

Billy Crystal has just turned 65 as he reflects on his personal and professional life while providing his observations on aging in his memoir, 

In the final years of the Cold War, the struggling Detroit Red Wings hockey team was desperate to find players that could help them turn their franchise around. At the time, some of the best players in the world were playing for a state-controlled team in the Soviet Union. Because these players could not leave their current team without facing prison time or other serious consequences, most NHL teams were not interested in them. The Red Wings, however, were determined to get Russian players for their team by whatever means necessary.