Kanopy: Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Explore the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. with Kanopy, a streaming service that is free with your WPL card. Titles include I Have a Dream, which features four historic speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., and Black America since MLK: And Still I rise which analyzes African American history within the past 50 years.

WPL card holders have 9 tickets to use to watch films. Follow this link to learn more about how tickets work. The Kanopy app is available on mobile devices and smart TVs. Create an account here. If you already have an account, click on the film title to sign in and start watching. 

I Have a Dream

This historical compilation features highlights of major speeches given by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. - August 28, 1963

Brown Chapel, Selma, AL - March 8, 1965

Final Speech - April 3, 1968

Robert F. Kennedy Eulogy - April 4, 1968

PBS: In Remembrance of Martin

Personal comments from family, friends, and advisors fill this remarkable documentary honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King joins the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Jimmy Carter, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Senator Edward Kennedy, John Lewis, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Andrew Young, who recall Dr. King's career and trace his leadership in the civil rights movement.

Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise 

This series looks at the last five decades of African American history through the eyes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., exploring the tremendous gains and persistent challenges of these years. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, scholarly analysis and rare archival footage, the series illuminates our recent past, while raising urgent questions about the future of the African American community and our nation as a whole.

King: A Filmed Record

A monumental documentary that follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1955 to 1968, in his rise from regional activist to world-renowned leader of the Civil Rights movement. Rare footage of King's speeches, protests, and arrests are interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by heartfelt testimonials by some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

The Talk: Race in America

This film documents the increasingly common conversation taking place in homes across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.

At the River I Stand

A skillful reconstruction of the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation workers into a national conflagration. 

New Releases: December 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

FICTION

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch: Could it actually happen in Ireland? Commercial scientist Eilish Stack is living a quiet middle class life in a Dublin suburb with her husband, a trade unionist, and their four children. While, they may not be happy with the creeping loss of civil liberties under a new authoritarian government, they aren’t overly inconvenienced until a knock at the door signals her husband’s arrest and ultimate disappearance, and Eilish’s hitherto comfortable life is, step-by-step, upended utterly. Just how far will she go to preserve her family? The British edition of this timely, bleak, but beautiful novel, recently won the prestigious Booker Prize.

Rebecca, not Becky by Christine Platt and Catherine Wigginton Greene: This whip-smart, compulsively readable novel focuses on two affluent stay-at home mothers, one Black, and one white, who attempt to find common ground across a yawning racial divide. Forced by circumstance to leave her Atlanta home, former lawyer, D’Andrea Whitman finds herself marooned and deeply unhappy in the heavily white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia, until her therapist challenges her to find a white friend. Enter the painfully earnest Rebecca-not-Becky Myland, champion of racial diversity in the Rolling Hills community, who may just fit the bill. Satire meets probing social commentary. Misunderstanding and missteps abound, but eventually both women learn a little something about race, class, gender, parenting, and, yes, sisterhood.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon: Anyone who encounters the real-life midwife and diarist, Martha Ballard, through the pages of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife'sTale, is unlikely to forget her. So, it is perhaps not surprising that author Ariel Lawhon, has chosen to make this intrepid, competent, and courageous woman the protagonist of an historical mystery. When, in the year 1789, a man is found entombed in the ice-bound waters of the Kennebec River, Ballard, well-known in her community as an astute observer and healer, is asked to examine the body and assist in establishing a cause of death. However, when her conclusion differs from that of a prominent local physician, Martha is forced to investigate what she believes to be murder on her own.

NONFICTION

Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair by Christian Wiman: Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet, professor, parent and cancer survivor, has created a genre-defying work, an indivisible blend of poetry, criticism, theology and searing memoir in which he explores and ultimately refuses to accept existential despair. A soul-provoking contribution to devotional literature from a contemporary mystic.

Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel by Shahnaz Habib: Attending a lecture by a travel videographer, author Shahnaz Habib heard him proclaim, “Europeans travel in August, cruises are for American retirees, and people from the third world do not travel, they immigrate.” Habib, who was raised in India, lives in Brooklyn and routinely visits relatives on several continents, is both an immigrant and a traveler. In this witty and wide-ranging collection of essays, she examines the intersection between tourism and western privilege, as well as diverse travel-related topics, including, the history of travel guides, the popularity of Thai food, and her own fear of nature (biophobia) among others.

The Lost Tomb and Other Real Life Stories of Bones, Burials and Murder by Douglas Preston: For those of us who believe that there is nothing more relaxing after a hectic day, than kicking back with a bracing account of an unsolved mystery, archeological conundrum, or gruesome murder, Preston’s latest offering may just be the perfect book you. His essays, many published previously in the New Yorker, cover the mass-murdering Monster of Florence, the discovery of an Egyptian tomb, and the booby-trapped money pit on Oak Island, among many other historical (and in some cases prehistoric) puzzles past and present.

   

 

 

New Releases: November 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

FICTION

A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates: Written by Herself by Katherine Howe.  At the bloody end of the Age of Pirates, Hannah Masury, an indentured servant in Boston is forced to flee for her life, disguising herself as a cabin boy on the ship of notorious pirate captain Ned Lowe. Thus begins a—yes—swashbuckling, tale of adventure on the high seas. When, three hundred years later, scholar Marian Beresford discovers hints as to the location of buried treasure in Hannah’s long-lost journal, she embarks upon a quest to find both the treasure and the truth behind Hannah’s tale.

A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter.  The stories of five generations of indigenous women in Western Canada are woven together into a tapestry of funny, wise, confused, struggling, and resilient characters, including a young mother facing big decisions, a piano-playing octogenarian entering rehab for the first time, the ghost of the family matriarch who can’t seem to settle into the afterlife, and a love-sick bison. Problems abound; familial bonds persist; magic is afoot.

The Kingdom of Sweets: A Novel of the Nutcracker by Erika Johansen. In this eerie and sophisticated re-imagining of the story of The Nutcracker, twin sisters, Clara the adored, and Natasha the overshadowed and ignored, are set against one another one Christmas Eve, when their evil godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, brings them an enchanted gift—a Nutcracker—which allows them entry into an alternate world, the Kingdom of Sweets. There, Natasha discovers the truth about a dark destiny crafted long before her birth and she must reckon with forces both earthly and magical, human and diabolical. To which world does she truly belong?

NONFICTION

A City on Mars:  Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. So, what will we do when we have finally messed up the earth so badly that it is no longer habitable? I know, find another planet and move there! Not so fast, say the authors Weinersmith.  We humans may be hurtling towards expansion into space but we have not begun to grapple with the myriad, scientific, political, socioeconomic, and legal challenges involved. With deep expertise, and a winning sense of humor, the authors address a host of issues including: Can we make space babies and raise space kids, grow space food on space farms, and govern space colonies in a way that ensures peaceful coexistence? Moreover, even if we can, should we? The answers to the three questions posed in the subtitle above are: maybe but not for a long time; uh…maybe, maybe not; and a resounding no.

Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir. Who knew that a humble and ubiquitous adornment could carry so much cultural significance? In this book, Zahra Hankir explores the intersection of beauty and power through the lens of an iconic cosmetic that has, over millennia, served to protect the eyes, signify status, ward off the evil eye, attract partners and transform faces into fantasies. Along the way, she takes us on a whirlwind tour through the streets, bedrooms, stages, and museums, of the world, referencing figures as diverse as Nefertiti and Amy Winehouse.

The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection by Jen Goldbeck and Stacey Colino. Most dog owners know instinctively that sharing a home with a canine companion, enhances their lives. Now, co-authors Goldbeck and Colino take a deep dive into the scientific evidence that dog ownership improves emotional and physical health, and increases mental acuity and cognitive skills. Most importantly, they suggest that dogs remind us of all that is right in the world—love, trust, affection, playtime, and exercise—at time when so much else seems so wrong...Perhaps it is no accident that the adoption of shelter dogs doubled during the COVID pandemic.  

 

New Releases: October 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!   

FICTION

Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Ann Eekhout 

It may be hard to imagine that one the great classics in world literature was penned by a rebellious teenage girl. Mary Shelley was just eighteen years old, married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and grieving the death of her first child, when she and her husband spent the cold and dreary summer of 1816 on the shore of a Swiss lake, sharing a home with a coterie of other writers and artists. One wine-soaked evening the infamous poet, Lord Byron challenged each member of the group to write a ghost story. Mary was reluctant until she began to draw on memories of time spent with an equally imaginative girl, Isabella Burton, several years before. The two had formed an intense friendship, sharing intimacies, confidences, and not least a penchant for the uncanny.  Past experience informed Mary’s creative spirit and the result? Frankenstein’s immortal monster. In this work of fiction, Dutch writer Ann Eekhout has re-imagined the life of what one reviewer called “the queen of all goth girls.”

 

A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand 

Hill House is hungry again. For those of us who consider Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to be the greatest and scariest haunted house story of all time, this is good news indeed. Holly Sherwin is a struggling playwright in need of the perfect place to complete her latest work, when she stumbles across the crumbling, cavernous old house in a small town in upstate New York and invites three friends to join her in residence. The rest is pure Shirley Jackson: slow burn, isolation paranoia, exterior threat, interior vulnerabilities, and the sinister, almost sentient presence of the house, looming over the background. For any who might be tempted to cry plagiarism, it should be noted that the Jackson estate selected the talented Elizabeth Hand, to create an updated interpretation of the author’s classic work. Critics say “spot on.”

 

Hide: The Graphic Novel by Kiersten White et al. 

Fourteen contestants compete to win $50,000 by enduring one week in a creepy derelict carnival. The only rule? Don’t get caught. When participants begin to disappear it occurs to those remaining that the stakes may be higher than they had ever imagined. What’s not to love? Evidently, someone loved Hide well enough to consider White’s novel, published in 2018, a good candidate for adaptation as a graphic novel. Adapter Scott Peterson’s text is chilling and immersive, but the real star is the stunning, moody, illustrations contributed by Worcester’s own Veronica and Andy Fish. 

 

NONFICTION

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis 

In this upcoming work, acclaimed author, Lewis, has added to the burgeoning collection of books chronicling the lives of brilliant (and sometimes) well-intentioned innovators who rise to meteoric heights and then crash and burn due to a combination of hubris and criminality. Lewis’s subject, Sam Bankman-Fried founded FTX, a crypto currency brokerage firm in 2019 and attracted a host of investors, due to the company’s reputation for stability in the shaky, poorly regulated world of crypto. Overnight, the outwardly unassuming iconoclast became a billionaire. Too good to be true? Of course. In 2022, Bankman-Fried went on trial for fraud and now jurors have to decide. Did he merely make a series of stupid mistakes or is he Bernie Madoff in disguise?

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair 

Growing up in Jamaica, Safiya and her sisters were taught that the world outside their home was “Babylon” a place of corruption and evil. In order to protect his daughters, Safiya’s father a militant adherent of a strict branch of Rastafari, forbade them almost everything: revealing clothing, makeup, friends, opinions. Obedience was presented as the highest virtue. However, Safiya’s mother, while outwardly compliant gave her children the gift that would ultimately liberate them—books. Now, in shimmering prose, Sinclair, an award-winning poet, illuminates the Rastafari movement that first nourished, and later oppressed her.

The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women in the CIA by Liza Mundy 

They started as secretaries, clerks, and spouses, but—perhaps due to their very invisibility—rose to become some of the CIAs shrewdest and most successful operatives, transforming spy craft, and playing a pivotal role in the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Author Steve Coll calls The Sisterhood a rip-roaring read, and Booklist says that every page is electric with revelations.

 

 

 

 

Learning Express Library

Learning Express Library is a popular go to resource for students, adults and professionals who seek to achieve their educational and occupational goals. The database comes equipped with a wide variety of practice tests, skill builders, tutorials and ebooks. Organized into targeted learning centers, it offers a complete selection of interactive tutorials, practice tests and ebooks essential to improve academic skills, earn a high school equivalency, prepare for college, join the military, obtain professional certification, find a job, change careers, become a U.S. citizen and much more.

The eight learning centers are:

Career Preparation: Prepare for military, real estate, nursing, law enforcement, civil service, teaching, commercial driver’s license and trade exams

High School Equivalency Center: Prepare for the GED in English and Spanish, HiSET etc.

College Admissions Test Preparations: ACT, SAT, AP, PSAT, TOEFL

Grades 4-8 Educator Resources: Skill building lessons and practice for guiding elementary and middle school learners

High School Students: Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Technology, logic and reasoning skills improvement for classroom and homework improvement

College Students: CLEP, college placement and graduate school admissions exams; math, science, grammar and reading skills review

Adult Core Skills: Citizenship exam resources; build on your math, reading, grammar and speaking skills

Recursos Para Hispanohablantes: Learning, career and citizenship tools in Spanish

Watch this tutorial for a quick overview:

All you need is a valid Worcester Public Library card to access the resource from our website. Click here, select Learning Express Library from the alphabetical list, and create your own account. Registration requires a valid email address and a password. This will guarantee your work in progress and score reports can be saved. You will also be able to revisit any practice tests, so you can refer back to them later.

New Releases: September 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated September releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!  

FICTION

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll - Pamela was never the same after she witnessed the murder of two of her sorority sisters and the wounding of two others at her University of Florida sorority house in 1978. When she meets another young woman convinced that the same perpetrator killed one of her friends two years previously, the two join forces to bring him to justice. If these few details bring to mind the crimes of serial killer Ted Bundy, the resemblance is intentional. Knoll, however, quietly subverts the myth of the charismatic killer by focusing her narrative on his victims and their survivors in this suspenseful, thought-provoking thriller. 

The Long Game: a Novel by Elena Armas - An unlikely duo find love while coaching a team of unruly nine-year-olds on the soccer field in this steamy, sporty rom-com set in small-town North Carolina. When disgraced soccer exec Adalyn Reyes, who has been exiled from her home in Miami and tasked with helping the hapless Green Turtles turn their fortunes around, meets retired hotshot goalie Cam Caldani, she can’t help but think he might be the perfect companion on her road to redemption. But, no, due to a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, Cam can’t stand her. Adalyn, however, is not one to take no for an answer. Eventually, the Green Turtles triumph and, perhaps not surprisingly, enmity gives way to romance.  

The North Woods by Daniel Mason - When a pair of young lovers abscond from a repressive Puritan colony to the north woods, little do they know that over centuries and through generations, the humble cabin in which they take refuge will host a multitude of characters human and non-human alike: a lovelorn painter, a stalking panther, an anguished ghost, a sinister con-man, and an amorous beetle among them. This panoramic novel teems with inter-connected stories that explore love, and madness, greed and generosity, hope and humor, the natural world and the occult, all against the backdrop of the dark and wondrous north woods.

NONFICTION

Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better by Myisha Cherry - Forgiveness is essential to the healing of both the individual psyche and the world. Spiritual leaders, philosophers, and pop culture icons agree. However, scholar Myisha Cherry asks what does it really mean to forgive? Are there circumstances in which forgiveness is not the appropriate response to injustice? Cherry contrasts “superficial repair” of broken relationships be they personal or political, with the “radical repair” predicated on addressing the situation that gave rise to the need to forgive in the first place. In addition, she says, “We can only learn to do forgiveness better, not perfectly.”

 

The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul by Scott W. Berg - The late summer of 1871 had been uncommonly hot and dry and the booming metropolis of Chicago was a tinderbox. Contrary to legend, a cow was not the culprit, but when fire did strike on the evening of October 8th, it swept through the city’s neighborhoods, destroyed the central business district, killed hundreds, and left an estimated 100,000 homeless. No sooner had the firefight ended than a new battle erupted between private interests representing native born, Protestant elites, and the city’s burgeoning immigrant population, determined not to be left behind. Regardless of circumstances, however, the city’s rapid transformation from a pile of ashes on the shore to cultural and industrial powerhouse was, indeed miraculous.

Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City by Elyssa Maxx Goodman -  This expansive, celebratory survey of the richness, diversity and resilience of drag in the Big Apple, takes us from Jazz Age masquerade balls to RuPaul’s Drag Race and features a cast of characters who can only be described as marvelous. Although consistently lively and entertaining, the ongoing social and political issues faced by participants in drag life then and now, are addressed in depth in this heavily researched, seminal history. 

  

SAMS Photofact Repair Manual Online

 Are you looking to fix that old radio or VCR but don’t really know how to go about it? Try SAMS Photofacts to find the wiring diagram, schematics or service manual for the model you own. Regardless of whether you are a professional repairman, electronics enthusiast, or a do-it-yourselfer, you will find this resource useful as this is the standard resource technicians go to for electronics repair.

SAMS Photofacts contains sets of schematics for consumer electronics such as TV, VCR, DVD player and Radio. You can search by model number and download the PDF. If the model you need is not available for immediate download, you can fill out a request form for the PDF and SAMS will upload the file within a few days.


To access this manual online, go to WPL’s databases page and click on Photofacts Online (SAMS). A Worcester Public Library card is required for remote access. In addition, the library also maintains a hugh collection of photofacts in print format on the 2nd floor. 

New Releases: August 2023 Edition

New Releases: August 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated August releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!  

FICTION

Las Madres by Esmeralda Santiago - In her first novel since the widely acclaimed When I Was Puerto Rican, author Santiago tells the story of a close-knit group of Puerto Rican women bound by ties of family and friendship. It all begins in 1975 when aspiring ballerina Luz, is gravely injured in an automobile accident that takes the lives of both of her parents. Many years later, Luz, now living in the Bronx, returns to the island, accompanied by her daughter and the friends who helped raise her, to revisit the past and uncover the truth about the accident that inalterably changed the course of her life. When Hurricane Maria strikes and long-buried secrets come to light, they all get more than they bargained for.

Fever House by Keith Rosson - When leg-breaking debt collectors Hutch and Tim attempt to strong arm a drug addict named Wesley, who owes their boss $12,000, they find a severed hand hidden in a Wonder Bread bag and decide to take it home. Bad idea. Madness ensues. Full-throated splatter punk, gritty noir, rock and roll, break- neck pacing and, surprisingly well-realized characters. What’s not to love?

Mobility by Lydia Kiesling - The personal meets the political head on, in the story of Bunny a self-described “foreign service brat" who, after a privileged childhood in various exotic postings, moves on to an equally privileged adulthood as an oil company executive in Texas. But can she reconcile her comfortable life with her role in shaping the dire future she sees looming on the horizon?

NONFICTION

The Underworld:Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey - For centuries, mariners have spun tales of a sinister undersea world of deadly peril and marvelous creatures. Now cutting-edge technologies have allowed scientists to dive miles beneath the ocean’s surface, and they have discovered both marvelous creatures and deadly peril. Soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, valleys 7,000 times as deep as Everest is high, shimmering creatures one hundred feet long, sharks that live half a millennium and an estimated three million shipwrecks littering the ocean floor, to name a few. In her new work, oceanographic enthusiast Casey chronicles her own literal and figurative deep dive into the past, present and precarious future of the watery world that lies beneath.  

Anansi’s Gold: TheMan Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington and Swindled the World by Yepoka Yeebo. Some consider him the most successful con man in history. Beginning in 1957 after Ghana achieved independence from Britain, John Ackah Blay-Miezah perpetrated a series of audacious frauds, raking in millions, living large on several continents, and luring in many notable figures including, Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell and child star and one-time US ambassador to Ghana, Shirley Temple Black. In Anansi’s Gold, Ghanaian journalist Yeebo tells the story of this charismatic man who hoodwinked just about everybody he met and proved maddeningly adept at escaping justice all along the way.

Althea by Sally Jacobs - Before Venus and Serena Williams, there was Althea Gibson. Three years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball, Althea Gibson entered the rarefied, largely upper-crust world of professional tennis. Many were skeptical. After all, apart from the color of her skin, her impoverished background, short hair and tattered jeans fit nobody’s image of how a tennis player looks. Never mind, Gibson’s ability to play soon silenced all critics. Now, author Jacobs chronicles the life and career of this woman who defied multiple obstacles to win Wimbledon, hobnob with dignitaries and become a personal hero to women and people of color who aspired to secure a place on the court.

New Releases: July 2023 Edition

Check out these highly anticipated July releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!  

FICTION

Carnivale of Curiosities by Aimee Gibbs In Victorian London tickets to a traveling sideshow, the Carnivale of Curiosities, are a hot commodity. Throngs gather nightly to gaze in wonder at an astounding assemblage of marvels. For those few in the know, however, the real magic happens behind the curtain, where for the right price, the show’s proprietor, Aurelius Ashe, can make any wish come true. This unique and dazzling gothic tale is set in a spectacular circus where star-crossed lovers’ destinies are forged at an unexpected price. Intrigued? Author Colson Whitehead calls Carnivale of Curiosities, “wonderfully imagined” and “fiendishly clever.”

 

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson This classic coming of age tale set in the West African neighborhoods of South London, tells the story of aspiring trumpet player, Stephen, whose overriding passion for music and dance puts him at odds with his father an ambitious Ghanaian immigrant, who harbors more conventional dreams for his offspring. Nelson’s lovely prose and quietly meditative tone perfectly capture the heat of a city summer, the pulsing beat of a smoky dance club, the intensity of youth, the intimacy of family life, the trauma of intergenerational conflict, and the yearning for freedom from the expectations of others. 

 

The Librarianist by Patrick DeWitt Bob Comet is a retired librarian living a contented life surrounded by books and small comforts, when an unexpected encounter in a grocery store motivates him to volunteer at the local senior center where he is soon surrounded by a host of quirky characters. Gradually the complexities of Comet’s inner life and past adventures are revealed. This poignant and often very funny book celebrates the extraordinary depths hidden in even the most ordinary of lives.

 

NONFICTION

The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland Diagnosed with a condition called retinitis pigmentosa as a child, Andrew Leland has long known that he will eventually become totally blind. Leland has used his considerable emotional and intellectual resources to explore the social, cultural, political and, most importantly personal aspects of what it means to become a citizen of “the country of the blind.” He shares his story with abundant wit, warmth and no sentimentality, determined to gain whatever insight he can, into what he maintains is one of the generative experiences of his life. 

 

Bogie and Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Love Affair by William J. Mann Actor Humphrey Bogart was forty-five years old, an established star and unhappily married when he met 19-year-old Lauren Bacall on the set of the film To Have or Have Not. Romance ensued; scandal followed and Hollywood pundits predicted that, of course, the couple would not last. They were wrong. Following his divorce, Bogie and Bacall married and they remained together-by all accounts happily-until his death in 1957. In this book, author William Mann offers a comprehensive look at this remarkable love story, capturing all of its complications, contradictions and challenges with sympathy and in great depth.

Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces that Sway Doctors Impact Patients, and Shape our Health by Dr Anupam P. Jena and Dr Christopher Worsham Why are children more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD at certain times of year than others? Why were Republicans far more likely to die of COVID than Democrats? Are marathons bad for your health even if you do not run?  Is it better to choose an experienced physician or a rookie? These are just a few of the questions addressed by authors Jena and Worsham as they delve into the social, political, economic and cultural factors that help define the landscape of  American healthcare. This is an entertaining and thought-provoking exploration of one of the most critical issues of our time.