Adult

THE STORY OF AIN'T by David Skinner is the captivating true chronicle of the creation of Merriam Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1961, the most controversial dictionary ever published. The book describes a great societal metamorphosis, tracing the fallout of the world wars, the rise of an educated middle class, and the emergence of America as the undisputed leader of the free world, and illuminating how those forces shaped our language.

In the late 1930s, the German–American Bund was a small but powerful national movement, determined to conquer the United States government with a fascist dictatorship. But while they dreamed of a Swastika Nation, politicians, a rising legal star, a newspaper columnist, and denizens of the criminal underworld utilized their respective means and muscle to bring down the movement and its dreams of a United Reich States.

“The Chinese Communist party refers to its victory in 1949 as a ‘liberation.’ In China the story of liberation and the revolution that followed is not one of peace, liberty, and justice. It is first and foremost a story of calculated terror and systematic violence.” So begins Frank Dikötter’s stunning and revelatory chronicle of Mao Zedong’s ascension and campaign to transform the Chinese into what the party called New People.

Games between the Dodgers and Giants are never just another day at the ballpark. A longtime newspaper editor and baseball fiend, Joe Konte understands what is so special about what is one of the most significant rivalries in American sports. And so --- via statistical analysis, game summaries, roster scrutiny, manager matchups, season recaps, and more --- he has put together a rivalry bible.

As 1862 dawned, the American republic was at death’s door. The survival of the country depended on the judgment and resilience of Abraham Lincoln, the unschooled frontier lawyer who had recently been elected president. Acclaimed author David Von Drehle has created both a deeply human portrait of America’s greatest president and a dramatic narrative about our most fateful year.

Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, bestselling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving 19th-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire.

Iona Sheehan arrives in Ireland with nothing but her grandmother's stories and the promise of a few cousins to make her feel at home. She starts to build a new life for herself there with her two cousins and hunky stable owner Boyle McGrath. But an ancient evil has wound its way around Iona’s family tree, and family and friends will fight with each other and for each other to keep the promise of hope --- and love --- alive.

Vivid and teeming with life, KING OF CUBA transports readers to Cuba and Miami, and into the heads of two larger-than-life men: a fictionalized Fidel Castro and an octogenarian Cuban exile obsessed with seeking revenge against the dictator. García’s masterful twinning of these characters combines with a rabble of other Cuban voices to portray the passions and realities of two Cubas --- on the island and off --- in a pulsating story that entertains and illuminates.

WRITERS BETWEEN THE COVERS rips the sheets off real-life love stories of the literati --- some with fairy tale endings and others that resulted in break-ups, breakdowns and brawls. From the best break-up letters to the stormiest love triangles to the boldest cougars and cradle-robbers, this fun and accessible volume reveals literary history’s most titillating loves, lusts and longings.

James MacGregor Burns brilliantly illuminates the 200-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, when audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, overturning governments, and inspiring visionary political experiments. FIRE AND LIGHT brings to vivid life the galaxy of revolutionary leaders of thought and action who, armed with a new sense of human possibility, driven by a hunger for change, created the modern world.