Staff Picks

Dungy, a CSU professor and poet, writes about the flower garden and native prairie space at her home in Fort Collins. Dungy, who is African American, shares stories along with the scientific names of her plants. A chapter might begin with rabbits living in her yard, then shift to the history of how plants and seeds arrived with Africans who survived the Middle Passage to be sold into slavery. She weaves modern events with family history and historical research about the United States.

 

Publisher’s description
Poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominately white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013, with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant in their gardens. In resistance to the homogenous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it.

Find Soil  in our online catalog

If you grew up in the era when emo music exploded and ever wondered how the bands started out and later found success, this in-depth history is for you. Told exclusively through interviews with the members of the biggest bands and those who worked closely with them, this is an interesting look back at a time when wearing skinny jeans and writing heartbreaking lyrics was all the rage. Nostalgic and honest.

 

Publisher's description:

Told through interview with more than 150 people, including bands, producers, managers and fans, a music journalist offers an authoritative, impassioned and occasionally absurd account of the turn-of-the-millennium emo subculture that took over the American music scene from 1999 to 2008.

 

Beautifully written and so interesting, this exploration of muscle (both physical and metaphorical) weaves together the clinical, the cultural, and the personal to describe our relationship with "the stuff that moves us." It will make you fall back in love with your own body in motion--and inspire you through the stories of others fully living that relationship.

 

Publisher’s description:

Cardiac, smooth, skeletal--these three different types of muscle in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty--and how they have distorted it--through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health.

 

This wonderful book explores the loss of dark skies to light pollution and what we gain when we get back to them. Childs, who embarks on a bike trip from Las Vegas to a truly dark basin north of the city, is a fabulous storyteller and brings in memories of other dark skies he's seen, Native American legends about the role of the sky in creation, the science of how the loss of real dark affects our circadian rhythms, and more. If you can't get to a dark sky, this is the next best thing.

 

Publisher's description:
A night sky is not an absence of light; it is the presence of the universe. In The Wild Dark, master storyteller Craig Childs embarks on a quest to bike from the blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in North America. Childs is a fearless explorer of both the natural world and the human imagination, making him the perfect guide to help us rediscover the heavens and to ask: “What does it do to us to not see the night sky?” In a book that is at once an adventure story, a field guide, and a celebration of wonder, Childs invites us to look up and to look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars.

Find The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light in our online catalog

 

The writing is so beautiful and the stories are deliciously scary. You'll have to read Never Whistle at Night in the morning to avoid sleepless nights, and it's so worth it. Every story in this anthology will keep you riveted.

 

Publisher's description:

A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and gritty crime by both new and established Indigenous authors that dares to ask the question: "Are you ready to be un-settled?" Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief ranges far and wide and takes many forms; for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai'po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls a Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl and snatch the foolish whistlers in the dark. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear-and even follow you home. In twenty-five wholly original and shiver-inducing tales, bestselling and award-winning authors including Tommy Orange, Rebecca Roanhorse, Cherie Dimaline, Waubgeshig Rice, and Mona Susan Power introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples' survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

 

Two collections of distinct yet interconnected stories pull no punches in exploring the bloody Battle of Okinawa, as well as the modern consequences of continued U.S. military occupation on the island. Higa blends traditions of Okinawan spirituality with a cutting narrative and an iconic art style to create a beautiful book.

 

Publisher description:

This heartbreaking manga, by an award-winning cartoonist, examines the history of Okinawa and its military occupation. An essential manga classic presented in English for the first time. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Okinawa brings together two collections of intertwined stories by the island's pre-eminent mangaka, Susumu Higa, which reflect on this difficult history and pull together traditional Okinawan spirituality, the modern-day realities of the continuing US military occupation, and the senselessness of the War. The first collection, Sword of Sand, is a ground level, unflinching look at the horrors of the Battle of Okinawa. Higa then turns an observant eye to the present-day in Mabui (Okinawan for "spirit"), where he explores how the American occupation has irreversibly changed the island prefecture, through the lens of the archipelago's indigenous spirituality and the central character of the yuta priestess. Okinawa is a harrowing document of war, but it is also a work which addresses the dreams and the needs of a people as they go forward into an uncertain future, making it essential reading for anyone interested in World War II and its effects on our lives today, as well as anyone with an interest in the people and culture of this fascinating, complicated place. Though the work is thoroughly about one specific locale, the complex relations between Okinawan and Japanese identities and loyalties, between place and history, and between humanity and violence speak beyond borders and across shores. Please note: This book is a traditional work of manga and reads back to front and right to left.

Find Okinawa in our online catalog

A hilarious and educational journey through the history of English rulers, from King Arthur to Queen Elizabeth I. If you like dry British wit and history, this is the perfect read for you! And for an extra bonus, try the author-narrated audiobook--Mitchell's reading sounds like you're just having a chat over a pint about a thousand years of British heritage.

 

Publisher's description:
Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again. In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits. Taking us back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and a few Cnuts, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed king. How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions that Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history -- and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made. A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the British monarchy came to be -- and who is to blame.

Find Unruly in our online catalog.

Tom Breihan is my favorite music writer, and his online series at Stereogum covering every Billboard #1 Pop Hit is essential reading. This book covers twenty of those hits from Chubby Checker through BTS, going into detail about the artists, songs, and cultural background from a storyteller who clearly loves music and research. Highly recommended!

 

Publisher description:

When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones” -- a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order—he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats. The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades -- including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more -- leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next.

 

This book about Captain James Cook's third voyage is much more interesting and exciting than I expected. I learned a lot and respected that the author, in addition to having us experience life on the boat and the unraveling of Captain Cook on his third voyage, highlights the damage done to native populations by explorers and colonizers. The book gets more exciting and heartbreaking as it continues.

 

Publisher's description:

An epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day ... On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment? Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science--the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment. Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

 

Trevor Noah is a comedian and the host of The Daily Show. He adapted his book Born A Crime to a children-appropriate version named It’s Trevor Noah: Born A Crime. The book is filled with stories from his childhood in South Africa. In the book, he talks about how he grew up during the Apartheid. The Apartheid called for racial segregation in South Africa. It made it so people of different races and skin colors couldn’t marry or go to the same restaurants and bathrooms. It was basically the South African version of discrimination. He describes the time he was thrown out of a moving car because the driver got upset at his mother for accepting a ride from someone else that was not from the same tribe. He remembers that because his father was white and his mother was black, he wasn’t allowed to walk with his mother on the street because he didn’t have the same skin color as her and that would raise some eyebrows. The title It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime says it all, Trevor Noah was actually a crime. Under the Apartheid, it was illegal for a white male to have a child with a black female or vice versa.

 

The book is an adapted version for young readers from his original book Born A Crime, which I read before this one. The books are almost exactly the same except that his first one had lots of swear words. This one for younger readers was also simplified. This book taught me about how it was to live under apartheid, which I wouldn’t have learned about in school. I would rate this book a 10 out of 10 because it made me aware of the world around me and how different racism is in the USA. The book is for ages 10 and up because there are some things that might be inappropriate for younger kids. But even though discrimination is a heavy topic, Trevor Noah did a great job lightening it by making the book funny.