Three on the Third is a monthly series in which we highlight three books new to the library collection. Summaries of the books will be provided along with shelf location and a link to the item in the catalog.
Writings on the Wall
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Basketball legend and cultural commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores how the America of today is a fractured society, sharply divided along the lines of race, gender, religion, political party and economic class. In his celebrated second career as a writer and social critic, Abdul-Jabbar examines these issues with insight and passion as he draws from his own experiences as a superstar athlete, an inquisitive scholar, a celebrity, a father, an African American and a Muslim. In his columns for Time, the Washington Post and other national publications, he has garnered wide attention for opinions that are unconventional yet disarmingly rational in a time of political absurdity. In this new collection of essays, he probes the roots of bias and unfairness that remain a stubborn part of America, even 240 years after its founding document declared that all Americans are created equal. He makes a compelling case for how America can create equal opportunity for all its citizens, not just the few and the favored. Summary provided by the publisher
Catalog Link – Writings on the Wall
HN90.S6 A23 2016
The Almost Sisters
by Joshilyn Jackson
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of Gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality–the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are. Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman. It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She’s having a baby boy–an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old’s life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she’s been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood. Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother’s affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she’s pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie’s been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows. Summary provided by publisher
Catalog Link – The Almost Sisters
PS3610.A3525 A78 2017
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
by Neil deGrasse Tyson
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? Today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day. While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe. Summary provided by publisher
Catalog Link – Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
QB461 .T97 2017
