New Books at PEOSTA

Note: Replaces NICC-Peosta missing copy.

Note: Originally published as: Et Tu N’es Pas Revenu (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2015).
Note (2): 2016 Books of the Year (TLS 25 Nov. 2016 p. 12).
Synopsis: An activist and documentary filmmaker, who was arrested in occupied France at the age of fifteen, presents this deeply personal account of her experiences during the Holocaust and the death of her father in a concentration camp that overshadowed her whole life.

Description: This is the story of a man who begins with a desire to serve and, through a winding series of choices, becomes an interrogator for a private contractor at Abu Ghraib during one of our nation’s darkest moments. …By the time he leaves Iraq after that first deployment (he will return), Fair will have participated in or witnessed a variety of aggressive interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, diet manipulation, exposure, and isolation. Years later, his health and marriage crumbling, haunted by the role he played in what we now know as “enhanced interrogation,” it is Fair’s desire to speak out that becomes a key to his survival. (publ.)

Reviewed: NPR (7 March 2017; "Rebuilding A Father's Life — But Tearing Down His Myths — In Dadland") (8 March 2017; "All Things Considered"; "Author Unravels Her Spy Dad's Life, One Secret Mission At A Time").
Note: Winner of the Costa Book Award for Biography (UK).
Description: For most of her adult life, Keggie was kept at arm’s length from her father’s personal history, but when she is invited to join him for the sixtieth anniversary of the Jedburghs—an elite special operations unit that was the first collaboration between the American and British intelligence agencies during World War II—a new door opens in their relation-ship. As dementia stakes a claim over his memory, she embarks on a quest to unravel her father’s story, and soon finds herself in a far more consuming place than she had bargained for. Tom Carew was a maverick, a left-handed stutterer, a law unto himself. As a Jedburgh he was parachuted behind enemy lines to raise guerrilla resistance first against the Germans in France, then against the Japanese in Southeast Asia, where he won the moniker “Lawrence of Burma.”

Reviewed: Choice Apr 2017 vol. 54 no. 8 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries); TLS 31 Mar. 2017 p. 16; LRB 27 July 2017 p. 13

Reviewed: NYRB 25 May 2017 p. 29 (new acad. books); CHE 14 July 2017 (new books)
Description: In May 1933, a young man named Rudolf Schwab fled Nazi Germany. His departure allegedly came at the insistence of a close friend who later joined the Party. Schwab eventually arrived in South Africa, one of the few countries left where Jews could seek refuge, and years later, resumed a relationship in letters with the Nazi who in many ways saved his life. (publ.)

Description: bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. As Jenny says: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos. (publ.)
Note: Faculty Request.

Reviewed: Foreign Affairs 95(6) Nov./Dec. 2016 p. 179; NYT 16 Dec. 2016 p. C28 (2016 Top Books of the Year); TLS 9 Dec. 2016 p. 5

Reviewed: CHE 31 Mar. 2017 (new books); LRB 17 Aug. 2017 p. 37.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 21 May 2017 p. 28
Note: Graphic Novel.
Description: “The … collection of drawings belongs to the brand of humor whose main gag is that mothers are human, rather than perfect. …”

Description: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Faludi seeks to understand her long-estranged father, now living in Hungary as a 76-year-old woman after having undergone sexual reassignment surgery.

Reviewed: NPR Weekend Edition 22 Jan. 2017 ("Goodnight Moon Author Margaret Wise Brown Was No Old Lady Whispering Hush").
Description: Captures the exceptional life, imagination and passion of the author of Goodnight Moon, in a book that draws from unpublished manuscripts, songs, personal letters and diaries that the author discovered in Margaret Wise Brown’s sister’s attic.

Reviewed: NPR (“All Things Considered” 17 Feb. 2017; “How Hermann Rorschach’s ‘Inkblots’ Took On A Life Of Their Own”); TLS 11 Aug. 2017 p. 29; LRB 2 Nov. 2017 p. 23.

Reviewed: NPR (1 May 2017; “All Things Considered”: After Arkansas Executions, Lawyer Criticizes Use Of Capital Punishment) (21 Aug. 2015; “Fresh Air”: One Lawyer's Fight For Young Blacks And Just Mercy) (30 July 2016; “What College Freshmen are Reading”)
Description: The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.

Reviewed: Foreign Affairs 95(6) Nov./Dec. 2016 p. 180; Choice Jun 2017 vol. 54 no. 10 (Essential); NYRB 21 Dec. 2017 p. 55.

Note: Local interest; Jahren grew up and spent her childhood in rural Minnesota.
Holdings: NICC has copy at Calmar campus; call no. 570.92 Jah.
Synopsis: She tells about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and the dis-appointments, triumphs and exhilarating discoveries of scientific work. Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend.

Reviewed: FA 96(3) May/June 2017 p. 175; Choice May 2018 vol. 55 no. 9 (Highly recommended; recommended for community college libraries).
Description: When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in Africa's history. Madame President is the story of Sirleaf’s evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Reviewed: LR Jan. 2017 p. 10; TLS 14 July 2017 p. 14

Reviewed: CHE 28 Apr. 2017 (new books); WSJ 10/11 June 2017 p. C8; Choice Oct. 2017 vol. 55 no. 2 (Essential; recommended for community college libraries)

Reviewed: TLS 5 May 2017 p. 36
Description: A memoir of Wayne Flynt’s friendship with Harper Lee, centered on a collection of letters between Harper Lee, her sisters ... Wayne Flynt, and his wife. Lee is notorious for shunning publicity and never giving interviews. This memoir and collection of letters offers a surprising and extraordinary insight into the life of a reclusive author.

Reviewed: CHE 6 Jan. 2017 (new books); Choice Jun 2017 vol. 54 no. 10 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Library Collections); TLS 29 Sept. 2017 p. 7; LRB 8 Mar. 2018 p. 17

Description: With humor and warmth, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares the stories that have shaped her life. For twenty-eight years, Pamela Paul has been keeping a diary that records the books she reads, rather than the life she leads. Or does it? Over time, it’s become clear that this Book of Books, or Bob, as she calls him, tells a much bigger story.

Reviewed: TLS 20 Jan. 2017 (and everywhere else).

Reviewed: TLS 31 Mar. 2017 p. 35
Description: Samer (a pseudonym) is twenty-four years old. Having escaped Raqqa, he is living in a refugee camp in northern Syria. He risks his life to tell the world what is happening in his city. Part of a small anti-ISIS activist group, the diaries were written, encrypted, and sent to a third country before being translated.

Reviewed: NPR ("Fresh Air" 2 Mar. 2017: A Purple Heart Warrior Takes Aim At Military Inequality In Shoot Like A Girl).
Description: An Air National Guard officer describes her experiences after being shot down on a Medevac mission in Afghanistan and her efforts to convince the U.S. government to allow women to serve openly on the front lines. (NPR)

Reviewed: Choice Sep 2017 vol. 55 no. 1 (Highly Recommended; Recommended for community college libraries)

Reviewed: FA Jan/Feb. 2017 p. 168; TLS 20 Jan. 2017 p. 14.