National Network for Equitable Library Service

An energetic new voice in American politics, United States Senator Cory Booker sounds a stirring call to reorient our civic discourse around the principles of empathy and solidarity. Telling candid, inspiring stories from his life and career, and imparting lessons learned from people who motivated him to serve, he speaks of rising above discord, tending to our shared resources, and embracing our common destiny.

With his trademark blend of political history, social science, economics, and pop culture, two-time NYT bestselling author, syndicated columnist, National Review senior editor, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Jonah Goldberg makes the timely case that America and other democracies are in peril as they lose the will to defend the values and institutions that sustain freedom and prosperity. Instead we are surrendering to populism, nationalism and other forms of tribalism.

Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information.

The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF's targeted killing programs, from the man hailed by David Remnick as "arguably [Israel's] best investigative reporter" The Talmud says: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first." This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel's DNA.

Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality' Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again' Why have protections for employees been decimated' Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers' The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement.

"Passionate and cogent, this could be the most important book of the year for Canadians. We are complacent. We bask in the idea that Canada holds 20% of the world's fresh water - water crises face other countries, but not ours. We could not be more wrong. In Boiling Point, bestselling author and activist Maude Barlow lays bare the issues facing Canada's water reserves, including long-outdated water laws, unmapped and unprotected groundwater reserves, agricultural pollution, industrial-waste dumping, boil-water advisories, and the effects of deforestation and climate change.

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, Clive Veroni's Spin is a fascinating investigation of how the techniques of political strategists are being applied to the world of consumer marketing. In the early twentieth century political operatives did their work in the backroom, a shady place of secret deals and dark arts. By the middle of the century, the politicos were heading to Madison Avenue to learn the techniques of mass communication and persuasion.

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, whose fifty-year-career as a journalist put her in the forefront of the fight for social justice, offers a comprehensive view of racial relations and the media in the US, covering a wide swath of media history--from the era of game-changing Negro newspapers like the Chicago Defender to the civil rights movement, feminism, and our current imperfect diversity.

Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. Economist Paul Collier outlines original and ethical ways of healing these rifts--economic, social, and cultural--with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism.

As the US and Cuba move toward the normalization of diplomatic relations after an epic fifty-six-year standoff, we find ourselves face-to-face with one of the few places in the world that has been off limits to most Americans. Standing on both sides of the political divide, twelve of our most celebrated writers investigate this period of momentous transition.