Author: Alice Burton

Payne was a jewel thief for over 60 years, once arrested “after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars.” But then she broke out of jail with the help of nuns? This story sounds extremely fun and good for a winter read.

In 2000, the FBI received a package. It was “a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified United States intelligence.” What made the code much harder to crack was the sender had dyslexia. This is is billed as a “true-life spy thriller,” which is excellent, and is great for all you code-crackers out there.

A flautist breaks into a museum and steals hundreds of bird skins. Why? Fly fishing. “What?” you correctly say. This not only goes into that super-weird story, but also the history of the man who collected some of the skins in the first place, Alfred Russel Wallace, who was perhaps equally weird (but not in a necessarily bad way).

Ok sure, murder’s in the title, but it’s not the POINT of the book. It’s all about the “American Sherlock Holmes,” Edward Oscar Heinrich. Using forensics (in the 1930s and beyond), he solved over two thousand cases! It’s pretty satisfying to read about how someone found clues and deduced answers, especially in this time of chaos in which we all find ourselves. Facts! How comforting.

Rock and roll! What a genre. And this new release is here to walk you through African American women’s contributions to the genre from the 1950s all the way through the 1980s. Big Mama Thornton, Tina Turner, the Shirelles, they are all here and their “powerful sonic legacy” is laid out.

Know the 1970s hit “Come and Get Your Love”? That’s the work of Redbone, a Mexican-American/Native American rock band of the ’60s and ’70s (it’s still an active band though!). This chronicles their rise to fame, and how “as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.”

The memoir of a “guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers.” Basically, if you want to read a memoir about group therapy and how it can helpful, here it is! tw: self-harm and eating disorders

This is pushing the “host of Kindred Spirits” thing, but I’m more impressed by Bruni’s past on GHOST HUNTERS. Here she tells stories about her ghostly experiences and “thirteen truths that guide her approach to the supernatural.” If you’re into real life (?) ghost stories and the people who investigate them, here’s a read for you.

Spooky history! Dickey’s book is here to look at the ghost stories of America and what they reveal about society. He travels to the House of Seven Gables in Salem, MA (been there, was not haunted by it), as well as asylums, battlefields, haunted hotels, and more. One particular point he examines is why are so many of our ghosts in America white? Read if you want some history, but also to be just a little bit scared.

This is the only true “here’s a scary story about a possibly real haunting” book in this bunch. Mercado and her family moved into their Brooklyn, NY home in the 1980s and soon dealt with phantom voices, laughter, shadows, and some poltergeist-like behavior. Eventually they discovered “the tragic and heartbreaking secrets buried in the house at Grave’s End.”

Gender rights activist and prolific author Boylan tells the story of growing up in a haunted house in the 1970s. Why do the ’70s feel like a more likely candidate for a haunting than most other decades? Boylan “launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters” into what it means to be haunted, as well as doing some thoughtful soul-searching (get it?) into the people we were vs. the people we become.

The ever-curious Roach checks out things like people’s attempts to “see” the human soul, why ectoplasm was so popular, what a psychoacoustics expert does, and more. Are ghosts real?? I mean. Probably. But here we have SCIENCE to check it all out. All through the lens of Mary Roach and her extremely fun voice.

La Llorona (“the Weeping Woman”) is a legend known throughout Mexico, Central, and South America. This looks at her story from ancient oral tradition to her appearance in contemporary material culture and “illuminates her many permutations as seductress, hag, demon, or pitiful woman.” I love examinations of stories that change across time!

WeWork was founded in 2010 and is most recently known for its “gained mainstream media attention in 2019 with its failed IPO.” While “spectacular fall” of Neumann may be an overstatement (he was made to step down from the board, but he was paid $1.7 billion to do so and now gets a yearly salary of $46 million), this still looks pretty good.

There are almost sixty million Latinos in the United States. In this travelogue, Ramos “embarks on a journey to find the communities of people defining the controversial term, ‘Latinx.'” She goes from New York to Texas to Milwaukee and looks at how Latinx “has given rise to a sense of collectivity and solidarity among Latinos unseen in this country for decades.”

You know what you need in these troubled times? Lindy West summarizing classic movies (…and Face/Off). This is West returning to her roots (have you read her Titanic review? because I wanted it framed). It’s hilarious and lighthearted and such a good escapist read.

Co-creator of the Black Lives Matter movement, this is Garza’s guide to building transformative movements. She examines how “making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve.”

Part of the Revisioning History series by Beacon Press, this “challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them.”

The protests at Standing Rock put a spotlight on American Indian environmental activism, but it has been going on for decades and decades. This is a history of “Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.”

A finalist for the National Book Award, this is Treuer’s response to the idea that American Indian history ended with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The book tells their story from that point onward, making the point that “the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.”

Mankiller was the first woman elected as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. In her memoir, she tells her story along with the history of the Cherokees. Growing up among the American Indian civil rights struggle, this chronicles her journey to leadership and her fight for their rights.

What is White Reconstruction? It’s “the struggle to reassemble the ascendancy of White Being [that] toxifies the formal disassembly of U.S. (Jim/Jane Crow) apartheid and permeates the political and institutional logics of diversity, inclusion, formal equality, and ‘multiculturalist white supremacy.'” Basically, since the 1960s, there has been work going on to undermine civil rights, and this book points out exactly how that’s been done.

Since the founding of the United States, anti-Indian rhetoric has been a part of American law and policy. From “proportional representation and restrictions on the right to bear arms, to the break-up of tribal property rights and the destruction of Indian culture and family, the attacks on tribal governance and people continue and remain endemic.” A particularly appropriate read in light of Indigenous Peoples’ Day this week.

Parwana is the name of Ayubi’s family restaurant. Her parents fled Afghanistan during the Cold War and started the restaurant “to share an authentic piece of the Afghanistan the family had left behind.” The recipes include ice dishes, curries, meats, dumplings, Afghan pastas, sweets, drinks, chutneys and pickles, soups and breads, all of which sound awesome (except maybe pickles, for I do not care for them).

After World War I, right-wing nationalism slowly grew in popularity across the world, but particularly in Europe. In Italy, the fascist dictator Mussolini held sway. This book focuses on the Rosselli family, and “pays tribute to heroes who fought to uphold our humanity during one of history’s darkest chapters.”

An Anishinaabe writer and economist, LaDuke shares stories of “Native resistance to environmental and cultural degradation,” highlighting Native activists from the Buffalo Nations, Seminoles, Hawai’i, and more, and the racist opposition they encounter.

If you haven’t started March yet, now is a good time. Recently passed Congressman Lewis tells, in three volumes, his lifelong struggle on behalf of civil rights for all. Book One is about his childhood in rural Alabama, his first meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., “the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins.” We miss you, Congressman.

It’s 1969. Your husband or boyfriend can order you not to use contraception. Or you’ve been assaulted. Or any one of a myriad of reasons has led to you getting pregnant when you do not want to or cannot be. In Chicago, an organization known as Jane began. Started by women, some of them students at the University of Chicago, Jane initially provided anonymous referrals to doctors willing to perform abortions. Eventually, the women in the organization learned to do them themselves. They did this to save women from hurting themselves or being hurt by others. This is what was necessary until 1973, and what we hope will not be necessary ever again.

Activist-for-decades and scholar Davis “discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build a movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “freedom is a constant struggle.””

A graphic memoir! I love a graphic memoir. Crewes tells the story of her life and, pivotally for this particular title, her coming out journey. I love that a significant part of this centers around her obsession with Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Importantly for those confused about the process of coming out, it “reminds us that people sometimes come out not just once but again and again; that identity is not necessarily about falling in love with others, but about coming to terms with oneself.” Yis.

Hahaha like I’m not going to highlight the cheese book. Do you want to learn a lot about different kinds of cheeses and maybe feel a bit more knowledgeable at the grocery store? Great. Berkowitz goes “from the underground cheese caves in Paris to the mountains of Gruyere, leaving no curd unturned, all the while cultivating an appreciation for cheese and its place in society.” I love books like this. Just dive all the way into a topic! And if it is artisanal cheese, all the better. #NightCheese

Ok, so this takes the idea that the teachings of martial arts can be expanded into philosophies that can be used for personal growth, and I am on board. Lee famously said to be like water. What does that mean and how can it help us be better? Well, his daughter is here to help with that. Each chapter is a lesson from Lee’s teachings and an expansion on how living life with more fluidity can help everyone.

I am terrible at journaling, but it helps me every single time. You might have read Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, and this companion journal “helps you reflect on topics such as body, power, class, gender, and policy, as well as specific questions like, “Who or what scares you the most when you think about race?” and “How can we go about disconnecting Blackness from criminality?” and “What constitutes an American to you?””