Emory Reads

"A literary sensation in Brazil, Luiz Schwarcz's brave and tender memoir interrogates his ordeal of bipolar disorder in the context of a family story of murder, dispossession, and silence--the long echo of the Holocaust across generations."

"Christian Cooper is a self-described "Blerd" (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the bird watching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper's story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas."

"Drinking and Tweeting meets Unorthodox in this vulnerable memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star's departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood. A revealing and ultimately hopeful memoir, Bad Mormon is a captivating read in the vein of Untamed, Educated, and Me Talk Pretty One Day."

"Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what's happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate. Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music--De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene."

"As a multiracial household in Chicago's North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Choosing Family chronicles this journey to motherhood while examining the messiness and complexity of adoption and parenthood from a Black, queer, and feminist perspective. Royster also explores her memories of the matriarchs of her childhood and the homes these women created in Chicago's South Side--itself a dynamic character in the memoir--where "family" was fluid, inclusive, and not necessarily defined by marriage or other socially recognized contracts."

"Filled with never-before-seen photos, illustrations, and ephemera from the band's private archive, and featuring contributions from Lunachicks drummer Chip English, founding member Sindi B., and former bandmate Becky Wreck, Fallopian Rhapsody is a bawdy, gripping, warts-and-all account of how these city kids relied on their cosmic creative connection to overcome internal strife and external killjoys, all the while empowering legions of fans to shoot for the moon."

"From one of the world's leading planetary scientists, a luminous memoir of exploration on Earth, in space, and within oneself--equal parts ode to the beauty of science, meditation on loss, and roadmap for personal resilience."

"Thrust into the spotlight at just eighteen years old after winning the Berlin World Championships in 2009, Caster Semenya's win was quickly overshadowed by criticism and speculation about her body, and she became the center of a still-raging firestorm about how gender plays out in sports, our expectations of female athletes, and the right to compete as you are."

"An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal."

"The life of physicist Mildred Dresselhaus. As a girl in the 1940s, she was taught that there were only three career options open to women- secretary, nurse, or teacher. Eventually, Dresselhaus became one of the first female professors at MIT, where she would spend nearly six decades. Weinstock explores the basics of Dresselhaus's work in carbon nanoscience accessibly and engagingly, describing how she identified key properties of carbon forms, including graphite, buckyballs, nanotubes, and graphene, leading to applications that range from lighter, stronger aircraft to more energy-efficient and flexible electronics."

"This is the first in-depth and analytical biography of an Asian woman scientist--Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897-1984). The volume brings into focus her work on mapping the origin and evolution of cultivated plants across space and time, to contribute to a grand history of human evolution, her works published in peer-reviewed Indian and international journals of science, as well as her co-authored work, Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945), considered a bible by practitioners of the discipline."

"The first major biography of one of our most influential judges-an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary-that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century."

"A journey back through the music, madness, and unparalleled freedom of an era of change-the '70s-as told through the life of ultra-fabulous superstar Sylvester Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome-to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper."

"Bernie Sanders inspires fervent love and, even among his enemies, a measure of grudging respect--yet, curiously, we know little about who the man really is, with Sanders deliberately keeping the focus on his policies. Revelatory and heartfelt, The Fighting Soul depicts the rare politician motivated by principle, not power."

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A vibrant portrait of four college friends--Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Mary Midgley--who formed a new philosophical tradition while Oxford's men were away fighting World War II."

"When Shirley Chisholm was asked why she would dare run for president, her response was, why not her? She was both the first African American woman elected to the US Congress and the first African American woman of a major political party to make a serious run for president of the United States. Without Shirley Chisholm there may not have been a Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Kamala Harris."

"A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley."

"The definitive biography of iconic serial visionary Stewart Brand, from the Merry Pranksters and the generation-defining Whole Earth Catalog to the marriage of environmental consciousness and hacker capitalism and the rise of a new planetary culture. His way of thinking embraces a true planetary consciousness that may be the best hope we humans collectively have."