Nonfiction

Can't we talk about something more pleasant? book cover

Can't we talk about something more pleasant?

Roz Chast

BIOGRAPHY Chast, Roz
Graphic Novels, Nonfiction

A graphic memoir by a long-time New Yorker cartoonist celebrates the final years of her aging parents' lives through four-color cartoons, family photos and documents that reflect the artist's struggles with caregiver challenges.

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English decoration : timeless inspiration for the contemporary home book cover

English decoration : timeless inspiration for the contemporary home

Ben Pentreath

747.0942 /Pentreath
Nonfiction, Home

In English Decoration, London-based architectural and interior designer Ben Pentreath presents a major new survey of the best of the English style. Eighteen homes, many of which have never been previously photographed, provide the source material for his wide-ranging investigation of this classic look. The houses include Ben's own homes in London and West Dorset, alongside those of Earls and artists, writers and architects, book designers and gardeners. The book is arranged room by room and Entrance Halls, Living Rooms, Kitchens and Dining Rooms, Bedrooms and Bathrooms are considered in turn, together with simple Rooms of Utility and spectacular Rooms of Display. The book begins with an essay on the English style in decoration and ends with a style directory, helping you to achieve the look wherever you live.

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Perhaps you would prefer to go traditional? For this, check out Ben Pentreath’s English Decoration, inspired by British manor houses and country cottages. Some of Pentreath’s work isn’t practical for us Iowans; there is an entire chapter on “Rooms of Display.” Nonetheless, there are some beautiful color combinations and intriguing room arrangements -Anne M

The psychopath test : a journey through the madness industry book cover

The psychopath test : a journey through the madness industry

Jon Ronson

616.8582 /Ronson
Nonfiction

"In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and journalists who study them"--Provided by publisher.

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Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end book cover

Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end

Atul Gawande

362.175 /Gawande
Nonfiction, Health

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families of the terminally ill.

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Novel interiors : living in enchanted rooms inspired by literature book cover

Novel interiors : living in enchanted rooms inspired by literature

Lisa Borgnes Giramonti

747 /Giramonti
Nonfiction, Home

The key to a stylish life is in the details, and the details are found in books! Giramonti presents a book-lover's guide to decorating, referencing sixty beloved works of literature. She shows how even the smallest elements, such as the blue china flowerpots perched on bright yellow stands depicted in The Age of Innocence, can bring life and personality to any room.

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We are a UNESCO City of Literature and your style may be influenced by your favorite books. Novel Interiors by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti showcases rooms inspired by sixty different novels, including those by Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, L. M. Montgomery, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Borgnes Giramonti finds passages describing chairs, plates, and linens and builds the rooms from there. For booklovers and design aficionados alike. -Anne M

Speaking American* : *how y'all, youse, and you guys talk : a visual guide book cover

Speaking American* : *how y'all, youse, and you guys talk : a visual guide

Josh Katz

427.973 /Katz
Nonfiction

"From the creator of the New York Times dialect quiz that ignited conversations about how and why we say the words we say, a stunning and delightful exploration of American language,"--Amazon.com.

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In this book, Katz compiled a great collection of words and phrases, along with their meanings to illustrate these differences—far beyond the twenty-five in the quiz. Map the “trash can vs. garbage can” divide. Find out how many ways Americans pronounce crayon? And if you need another reason to look down your nose at Cleveland, they are the only ones who call the strip between the sidewalk and the road a tree lawn. -Anne M

The Black Count : glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristo book cover

The Black Count : glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristo

Tom Reiss

BIOGRAPHY Dumas, Thomas Alexandre
Nonfiction, History

Explores the life and career of Thomas Alexandre Dumas, a man almost unknown today, but whose swashbuckling exploits appear in The three musketeers and whose trials and triumphs inspired The count of Monte Cristo.

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Once in a great city : a Detroit story book cover

Once in a great city : a Detroit story

David Maraniss

977.434 /Maraniss
Nonfiction, History

"As David Maraniss captures it with power and affection, Detroit summed up America's path to music and prosperity that was already past history. It's 1963 and Detroit is on top of the world. The city's leaders are among the most visionary in America: Grandson of the first Ford; Henry Ford II; influential labor leader Walter Reuther; Motown's founder Berry Gordy; the Reverend C.L. Franklin and his daughter, the amazing Aretha; Governor George Romney, Mormon and Civil Rights advocate; super car salesman Lee Iacocca; Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, a Kennedy acolyte; Police Commissioner George Edwards; Martin Luther King. It was the American auto makers' best year; the revolution in music and politics was underway. Reuther's UAW had helped lift the middle class. The time was full of promise. The auto industry was selling more cars than ever before and inventing the Mustang. Motown was capturing the world with its amazing artists. The progressive labor movement was rooted in Detroit with the UAW. Martin Luther King delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech there two months before he made it famous in the Washington March. Once in a Great City shows that the shadows of collapse were evident even then. Before the devastating riot. Before the decades of civic corruption and neglect, and white flight. Before people trotted out the grab bag of Rust Belt infirmities-- from harsh weather to high labor costs-- and competition from abroad to explain Detroit's collapse, one could see the signs of a city's ruin. Detroit at its peak was threatened by its own design. It was being abandoned by the new world. Yet so much of what Detroit gave America lasts"--

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Like many northern cities in the era, the 1960's is a decade when politicians, business leaders, and residents make decisions that lead their city to sink or swim. In Detroit, small wounds begin to fester. -Anne M

Styled : secrets for arranging rooms, from tabletops to bookshelves book cover

Styled : secrets for arranging rooms, from tabletops to bookshelves

Emily Henderson

747 /Henderson
Nonfiction, Home

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Henderson helps you determine your style and then provides tips on how to show off those design inclinations in your home. Styled doesn’t call for a complete overhaul. Small changes in rearranging furniture or adding a few elements like a rug or a lamp can go a long way to transform a room. -Anne M

The millionaire and the bard : Henry Folger's obsessive hunt for Shakespeare's first folio book cover

The millionaire and the bard : Henry Folger's obsessive hunt for Shakespeare's first folio

Andrea E. Mays

822.33 /Z/Mays
Nonfiction, History

"Today it is the most valuable book in the world. Recently one sold for over five million dollars. It is the book that rescued the name of William Shakespeare and half of his plays from oblivion. The Millionaire and the Bard tells the miraculous and romantic story of the making of the First Folio, and of the American industrialist whose thrilling pursuit of the book became a lifelong obsession." --

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