Though physicists get the most attention when it comes to academic contributions to war efforts, the United States’ nascent intelligence team also relied on experts of another sort. Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, tells the thrilling story of the professors, archivists and artists who were recruited by the U.S. and British governments to become highly effective spies and intelligence agents during the Second World War.
Graham recounts the various missions made possible by professional researchers recruited from university campuses by the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. These men and women put their skills to use in unexpected ways, such as drawing strategic insights from the most mundane texts, like Moroccan phone directories that revealed munitions factory locations, and scientific journals available only in Europe, which kept the Allies abreast of nuclear developments.
A Hollywood version of Book and Dagger would feature heart-pounding scenes of disheveled scholars digging for scraps of crucial information in stacks of ancient tomes. Without falling into this mire of tropes, Graham follows some recurring characters and includes some thrilling scenes of sabotage. The book is also about how the OSS and U.S. military relied on unique, research-driven perspectives to outsmart and outmaneuver the Nazis. With a keen ear for narrative prose, Graham builds suspense and intrigue, and the book is a pulpy delight.
Graham acknowledges that spycraft is a complicated, messy business, and readers may find this tale of underdog heroism difficult to square with the CIA’s later history of surveillance and subterfuge in U.S. and international politics. Even so, a story where a passion for knowledge and appreciation for outsiders defeats a regime fueled by hatred and greed is most welcome. Book and Dagger is a necessary reminder of the value of the humanities and the importance of the freedom of information and ideas at a time when both of those things are under threat.
Elyse Graham’s thrilling history of how scholars and librarians helped the U.S. outsmart the Nazis is a pulpy delight.
In the personable Bodega Bakes, pastry chef Paola Velez presents just that: sweets that can be made solely from the ingredients found at a corner store.
Any horror writer doing their job knows how to tap into the fears that plague us most. Jeremy Dauber’s American Scary:A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond provides a robust account of how art has reflected American dread for centuries. As it turns out, our history is rife with foundational fear, making it prime territory for some scary storytelling.
Dauber starts his “tour of American fear” with our country’s bloody beginnings and proclivity for blaming the devil for everything from bad weather to miscarriage (hello, Salem!). He then passes through slavery, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War and beyond to more contemporary paranoias reflected in film: murderous technology (The Terminator), individual indifference (the Final Destination series) and surveillance (Paranormal Activity), to name a few.
One of his strongest examples illuminates the anxieties of women living in the late 19th century with Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” In the story, when a woman is told that her husband has died in an accident, her reaction is one of great, unexpected joy and an overwhelming sense of liberation. Just when you think that’s the end of the tale, she discovers the news was given in error: Her husband is still very much alive. The tale ends with her death, which somehow feels less tragic than her loss of freedom. “Chopin’s most pressing contributions to the American fearfulness,” writes Dauber, “. . . consist of the suggestion that liberation, at least for women, is impossible; that, in the end, that sort of awakening . . . is but an illusion.”
Clocking in at over 400 pages with an at-times academic approach, American Scary may come off a bit intimidating at first. But for lovers of all things macabre, the book is worth its weight. Dauber’s attention to the details of myriad cultural touchstones, both famous and obscure, will entice those who care to tiptoe deeper into the darkest of the dark. Dauber acknowledges as well that things in the real world are often scarier than the stories we tell; it’s not a new take, but it’s one he makes exceptionally well.
American Scary’s greatest success is making readers consider what art may be born of our late-night anxieties. Spooky stuff, huh?
The rigorous yet still enticing American Scary invites readers to peer into the horror show of American history through the lens of literature and film.
Nico Lang’s powerful American Teenager closely follows seven transgender young adults, rendering complex, searing and sensitive portraits of their lives.
“I don’t think people realize how many librarians are being attacked,” Amanda Jones says from her home in Watson, Louisiana. “I used to think it was just a Southern thing. But I have friends in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California and New York who have experienced this.”
Jones, the author of That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, seems an unlikely candidate to be caught in the crosshairs of a culture war. She grew up in a conservative Christian household in the deep red state of Louisiana. She lives in the same two-stoplight town where she grew up, right next door to her parents and her childhood home, and she works as a school librarian just a few miles down the road, in the middle school she once attended.
Her life changed on July 19, 2022, when she attended a board meeting at Livingston parish’s public library. Book content was on the agenda, which sent alarm bells ringing for Jones, who had been following censorship news across the country and in her parish. These conversations, she knew, “almost always targeted LGBTQIA+ stories.” Jones has taught queer kids who later took their own lives. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand in silence while we lose another kid because of something our community has done to make them feel less,” she writes. At the meeting, one library board member, Erin Sandefur, made objections to some young adult and children’s content, although, as Jones writes, “She never really articulated what her concern was, just that there was a concern to be had.”
“If people are going to label me an activist, I might as well act like one and show them what I’m made of.”
Jones, who was a 2021 School Library Journal National Librarian of the Year, was the first of about 30 to counter those concerns and speak up against censorship of queer stories, reciting a speech she wrote beforehand that included the words,“All members of our community deserve to be seen, have access to information, and see themselves, in our PUBLIC library collection.” Her speech was so on point, in fact, that she later received an email singing its praises from none other than Terry Szuplat, one of former President Barack Obama’s longest-serving speechwriters.
But her high didn’t last. Four days after the board meeting, Jones opened an email that said, “Amanda, you are indoctrinating our children with perversion + pedophilia grooming. Your evil agenda is getting print + national coverage. . . . We know where you work + live. . . . you have a LARGE target on your back. Click, click . . . see you soon. . .” Jones’ heart began pounding; she was completely in shock.
Then, her phone blew up with texts from friends and family sharing two Facebook posts: The group Citizens for a New Louisiana posted a photo of her making her speech at the board meeting, the caption accusing her of fighting to include “sexually erotic and pornographic materials” in libraries. Another post by local man Ryan Thames shared a photo from her professional website and accused her of “advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds.”
The posts caught on like wildfire as people from her own community shared them on multiple platforms. Then they went national. Users “embraced comments laced with hate, and grew wild with speculation”: they called her a groomer and a pedophile and threatened violence. “I had worked so hard to build up a good reputation for myself,” she recalls. “It was so surreal, to go from such a community high, where you’re kind of beloved, and then in an instant, they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s that awful person.’” The posts, comments and threats kept coming.
Jones lived in a constant state of terror; she got a taser, pepper spray and security cameras. She slept with a gun under her bed. Word of the controversy began to spread, and before long, journalists took notice. One day Jones saw her face in the NBC news app. “This is really happening,” she writes of her thinking. “I’m an actual national news headline.”
She began thinking of her tormentors in Harry Potter terms, as her dementors. Channeling her inner Nancy Drew, Jones discovered that she was far from their only target. Her investigations revealed correlations between their outlandish online posts about libraries and librarians and various far-right campaign contributions. One of the ringleaders, she explains, is a leader of a dark money nonprofit. “I think he’s paid to do that. That’s his job: to stir up nonsense for politicians.”
The slanderous accusations are ongoing, at both a local and national level, many trumpeted by the group Moms for Liberty. Jones has suffered mental and physical repercussions, including panic attacks and hair loss, and ultimately took a semester’s leave of absence from her job to recover. “Even to this day,” she says, “if I get an email and I don’t know who is sending it, my heart starts racing, and that causes my adrenaline to spike.”
She eventually channeled her favorite childhood author, asking herself, “What would Judy Blume do?” The answer, she realized, was to fight back. She took her dementors to court. The judge ultimately ruled that they could get away with their disinformation attack because she was a “public figure.” Nonetheless, as Jones writes, “These people set out to destroy me, but they woke something up inside me that I hope never dies. The court labeled me a public figure and their lawyers called me an activist when I was just a school librarian. I figure, if people are going to label me an activist, I might as well act like one and show them what I’m made of—grit and perseverance.”
Jones has long known that perseverance pays off: She had originally planned to become an elementary school teacher, like her mother, but during her third year of college, reading the first three Harry Potter books steered her in a different direction, reminding her how much she loved reading. She began taking library science graduate courses, graduating in 2001 as a certified teacher and school librarian. Coincidentally, the librarian at her hometown middle school was taking a year’s sabbatical, so Jones filled in. When the librarian returned, Jones took a job as an English language arts teacher, knowing she wanted to stay at her beloved school. Eventually (14 years later!), when the librarian retired, Jones claimed her dream position.
As traumatizing as the online attacks have been, Jones has also received a tremendous amount of support, often from former students. She’s received well wishes from legions of people she doesn’t know, including numerous authors. She had the word “moxie” tattooed on her left wrist after Newbery Award winner Erin Entrada Kelly applauded her efforts, tweeting, “This is moxie. Sending my love and support to you, Amanda. I’m so proud you’re from my home state.” A few people, however, disappointed Jones, including some colleagues and several people she thought were her friends. But her family has provided constant support, and her conservative mother has accompanied her to library board meetings. After one meeting, during which a trans woman spoke about how books had saved her life, Jones’ mother commented, “You know, I think books can save lives.” “I’m like, ‘Mom,’” Jones recalls, “‘I’ve been telling you this for years.’”
“I hope I’m always evolving and learning,” Jones says. “The biggest struggle is wanting to defend myself publicly. Like when a lady told me a couple of weeks ago at a library board meeting that I needed to read Romans, I just said, ‘Ma’am, I’ve read the Bible twice. Thank you.’ You can’t argue with them. It’s pointless.”
There have been some glimmers of joy. She gets giddy about technical stuff, like seeing the copyright in her book. Jones says, “Not even in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would have my own ISBN in my own book, you know?”
“It’s odd to me,” she muses, “how big of a voice I had. It shows me that anybody can make a wave. I heard author Kekla Magoon say at a conference last year in New Hampshire that we’re like raindrops. If it’s just one, you might not notice it. But when we all collectively start falling, people start to listen. I’m hoping that by speaking out and writing this book that other people will speak up, and then more people will start to listen, and people will wake up to what’s happening to our libraries before it’s too late, before they’re all destroyed.”
Have you ever wondered what happens to your trash? Or who lives next to landfills? Or why recycling is so complicated? If you struggle to wrap your mind around humankind’s relation to waste, check out Trash Talk: An Eye-Opening Exploration of Our Planet’s Dirtiest Problem by science writer and illustrator Iris Gottlieb.
Gottlieb offers a no-nonsense explanation of the global trash production system that is both timely, informative and digestible. Writing that their goal is not to change anyone’s behavior, but rather to offer more context about the trash crisis itself, Gottlieb avoids berating us for our stagnant composters and single-use floss picks. Instead, they illuminate the complexities of electronic and digital waste, the debate over whether to incinerate or use landfills, the reason that not all paper can be recycled and much more. Readers learn about sustainability interventions in construction, electronics and plastics. The book is rife with discoveries; a particularly shudder-inducing one is of fatbergs, “huge masses” of nonbiodegradable material, fats, oils and grease “that harden into bus-sized, concrete-like chunks” in our sewer systems.
Yet Trash Talk can also be lighthearted, thanks in part to Gottlieb’s whimsical line drawings that illustrate everything from trash barges to scrounging raccoons to subway rats. Quick asides called “Trashy Tidbits” highlight a range of facts and anecdotes, like how Disney World employs underground vacuum tubes to send its trash behind Space Mountain, where it is compacted. Another tidbit tells how a small community on Lake Huron ceremoniously buried 29,188 frozen mushroom pizzas deemed unsafe by the FDA; “Pizza was served at the funeral,” Gottlieb notes. These asides balance out the growing sense of dread readers may feel while confronting how waste management is contributing to global warming.
Like water to a goldfish, our trash crisis is simultaneously omnipresent and invisible. Gottlieb unpacks the way our environments are built and argues persuasively that our society needs major interventions to move beyond linear thinking regarding the use of resources. We also need to reckon with the fact that the poorest and most vulnerable among us are the ones most exposed to danger because of racism and other long-standing social injustices. Gottlieb’s candor and willingness to call out these painful truths make Trash Talk a book readers will remember and share.
Science writer Iris Gottlieb uncovers the crisis of our waste management systems in their timely, playfully illustrated Trash Talk.
Rosie Schaap lost her husband to cancer at 42. Her mother died a year later, followed by her ancient, beloved cat. Awash in grief, Schaap needed a place to mourn. She would find it in Northern Ireland, a country still recovering from decades of sectarian strife known as the “troubles.” The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country is a magnificent love letter to a region that brought her back to life.
Glenarm is a small village in County Antrim, along Northern Ireland’s northeastern coast. On a travel writing assignment in 2016, Schaap stayed at the Barbican, “the fairy-tale castle folly at the entrance of Glenarm Castle.” A forest and a seashore, a few small shops, two pubs and a grocery store: She fell in love. “It had a feeling, a spirit, a strong sense of place to which I succumbed. I knew I would be back. And I had a feeling that someday I would stay much longer.”
After her various griefs at age 47, the Drinking With Men author enrolled in a creative writing program at a Belfast college. Her studies soon expanded beyond the classroom as she took in the history of her village and the people there, and the stories of those still being mourned from the troubles. The Irish are excellent at death, she learned. Strangers became friends and empathetic listeners. She could pour her grief out to them and they understood everything.
As idyllic as it all seemed, Schaap was not so much entranced as curious—and cautious. To be asked “What are you?” still meant “Protestant or Catholic?” Her being Jewish confounded them, just as they sometimes did her. A “reticence” she often encountered on the subject of the troubles, was, she believed, “a reflection of the trauma those years inflicted upon the people here . . . too sensitive and painful to discuss, too unhappy to recollect at will.”
Schaap nicely balances lush descriptions of the Irish countryside with sharp observations and wit, as she sheds her old city life and finds a home to tend to her grief. The Slow Road North is a winning memoir about loss and life.
The Slow Road North is Rosie Schaap's magnificent love letter to Northern Ireland, the region that offered her solace and community while she was reeling from grief.
There Amanda Jones was, living in her hometown of Watson, Louisiana, working as a middle school librarian in the school she once attended—an unremarkable and happy life. Then, everything changed. On a mid-July evening in 2022, Jones gave a short, powerful speech against censorship at her local public library’s board meeting. Four days later, she woke up to an email that included a death threat and accused her of “pedophilia grooming.” That frightening message signified the start of an ongoing social media campaign to destroy her reputation.
Jones was shaken to her core; she slept with a gun under her bed and took a semester’s sabbatical to deal with the turmoil. “What kind of world are we living in that has some of our most devoted community servants living so terrified?” Jones asks in her heartfelt memoir, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America. Along with conveying the sudden terror of her ordeal, Jones shares the urge she felt to strike back. A few days after receiving the email, as she watched a cascade of social media posts and comments assassinate her character, she “wanted to karate chop those responsible in the throat. I don’t think words can adequately express the burning rage I felt.”
Jones is a compelling narrator with a nearly unbelievable story that is a parable for our divided times. In this nightmarish tale of a small-town battle gone viral, she shows immense courage by standing up to her tormentors and refusing to be silenced. Despite her fury, she channeled her emotions into positive action, researching the politics, corruption and financing behind the attacks.
Librarians and readers will especially appreciate the story of her educational journey over the years as they’ll see firsthand how important representation and diversity are in library collections, and what lifesavers such books can provide to patrons of all ages and backgrounds. For all who value books, libraries and the freedom of information, That Librarian is an empowering, triumphant tale.
Librarian Amanda Jones recounts her battle to overcome book-banning extremists in her empowering memoir, That Librarian.
Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
