Recommended Reads

Cover image of And the Band Played On

And the Band Played On: The AIDS Epidemic
By Randy Shilts
DB 26042, Available as a BARD download
The author, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, has been covering the AIDS epidemic full-time since 1982. He presents the apathy and politics displayed by the government, the media, the medical establishment, and the gay community before they realized the magnitude of the crisis, as well as the tragedy of the disease's human toll. Bestseller. 1987. Download And the Band Played On, DB 26042

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Black Like Me
By John Howard Griffin
BR 16177, DB 61703, Available as a BARD download
The revealing and sometimes terrifying experiences of a white man who deliberately darkened his skin with chemicals in 1959 to find out what it was like to be a black man in the Deep South. 1960. Download Black Like Me, DB 61703
, Download Braille, Black Like Me, BR 16177

Cover image of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
By Dee Alexander Brown
BR 19577, DB 75663, Available as a BARD download
Based upon the records of treaty councils and the actual words of leaders such as Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and Crazy Horse. This history, from 1860 to 1890, covers the thirty critical years during which the West was won and the civilization of the Native American was lost. 1971. Download Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, DB 75663
, Download Braille, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, BR 19577

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A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
By Ronald T. Takaki
DB 37361, Available as a BARD download
Professor of ethnic studies traces American history from non-Anglo perspectives, beginning with Native Americans and including Africans, Russian Jews, Japanese, Irish, Chinese, and Latinos. Takaki discusses the exploitation of immigrants in the development of the American economy, and he relates the problems of minorities in continuing ethnic and racial misunderstandings, making a case for education on the subject. 1993. Download A Different Mirror, DB 37361

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The Feminine Mystique
By Betty Friedan
DB 53797, Available as a BARD download
1960s feminist discusses problems of American women. Considers a distorted image of femininity to have arrested women's intellectual growth, hampered their sexual fulfillment, threatened their marriages, and become their major barrier to self-realization. 1963. Download The Feminine Mystique, DB 53797

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The Hiding Place
By Corrie Ten Boom
BR 2785, DB 43746, DB available as a BARD download
Describes the author's experiences in a German concentration camp. Ten Boom tells how she never lost faith in God and how she ministered to fellow prisoners and comforted them. For junior and senior high and older readers. 1974. Download The Hiding Place, DB 43746

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I Am Not Your Negro
By James Baldwin
BR 21879, DB 88630, Available as a BARD download
A compilation of passages from unpublished and previously published books, essays, letters, notes, and interviews used in the creation of the 2016 Oscar-nominated documentary of the same name. Explores Baldwin's unwritten book concept profiling Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2017. Download I Am Not Your Negro, DB 88630
, Download Braille, I Am Not Your Negro, BR 21879

Cover image of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
DB 82383, Available as BARD Download.
A history of the United States exploring the perspective of its indigenous peoples. Dunbar-Ortiz analyzes how native tribes actively resisted national expansion and examines the systematic destruction of the lives and cultures of the native civilizations present in North America before European colonization. Violence. 2014. Download An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, DB 82383

Cover image of Night Trilogy

Night Trilogy
By Elie Wiesel
BR 11185, DB 42074, Available as a BARD download
Night is the story of a Jewish boy who is deported with his family and community from Hungary to the horrors of the infamous Auschwitz. In "Dawn," Elisha, the sole survivor of his family, becomes a Jewish terrorist in Palestine and is ordered to execute an Englishman. In "The Accident," a concentration camp survivor tries to rebuild his life in New York City. Some violence and some descriptions of sex. 1972. Download Night Trilogy, DB 42074
, Download Braille, Night Trilogy, BR 11185

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