Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording), by Lin Manuel Miranda

Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording), by Lin Manuel Miranda

Few musicals have taken off in popularity the way that Hamilton has. The hit show about founding father Alexander Hamilton has been going strong on Broadway for two years and the original cast recording has gone platinum twice.

The story begins with a narration by Aaron Burr, played here by Leslie Odom, Jr., who describes himself at the end of the first song as “the damn fool that shot him.” The introduction, Alexander Hamilton, tells the story of Hamilton’s tragic upbringing and his immigration to the United States, setting up his involvement with the American Revolution.

The themes of friendship, revolution, toil, and arrogance ring throughout the musical. Ambitious as can be – Miranda described the titular character as a Slytherin when asked about his Hogwarts house – Hamilton is quick to make influential friends, including Aaron Burr, the Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington. Burr, as most likely remember, was later Vice President of the United States – the post that he held when he and Hamilton dueled in 1804.

I will say that I am not much of a hip hop fan. This was one of my first forays into the genre, and it was a good introduction, indeed! Miranda’s writing combined with music by Alex Lacamoire is catchy, witty, and holds the attention of five and fifty year olds, alike (However, while my children enjoy the clean version of the soundtrack, it’s not something that I’d recommend for all children!).

Check the PPLC catalog for Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording). 

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

“Laws which disable women from full participation in the political, business and economic arenas are often characterized as ‘protective’ and beneficial. The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage.”

The Internet phenomenon that is Notorious RBG has given Ruther Bader Ginsburg (the second woman to ever be appointed to the Supreme Court) some well-earned popularity and respect. After one of her famous impassioned dissent speeches, feminists flocked to the Internet to discuss just how awesome RBG is.  This book not only chronicles her life, education, and career but it also explores the many Internet memes surrounding her and her opinion towards them.

RBG attended Harvard Law School in 1956 with just nine other women. She was wildly successful, but when her husband, who had recently recovered from a very serious bout with cancer, obtained a job in New York, she transferred to Columbia Law where she graduated at the top of her class. RBG faced constant unequal treatment due to her gender and career choices. With the support of her husband, her hard work, and excellent intellect, she was eventually appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.

While RBG claims to be a moderate, she always votes for equality. Often, voting against her fellow peers and fighting for justice alongside movements that are typically aligned with the left. Despite efforts and calls for her retirement, RBG has remained on the bench making solid decisions. Sandra Day O’Conner and Ruther Bader Ginsburg paved the path for future female justices and are an inspiration to equal rights movements across the country. Oh and check out the sweet blog that started it all: http://notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/

Check the PPLC Catalog for Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport

Everything I ever learned about the Romanovs came from that terrible animated movie in the nineties, Anastasia. To my surprise there were no talking bats in the real story. Rappaport does an amazing job defining each individual girl and even their reclusive mother through their personal letters and diaries. They weren’t just victims of assassination, they were war time volunteers, charming and playing, international celebrities, and extremely loyal and loving. The family banded together to care for their ailing mother and hemophiliac youngest brother often spending long periods of time inside their grounds and rarely attending social engagements. This separation from their people and society bred rumors and it was apparent that the public despised the Tsarina. The girls, however, were adored or at least as much as they could be by a country on the brink of revolution.

I recommend this title to history buffs or to those who love a good gossip magazine. It certainly didn’t read like any history book I’ve read before, and I’m definitely walking away with some cool information. Also, Rasputin is like the weirdest/most interesting person and definitely an important part of the Romanov story.

Check the PPLC Catalog for The Romanov Sisters.

Aftermath, by Joel Meyerowitz

There are hundreds of books about 9/11, but this one stands out. The author, Joel Meyerowitz, is an award-winning photographer that captured not only the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, but also the intensive rescue missions and cleanup efforts.

Interspersed between the pages and pages of breathtaking color photography are poignant essays by Meyerowitz that describe his ground-zero experience in his own words. At first he was denied access to the area, but he slowly gained the trust and admiration of those involved in the cleanup and was soon allowed to photograph the relief effort. Now the photography included in Aftermath is a permanent collection at the Museum of the City of New York.

Thankfully, however, you don’t need to travel to New York to see this awe-inspiring collection when you check it out in book form.

Check the PPLC Catalog for Aftermath.

Our 9/11 memorial in 2015:

 

Letters from an American Farmer, by J. Hector St. John

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, an emigrant French aristocrat-turned-farmer, provides an “everyday life” account about the emerging United States.

The year was 1765 in Orange County, New York. After having acquired his citizenship, de Crevecoeur became a landowner. His property generated both a food staple and a “literary staple.” In a series of observant and erudite letters, he interprets the development of American society.

“Letters from an American Farmer paints a vivid portrait of the young country, not only detailing the hardships of frontier living but the perilous unrest that existed between fanatical patriots, back-country loyalists and plantation culture in the south.

“For many [Europeans], his essays offered the first major impressions of the American landscapes, the people, the institutions, and the problems that stood in the way of making one nation out of the diverse former colonies.”

For a glimpse into “everyday life” from 18th century America and general colonial history, Letters from an American Farmer provides candid insight.

As a work in the Public Domain, Letters from an American Farmer is available as a free download from Gutenberg.org.

Check the PPLC Catalog for a physical copy of Letters from an American Farmer.

Do Not Sell At Any Price by Amanda Petrusich

As a species we seem to have a special penchant for collecting and treasuring objects, especially when those objects are rare and speak to something in ourselves. In Amanda Petrusich’s Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records, we get a unique glimpse into one of these “collecting cultures,” a community that is brimming with obsession, eccentricity, and huge personalities.

As it turns out, 78 rpm records have quietly become one of the most fiercely collected types of art on the planet. With prices that routinely rocket into the tens of thousands of dollars for rare examples, these largely pre-war recordings of country, blues, and jazz command the attention of some the most determined aficionados on the planet. And it’s when Petrusich turns her attention to these collectors that Do Not Sell fires on all cylinders. Petrusich manages to coax stories and learn from her subjects without becoming blinkered by their hobby or ridiculing their more idiosyncratic tendencies. What we end up with is a series of wild stories from people who are seriously passionate about their music. The bits about music history are also interesting, written in an introductory way that makes pre-war popular music understandable and exciting, even for people who haven’t taken a course in music appreciation.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent

Against the backdrop of America’s worst economic slide since the Great Depression, only a few industries have managed to buck the trend of declining profits. One of those industries, the liquor trade, could hardly be described as a household necessity, and yet alcohol continues to turn a profit despite tough economic times. It’s a testament to the enduring place that drinking and drinking culture inhabits at the heart of the American experience, but also highlights the anomaly that is the U.S. attempt at Prohibition. Daniel Okrent explores this odd national experiment in the excellent Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

Last Call manages to avoid the fixation on organized crime that many other Prohibition accounts seem to be hung up on. Certainly, Okrent doesn’t ignore the influence of organized crime, but simply folds the information into his narrative to provide a thorough documentation of one of the most fascinating political movements in American history.

Teenage (2013)

Before the twentieth century, teenagers did not exist. Children were sent into warehouses and fields to earn money for their families long before the children of today would go to middle school. Childhood and adulthood followed each other immediately, forcing children to become adults before their minds and bodies were prepared to do so. With the advent of child labor laws, kids were returned to school and given free time. This documentary explores what happened when these new teenagers were released on society and the political and cultural changes they brought with them.

Director Matt Wolf employs actual footage, diary entries, and memoirs to narrate the tale of adolescence. Following the Flappers, Nazi Youth, Bright Young Things, and the Swing Kings across America and Europe, Wolf captures the majority of teenage existence from 1900 to 1945. The film footage was mostly shot by teens themselves and captured their risqué behavior (risqué for the time, anyway) that would mold popular culture. Teens like Brenda Dean Paul and Tommie Scheel, whose impact on youth culture stretches from pre-depression era Britain to Germany in the middle of World War II are researched in detail and made a focus of the film. I recommend this film to anyone who has an interest in history, youth culture, politics, and/or film history.

Check the PPLC Catalog for Teenage.

Lincoln’s Gamble by Todd Brewster

Let it never be said that there are a lack of books concerning Lincoln and his time in the White House. In recent years, authors from Doris Kearns Goodwin to Bill O’Reilly have taken to deconstructing the man credited with preserving the Union. Clearly, the public continues to be fascinated by America’s 16th president, and it’s a fascination that has manifested itself through hundreds of pieces of literature. With this seemingly endless stream of content, is there any new territory that has yet to be trodden? That’s a question that author Todd Brewster faces head on in the wonderfully nuanced Lincoln’s Gamble.

Documenting the relatively brief period between July 1862 and January 1863 in which Lincoln crafted what would become the Emancipation Proclamation, Brewster meticulously analyzes historical sources in an attempt to understand the genesis of that famous document. What he finds is not the morally self-assured Lincoln of legend, but a deeply conflicted man often at odds with the staff he commands. This is not the typical Lincoln narrative as hagiography that most audiences are used to; it’s the story of an imperfect man who rose to the occasion despite his limitations. As Lincoln agonizes over every decision, a war for the future of the country he believes in is spinning out of control. It’s a compelling story, and one that is bound to keep readers engaged.

With its original approach and tight pacing, this is one of the best Lincoln-related works in recent years. Its scholarly credentials are all in place, but more casual audiences will be drawn to this work because of its intensity and drama.  Give this one a read, but be prepared to not want to put it down until it’s finished.

Check the PPLC Catalog for Lincoln’s Gamble.

Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik

Easily read from cover to cover, this is a fascinating book about the materials that make up our everyday synthetic world. The author, Mark Miodownik, is a professor of materials and society at the University of College, London and really knows his stuff–literally!

From concrete to chocolate to celluloid, Miodownik thoroughly explains each of his chosen materials down to its molecular structure. This sounds like it could get boring, but the author deftly staves off tedium by interspersing the science with historical context and personal anecdotes. In fact, I was hooked by the very first sentence of the introduction: “As I stood on a train bleeding from what would later be classified as a thirteen-centimeter stab wound, I wondered what to do.”

When was the last time you read a science book that started like that? Miodownik has a way with prose that makes this nonfiction book not just readable but also entertaining.

Of course, the real pleasure of reading this book is the knowledge I gained. I learned that concrete doesn’t dry, stainless steel was discovered by accident, and celluloid was invented because ivory billiard balls were too expensive.

It’s a wonderful world we live in, and Miodownik’s book makes that abundantly clear.

Check the PPLC Catalog for Stuff Matters.