Not Your Typical Beach Read: Nonfiction | Elmwood Park Public Library

1) Trailed: one woman's quest to solve the Shenandoah murders

Author

Miles, Kathryn

Notes

If true crime is your jam, this is perfect for the beach but (word of warning) probably not for camping.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, Audiobook MP3-CD, eBook, Kindle

Description

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May 1996. Lollie Winans and Julie Williams entered Virginia's Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at an outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair did not return home as planned, park rangers found their tent slashed open, their...

2) Shine bright: a very personal history of black women in pop

Author

Smith, Danyel

Notes

A beach day spent listening to the music of Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, and Jody Watley followed by reading Smith's personal history of Black women in pop music sounds pretty perfect.

Formats:

Book, eBook

Description

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"From one of the preeminent cultural critics of her generation, a radiant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music--from the Dixie Cups to Gladys Knight to Janet, Whitney, and Mariah-- as the foundational story of American pop"--

3) Dress code: unlocking fashion from the new look to millennial pink

Author

Hyland, Véronique

Notes

Whether you think fashion doesn't effect you or you thought a little too much about your outfit for a day of leisure, these essays with a feminist bent will get you thinking.

Description

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Why does fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we present ourselves. Style offers clues about everything from class to which in-group we belong to. Bad Feminist for fashion, Dress Code takes aim at the institutions within the fashion industry while reminding us of the importance of dress and what it means for self-presentation. Everything-from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women's rights...

4) The women's house of detention: a queer history of a forgotten prison

Author

Ryan, Hugh

Notes

Build a sandcastle homage and read about this singular institution that stood in Greenwich Village for near fifty years.

Description

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"The Women's House of Detention, Greenwich Village's most forbidding and forgotten queer landmark, stood from 1929 to 1974, imprisoning tens of thousands from all over New York City. The little-known stories of the queer women and trans-masculine people incarcerated in this building present a uniquely queer argument for prison abolition. The "House of D" acted as a nexus, drawing queer women down to Greenwich Village from every corner of the city....

5) My seven Black fathers: a young activist's memoir of race, family, and the mentors who made him whole

Author

Jawando, Will

Notes

The importance of mentors, specifically Black men in this case, makes for good reading any day.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD

Description

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"A memoir by the lawyer, activist, and county councilman Will Jawando"--