Each month Reference Librarian Aurora highlights a few of her most anticipated non-fiction new releases.
Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear by Erica Berry
Wolves have long held a unique place in the human imagination, at once a symbol of our worst fears and the wildness we cherish, both despised and revered. Combining memoir, nature writing, philosophy, and folklore, Erica Berry’s debut traces wolves’ passage through human culture parallel to its tracking of one particular wolf, the famed OR-7, on his 1000-mile migration from Oregon to northern California. The result is a fascinating meditation on not only wolves themselves, but also the myths we have woven about them–-and what those myths mean for humans and wolves alike.
For fans of nature memoirs, animal studies, Mary Roach, and Women Who Run with the Wolves.
Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy by Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff
Does diligently trying to follow the news ever leave you more lost and confused about what’s happening in the world than you were before you picked up the paper or turned on the TV? Do you find yourself despairing that too many important conversations devolve more and more rapidly into dysfunctional debates? Let’s Agree to Disagree is a welcome antidote to both of these contemporary dilemmas. Authors Higdon and Huff put their experience and insights as social sciences professors and media activists to good use to offer this practical guide to sharpening the critical thinking, civil communication, and media literacy skills we need to cultivate informed, constructive dialogues about the issues that matter most.
For everyone exhausted by shouting matches and spin.
The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris
Any horror buff will tell you that our beloved genre is experiencing a revival, thanks in no small part to a growing diversity of creators bringing new energy to the genre (Re-animating it, shall we say? Resurrecting horror from its grave of mildewed basements and cheesy jump scares…). Films like Get Out and Parasite have reignited interest in horror as a medium for grappling with hot-button cultural anxieties, lending fresh depth to the realm of things creepy, spooky, ghastly, and gory. Scholars and critics are also making exciting contributions to the horror revival, prime among them Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris, whose excellent documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, came out in 2019 to wide critical acclaim. The duo return this Black History month with The Black Guy Dies First, an encyclopedic yet entertaining survey of Black horror cinema in the United States, from the heyday of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to the present.
For horror devotees, cinephiles, and students of Black history.
