2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Adults

How Beautiful We Were

In the African village of Kosawa, people live in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by a large and powerful American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean up and financial reparations to the villagers are made, and ignored. The country's government, led by a corrupt, brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight the American corporation. Doing so will come at a steep price.

The Code Breaker

The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returns with a gripping account of how the pioneering scientist Jennifer Doudna, along with her colleagues and rivals, launched a revolution that will allow scientists to cure diseases, fend off viruses, and enhance children.

The Lost Village

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed"The Lost Village," since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother's entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left-a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn-have plagued her. She's gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened. But there will be no turning back.

Project Hail Mary

The sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission to save both humanity and the earth, Ryland Grace is hurtled into the depths of space when he must conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.