2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Non-Fiction

Mott Street : A Chinese American Family's Story Of Exclusion And Homecoming

Mott Street follows Chinese American writer Ava Chin, who grew up estranged from her father, as she seeks the truth about her family history--and uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience past and present. Chin's ancestors became lovers, classmates, sworn enemies, and, eventually, through her birth, kin--all while converging at a single Chinatown address.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

He was a grifter of the first degree, a smooth-talking con artist, a Machiavellian manipulator. He was also a sexual predator, luring women with his aura of fame and power. As grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, D. C. Stephenson’s ambitions did not stop with the organization he shepherded from its Southern roots to dominance in the Midwest. Bullying and buying the loyalty of businessmen, judges, and politicians was not enough for Stephenson.

The Long Reckoning : a Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam

The American war in Vietnam left many long-lasting scars that have not yet been sufficiently examined. The worst of them were inflicted in a tiny area bounded by the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in neighboring Laos. That small region saw the most intense aerial bombing campaign in history, the massive use of toxic chemicals, and the heaviest casualties on both sides.

The Rooster House : A Ukrainian Family Memoir

In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belim's personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown Kyiv was gripped by protests and violent suppression. Crimea, where she'd once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentina's garden all became battlegrounds.

This Is Your Mind On Plants

 

In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, a #1 New York times best-selling author examines and experiences three plant drugs--opium, caffeine, and mescaline--from several very different angles and contexts, exploring the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants.

Fuzz : When Nature Breaks the Law

An irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? As New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology.