2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Non-Fiction

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.

Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul

In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black woman are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to diagnosis with heart failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image.

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 Woman They Could Not Silence : One Woman, Her Incredible Fight For Freedom, And The Men Who Tried To Make Her Disappear

From the New York Times , USA Today , and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Radium Girls comes another dark and dramatic but ultimately uplifting tale of a forgotten woman hero whose inspirational journey sparked lasting change for women's rights and exposed injustices that still resonate today. 1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room.