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POTOMAC FEVER

One of our recommended books is Potomac Fever by Charlotte Taylor Fryar

An impassioned meditation on American identity and its ebb and flow through the Capital’s great waterway

As she walks the length of the Potomac River, clambering up its banks and sounding its depths, Charlotte Taylor Fryar examines the geography and ecology of Washington, D.C. with all manner of flora and fauna as her witness. The ecological traces of human inhabitancy provide her with imaginative access into America’s past, for her true subject is the origin of our splintered nation and racially divided capital.

From the gentrified neighborhood of Shaw to George Washington’s slave labor camp at Mount Vernon,

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THE UPTOWN LOCAL

One of our recommended books is The Uptown Local by Cory Leadbeater

A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer—struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction—and his life-changing decade working for Joan Didion

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion.

In the nine years that followed, Cory shared Joan’s rarefied world, transformed not only by her blazing intellect but by her generous friendship and mentorship.

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THE DRAGON FROM CHICAGO

For fans of unheralded women’s stories, a captivating look at Sigrid Schultz—one of the earliest reporters to warn Americans of the rising threat of the Nazi regime—that draws striking parallels to the rise of fascism today

The Dragon from Chicago tells the gripping tale of American journalist Sigrid Schultz’s fights on 2 fronts: to establish herself as a serious foreign correspondent in an era when her male colleagues saw a powerful unmarried woman as a “freak,” and to keep the news flowing out of Nazi Germany despite the regime’s tightening controls on the media.

Schultz was the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau chief and primary foreign correspondent for Central Europe from 1925 to January 1941 and one of the first reporters—male or female—to warn American readers of the growing dangers of Nazism.

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THE UPTOWN LOCAL

A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer—struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction—and his life-changing decade working for Joan Didion

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion.

In the nine years that followed, Cory shared Joan’s rarefied world, transformed not only by her blazing intellect but by her generous friendship and mentorship.

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VALIANT WOMEN

One of our recommended books is Valiant Women by Lena S. Andrews

A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies’ victory.

Valiant Women is the story of the 350,000 American women who served in uniform during World War II. These incredible women served in every service branch, in every combat theater, and in nearly two-thirds of the available military occupations at the time.

They were pilots, codebreakers, ordnance experts, gunnery instructors, metalsmiths, chemists, translators, parachute riggers, truck drivers, radarmen, pigeon trainers, and much more. They were directly involved in some of the most important moments of the war,

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LAST TO EAT, LAST TO LEARN

One of our recommended books is Last to Eat, Last to Learn by Pashtana Durrani

The harrowing yet ultimately inspiring memoir of the young educator and activist who has become the face of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

From growing up in a refugee camp to becoming an Amnesty International Global Youth Ambassador and Malala Fund Education Champion who’s ruthlessly targeted by the Taliban, Pashtana Durrani shares the deeply inspiring true story of her unyielding fight to provide educational materials to the disappearing girls of rural Afghanistan.

Since childhood, Pashtana Durrani has recognized her calling: to educate Afghanistan’s girls and young women. In a country devastated by war and violence,

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