Six Amendments | How and Why We Should Change the Constitution by John Paul Stevens outlines this retired Supreme Court Justice’s visions for amending the Constitution. This book is an absolutely unprecedented call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the Constitution should be amended in order to protect our democracy and the safety and wellbeing of American citizens.
Tombstone | The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962 by Yang Jisheng looks deeper into the devistating famine during China’s Great Leap Forward. The author pieced together the events that led to mass starvation, and attributes responsibility for the deaths to the totalitarian system and refusal of officials to value human life over ideology and self-interest.
In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon | Stories of Repression in the New China, edited by Xu Youyu and Hua Ze is a collection of personal accounts of Chinese citizens and the inhumanity they regularly face. Edited by two Chinese scholars, both of whom have experienced surveillance, control, abduction, and detention, this is a probing and revealing look at life under the police state of the world’s most populous country.
Wrong | Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them by Richard S. Grossman explores several economic policy calamities, shining a light on the poor thinking behind nine of the worst mistakes of the past 200 years, missteps whose outcomes ranged from appalling to tragic.
Fortress Israel | The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country–and Why They Can’t Make Peace by Patrick Tyler examines the intertwined relationship between Israel and its military. The book is a remarkable story of character, rivalry, conflict, and the competing impulses for war and for peace in the Middle East.
Die Dongdong-Tänzerin und der Sichuan-Koch: Geschichten aus der chinesischen Wirklichkeit by Liao Yiwu | The Dongdong Dancer and the Sichuan Cook: Stories from Chinese Reality is an exciting and direct insight into the real China of today. Peace Prize winner Liao Yiwu has made it his life’s work to give the small, oppressed people in China a voice.
Walden on Wheels | On The Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas recounts the author’s adventure to get out his student debt and to avoid it in his future. The book offers a spirited and pointed perspective on the dilemma faced by those who seek an education but who also want to, as Thoreau wrote, “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
The Little Red Guard | A Family Memoir by Wenguang Huang tells story of devotion to traditional Chinese practices during a time of political change. After his grandmother became obsessed with having a proper burial, Huang’s father built her a coffin. Huang was appointed as coffin keeper, a distinction that included sleeping next to the coffin at night.
A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel | Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China by Pin Ho and Wenguang Huang recounts the corrupt Bo Xilai family’s story. Scandals including the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood; Bo’s secret lovers; and the trial of Gu Kailai, Bo’s wife were the first rumble of a seismic power struggle that continues to rock the very foundation of China’s Communist Party
June Fourth Elegies by Liu Xiaobo is a collection of the author’s poems about the protests in Tiananmen Square. The collection presents Liu’s poems written across twenty years in memory of fellow protestors at Tiananmen Square, as well as poems addressed to his wife, Liu Xia.
