Spooky Season Reads

A compelling first-hand chronicle of a modern-day triumph of labor organization in West Virginia.

On February 22, 2018, nearly 20,000 West Virginia teachers, bus drivers, and service personnel walked out on their jobs in solidarity. After thirteen hard days, the workers, largely women, won higher pay and better benefits. Beyond that, the strike sparked a revolution in education across the United States.

What compelled West Virginia's education workers to strike? How did they organize? What were teachers and allies doing during the walk-out? And how was this strike connected to West Virginia's long history of labor organization and unions?

55 Strong: Inside the West Virginia Teachers' Strike answers these questions and offers unique, on-the-ground insights into this historic labor stoppage. The book includes essays by teachers from around the state, images from the picket lines, organizing documents, and material on the history of the labor movement in West Virginia. Edited by Jessica Salfia, a West Virginia public school teacher, Emily Hilliard, a West Virginia-based folklorist, and Elizabeth Catte, author of What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia and Pure America.

A necessary and urgent rallying cry for anyone interested in the future of organized labor in America.

A memoir of a life in activism by one of the original defendants in the Trial of the Chicago 7, subject of the 2020 Oscar-nominated Aaron Sorkin film of the same name.

In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. First dubbed the Conspiracy 8 and later the Chicago 7, the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. But it also included a little-known community activist and social worker from the South Side of Chicago named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was included in the indictment. The ensuing trial of the Chicago 7 became a media sensation, and it changed Weiner's life forever. In this irreverent, freewheeling memoir of an indelible moment in history--which Kirkus Reviews called a welcome addition to the library of the countercultural 1960s left--Conspiracy to Riot shows how a commitment to your ideals can change your destiny forever.

With startling relevance to today's polarized political climate, Conspiracy to Riot is a book for anyone who hopes for a better, more just world, and offers a blueprint for how to make it happen.

Jennifer Howard has written a brilliant and beautiful meditation on the nature of our attachment to things. Reading Clutter made me long for a life without clutter.--Malcolm Gladwell

I'm sitting on the floor in my mother's house, surrounded by stuff. So begins Jennifer Howard's Clutter, an expansive assessment of our relationship to the things that share and shape our lives. Inspired by the painful process of cleaning out her mother's house, Howard, a former contributing editor for The Washington Post, sets her own personal struggle with clutter against a meticulously researched history of just how the developed world came to drown in material goods.

With sharp prose and an eye for telling detail, she connects the dots between the Industrial Revolution, the Sears & Roebuck catalog, and the Container Store, and shines unsparing light on clutter's darker connections to environmental devastation and hoarding disorder. In an age when Amazon can deliver anything at the click of a mouse and decluttering guru Marie Kondo can become a reality TV star, Howard's bracing analysis has never been more timely.

Slim and compelling, Clutter is a book for anyone struggling to understand why they have so much stuff―and what to do about it.

A brief, elegant memoir of the author's work as a Red Cross volunteer delivering emergency water to residents of Flint, Michigan. "A heartfelt portrait of a city, and a man, grieving."?Kirkus Reviews

A collection of short essays and "exquisitely chiseled vignettes," Standpipe: Delivering Water in Flint sets the struggles of a midwestern city in crisis against David Hardin's narrative of his personal journey as his mother succumbs to dementia and death. Written with a poet's eye for detail and quiet metaphor, Standpipe offers an intimate look at one man's engagement with both civic and familial trauma. It's also a vivid investigation into how we all heal as a community.

This gentle, observant book is for readers looking to understand the human experience of the Flint Water Crisis, and as well as "the deplorable conditions in Flint and the injustices that have plagued it for generations."

A charming and accessible collection of poems dedicated to one of the most American of inventions--fast food.

El Dorado Freddy's may be the first book of fast-food poetry. In poems like Olive Garden, Culver's, Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen, Cracker Barrel, Applebee's (after James Wright), Caine--owner of the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas--reviews chain restaurants, bringing our attention to a slice of American life we often overlook, even though it's everywhere. Along the way, he touches on such topics as parenting, the Midwest, politics, and the pitfalls of nostalgia. Caine's wry, deceptively accomplished poems are paired with Tara Wray's color-drenched photos. The result is a literary yet goofy homage to American food and identity, set in a midwestern landscape dotted by the light of fast-food restaurants' glowing signs.

Perfect for those readers who love both poetry and Popeye's.

Located in northwest Wisconsin and surrounded by Beaver Dam Lake, the city of Cumberland is known as the "Island City." The lake was known to the local Ojibwa tribe as Che-wa-cum-ma-towangok, or "Lake Made by the Beavers."

With over 1,100 acres of open water, the lake's resources brought in loggers to cut the big stands of timber to be milled into wood that would build the northern part of Wisconsin. Soon, an influx of Italian immigrants called Cumberland home, creating one of the largest communities of people of Italian descent in the entire state. The early pioneer families - Miller, Hines, and Ritan - had established stores, mercantile businesses, and livery stables to help the community grow. Over the years, many notable people have come from the area, including Olympic gold medal wrestlers John and Ben Peterson, statesman Thomas St. Angelo, and football standout Julius Alphonse. Stokely Foods, Ardisam, and 3M also call the area home. When the railroads came, the town became a destination for settlement and agriculture. After the timber industry moved away, the community became a popular place for summer cottages and homes.

Author and Bahá'í historian Louis Venters provides, for the first time, an overview of the first century of the Bahá'í Faith in a state with one of its strongest followings.

The Bahá'í Faith is increasingly acknowledged as South Carolina's second-largest religion, part of the social fabric of the state. The earliest mentions of the distinctively interracial, theologically innovative faith community in the state date back to the Civil War. Black, white and indigenous South Carolinians defied racial and religious prejudices to join the religion during the tumultuous civil rights era. From the visit of the first Bahá'í teacher in 1910 to the "Carolinian Pentecost'? of the 1970s and beyond, the faith has deep roots in the Palmetto State.

In 1822, the White Church, designed by Isaac Damon, was constructed to house the Congregationalist worshippers in Blandford.

Blandford, Massachusetts, was initially referred to as Glasgow Lands due to the European colonists of Scots descent who arrived in 1735. These Scots founded a Presbyterian church; indeed, the reason for their remove from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, was that Hopkinton sought to adopt a Congregational form of worship. The White Church remained active long into the 20th century before its physical decline and eventual purchase by the Blandford Historical Society in 2006. While the congregants have another church nearby to call home, the White Church, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and affixed as part of the town seal, has long been cemented in the minds of residents of the area, regardless of religious affiliation.

Working in conjunction with the Blandford Historical Society, historian Nicholas J. Aieta of Westfield State University has pulled images from the Library of Congress and the society's archives. The writings of Blandford residents, past and present, have helped develop the story of the church's birth, physical decline, and eventual resurrection as a community center.

The rich history of Tallulah Falls School mirrors the story of northeast Georgia, from a rural, remote past to a bright, boundless future.

The school, established in 1909 in response to the unmet educational needs of area children, has evolved through the decades, now meeting the needs of students both near and from countries around the world. Today, the school serves more than 500 students in grades 5 through 12, representing 20 countries. With a robust college-preparatory curriculum delivered with an equal focus on character development, students leave Tallulah Falls School well prepared for future success. The imprint of those who attended the school in the past is still visible today, with vintage structures alongside modern classroom buildings and new athletic facilities. Weathered rock walls wind through campus, reminders of those formative years. They mark the way for those who will pass through these historic gates, adding their contributions to the storied history of Tallulah Falls School. This book builds on the history established in these early records of the school, adding the exponential significance of the past 15 years to the archives.

E. Lane Gresham serves as the director of communications and media for Tallulah Falls School. Passionate about local history, Gresham brings her talent for storytelling to this project and the many roles she plays within the school community and beyond.