NCW Libraries

"Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries -- reading about the remarkable lives of world leaders, captains of industry, innovators and artists. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. With Mobituaries -- the book companion to the CBS podcast of the same name -- the journalist, humorist, and history buff is righting that wrong, profiling the people who have long fascinated him -- from the 20th century's greatest entertainer... to...

Stereotypes of redheaded women range from the funloving scatterbrain to the fiery-tempered vixen or the penitent prostitute. Red-haired men are often associated with either the savage barbarian or the redheaded clown. But why is this so? Harvey begins her quest in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora, only to emerge under Northern skies. She goes on to the modern age of art, and literature,...

The plow that broke the plains" depicts the social and economic history of the Great Plains from the settlement of the prairies by cattlemen and farmers through the World War I boom to drought and depression. "The river" traces life in the Mississippi River Valley during the previous 150 years, showing the consequences of sharecropping, soil exhaustion, unchecked erosion and floods, and concludes with scenes of regional planning, TVA development and...