Mind Expanding Books

Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics
Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics

Stephen Sondheim

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Presents a collection of lyrics from the composer, and offers insights into his creative process, relationships with other legends of American theater, experiences in the theater, collaborations, and most significant successes and failures.

Thinking Shakespeare: A How-to Guide for Student Actors, Directors, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Feel More Comfortable With the Bard
Thinking Shakespeare: A How-to Guide for Student Actors, Directors, and Anyone Else Who Wants to Feel More Comfortable With the Bard

Barry Edelstein. 2007

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Thinking Shakespeare gives the actor practical advice about how to make Shakespeare's words feel spontaneous, passionate, and real. Based on Barry Edelstein's twenty-year career directing Shakespeare's plays, this book provides the tools that actors need to fully understand and express the power of Shakespeare's language.

So You Want to Talk About Race
So You Want to Talk About Race

Ijeoma Oluo 2018

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In this breakout book, Ijeoma Oluo explores the complex reality of today's racial landscape--from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter movement--offering straightforward clarity that readers need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divideIn So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at La...

The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Kingkiller Chronicle

Patrick Rothfuss 2007

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Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school ...

Becoming
Becoming

Michelle Obama 2018

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In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerfu...

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

Michael Greger, M.D. 2015

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From the physician behind the wildly popular website NutritionFacts.org, How Not to Die reveals the groundbreaking scientific evidence behind the only diet that can prevent and reverse many of the causes of disease-related death.The vast majority of premature deaths can be prevented through simple changes in diet and lifestyle. In How Not to Die, D...

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

Phil Knight 2016

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In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and crea...

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Michelle Alexander 2010

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"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United S...

Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtry 1999

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A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize— winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroe...

The Help
The Help

Kathryn Stockett 2009

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Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found hereThree ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would norma...

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

Gregory Boyle 2010

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Father Gregory Boyle’s sparkling parables about kinship and the sacredness of life are drawn from twenty years working with gangs in LA.How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs...

Harry Potter
Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling 2003

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Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwa...