As noted in previous installments of this series (part I and part II), Mechanics’ Institute members love fiction, graphic novels, and materials in a variety of non-print formats. But you’re reading plenty of non-fiction too, to the tune of 7000+ checkouts. That’s almost 40% of our total circulation this year! Read on to find out more about a few of the subjects you found most interesting in the last twelve months.
You spent a lot of time on the 2nd floor balcony: multi-national history is your favorite area of non-fiction, at 841 checkouts. You seemed to start your journey close to home with Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot, expanding to The American West: A Very Short Introduction by Stephen Aron, before going further afield with books like Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia by Anne Garrels and Street Fight in Naples by Peter Robb.
Moving to the 3rd floor balcony, you’re also interested in politics and law. The Mechanics’ Institute hosted David Talbot this year, and you responded in droves by reading his book, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, following it up with Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Paying tribute to iconic Supreme Court Justice, you repeatedly checked out Notorious RBG: the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.
Social justice seems to be a topic on everyone’s mind. Pulitzer Finalist and National Book Award-winner, Between the World and Me was the most-circulated book in this category. It is structured as a letter to the teenage son of author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and outlines the dangerous realities of being black in the United States. Coates has been called a successor to literary great James Baldwin, so if you liked this book, check out Baldwin’s essays, fiction, and plays on our shelves as well. Another New York Times Bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club pick, you borrowed Gloria Steinem’s chronicle of her own history and the fledgling equality movement of the 1960s, My Life on the Road. To use a phrase uttered by Secretary Hillary Clinton when, as First Lady, she declined to tone down her remarks on gender justice at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995, “…Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights!" You also explored Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond’s landmark work of scholarship and reportage: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. If you’d like to find out how you might be able to help, visit the EVICTED website.
Your interest in urban studies and art is palpable; the highest circulating titles in this area are listed below.
Streetopia compiles the art from the San Francisco exhibition, juxtaposing the pieces with contextual essays on artist response to gentrification, the state of public space, displacement, and the role that art can play in either aiding or resisting these forces.
Olivia Lang asks, what does it mean to be lonely? How do we connect with other people? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens? The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone explores Lang’s feelings of isolation as a NYC transplant, and chronicles her engagement with “the magical possibilities of art.”
Art critic and documentarian Robert Hughes was known for his contentious critiques of art and artists – in elegant and incisive prose, he raised his own body of criticism to the level of art. The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes collects selected work, including pieces from his unfinished memoir.
These are all fascinating reading selections, and if you haven’t gotten around to reading some of these yet, find them on our shelves. I’ll discuss more of your favorite non-fiction in the final installment of this series. Do you have any guesses about what other subjects you're clamoring for?
