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The hype machine : how social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health - and how we must adapt / by Aral, Sinan,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Social media connected the world--and gave rise to fake news and increasing polarization. Now a leading researcher at MIT draws on 20 years of research to show how these trends threaten our political, economic, and emotional health in this eye-opening exploration of the dark side of technological progress. Today we have the ability, unprecedented in human history, to amplify our interactions with each other through social media. It is paramount, MIT social media expert Sinan Aral says, that we recognize the outsized impact social media has on our culture, our democracy, and our lives in order to steer today's social technology toward good, while avoiding the ways it can pull us apart. Otherwise, we could fall victim to what Aral calls "The Hype Machine." As a senior researcher of the longest-running study of fake news ever conducted, Aral found that lies spread online farther and faster than the truth--a harrowing conclusion that was featured on the cover of Science magazine. Among the questions Aral explores following twenty years of field research: Did Russian interference change the 2016 election? And how is it affecting the vote in 2020? Why does fake news travel faster than the truth online? How do social ratings and automated sharing determine which products succeed and fail? How does social media affect our kids? First, Aral links alarming data and statistics to three accelerating social media shifts: hyper-socialization, personalized mass persuasion, and the tyranny of trends. Next, he grapples with the consequences of the Hype Machine for elections, businesses, dating, and health. Finally, he maps out strategies for navigating the Hype Machine, offering his singular guidance for managing social media to fulfill its promise going forward. Rarely has a book so directly wrestled with the secret forces that drive the news cycle every day"--
Subjects: Information society.; Common fallacies.; Propaganda.; Social interaction.; Social media;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Our missing hearts [text (large print)] : a novel / by Ng, Celeste,author.;
"From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve"American culture" in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic-including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It's a story about the power-and limitations-of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact"--
Subjects: Dystopian fiction.; Large type books.; Novels.; Families; Missing persons; Women poets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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No more nice girls : gender, power, and why it's time to stop playing by the rules / by McKeon, Lauren,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In the age of girl bosses, Beyoncé, and Black Widow, we like to tell our little girls they can be anything they want when they grow up, except they'll have to work twice as hard, be told to "play nice," and face countless double standards that curb their personal, political, and economic power. Today, long after the rise of girl power in the 90s, the failed promise of a female president, and the ubiquity of feminist-branded everything, women are still a surprisingly, depressingly long way from gender and racial equality. It's worth asking: Why do we keep trying to win a game we were never meant to play in the first place? Award-winning journalist and author Lauren McKeon examines the varied ways in which our institutions are designed to keep women and other marginalized genders at a disadvantage and shows us why we need more than parity, visible diversity, and lone female CEOs to change this power game. She uncovers new models of power-- ones the patriarchy doesn't get to define-- by talking to lawyers insisting on gender-neutral change rooms in courthouses, programmers creating apps to track the breakdown of men and women being quoted in the news media, educators illustrating tampon packaging with pictures of black bodies, mixed martial artists teaching young girls self-empowerment, entrepreneurs prioritizing trauma-informed office cultures, and many other women doing power differently. As the toxic, divisive, and hyper-masculine style of leadership gains ground, threatening democracy here and abroad, McKeon underscores why it's time to stop playing by the rules of a rigged game. No More Nice Girls charts a hopeful and potent path forward for how to disrupt the standard (very male) vision of power, ditch convention, and build a more equitable world for everyone."--
Subjects: Equality.; Feminism.; Power (Social sciences); Sex discrimination against women.; Social control.; Women; Women's rights.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The age of AI : and our human future / by Kissinger, Henry A.,author.; Huttenlocher, Daniel,author.; Schmidt, Eric,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is transforming human society fundamentally and profoundly. Not since the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason have we changed how we approach knowledge, politics, economics, even warfare. In 'The Age of A.I.', three of our most accomplished and deep thinkers come together to explore what it means for us all.
Subjects: Artificial intelligence;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Our missing hearts [sound recording] : a novel / by Ng, Celeste,author,narrator.; Liu, Lucy,1968-narrator.; Penguin Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Celeste Ng, Lucy Liu."From the number one bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply suspenseful and heartrending novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear. Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard University's library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve"American culture" in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic-including the work of Bird's mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn't know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn't wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is drawn into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It's a story about the power-and limitations-of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Dystopian fiction.; Novels.; Families; Missing persons; Women poets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Things past telling : a novel / by Williams, Sheila(Sheila J.),author.;
"Things Past Telling is a remarkable historical epic that charts one unforgettable woman's journey across an ocean of years as vast as the Atlantic that will forever separate her from her homeland. Born in West Africa in the mid-eighteenth century, Maryam Prescilla Grace--a.k.a "Momma Grace" will live a long, wondrous life marked by hardship, oppression, opportunity, and love. Though she will be "gifted" various names, her birth name is known to her alone. Over the course of 100-plus years, she survives capture, enslavement by several property owners, the Atlantic crossing when she is only eleven years of age, and a brief stint as a pirate's ward, acting as both a spy and a translator. Maryam learns midwifery from a Caribbean-born wise woman, whose "craft" combines curated techniques and medicines from African, Indigenous, and European women. Those midwifery skills allow her to sometimes transcend the racial and class barriers of her enslavement, as she walks the razor's edge trying to balance the lives and health of her own people with the cruel economic mandates of the slave holders, who view infants born in bondage not as flesh-and-blood children but as investment property. Throughout her triumphant and tumultuous life Maryam gains and loses her homeland, her family, her culture, her husband, her lovers, and her children. Yet as the decades pass, this tenacious woman never loses her sense of self. Inspired by a 112-year-old woman the author discovered in an 1870 U.S. Federal census report for Ohio, loosely based on the author's real-life female ancestors, spanning more than a hundred years, from the mid-eighteen-century to the end of America's Civil War, and spanning across the globe, from what is now southern Nigeria to the islands of the Caribbean to North America and the land bordering the Ohio River, Things Past Telling is a breathtaking story of a past that lives on in all of us, and a life that encompasses the best--and worst--of our humanity."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Epic fiction.; African American women; African Americans; Midwives; Slaves; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Willie : the game-changing story of the NHL's first black player / by O'Ree, Willie,1935-author.; McKinley, Michael,1961-author.; Iginla, Jarome,1977-writer of foreword.;
"An inspiring memoir that shows that anyone can achieve their dreams if they are willing to fight for them. In 1958, Willie O'Ree was a lot like any other player toiling in the minors, waiting for his chance to play in the best hockey league in the world. He'd grown up playing in small towns, working his way up the complicated hierarchy of junior and minor leagues, losing teeth and dropping the gloves along the way. He was good. Good enough to have been signed by the Boston Bruins, good enough to have been invited to training camp twice. In a six-team league, that meant he was one of the best players in the world. Just not quite good enough to play in the NHL. Until January 18 of that year. The call came, and Willie O'Ree was told he'd be suiting up against the Montreal Canadians. The next morning, he opened the paper to see if his name showed up in the box score. Instead, he found it on the front page, in the headline. Without even realizing it, Willie O'Ree had broken hockey's colour barrier, just as his hero, Jackie Robinson, had done for baseball. In 2018, O'Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in recognition not only of that legacy, but of the way he has built on it in the decades since. He has been, for twenty years now, an NHL Executive. As Director of Youth Development, O'Ree has helped the NHL Diversity program expose more than 40,000 boys and girls of diverse backgrounds to unique hockey experiences. Over the past decade, O'Ree has traveled thousands of miles across North America helping to establish 39 local grassroots hockey programs, all geared towards serving economically disadvantaged youth. While advocating strongly that "Hockey is for Everyone," O'Ree stresses the importance of essential life skills, education, and the core values of hockey: commitment, perseverance, and teamwork."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; O'Ree, Willie, 1935-; Hockey players; Black Canadian hockey players;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The girl in the middle : growing up between black and white, rich and poor / by Granofsky, Anais,author.;
"A moving and vivid memoir of a young girl switching between worlds, wanting only to be loved. When Anais Granofsky's parents met at Antioch College in Ohio in the early 1970s, they were each foreign and fascinating to the other - he, Stanley, the son of fantastically wealthy Jewish family from Toronto and she, Jean, one of 15 children from a poor Black Methodist family who are the direct descendants of the freed Randolph slaves. When they became pregnant at 19 and 22, they didn't anticipate being cut off by the wealthy Granofskys. Neither did they anticipate that Stanley, soon to rename himself Fakeer, would find his calling in the spiritual teaching of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (subject of the Netflix doc Wild, Wild Country) and leave his family for the ashram in India. The Girl in the Middle is the story of the child that was born into these two, very different worlds and who spent her life navigating between them. Alone, Anais and her mother teetered on the poverty line, sharing a mattress in a single room in social housing in Toronto, while her grandparents lived a twenty-minute car ride away on the mansion-lined Bridle Path. As Anais grew up, she was invited to spend weekends with her wealthy grandmother, putting on special clothes when she arrived and being served lunch by the pool, while often she and her mother did not know where their next meal would come from. Anais soon realized that if she wanted to be loved, she had to learn to live two lives. Anais's memoir offers a powerful lens into how these two families, one white and one Black, faced systematic oppression spanning multiple generations and came out at opposite economic classes-and how they clashed when they shared a granddaughter. With compassionate and vivid storytelling, Granofsky shares her experiences of living with each foot in opposing worlds and explores generational shame, grief, and prejudice, and ultimately love and forgiveness. Based on the viral Toronto Life article."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Granofsky, Anais; Granofsky, Anais; Poor; Television actors and actresses; Black Canadians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Lookout : love, solitude and searching for wildfire in the boreal forest / by Moyles, Trina,author.;
"A powerful and intimate memoir about a young woman's grueling, revelatory summers working alone in a remote lookout tower and her riveting eyewitness account of the increasingly unpredictable nature of wildfire in the Canadian north. While growing up in Peace River, Alberta, Trina Moyles heard many stories of fire tower lookouts--strange, eccentric types who spent whole summers alone in 100-foot high towers, watching for signs of fire in the surrounding Boreal forest. How could you isolate yourself for that long? she wondered. Craving adventure and connection, she pursued humanitarian work abroad, and ultimately found herself in Uganda, immersed in a vibrant community with a deep sense of belonging--and in love with Akello, a warm, handsome Lugbara man. After three years in Uganda, Trina returned to Peace River with a plan to make money to sponsor Akello's immigration. She applied for the well-paid tower position and was offered the job. But, back in a place where she'd never truly felt she belonged, she began to sink under the weight of their shared dreams and economic goals. Thus begins her first summer as one of a handful of scattered lookouts in the Boreal, with only a farm dog, Holly--labeled part-wolf by her former owners--to keep her company. Throughout two grueling summers and the winter in between, Trina grapples with her long-distance relationship, the death of her treasured grandfather, and a dawning awareness of the environmental crisis in the Boreal forest. In her days alone, she teeters on the edge of sanity while discovering a new kind of self-awareness and self-reliance that only solitude can deliver. As she searches for smoke, there is a bright beam of hope, a deep consciousness of the nature and wildlife around her, and a burgeoning sense of community among those dedicated to wildfire detection and combat. Lookout is a personal, riveting story of loss, transformation and belonging to oneself, layered with an eyewitness account of the increasingly precarious state of our northern forests."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Moyles, Trina.; Fire lookout stations; Fire lookouts; Wildfires;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Humankind : a hopeful history / by Bregman, Rutger,1988-author.; Manton, Elizabeth,translator.; Moore, Erica,translator.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."If one basic principle has served as the bedrock of bestselling author Rutger Bregman's thinking, it is that every progressive idea -- whether it was the abolition of slavery, the advent of democracy, women's suffrage, or the ratification of marriage equality -- was once considered radical and dangerous by the mainstream opinion of its time. With Humankind, he brings that mentality to bear against one of our most entrenched ideas: namely, that human beings are by nature selfish and self-interested. By providing a new historical perspective of the last 200,000 years of human history, Bregman sets out to prove that we are in fact evolutionarily wired for cooperation rather than competition, and that our instinct to trust each other has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. Bregman systematically debunks our understanding of the Milgram electrical-shock experiment, the Zimbardo prison experiment, and the Kitty Genovese "bystander effect." In place of these, he offers little-known true stories: the tale of twin brothers on opposing sides of apartheid in South Africa who came together with Nelson Mandela to create peace; a group of six shipwrecked children who survived for a year and a half on a deserted island by working together; a study done after World War II that found that as few as 15% of American soldiers were actually capable of firing at the enemy. The ultimate goal of Humankind is to demonstrate that while neither capitalism nor communism has on its own been proven to be a workable social system, there is a third option: giving "citizens and professionals the means (left) to make their own choices (right)." Reorienting our thinking toward positive and high expectations of our fellow man, Bregman argues, will reap lasting success. Bregman presents this idea with his signature wit and frankness, once again making history, social science and economic theory accessible and enjoyable for lay readers"--
Subjects: Human beings.; Philosophical anthropology.; Human behavior.; Civilization; World history.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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