THE FRIDAY LIST

Every week, new books and eBooks are arriving at RLB Library! Below are a few highlighted titles that are placed in the 1st floor leisure reading kiosk. There you’ll also find past The Friday List titles, but there are many more that we just don’t have room to show off. The last 30 days of new arrivals are listed at the bottom of this post, where you’ll be sure to find something to read for class assignments, your own personal enrichment, or just to have some fun!

The Earth transformed : an untold history, by Peter Frankopan, 2023

Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history. From the fall of the Moche civilization in South America that came about because of the cyclical pressures of El Niño to volcanic eruptions in Iceland that affected Egypt and helped bring the Ottoman empire to its knees, climate change and its influences have always been with us.

Like : the button that changed the world, by Martin Reeves and Robert Goodson, 2025

Marketcrafters : the 100-year struggle to shape the American economy, by Chris Hughes, 2025

Economist and writer Chris Hughes takes us on a journey through the modern history of American capitalism, relating the captivating stories of the most effective marketcrafters and the ones who bungled the job. He reveals how both Republicans and Democrats have consistently attempted to organize markets for social and political reasons, like avoiding gasoline shortages, reducing inflation, fostering the American aviation and semiconductor industries, fighting climate change, and supporting financial innovation. In recent decades, the art of marketcraft has been lost to history, replaced by the myth that markets work best when they are unfettered and free. Hughes argues that by rediscovering the triumphs and failures of past marketcrafters, we can shape future markets, such as those in artificial intelligence and clean power production, to be innovative, stable, and inclusive. Groundbreaking, timely, and illuminating, this is a must-read for anyone interested in economic policy, financial markets, and the future of the American economy.

You can't kill a man because of the books he reads : Angelo Herndon's fight for free speech, by Brad Snyder, 2025

The story of a young, Black Communist Party organizer and the landmark case that made him a civil rights hero. In 1932, eighteen-year-old Black Communist Party organizer Angelo Herndon was arrested, had his rooms illegally searched, and his radical literature seized. He was charged with attempting to incite insurrection--a crime punishable by death. You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads chronicles Herndon's five-year quest for freedom during a time when Blacks, white liberals, and the radical left joined forces to define the nation's commitment to civil rights and civil liberties. Herndon's champions included the young, Black Harvard Law School-educated attorney Benjamin J. Davis Jr.; the future historian C. Vann Woodward, who joined the interracial Herndon defense committee; the white-shoe New York lawyer Whitney North Seymour, who argued Herndon's appeals; and literary friends Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. With their support, Herndon reinvented himself as one of the most famous Black men in America and inspired a constitutional right to protest.

New Arrivals in the last 30 days:

(Arrivals are sorted by recency and then alphabetically)