Rick Bowers - The Spies of Mississippi
This is a short book about spies hired to break up the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi. This one is absolutely non-fiction. I think I heard an interview with Bowers, or with someone else who had written a book on this topic. Anyway, eventually I'll get to teach the Civil Rights movement again, so this is good for that.
Jeff Greenfield - Then Everything Changed
This is what we call in the History discipline a collection of "counter-factuals", or alternate histories. Greenfield looks at three political events in US History - the aborted attempt to blow up JFK before his inaugural (the bomber was all set outside Kennedy's house in Florida, but Jackie and the kids came to the door to see Kennedy off to church, and the bomber couldn't attack with them watching); the assassination of Bobby Kennedy (he wasn't supposed to be in the kitchen of the hotel in California at all, that was a radical change in his schedule); and Gerald Ford's gaffe in the presidential debate with Carter. Alternate histories can be useful to historians, or they can be a distraction. We'll see where this fits in that continuum.
Next week I'll be out of town on a research trip, so there probably won't be a Library Monday. However, research trip means trashy books; I have a list already, I'll have to see what I can find from it - watch for that, not this Friday, but probably next. Also, I'm planning a trip the Green Valley Bookfair, so there might be some books from there to mention.
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