Nonfiction

Are you curious about who you are, and the leaves that make up your family tree? Explore your family ancestry with Ancestry Library Edition and Heritage Quest Online. Heritage Quest Online lets you explore your genealogy online from home. Search through census images for decades 1790-1930, books with family and local histories, an index of over 2.3 million geneaology and local history articles, Revolutionary War records, Freedman's Bank records from 1865-1874 and US Congress records including memorials, petitions and private relief actions. You can even search grave indices and locate where your ancestors are buried.

Have you wanted to broaden your horizons with a good book lately? Or perhaps you’ve felt like reading something that will take you back to your roots? In either case, Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America by Jay Parini is sure to inspire you with ideas for your reading list. This collection of essays focuses on the core thirteen books that entered American life and explains how they altered how we think and act. The author also offers a list of 100 other influential books in our history. Find this book, and others like it, in the Literature Room in the Nonfiction Department.

Or perhaps you want to plan the Great American Road Trip? Here are some great stories about traveling around our wonderful nation:

This is a smart, fun, interesting, and touching history book. It is about four women in the Civil War on both sides of the war. Two women from the Union and two from Confederacy are the leads. Karen Abbott gives the reader full background information about the four women and she gives what happened to them after the war. The story Abbott tells is almost unbelievable. These four women from very different backgrounds get involved in every aspect of the war. They spy, lie, cheat, and seduce all the information they need from the men around them. But the women are also understandable. They are doing what they believe to be best for their nations. They believe in a greater good and are willing to sacrifice for it. Abbott does great research with full notes at the end of the text.

Bangkok: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Thailand

Leela Punyaratabandhu

COOKING 641.5959 PUN

Love New Orleans? Visit the Nonfiction Department to read these love letters to New Orleans and Louisiana from noted Southern authors:

• Feet on the Street by Roy Blount, Jr.
• Poor Man’s Provence by Rheta Grimsley Johnson
• The House on First Street by Julia Reed

In Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the province of Auvergne France has a secret. It is a quiet place with people who value silence in good deeds and for life in general. The secret is that during the Second World War the people there hid at lead 883 Jews and other people wanted by the Nazis and the Vichy government. Caroline Moorehead is a World War II researcher and author with many other books under her belt before she began researching this quiet story. She gets interviews with people who live in the area and lived through the war. She has access to archives, letters, newspaper articles, and diaries for her resources. The story is very moving and uplifting. The people in Chambon-sur-Lignon did what they believed to be morally right and refused to compromise.