Staff Recommendations

Diedre Johnson

When the Going Was Good

by Carter, Graydon

June 5, 2025

Call Number: 072.092 C323

If you've ever wondered, in the slightest, what it was like to work at a magazine during the prosperous 1990s and the early aughts, former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's When the Going Was Good may be the book for you. It is an easy read of approximately 400 pages, documenting a time when reporters and writers were having a moment. If one were lucky enough to contribute to or staff-write for one of the national glossy magazines, it meant high salaries, expansive expense accounts, and engaging work trips for a publication partially bankrolled by loads of six-figure ads,... Read Full Review
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Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of my People

by Perry, Imani

April 23, 2025

Call Number: 301.45096 P463-1

Black and blue, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Little Girl Blue, The Bluest Eye, A Patch of Blue—these are just a sampling of the expressions, books, song titles, and films that made up the soundtrack of Black lives in America. In Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, author Imani Perry explains how the color blue not only gave comfort and motivation to enslaved people but also continues to mean so much to so many. Early in the book, Perry describes the term "blue-black," a description of a skin tone that is dipped in a shade of... Read Full Review
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From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir

by Presley, Lisa Marie

November 11, 2024

Call Number: 789.14 P9344

Reading From Here to the Great Unknown, the authorized memoir taken from Lisa Marie Presley's voice recordings with organization and narrative from her daughter, the actress Riley Keough, is an intimate look at rock and roll icon Elvis Presley and, for this writer, a little like revisiting the South. Although Lisa Marie (who died in January 2023) had long lived in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and even the UK since the long-ago days with her dad at Graceland, her... Read Full Review
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