Non-Fiction Book Picks from Brighton Library

Sarah Neidert, Electronic Services Librarian at the Brighton District Library, highlights new adult nonfiction releases.

• At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. Bryson uses his home to explore how the contents of the rooms are reflections of our history. Each room becomes a starting point for a discussion of rarely noticed but foundational aspects of social life. He touches on how the hall evolved from a grand room, the most important in the house, to just a place to wipe feet and hang hats; how rooms developed based on changing notions of utility and privacy; how the development of the fireplace led to the development of the second floor. 

• Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. The author of Seabiscuit now brings a biography of World War II prisoner of war survivor Louis Zamperini. When his plane went down in the Pacific in 1943, he spent 47 days in a life raft, then was picked up by a Japanese ship and survived starvation and torture in labor camps. Eventually repatriated, he had a spiritual rebirth and returned to Japan to promote forgiveness and healing.