Liz's Book'd Lists

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

Created by Liz - Updated on February 27^th 2023

Whenever I’m gripped by a case of “How did that happen?” I head for the shelves. These authors really know how to peel back the layers of their subjects, and they aren’t satisfied with easy answers

Coal : a human history

Freese, Barbara (Barbara E.)

From the Publisher

In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins hundreds of millions of years ago and spans the globe. Prized as "the best stone in Britain" by Roman invaders who carved jewelry out of it, coal has transformed societies, expanded frontiers, and sparked social movements, and still powers our electric grid. Yet coal's world-changing power has come at a tremendous price, including centuries of blackening our skies and lungs--and now the dangerous warming...

Invisible : the forgotten story of the black woman lawyer who took down America's most powerful mobster

Carter, Stephen L., 1954- author.

From the Publisher

Eunice Carter was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s--and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. Moving, haunting, and as fast-paced as a novel,Invisible tells the true story of a woman who often found her path blocked by the social and political expectations of her...

Yellow Bird : oil, murder, and a woman's search for justice in Indian country

Murdoch, Sierra Crane, author.

From the Publisher

The true crime story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it—an urgent, page-turning work of literary journalism. When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community...