Arcadia Public Library

Over twenty years after the brutal murder of her mother and her own acquittal of the crime, Liza Barton's new husband, Alex Nolan, unexpectedly buys the New Jersey home where Liza's mother died and again becomes a suspect in another murder.

Like drawing back a curtain to let bright light stream in, Miss Representation uncovers a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see. Written and directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the film exposes how mainstream media contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. The film challenges the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for...

"A body so badly burned that it could be mistaken for a movie prop... except for the smell. That's not something the LAPD finds lying on the street every day. And when Detective Tully Jarsdel is called to the scene, it's clear to him that something about the placement of the corpse is intentional, even ritualistic. Jarsdel's former career in academia seems to finally be coming in handy, rather than serving merely as material for jokes from his partner,...

"Lucie Henebelle, single mother and beleaguered detective, has just about enough on her plate with one daughter in the hospital and another off at summer camp when she receives a panicked call from an ex-lover. Lucie's old friend has developed a case of hysterical blindness after watching an obscure and mysterious film from the 1950s. Embedded in the film are subliminal images so unspeakably heinous that Lucie realizes she must get to the bottom of...

Liberia: An Uncivil War provides an in-depth case study of one of the many brutal civil wars which have sprung up like wild fires across Africa. It is an exciting example of war-time journalism - white knuckles reporting with bullets ricocheting just feet from the camera placed in a historical context stretching back nearly two hundred years. Liberia can uniquely claim to be ‘made in America’ and has always looked to the U.S. in its times of crisis....

Twelve previously unpublished non-fiction writings and short stories on war and peace, including an essay on the destruction of Dresden, a story about the first-meal fantasies of three soldiers, and a meditation on the impossibility of shielding children from the temptations of violence.

The incredible true story of Chucky Taylor, the only American ever convicted of torture.  
Chucky Taylor was an average American teenager, until he got a call from his father, a man who would become the infamous dictator of Liberia. Arriving in West Africa and reunited with his father, Chucky soon found himself leading a murderous militia group tasked with carrying out the president’s vendettas. Young and drunk on power, and with

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Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, Freeman shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Behind these fights is a larger story of how fisticuffs and journalism, and the powerful...

[This book] is [an] account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played torturous, unpredictable games - games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it."--Back...