This column was submitted by Evangeline Cessna, Local History Librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.

This week features New Nonfiction titles from our adult nonfiction collection.

“Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America,” is by Joy-Ann Reid. Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing family. Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, charged with beating back the most intractable and violent resistance to black voting rights in the country. Myrlie served as Medgar’s secretary and confidant, working hand in hand with him as they struggled against public accommodations and school segregation, lynching, violence and sheer despair within their state’s “black belt.” They fought to desegregate the intractable University of Mississippi and organized picket lines and boycotts, despite repeated terroristic threats, including the 1962 firebombing of their home, where they lived with their three young children. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers became the highest-profile victim of the Klan-related assassination of a black civil rights leader at that time; gunned down in the couple’s driveway in Jackson. In the wake of his tragic death, Myrlie carried on their civil rights legacy by writing a book about Medgar’s fight, trying to win a congressional seat and becoming a leader of the NAACP in her own right. In this groundbreaking and thrilling account of two heroes of the civil rights movement, Joy-Ann Reid uses Medgar and Myrlie’s relationship as a lens through which to explore the on-the-ground work that went into winning basic rights for Black Americans and the repercussions that still resonate today.

Amber Hunt has penned, “Crimes of the Centuries: The Cases That Changed Us.” A fascinating dive into the popular history of incredibly impactful crimes — both infamous and little-known — that have shaped the legal system as we know it. When asked why true crime is so in vogue, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Amber Hunt always has the same answer: it’s no hotter than it’s always been. Crimes and trials have captured American consciousness since the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century. These cases over the centuries have fundamentally changed our society and shifted our legal system, resulting in the laws we have today and setting the stage for new rights and protections. From the first recorded murder trial led by the first legal dream team to one of the earliest uses of DNA, these cases will fascinate.

“Praisesong For the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks,” is by Crystal Wilkinson. Years ago, when O. Henry Prize-winning writer Crystal Wilkinson was baking a jam cake, she felt her late grandmother’s presence. She soon realized that she was not the only cook in her kitchen; there were her ancestors, too, stirring, measuring and braising alongside her. These are her kitchen ghosts, five generations of Black women who settled in Appalachia and made a life, a legacy and a cuisine. An expert cook, Wilkinson shares nearly 40 family recipes rooted deep in the past, full of flavor and delicious favorites including Corn Pudding, Chicken and Dumplings, Granny Christine’s Jam Cake and Praisesong Biscuits, brought to vivid life through stunning photography. Together, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts honors the mothers who came before, the land that provided for generations of her family and the untold heritage of Black Appalachia. As the keeper of her family’s stories and treasured dishes, Wilkinson shares her inheritance in “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts.” She found their stories in her apron pockets, floating inside the steam of hot mustard greens and tucked into the sweet scent of clove and cinnamon in her kitchen. Part memoir, part cookbook, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts weaves those stories together with recipes, family photos and a lyrical imagination to present a culinary portrait of a family that has lived and worked the earth of the  mountains for over a century.

Mustafa Suleyman highlights tech inventions of the century that may or may not make humans obsolete in, “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma.” We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the center of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms onone side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia? This groundbreaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes “the containment problem” — the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies — as the essential challenge of our age.