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Ghosts of the Orphanage

A Story of Mysterious Deaths, a Conspiracy of Silence, and a Search for Justice

The shocking secret history of twentieth-century orphanages – which for decades hid violence, abuse, and deaths within their walls.

For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events – abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths – took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.

Centering her story on St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally has written a stunning account of a series of crimes and abuses. But her work is not confined to one place. Following clues that take her into the darkened corners of several institutions across the globe, she finds a trail of terrifying stories and a courageous group of survivors who are seeking justice. Ghosts of the Orphanage is an incredible true crime story and a reckoning with a past that has stayed buried for too long, with tragic consequences.

The Invisible History of the Human Race

How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures

A New York Times Notable Book of 2014, winner of the Bragg UNSW Prize for Science Writing, shortlisted for the 2015 Stella Prize and the 2015 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, and appearing on many “best of” lists. In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally asks how are we affected by the forces that are invisible to us?  She draws on cutting-edge research to reveal how both historical artifacts and DNA tell us where we come from and where we may be going. From fateful, ancient encounters to modern mass migrations and medical diagnoses, Kenneally explains how the forces that shaped the history of the world ultimately shape each human who inhabits it.

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The First Word

The Search for the Origins of Language

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, The First Word is about the quest for the origins of human language. Although language is a distinctly human gift, it leaves no permanent trace and its evolution has long been a mystery. It is only in the last fifteen years that we have begun to understand how language came into being. The First Word follows two intertwined narratives. The first is an account of how the random and layered processes of evolution wound together to produce a talking animal: us. The second addresses why language evolution was considered a scientific taboo for more than a hundred years and why scientists are at last able to explore the subject.

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