The Top 75 Community College Titles: May 2026 Edition

The best of all the titles appropriate for two-year colleges reviewed in the May issue of Choice.

Posted on May 21, 2026 in Top 75 Community College Titles

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Reference

Aikin, Jane. The Library of Congress: from Jefferson’s vision to the digital age. Georgetown University, 2025. 356p bibl index ISBN 9781647125714, $32.95; ISBN 9781647125721 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1663

Bane, Theresa. The undead in world mythology and folklore: an encyclopedia. McFarland, 2025. 221p bibl index ISBN 9781476695617 pbk, $39.95; ISBN 9781476656069 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1665

A cultural history of love, ed. by Katie Barclay. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 1,648p 6v bibl index ISBN 9781350119833, $610.00; 63-1666

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Humanities

Adamson, Peter. Africana philosophy from Ancient Egypt to the nineteenth century, by Peter Adamson and Chike Jeffers. Oxford, 2025. 498p bibl index (A history of philosophy without any gaps, 7) ISBN 9780198927174, $32.99; ISBN 9780198927198 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1710

Agius, Dionisius A. Songs of the Arabian Red Sea: a cultural history, by Dionisius A. Agius, Muhammad Zafer Alhazmi, and Hasan Hujairi. I. B. Tauris, 2025. 243p bibl index ISBN 9780755634064, $115.00; ISBN 9780755634088 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1707

Baker, Christopher. Creator of nightmares: Henry Fuseli’s art and life. Reaktion Books, 2024. 191p bibl index ISBN 9781789149302, $45.00; ISBN 9781789149678 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1670

Batchelor, Stephen. Buddha, Socrates, and us: ethical living in uncertain times. Yale, 2025. 352p bibl index ISBN 9780300275490, $28.00; ISBN 9780300292077 pbk, $20.00; ISBN 9780300283075 ebook, $28.00; 63-1711

Brooker, Graeme. Story of the interior: how we have shaped rooms and how they shape us. Thames & Hudson, 2025. 400p ISBN 9780500027592, $85.00; 63-1674

Brumfield, William Craft. From forest to steppe: the Russian art of building in wood. Duke, 2025. 421p bibl indexes ISBN 9781478028246, $50.00; 63-1675

Cartagena, Alejandro. Alejandro Cartagena: ground rules. Aperture, 2025. 284p ISBN 9781597115728, $65.00; 63-1677

Carter, Graydon. When the going was good: an editor’s adventures during the last golden age of magazines. Penguin Press, 2025. 422p ISBN 9780593655900, $32.00; ISBN 9780593655924 pbk, $22.00; ISBN 9780593655917 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1678

Conly, Sarah. The limits of liberty. Oxford, 2025. 224p bibl index ISBN 9780197812372, $29.95; ISBN 9780197812389 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1713

Cottis, David. How stage playwrights saved the British cinema, 1930–1956: the well-made screenplay. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 244p bibl index ISBN 9798765101094, $120.00; ISBN 9798765101070 ebook, $108.00; 63-1706

Dasal, Jennifer. The club: where American women artists found refuge in Belle Époque Paris. Bloomsbury, 2025. 316p bibl index ISBN 9781639731305, $29.99; ISBN 9781639731312 ebook, $20.99; 63-1668

Dougherty, Jane Elizabeth. Narrating Irish female development, 1916–2018. Edinburgh University Press, 2024. 286p bibl index ISBN 9781399528283, $125.00; ISBN 9781399528313 ebook, $125.00; 63-1690

Faflik, David. The literary gift in early America. Stanford, 2025. 314p bibl index ISBN 9781503639676, $75.00; ISBN 9781503642003 ebook, $75.00; 63-1691

Fleming, Patrick C. Animating the Victorians: Disney’s literary history. University Press of Mississippi, 2025. 239p bibl index ISBN 9781496855374, $99.00; ISBN 9781496855381, $30.00; ISBN 9781496855398 ebook, $30.00; 63-1692

Gorski, Bradley A. Cultural capitalism: literature and the market after socialism. Northern Illinois, 2025. 320p bibl index ISBN 9781501779794, $58.95; ISBN 9781501779800 ebook, $38.99; 63-1705

Henry David Thoreau and the nick of time: temporality and agency in Thoreau’s era and ours, ed. by Kathryn C. Dolan, John J. Kucich, Henrik Otterberg. Mercer University, 2025. 313p index ISBN 9780881460735, $40.00; 63-1695

Howell, C. W. Designer science: a history of intelligent design in America. New York University, 2025. 281p bibl index ISBN 9781479827671, $35.00; ISBN 9781479827701 ebook, $25.00; 63-1727

Johnson, Karen J. Ordinary heroes of racial justice: a history of Christians in action. IVP Academic, 2025. 352p bibl index ISBN 9781514009987, $30.99; ISBN 9781514010006 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1729

Johnston, Carolyn. Living Indigenous feminism: stories of contemporary Native American women, by Carolyn Johnston and Terri McKinney Baker. Georgia, 2025. 216p bibl index ISBN 9780820373768, $119.95; ISBN 9780820373775 pbk, $27.95; ISBN 9780820373799 ebook, $27.95; 63-1696

Lamb, Jonathan P. How the world became a book in Shakespeare’s England. Cambridge, 2025. 306p bibl index ISBN 9781009460415, $44.99; ISBN 9781009460385 ebook, $44.99; 63-1697

Saiya, Nilay. God’s warriors: religious violence and the global crisis of secularism. Oxford, 2025. 256p bibl index ISBN 9780197813546, $99.00; ISBN 9780197813553 pbk, $29.99; ISBN 9780197813560 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1731

Shakespeare, William. King Henry VIII, or, All is true, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher; ed. by Will Sharpe. Oxford, 2025. 180p bibl ISBN 9780198872023 pbk, $9.99; ISBN 9780198872047 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1699

Sottong, Heather Renee. Transnational Dante: inventing Argentine cultural identity. Fordham, 2025. 257p bibl index ISBN 9781531510435, $105.00; ISBN 9781531510442 pbk, $30.00; ISBN 9781531510459 ebook, $29.99; 63-1703

Steck, Christopher W. A heaven for animals: a Catholic case and why it matters. Georgetown University, 2025. 184p bibl index ISBN 9781647126131, $74.95; ISBN 9781647126148 pbk, $24.95; ISBN 9781647126155 ebook, $24.95; 63-1732

Sze, Jennifer Ang Mei. Justified unforgiveness: a moral case against silence, neglect, and forgetfulness. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 168p bibl index ISBN 9781666942170, $105.00; ISBN 9781978761803 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1719

Walker, Amelia. Reading and writing for change: theories and tools for confronting power. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 256p index ISBN 9781350450394, $90.00; ISBN 9781350450400 pbk, $29.95; ISBN 9781350450424 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1684

Yamboliev, Irena. Ornament, the novel, and the Victorian real. Oxford, 2025. 242p bibl index ISBN 9780198958154, $100.00; ISBN 9780198958178 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1701

Zipperstein, Steven J. Philip Roth: stung by life. Yale, 2025. 368p index ISBN 9780300251555, $28.00; ISBN 9780300286229 ebook, $28.00; 63-1702

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Science & Technology

Beekman, Scott. The last gladiator: William Muldoon and the making of American sports. Texas, 2025. 240p bibl index ISBN 9781477332245, $45.00; ISBN 9781477332269 ebook, $45.00; 63-1754

Gallentine, Jay. Born to explore: John Casani’s grand tour of the solar system. Nebraska, 2025. 400p index ISBN 9781496206657, $39.95; ISBN 9781496245052 ebook, $39.95; 63-1736

Post, Anna-Luna. Galileo’s fame: science, credibility, and memory in the seventeenth century. Pittsburgh, 2025. 280p bibl index ISBN 9780822948599, $36.00; ISBN 9780822992042 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1734

Wanless, Alicia. The information animal: humans, technology and the competition for reality. Oxford, 2025. 300p index ISBN 9780197835319, $34.99; ISBN 9780197839416 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1752

Wood, Gillen D’Arcy. The wake of HMS Challenger: how a legendary Victorian voyage tells the story of our oceans’ decline. Princeton, 2025. 329p bibl index ISBN 9780691233246, $29.95; ISBN 9780691233253 ebook, $29.95; 63-1735

Worster, Donald. Be fruitful and multiply: how fertility and innovation have changed humankind and the Earth. Yale, 2025. 324p index ISBN 9780300278972, $32.50; ISBN 9780300286199 ebook, $32.50; 63-1733

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Social & Behavioral Sciences

Bernstein, Andrew. Fuji: a mountain in the making. Princeton, 2025. 352p bibl index ISBN 9780691256290, $35.00; ISBN 9780691256306 ebook, $35.00; 63-1806

Bernstein, Richard B. Alexander Hamilton: a very short introduction. Oxford, 2025. 168p index ISBN 9780190082017 pbk, $12.99; ISBN 9780190082031 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1819

Betancourt, Theresa S. Shadows into light: a generation of former child soldiers comes of age. Harvard, 2025. 306p index ISBN 9780674251052, $35.00; ISBN 9780674299696 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1759

Billig, Michael. Politicians manipulating statistics: how they do it and how to oppose them, by Michael Billig and Cristina Marinho. Cambridge, 2025. 256p index ISBN 9781009488136, $110.00; ISBN 9781009488167 pbk, $35.99; ISBN 9781009488150 ebook, $35.99; 63-1840

Braund, David. Amazons: the history behind the legend. Cambridge, 2025. 318p bibl index ISBN 9781108834490, $39.99; ISBN 9781108993418 ebook, $39.99; 63-1802

Bunch, Marlee S. Unlearning the hush: oral histories of Black female educators in Mississippi in the civil rights era. Illinois, 2025. 179p bibl index ISBN 9780252046766, $110.00; ISBN 9780252088872 pbk, $24.95; ISBN 9780252048319 ebook, $14.95; 63-1820

The Cambridge history of war: v.3: War and the early modern world, ed. by David Parrott and Gábor Ágoston. Cambridge, 2025. 667p bibl index ISBN 9780521874281, $180.00; ISBN 9781009735407 ebook, $180.00; 63-1792

Carcamo-Huechante, Luis E. Acoustic colonialism: acts of Mapuche interference. Duke, 2025. 272p bibl index ISBN 9781478029298, $119.95; ISBN 9781478032632 pbk, $31.95; ISBN 9781478061533 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1812

Cohen, Benjamin J. Dream states: a lurking nightmare for world order. Oxford, 2025. 228p bibl index ISBN 9780197811634, $99.00; ISBN 9780197811641 pbk, $29.99; ISBN 9780197811658 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1846

Douglass, Frederick. Measuring the man: the writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln, ed. by Lucas E. Morel and Jonathan W. White. Reedy Press, 2025. 287p index ISBN 9781681066073, $24.00; 63-1822

Eichhorn, Kate. School yearbook: the untold story of a cringey tradition and its digital afterlife. Chicago, 2025. 209p bibl index ISBN 9780226809519, $25.00; ISBN 9780226844732 ebook, $24.99; 63-1788

Giggie, John M. Bloody Tuesday: the untold story of the struggle for civil rights in Tuscaloosa. Oxford, 2024. 384p bibl index ISBN 9780197766668, $34.99; ISBN 9780197766682 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1823

Grummitt, David. The Wars of the Roses: war and martial culture in England, 1455–1487. Oxford, 2025. 259p bibl index ISBN 9780198958918, $110.00; ISBN 9780198958932 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1831

Hand, Ashlyn W. Prioritizing faith: international religious freedom and U.S. foreign policy. New York University, 2025. 257p bibl index ISBN 9781479838691, $39.00; ISBN 9781479838721 ebook, $39.00; 63-1847

Hitman, Gadi. In search of identity: the ongoing crisis of Israeli society. SUNY Press, 2025. 163p bibl index ISBN 9798855803198, $110.00; ISBN 9798855803211 pbk, $34.95; ISBN 9798855803204 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1816

Khalapyan, Hasmik. The Armenian women’s movement in the late Ottoman Empire: modernity, nationalism and gender. I. B. Tauris, 2025. 212p bibl index ISBN 9780755652846, $115.00; ISBN 9780755652853 pbk, $39.95; ISBN 9780755652884 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1817

Kruglanski, Arie W. The psychology of the extreme, by Arie W. Kruglanski and Sophia Moskalenko. Routledge, 2025. 159p bibl index ISBN 9781032751191, $144.00; ISBN 9781032751184 pbk, $13.59; ISBN 9781003472476 ebook, $13.59; 63-1863

Le, Lin. China’s conservative turn: the origins of Xi Jinping’s new era. L. Rienner, 2025. 256p bibl index ISBN 9798896160120, $110.00; ISBN 9798896160137 ebook, $110.00; 63-1836

Leach, Melissa. Naturekind: language, culture and power beyond the human, by Melissa Leach and James Fairhead. Princeton, 2025. 254p bibl index ISBN 9780691270678, $99.95; ISBN 9780691270661 pbk, $24.95; ISBN 9780691270722 ebook, $24.95; 63-1770

Leavitt, Danielle. By the second spring: seven lives and one year of the War in Ukraine. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025. 299p ISBN 9780374614331, $30.00; ISBN 9781250437761 pbk, $21.00; ISBN 9780374614348 ebook, $15.99; 63-1809

Loyle, Cyanne E. Escaping justice: impunity for state crimes in the age of accountability. Cambridge, 2025. 223p bibl index ISBN 9781009584982, $130.00; ISBN 9781009584968 pbk, $45.00; ISBN 9781009585019 ebook, open access; 63-1843

Mondini, Marco. The generalissimo: Luigi Cadorna and the Italian Army,1850–1928. Cambridge, 2025. 265p bibl index ISBN 9781009098670, $120.00; ISBN 9781009116275 ebook, $120.00; 63-1834

Moreno, Jonathan D. Absolutely essential: bioethics and the rules-based international order. MIT, 2025. 224p bibl index ISBN 9780262553377 pbk, $45.00; ISBN 9780262384766 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1851

Moskos, Peter. Back from the brink: inside the NYPD and New York City’s extraordinary 1990s crime drop. Oxford, 2025. 312p bibl index ISBN 9780197797778, $29.95; ISBN 9780197797792 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1866

Ogren, Christine A. Summers off?: a history of U.S. teachers’ other three months. Rutgers, 2026. 276p index ISBN 9781978831759, $150.00; ISBN 9781978831742 pbk, $42.95; ISBN 9781978831766 ebook, $42.95; 63-1789

Oram, Ruby. Home work: gender, child labor, and education for girls in urban America, 1870–1930. Chicago, 2025. 272p bibl index ISBN 9780226844312, $115.00; ISBN 9780226844336 pbk, $32.00; ISBN 9780226844329 ebook, $31.99; 63-1790

Price-Glynn, Kim. Who cares about parents?: temporary alliances, exclusionary practices, and the strategic possibilities of parenting groups. Rutgers, 2025. 208p bibl index ISBN 9781978824881, $120.00; ISBN 9781978824874 pbk, $32.95; ISBN 9781978824898 ebook, $32.95; 63-1867

Retzlaff, Rebecca. Planning white supremacy: civil rights and city planning in Montgomery, Alabama, 1920–1970. Alabama, 2026. 346p bibl index ISBN 9780817322540, $110.00; ISBN 9780817362348 pbk, $39.95; ISBN 9780817395834 ebook, $39.95; 63-1859

Reynolds, Celene. Unlawful advances: how feminists transformed Title IX. Princeton, 2025. 222p bibl index ISBN 9780691206356, $120.00; ISBN 9780691206349 pbk, $33.00; ISBN 9780691241371 ebook, $33.00; 63-1860

Richardson-Little, Ned. The German Democratic Republic: the rise and fall of a Cold War state. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. 272p index ISBN 9781350341524, $68.00; ISBN 9781350341517 pbk, $22.95; ISBN 9781350341548 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1811

Starr, Paul. American contradiction: revolution and revenge from the 1950s to now. Yale, 2025. 443p index ISBN 9780300282436, $35.00; ISBN 9780300286144 ebook, $35.00; 63-1871

Taubman, Philip. McNamara at war: a new history, by Philip Taubman and William Taubman. W. W. Norton, 2025. 498p bibl index ISBN 9781324007166, $39.99; ISBN 9781324007173 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1828

Teasley, Martin Mack. The real Ike: Eisenhower fact and fiction. University Press of Kansas, 2025. 288p bibl index ISBN 9780700641345, $44.99; ISBN 9780700640690 pbk, $24.99; ISBN 9780700640706 ebook, $14.99; 63-1829

Urwin, Jessica. Contaminated country: nuclear colonialism and Aboriginal resistance in Australia. Washington, 2025. 300p bibl index ISBN 9780295753782, $110.00; ISBN 9780295753799 pbk, $30.00; ISBN 9780295753805 ebook, contact publisher for price; 63-1766

Varouxakis, Georgios. The West: the history of an idea. Princeton, 2025. 512p bibl index ISBN 9780691177182, $39.95; ISBN 9780691272368 ebook, $39.95; 63-1797

Vigurs, Kate. Mission Europe: the secret history of the women of SOE. Yale, 2025. 368p bibl index ISBN 9780300272697, $32.50; ISBN 9780300283785 ebook, $32.50; 63-1798

Woodman, David. The first king of England: Æthelstan and the birth of a kingdom. Princeton, 2025. 307p bibl index ISBN 9780691249490, $35.00; ISBN 9780691249674 ebook, $35.00; 63-1832

Zoughbie, Daniel. Kicking the hornet’s nest: U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from Truman to Trump. Simon & Schuster, 2025. 417p ISBN 9781668085226, $31.00; ISBN 9781668085240 ebook, $16.99; 63-1818

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