Here are some of this week's top Beacon author sightings:

Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars, documents America post-Roe v. Wade and how abortion is still inaccessible by many standards. In a recent article from the New York Times Magazine, Joffe is quoted for her opinions on antiabortion extremists and the “tenuous relationship between medicine and abortion.”

In a special “We Read It” blog on Newsweek.com, Gail Dines’ book Pornland received a great review calling it “an important book.” According to Dines, the adult film industry isn’t portraying love but rather promoting violence and hate. The blog also links to an earlier Newsweek article written on The Porning of America by Kevin Scott and Carmine Sarracino.

Hollowing out the Middle by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas was recently mentioned in a Huffington Post article on the rural Midwest’s enlightened youth and their migration out of small towns and into the hustle and bustle of urban environments.

The House of Secrets by Varda Polak-Sahm documents the sacred purifying Jewish ritual known as mikveh. A recent review in the Christian Century praised the book, saying: 

“Polak-Sahm mesmerizes the reader with her encounters at the mikveh...brilliantly illuminates these tensions and their religious and cultural meanings, not just intellectually but, like all good anthropologists, in a way that produces a rich understanding of people’s lives.”

Finally, we are happy to announce that Boston’s One City, One Book winner, Dark Tide, the book documenting Boston's historical Molasses Flood, will culminate its celebration on September 20th with an online discussion with the author, Steven Puleo, followed by an author event at the BPL (central branch).