A Book About an Unsung Hero

A selection of books that fulfill the criteria for the UBN 2025 category of a book about an unsung hero.

Updated January 4, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
The secret of life : Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the discovery of DNA's double helix
Markel, Howard
Paper Book
James Watson and Francis Crick's 1953 discovery of the double helix structure of DNA is the foundation of virtually every advance in our modern understanding of genetics and molecular biology. But how did Watson and Crick do it?and why were they the ones who succeeded? In truth, the...
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Lee Shetterly, Margot.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory history essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in...
An unsung hero : Tom Crean : Antarctic survivor
Smith, Michael, journalist.
Paper Book
That librarian : the fight against book banning in America
Jones, Amanda
Paper Book
"Amanda Jones started getting death threats, all for standing up for our right to read . . . but she's not stopped fighting against book bans, or stopped advocating for access to diverse stories."--Oprah Winfrey, in a speech at the 2023 National Book Awards Part memoir,...
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
Skloot, Rebecca
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller -- Henrietta Lacks, a poor Southern tobacco farmer, was buried in an unmarked grave sixty years ago. Yet her cells -- taken without her knowledge, grown in culture and bought and sold by the billions -- became one of the most important tools in medical research. Rebecca...
The small and the mighty : twelve unsung Americans who changed the course of history, from the founding to the civil rights movement
McMahon, Sharon
Paper Book
A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From America's favorite government teacher, a "fascinating and fun" (Adam Grant) portrait of twelve ordinary Americans whose courage formed the character of our country. In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves...
The dictionary people : the unsung heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary
Ogilvie, Sarah
Paper Book
What do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common? They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor,...
The bad-ass librarians of Timbuktu : and their race to save the world's most precious manuscripts
Hammer, Joshua
Paper Book
To save precious centuries-old Arabic texts from Al Qaeda, a band of librarians in Timbuktu pulls off a brazen heist worthy of Ocean's Eleven. In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.