060: Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry M. Robert

060.42: Robert, Henry M. Robert’s Rules of Order Revised for Deliberative Assemblies. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1943. 307 pp.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 000: Computer Science, Knowledge, and General Works
• 060: General organizations and museology
• 060.4: Special topics of general organizations
• 060.42: General rules of order

If you’re running even a halfway-serious meeting, assembly, or convention, you need some way of bringing order to the proceedings. Without common rules, deliberative assemblies devolve into chaos. First devised in 1876 by U.S. Army Colonel Henry Martyn Robert, these rules help to allow groups of peoples to understand what happens when, when people can speak, when and how motions can be voted on, and how to decide on many complicated matters.

130: Occult America by Mitch Horowitz

130: Horowitz, Mitch. Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation. New York: Bantam, 2010. 258 pp. ISBN 978-0-553-38515-1.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 100: Philosophy and Psychology
• 130: Parapsychology and occultism

In 1774, Mother Ann Lee emigrated from England to New York and started a small but important movement in America: the Shakers. Their belief in a more mystical Christian God led to accusations of heresy from mainline believers. From this small band of radical believers sprang pockets on mysticism throughout America over the last 250 years. Mitch Horowitz’s Occult America takes a slightly off-center look at American history through the lens of those who believed, prayed, practiced, and lived a little differently from the rest of us.

939: The Road to Ubar by Nicholas Clapp

939.49: Clapp, Nicholas. The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands. Boston: Mariner, 1999. 274 pp. ISBN 0-395-95786-9.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 900: History and Geography
• 930: History of the ancient world
• 939: History of other parts of the ancient world
• 939.4: History of the Middle East to 640 CE
• 939.49: History of the Arabian Peninsula to 622 CE

The ancient city of Ubar is clouded in myth. It controlled the frankincense trade for the Arabian Peninsula and became quite a wealthy oasis. Then, as told in the Koran, it was smote from the Earth for favoring wealth over worship. The city of Ubar was gone forever. Nicholas Clapp’s The Road to Ubar weaves together history, archaeology, technology, and even a little luck to rediscover the history of the Arabian Peninsula. With the help of an archaeologist, a geologist, and a real-life adventurer, he travels through the vast Arabian Desert to take back what the desert hid for so long.

687: Jeans by James Sullivan

687.1: Sullivan, James. Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon. New York: Gotham Books, 2006. 265 pp. ISBN 1-592-40214-3.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 600: Technology
• 680: Manufacture of products for specific uses
• 687: Clothing and accessories
• 687.1: Specific kinds of garments

Despite how advertisers keep treating as a new and exciting clothing, jeans, and the denim they are made from, have been around for hundreds of years. Blue jeans are named after their place of first import, Genoa, Italy, and denim comes from the material serge de Nimes, a cotton blend from Nimes, France. Materials for jeans arrived in the America almost right after the Pilgrims did. Denim jeans have been part of the social and manufacturing landscape for so long that they seem almost ineffable. James Sullivan’s Jeans, however, goes a little deeper into the history of jeans to find a chronicle of rebellion and globalization.