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Open, Heaven

Seán Hewitt

A stunning debut novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell and Justin Torres in the intensity of its evocation of sexual awakening

Set in a remote village in the north of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives.

Jamesa sheltered, shy sixteen-year-oldis alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parentshis father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another manLuke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him "like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre," drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wounda longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life.

Open, Heaven is a novel about desire, yearning, and the terror of first love. With the striking economy and lyricism that animate his work as a poet, Hewitt has written a mesmerizing hymn to boyhood, sensuality, and love in all its forms. A truly exceptional debut.

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The Lilac People

Milo Todd

"Reminiscent of Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See . . . Heart-stopping in its suspense and dramatic reveals." —The Boston Globe

A moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies, all while protecting the ones he loves

In 1932 Berlin, a trans man named Bertie and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond. But everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The Institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.

In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies’ vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation is to flee to the United States.

Brimming with hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community, The Lilac People tells an extraordinary story inspired by real events and recovers an unknown moment of World War II and trans history.

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Woodworking

Emily St. James

"Big-hearted and hilarious, an ode to authenticity and a must-read in our current times." --Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures

"Writing a funny book is hard. Writing a convincing takedown of one of America's most popular prejudices is harder still. Writing a funny novel in which complex, imperfect characters make a compelling case for one of our culture's most maligned groups--that takes smarts and heart. Fortunately for her readers, St. James is in full possession of both." --Meredith Maran, Washington Post

One of Book Riot's and The Mary Sue's 15 Most Anticipated Queer Books of 2025 * One of The Millions', Kirkus's, The AV Club's, Them's, and LGBTQ Reads's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 * One of Vol. 1 Brooklyn's, Autostraddle's, LA Times's, and BookBrowse's Most Anticipated Reads of March 2025 * One of Bustle's Best Books of Spring 2025 * Matty Maggiacomo's March Book Club Pick

An unforgettable and heartwarming book-club debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced--and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.

Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High's resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It's a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty--and loneliness--that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn't the only one struggling to shed the weight of others' expectations.

As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women--and those closest to them--are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?

Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.

"A testament to the power of intergenerational trans stories . . . dazzling." --VOGUE
 

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Ellipses

Vanessa Lawrence

Set in the glossy world of New York City media, this sharp and witty debut novel follows a young woman caught in a toxic mentorship with an older, powerful executive as she grapples with career, belonging, and the complexity of modern relationships in the digital age.

Named a Best Book of 2024 So Far by Vogue, Elle, and Electric Lit
One of Autostraddle's Most Anticipated Queer Books for Spring 2024 
One of Chill Subs's 38 Books We Can't Wait to Read
 
When cosmetics mogul Billie rolls down her town car window and offers Lily a ride home from a glitzy Manhattan gala, Lily figures this could be a useful professional connection. She’s heard of Billie’s storied rise as a business titan, the product of white New England privilege and one of the few queer women in a corner suite. Billie could be just the jolt Lily needs to manifest her next step.
 
A magazine writer, Lily interviews influencers, actresses, and fashion designers for her publication’s stylish pages, all while navigating office microaggressions. Stalled at work, she worries that her dream print career will soon succumb to the rise of social media. She is at a standstill, too, in her relationship with her girlfriend Alison. And Lily feels unable to voice her authenticity when others’ sliding perceptions of her mixed race and bisexual identity repeatedly drown her out.
 
Charming and hyperconfident, Billie seems invested in mentoring Lily out of her slump, from the screen of her phone. But their text exchanges and Billie’s relentless worldview begin to consume Lily’s life. Eager to impress her powerful guide, Lily is perpetually suspended in an ellipsis, waiting for those three gray dots to bloom into a new message from Billie.
 
Ellipses explores one woman’s struggle for wholeness, in a world shaped by digital half-lives and aspirational fantasies. In the end, this stunning debut novel reveals the rewards and challenges of forging an uncharted path on one’s own terms.

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The Bump

Sidney Karger

"With a fresh mix of Little Miss Sunshine and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Bump takes us on a laugh-out-loud and moving adventure. Wyatt and Biz are such vivid, relatable characters to root for as they navigate love and family with tears and hilarity. It's another sweet book from Sid and I didn't want this fun ride to end!"—Molly Shannon, New York Times bestselling author, comedian, and actress

Two men expecting a baby via surrogate go on the road trip of a lifetime in this hilarious and poignant novel by Sidney Karger, author of Best Men.

Wyatt Wallace is a practical, super organized director of TV commercials. Biz Petterelli is a child-actor-turned-magazine-writer who thrives on spontaneity. Though polar opposites, they are fully committed to their relationship and their life in Brooklyn with their dog, Matilda. They’re also about to have a baby together.

And they’re freaking out.

They’ve both dreamed of becoming parents, but now that it’s happening, they’re doubting everything. Their baby is due in a few weeks and instead of flying to California just before the birth as planned, Biz has a better idea. They could use one last hurrah, along with some serious “us-time” to mend the issues they’ve been having lately—before they get tied down by fatherhood and its impending responsibilities. So the daddies-to-be load up their 1992 Volkswagen Cabriolet and embark on an epic cross-country babymoon. They attempt to recharge at the beach in Provincetown, stumble through their impromptu baby shower in Chicago, and endure a Star Wars-themed wedding in Colorado before heading west for the baby. 
 
But when they take several unexpected detours, old wounds are reopened and secrets spill out that could change their relationship for better or for worse, forcing the couple to reexamine the meaning of family while building their own. After all, what’s a road trip without a few bumps along the way?

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Disco Witches of Fire Island

Blair Fell

“Heartfelt.”—The New York Times

Hit the dance floor with a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy. 

A heartwarming LGBTQ+ novel for fans of steamy romance, loathe-at-first-sight, and Red, White, and Royal Blue

The paperback edition will have sprayed teal edges and foil on the cover!

It’s 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island—and young men like Joe—from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven’s protective powers have been seriously damaged.

Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe’s longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island—a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom. 

The Disco Witches need to find help—fast—if they’re to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how? Fans of spicy queer romances with a dash of fantasy will fall in love with this stunning novel of community, love, sex, magic, and hope in desperate times.

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Spent

Alison Bechdel

The celebrated and beloved New York Times bestselling author of the modern classic Fun Home presents a laugh-out-loud, brilliant, and passionately political work of autofiction.

"Truthful, rueful and delightful."--LA Times

In Alison Bechdel's hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege?

Meanwhile, Alison's first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It's a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel's beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For).

As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy--and when Alison's Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral--Alison's own envy spirals. Why couldn't she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show...like Queer Eye...showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!!

Spent's rollicking and masterful denouement--making the case for seizing what's true about life in the world at this moment, before it's too late--once again proves that "nobody does it better" (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel.

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Stop Me If You've Heard This One

Kristen Arnett

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things, a sparkling and funny new novel of entertainment, ambition, art, and love.

A TODAY SHOW SPRING PICK

"Sweet, sexy, sad, articulate, and funny." - Vogue
"As much heart, humor, and gritty realness as can fit between two covers." - People
"A funny and heartfelt tale of one woman grappling with grief, love and how to move forward.” - New York Times

Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers.

Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life, and has a slick, successful career to prove it. With Margot’s mentorship and industry connections, Cherry is sure to take her art to the next level. Plus, Margot is sexy as hell. It’s not long before Cherry must decide how much she’s willing to risk for Margot and for her own explosive new act—and what kind of clown she wants to be under her suit. 

Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.

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Isaac's Song

Daniel Black

*A Washington Post Best Book of January 2025*

*A Southern Review of Books Best Southern Book of January 2025*

*A Book Riot 13 of the Best New Queer Books Out in January 2025*

*A Book of the Month Pick for January 2025*

*From the Viral Clark Atlanta University Commencement Speaker*

*From the Georgia Author of the Year Award Winner*



The beloved author of Don't Cry for Me and Perfect Peace returns with a poignant, emotionally exuberant novel about a young queer Black man finding his voice in 1980s Chicago--a novel of family, forgiveness and perseverance, for fans of The Great Believers and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous



Isaac is at a crossroads in his young life. Growing up in Missouri, the son of a caustic, hard-driving father, he was conditioned to suppress his artistic pursuits and physical desires, notions that didn't align with a traditional view of masculinity. But now, in late '80s Chicago, Isaac has finally carved out a life of his own. He is sensitive and tenderhearted and has built up the courage to seek out a community. Yet just as he begins to embrace who he is, two social catalysts--the AIDS crisis and Rodney King's attack--collectively extinguish his hard-earned joy.



At a therapist's encouragement, Isaac begins to write down his story. In the process, he taps into a creative energy that will send him on a journey back to his family, his ancestral home in Arkansas and the inherited trauma of the nation's dark past. But a surprise discovery will either unlock the truths he's seeking or threaten to derail the life he's fought so hard to claim.



Poignant, sweeping and luminously told, Isaac's Song is a return to the beloved characters of Don't Cry for Me and a high-water mark in the career of an award-winning author.

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Love and Hot Chicken

Mary Liza Hartong



 

"Delightful! This novel will open your heart and preach to your funny bone."--Jill Conner Browne, New York Times bestselling author of the Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love

The debut of a dynamite new voice from the South, Love and Hot Chicken is a spicy and hilarious Tennessee story about family, friendship, fried chicken, and two girls in love.

The Chickie Shak is something of a historical landmark. Red clapboard walls, thriving wasp population, yard-toilets resplendent with sunflowers. My best friend Lee Ray and I used to come after our softball games and snag a picnic table while our mammas ordered the home team special. Truth is, most people around here order the same thing until the day somebody throws their ashes off a roller coaster at Dollywood. The line snakes around the building as far as you can see, the grimiest bunch of Jessies, Pearls, and Scooters you ever did behold, hobnobbing in the parking lot from noon until night.

When PJ Spoon returns home for her beloved daddy's funeral, she doesn't expect to stick around. Why abandon her PhD program at Vanderbilt for the humble charms of her hometown, Pennywhistle, Tennessee Mamma's broken heart, that's why. But truth be told, PJ's own heart ain't doing too good either. She impulsively takes a job as a fry cook at Pennywhistle's beloved Chickie Shak, where locals gather for Nashville-style hot chicken. It may not be glamorous, but it's something to do.

Fate shakes up PJ's life again when the town rallies around the terribly retro and terribly fun Hot Chicken Pageant. PJ finally notices her cute redheaded coworker Boof, a singer-songwriter with a talent as striking as her curly hair, and learns to fear her smack-talking manager, Linda.

As PJ and Boof fall for each other, Boof's search for her birth mother--a Pennywhistle native--catapults the budding couple into a mystery that might be better left unsolved. The Chickie Shak pageant takes off, spurring old rivalries and new friendships in this tale of unexpected connections and new beginnings.

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The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

Kim Fu

From the award-winning author of For Today I Am a Boy, a gripping and deeply felt novel about a group of young girls at a remote camp--and the night that changes everything and will shape their lives for decades to come

A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls--Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan--through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. In diamond-sharp prose, Kim Fu gives us a portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves--and the pasts we can't escape.

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Hatchet Island

Paul Doiron

The eerie, windswept Hatchet Island off the coast of Maine becomes the site of a double murder and a disappearance in this thriller from bestselling author Paul Doiron.

A call for help from a former colleague leads Maine game warden investigator Mike Bowditch and his girlfriend Stacey Stevens on a sea kayaking trip to a research station far off the coast. Stacey spent summers interning on the island, a sanctuary for endangered seabirds, and they are shocked by the atmosphere of tension they encounter when they come ashore. The biologists are being threatened and stalked by a mysterious boatman who they suspect is trespassing on the refuge late at night. And now the sanctuary’s enigmatic founder, whose mind has been slowly unraveling, has gone missing.

Camped on an islet for the night, Mike and Stacey waken to the sound of a gunshot. When they return to the refuge at dawn, their darkest fears are confirmed: two of the three researchers have been brutally murdered and the third has disappeared, along with the island skiff. Mike’s quest to find the missing man leads to a nearby island owned by a world-renowned photographer and his equally brilliant wife. The inhabitants of this private kingdom quickly close ranks, and Mike increasingly comes to believe that someone in the village knows more about the killings than they dare admit.

With no one to trust and miles from shore, Mike Bowditch must stop a ruthless murderer determined to make sure a terrifying secret never sees the light of day.

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Cook It Wild

Chris Nuttall-Smith

In this game-changing camping cookbook, food writer and adventurer Chris Nuttall-Smith introduces an ingenious prep-ahead approach to eating outdoors, with 80 easy-to-make and wildly tasty recipes.

Cook It Wild showed me I can enjoy our incredible planet and still have a killer meal at the end of the day.”—Matty Matheson, chef, actor, and author of Matty Matheson: Home Style Cookery

A BEST COOKBOOK OF THE YEAR: Food Network, Epicurious, Globe and Mail

Say goodbye to ho-hum canned beans and freeze-dried backpacking meals. With prep-ahead recipes and field-tested advice, flavor-packed dishes like herby lemon chicken, vegan dan dan noodles and even fire-baked pecan sticky buns become deliciously doable and fuss-free. Each recipe is divided into “at home” and “at camp” sections, so most of the cooking is done before your trip. Extraordinary outdoor eating is often as simple as dropping fully prepped ingredients into a pot or onto a grill. Just like that, you’ll be feasting on showstopping sweet-tangy lemon ribs, sublime vegetarian pastas, or sizzling cumin lamb kebabs paired with puff-and-serve chapati. 

Plus, with fun and savvy camp kitchen advice, you’ll learn everything you need to become a master outdoors cook, including which cheeses travel best, how to chill drinks when you don’t have ice, how to pick (and use) a backpacking stove, and how to make great coffee in the wild! 

Whether your idea of wilderness is a beach, a mountain, a rushing river or your own backyard, you’ll want to make these recipes for friends and family. For cooks and campers of every level, Cook It Wild turns outdoor mealtimes into a cause for celebration—and the highlight of every trip.

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The Pendleton Field Guide to Campfire Stories

Pendleton Woolen Mills

From beloved American heritage brand Pendleton comes this collection of family-friendly tales of adventure and discovery in the wilderness.

This captivating collection of campfire stories is the perfect companion for anyone who enjoys the outdoors. These pages present a range of tales, including daring feats of endurance and strength, epic journeys through new frontiers, and exhilarating encounters with wild animals, plus spooky myths to bring campers closer together around the fire.

Readers will discover works by beloved naturalists John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, modern tales of adventure from Alex Honnold and Cheryl Strayed, and accounts of bravery and heroism from the adventures of Shackleton and the Donner party. With a combination of awe-inspiring stories and Pendleton's beloved patterns and engaging illustrations throughout, this handsome campfire collection is the ideal addition to any adventure and a wonderful gift for families and friends who love camping.

* BELOVED BRAND: For over 150 years, Pendleton Woolen Mills has been one of America's most beloved heritage brands. Known for their woolen blankets and clothing, their products are celebrated by people who love the great outdoors. This thoughtfully curated collection speaks to Pendleton's fans with stories that will elevate any adventure.
* FAMILY FUN: These family-friendly stories are the perfect way to bring everyone together after a day of fun outdoors. Reading the stories together is an easy activity for everyone to participate in, and offers tons of opportunities to bond with family or friends.
* BEAUTIFUL TO DISPLAY: Featuring more than 30 Pendleton patterns delivered in a handsome hardcover package with a cloth cover and lovely textured details, this eye-catching package is the perfect accessory for any outdoor occasion or mountain home, and makes for a wonderful Father's Day gift or holiday gift for those who enjoy the natural world.

Perfect for:

* People seeking a gift for Father's Day
* Fans of Pendleton
* Campers, nature lovers, and cabin owners

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Death in the Dark Woods

Annelise Ryan

A potential Bigfoot sighting is linked to a vicious murder, but skeptical cryptozoologist Morgan Carter is on the case in this new Monster Hunter Mystery by USA Today bestselling author Annelise Ryan.

Business has been booming since Morgan Carter solved the case of the monster living in Lake Michigan. The Odds and Ends bookstore is thriving, of course, but Morgan is most excited by the doors that were opened for her as a cryptid hunter. 

Recently, there have been numerous sightings of a Bigfoot-type creature in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest area of Bayfield County, Wisconsin. After a man is found dead from a vicious throat injury in the forest, the conservation warden asks Morgan to investigate. 

When Morgan and her dog, Newt, go there to investigate, they uncover a trail of lies, deception, and murder. It seems a mysterious creature is indeed living in the forest, and Morgan might be its next target.

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Camping Southern California

Richard McMahon

Dream It Camping Southern California details more than 450 campgrounds in the southern half of the state, including campsites managed by national, state, city, and county parks. This comprehensive guidebook will take you to the ideal spot to pitch your tent or park your RV. Plan It This guide provides the latest information to plan a customized trip: Campground locations, Facilities and hookups, Fees and reservations, Recreational activities, Do It The listings are organized by geographic area, and thorough area maps help simplify the search for the perfect campground. Camping Southern California provides useful tips on camping etiquette, camping with children, and enjoying the state's diverse and abundant wildlife. Campgrounds that allow you to take advantage of the state's many waterways, Jumping-off points for hiking in unique settings, Places that offer multiuse facilities perfect for camping with families, Meet Your Local Expert Bruce Grubbs is an avid camper, backpacker, hiker, mountain biker, and cross-country skier who has been exploring the American desert for more than thirty years. A professional outdoor writer and photographer, he has written numerous FalconGuides, including Hiking Arizona, Desert Hiking Tips, and Hiking Northern Arizona. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. Let Falcon be Your Guide Falcon is the premier publisher of outdoor recreation guidebooks in North America. Written by and for outdoor enthusiasts, these guides-chock-full of photos and maps-not only provide you with the skills you need but also take you along with our authoritative local experts on these experiences of a lifetime. Book jacket.

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Out of the Woods

Hannah Bonam-Young

“Absolute, utter perfection.”―Chloe Liese, USA Today bestselling author of Only and Forever

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A married couple joins a week-long wilderness expedition to help them reconnect in this heartfelt companion novel to the viral TikTok sensation Out on a Limb.

High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs.

But Sarah has begun to wonder . . . who is she without her other half?

When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memory of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter after all, independent and capable.

That is, until the event fails and Caleb uninvitedly steps in to save the day.

The rift that follows unearths a decade of grievances and doubts. Are they truly the same people they were when they got married at nineteen? Are they supposed to be?


In a desperate attempt to fix what they fear is breaking, Sarah and Caleb make the spontaneous decision to get out of their comfort zones and join a grueling hiking trip intended to guide couples through rough patches.

What follows is a life-affirming comedy of errors as two nature-averse people fight their way out of the woods in order to find their way back to their roots.

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The Camping Bible

Jen Benson

Slow down. Simplify. Sleep with your ear to the earth. This is the ultimate guide to the art and joy of living outdoors, under canvas.

Whether it's a fast-and-light backpacking adventure, a sea kayak safari, a family camping trip, or simply living and cooking outside in your garden, camping can do it all. Offering an escape from the stresses of everyday life, the art of camping lies in living simply, well. It's about paring back our busy, hyperconnected modern lives and embracing the many joys of living more slowly and connecting more meaningfully.

The Camping Bible is the complete reference for newcomers and lifelong campers alike. Discover new adventures and clever hacks for Proper Camping, sleeping close to the earth in a shelter of stretched fabric held taught by pegs and guy lines, surrounded by the sounds of nature.

It includes:

- a complete introduction for beginners: tent selection; pitching tips; setting up portable kitchens
- family-friendly advice: making the tent a home; entertaining kids in bad weather
- glamping with bell tents and tipis: how to create a luxurious experience
- ideas and advice for seasoned campers: 'The Art of the Tarp', camp cookery; sustainability

Written by passionate and highly experienced outdoor experts, The Camping Bible is packed with wisdom, step-by-step instructions, tried-and-tested advice, top tips, recommended gear, adventure ideas, and beautiful photography and illustrations.

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Dad Camp

Evan S. Porter

A heartwarming novel about a loving dad who drags his eleven-year-old daughter to “father-daughter week” at a remote summer camp—their last chance to bond before he loses her to teenage girlhood entirely. 

After his daughter, Avery, was born, John gave it all up—hobbies, friends, a dream job—to be something more: a super dad. Since then, he’s spent nearly every waking second with Avery, who’s his absolute best bud. Or, at least, she was.

When now eleven-year-old Avery begins transforming into an eye-rolling zombie of a preteen who dreads spending time with him, a desperate John whisks her away for a weeklong father-daughter retreat to get their relationship back on track before she starts middle school.

But John’s attempts to bond only seem to drive his daughter further away, and his instincts tell him Avery’s hiding something more than just preteen angst. Even worse, the camp is far from the idyllic getaway he had in mind. John finds himself navigating a group of toxic dads that can’t seem to get along, cringe-worthy forced bonding activities, and a camp director that has it out for him. With camp and summer break slipping away fast, John’s determined to conquer it all for a chance to become Avery’s hero again.

This brilliant and deeply funny father-daughter story is perfect for fans of poignant and hilarious books like The Guncle by Steven Rowley, Steve Martin’s family classic Cheaper by the Dozen, and Judd Apatow’s bighearted comedies.

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Where Should We Camp Next?: Budget Camping

Stephanie Puglisi

**From the #1 bestselling camping guidebook brand Where Should We Camp Next?**

The essential planning guidebook for anyone searching for fun, memorable travel destinations--on a budget!

The outdoor adventure landscape is vast, exciting, and accessible to everyone! Whether you're searching for a relaxing beach vacation, exciting mountain adventure, or calming forest retreat, Where Should We Camp Next?: Budget Camping will help you find the best destinations, free and low-cost activities, and accommodations that won't break the bank. Family camping and RV experts Stephanie and Jeremy Puglisi make it easy for you to plan an unforgettable travel experience anywhere in the United States by sharing hard-to-find information about budget-friendly camping options, including:

  • State Parks
  • National Forests and National Parks
  • Army Corps of Engineer Campgrounds
  • Money-saving organizations like Kampgrounds of America and Harvest Hosts
  • And more!

Where Should We Camp Next?: Budget Camping makes it easy to travel to our country's most beautiful destinations for a fraction of the cost of more expensive options--allowing you to stress less about the cost of your vacation and spend more time enjoying trips with the people you love the most.

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Bees Make the Best Pets

Jack Mingo

All the Buzz for Beekeeping Beginners

"The book oozes with bee facts and trivia....Bees do make good pets and this book is a gentle introduction to the world of backyard bee keeping." --Patsy Bell Hobson, writer and master gardener emeritus

#1 New Release in Entomology and Insects & Spiders

What happens when a writer sets up a backyard beehive? You get a beekeeping book full of fun and fascinating facts about honey bees and our other favorite pollinators.

A nature guide book for beekeeping beginners. Full of trivia, tips, legends, and lore--this quirky bee book swarms with interesting information, so you can have fun, learn stuff, grow your farm, or just relax. Writer and beekeeper Jack Mingo lives with half a million bees, and has picked up a thing or two at his bee farm. In this collection of humorous and often unusual observations, Mingo shows us a glimpse of the mystical and matriarchal world of bees.

The save the bees sign you've been looking for. How many legs do bees have? Enough not to crowd your bed at night. They don't track mud or bugs into your house, and they won't bark and whine. They even greet you with raw honey and beeswax. And these are just some of the reasons bees make the best pets of all. Whether you're a beekeeping beginner, looking to save the bees, or interested in fun nature facts about bugs and insects, there's something here for every nature lover.

Step into Mingo's hive for tidbits like:

  • Fun and interesting tips and tricks for beekeeping beginners
  • Knowledge about the color, quality, and benefits of local honey
  • The history and legendary stories of bees, like the role they played in the Civil War and the Legend of the Caroling Bees

If you liked Beekeeping for Dummies, The Beekeeper's Handbook, or Beekeeping for Beginners, you'll love Bees Make the Best Pets.

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The Bee Book

DK

The Bee Book shows you step-by-step how to create a bee-friendly garden, get started in beekeeping, and harness the power of honey for well-being.

Fully illustrated with full-color photographs throughout, this beautiful guide covers everything you need to know to start your own backyard hive, from setup to harvest. Practical beekeeping techniques are explained with clear step-by-step sequences, photos, and diagrams so you'll be prepared to establish your own colony, deal with diseases, collect a swarm, and much more.

A comprehensive gardening chapter features planting plans to fill container and border gardens, bee "hotel" and habitat projects, and an at-a-glance flower gallery of bees' favorite plants. The Bee Book also shows you how to harvest honey, beeswax, and propolis from the hive and use these ingredients in 38 recipes for home remedies, beauty treatments, and candle-making.

Discover the wonder of bees in nature, in your garden, and in the hive with The Bee Book, lavishly bound in a beautiful gold-foil and texture cover and perfect for gift giving.

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Save the Bees with Natural Backyard Hives

Rob McFarland

Save the Bees with Natural, Chemical-Free Beekeeping

Rob and Chelsea McFarland first started caring for bees, then founded the nonprofit HoneyLove, to meet a need often heard today - we've got to save the bees. For more than two decades, honeybee colonies have steadily declined around the world. Bees and other pollinators are one of the most critical components of our food supply - if they disappear, so do we. You can make a difference by becoming a natural, treatment-free beekeeper right in your backyard. Save the Bees offers different, easy and healthier ways to keep your own hive!

Rob and Chelsea share all the wisdom from this ancient practice in a way that is fresh, modern and easy for anyone to do. Along the way, they bust up some common bee myths:

- You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment. They tell you the most essential tools you need to get started and what you can make yourself.
- You don't need any chemicals, pesticides or supplements to keep your bees healthy. Rob and Chelsea tell you how to recognize and maintain a healthy hive and how to save a failing one. The treatment-free way is not just a way to keep bees; it's the best way - good for you, the bees and the world.

Save the Bees breaks down the complexity of beekeeping so you can learn step-by-step how to acquire a colony, care for it and reap the reward - that incredibly delicious, all-natural, chemical-free, unprocessed, sweet, sweet honey. Not to mention you'll be welcomed into the quirky, amazing and fun family of beekeepers around the world. So get on board and let's save some bees.

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Beeswax Alchemy

Petra Ahnert

Featuring over 40 DIY projects that illustrate how to transform one of the world’s most natural ingredients into tangible creations, Beeswax Alchemy is the perfect amalgamation of recipe craft book and beekeepers’ guide.

Considered the miracle of the beehive and used by humans for 8,000 years, beeswax remains a vital ingredient to society and is still used as the foundation for many household products in the twenty-first century. Learn from apiarist and entrepreneur Petra Ahnert about the history of beeswax, as well as tips and techniques on how to mold it into beautiful, reusable creations.
 
An introduction details the different ways in which beeswax has been used throughout history, as well as the products that contain it today. You’ll also find an explanation of the different types of beeswax, as well as insider tips on working with beeswax, followed by step-by-step instructions for making candles, balms, salves, creams, scrubs, soaps, ornaments, art, and more out of beeswax (either your own or store-bought). Color photos illustrate the processes and show finished results throughout. Among the useful and beautiful things you’ll learn to make out of beeswax:

  • Hand-Dipped Birthday Candles
  • Lip Balm with Cocoa Butter
  • Rosebud Salve
  • Solid Natural Perfumes
  • Honey, Oats, and Beeswax Soap
  • Beeswax Luminaries

Whether you are an expert beekeeper or experimental crafter, Beeswax Alchemy is the best guide for anyone aspiring to make wellness-boosting treasures to keep or gift to friends and family.

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Buzz

Thor Hanson

As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of The Triumph of Seeds and Feathers presents a natural and cultural history of bees: the buzzing wee beasties that make the world go round.
Bees are like oxygen: ubiquitous, essential, and, for the most part, unseen. While we might overlook them, they lie at the heart of relationships that bind the human and natural worlds. In Buzz, the beloved Thor Hanson takes us on a journey that begins 125 million years ago, when a wasp first dared to feed pollen to its young. From honeybees and bumbles to lesser-known diggers, miners, leafcutters, and masons, bees have long been central to our harvests, our mythologies, and our very existence. They've given us sweetness and light, the beauty of flowers, and as much as a third of the foodstuffs we eat. And, alarmingly, they are at risk of disappearing.
As informative and enchanting as the waggle dance of a honeybee, Buzz shows us why all bees are wonders to celebrate and protect. Read this book and you'll never overlook them again.
 

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Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees, 2nd Edition

Malcolm T. Sanford

This trusted handbook is a must-have for novice and seasoned beekeepers alike. Now totally redesigned and featuring color photos and graphics, the second edition also includes up-to-date information on honey bee health. The go-to reference presents comprehensive yet accessible information on everything from planning hives and installing a colony to preventing disease and managing productive hives that will bear bountiful honey harvests year after year.

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Bee People and the Bugs They Love

Frank Mortimer

“A successful and funny book that is sure to swell the ranks of the world’s beekeepers.”
New York Times 

A fascinating foray into the obsessions, friendships, scientific curiosity, misfortunes and rewards of suburban beekeeping—through the eyes of a Master Beekeeper . . .
 
Who wants to keep bees? And why? For the answers, Master Beekeeper Frank Mortimer invites readers on an eye-opening journey into the secret world of bees, and the singular world of his fellow bee-keepers. There’s the Badger, who introduces Frank to the world of bees; Rusty, a one-eyed septuagenarian bee sting therapist certain that honey will be the currency of the future after the governments fail; Scooby the “dude” who gets a meditative high off the awesome vibes of his psychedelia-painted hives; and the Berserker, a honeybee hitman who teaches Frank a rafter-raising lesson in staving off the harmful influences of an evil queen: “Squash her, mash her, kill, kill, kill!” 
 
Frank also crosses paths with those he calls the Surgeons (precise and protected), the Cowboys (improvisational and unguarded) and the Poseurs, ex-corporate cogs, YouTube-informed and ill-prepared for the stinging reality of their new lives. In connecting with this club of disparate but kindred spirits, Frank discovers the centuries-old history of the trade; the practicality of maintaining it; what bees see, think, and feel (emotionless but sometimes a little defensive); how they talk to each other and socialize; and what can be done to combat their biggest threats, both human (anti-apiarist extremists) and mite (the Varroa Destructor). 
 
With a swarm of offbeat characters and fascinating facts (did that bee just waggle or festoon?), Frank the Bee Man delivers an informative, funny, and galvanizing book about the symbiotic relationship between flower and bee, and bee and the beekeepers who are determined to protect the existence of one of the most beguiling and invaluable creatures on earth.

“A very entertaining book.” 
American Bee Journal 
 
“A playful storyteller… A compelling memoir.” 
Foreword Reviews 
 
“A useful how-to guide as well as an affectionate ode to nature’s pollinators and honey makers.” 
Publishers Weekly 
 
“This book includes great humor and a use of allegory that reveals tremendous background knowledge.” 
—San Francisco Book Review 
  
“Frank’s personal stories of his beekeeping journey are entertaining, well written, and will quickly have you happily lost in the world of bees.” 
—Paleo Magazine 
  
"Bee People and the Bugs They Love is the bee's knees and getting a ton of buzz. Bee smart, people, and read this un-BEE-lievably interesting look at the quirky world of beekeeping." 
Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“A delightful portrayal for non-beekeepers of what life is like for those of us who are always thinking about bees.” 
Tom Seeley, author of The Lives of Bees
  
“A fun and exciting tale of the wonder-filled world of beginner beekeeping.” 
Noah Wilson-Rich, author of Bee: A Natural History , and CEO and partner The Best Bees Company

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Honey and Venom

Andrew Coté

A year in the life of New York City's premier beekeeper, who chronicles his adventures and the quirky personalities he encounters while spreading his infinite knowledge of and passion for the remarkable honey bee

"Coté's charming and poignant essay collection delivers the entertainment and smarts required to make real change in how we look at our planet, and ourselves."--Andrew Zimmern

From the humble drone to the fittingly named worker to the queen herself--who is more a slave than a monarch--the hive world, Andrew Coté reveals, is full of strivers and slackers, givers and takers, and even some insect promiscuity (startlingly similar to the prickly human variety). Written with Coté's trademark humor, acumen, and a healthy dose of charm, Honey and Venom illuminates the obscure culture of New York City "beeks" and the biology of the bees themselves for both casual readers and bee enthusiasts.

Coté takes readers with him on his daily apiary adventures over the course of a year, in the city and across the globe. In Manhattan, among his many duties, he is called to capture swarms that have clustered on fire hydrants, air-conditioning units, or street-vendor umbrellas. Beyond maneuvering within a metropolitan populace as frenzied as the bees', Coté is able to escape from the hive mind and the rigors of city dwelling with his philanthropic, international approach to apiculture. Annually, he travels to regions across the world with his organization, Bees Without Borders, where he teaches beekeepers how to increase their honey yield and income via beekeeping endeavors. For Coté, a fourth-generation beekeeper, this is a family tradition, and this personal significance pervades his celebration of the romance and mystery of bees, their honey, and the beekeepers whose lives revolve around these most magical creatures.

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Omfg, Bees!

Matt Kracht

Guess what: Bees are incredible. If you don't think so, you're wrong; but you're also in luck! Extreme bee enthusiast and bestselling author Matt Kracht is here to set the record straight with this helpful guidebook to all things bees.

Are you ready for the ultimate bee book? With lighthearted watercolor and ink drawings, humorous quips, lists, and musings, OMFG, BEES! will show you just how important these esteemed bee-list celebrities really are. (Hint: We can't live without them.)

Delving into various bee topics, from distinguishing between bees and not bees (very crucial), to exploring the absolute wonder that is bee behavior (they do a coded dance directing their bee friends to food, for crying out loud!), to divulging the mind-blowing bee-magic behind honey making (within some extremely intricate and precisely constructed hexagonal honeycomb, no big deal), and more, Kracht's ode to bees paints a charming and enthusiastic picture of our favorite pollinators.

Bee-autiful full-color illustrations fill these pages that playfully and earnestly examine different kinds of bees, from the honeybee to the teddy bear bee, providing unbelievably cool facts about bees and reasons why they deserve a lot more credit as well as our appreciation and advocacy. Because omfg, BEES!!

BESTSELLING AUTHOR: Matt Kracht is the author of the bestselling Field Guide to Dumb Birds series: The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World, and The Big Dumb Bird Journal. Now, Kracht offers something special for the more insect-inclined audience with OMFG, BEES!, an enthusiastic celebration in the same vein as Dumb Birds, with a little less fowl language and a bit more earnestness.

A FRESH TAKE FOR BEE LOVERS: Most books on bees are serious in tone and highly academic. OMFG, BEES! is the first of its kind: a celebratory, funny, and lighthearted illustrated compendium honoring the little guys that preserve humanity as we know it!

A HIGHLY GIFTABLE, QUALITY BOOK: This 5 x 7 inch, 4-color, compact book is packed with both information and humor, making it the perfect gift for novice bee enthusiasts to full-on bee experts.

BEES ARE IMPORTANT, FOR GOOD REASON: Without bees, Earth wouldn't be the same! We need bees. With an active Save the Bees movement erupting in the last few years, people are adamant about bee justice. According to Greenpeace, bees are responsible for one in every three bites of food humans consume--spreading this awareness and knowledge is ample reason to celebrate them!

Perfect for:

  • An informative and insanely fun option for anyone seeking books about bees for adults
  • A great resource for general bee enthusiasts, Save the Bees advocates, environmentalists, and beekeepers
  • Fans of animal humor books and nature shows
  • Followers of #BeeTok and popular bee Instagram accounts
  • A buzz-worthy gift for students, aspiring entomologists, gardeners, urban farmers, hikers, and all who want to learn about bees without the academic feel
  • Pairing with honey-related gifts for sweet birthday, anniversary, holiday, housewarming, or hostess gift giving
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The Insect Artist

Stacey Zebith Thalden

The Insect Artist offers a complete course in illustration and lifelike artwork.

The 15 projects are designed to build on one another, beginning with techniques that strengthen drawing and acrylic painting skills. More advanced projects focus on design principals, realistic environments, and creative challenges. Clear instructions and visual demonstrations describe each step of the process and reference photos show the anatomy and coloration of each insect. Short outdoor exercises are included as lessons on actively observing the nature. This is a book for artists of all levels and anyone interested in rediscovering the natural world through artistic expression.


Packed with creative tips:* Achieve rich colours, surface textures, and spatial depth
* Measure proportions accurately
* Simplify tricky forms and patterns
* Establish an inspiring and supportive art practice

"Art and science collide beautifully in this must-have book for insect and nature lovers everywhere... Prepare to be amazed at the artworks you create!" -Lila Higgins, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, co-author of Wild LA

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Pagan Spring

G. M. Malliet

"There are certain things you want in a village mystery: a pretty setting, a tasteful murder, an appealing sleuth . . . Malliet delivers all that." —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times

G. M. Malliet has charmed mystery lovers, cozy fans, and Agatha Christie devotees everywhere with Wicked Autumn and A Fatal Winter, the critically-acclaimed mysteries that introduced former spy turned cleric Max Tudor. Now, Max returns to the small English village of Nether Monkslip, where some new residents cause quite a stir.

Vicar Max Tudor, reveling in his new-found personal happiness with Awena Owen, feels that life at the moment holds no greater challenge than writing his Easter sermon. With Awena away, he looks forward to a dinner that includes newcomers to the village like West End dramatist Thaddeus Bottle and his downtrodden wife Melinda. But when one of the dinner guests is found dead in the pre-dawn hours, Max knows a poisonous atmosphere has once again enveloped his perfect village of Nether Monkslip. Connections to long-ago crimes, some sparked by the paintings of a famous local artist, help Max unravel the clues—but can he restore peace to Nether Monkslip and still manage to finish his sermon? Funny, smart, and perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Louise Penny, Pagan Spring is a one-of-a-kind mystery featuring everyone's favorite attractive vicar.

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Devil in Spring

Lisa Kleypas

New York Times bestselling author LISA KLEYPAS delivers the unforgettable tale of a strong-willed beauty who encounters her match in one of London’s most notorious—yet irresistible—rakes . . .

An eccentric wallflower  . . .

Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora Ravenel has different plans. The ambitious young beauty would much rather stay at home and plot out her new board game business than take part in the London Season. But one night at a glittering society ball, she’s ensnared in a scandal with a wickedly handsome stranger.

A cynical rake  . . .

After years of evading marital traps with ease, Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, has finally been caught by a rebellious girl who couldn’t be less suitable. In fact, she wants nothing to do with him. But Gabriel finds the high-spirited Pandora irresistible. He’ll do whatever it takes to possess her, even if their marriage of convenience turns out to be the devil’s own bargain.

A perilous plot  . . .

After succumbing to Gabriel’s skilled and sensuous persuasion, Pandora agrees to become his bride. But soon she discovers that her entrepreneurial endeavors have accidentally involved her in a dangerous conspiracy—and only her husband can keep her safe. As Gabriel protects her from their unknown adversaries, they realize their devil’s bargain may just turn out to be a match made in heaven . . .

 

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When the Apricots Bloom

Gina Wilkinson

“Breathtaking…Riveting and profound! I adored this book!” —Ellen Marie Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector

“A deeply involving and important novel by a master storyteller.” —Susan Wiggs, # 1 New York Times bestselling author

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

In this moving, suspenseful debut novel, three courageous women confront the complexities of trust, friendship, motherhood, and betrayal under the rule of a ruthless dictator and his brutal secret police. Former foreign correspondent Gina Wilkinson draws on her own experiences to take readers inside a haunting story of Iraq at the turn of the millennium and the impossible choices faced by families under a deadly regime.

A BuzzFeed Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Release
A Target Book Club Pick
A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books Selection

At night, in Huda’s fragrant garden, a breeze sweeps in from the desert encircling Baghdad, rustling the leaves of her apricot trees and carrying warning of visitors at her gate. Huda, a secretary at the Australian embassy, lives in fear of the mukhabarat—the secret police who watch and listen for any scrap of information that can be used against America and its allies. They have ordered her to befriend Ally Wilson, the deputy ambassador’s wife. Huda has no wish to be an informant, but fears for her teenaged son, who may be forced to join a deadly militia. Nor does she know that Ally has dangerous secrets of her own.

Huda’s former friend, Rania, enjoyed a privileged upbringing as the daughter of a sheikh. Now her family’s wealth is gone, and Rania too is battling to keep her child safe and a roof over their heads. As the women’s lives intersect, their hidden pasts spill into the present. Facing possible betrayal at every turn, all three must trust in a fragile, newfound loyalty, even as they discover how much they are willing to sacrifice to protect their families.

“Vivid…secrets and lies mingle as easily as the scent of apricot blossoms and nargilah smoke. Wilkinson weaves in the miasma of fear and distrust that characterized Hussein’s regime with convincing detail. Richly drawn characters and high-stakes plot.” —Publishers Weekly

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Resurrection in May

Lisa Samson

After surviving the unthinkable, one young woman finds healing in nature, friendship, and a surprising kind of love.

Lovely and winsome May Seymour graduated from college with the world at her feet and no idea what to do with it. A spontaneous mission trip to Africa brought great surprise--love--and a strong sense of purpose. But in loving others there, she encountered a severe tragedy that left her deeply wounded.

She comes to heal at the farm of Claudius Borne--a sweet, kind old man who understands plants and animals far better than people. And his farm becomes May's home.

There on the farm, May renews a friendship with an old college flame named Eli whose path has taken unexpected turns too. As May tries to convince Eli to grab hold of life once again, he begins to pull May from her sheltered existence. Like old Claudius's farm in Spring, May begins to blossom back into life. But no resurrection ever comes without sacrifice--and this sacrifice will forever transform May.

  • Thoughtful, inspirational read
  • Stand-alone novel
  • From the author of Embrace Me, Quaker Summer, and The Passion of Mary-Margaret
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The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories

Yu Chen

An Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022

From an award-winning team of authors, editors, and translators comes a groundbreaking short story collection that explores the expanse of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.

In The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, you can dine at a restaurant at the end of the universe, cultivate to immortality in the high mountains, watch roses perform Shakespeare, or arrive at the island of the gods on the backs of giant fish to ensure that the world can bloom.

Written, edited, and translated by a female and nonbinary team, these stories have never before been published in English and represent both the richly complicated past and the vivid future of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.

Time travel to a winter's day on the West Lake, explore the very boundaries of death itself, and meet old gods and new heroes in this stunning new collection.

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Peach Blossom Spring

Melissa Fu

A "beautifully rendered" novel about war, migration, and the power of telling our stories, Peach Blossom Spring follows three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home (Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author).



A country at war. A family searching for home.



China, 1938. Meilin and her four-year-old son, Renshu, flee their burning city as Japanese forces advance. On the perilous journey that follows, across a China transformed by war, they find comfort and wisdom in their most treasured possession, a beautifully illustrated hand scroll filled with ancient fables.



Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter, Lily, is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood in China. How can he tell his story when he's left so much behind?



Spanning continents and generations, Peach Blossom Spring is a bold and moving story about the haunting power of our past, the sacrifices we make to protect our children, and one family's search for a place to call home.



A BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB PICK AND NOMINEE FOR "BOOK OF THE YEAR"

NOMINATED FOR THE GOODREADS CHOICE "BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR"



"An accomplished first novel." --New York Times Book Review



"A stunning achievement . . . I absolutely adored this novel about love and war, migration and belonging." --Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo



"I so enjoyed this book." --Alisa Chang, NPR's All Things Considered



"Magical and powerful, Peach Blossom Spring brings to life the costs of wars and conflicts while illuminating the spirit of human survival."―Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, author of The Mountains Sing



"Expansive, atmospheric, and affecting." --Susie Yang, author of White Ivy



 

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Three Days in June

Anne Tyler

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

“What a treat.” —Washington Post

“Simply exquisite.” —Liane Moriarty

“Nobody understands human nature better than Tyler. And nobody understands the complexities of love the way she does.” —Boston Globe

Three Days in June is like reading a hug.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers.

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April May June July

Alison B. Hart

A triumphant family story and sharply observed exploration of privilege, identity, and love in all its forms, following four estranged siblings whose lives collide in the lead-up to a family wedding, when new clues surface about their long-missing father



"Truly a great American novel that does the very best of what fiction can do: sink us into other people's lives, show us new worlds, make our hearts pound and our breath catch. Superb." --Julia Phillips



April, May, June, and July Barber don't have much in common anymore. An upcoming family wedding will place the four siblings in the same room for the first time in years. But shortly before, when April spots their father, who went missing while serving overseas a decade ago, their reunion becomes entirely more complicated.



While the siblings' search for the truth about their father forces them back into each other's lives, it also intensifies their private dramas. April loves her husband, but seeks excitement outside their marriage. May had big dreams for the future, but she's still stuck living at home. June is eager to marry her girlfriend, so why does she need a drink at every wedding-related event? And then there's baby brother July, whose unrequited love for his straight roommate has him more confused than ever.



Confronting the past together, April, May, June, and July will find not only answers about their father, but new romance, hope, and understanding as they learn to embrace the beauty of their shared history.

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Water, Water

Billy Collins

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life.

“Among the best poems that [Billy] Collins has ever written.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“Witty, wry and tender when it hurts, Water, Water is a pleasure to read and easy to give.”—The Washington Post

“Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.”—The New York Times

One of People’s Best New Books

In this collection of sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes about the beauties and ironies of everyday experience. A poem is best, he feels, when it begins in clarity but ends with a whiff of mystery. 

In Water, Water, Collins combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight. Common and uncommon events are captured here with equal fascination, be it a cat leaning to drink from a swimming pool, a nurse calling a name in a waiting room, or an astronaut reciting Emily Dickinson from outer space. With his trademark lyrical informality, Collins asks us to slow down and glimpse the elevated in the ordinary, the odd in the familiar. It’s no surprise that The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call Collins one of America’s favorite poets.

The Monet Conundrum

Is every one of these poems
different from the others
he asked himself,
as the rain quieted down,

or are they all the same poem,
haystack after haystack
at different times of day,
different shadows and shades of hay?

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Hell Bent

Leigh Bardugo

#1 New York Times BestsellerGoodreads Choice Award Winner

"A tour de force of suspenseful pacing and empathetic writing." ―The New York Times

"All hail the queen of dark academia!" ―NPR

Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. The Ivy League is going straight to hell in the sequel to the smash New York Times bestseller Ninth House from #1 bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

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The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Nghi Vo

Winner of the 2020 Crawford Award!
Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award!
A Hugo Award-Winning Series!

A 2021 Locus Award Finalist
A 2021 Ignyte Award Finalist
A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist
A Book Riot Best Debut Fantasy of All Time

"Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful... The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling."—NPR

"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."—Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen

A Book Riot Must Read Book of 2023 | A 2020 ALA Booklist Top Ten SF/F Debut | A Book Riot Must-Read Fantasy of 2020 | A Paste Most Anticipated Novel of 2020 | A Library Journal Debut of the Month | A Buzzfeed Must-Read Fantasy Novel of Spring 2020 | A Washington Post Best SFF of the Year So Far Pick

Named Book Riot's Best Book Cover of 2020

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | Library Journal | NYPL | Chicago Public Library | The Austen Chronicle | Autostraddle

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
Into the Riverlands
Mammoths at the Gates
The Brides of High Hill

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entry point.

Praise for The Empress of Salt and Fortune

“An elegant gut-punch, a puzzle box that unwinds itself in its own way and in its own time. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Gorgeous. Cruel. Perfect. I didn't know I needed to read this until I did.”—Seanan McGuire

"A tale of rebellion and fealty that feels both classic and fresh, The Empress of Salt and Fortune is elegantly told, strongly felt, and brimming with rich detail. An epic in miniature, beautifully realised."—Zen Cho

"Nghi Vo's gracefully told debut . . . resides in the intimate margins of its (beautifully imagined) world's history, portraying how the marginalized may yet shape those narratives and harness the power of stories."—Indrapramit Das

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Rabbits for Food

Binnie Kirshenbaum

Master of razor-edged literary humor Binnie Kirshenbaum returns with her first novel in a decade, a devastating, laugh-out-loud funny story of a writer's slide into depression and institutionalization.

It's New Year's Eve, the holiday of forced fellowship, mandatory fun, and paper hats. While dining out with her husband and their friends, Kirshenbaum's protagonist--an acerbic, mordantly witty, and clinically depressed writer--fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital, where she refuses all modes of recommended treatment. Instead, she passes the time chronicling the lives of her fellow "lunatics" and writing a novel about what brought her there. Her story is a brilliant and brutally funny dive into the disordered mind of a woman who sees the world all too clearly.

Propelled by razor-sharp comic timing and rife with pinpoint insights, Kirshenbaum examines what it means to be unloved and loved, to succeed and fail, to be at once impervious and raw. Rabbits for Food shows how art can lead us out of--or into--the depths of disconsolate loneliness and piercing grief. A bravura literary performance from one of our most indispensable writers.

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Authority

Jeff VanderMeer

"In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened. In Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer introduced Area X--a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. This was the first volume of a projected trilogy; well in advance of publication, translation rights had already sold around the world and a major movie deal had been struck. Just months later, Authority, the second volume, is here. For thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X has taken the form of a series of expeditions monitored by a secret agency called the Southern Reach. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez, aka "Control," is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves--and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that. The Southern Reach trilogy will conclude in fall 2014 with Acceptance"--Provided by publisher.

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Raising Hare

Chloe Dalton

A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.

“A beautiful book that makes you think profoundly about how we so often tune out the natural world around us. Chloe Dalton is a tender, curious, wise, mind-expanding guide, connecting readers with the wild we humans once knew so well. I will be recommending this to everyone.”
—Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library

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Rabbits

Terry Miles

A deadly underground game might just be altering reality itself in this all-new adventure set in the world of the hit Rabbits podcast.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL * "A wild ride . . . impossible to put down."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

It's an average work day. You've been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air--4:44 p.m. You check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize the date is April 4--4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444.

Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses the entire world as its canvas.

Since the game started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. The identities of these winners are unknown.

So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to the secrets of the universe itself.

But the deeper you get, the more dangerous the game becomes. Players have died in the past--and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin.

Enter K--a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, rumored to be the winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts, or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing.

Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline: Eleven begins.

And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

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Bunny

Mona Awad

Jon Swift + Witches of Eastwick + Kelly 'Get In Trouble' Link + Mean Girls + Creative Writing Degree Hell! No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled! O Bunny you are sooo genius! --Margaret Atwood, via Twitter

A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel. --Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times 

Awad is a stone-cold genius. --Ann Bauer, The Washington Post

The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library

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Wow, No Thank You.

Samantha Irby

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction Award Winner • A rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays from the New York Times bestselling author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.

“Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror

Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "tv executives slash amateur astrologers" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," who still hides past due bills under her pillow.

The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable.

Don't miss Samantha Irby's bestselling new book, Quietly Hostile!

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Cursed Bunny

Bora Chung

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE AND WINNER OF A PEN/HEIM GRANT

A stunning, wildly original debut from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. 

From an author never before published in the US, Cursed Bunny will shock and surprise readers with each new tale. Translated by the acclaimed Anton Hur, Bora Chung’s stories are unique and imaginative, by turns thought-provoking and stomach-turning, where monsters take the shapes of furry woodland creatures and danger lurks in unexpected corners of apartment buildings. But in this unforgettable collection, Chung’s absurd, haunting universe could be our own, illuminating the ills of contemporary society.
 

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Iris Apfel: Colorful

Iris Apfel

Fashion icon Iris Apfel shares her philosophy for living, unique perspective on design, and the key moments that shaped her life, along with 300 photographs from her personal collection in a beautifully produced legacy book, featuring a bespoke ribbon marker, edges sprayed with a vibrant pink ink, and a debossed, high-gloss cover.



In the summer of 2023, as Iris Apfel welcomed her 102nd birthday, she put pen to paper to write this very special project, which Iris called her legacy book.



"This is not a book of secrets--I have no secrets. Sorry to disappoint if that's what you're looking for. I have some good stories, though. And a few ideas. This book is about living, creating, and color. Because creativity and color matter. I don't want you to dress like me or think like me--that's not the idea of this book. I want you to find the colors, confidence, and creative inspiration that reflect you. My life has been filled with love, wonder, and a very deep, incurable curiosity. This book is my treasure trove of inspiration, influences, and ideas: My source. Be brave. Find your source. What makes you happy? --Much love, Iris x"



With more than 300 personal photos and adorned with beautiful, unseen fabric patterns from Iris's Old World Weaver's collection, Iris Apfel: Colorful has her incredible energy radiating from every page. Here she shares her creative work, life stories, adventures, and unwavering belief in the essential power of color and creativity on a life well lived.

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Brave Hearted

Katie Hickman

*WINNER OF THE WOMEN WRITING THE WEST 2023 WILLA LITERARY AWARD*


 

Brave Hearted is not just history, it is an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book is a triumph."--Amanda Foreman


 

"Absolutely compelling."--Christina Lamb, Sunday Times (UK)


 

The dramatic, untold stories of the diverse array of women who helped transform the American West.


 

Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers traveling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys, some of them so poor they walked the entire route; African-American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers - these were the women who settled the American West, whose stories until now have remained mostly untold. As the internationally bestselling historian Katie Hickman writes, "Myth and misunderstanding spring from the American frontier as readily as rye grass from sod, and--like the wiry grass--seem as difficult to weed out and discard." But the true-life story of women's experiences in the Wild West is more gripping, heart-rending, and stirring than all the movies, novels, folk-legends, and ballads of popular imagination.


 

Drawing on letters, diaries, and other extraordinary contemporary accounts, sifting through the legends and the myths, the laws and the treaties, Katie Hickman presents us with a cast of unforgettable women, all forced to draw on huge reserves of resilienceand courage in the face of tumultuous change: the half Cree, Marguerite McLoughlin, the much-admired "First Lady" of Fort Vancouver; the Presbyterian missionary Narcissa Whitman, who in 1837 became the first white woman to make the overland journey west across the Rocky Mountains; Biddy Mason, the Mississippi slave who fought for her freedom through the courts of California; Olive Oatman, adopted by the Mohave, famous for her facial tattoos.


 

This is the story of the women who participated in the greatest mass migration in American history, transforming their country in the process. This is American history not as it was romanticized but as it was lived.

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The Swans of Harlem

Karen Valby

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK • The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now.

“This is the kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!” —Misty Copeland, author of Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy

“Utterly absorbing, flawlessly-researched…Vibrant, propulsive, and inspiring, The Swans of Harlem is a richly drawn portrait of five courageous women whose contributions have been silenced for too long!” —Tia Williams, author of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She was the first Black company ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star; she was cast in The Wiz and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells.

These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond. But decades later there was almost no record of their groundbreaking history to be found. Out of a sisterhood that had grown even deeper with the years, these Swans joined forces again—to share their story with the world.

Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamour and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of both their historic careers and the sustaining, grounding power of female friendship, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

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A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit

Noliwe Rooks

An intimate and searching account of the life and legacy of one of America’s towering educators, a woman who dared to center the progress of Black women and girls in the larger struggle for political and social liberation

When Mary McLeod Bethune died, tributes in newspapers around the country said the same thing: she should be on the Mount Rushmore of Black American achievement. Indeed, Bethune is the only Black American whose statue stands in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, and yet for most, she remains a marble figure from the dim past. Now, seventy years later, Noliwe Rooks turns Bethune from stone to flesh, showing her to have been a visionary leader with lessons to still teach us as we continue on our journey toward a freer and more just nation.

Any serious effort to understand how the Black civil rights generation found role models, vision, and inspiration during their midcentury struggle for political power must place Bethune at its heart. Her success was unlikely: the fifteenth of seventeen children and the first born into freedom, Bethune survived brutal poverty and caste subordination to become the first in her family to learn how to read and to attend college. She gave that same gift to others when in 1904, at age twenty-nine, Bethune welcomed her first class of five girls to the Daytona, Florida, school she had founded and which would become the university that bears her name to this day. Bethune saw education as an essential dimension of the larger struggle for freedom, vitally connected to the vote and to economic self-sufficiency, and she enlisted Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and many other powerful leaders in her cause.

Rooks grew up in Florida, in Bethune’s shadow: her grandmother trained to be a teacher at Bethune-Cookman University, and her family vacationed at the all-Black beach that Bethune helped found in one of her many community empowerment projects. The story of how Bethune succeeded in a state with some of the highest lynching rates in the country is, in Rooks’s hands, a moving and astonishing example of the power of a mind and a vision that had few equals. Now, when the stakes of the long struggle for full Black equality in this country are particularly evident—and centered on the state of Florida—it is a gift to have this brilliant and lyrical reckoning with Bethune’s journey from one of our own great educators and scholars of that same struggle.

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American Woman

Katie Rogers

The first definitive exploration of the changing role of the twenty-first-century First Lady, painting a comprehensive portrait of Jill Biden—from a White House correspondent for The New York Times

“A fascinating and deeply researched exploration into the most public facing and least understood role in Washington.”—Kate Andersen Brower, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Residence and First Women

AN ELLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Since the Clinton era, shifts in media, politics, and pop culture have all redefined expectations of First Ladies, even as the boundaries set upon them have often remained anachronistic. With sharp insights and dozens of firsthand interviews with major players in the Biden, Obama, Trump, Bush, and Clinton orbits, including Jill Biden and Hillary Clinton, New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers traces the evolution of the role of the twenty-first-century First Lady from a ceremonial figurehead to a powerful political operator, which culminates in the tenure of First Lady Jill Biden.

Dr. Jill Biden began her journey toward public life in 1975 as a twenty-three-year-old who caught the eye of a widowed Senator Joe Biden. Recovering from the heartbreak of her failed first marriage, she found a man who was still grieving. She knitted his life together after unspeakable tragedy and stood by his side through three presidential campaigns.

In some ways, her legacy as First Lady was set before she ever entered the White House: She is the first presidential spouse in history to work in a paid role outside the White House, a decision that blazes the path for future first spouses. But as a prime guardian of one of the most insular operations in modern politics, she is also a central part of her husband’s presidential legacy.

Through deep reporting and newly discovered correspondence, American Woman is the first book to paint a full picture of Jill Biden while exploring how she helps answer the evolving question of what the role of the modern First Lady should be.

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Daughter of Daring

Mallory O'Meara

From LA Times bestselling author Mallory O'Meara, the story of America's first professional stuntwoman, Helen Gibson, who rose to fame during a time when women ruled Hollywood.



Helen Gibson was a woman willing to do anything to give audiences a thrill. Advertised as "The Most Daring Actress in Pictures," Helen emerged in the early days of the twentieth-century silent film scene as a rodeo rider, background actor, stunt double, and eventually one of the era's biggest action stars. Her exploits on motorcycles, train cars, and horseback were as dangerous as they were glamorous, featured in hundreds of films and serials--yet her legacy was quickly overshadowed by the increasingly hypermasculine and male-dominated evolution of cinema in the decades that would follow her.



Award-winning author Mallory O'Meara presents her life and career in exhilarating detail, including:

 

  • Helen's rise to fame in The Hazards of Helen, the longest-running serial in history
  • How Helen became the first-ever stuntwoman in American film
  • The pivotal role of Helen's contemporaries--including female directors, stars, and stuntwomen who shaped the making of cinema as we know it.





Through the page-turning story of Helen's pioneering legacy, Mallory O'Meara gives readers a glimpse of the Golden Age of Hollywood that could have been: an industry where women call the shots.

 

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Agent Zo

Clare Mulley

The incredible and inspiring story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the World War II female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo.

During World War II, Elzbieta Zawacka—the WWII female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo—was the only woman to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command. In Britain, she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the "Silent Unseen.” She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then she was the only female member of these forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, while being hunted by the Gestapo (who arrested her entire family), she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland.

After the war, she was discharged as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned (and tortured) her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years.

Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Agent Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to brilliant life—while transforming how we value the history of women resistance fighters during World War II.

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In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl

Merilee Grindle

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year

"What a woman! And what a fabulous life to unearth. Zelia Nuttall was incredibly smart, determined, a divorced single mother in a man’s world, a great scholar, and an original thinker—yet today she’s completely forgotten. Merilee Grindle has dug deep into the archives and uncovered her fascinating story."—Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature

"Zelia Nuttall comes alive in all her fascinating contradictions in Merilee Grindle’s capable hands...[This] biography challenges our modern smugness and reminds us that our roots as scholars are more complex than we often acknowledge."—Camilla Townsend, author of Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

The gripping story of a pioneering anthropologist whose exploration of Aztec cosmology, rediscovery of ancient texts, and passion for collecting helped shape our understanding of pre-Columbian Mexico.

Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. A child of the San Francisco Gold Rush whose mother was born in Mexico City, Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.

Proud, disciplined, as prickly as she was independent, Zelia Nuttall was the first person to accurately decode the Aztec calendar stone. An intrepid researcher, she found pre-Columbian texts lost in European archives and was skilled at making sense of their pictographic histories. Her work on the terra-cotta heads of Teotihuacán captured the attention of Frederic Putnam, who offered her a job at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.

Divorced and juggling motherhood and career, Nuttall chose to follow her own star, publishing her discoveries and collecting artifacts for US museums to make ends meet. From her beloved Casa Alvarado in Coyoacán, she became a vital bridge between Mexican and US anthropologists, connecting them against the backdrop of war and revolution.

The first biography of Zelia Nuttall, In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl captures the appeal and contradictions that riddled the life of this trailblazing woman, who contributed so much to the new field of anthropology until a newly professionalized generation overshadowed her remarkable achievements and she became, in the end, an artifact in her own museum.

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Connie

Connie Chung

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' PICK 
NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2024 - A LA TIMES BESTSELLER AND BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH 
TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 - KIRKUS BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
WASHINGTON POST 50 NOTABLE WORKS OF NONFICTION FOR 2024 - A PEOPLE BOOK PICK AND A BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIR OF 2024 
A TOWN & COUNTRY BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIR OF 2024 
"This delightful memoir is filled with Connie Chung's trademark wit, sharp insights, and deep understanding of people. It's a revealing account of what it's like to be a woman breaking barriers in the world of TV news, filled with colorful tales of rivalry and triumph. But it also has a larger theme: how the line between serious reporting and tabloid journalism became blurred." - Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author

In a sharp, witty, and frank memoir, iconic trailblazer and legendary journalist Connie Chung pulls no punches in detailing her storied career as the first Asian woman to break into an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated television news industry. 
Connie Chung is a pioneer. The youngest of ten children, she was the only one born in the U.S., after her parents escaped war-torn China in a harrowing journey to America, where Connie would one day make history as the first woman (and Asian) to co-anchor the CBS Evening News. Profoundly influenced by her family's cultural traditions, yet growing up completely Americanized, she dealt with overt sexism and racism. Despite this, her tenacity led her to become a household name. 
In Connie: A Memoir, Chung reveals behind-the-scenes details of her singular life. From her close relationship with Maury Povich, her husband and professional confidant; to the horrific memory of being molested by the doctor who had delivered her; to her joy of adopting their son when she was almost fifty, she does not hold back. She talks honestly about the good, bad, and ugly in her personal and professional life--this is Connie Chung like you've never seen her before.

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Sisters in Science

Olivia Campbell

The extraordinary true story of four women pioneers in physics during World War II and their daring escape out of Nazi Germany

In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer and Hildegard Stücklen were eminent in their fields, but they had no choice but to flee due to their Jewish ancestry or anti-Nazi sentiments.

Their harrowing journey out of Germany became a life-and-death situation that required Herculean efforts of friends and other prominent scientists. Lise fled to Sweden, where she made a groundbreaking discovery in nuclear physics, and the others fled to the United States, where they brought advanced physics to American universities. No matter their destination, each woman revolutionized the field of physics when all odds were stacked against them, galvanizing young women to do the same.

Well researched and written with cinematic prose, Sisters in Science brings these trailblazing women to life and shows us how sisterhood and scientific curiosity can transcend borders and persist--flourish, even--in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

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Iris Apfel: Colorful

Iris Apfel

Fashion icon Iris Apfel shares her philosophy for living, unique perspective on design, and the key moments that shaped her life, along with 300 photographs from her personal collection in a beautifully produced legacy book, featuring a bespoke ribbon marker, edges sprayed with a vibrant pink ink, and a debossed, high-gloss cover.



In the summer of 2023, as Iris Apfel welcomed her 102nd birthday, she put pen to paper to write this very special project, which Iris called her legacy book.



"This is not a book of secrets--I have no secrets. Sorry to disappoint if that's what you're looking for. I have some good stories, though. And a few ideas. This book is about living, creating, and color. Because creativity and color matter. I don't want you to dress like me or think like me--that's not the idea of this book. I want you to find the colors, confidence, and creative inspiration that reflect you. My life has been filled with love, wonder, and a very deep, incurable curiosity. This book is my treasure trove of inspiration, influences, and ideas: My source. Be brave. Find your source. What makes you happy? --Much love, Iris x"



With more than 300 personal photos and adorned with beautiful, unseen fabric patterns from Iris's Old World Weaver's collection, Iris Apfel: Colorful has her incredible energy radiating from every page. Here she shares her creative work, life stories, adventures, and unwavering belief in the essential power of color and creativity on a life well lived.

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Four Treasures of the Sky

Jenny Tinghui Zhang

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER · INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Zhang’s blend of history and magical realism will appeal to fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer as well as Amy Tan's The Valley of Amazement.” —Booklist (starred review)

"Engrossing...Epic" (The New York Times Book Review) · "Transporting" (Washington Post) · "Propulsive" (Oprah Daily) · "Surreal and sprawling" (NPR) · "An absolute must-read" (BuzzFeed) · "Radiant" (BookPage)

A dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West

Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself. Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive. From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her. As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the country in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been—including the ones she most wants to leave behind—in order to finally claim her own name and story.

At once a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking work of historical fiction, Four Treasures of the Sky announces Jenny Tinghui Zhang as an indelible new voice. Steeped in untold history and Chinese folklore, this novel is a spellbinding feat.

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All You Have to Do Is Call

Kerri Maher

“[A] powerful, thought-provoking novel… not only important and timely, but deeply humanizing.” —Good Morning America

“Remarkable.” —The Washington Post

“Powerful. Dramatic. Insightful…. It’s not only a timely novel, but storytelling at its finest – a must-read.” —NPR

An NPR Books We Love selection for 2023

A gripping and uplifting novel based on the true story of the Jane Collective and the brave women who worked in the shadows for our right to choose, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris Bookseller.
 
Chicago, early 1970s. Who does a woman call when she needs help? Jane.
 
The best-known secret in the city, Jane is an underground health clinic composed entirely of women helping women, empowering them to embrace their futures by offering reproductive counseling and safe, illegal abortions. Veronica, Jane’s founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others’ freedom is that she leads a double life. When she’s not at Jane, Veronica plays the role of a conventional housewife—a juggling act that becomes even more difficult during her own high-risk pregnancy.
 
Two more women in Veronica’s neighborhood are grappling with similar disconnects. Margaret, a young professor at the University of Chicago, secretly volunteers at Jane as she falls in love with a man whose attitude toward his ex-wife increasingly disturbs her. Patty, who’s long been content as a devoted wife and mother, has begun to sense that something essential is missing from her life. When her runaway younger sister, Eliza, shows up unexpectedly, Patty must come to terms with what it really means to love and support a sister.
 
In this historic moment, when the personal was nothing if not political, Veronica, Margaret, and Patty risk it all to help mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends. With an awe-inspiring story and appealing characters, All You Have to Do Is Call celebrates the power of women coming together in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

 

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Good Night, Irene

Luis Alberto Urrea

This New York Times bestselling novel tells an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman's heroic frontline service in the Red Cross.

"Urrea's touch is sure, his exuberance carries you through . . . He is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his craft but in the broader sense of what he feels necessary to capture about life itself." --Financial Times

In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.



After D-Day, these two intrepid friends join the Allied soldiers streaming into France. Their time in Europe will see them embroiled in danger, from the Battle of the Bulge to the liberation of Buchenwald. Through her friendship with Dorothy, and a love affair with a courageous American fighter pilot named Hans, Irene learns to trust again. Her most fervent hope, which becomes more precarious by the day, is for all three of them to survive the war intact.



Taking as inspiration his mother's own Red Cross service, Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women's heroism in World War II. With its affecting and uplifting portrait of friendship and valor in harrowing circumstances, Good Night, Irene powerfully demonstrates yet again that Urrea's "gifts as a storyteller are prodigious" (NPR).

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Miss Morgan's Book Brigade

Janet Skeslillen Charles

"

The New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the "captivating, richly drawn" (Woman's World) The Paris Library returns with a brilliant new novel based on the true story of Jessie Carson--the American librarian who changed the literary landscape of France.

 

1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild devastated French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen--children's libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears.

 

1987: When NYPL librarian and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a passing reference to Jessie Carson in the archives, she becomes consumed with learning her fate. In her obsessive research, she discovers that she and the elusive librarian have more in common than their work at New York's famed library, but she has no idea their paths will converge in surprising ways across time.

 

Based on the extraordinary little-known history of the women who received the Croix de Guerre medal for courage under fire, Miss Morgan's Book Brigade is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, the power of literature, and ultimately the courage it takes to make a change.

"

 

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Let Us March On

Shara Moon



 

Devoted wife, White House maid, reluctant activist...

A stirring novel inspired by the life of an unsung heroine, and real-life crusader, Lizzie McDuffie, who as a maid in FDR's White House spearheaded the Civil Rights movement of her time.

I'm just a college-educated Southerner with a passion for books. My husband says I'm too bold, too sharp, too unrelenting. Others say I helped spearhead the Civil Rights movement of our time. President Roosevelt says I'm too spunky and spirited for my own good.

Who am I

I am Elizabeth "Lizzie" McDuffie.

And this is my story...

When Lizzie McDuffie, maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, boldly proclaimed herself FDR's "Secretary-On-Colored-People's-Affairs," she became more than just a maid--she became the President's eyes and ears into the Black community. After joining the White House to work alongside her husband, FDR's personal valet, Lizzie managed to become completely indispensable to the Roosevelt family. Never shy about pointing out injustices, she advocated for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President.

Following the life of Lizzie McDuffie throughout her time in the White House as she championed the rights of everyday Americans and provided access to the most powerful man in the country, Let Us March On looks at the unsung and courageous crusader who is finally getting the recognition she so richly deserves.



 

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Harlem Rhapsody

Victoria Christopher Murray

“A gripping narrative, don't miss this historical fiction about the woman who kicked off the Harlem Renaissance.”—People Magazine

“A page turner and history lesson at once, Harlem Rhapsody reminds us that our stories are our generational wealth.”—Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage (Oprah’s Book Club Pick)

She found the literary voices that would inspire the world…. The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. 

W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives…every African American writer in the country wants their work published there. 

When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

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The Lost Journals of Sacajewea

Debra Magpie Earling

Winner of the Montana Book Award

From the award-winning author of Perma Red comes a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea.
 

"In my seventh winter, when my head only reached my Appe's rib, a White Man came into camp. Bare trees scratched sky. Cold was endless. He moved through trees like strikes of sunlight. My Bia said he came with bad intentions, like a Water Baby's cry."

Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. In this visionary novel, acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling brings this mythologized figure vividly to life, casting unsparing light on the men who brutalized her and recentering Sacajewea as the arbiter of her own history.

Raised among the Lemhi Shoshone, in this telling the young Sacajewea is bright and bold, growing strong from the hard work of "learning all ways to survive": gathering berries, water, roots, and wood; butchering buffalo, antelope, and deer; catching salmon and snaring rabbits; weaving baskets and listening to the stories of her elders. When her village is raided and her beloved Appe and Bia are killed, Sacajewea is kidnapped and then gambled away to Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper.

Heavy with grief, Sacajewea learns how to survive at the edge of a strange new world teeming with fur trappers and traders. When Lewis and Clark's expedition party arrives, Sacajewea knows she must cross a vast and brutal terrain with her newborn son, the white man who owns her, and a company of men who wish to conquer and commodify the world she loves.

Written in lyrical, dreamlike prose, The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is an astonishing work of art and a powerful tale of perseverance--the Indigenous woman's story that hasn't been told.

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The Stolen Queen

Fiona Davis

*A New York Times Bestseller*

From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. That is until an unbearable tragedy strikes.

New York City, 1978: Nineteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.”

Meanwhile, Charlotte is now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art. She’s consumed by her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

The night of the gala: One of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing, and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening. Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, and a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.

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Boudicca

P C Cast



 

From P. C. Cast, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the landmark House of Night urban fantasy series, comes an epic, lusty, magic-filled romantasy about British warrior queen Boudicca. Perfect for fans of Sue Lynn Tan and Madeline Miller!

In Roman-occupied Britain, the Iceni tribe crowns an extraordinary new queen. Tall and flame-haired, Boudicca is devoted to Andraste, the Iceni's patron goddess, known for her raven familiar, her fierceness and her swirling blue tattoos. Boudicca and her two young daughters will carry the tribe forward in dangerous times.

Roman tax collector Catus Decianus, expecting weakness in a female ruler, launches a devastating attack on the tribe's stronghold. Boudicca and her family barely survive--but they refuse to bend the knee. She calls a war council, bringing together her most trustworthy allies, including her childhood friend Rhan, now a powerful Druid seer, and the horse master Maldwyn, whose devotion to Boudicca runs deeper than a warrior to a queen.

Surprising the Romans, Boudicca's armies sack the wealthy cities of Camulodunum, Londinium and Veralamium. As the snow falls, the Celts retreat to a hidden valley to plot their assault on the remaining Roman legions, determined to force the invaders from Britan.

But in the jagged ice of winter the Druid Rhan foresees a tragic end to Boudicca's rebellion. Although the defeat of the Iceni is spelled out in signs sent by the gods, Rhan swears she will alter the future and save her queen. Now the battle-hardened Boudicca must put her trust in the powers of the otherworld to save her from both the traitors in her midst and from Rome's mighty legions.

Inspired by the rich history of Boudicca's attack on Roman Britain, bestselling author P. C. Cast crafts an epic, mythic retelling of one of time's most legendary female warriors.





 

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Eleanore of Avignon

Elizabeth DeLozier

A Library Reads Pick! 

An Amazon Best Book of the Month!

An Aardvark Book Club Pick! 

Rich with unforgettable characters, gorgeously drawn, and full of captivating historical drama, Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a healer who risks her life, her freedom, and everything she holds dear to protect her beloved city from the encroaching Black Death

Provence, 1347. Eleanore (Elea) Blanchet is a young midwife and herbalist with remarkable skills. But as she learned the day her mother died, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is draw attention to herself. She attends patients in her home city of Avignon, spends time with her father and twin sister, gathers herbs in the surrounding woods, and dreams of the freedom to pursue her calling without fear. 
In a chance encounter, Elea meets Guigo de Chauliac, the enigmatic personal physician to the powerful Pope Clement, and strikes a deal with him to take her on as his apprentice. Under Chauliac’s tutelage she hones her skills as a healer, combining her knowledge of folk medicine with anatomy, astrology, and surgical techniques.

Then, two pieces of earth-shattering news: the Black Death has made landfall in Europe, and the disgraced Queen Joanna is coming to Avignon to stand trial for her husband’s murder. She is pregnant and in need of a midwife, a role only Elea can fill.

The queen’s childbirth approaches as the plague spreads like wildfire, leaving half the city dead in its wake. The people of Avignon grow desperate for a scapegoat and a group of religious heretics launch a witch hunt, one that could cost Elea—an intelligent, talented, unwed woman—everything.

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Feeding Littles Lunches

Megan McNamee, MPH, RDN

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 75+ simple and delicious ideas for packed school lunches and snacks for kids of all ages, from the New York Times bestselling authors of Feeding Littles and Beyond.

In a lunch packing rut? Megan McNamee and Judy Delaware, the founders of Feeding Littles, are here to help with the ultimate lunch box resource. Feeding Littles Lunches is complete with 75+ lunches that are quick to assemble, safe and easy for kids of all ages to eat, and balanced in nutrients for growth, learning and play. Each lunch idea is easily modified for nine of the most common allergens and includes tips for picky eaters, plus vegetarian swaps and “I Can’t Even” tips to make lunch packing even easier. Feeding Littles Lunches is not a recipe book because, let’s face it, most parents don’t want to spend hours packing lunches. Rather, it’s an inspo book with a full-page photo for every lunch, meant to be used with your child as a visual reminder for delicious and easy new ideas that you can assemble from simple ingredients.
 
Feeding Littles Lunches also includes a lunch packing formula to help you plan your own lunches, grocery lists, tips for dealing with cafeteria and school settings, picky eating, food safety, and more! With creative and approachable lunches like Chicken Salad with Mini Brioche Toasts, Sun Butter Banana Roll-Up “Sushi-Style,” Build-Your-Own Naan Pizza, Leftover Burger Mini Sliders, Pesto Turkey Wrap Rounds, and more, you’ll bring joy back to lunchtime.

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Housing the Nation

Alexander Gorlin

Scholars, advocates, and architects assess America’s affordable housing crisis and suggest various strategies to rectify it, including numerous images of important, recently built houses and complexes.

On any given night, more than 650,000 people in the United States—many with families and full-time jobs—experience homelessness. The shortfall in affordable housing is estimated to be 5 million units or more. Devastating effects of these conditions include an increase in multigenerational poverty, a decrease in economic mobility, and—since the housing crisis has a disproportionate impact on communities of color—a heightening of racial injustice.

Just as there was no single cause of the crisis, there is no single cure. Assembled here are essays by economists, scholars, architects, planners, and community organizers to address diverse aspects of the subject. The book discusses the history and extent of the US housing crisis; permanent affordable housing and affordable housing as a component of market-rate residential buildings; the development of community associations that can build and manage local units; links between housing production and climate change; and the pervasive and long-term consequences of racial discrimination in the housing market. Recent buildings by Studio Gang, Koning Eizenberg Architecture, and others illustrate affordable housing at its best, offering a glimpse of possible solutions.

Included are essays by Dean Baker, Richard Florida, Robert Kuttner, Michael Gecan, Rosanne Haggerty, J. Phillip Thompson, Margery Perlmutter, David Dante Troutt, Justin Steil, Christopher Hawthorne, David Burney, Jon McMillan, Viren Brahmbhatt, Richard Plunz, Kenneth Frampton, Mark Ginsberg, Fernando Pagés Ruiz, Jessica Holmes, Rusty Smith, Andrés Duany, Alan Organschi, Andrew Ruff, and Elizabeth Gray.

This book is Flexibound.

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The Aztec Myths

Camilla Townsend

From their remote origins as migrating tribes to their rise as builders of empire, the Aztecs were among the most dynamic and feared peoples of ancient Mexico, with a belief system that was one of the most complex and vital in the ancient world. Historian Camilla Townsend returns to the original tales, told at the fireside by generations of Indigenous Nahuatl speakers. Along the way, she deals with human sacrifice, the raising of great temples, and the troubling legacy of the Spanish conquest.

Few cultures are generally understood to have been so controlled by their religion as the Aztecs, and few religions are envisioned as being as violent and celebratory of death as theirs. In this introduction to the Aztec myths, Townsend draws from sixteenth-century historical annals and songs written down by Nahuatl-speaking peoples, now known as the Aztecs, in their own language to counter this narrative, inherited from the conquering Spaniards. In doing so, she reveals a rich tapestry of mythic tradition that defies modern expectations.

Townsend retells stories ranging from the creation of the world, revealing the Aztec cosmological vision of nature and the divine, to legends of the Aztecs' own past that show how they understood the foundation of their state and the course of their wars. She considers the impact of colonial contact on the myths and demonstrates that Indigenous engagement with the new cultural customs introduced by the Europeans never entirely uprooted old ways of thinking.

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How to Talk to Your Dog

Con Slobodchikoff

Ever wish your dog could talk? Well, good news--they already do! But here's the catch: they're not chatting in English or any other human language. Dogs communicate through a secret code of body language, barks, growls, whines, and all those adorable snuffles. The tricky part? We humans are terrible at cracking the code.

We often get it wrong. A growl? We think it's a warning, but your pup might just want to play! A slow tail wag? Looks friendly, right? Nope, that could be a signal they're feeling uneasy, maybe even on the verge of biting. And the list goes on. We think we understand, but more often than not, we're clueless about what our dogs are really trying to say.

The truth is, most of us are dying to have the perfect relationship with our dogs, but we just don't speak their language. Enter How to Talk to Your Dog. This book is like your very own doggy Rosetta Stone, helping you decode what all those signals really mean. It's full of tips on how to understand what your dog is telling you--and how to talk back in a way they'll actually get. Because once you learn to speak "dog," you'll unlock the secret to an even better bond with your furry best friend! 
 

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Quicksand

Nella Larsen

The orphan of a Danish mother and a West Indian father, Helga Crane is a young woman caught between cultures and in search of a home. Though her beauty and education open many doors, as a biracial woman in 1920s America, Helga is accepted by neither the Black nor the white communities--instead remaining an object of curiosity and an outsider wherever she goes. Her furious quest for belonging will take her from Chicago to New York to Denmark: a journey rife with autobiographical parallels to Larsen's own life. With its astonishingly contemporary take on identity and an angry, rebellious heroine, Quicksand is a classic novel ripe for rediscovery.

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The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

Melissa de la Cruz

A sweet and spicy multicultural romantic comedy that that blends the rich tapestry of Filipino courtship rituals with the modern complexities of love, family, and cultural expectations, written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz.

Evan Saatchi can't keep his eyes off his new co-worker, Dalisay Ramos.

Newly arrived from Manila to lead their travel app's Asia division, nothing matters more to Dalisay than tradition and family. When Evan asks her out, she soundly rejects him for his cheek.

Evan learns from his Filipino friends that Dalisay expects more from potential suitors. If he wants a chance with her, he's going to have to go through the Five Stages: the courtship ritual that lovers in the Philippines have performed for generations.

At first, Evan is skeptical--what, exactly, does "servitude" entail? And he has to sing?! But when Dalisay bets Evan that he doesn't have the nerve to make it through the stages, the game is on.

As Evan attempts to prove to Dalisay that he can win her heart--and the bet--Dalisay is driven to distraction by Evan's sexy labors, and soon their "courtship" turns into a sizzling secret.

But when modern love and family expectations collide, Dalisay and Evan must find a way to carry a rich history into a shared future.

Featuring a memorable cast of characters navigating the intersection of cultural traditions, workplace dynamics, and the magic of true love, this heart-warming Asian American romance is perfect for fans of Kevin Kwan books, Red String Theory, and other voicey Asian American authors. Melissa de la Cruz thoughtfully explores the push and pull of contemporary desires and deep-rooted familial expectations, all set against the backdrop of a will-they-won't-they workplace romance that will leave readers swooning.

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Model Home

Rivers Solomon

Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.

The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural” death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.

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The Book of Elsewhere

Keanu Reeves

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “action-packed [and] profoundly stylish” (Los Angeles Times) epic from Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books

“[The Book of Elsewhere is] a pulpy, adrenaline-fueled thriller, but it’s also a moody, experimental novel about mortality, the slippery nature of time, and what it means to be human.”—The New York Times

“An exceptionally innovative collaboration from two remarkable minds.”—William Gibson, author of Neuromancer

She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.

There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.” 

And he wants to be able to die.
 
In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.
 
In a collaboration that combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones.

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The Drowned

John Banville

From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman's sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems.

"John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence."--R.F. Kuang

Amazon Editors' Pick: Best Literature and Fiction books of October

"He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten."

1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea.

Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally--the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke--a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved.

At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.

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Blood of the Old Kings

Sung-il Kim

From award-winning Korean author Sung-il Kim & translated by the world-renowned Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings begins an epic journey unlike any other.

There is no escaping the Empire.
Even in death, you will serve.

In an Empire run on necromancy, dead sorcerers are the lifeblood. Their corpses are wrapped in chains and drained of magic to feed the unquenchable hunger for imperial conquest.

Born with magic, Arienne has become resigned to her dark fate. But when the voice of a long-dead sorcerer begins to speak inside her head, she listens. There may be another future for her, if she’s willing to fight for it.

Miles away, beneath a volcano, a seven-eyed dragon also wears the Empire’s chains. Before the imperial fist closed around their lands, it was the people’s sacred guardian.

Loran, a widowed swordswoman, is the first to kneel before the dragon in decades. She comes with a desperate plea, and will leave with a sword of dragon-fang in hand and a great purpose before her.

In the heart of the Imperial capital, Cain is known as a man who gets things done. When his best friend and mentor is found murdered, he will leave no stone unturned to find those responsible, even if it means starting a war.

Step into a world of necromancy, murder, and twisted magic. A world in need of a hero.

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The Man in Black

Elly Griffiths

From the internationally bestselling author of the Ruth Galloway Mysteries, an eclectic, thrilling collection of short stories, featuring many characters that readers have come to know and love.

Elly Griffiths has always written short stories to experiment with different voices and genres as well as to explore what some of her fictional creations such as Ruth Galloway, Harbinder Kaur, and Max Mephisto might have done outside of the novels. The Man in Black gathers these bite-sized tales all together in one splendid volume.

There are ghost stories, cozy mysteries, tales of psychological suspense, and poignant vignettes of love and loss.

In the title story, Ruth Galloway crosses paths with a mysterious man in a bookstore, setting in motion a rescue mission that hinges on the legends and lore of Norfolk.

Looking into the past, a young magician in 1920s Leeds wonders just what happened to his missing landlady in "Max Mephisto and the Disappearing Act."

In "Justice Jones and the Etherphone," a witty girl detective investigates the dire prediction of a fortune teller in dreary postwar London.

A flashback in time reveals Harbinder Kaur as a Detective Sergeant surviving her first day on the job at Shoreham DCI.

To celebrate the holidays, Ruth gets her very first Christmas tree, and her beloved cat narrates his own seasonal story in "Flint's Fireside Tale."

And readers can armchair travel with stories set on the Amalfi Coast, in Capri, and in Egypt as Ruth and DCI Nelson experience their very own version of Death on the Nile.

The Man in Black illustrates the breadth and variety of Elly Griffiths's talent for blood-chilling, page-turning stories all with her trademark humor and heart.

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The Secret War of Julia Child

Diana R Chambers

A People magazine Best Book of Fall!

Before she mastered the art of French cooking in midlife, Julia Child found herself working in the secrets trade in Asia during World War II, a journey that will delight both historical fiction fans and lovers of America's most beloved chef, revealing how the war made her into the icon we know now.

Single, 6 foot 2, and thirty years old, Julia McWilliams took a job working for America's first espionage agency, years before cooking or Paris entered the picture. The Secret War of Julia Child traces Julia's transformation from ambitious Pasadena blue blood to Washington, DC file clerk, to head of General "Wild Bill" Donovan's secret File Registry as part of the Office of Strategic Services.

The wartime journey takes her to South Asia's remote front lines of then-Ceylon, India, and China, where she finds purpose, adventure, self-knowledge - and love with mapmaker Paul Child. The spotlight has rarely shone on this fascinating period of time in the life of ("I'm not a spy") Julia Child, and this lyrical story allows us to explore the unlikely world of a woman in a World War II spy station who has no idea of the impact she'll eventually impart.

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Pearly Everlasting

Tammy Armstrong

Set during the Great Depression, an immersive and enchantingly atmospheric novel about a girl and a bear raised as sister and brother in a remote logging camp, and the lengths to which they'll go to protect each other.

New Brunswick, 1934. When a cook in a logging camp finds an orphaned baby bear, he brings it home to his wife, who names the cub Bruno and raises him alongside her newborn daughter, Pearly. Growing up, Pearly and Bruno share a special bond and become inseparable. While life in the camp can be perilous--loggers are regularly injured or even killed--the Everlasting family form a close-knit community with the woodsmen, who accept and embrace the tame young bear.

But all that changes when a new supervisor arrives, a ruthless profiteer who pushes the workers to their breaking point and abuses Bruno. When the man is found dead in a ditch, the blame falls on the bear; soon after, Bruno is kidnapped and sold to an animal trader. Determined to rescue the only brother she has ever known, Pearly, now a teenager, sets off alone on a hazardous journey through the forest--her first trip to "the Outside"--to find him. In the harrowing quest to bring him home through miles of ice and snow, eluding malevolent spirits and the cruelty of strange villagers, she will discover new worlds and a strength she never knew she possessed.

Steeped in rural folklore and superstition, and set against the backdrop of an enchanting woodland, Pearly Everlasting is a story about the triumph of good over evil, the beauty of the natural world, and the bonds that cannot be broken.

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An Eye for an Eye

Jeffrey Archer

The unputdownable new novel from international bestseller Jeffrey Archer!

In one of the most luxurious cities on earth...

A billion-dollar deal is about to go badly wrong. A lavish night out is about to end in murder. And the British government is about to be plunged into crisis.

In the heart of the British establishment...

Lord Hartley, the latest in a line of peers going back over two hundred years, lies dying. But his will triggers an inheritance with explosive consequences.

Two deaths. Continents apart. No obvious connection.

So why are they both at the centre of a master criminal's plot for revenge?

And can Scotland Yard's elite squad uncover the truth before it's too late...

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Eruption

Michael Crichton

The biggest thriller of the year: A history-making eruption is about to destroy the Big Island of Hawaii. But a secret held for decades by the US military is far more terrifying than any volcano.



"The book is a classic summer beach read...Eruption will revive the art of speed-reading...told with a singular voice that is a compelling amalgam of the two writers."--USA Today



"Eruption is an epic thriller...fast-paced and deeply considered...a cinematic story rooted in science and infused with plenty of heart, tackling big themes like love and loss."

-Time



The master of the techno-blockbuster joins forces with the master of the modern thriller to create the most anticipated mega bestseller in years. 



Michael Crichton, creator of Jurassic Park, ER, Twister, and Westworld, had a passion project he'd been pursuing for years, ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. Knowing how special it was, his wife, Sherri Crichton, held back his notes and the partial manuscript until she found the right author to complete it: James Patterson, the world's most popular storyteller.



"Red-hot storytelling... The action scenes will make readers' eyes pop as the tension continues to build." -Kirkus, starred review



"Explosive...the summer's ultimate literary mashup." --Washington Post



"Takes readers on a thrilling journey." --BBC



"Beachbag-ready." --Boston Globe



"A seismic publishing event...all the elements of a summer blockbuster...it's a thrill and the pages practically turn themselves." --Associated Press



"Eruption is this summer's literary version of a blockbuster action movie." -Los Angeles Times



"Breakneck and plausible." --Publishers Weekly

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Cooking in Real Life

Lidey Heuck

USA TODAY Bestseller
ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF SPRING 2024: Eater, Epicurious • ONE OF THE TOP 10 COOKBOOKS OF SPRING 2024: Food & Wine

“Lidey subscribes to the same theory of home cooking that I do. We all want recipes that have ingredients you can buy in almost any grocery store, recipes that are easy enough to make without breaking a sweat that will be delicious and satisfying for either an ordinary weekday dinner or for a special occasion.” —Ina Garten, from the Foreword

From the rising star who learned to cook when she worked for Ina Garten, 100 recipes that are cook-pleasing and crowd-pleasing and written with the shopper, chopper, and dish-doer in mind.

Lidey Heuck landed the most plum after-college job—working for Ina Garten in her East Hampton kitchen. There, she learned how to develop recipes that work every time and how to put together dishes that are at once special and unfussy.

Cooking in Real Life represents the golden middle ground that new and experienced home cooks crave: recipes that are inventive but not overly complicated, that use familiar ingredients but encourage us to do things a little bit differently. They are designed to be low-effort, practical, and high-reward. Lidey combines straight-forward delicious cooking with innovative, vegetable-forward recipes, inspired by bold flavors from near and far. Chapters and recipes include the following:

Busy, fuss-free weeknights: Salmon with Honey and Chili Crunch, Cider-Glazed Sausages with Apples and Fennel, Saucy Shrimp alla Vodka. Plus, dozens of ideas for turning single recipes into one complete meal (Think: adding some sauteed shrimp to Shaved Carrot Salad with Ginger Tahini Dressing).

Flexible, seasonally-inspired recipes with easy-to-find ingredients: Maple-Roasted Squash with Grapes and Shallots, Escarole with Cara Cara Oranges, Spicy Paloma Punch.

Celebratory dishes for occasions that call for something extra special: Short Ribs with Port, Shallots, and Cranberries; Champagne Chicken; and Rainbow Sprinkle Ice Cream Cake.

Throughout, Lidey includes swaps, make-ahead hacks, and tips for making leftovers into something new. Cooking in Real Life meets you where you are—whether you’re here for the practical tips or the endless possibilities.

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Lady Tan's Circle of Women

Lisa See

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!*

From “one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot” (The New York Times Book Review) an immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China—perfect for fans of Lisa See’s classics Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane.

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

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Wildflowers of California

California Native Plant Society

Experience the vibrant diversity of West Coast Wildflowers with this amazing, informative guide to more than 1,200 plant species.​

Wildflowers of California is a comprehensive field guide for anyone wishing to learn about the amazingly diverse wildflowers of the region. Organized by flower color and shape, and including a range map for each flower described, the guide is as user-friendly as it is informative. This must-have book is perfect for hikers, naturalists, and native plant enthusiasts.

  • Describes and illustrates 1200 commonly encountered species
  • Includes perennials, annuals, and shrubs, both native and nonnative
  • Thousands of superb color photographs and range maps
  • User-friendly organization by flower color and shape
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North Woods

Daniel Mason

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR

A WASHINGTON POST TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post) from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

“With the expansiveness and immersive feeling of two-time Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell’s fiction (Cloud Atlas), the wicked creepiness of Edgar Allan Poe, and Mason’s bone-deep knowledge of and appreciation for the natural world that’s on par with that of Thoreau, North Woods fires on all cylinders.”—San Francisco Chronicle

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Boston Globe, NPR, Chicago Public Library, The Star Tribune, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookreporter

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?

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Same As It Ever Was

Claire Lombardo

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NAMED A BEST BOOK BY PEOPLE AND PARADE * The New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had ("wonderfully immersive...deliciously absorbing"--NPR) returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events both past and present.

"Infidelity, dysfunction, secrets - this family novel delivers."--The New York Times * "Lombardo has such a fine eye for the weft and warp of a family's fabric." --The Washington Post * "Witty and insightful...a powerful exploration of marriage, motherhood, and self."-Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

Same As It Ever Was showcases the consummate style, signature wit, and profound emotional intelligence that made The Most Fun We Ever Had one of the most beloved novels of the past decade. Featuring a memorably messy family and the multifaceted marriage at its heart, Lombardo's debut was dubbed "the literary love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler" (The Guardian) and hailed as "ambitious and brilliantly written" (Washington Post). In this remarkable follow-up--another elegant and tumultuous story in the tradition of Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, and Celeste Ng--Lombardo introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters, this time by way of her singularly complicated protagonist.

Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things.

She's unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor's edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, --exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships--how they grow, change, and sometimes end--Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.

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Funny Story

Emily Henry

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Named a Most Anticipated book of 2024 by TIME ∙ The New York Times ∙ Goodreads ∙ Entertainment Weekly ∙ Today ∙ Paste ∙ SheReads ∙ BookPage ∙ Woman's World ∙ The Nerd Daily and more!

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
 
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
 
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
 
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

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James

Percival Everett

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST - A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg - A Best Book of the Year of the Year so Far for 2024: The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, W Magazine, Bustle, LitHub

"Genius"--The Atlantic - "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."--Chicago Tribune - "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."--The Boston Globe - "Everett's most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."--The New York Times

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

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The Demon of Unrest

Erik Larson

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times).

“A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

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