Emma Rosenblum's Bad Summer People is a whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue, set against an exclusive summer haven on Fire Island.

None of them would claim to be a particularly good person. But who among them is actually capable of murder?

Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he's the tennis pro--or someone else's husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other.

Until a body is discovered, face down, off the side of the boardwalk.

Stylish, subversive, and darkly comedic, this is a story of what's lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry's Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek--the man she never thought she'd have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family's restaurant and curling up together with books--medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her--Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam's mother's funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she's spent punishing herself for them, they'll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Love isn't blind, it's just little blurry.

Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she's celebrating the biggest achievement of her life--placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition--the next she's lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a "probably temporary" condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie's new reality.

But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls in love--not with one man but two. The timing couldn't be worse.

Making judgment calls on anything right now is a nightmare. If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to have it all.

Call Ava romantic, but she thinks love should be found in the real world, not on apps that filter men by height, job, or astrological sign. She believes in feelings, not algorithms. So after a recent breakup and dating app debacle, she decides to put love on hold and escapes to a remote writers' retreat in coastal Italy. She's determined to finish writing the novel she's been fantasizing about, even though it means leaving her close-knit group of friends and her precious dog, Harold, behind.

At the retreat, she's not allowed to use her real name or reveal any personal information. When the neighboring martial arts retreat is canceled and a few of its attendees join their small writing community, Ava, now going by "Aria," meets "Dutch," a man who seems too good to be true. The two embark on a baggage-free, whirlwind love affair, cliff-jumping into gem-colored Mediterranean waters and exploring the splendor of the Italian coast. Things seem to be perfect for Aria and Dutch.

But then their real identities--Ava and Matt--must return to London. As their fantasy starts to fade, they discover just how different their personal worlds are. From food choices to annoying habits to sauna etiquette . . . are they compatible in anything? And then there's the prickly situation with Matt's ex-girlfriend, who isn't too eager to let him go. As one mishap follows another, it seems while they love each other, they just can't love each other's lives. Can they reconcile their differences to find one life together?

From the author of My Oxford Year, Julia Whelan's uplifting novel tells the story of a former actress turned successful audiobook narrator--who has lost sight of her dreams after a tragic accident--and her journey of self-discovery, love, and acceptance when she agrees to narrate one last romance novel.

For Sewanee Chester, being an audiobook narrator is a long way from her old dreams, but the days of being a star on film sets are long behind her. She's found success and satisfaction from the inside of a sound booth and it allows her to care for her beloved, ailing grandmother. When she arrives in Las Vegas last-minute for a book convention, Sewanee unexpectedly spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger.

On her return home, Sewanee discovers one of the world's most beloved romance novelists wanted her to perform her last book--with Brock McNight, the industry's hottest, most secretive voice. Sewanee doesn't buy what romance novels are selling--not after her own dreams were tragically cut short--and she stopped narrating them years ago. But her admiration of the late author, and the opportunity to get her grandmother more help, makes her decision for her.

As Sewanee begins work on the book, resurrecting her old romance pseudonym, she and Brock forge a real connection, hidden behind the comfort of anonymity. Soon, she is dreaming again, but secrets are revealed, and the realities of life come crashing down around her once more.

If she can learn to risk everything for desires she has long buried, she will discover a world of intimacy and acceptance she never believed would be hers.

Katherine Center's The Bodyguard is "My perfect 10 of a book. As funny and sweet as all the very best nineties rom-coms, but with Center's signature heart-tugging depth. I wish I could erase it from my mind just to read it again for the first time. A shot of pure joy."--Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers

She's got his back.
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she's an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

He's got her heart.
Jack Stapleton's a household name--captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.

They've got a secret.
When Jack's mom gets sick, he goes home to the family's Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn't want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah--against her will and her better judgment--finds herself pretending to be Jack's girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, says no one will believe it.

What could possibly go wrong?
Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it's easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That's the hardest thing she's ever done.

"Great rollicking fun! Prepare to laugh and swoon and grin your pants off."--Helen Hoang, New York Times bestselling author of The Heart Principle

"Absolutely, unequivocally delightful!"--Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here

Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it all: a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won't-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded, leaving everyone scrambling to understand why.

Afterward, the four stars went down very different paths. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC. Liana is the bored wife of a famous athlete. Noah, the show's golden boy, emerged unscathed and is poised to become a household name. And Summer, the object of Noah's fictional (and maybe real-life) affections, is the cautionary tale.

But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come back: forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface--including the real reason behind their downfall.

Will this reunion be a chance to make things right? Or will it be the biggest mess the world has ever seen? No matter what, the ratings will be wild.

Hollis Shaw's life seems picture-perfect. She's the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis's perfect life--her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline--grow deeper.

So when Hollis hears about something called a "Five-Star Weekend"--one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife--she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn't turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

The husband of Hollis's childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis's first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis's best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann's career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client's mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis's friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there's Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it hap- pens, has many secrets.

The Five-Star Weekend is a surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery set on Nantucket. It will be a weekend like no other.

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
"Chandler Baker, queen of the feminist thriller, has delivered once again! The Husbands is a poignant exploration of what it would take for women to have it all. --Sally Hepworth, bestselling author of The Good Sister

To what lengths will a woman go for a little more help from her husband?
Nora Spangler is a successful attorney but when it comes to domestic life, she packs the lunches, schedules the doctor appointments, knows where the extra paper towel rolls are, and designs and orders the holiday cards. Her husband works hard, too... but why does it seem like she is always working so much harder?

When the Spanglers go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch, an exclusive suburban neighborhood, Nora meets a group of high-powered women--a tech CEO, a neurosurgeon, an award-winning therapist, a bestselling author--with enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to help with a resident's wrongful death case, she is pulled into the lives of the women there. She finds the air is different in Dynasty Ranch. The women aren't hanging on by a thread.

But as the case unravels, Nora uncovers a plot that may explain the secret to having-it-all. One that's worth killing for. Calling to mind a Stepford Wives gender-swap, New York Times bestselling author of Whisper Network Chandler Baker's The Husbands imagines a world where the burden of the "second shift" is equally shared--and what it may take to get there.

"Utterly engrossing and thoroughly timely, The Husbands is both a gripping, well-crafted mystery and an insightful critique of motherhood and marriage in the modern age--working mothers everywhere will feel seen in the best possible way."
--Kimberly McCreight, New York Times bestselling author of A Good Marriage

Or so they think.

One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret--news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created.

Combining three mothers' points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel of suspense filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.

Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady--ah, lady of a certain age--who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.

Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing--a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn't know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.

What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?

Over 20 million copies sold!

A perennial New York Times bestseller for over a decade!

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love--that's the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?

In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you'll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman's proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner--starting today.

The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.

Includes the Couple's Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.

You are a creature unlike any other (Rule #1)-that's why you need... The Rules. Refreshingly blunt, astonishingly effective, and at times hilarious, All the Rules will lead you to where you want to be: in a healthy, committed relationship. These commonsense guidelines will help you:

Lead a full, satisfying, busy life outside of romance.
Accept occasional defeat and move on.
Bring out the best in you and in the men you date.

Whether you're eighteen or eighty, these time-tested techniques will help you find the man of your dreams.

Fresh off a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a second act. When she's named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a once Gilded Age gem turned abandoned eyesore, she hopes that her local expertise and charismatic staff can win the favor of their new London billionaire owner, Xavier Darling, as well as that of Shelly Carpenter, the wildly popular Instagram tastemaker who can help put them back on the map. And while the Hotel Nantucket appears to be a blissful paradise, complete with a celebrity chef-run restaurant and an idyllic wellness center, there's a lot of drama behind closed doors. The staff (and guests) have complicated pasts, and the hotel can't seem to overcome the bad reputation it earned in 1922 when a tragic fire killed nineteen-year-old chambermaid Grace Hadley. With Grace gleefully haunting the halls, a staff harboring all kinds of secrets, and Lizbet's own romantic uncertainty, is the Hotel Nantucket destined for success or doom?

Filled with the emotional depth and multiple points of view that characterize Hilderbrand's novels (The Blue Bistro, Golden Girl) as well as an added dash of Roaring Twenties history, The Hotel Nantucket offers something for everyone in this compelling summer drama.

Based on his wildly popular New Yorker piece, Thurber Prize-winner John Kenney presents a hilarious collection of love poems for, well, married people.

Full of brilliant wit, dynamic energy, and a heavy dose of reality, Love Poems for Married People takes the poetic form, turns it upside down and leaves it in the dishwasher to dry. Inspired by one of the most shared New Yorker pieces of all time, this collection captures the reality of life once the spark of a relationship has settled--and hilariously so. With brand new pieces that cover all areas of married life, from parental gripes to dwindling sex lives, Kenney's wry observations and sharp humor remind us exactly what it's like to spend the rest of your life with the person you love.

I was almost feeling fondness for you
As you gave me a shoulder massage at the sink--
What a small, lovely surprise.
And then you grabbed my boobs and made a wha-wha noise.
In an instant, I felt disgust and sadness and regret.

"Funny, touching and infused with wonder, as all love stories should be." --San Francisco Examiner

The iconic tale of love and loss that has touched the hearts of millions, Love Story has become one of the most adored novels of our time. It has sold more than twenty-one million copies worldwide and became a blockbuster film starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw. It is the story that told the world, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." This special anniversary edition includes an introduction by the author's daughter, Francesca Segal.

This is the story of Oliver Barrett IV, a rich jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law, and Jenny Cavilleri, a wisecracking working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe.

Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny are kindred spirits from vastly different worlds. Their attraction to each other is immediate and powerful, and together they share a love that defies everything.

This is their story--a story of two young people and a love so uncompromising it will bring joy to your heart and tears to your eyes.

"I'm a sucker for an iconic, against-all-odds love story, and Meant to Be truly delivers."--Tia Williams, author of Seven Days in June

"A chic, history-inspired summer read [that] strikes a careful balance between simply retelling the true story of JFK Jr. and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and crafting an entirely new one."--Bookreporter

The Kingsley family is American royalty, beloved for their military heroics, political service, and unmatched elegance. In 1967, after Joseph S. Kingsley, Jr. is killed in a tragic accident, his charismatic son inherits the weight of that legacy. But Joe III is a free spirit--and a little bit reckless. Despite his best intentions, he has trouble meeting the expectations of a nation, as well as those of his exacting mother, Dottie.

Meanwhile, no one ever expected anything of Cate Cooper. She, too, grew up fatherless--and after her mother marries an abusive man, she is forced to fend for herself. After being discovered by a model scout at age sixteen, Cate decides that her looks may be her only ticket out of the cycle of disappointment that her mother has always inhabited. Before too long, Cate's face is in magazines and on billboards. Yet she feels like a fraud, faking it in a world to which she's never truly belonged.

When Joe and Cate unexpectedly cross paths one afternoon, their connection is instant and intense. But can their relationship survive the glare of the spotlight and the so-called Kingsley curse? In a beautifully written novel that captures a gilded moment in American history, Emily Giffin tells the story of two people searching for belonging and identity, as well as the answer to the question: Are certain love stories meant to be?

A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man's promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend. A divorcée in her seventies looks back at the beauty and rubble of past relationships.

These are just a few of the people who tell their stories in Modern Love, Revised and Updated, featuring dozens of the most memorable essays to run in The New York Times "Modern Love" column since its debut in 2004.

Some of the stories are unconventional, while others hit close to home. Some reveal the way technology has changed dating forever; others explore the timeless struggles experienced by anyone who has ever searched for love. But all of the stories are, above everything else, honest. Together, they tell the larger story of how relationships begin, often fail, and--when we're lucky--endure.

Edited by longtime "Modern Love" editor Daniel Jones and featuring a diverse selection of contributors, this is the perfect book for anyone who's loved, lost, stalked an ex on social media, or pined for true romance: In other words, anyone interested in the endlessly complicated workings of the human heart.

Featuring essays by:
Veronica Chambers - Terri Cheney - Deborah Copaken - Trey Ellis - Jean Hanff Korelitz - Ann Hood - Mindy Hung - Amy Krouse Rosenthal - Ann Leary - Andrew Rannells - Larry Smith - Ayelet Waldman - and more!

Meg Cabot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Diaries, returns to Little Bridge Island with a new story about a children's book author with a case of writer's block and an arrogant novelist who have to set aside their differences as they get through a weekend long book festival that just might change everything--including their feelings for each other.

Don't Judge a Book by Its Author...

Welcome to Little Bridge, one of the smallest, most beautiful islands in the Florida Keys.

Jo Wright always swore she'd never step foot on Little Bridge Island--not as long as her nemesis, bestselling author Will Price, is living there.

Then Jo's given an offer she can't refuse: an all-expense paid trip to speak and sign at the island's first ever book festival.

Even though arrogant Will is the last person Jo wants to see, she could really use the festival's more-than-generous speaking fee. She's suffering from a crippling case of writer's block on the next installment of her bestselling children's series, and her father needs financial help as well.

Then Jo hears that Will is off-island on the set of the film of his next book. Hallelujah!

But when she arrives on Little Bridge, Jo is in for a shock: Will is not only at the book festival, but seems genuinely sorry for his past actions--and more than willing not only to make amends, but prove to Jo that he's a changed man.

Things seem to be looking up--until disaster strikes, causing Jo to wonder: Do any of us ever really know anyone?

It is 1962, and Florence and Edward are celebrating their wedding in a hotel on the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of their marital duties become overwhelming. Unbeknownst to them both, the decisions they make this night will resonate throughout their lives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beach a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

Don't miss Ian McEwan's new novel, Lessons, available now!

ST. IVO is absolutely exquisite and perfect for poolside... [M]asterfully written and immediately captivating." - Elin Hildebrand, on Instagram

Hershon maintains a quiet terror throughout this slim, eccentric novel. . . Fiction full of complexity, devoted to reality. And in the end, a larger sense of purpose crashes down in a satisfying burst.
--Danya Kukafka, The New York Times Book Review

Over the course of a weekend, two couples reckon with the long-hidden secrets that have shaped their families, in a charged, poignant novel of motherhood and friendship

Enter a mysterious stranger on a train, an older man taking the subway to Brooklyn who sees right into her.Then a mugging, her phone stolen, and with it any last connection to Leda. And then an invitation, friends from the past and a weekend in the country with their new, unexpected baby.

Over the course of three hot September days, the two couples try to reconnect. Events that have been set in motion, circumstances and feelings kept hidden, rise to the surface, forcing each to ask not just how they ended up where they are, but how they ended up who they are.

Unwinding like a suspense novel, Joanna Hershon's St. Ivo is a powerful investigation into the meaning of choice and family, whether we ever know the people closest to us, and how, when someone goes missing from our lives, we can ever let them go.

Cindy Chupack takes a hilarious look at love, dating-and not dating-in this witty, truthful and utterly charming book. Tackling topics such as sexual sorbet (the first man you sleep with after a breakup), the VISA defense (the claim, usually invoked by men, that 'I paid, therefore I am innocent') and eggsistential crisis (a panic attack, common among women in their late thirties), The Between Boyfriends Book is as reassuring as that late-night post-date phone call to a best friend. It says: you may be single, but you are not alone.

Oh, how I love this book! I laughed out loud again and again. It hits such an intimate and true chord, it's painful actually, how insightful Cindy Chupack is. Every woman who's been through the dating miasma must read it.
- Julia Sweeney

Cindy Chupack is funny about single. Very funny. And smart. And sympathetic. And empathetic. And helpful. And the stories in this book are really horrible in a great way.
- Delia Ephron

While on her way to teach a yoga retreat in March 2014, Rachel Brathen collapses at an airport, brought to her knees by excruciating stomach pains. She is rushed to the hospital on the tiny island of Bonaire, and hours later forced to undergo surgery. When she wakes up from anesthesia, her boyfriend is weeping at her bedside. While Rachel was struck down with seemingly mysterious pain, her best friend, Andrea, sustained fatal injuries as a result of a car accident. Rachel and Andrea had a magical friendship. Though they looked nothing alike--one girl tall, blond, and Swedish, the other short, brunette, and Colombian--everyone called them gemelas: twins.

Over the three years following Andrea's death, at what might appear from the outside to be the happiest time--with her engagement to the man she loves and a blossoming career that takes her all over the world--Rachel faces a series of trials that have the potential to define her life. Unresolved grief and trauma from her childhood make the weight of her sadness unbearable. At each turn, she is confronted again and again with a choice: Will she lose it all, succumb to grief, and grasp for control that's beyond her reach? Or can she move through the loss and let go?

When Rachel and her husband conceive a child, pregnancy becomes a time to heal and an opportunity to be reborn herself. As she recounts this transformative period, Rachel shares her hard-won wisdom about life and death, love and fear, what it means to be a mother and a daughter, and how to become someone who walks through the fire of adversity with the never-ending practice of loving hard and letting go.

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have . . . and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

The Little Engine That Could is one of the most popular and enduring children's stories of all time, and for more than eighty-five years, this classic character has encouraged readers to try their hardest to achieve their dreams. This story of determination and inspiration has now been reimagined in a charming, illustrated gift book that will speak to readers no matter what the age and no matter what the challenge. This is the perfect gift for graduation, and for everyone who may need to be reminded, You Can!

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * One of NPR's Best Books of 2020

A provocative, absorbing read. -- People

"A feast of a read... I finished A Good Neighborhood in a single sitting. Yes, it's that good." --Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light

In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son, Xavier, who's headed to college in the fall. All is well until the Whitmans--a family with new money and a secretly troubled teenage daughter--raze the house and trees next door to build themselves a showplace.

With little in common except a property line, these two families quickly find themselves at odds: first, over an historic oak tree in Valerie's yard, and soon after, the blossoming romance between their two teenagers.

Therese Anne Fowler's A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today--what does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?--as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending love in a story that's as provocative as it is powerful.

FINALIST FOR THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD - FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Kirkus Reviews

If you really want to know, we are the color of 7-Eleven root beer. The color of sand at Rockaway Beach when it blisters the bottoms of our feet. Color of soil . . .

Welcome to Queens, New York, where streets echo with languages from all over the globe, subways rumble above dollar stores, trees bloom and topple over sidewalks, and the funky scent of the Atlantic Ocean wafts in from Rockaway Beach. Within one of New York City's most vibrant and eclectic boroughs, young women of color like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique, and countless others, attempt to reconcile their immigrant backgrounds with the American culture in which they come of age. Here, they become friends for life--or so they vow.

Exuberant and wild, together they roam The City That Never Sleeps, sing Mariah Carey at the tops of their lungs, yearn for crushes who pay them no mind--and break the hearts of those who do--all while trying to heed their mothers' commands to be obedient daughters. But as they age, their paths diverge and rifts form between them, as some choose to remain on familiar streets, while others find themselves ascending in the world, beckoned by existences foreign and seemingly at odds with their humble roots.

A blazingly original debut novel told by a chorus of unforgettable voices, Brown Girls illustrates a collective portrait of childhood, adulthood, and beyond, and is a striking exploration of female friendship, a powerful depiction of women of color attempting to forge their place in the world today. For even as the conflicting desires of ambition and loyalty, freedom and commitment, adventure and stability risk dividing them, it is to one another--and to Queens--that the girls ultimately return.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics delivers a wise, timely, big-hearted novel of unplanned isolation and newly forged community.

Where does one go, you might ask, when the world falls apart? When the immutable facts of your life--the mundane, the trivial, the take-for-granted minutiae that once filled every second of every day--suddenly disappear? Where does one go in such dire and unexpected circumstances?

I went home, of course.

MURBRIDGE COMMUNITY MESSAGE BOARD

FREE: 500 cans of corn. Accidentally ordered them online. I really hate corn. Happy to help load.

REMINDER: use your own goddamn garbage can for your own goddamn pet waste. I'm looking at you Peter Luflin.

REMINDER: monthly Select Board meeting this Friday. Agenda items: 1) sludge removal; 2) upkeep of chime tower; 3) ice rink monitor thank you gift. Questions? Contact Hildegard Hyman, HHMurbridge@gmail.com

Darcy Clipper, prodigal daughter, nearly thirty, has returned home to Murbridge, Massachusetts, after her life takes an unwelcome left turn. Murbridge, Darcy is convinced, will welcome her home and provide a safe space in which she can nurse her wounds and harbor grudges, both real and imagined.

But Murbridge, like so much else Darcy thought to be fixed and immutable, has changed. And while Darcy's first instinct might be to hole herself up in her childhood bedroom, subsisting on Chef Boy-R-Dee and canned chickpeas, it is human nature to do two things: seek out meaningful human connection and respond to anonymous internet postings. As Murbridge begins to take shape around Darcy, both online and in person, Darcy will consider the most fundamental of American questions: What can she ask of her community? And what does she owe it in return?

Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere--at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away.

While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan's apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it--never mind four. Five if you count Aggie's eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices.

But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane's life is permanently intertwined with Duncan's, Aggie's, and Jimmy's, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane's eyes? Katherine Heiny's Early Morning Riser is her most astonishingly wonderful work to date.

More than just a children's television show host, Mister Rogers was the friend who helped us appreciate the good things in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us. As soon as he stepped through his front door to change into his cardigan and sneakers, we knew we would meet new people and discover new things. Revisit some of Mister Rogers' greatest guidance that we learned alongside Daniel Tiger, X the Owl, King Friday the XIII, Henrietta Pussycat, and more, including:

-You are special
-Be generous with your gratitude
-Feed the fish
-All kinds of feelings are okay
-Don't forget the fun
And other caring thoughts!

Allison Brinkley--wife, mother, and former unflappable optimist--discovers that her decision to pack up and move her family from suburban Dallas to the glittery chaos of Manhattan may have been more complicated than she and her husband initially thought. New York is more unruly and bewildering than she expected, defying the notions she developed from romantic movies and a memorable childhood visit. After a humiliating call from the principal's office and the loss of the job she was counting on, Allison begins to accept that New York may not suit her after all.

When she has a fender-bender, witnessed by a flock of mothers at her son's new school, she is led to the penthouse apartment of a luxurious Central Park West building and encounters a spoiled, hungover, unsupervised teenager who looks familiar. It doesn't take long to recognize him as Carter Reid--a famous pop star who has been cast in a new Broadway musical. Through this brush with stardom, Allison embraces a unique and unexpected opportunity that helps her find her way in the heart of Manhattan.

"A tribute to Broadway, teen celebrity life, and a mother who has now seen it all, this work is tough love at its finest and a great read for those wanting a ride on the wild side" (Booklist, starred review).

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life--sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition--its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

The inspiration for the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, and Bill Murray

July 1985. It's a normal, sweltering New Jersey summer for soon-to-be seventh grader Bee Kocsis. Her thoughts center only on sunny days spent at Deer Chase Lake, on evenings chasing fireflies around her cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids, and on Max, the boy who just moved in across the street. There's also the burgeoning worry that she'll never be as special as her younger sister, Audrina, who seems to effortlessly dazzle wherever she goes.

But when Max's little sister, Sally, goes missing at the lake, Bee's long-held illusion of stability is shattered in an instant. As the families in her close-knit community turn inward, suspicious and protective, things in Bee's own home become increasingly strained, most of all with Audrina, when a shameful secret surfaces. With everything changed, Bee and Audrina's already-fraught sisterhood is pushed to the limit as they grow up--and apart--in the wake of an innocence lost too soon.

Perfect for readers of Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You, Our Little World is a powerful and lyrical coming-of-age story that examines the complicated bond of sisterhood, the corrosive power of envy, and how the traumas of our youths can shape our identities for a lifetime.

Tracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as a "master of the nonfiction narrative." In Rough Sleepers, Kidder shows how one person can make a difference, as he tells the story of Dr. Jim O'Connell, a gifted man who invented ways to create a community of care for a city's unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets--the "rough sleepers."

When Jim O'Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, the chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? Jim took the job because he felt he couldn't refuse. But that year turned into his life's calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O'Connell and his colleagues as they served their thousands of homeless patients. In this illuminating book we travel with O'Connell as he navigates the city, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the city's most endangered citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls "a system of friends."

Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder explores how a small but dedicated group of people have changed countless lives by facing one of American society's difficult problems instead of looking away.

In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play.

Drawing on her expertise as a facilitator of high-powered gatherings around the world, Parker takes us inside events of all kinds to show what works, what doesn't, and why. She investigates a wide array of gatherings--conferences, meetings, a courtroom, a flash-mob party, an Arab-Israeli summer camp--and explains how simple, specific changes can invigorate any group experience.

The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of exciting ideas with real-world applications. The Art of Gathering will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue--and how you host and attend them.

On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a catered barbecue as the summer winds down; drinks continue late into the night.

Everything is fabulous until the picture-perfect hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack--loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then, his mother can only sit by her son's hospital bed, where she refuses to speak to anyone, and his life hangs in the balance.

What happens next, over the course of a tense three days, as each of these women grapple with what led to that terrible night?

Exploring envy, women's friendships, desire, and the intuitions that we silence, The Whispers is a chilling novel that marks Audrain as a major women's fiction talent.

A heartbreaking doctor's visit. A fate she never saw coming. She'd dig deep for the strength she so desperately needed...

Seattle, 2015. Jenny Lisk was happy with a perfectly normal, busy life. But after the usual bustling week, Friday night turned from downtime into mild alarm when her forty-three-year-old spouse shared that he'd been feeling dizzy. And after ten days of his condition steadily worsening, she still wasn't prepared for the stunning news: He was terminally ill.

Reeling from his diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor, Jenny suddenly became not only a wife, mother, and career woman, but also a cancer-patient caregiver and parent of grieving children. And her many fears and uncertainties swirled around one relentless question:

Did she have what it takes to help her young family survive?

Through a vulnerable, honest account of preparing for the death of a loved one, Jenny shares tips and information about childhood grief, how to be there for mourning friends, and ways online communities provide essential support. And for those who feel lost and alone, or are grappling with any kind of loss, her deeply personal journey provides a universal beacon of hope.

Future Widow: Losing My Husband, Saving My Family, and Finding My Voice is a brave and raw narrative that doesn't pull any punches on the realities of caregiving and bereavement. If you like captivating stories, authentic inspiration, and understanding the grieving process, then you'll find encouragement in Jenny Lisk's touching memoir.

Buy Future Widow to rebuild a life today!

Thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton wants to be a good widow--a graceful, composed, Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Alas, she's been drowning her sorrows in ice cream and showing up to work in her bunny slippers and bathrobe. Determined to start over, she moves to Ashland, Oregon, where she finds herself in the middle of a darkly madcap adventure involving a 13-year-old pyromaniac and an alarmingly handsome actor who inspires a range of feelings she can't cope with--yet.

Lipsticks applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked--such memories are recalled with "crystalline perfection" (J.C. Hallmann, Brooklyn Rail) in Sarah McColl's breathtaking testimonial to the joy and pain of loving well. When her mother, Allison, was diagnosed with cancer, McColl dropped everything--including her on-the-rocks marriage--to return to the family farmhouse and fix elaborate meals in the hope of nourishing her back to health. In "thoughtful and finely crafted prose" (Martha Anne Toll, NPR.org) McColl reveals Allison to be an extraordinary woman of infinite love for her unruly brood of children. Mining her dual losses "with humor and charm" (Rachel Kong, New York Times Book Review) to confront her identity as a woman, McColl walks lightly in the footsteps of the woman who came before her. "A gorgeous, painful, exhilarating debut" (Kirstin Valdez-Quade), Joy Enough is an essential guide to clinging fast to the joy left behind, for readers of Ann Hood and Jenny Offill.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: People
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Esquire, Vulture, She Reads, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly

One spring morning, Kathryn Schulz went to lunch with a stranger and fell in love. Having spent years looking for the right relationship, she was dazzled by how swiftly everything changed when she finally met her future wife. But as the two of them began building a life together, Schulz's beloved father--a charming, brilliant, absentminded Jewish refugee--went into the hospital with a minor heart condition and never came out. Newly in love yet also newly bereft, Schulz was left contending simultaneously with wild joy and terrible grief.

Those twin experiences form the heart of Lost & Found, a profound meditation on the families that make us and the families we make. But Schulz's book also explores how disappearance and discovery shape us all. On average, we each lose two hundred thousand objects over our lifetime, and Schulz brilliantly illuminates the relationship between those everyday losses and our most devastating ones. Likewise, she explores the importance of seeking, whether for ancient ruins or new ideas, friends, faith, meaning, or love. The resulting book is part memoir, part guidebook to sustaining wonder and gratitude even in the face of loss and grief. A staff writer at The New Yorker and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Schulz writes with curiosity, tenderness, and humor about the connections between joy and sorrow--and between us all.

Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics.

At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it's clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map.

Let's face it: most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We're awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit.

Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and--above all--empathize.

Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN's Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message.

Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.

An inspiring memoir of life, love, loss, and new beginnings by the widower of bestselling children's author and filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose last of act of love before her death was setting the stage for her husband's life without her in the viral New York Times Modern Love column, "You May Want to Marry My Husband."

On March 3, 2017, Amy Krouse Rosenthal penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times' "Modern Love" column --"You May Want to Marry My Husband." It appeared ten days before her death from ovarian cancer. A heartbreaking, wry, brutally honest, and creative play on a personal ad--in which a dying wife encouraged her husband to go on and find happiness after her demise--the column quickly went viral, reaching more than five million people worldwide.

In My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me, Jason describes what came next: his commitment to respecting Amy's wish, even as he struggled with her loss. Surveying his life before, with, and after Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal--how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on. Jason's emotional journey offers insights on dying and death and the excruciating pain of losing a soulmate, and illuminates the lessons he learned.

As he reflects on Amy's gift to him--a fresh start to fill his empty space with a new story--Jason describes how he continues to honor Amy's life and her last wish, and how he seeks to appreciate every day and live in the moment while trying to help others coping with loss. My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me is the poignant, unreserved, and inspiring story of a great love, the aftermath of a marriage ended too soon, and how a surviving partner eventually found a new perspective on life's joys in the wake of tremendous loss.

With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, Jayson Greene captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is a book that will change the way you look at the world.

After his father died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center, nine-year-old Matthew John Bocchi began an obsessive quest to find out exactly how he died. He researched video tapes, pictures, blogs, anything that could potentially answer the question looming in his mind: was his father one of the jumpers? In the first memoir told by a child of 9/11, Matt intimately delves into the psychological and emotional torment that ensued after his father's death. With heartbreaking vulnerability, he details how his incessant quest resulted in a devastating act of violence that stripped his innocence as a young man. As Matt spirals down a bottomless pit of drug abuse, he willfully risks his life in search of the next high--all in an attempt to forget his past.

Now at twenty-eight years old and sober, he recounts his unique story--one full of heartbreak and despair, grief and uncertainty, but most importantly, happiness and hope. The lesson he teaches us is clear but intricate: No matter how far you fall, you can always rise again. No matter how far you stray, you can always find your way home. And no matter how wide you sway, you can always pick up the pieces and stand tall.

"This is perhaps one of the most important books about grief ever written. It finally dispels the myth that we are all supposed to get over the death of a loved one."--Claire Bidwell Smith, author of Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief

Aren't you over it yet? Anyone who has experienced a major loss in their past knows this question. We've spent years fielding versions of it, both explicit and implied, from family, colleagues, acquaintances, and friends. We recognize the subtle cues--the slight eyebrow lift, the soft, startled "Oh! That long ago?"--from those who wonder how an event so far in the past can still occupy so much precious mental and emotional real estate.

Because of the common but false assumption that grief should be time-limited, too many of us believe we're grieving "wrong" when sadness suddenly resurges sometimes months or even years after a loss. The AfterGrief explains that the death of a loved one isn't something most of us get over, get past, put down, or move beyond. Grief is not an emotion to pass through on the way to "feeling better." Instead, grief is in constant motion; it is tidal, easily and often reactivated by memories and sensory events, and is re-triggered as we experience life transitions, anniversaries, and other losses. Whether we want it to or not, grief gets folded into our developing identities, where it informs our thoughts, hopes, expectations, behaviors, and fears, and we inevitably carry it forward into everything that follows.

Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss, as well as on interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people who've been bereaved, New York Times bestselling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our identities. With guidance for reframing a story of loss, finding equilibrium within it, and even experiencing renewed growth and purpose in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn't have to be a lifelong struggle.

"Poignant, funny, and able to provide exercises that help you maneuver the rough. . . . I always thought if I were going through something, this is the book I want to read." --Gayle King

Stay connected to your person, yourself, and the world around you in the aftermath of loss.

Modern Loss is all about eradicating the stigma and awkwardness around grief while also focusing on our capacity for resilience and finding meaning. In this interactive guide, Modern Loss cofounder Rebecca Soffer offers candid, practical, and witty advice for confronting a future without your person, honoring their memory, dealing with trigger days, managing your professional life, and navigating new and existing relationships. You'll find no worn-out platitudes or empty assurances here. With prompts, creative projects, innovative rituals, therapeutic-based exercises, and more, this is the place to explore the messy, long arc of loss on your own timeline--and without judgment.

"Sara Seager's exploration of outer and inner space makes for a stunningly original memoir."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets--especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager's husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe.

As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match, not in the stars but here at home.

Probing and invigoratingly honest, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own kind of light in the dark.

When Bozoma Saint John's husband, Peter, died of cancer, she made one big decision: to live life urgently. Bozoma was no stranger to adversity, having lost her college boyfriend to suicide, navigated an interracial marriage, grieved a child born prematurely--a process that led to her and Peter's separation--and coparented the daughter who she and Peter shared. When Peter knew his cancer was terminal, he gave Bozoma a short list of things to do: cancel the divorce, and fix the wrongs immediately.

In The Urgent Life, Bozoma takes readers through the dizzying, numbing days of multiple griefs, and the courage which these sparked in her to live life in accordance with her deepest values time and time again. We witness Bozoma's journey forward through the highs and the lows, as she negotiates life as a woman determined to learn from tragedies to build a remarkable life worth living even in her brokenness.

Bozoma's story is extraordinary, but her grief is not uncommon, and her courage is sure to touch any reader who has loved, mourned and is finding a path through loss and grief, as well as anyone who is maneuvering a pivot and wants to live life to its fullest.

"A wonderful book, a story of the heart told by a writer with soul."--Los Angeles Times

"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in."

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.

For Mitch Albom, that person was his college professor Morrie Schwartz.

Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?

Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class" lessons in how to live. "The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

A moving novel of family and forgiveness and of hope and healing by Rochelle B. Weinstein, the USA Today bestselling author of This Is Not How It Ends.

When Avery Beckett is proposed to by Jude Masters, a widowed father and the man she loves, it should be a time of great joy. Instead, Avery is on edge. She's wary of the idea of family, doubtful of happy endings, and too afraid to take the leap. It's the kind of fear that comes from having secrets.

Before Avery commits to a new life, she must reconcile with the one she left behind.

When Avery returns to her childhood farm in the North Carolina mountains, she's surprised to be saddled with a companion: Jude's teenage daughter, Elle, who's grappling with the loss of her mother and the complicated emotions of first love. On a path of mending wounds and breaking down walls, Avery and Elle form an unexpected alliance. It's giving them the courage to move forward. And for Avery, everything she needs to confront the past.

An emotional tale of mothers and daughters, loss and acceptance, When We Let Go is about the lessons that come from heartbreak and the healing it takes to embrace the joy of a second chance.

"An essential book for our time . . . Brittany K. Barnett is a star."--Van Jones, CEO of REFORM Alliance, CNN Host, and New York Times bestselling author

Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever--that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America's devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole--for a first-time drug offense. In Sharanda, Brittany saw haunting echoes of her own life, as the daughter of a formerly incarcerated mother. As she studied this case, a system came into focus in which widespread racial injustice forms the core of America's addiction to incarceration. Moved by Sharanda's plight, Brittany set to work to gain her freedom.

This had never been the plan. Bright and ambitious, Brittany was a successful accountant on her way to a high-powered future in corporate law. But Sharanda's case opened the door to a harrowing journey through the criminal justice system. By day she moved billion-dollar deals, and by night she worked pro bono to free clients in near hopeless legal battles. Ultimately, her path transformed her understanding of injustice in the courts, of genius languishing behind bars, and the very definition of freedom itself.

Brittany's riveting memoir is at once a coming-of-age story and a powerful evocation of what it takes to bring hope and justice to a system built to resist them both.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS

"Beautifully written, complex, provocative, painful, genuine...an unforgettable memoir."--ROXANE GAY

"Wonderfully lyrical and uncomfortably honest in a way that is so rare, yet so needed."--JENNY LAWSON

"Disturbing and profound, this intimate book also reveals the sometimes-labyrinthine nature of the bonds that unite people in love...A provocative and memorable work."--Kirkus Reviews

After years of struggling in a tumultuous marriage, writer Rebecca Woolf was finally ready to leave her husband. Two weeks after telling him she wanted a divorce, he was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Four months later, at the age of forty-four, he died.

In All of This, Woolf chronicles the months before her husband's death--and her rebirth after he was gone. With rigorous honesty and incredible awareness, she reflects on the end of her marriage: how her husband's illness finally gave her the space to make peace with his humanity and her own.

Stunning, compelling, and brilliantly nuanced, All of This is one woman's story of embracing the complexities of grief without shame--as a mother, a widow, and a sexual being--and emerging on the other side of a relationship with gratitude and relief.

Now updated with a new chapter! Includes the #metoo movement and the cultural revolution.
A groundbreaking manifesto from journalist Gretchen Carlson about how women can protect themselves from sexual harassment in the workplace and reclaim their power against abuse or injustice.
In BE FIERCE, Gretchen shares her own experiences, as well as powerful and moving stories from women in many different careers and fields who decided they too weren't ready to shut up and sit down. Gretchen became a voice for the voiceless.
In this revealing and timely book, Gretchen shares her views on what women can do to empower and protect themselves in the workplace or on a college campus, what to say when someone makes suggestive remarks, how an employer's Human Resources department may not always be your friend, and how forced arbitration clauses in work contracts often serve to protect companies rather than employees. Her groundbreaking message encourages women to stand up and speak up in every aspect of their lives.
Gretchen also discusses why this fight will require both women and men working together to ensure that our daughters and sons will have a brighter future.
BE FIERCE is a cultural movement and a motivating testament to what we can accomplish if we collectively decide to become warriors in the path for a better future.The time is now. Take back your life, your career, and your dignity.
Twitter: @GretchenCarlsonFacebook: @GretchenCarlsonInstagram: @therealgretchencarlson
A portion of each book sale will go towards Gretchen's Gift of Courage fund.
Using your voice and speaking your truth is a step toward freedom. Be a 'Fierce' force because that's what it takes to change the world.--Maria Shriver, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and founder of The Women's Alzheimer's Movement

"Unforgettable . . . Behind her brilliantly witty and uplifting message is a remarkable vulnerability and candor that reminds us that we are not alone in our struggles--and that we can, against all odds, get through them."--Lori Gottlieb, New York Times best-selling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Part memoir and part joyful romp through the fields of imagination, the story behind a beloved pseudonymous Twitter account reveals how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt is two stories: that of the reclusive real-life writer who created a fictional character out of loneliness and thin air, and that of the magical Duchess Goldblatt herself, a bright light in the darkness of social media. Fans around the world are drawn to Her Grace's voice, her wit, her life-affirming love for all humanity, and the fun and friendship of the community that's sprung up around her.

@DuchessGoldblat (81 year-old literary icon, author of An Axe to Grind) brought people together in her name: in bookstores, museums, concerts, and coffee shops, and along the way, brought real friends home--foremost among them, Lyle Lovett.

"The only way to be reliably sure that the hero gets the girl at the end of the story is to be both the hero and the girl yourself." -- Duchess Goldblatt

"How do I become more confident?" is the question Lydia Fenet hears almost every time she speaks to women across the country.

Many of us have forgotten what it feels like to trust ourselves, if we ever knew at all. But that can all change today. From Lydia Fenet, the world's leading charity auctioneer and author of The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Is You, Claim Your Confidence is a powerful guide to overcoming your fear and finding the confidence within.

Navigating a two-decade career at the world's leading auction house while raising three children, Lydia had her own journey of learning self-assurance. Through stories of overcoming challenges in both her work and personal lives, she demonstrates that confidence isn't something that only some people are born with; rather, it's inside every one of us, waiting to be claimed. Lydia provides powerful tools anyone at any phase of their life can use. Claim Your Confidence offers case studies, insights, and advice on how to:

- Harness the Power of Positivity
- Slam Your Imposter Syndrome
- Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
- Grow Your Mindset

And more!

From building up the courage to do what scares you the most to persisting when all you want to do is give up, get ready to claim your confidence and get the life you want.

"Embrace the Work, Love Your Career is for women who want to fall back in love with their work and design a career action plan grounded in confidence and clarity." --Forbes

YOU ARE DESERVING OF A CAREER YOU LOVE.

Fran Hauser, best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl, follows up with a workbook for women who want to get more out of their careers. Embrace the Work, Love Your Career combines accessible advice, time-tested strategies, creative prompts, and thoughtful exercises into one holistic resource.

Stemming from years of experience in senior leadership at Time Inc.'s People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly as well as AOL and Coca-Cola Enterprises, Hauser centers her career guidance around six main actions:

Each chapter starts with practical advice and includes prompts and exercises to help readers create their own personal career action plans. Palate-cleansing meditations and coloring breaks conclude each chapter, offering chances for calming reflection. Through simple, inspiring, and actionable tools, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career teaches women to be empowered to focus on the things that truly matter, set boundaries and, ultimately, realize their full potential.

"Embrace the Work, Love Your Career couldn't have arrived at a better time." --PopSugar

"From the author of The Myth of the Nice Girl, an instructional workbook to help you find professional satisfaction and achieve your goals." --People

PRAISE FOR FRAN HAUSER:

Named one of the "6 Most Powerful Women in NYC's Tech Scene" by Refinery29

"Is it possible to be both kind and a total badass? Yes--and Fran Hauser tells us how." --goop

"Fran gets into the mess--and gets specific--explaining how she has learned to handle all kinds of uncomfortable moments with authenticity and grace" --Refinery29

For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading--Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita--their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.

Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisi's class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of "the Great Satan," she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense.

Azar Nafisi's luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice.

Praise for Reading Lolita in Tehran

"Anyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs don' t know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic."--Geraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire

On any given day, thousands of devoted people clip into their bikes and have their lives changed by Tunde Oyeneyin. From her platform in a Peloton studio, she encourages riders with her trademark blend of positivity, empathy, and motivational "Tunde-isms," to push themselves to their limits both on and off the bike. Now, fans and readers everywhere can learn about her personal journey, and discover how they too can "live a life of purpose, on purpose" with Speak, a memoir-manifesto-guide to life inspired by her immensely popular Instagram Live series of the same name.

Taking us through each step of the SPEAK acronym--Surrender, Power, Empathy, Authenticity, and Knowledge--Oyeneyin shares the lessons she has learned about loss, love, body image, and how she has successfully created an intentional, joyful life for herself, offering an accessible blueprint for anyone looking to make a positive change in their lives.

LEARN THE RECIPE FOR STARTING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

For the first time ever, founder of Sprinkles cupcakes, Candace Nelson, is sharing the recipe for success in her new book, Sweet Success. She will walk you through the steps she took to build a globally beloved brand, so you can do it too. Although she deals in frosting, there's no sugarcoating here. Candace pushes back the kitchen door to reveal mistakes, misses, and lessons learned the hard way. Readers will learn how to:

In a time of unprecedented disruption and innovation, people are rethinking career and professional purpose. It's never been a better time to start a business. Sweet Success dispels the myth that entrepreneurship is reserved for an elite few and is a must-read for anyone with a passion needing a place to start or a push along the way.

At a career crossroads, instead of going to business school like her peers, Candace Nelson reflected on what she really wanted to do--and did what nobody, including Candace herself, would have expected. She poured her passion and life savings into creating the world's first cupcake bakery. Today, Sprinkles Cupcakes and its Cupcake ATMs have become a globally recognized brand, celebration mainstay and inspiration for entrepreneurs everywhere.

Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away.

Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia's Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.

Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.

Undaunted is a representative history of the American women who surmounted every impediment put in their way to do journalism's most valued work. From Margaret Fuller's improbable success to the highly paid reporters of the mid-nineteenth century to the breakthrough investigative triumphs of Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell, and Ida B. Wells, Brooke Kroeger examines the lives of the best-remembered and long-forgotten woman journalists. She explores the careers of standout woman reporters who covered the major news stories and every conflict at home and abroad since before the Civil War, and she celebrates those exceptional careers up to the present, including those of Martha Gellhorn, Rachel Carson, Janet Malcolm, Joan Didion, Cokie Roberts, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
As Kroeger chronicles the lives of journalists and newsroom leaders in every medium, a larger story develops: the nearly two-centuries-old struggle for women's rights. Here as well is the collective fight for equity from the gentle stirrings of the late 1800s through the legal battles of the 1970s to the #MeToo movement and today's racial and gender disparities.
Undaunted unveils the huge and singular impact women have had on a vital profession still dominated by men.

What is desire? And what are its rules? In this daring collection, award-winning and emerging female writers share their innermost longings, in turn dismantling both personal and political constructs of what desire is or can be.

In the opening essay, Larissa Pham unearths the ache beneath all her wants: time. Rena Priest's desire for a pair of five-hundred-dollar cowboy boots spurs a reckoning with her childhood on the rez and the fraught history of her hometown. Other pieces in the collection turn cultural tropes around dating, sex, and romance on their heads--Angela Cardinale tries dating as a divorced mother of two in the California suburbs only to discover sweet solace in being alone; Keyanah B. Nurse finds power in polyamory; and when Joanna Rakoff spots a former lover at a bar, the heat between them unravels her family as she is pulled into his orbit--an undoing, she decides, that's worth everything.

Including pieces by Tara Conklin, Torrey Peters, Camille Dungy, Melissa Febos, Lisa Taddeo, and so many others, these candid and insightful essays tackle the complicated knot of women's desire.

Featuring essays by Elisa Albert, Kristen Arnett, Molly McCully Brown, Angela Cardinale, Tara Conklin, Sonia Maria David, Jennifer De Leon, Camille T. Dungy, Melissa Febos, Amber Flame, Amy Gall, Aracelis Girmay, Sonora Jha, Nicole Hardy, Laura Joyce-Hubbard, TaraShea Nesbit, Keyanah B. Nurse, Torrey Peters, Amanda Petrusich, Larissa Pham, Rena Priest, Joanna Rakoff, Karen Russell, Domenica Ruta, Susan Shapiro, Terese Svoboda, Lisa Taddeo, Ann Tashi Slater, Abigail Thomas, Merritt Tierce, Michelle Wildgen, Jane Wong, and Teresa Wong

Capturing an era--and preserving the stories they have told their daughters, their mentees, their husbands, and their friends--a dozen women Imagineers have written personal stories from their decades designing and building the Disney world-wide empire of theme parks. Illustrated with the women's personal drawings and photos in addition to archival Imagineering images, the book represents a broad swath of Imagineering's creative disciplines during a time of unprecedented expansion. Intertwined with memories of Disney legends are glimpses of what it takes behind the scenes to create a theme park, and the struggles unique to women who were becoming more and more important, visible and powerful in a workplace that was overwhelmingly male.

Each chapter is unique, from a unique Imagineer's perspective and experience. These women spent their careers telling stories in three dimensions for the public. Now they've assembled their stories in print, with the hope that their experiences will continue to entertain and illuminate.

"An intriguing volume on the differences in global education." --Library Journal

A must-read firsthand exploration of why Asian students are outpacing their American counterparts and how to help our children excel in today's competitive world.

When Teru Clavel had young children, she watched her friends and fellow parents vie for spots in elite New York City schools. Instead of losing herself in the intensive applications and interview process, Teru and her family moved to Asia, embarking on a decade-long journey through the public schools of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

These schools were low-tech and bare-bones, with teachers who demanded obedience and order. In Hong Kong, her children's school was nicknamed The Prison for its foreboding facilities, yet her three-year-old loved his teachers and his nightly homework. In Tokyo, the students were responsible for school chores, like preparing and serving school lunches.

Yet Teru was amazed to discover that her children thrived in these academically competitive cultures; they learned to be independent, self-confident, resilient, and, above all, they developed a deep love of learning. When the family returned to the States, the true culture shock came when the top schools could no longer keep up with her children.

Written with warmth and humor, World Class is a compelling story about how to inspire children to thrive academically. "Studded with lists of useful tips about choosing schools and hiring tutors, for parents who must advocate for their children and supplement gaps in their educations" (Publishers Weekly) and an insightful guide to set your children on a path towards lifelong success.

​Live the life you want, not the life you settle for.

Helping people build healthy new habits that improve their lives is more important than ever. Arianna Huffington launched Thrive Global to do just that--Thrive's specific mission is to end the epidemic of stress and burnout and help individuals and companies unlock their greatest potential. Science continues to show that we don't have to sacrifice our well-being in order to succeed; in fact, it turns out that well-being is critical to peak performance. Learning to thrive means:

Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa -- the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true.

With frankness and compassion, Pulitzer Prize winner H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires -- and sometimes shatters -- the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms.

The inspiration for the hit television program and film of the same name, this anniversary edition features a new afterword by the author.

Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone--but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games?

In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only "the single most influential baseball book ever" (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what "may be the best book ever written on business" (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places--the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players--but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors.

What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted.

In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

Instant New York Times Bestseller

"Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is an American classic. With The Mosquito Bowl, he is back with a true story even more colorful and profound. This book too is destined to become a classic. I devoured it." -- John Grisham

An extraordinary, untold story of the Second World War in the vein of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, from the author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war - the invasion of Okinawa--their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled: Former All Americans, captains from Wisconsin and Brown and Notre Dame, and nearly twenty men who were either drafted or would ultimately play in the NFL.

When the trash-talking between the 4th and 29th over who had the better football team reached a fever pitch, it was decided: The two regiments would play each other in a football game as close to the real thing as you could get in the dirt and coral of Guadalcanal. The bruising and bloody game that followed became known as "The Mosquito Bowl."

Within a matter of months, 15 of the 65 players in "The Mosquito Bowl" would be killed at Okinawa, by far the largest number of American athletes ever to die in a single battle. The Mosquito Bowl is the story of these brave and beautiful young men, those who survived and those who did not. It is the story of the families and the landscape that shaped them. It is a story of a far more innocent time in both college athletics and the life of the country, and of the loss of that innocence.

Writing with the style and rigor that won him a Pulitzer Prize and have made several of his books modern classics, Buzz Bissinger takes us from the playing fields of America's campuses where boys played at being Marines, to the final time they were allowed to still be boys on that field of dirt and coral, to the darkest and deadliest days that followed at Okinawa.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Far more than a superb memoir about the highest levels of professional tennis, Open is the engrossing story of a remarkable life.

Andre Agassi had his life mapped out for him before he left the crib. Groomed to be a tennis champion by his moody and demanding father, by the age of twenty-two Agassi had won the first of his eight grand slams and achieved wealth, celebrity, and the game's highest honors. But as he reveals in this searching autobiography, off the court he was often unhappy and confused, unfulfilled by his great achievements in a sport he had come to resent. Agassi writes candidly about his early success and his uncomfortable relationship with fame, his marriage to Brooke Shields, his growing interest in philanthropy, and--described in haunting, point-by-point detail--the highs and lows of his celebrated career.

America's most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this surprisingly personal book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited opinions but also revealing the challenges he overcame in childhood as well as at ESPN, and who he really is when the cameras are off.

Stephen A. Smith has never been handed anything, nor was he an overnight success. Growing up poor in Queens, the son of Caribbean immigrants and the youngest of six children, he was a sports-obsessed kid who faced a number of struggles, from undiagnosed dyslexia to getting enough cereal to fill his bowl. As a basketball player at Winston-Salem State University, he got a glimmer of his true calling when he wrote a newspaper column arguing for the retirement of his own Hall of Fame coach, Clarence Gaines.

Smith hustled and rose up from a high school reporter at Daily News (New York) to a general sports columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1990s, before getting his own show at ESPN in 2005. After he was unceremoniously fired from the network in 2009, he became even more determined to fight for success. He got himself rehired two years later and, with his razor-sharp intelligence and fearless debate style, found his role on the show he was destined to star in: First Take, the network's flagship morning program.

In Straight Shooter, Smith writes about the greatest highs and deepest lows of his life and career. He gives his thoughts on Skip Bayless, Ray Rice, Colin Kaepernick, the New York Knicks, the Dallas Cowboys, and former President Donald Trump. But he also pulls back the curtain and talks about life beyond the set, sharing authentic stories about his negligent father, his loving mother, being a father himself, his battle with life-threatening COVID-19, and what he really thinks about politics and social issues. He does it all with the same intelligence, humor, and charm that has made him a household name.

Provocative, moving, and eye-opening, this book is the perfect gift for lovers of sports, television, and anyone who likes their stories delivered straight to the heart.

Baseball honors legacies--from cheering the home team to breaking in an old glove handed down from father to son. In The Dad Report, award-winning sportswriter Kevin Cook weaves a tapestry of uplifting stories in which fathers and sons--from the sport's superstars to Cook and his own ball-playing father--share the game.

Almost two hundred father-son pairs have played in the big leagues. Cook takes us inside the clubhouses, homes, and lives of many of the greats. Aaron Boone follows grandfather Bob, father Ray, and brother Bret to the majors--three generations of All-Stars. Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. strive to outdo their famous dads. Michael Jordan walks away from basketball to play minor-league baseball--to fulfill his father's dream.

In visiting these legendary families, Cook discovers that ball-playing families are a lot like our own. Dan Haren regrets the long road trips that keep him from his kids. Ike Davis and his father, a former Yankee, debate whether Ike should pitch or play first base. Buddy Bell leads a generation of big-leaguers determined to open their workplace--the clubhouse--to their kids.

Framing The Dad Report is the story of Kevin Cook's own father, Art Cook, a minor-league pitcher, a loveable rogue with a wicked screwball. In Art's later years, Kevin phoned him almost every night to talk baseball. They called those nightly conversations the Dad Report. In time, Kevin came to see that these conversations were about much more than the game. That's what this book is about: the way fathers and sons talk baseball as a way of talking about everything--courage, fear, fun, family, morality, mortality, and how it's not whether you win or lose that counts, it's how you share the game.

Over the course of two weeks, everything in Beartown will change.

Maya Andersson and Benji Ovich, two young people who left in search of a life far from the forest town, come home and joyfully reunite with their closest childhood friends. There is a new sense of optimism and purpose in the town, embodied in the impressive new ice rink that has been built down by the lake.

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there's something about this place that prevents it. The destruction caused by a ferocious late-summer storm reignites the old rivalry between Beartown and the neighboring town of Hed, a rivalry which has always been fought through their ice hockey teams.

Maya's parents, Peter and Kira, are caught up in an investigation of the hockey club's murky finances, and Amat--once the star of the Beartown team--has lost his way after an injury and a failed attempt to get drafted into the NHL. Simmering tensions between the two towns turn into acts of intimidation and then violence. All the while, a fourteen-year-old boy grows increasingly alienated from this hockey-obsessed community and is determined to take revenge on the people he holds responsible for his beloved sister's death. He has a pistol and a plan that will leave Beartown with a loss that is almost more that it can stand.

As it beautifully captures all the complexities of daily life and explores questions of friendship, loyalty, loss, and identity, this emotion-packed novel asks us to reconsider what it means to win, what it means to lose, and what it means to forgive.

For an amazing 67 years, Vin Scully was not only the voice of Dodgers baseball, but the gold standard when it came to sports broadcasting. A legend early in his prestigious career, Scully was a trusted companion to countless baseball fans across generations.

Vin Scully: The Voice of Dodger Baseball is a celebration of an unparalleled life and career in the sport, from Scully's early days in Brooklyn with the Dodgers in the 1950s, to the introduction of baseball in Southern California with Sandy Koufax and the Boys of Summer in the 1960s, to Fernandomania and the Dodgers' return to prominence in the 1980s, all the way through his retirement in 2016 and continued presence around the team as they recaptured the World Series crown in 2020. Through the memorable storytelling and dynamic historic photography of the Los Angeles Daily News, fans can relive the incredible life of Scully and honor a legacy that's sure to live on for generations of Dodgers fans to come.

Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city's intellectual It couple. Ward's glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with magic and love.

Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie.

Wry, wise, and propulsive, A Likely Story is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top. The characters seem eerily familiar but is the plot based on fact? And more importantly, who is the author?

Everything you've ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask is right here in this funny, candid guide written by an acclaimed author.

There are countless books on the market about how to write better but very few books on how to break into the marketplace with your first book. Cutting through the noise (and very mixed advice) online, while both dispelling rumors and remaining positive, Courtney Maum's Before and After the Book Dealis a one-of-a-kind resource that can help you get your book published.

Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Bookhas over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob.

Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace.

Are MFA programs worth the time and money? How do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Did you get a good advance? What do you do when you feel envious of other writers? And why the heck aren't your friends saying anything about your book? Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential (and everything in between), Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it's really like to be an author.

"Superb writing advice... hilarious, helpful and provocative." -- "New York Times Book Review."

"A warm, generous and hilarious guide through the writer's world and its treacherous swamps." -- "Los Angeles Times."

"A gift to all of us mortals who write or ever wanted to write... sidesplittingly funny, patiently wise and alternately cranky and kind -- a reveille to get off our duffs and start writing "now," while we still can." -- "Seattle Times."

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Time * New Yorker * Sunday Times (UK)

From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity--and how it saved her life.

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg--described as a "master of modern fiction" (Entertainment Weekly) and the "poet laureate of difficult families" (Kirkus Reviews)--reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one's ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.

It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth--the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one's way home--emotionally, artistically, and physically--and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.

For fans of The Rose Code and The Paris Library, The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.

Berlin 1933. Following the success of her debut novel, American writer Althea James receives an invitation from Joseph Goebbels himself to participate in a culture exchange program in Germany. For a girl from a small town in Maine, 1933 Berlin seems to be sparklingly cosmopolitan, blossoming in the midst of a great change with the charismatic new chancellor at the helm. Then Althea meets a beautiful woman who promises to show her the real Berlin, and soon she's drawn into a group of resisters who make her question everything she knows about her hosts--and herself.

Paris 1936. She may have escaped Berlin for Paris, but Hannah Brecht discovers the City of Light is no refuge from the anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathizers she thought she left behind. Heartbroken and tormented by the role she played in the betrayal that destroyed her family, Hannah throws herself into her work at the German Library of Burned Books. Through the quiet power of books, she believes she can help counter the tide of fascism she sees rising across Europe and atone for her mistakes. But when a dear friend decides actions will speak louder than words, Hannah must decide what stories she is willing to live--or die--for.

New York 1944. Since her husband Edward was killed fighting the Nazis, Vivian Childs has been waging her own war: preventing a powerful senator's attempts to censor the Armed Service Editions, portable paperbacks that are shipped by the millions to soldiers overseas. Viv knows just how much they mean to the men through the letters she receives--including the last one she got from Edward. She also knows the only way to win this battle is to counter the senator's propaganda with a story of her own--at the heart of which lies the reclusive and mysterious woman tending the American Library of Nazi-Banned Books in Brooklyn.

As Viv unknowingly brings her censorship fight crashing into the secrets of the recent past, the fates of these three women will converge, changing all of them forever.

Inspired by the true story of the Council of Books in Wartime--the WWII organization founded by booksellers, publishers, librarians, and authors to use books as "weapons in the war of ideas"--The Librarian of Burned Books is an unforgettable historical novel, a haunting love story, and a testament to the beauty, power, and goodness of the written word.

Now available in trade paper with an eye-catching new cover from the bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis: Megs Devonshire sets out to fulfill her younger brother George's last wish by uncovering the truth behind his favorite story. The answer provides hope and healing and a magical journey for anyone whose life has ever been changed by a book.

1950: Margaret Devonshire (Megs) is a seventeen-year-old student of mathematics and physics at Oxford University. When her beloved eight-year-old brother asks Megs if Narnia is real, logical Megs tells him it's just a book for children, and certainly not true. Homebound due to his illness, and remaining fixated on his favorite books, George presses her to ask the author of the recently released novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a question: "Where did Narnia come from?"

Despite her fear about approaching the famous author, who is a professor at her school, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with C. S. Lewis and his own brother Warnie, begging them for answers.

Rather than directly telling her where Narnia came from, Lewis encourages Megs to form her own conclusion as he slowly tells her the little-known stories from his own life that led to his inspiration. As she takes these stories home to George, the little boy travels farther in his imagination than he ever could in real life.

Lewis's answers will reveal to Megs and her family many truths that science and math cannot, and the gift she thought she was giving to her brother--the story behind Narnia--turns out to be his gift to her, instead: hope.

Over the last two decades, writing professor Susan Shapiro has taught more than 25,000 students of all ages and backgrounds at NYU, Columbia, Temple, The New School, and Harvard University. Now in The Byline Bible she reveals the wildly popular "Instant Gratification Takes Too Long" technique she's perfected, sharing how to land impressive clips to start or re-launch your career.

In frank and funny prose, the bestselling author of 12 books walks you through every stage of crafting and selling short nonfiction pieces. She shows you how to spot trendy subjects, where to start, finish and edit, and divulges specific steps to submit work, have it accepted, get paid, and see your byline in your favorite publication in lightning speed.

With a foreword by Peter Catapano, long-time editor at the New York Times where many of Shapiro's pupils have first seen print, this book offers everything you need to learn to write and sell your story in five weeks or less, including:

- How to craft a cover letter and subject heading to get read and reviewed quickly
- Who pay for essays, op-eds, regional, humor, or service pieces from unknown writers
- Ways to follow up, build on your success, land a TV or radio spot, become a regular contributor, staff writer, and find a literary agent for your book with one amazing clip

Whether you're just starting out or ready to enhance your professional portfolio, this essential guide will prove that three pages can change your life.

A profoundly moving memoir of caregiving, mourning, and love between a mother and her son--and about the joy of reading, and the ways that joy is multiplied when we share it with others.

"A graceful, affecting testament to a mother and a life well lived." --Entertainment Weekly, Grade A

The Plot meets Please Join Us in this psychological suspense debut about a young author at an exclusive writer's retreat that descends into a nightmare.

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn't dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell--they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza's erratic behavior, Wren's cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she's desperate to discover the truth and save herself.

A claustrophobic and propulsive thriller exploring the dark side of female friendships and fame, The Writing Retreat is the unputdownable debut novel from a compelling new talent.

Contributors include Jesmyn Ward (Sing, Unburied, Sing), Lynn Nottage (Sweat), Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn), Gabourey Sidibe (This Is Just My Face), Morgan Jerkins (This Will Be My Undoing), Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Rebecca Walker (Black, White and Jewish), and Barbara Smith (Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology)

Whether it's learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club-turned-online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women's writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.

Praise for Well-Read Black Girl

"Each essay can be read as a dispatch from the vast and wonderfully complex location that is black girlhood and womanhood. . . . They present literary encounters that may at times seem private and ordinary--hours spent in the children's section of a public library or in a college classroom--but are no less monumental in their impact."--The Washington Post

"A wonderful collection of essays."--Essence

How would you create a winning pitch for your latest investment idea? Or persuasively argue for a major policy change? Or successfully ask your boss for a raise? The answer: clear and effective communication, whether in writing or through a presentation.

Best-selling author Charles Wheelan has spent decades mastering effective communication skills in his work as a writer, college professor, journalist, speechwriter, political candidate, and public speaker. In Write for Your Life, he shares his best tips. Taking readers through all the steps required to arrive at a coherent first draft, he then explains the best ways to improve and fine-tune your writing. He covers how to organize and present information, why it's necessary to adapt your tone to different audiences, and when to use summaries, sidebars, bullet points, and other tools for making information more digestible. He explores the truth behind popular clichés like "Show, don't tell" and "Kill your darlings," and discusses the proper use and attribution of quotations from secondary sources. And he goes on to cover how to speak effectively, providing helpful advice for preparing a winning presentation or delivering a speech.

Writing with his signature wit and humor, Wheelan illustrates his points with entertaining examples from his own life, as well as memorable anecdotes from leading magazine and newspaper writers, political figures from Winston Churchill to Barack Obama and Elena Kagan, and a diverse array of the best communicators from the worlds of culture, sports, and politics. Write for Your Life is an essential guide for anyone needing to get their ideas across whether in an email, memo, report, presentation, fund-raising letter, or speech.