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Brooms

Jasmine Walls

YALSA TOP 10 GREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR TEENS

Mississippi, 1930s. Magic simmering beneath the surface, kept in check by unjust laws and societal expectations. But for six extraordinary women, the roar of enchanted engines and the thrill of the forbidden broom race offer a chance to rewrite their destinies.
Meet Billie Mae, captain of the Night Storms racing team, and Loretta, her best friend and second-in-command. They''re determined to make enough money to move out west to a state that allows Black folks to legally use magic and take part in national races.
Cheng-Kwan - doing her best to handle the delicate and dangerous double act of being the perfect "son" to her parents, and being true to herself while racing.
Mattie and Emma -- Choctaw and Black -- the youngest of the group and trying to dodge government officials who want to send them and their newly-surfaced powers away to boarding school.
And Luella, in love with Billie Mae. Her powers were sealed away years ago after she fought back against the government. She''ll do anything to prevent the same fate for her cousins.
"Brooms" is a heart-pounding graphic novel soaring with magic, friendship, and rebellion. It''s a Fast and the Furious with broomsticks instead of cars, a historical spotlight on struggles silenced by time, and a celebration of the indomitable spirit that dares to defy the odds. Buckle up, witches and dreamers, for this ride is about to take flight.


P R A I S E

★ "Draws on the fantastical to amplify and confront issues of both the past and the present. The result is a heartfelt, gripping, and resonant story about power--how the majority wields it, and how marginalized groups reclaim it."

--Bulletin of the Center for Children''s Books (starred)

★ "Fascinating... Though readers will enjoy the dramatic racing scenes, this is truly a story about queer folk and people of color who have created a space where they can joyously and freely be themselves."

--Booklist (starred)

★ "Pulse-pounding broom races and comforting domestic sequences... An evocative Fast and the Furious-flavored graphic novel."

--Publishers Weekly (starred) 

"This is the queer, magical, broom-racing version of A League of Their Own that I didn''t know I was missing... The representation in this graphic novel is so diverse and among the best I think I''ve ever seen. It''s clear that Walls and Duvall put equal parts passion and research into this beautiful story. If you don''t read it, you''re missing out."

--Rachel Brittain, Book Riot

"A sweet, entertaining found-family story that weaves magic with historical injustice; recommended for teen graphic novel shelves.

--School Library Journal 

"Six witches get caught up in the excitement and danger of illegal broom racing in an alternate historical Mississippi... highlights the broadly diverse experiences of folks in the South... highlighting the fact that there has always been and will always be room for queer folks in our communities."

--Kirkus 

"[A] mix of exciting racing scenes, a story about overcoming the odds, and mesmerizing depictions of magic, plus some of the not-so-pretty parts of our country''s history, and it''s done in a way that is compassionate and uplifting."

--GeekDad

"Brooms Is Your Next Favorite Fantastical LGBTQIA+ Sports Story"

--The Mary Sue

"Brings vivid characters (queer, broom-racing witches) to life in an equally vivid setting."

--Gizmodo (io9)

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Victory. Stand!

Tommie Smith

A 2022 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Finalist

“Phenomenal . . . Timely and timeless, a must-read not just for sports fans but for everyone.” New York Times Book Review

On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships.

In his first-ever memoir for young readers, Tommie Smith looks back on his childhood growing up in rural Texas through to his stellar athletic career, culminating in his historic victory and Olympic podium protest. Cowritten with Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient Derrick Barnes and illustrated with bold and muscular artwork from Emmy Award–winning illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! paints a stirring portrait of an iconic moment in Olympic history that still resonates today.

 

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We Deserve Monuments

Jas Hammonds

"An absolute must read." Buzzfeed

"A gripping portrayal of the South's inherent racism and a love story for queer Black girls." Teen Vogue

Family secrets, a swoon-worthy romance, and a slow-burn mystery collide in We Deserve Monuments, the award-winning debut novel from Jas Hammonds exploring the ways racial violence can ripple down through generations. 

What’s more important: Knowing the truth or keeping the peace?

Seventeen-year-old Avery Anderson is convinced her senior year is ruined when she's uprooted from her life in DC and forced into the hostile home of her terminally ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty makes for a frosty arrival and unearths past drama they refuse to talk about. Every time Avery tries to look deeper, she’s turned away, leaving her desperate to learn the secrets that split her family in two.

While tempers flare in her avoidant family, Avery finds friendship in unexpected places: in Simone Cole, her captivating next-door neighbor, and Jade Oliver, daughter of the town’s most prominent family—whose mother’s murder remains unsolved.

As the three girls grow closer—Avery and Simone’s friendship blossoming into romance—the sharp-edged opinions of their small southern town begin to hint at something insidious underneath. The racist history of Bardell, Georgia is rooted in Avery’s family in ways she can’t even imagine. With Mama Letty's health dwindling every day, Avery must decide if digging for the truth is worth toppling the delicate relationships she's built in Bardell—or if some things are better left buried.

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Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

Vera Ahiyya

Get Ready for Valentine's Day in this exciting new series for kids who love new experiences and holiday fun! Vera Ahiyya, the Tutu Teacher, knows everything your family needs to get ready... and to celebrate every precious moment!

Includes a pull-out holiday sign for photo opportunities!

It’s time to get ready for Valentine’s Day! Kai's whole class is busily preparing by making friendship cards, decorating homemade mailboxes, and sharing delicious sweets and treats! But Kai and their friends can't help but worry... what if they don't receive any cards at alll? Luckily, their teacher will help the whole class learn the true meaning of friendship!

This edition includes an adorable punch-out sign for Valentine's Day photo opps!

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Grumpy Monkey Valentine Gross-Out

Suzanne Lang

The New York Times #1 bestselling character Jim Panzee is very grumpy about Valentine’s Day until his buddy Norman shows him that the holiday is for everyone. Two pages of full-color stickers are included for extra fun!

This holiday hardcover book is brimming with the same silly humor that characterizes all the beloved titles in the bestselling Grumpy Monkey series. 

When Jim Panzee hears Oxpecker cooing over her doting boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, he has just one thought: Gross. But Jim finds out that not everything about Valentine’s Day is hearts and kisses. Jim learns there are different types of valentines and many kinds of love, such as love for a parent or for friends.

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Valenslime

Joy Keller

A young slime scientist's efforts to make a Valentine's Day friend for her slime explode in Valenslime, a clever and funny picture book companion to Joy Keller and Ashley Belote’s Frankenslime.


Victoria Franken, slime scientist, loved her slime. And her slime loved her back.

Ever since the dark and stormy night when Victoria Franken brought her slime to life, she and Goop have been great friends, but when Valentine's Day rolls around, Victoria comes to the horrifying realization that while she had many friends, Goop only had her.

The only solution is for her to make him a new friend. But when Victoria gets bored waiting for lightning to strike twice, things get a bit out of control!

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How to Catch a Loveosaurus

Alice Walstead

From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling How to Catch series comes an exciting Valentine's Day treat about a rare new creature!

Can you catch the magical Loveosaurus? The How to Catch Kids are on the chase again, this time to trap a dinosaur that escaped from the museum and wants to spread love and kindness. Blending exciting traps and STEAM concepts with hilarity and chaos to encourage reading, learning, and imagination, this charming adventure will delight young readers, families, and educators alike--and maybe inspire spreading some kindness too! This funny children's picture book makes the perfect bedtime read-aloud and Valentine's Day gift for kids ages 4-10!

Have you heard of the Loveosaurus? The first ever found--it's true!

He's on the run spreading kindness and joy, but who will trap him... YOU?

Also in the How to Catch Series:

  • How to Catch a Dinosaur
  • How to Catch a Unicorn
  • How to Catch a Class Pet
  • How to Catch a Gingerbread Man
  • How to Catch a Mermaid
  • and more!
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Cupig: The Valentine's Day Pig

Claire Tattersfield

A comically mismatched Valentine's Day picture book with a clever and hilarious take on Cupid. Introducing Cupig the Valentine's Day pig!

Cupig absolutely loves Valentine's Day. Every year she enjoys spreading love and cheer to every creature, far and near. But when a storm blows through and sends her arrows off course, Cupig accidentally puts arrows in hearts that don't need to be mended. Peanut Butter has stopped loving Jelly! Salt and Pepper have broken up! Needle and Thread are falling apart at the seams! 

Will Cupig ever fix her mistakes and get these classic pairs back together again?

With clever rhyming text and comically expressive art, Cupig is sure to be a Valentine's Day classic for years to come! The perfect Valentine's Day gift and for fans of Little Blue Truck's Valentine, How to Catch a Loveosaurus, and Love from the Crayons!

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Celebrate Love Day!

Alexandra Cassel Schwartz

A new generation of children love Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, inspired by the classic series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood!

Daniel Tiger celebrates Love Day by making cards for the people he loves. This 8x8 storybook comes with eight cardstock love notes that little tigers can give to their family and friends!

It’s Love Day in the neighborhood, and Daniel is giving cards that say “I love you” to his family and friends. Then, he receives an anonymous card in his school cubby. When Daniel figures out who it’s from, he’s in for a wonderful Love Day surprise!

© 2021 The Fred Rogers Company

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If You Were My Valentine

Lynn Plourde

This Valentine-themed follow-up to If I Could Give You Christmas is an adorable celebration of love and the special relationship between parents and children. If you were my valentine,

I would jump, jump with joy!



Valentine's Day is for cuddles, sweet treats, silly games, and spending time with the ones we hold dear. Join all kinds of animals and their valentines--from rabbits and puffins, to cougars and otters, to a bigger-than-big whale--in this cozy picture book celebration of love.

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A Unicorn Named Sparkle and the Perfect Valentine

Amy Young

The fifth book in A Unicorn Named Sparkle series is about finding out there's no perfect way to say "I love you." 

Lucy and a unicorn named Sparkle are back for another funny and sweet adventure.

Valentine’s Day is when you tell the people in your life how much you love them. There's no one Sparkle loves more than Lucy. He decides to make her the perfect valentine. Except, instead of hands, Sparkle has hooves. He can't write and he can't cut. So how is he going to show Lucy that he loves her best of all?

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Love, Violet

Charlotte Sullivan Wild

Stonewall Book Award Winner
Lambda Literary Award Finalist
Charlotte Huck Honor Book 

Perfect for Valentine's Day, Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Charlene Chua is a touching picture book about friendship and the courage it takes to share your feelings.

Only one person
makes Violet’s heart skip

Of all the kids in Violet's class, only one leaves her speechless: Mira, the girl with the cheery laugh who races like the wind. If only they could adventure together! But every time Violet tries to tell Mira how she feels, Violet goes shy. As Valentine's Day approaches, Violet is determined to tell Mira just how special she is.

Charlene Chua’s luminous watercolors bring to life this sweet and gentle picture book about friendship, love, and the courage it takes to share your heart.

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I Love You Every Day

Isabel Otter

Through adorably-illustrated vignettes, this gifty, heartwarming picture book reflects on the meaning of love and the many ways it can be expressed, encouraging readers to embrace the spirit of Valentine's Day every day! With an array of intimate moments showing that love is 'everywhere you look,' I Love You Every Day shares the message that love, hope, kindness, and generosity are relevant all year round. Concentric heart-shaped die-cuts and a special write-in section at the end make this the perfect gift for a loved one.

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Laugh-Out-Loud Valentine's Day Jokes: Lift-The-Flap

Rob Elliott

The #1 bestselling Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids series is bringing giggles to a whole new age group! Get ready for Valentine's Day with this beautifully illustrated lift-the-flap joke book. A great activity book for little ones, including anyone looking for a boredom buster.

Rob Elliott's Laugh-Out-Loud Jokes for Kids series has sold more than 5 million copies. Now his fun-for-the-whole-family collection has been adapted for younger readers and illustrated in full color by Anna Chernyshova. Lift more than a dozen flaps to reveal Valentine's Day-themed jokes and puns that are perfect for the whole family!

Rob Elliott is a trusted resource for funny jokes that are hugely popular with kids. As one reviewed noted, his books have "knock-knock jokes, old classics, and even a few that you probably haven't heard yet, which is a kindness for parents everywhere."

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Good Dirt

Charmaine Wilkerson

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

“Engrossing . . . Wilkerson masterfully weaves these threads of love, loss and legacy [into] a thoroughly researched and beautifully imagined family saga.”—The New York Times

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.

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James

Percival Everett

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE * KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg * A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more.

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

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

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

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

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Horse

Geraldine Brooks

“Brooks’ chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review

Horse isn’t just an animal story—it’s a moving narrative about race and art.” —TIME

“A thrilling story about humanity in all its ugliness and beauty . . . the evocative voices create a story so powerful, reading it feels like watching a neck-and-neck horse race, galloping to its conclusion—you just can’t look away.” —Oprah Daily

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award · Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize · A Massachusetts Book Award Honor Book 

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. 
 
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
 
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
 
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

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The House of Eve

Sadeqa Johnson

“Amazing…I was completely surprised by the ending of this beautifully told and written book.” —Reese Witherspoon

“A triumph of historical fiction” (The Washington Post), an instant New York Times bestseller, and a Reese’s Book Club pick, set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

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Black Cake: A Read with Jenna Pick

Charmaine Wilkerson

NOW A HULU STREAMING SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • Two estranged siblings delve into their mother’s hidden past—and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake—in this immersive family saga, “a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored” (Time). 
  
“Wilkerson transports you across the decades and around the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, and Malibu Rising

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar, Book Riot, She Reads

We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.

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The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie

Rachel Linden

NOW THE HALLMARK CHANNEL FILM THE MAGIC OF LEMON DROPS STARRING LYNDSY FONESCA AND IAN HARDING!

“Heartfelt, heartwarming, joyful, and uplifting. You can't go wrong with a Rachel Linden book.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

An uplifting novel about a heartbroken young pie maker who is granted a magical second chance to live the life she didn’t choose. . . . from the bestselling author of The Enlightenment of Bees.
 
Lolly Blanchard's life only seems to give her lemons. Ten years ago, after her mother’s tragic death, she broke up with her first love and abandoned her dream of opening a restaurant in order to keep her family’s struggling Seattle diner afloat and care for her younger sister and grieving father. Now, a decade later, she dutifully whips up the diner’s famous lemon meringue pies each morning while still pining for all she's lost.  
 
As Lolly’s thirty-third birthday approaches, her quirky great-aunt gives her a mysterious gift—three lemon drops, each of which allows her to live a single day in a life that might have been hers. What if her mom hadn’t passed away? What if she had opened her own restaurant in England? What if she hadn’t broken up with the only man she's ever loved? Surprising and empowering, each experience helps Lolly let go of her regrets and realize the key to transforming her life lies not in redoing her past but in having the courage to embrace her present.

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Beg, Borrow, or Steal

Sarah Adams

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two feuding second-grade teachers (and neighbors) find themselves teaming up in this new rivals-to-lovers romance set in Rome, Kentucky—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Rule Book and Practice Makes Perfect.

“Sarah Adams writes books with heart and soul. They speak to the people finding their way and being unapologetically themselves in the process. I love her style.”—Hannah Grace, author of Icebreaker

Emily Walker hates having her carefully crafted world disrupted by anyone, most of all her legendary nemesis, Jack Bennett. He’s the opposite of the wonderful heroes she dreams up in her double life as a romance writer, which is why Emily was perfectly happy when Jack left Rome, Kentucky, mid-school year with his fiancée. The last thing Emily saw coming was Jack’s return at the start of the summer after calling off the wedding and ending his relationship, but he’s here to stay—as her colleague and her neighbor.

Jack is glad to be back, eager to renovate his house and work on the next mystery novel under his bestselling pen name. But when he realizes he’s now neighbors with the one woman who has always pushed his buttons, he discovers something he’s even more excited about—thwarting Emily and her petty plans to sabotage his return.

With their chemistry-fueled animosity at an all-time high, Emily accidentally sends an email to their school’s principal that could reveal her secret literary side hustle. She needs to steal back her manuscript, and Jack—she hates to admit—is just the man to help her. Surprisingly, he agrees. Will their unlikely alliance put an end to their rivalry? Or could it lead to a steamy plot twist they never saw coming?

Look for all of Sarah Adams’s When in Rome books:
WHEN IN ROME • PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT • BEG, BORROW, OR STEAL (Coming Soon!)

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Out of the Woods

Hannah Bonam-Young

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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Deep End

Ali Hazelwood

A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.
 
Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.
 
So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...

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Let's Call a Truce

Amy Buchanan

LET’S CALL A TRUCE is a sexy contemporary romance about second chances at life and love, bursting with humor and a touch of angst from debut author, Amy Buchanan.

After Juliana Ryan's husband dies unexpectedly, leaving her with two grieving kids and a stunted career from years as a stay-at-home mom, she has no choice but to make it work all on her own. But her confidence crashes around her when she overhears her condescending but infuriatingly attractive new colleague, Ben Thomas, talking about how her kids and inexperience are a liability the company can’t afford. This sets off a feud between the two, as Juliana vows to prove him wrong.

Two years later, their feud rages on, but it may be charged with something they aren't willing to admit. When they are forced onto a career-making project together, Juliana has no choice but to call a truce. As their lives become more intertwined in and out of the office, Juliana finds it hard to ignore Ben’s perpetual smile and charming determination. What started as a truce grows into more, as boardroom-clearing arguments turn to desk-clearing kisses. Could the man she deemed her nemesis understand her life–her stress and responsibilities–better than anyone? 

But just when Juliana decides to open her heart again, Ben’s past threatens their newfound bliss, and she has to figure out whether this second chance at love is worth it after all.

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First-Time Caller

B.K. Borison

A hopeless romantic meets a jaded radio host in this cozy, Sleepless in Seattle–inspired love story from beloved author B.K. Borison.

Aiden Valentine has a secret: he’s fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore’s romance hotline, that’s a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls in to the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight. 

Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job; an incredible family; and a smart, slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life—or lack thereof—she begins to question if she’s as happy as she believed. Maybe a little more romance wouldn’t be such a bad thing. 

Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending…even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final decision between the radio-sponsored happily ever after or the man in the headphones next to her.

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I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com

Kimberly Lemming

A FEBRUARY LIBRARYREADS PICK!

A hilarious and sexy romance about a woman who gets dropped on a strange planet only to fall for not one, but two, aliens, from the author of I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

Dorothy Valentine is close to getting her PhD in wildlife biology when she’s attacked by a lion. On the bright side, she’s saved! On the not-so-bright side, it’s because they’re abducted by aliens. In her scramble to escape, Dory and the lion commandeer an escape pod and crash-land on an alien planet that has...dinosaurs?

Dory and her new lion bestie, Toto, are saved in the nick of time by a mysterious and sexy alien, Sol. On their new adventure, they team up with the equally hot, equally dangerous Lok, who may or may not be a war criminal. Whether it be trauma, fate, or intrigue, Dory can’t resist the attraction that’s developing in their trio....

As this ragtag group of misfits explore their new planet, Dory learns more about how and why they’ve all ended up together, battles more prehistoric creatures than she imagined (she imagined...zero), and questions if she even wants to go back home to Earth in this hilarious and steamy alien romance adventure comedy romp.

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You Don't Know Us Negroes

Zora Neale Hurston

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FROM: Oprah Daily, Business Insider, Marie Claire, The Seattle Times, Lit Hub, Bustle, and New York Magazine's Vulture

Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an archivist and author.

"One of the greatest writers of our time."--Toni Morrison

You Don't Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world's most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston's writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people's inner lives and culture rather than destroying it. She argues that in the process of surviving, Black people re-interpreted every aspect of American culture--"modif[ying] the language, mode of food preparation, practice of medicine, and most certainly religion." White supremacy prevents the world from seeing or completely recognizing Black people in their full humanity and Hurston made it her job to lift the veil and reveal the heart and soul of the race. These pages reflect Hurston as the controversial figure she was--someone who stated that feminism is a mirage and that the integration of schools did not necessarily improve the education of Black students. Also covered is the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing her lover, a white doctor.

Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer's work, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer's development and a window into her world and mind.

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The Wounded World

Chad L. Williams

Named A Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor
Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography 
A MAAH Stone Book Award Finalist 

The dramatic story of W. E. B. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War Iand a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers.

When W. E. B. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to “close ranks” and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. His book, however, remained unfinished. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois’s failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Bois’s struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century.

Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois’s unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. In uncovering what happened to Du Bois’s largely forgotten book, Williams offers a captivating reminder of the importance of World War I, why it mattered to Du Bois, and why it continues to matter today.

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What Makes You Come Alive

Lerita Coleman Brown

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."--Howard Thurman

Known as the godfather of the civil rights movement, Howard Thurman served as a spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders and activists in the 1960s. Thurman championed silence, contemplation, common unity, and nonviolence as powerful dimensions of social change. But Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown didn't learn about him during her years of spiritual-direction training. Only when a friend heard of her longing to encounter the work of Black contemplatives did she finally learn about Thurman, his mystical spirituality, and his liberating ethic.

In What Makes You Come Alive, Brown beckons readers into their own apprenticeship with Thurman. Brown walks with us through Thurman's inimitable life and commitments as he summons us into centering down, encountering the natural world, paying attention to sacred synchronicity, unleashing inner authority, and recognizing the genius of the religion of Jesus. We learn from Thurman's resilience in the psychologically terrorizing climate of the Jim Crow South, his encounters with Quakers and with Mahatma Gandhi, and his sense of being guided by the Spirit. Each chapter illuminates an aspect of Thurman's work and includes reflection questions and spiritual practices.

Decades after their deaths, sages like Howard Thurman offer spiritual kinship and guidance for our contemporary life. Thurman's spirituality enlivened an entire movement, and it can awaken us to intimacy with God and to authentic action today.

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The Truths We Hold

Kamala Harris

The #1 New York Times bestseller

From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America's most inspiring political leaders, comes a book about the core truths that unite us and how best to act upon them.  

"A life story that genuinely entrances." —Los Angeles Times

“An engaging read that provides insights into the influences of [Harris’s] life...Revealing and even endearing.” —San Francisco Chronicle

The daughter of immigrants and civil rights activists, Vice President Kamala Harris was raised in an Oakland, California, community that cared deeply about social justice. As she rose to prominence as one of the political leaders of our time, her experiences would become her guiding light as she grappled with an array of complex issues and learned to bring a voice to the voiceless. 

In The Truths We Hold, she reckons with the big challenges we face together. Drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values as we confront the great work of our day.

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Toni Morrison

Linda Wagner-Martin

A reading of the oeuvre of Toni Morrison—fiction, non-fiction, and other—drawing extensively from her many interviews as well as her primary texts, Toni Morrison: A Literary Life, second edition provides an overview of Morrison’s intellectual growth as an artist. Linda Wagner-Martin aligns Morrison's novels with the works of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, assessing her works as among the most innovative, and most significant, worldwide, of the past fifty plus years. The revised edition includes new discussion of God Help the Child, The Origin of Others, and The Source of Self-Regard. These additions present and intensify scholarship on Morrison’s major literary contributions, but also trace her significant role as a public intellectual, bringing to light the consistency of Morrison’s aesthetic and political visions.


 

 

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Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier

The speeches of film legend Sidney Poitier--given at commencement addresses, awards shows, memorials, and more, on topics ranging from entertainment history to filmmaking, civil rights, and parenthood--come to vibrant life in this inspirational and stunningly packaged volume from the Poitier estate that sheds new light on the trailblazing artist's life and culture of the past century.



Sidney Poitier represented strength, good looks, and above all dignity at a time when Black representation on the screen was so often relegated to servile parts. He broke ground as the top box-office draw in Hollywood at the peak of his career, and was the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Oscar, for his performance in Lillies of the Field (1963). Poitier--who narrowly escaped illiteracy after rising up from an impoverished childhood and the massive obstacles he faced as a Black man in mid-twentieth century America--was also one of the most articulate and sought-after speakers of his day.



This book is a one-of-a-kind collection showcasing the wise, witty, and deeply personal speeches Poitier gave at awards ceremonies, family events, memorials, and more. His salutes to artists such as Dorothy Dandridge, Spencer Tracy, Stanley Kramer, and Denzel Washington offer fresh insight on icons of our time. Poitier's unforgettable cadence and voice are clear as day on the page, sometimes with careful edits and additions written in his own hand. Compiled by his wife, Joanna Poitier, and illustrated by dozens of professional and family photos, this collection stunningly captures all that was remarkable about the man through his own words; archives moments in the history of entertainment, culture, and civil rights; and offers a uniquely inspirational perspective on career, family, art, and life.

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Sacred ground : the Chicago streets of Timuel Black

Black, Timuel D., Jr.,

Timuel Black is an acclaimed historian, activist, and storyteller. Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black chronicles the life and times of this Chicago legend.


Sacred Ground opens in 1919, during the summer of the Chicago race riot, when infant Black and his family arrive in Chicago from Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the first Great Migration. He recounts in vivid detail his childhood and education in the Black Metropolis of Bronzeville and South Side neighborhoods that make up his "sacred ground."

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A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit

Noliwe Rooks

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

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

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

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

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My Remarkable Journey

Katherine G. Johnson

"Katherine Johnson was 97 years old in 2015, when the world caught up to her. That year, President Barack Obama awarded her the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom-the nation's highest civilian honor-for her pioneering work decades earlier as a mathematician on NASA's first flights into space. The next year, a blockbuster movie, Hidden Figures, told the world the story of the West Area Computing unit, where Katherine worked as a human computer among an unheralded cadre of African American female mathematicians. In the days before IBM introduced its first electronic computers and at a time when African Americans were subjected to inferior treatment and status, these brilliant women were among those doing the computations that helped send the United States' first manned spaceflights to the moon. Even among such a talented group, Katherine stood out. Astronaut John Glenn was reluctant to trust her computations of NASA's first electronic computers for the trajectory of his 1962 flight to the moon, until Katherine did the math by hand. "Get the girl," Glenn said then, referring to Katherine. "If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go." Now, in her definitive new memoir, Katherine shares her personal journey from a child prodigy growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to the peaceful centenarian she was in her final days. In A Remarkable Journey: The Wisdom, Grit, and Grace of a Pioneering NASA Mathematician, Katherine wraps her story around some of the basic tenets of her life-the value of knowing that no one is better than you, education is paramount, timing is everything, and asking questions can break barriers. Readers will see this heroine in full dimension-curious "daddy's girl," standout college student, pioneering professional, doting mother, grieving widow, and sage elder. They will hear the wisdom of a woman who handled great fame with genuine humility and great tragedy with enduring hope. They will see the brilliance of a young college student who latched onto a dream, inspired by a college professor who told her she would make a good "research mathematician." She would carry the mantle of that professor, who in 1933 became one of the first African Americans in the country to receive a doctorate in math, only to find his own dreams of becoming a research mathematician crushed by racism. The book moves with Katherine through 100 years of racial history, pausing to show, for example, the influential role that educators at segregated schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities played in nurturing the dreams of trailblazers. In this uplifting narrative, readers see a woman who navigated tough racial terrain with the soft-spoken grace expected of a woman of her era, and the unrelenting grit required to make history and inspire future generations"--

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My People

Charlayne Hunter-Gault



 

"Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an eminent Dean of American journalism, a vital voice whose work chronicled the civil rights movement and so much of what has transpired since then. My People is the definitive collection of her reportage and commentary. Spanning datelines in the American South, South Africa and points scattered in between, her work constitutes a history of our time as rendered by the pen of a singular and indispensable black woman journalist."-Jelani Cobb

From the legendary Emmy Award-winning journalist, a collection of ground-breaking reportage from across five decades which vividly chronicles the experience of Black life in America today.

At just nineteen years old, Charlayne Hunter-Gault made national news after she had mounted a successful legal challenge that culminated in her admission to the University of Georgia in January 1961--making her one of the first two Black students to integrate the institution. As an adult, Charlayne switched from being the subject of news to covering it, becoming one of its most recognized and acclaimed interpreters.

Over more than five decades, this dedicated reporter charted a course through some of the world's most respected journalistic institutions, including The New Yorker, NBC, and the New York Times, where she was often the only Black woman in the newsroom. Throughout her storied career, Charlayne has chronicled the lives of Black people in America--shining a light on their experiences and giving a glimpse into their community as never before. Though she has covered numerous topics and events, observed as a whole, her work reveals the evolving issues at the forefront of Black Americans lives and how many of the same issues continue to persist today.

My People showcases Charlayne's lifelong commitment to reporting on Black people in their totality, "in ways that are recognizable to themselves." Spanning from the Civil Rights Movement through the election and inauguration of America's first Black president and beyond, this invaluable collection shows the breadth and nuance of the Black experience through trials, tragedies, and triumphs of everyday lives.

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The Monster I Am Today

Kevin Simmonds

Leontyne Price remains one of the twentieth century’s most revered opera singers and, notably, the first African American to achieve such international acclaim. In movements encompassing poetry and prose, writer and musician Kevin Simmonds explores Price as an icon, a diva, a woman, and a patriot—and himself as a fan, a budding singer, and a gay man—through passages that move polyphonically through the contested spaces of Black identity, Black sound, Black sensibility, and Black history.

Structured operatically into overture, acts, and postlude, The Monster I Am Today guides the reader through associative shifts from arias like “weather events” and Price’s forty-two-minute final ovation to memories of Simmonds’s coming of age in New Orleans. As he melds lyric forms with the biography of one of classical music’s greatest virtuosos, Simmonds composes a duet that spotlights Price’s profound influence on him as a person and an artist: “That’s how I hear: Her.”

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Medgar and Myrlie

Joy-Ann Reid

#1 New York Times Bestseller

"Medgar Evers deserves a place alongside Malcolm X and Dr. King in our historical memory. Evers, with Myrlie as his partner in activism and in life, was doing civil rights work in the single most hostile and dangerous environment in America."--from Medgar and Myrlie

By MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid, a triumphant work of biography that repositions slain Civil Rights pioneer Medgar Evers at the heart of America's struggle for freedom, and celebrates Myrlie Evers's extraordinary activism after her husband's assassination in the driveway of their Mississippi home.

"I love this book. The empathic, brilliant, and wise Joy Reid has brought us the poignant, fascinating inside story of Medgar and Myrlie Evers, transformational leaders who confronted pure evil and risked their lives to ensure that all American children might grow up in a United States that was more just. As Reid shows us, that painful task is now more urgent than ever." -- Michael Beschloss

Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later, and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing family.

Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, charged with beating back the most intractable and violent resistance to black voting rights in the country. Myrlie served as Medgar's secretary and confidant, working hand in hand with him as they struggled against public accommodations and school segregation, lynching, violence, and sheer despair within their state's "black belt." They fought to desegregate the intractable University of Mississippi, organized picket lines and boycotts, despite repeated terroristic threats, including the 1962 firebombing of their home, where they lived with their three young children.

On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers became the highest profile victim of Klan-related assassination of a black civil rights leader at that time; gunned down in the couple's driveway in Jackson. In the wake of his tragic death, Myrlie carried on their civil rights legacy; writing a book about Medgar's fight, trying to win a congressional seat, and becoming a leader of the NAACP in her own right.

In this groundbreaking and thrilling account of two heroes of the civil rights movement, Joy-Ann Reid uses Medgar and Myrlie's relationship as a lens through which to explore the on-the-ground work that went into winning basic rights for Black Americans, and the repercussions that still resonate today.

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King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY

A finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award | Named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Time

A New York Times bestseller and notable book of 2023 | One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2023

One of The New Yorker’s essential reads of 2023 | A Christian Science Monitor best book of the year | One of Air Mail’s twelve best books of 2023

A Washington Post and national indie bestseller | One of Publishers Weekly’s best nonfiction books of 2023 | One of Smithsonian magazine’s ten best books of 2023

“Supple, penetrating, heartstring-pulling and compulsively readable . . . Eig’s book is worthy of its subject.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

“[King is] infused with the narrative energy of a thriller . . . The most compelling account of King’s life in a generation.” —Mark Whitaker, The Washington Post

“No book could be more timely than Jonathan Eig’s sweeping and majestic new King . . . Eig has created 2023′s most vital tome.” —Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Hailed by The New York Times as “the new definitive biography,” King mixes revelatory new research with accessible storytelling to offer an MLK for our times.

Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family’s origins as well as MLK’s complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father—as well as the nation’s most mourned martyr.

In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history’s greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime.

Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs

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John Lewis

David Greenberg

A New York Times Notable Book of 2024

A comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, “the conscience of the Congress,” drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents.

Born into poverty in rural Alabama, Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. He was a Freedom Rider who helped to integrate bus stations in the South, a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement, the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he made into one of the major civil rights organizations. He may be best remembered as the victim of a vicious beating by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he nearly died.

Greenberg’s biography traces Lewis’s life through the post-Civil Rights years, when he headed the Voter Education Project, which enrolled millions of African American voters across the South. The book reveals the little-known story of his political ascent first locally in Atlanta, and then as a member of Congress. Tapped to be a part of the Democratic leadership in Congress, he earned respect on both sides of the aisle for the sacrifices he had made on behalf of nonviolent integration in the South and came to be known as the “conscience of the Congress.”

Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, Greenberg’s biography captures John Lewis’s influential career through documents from dozens of archives, interviews with hundreds of people who knew Lewis, and long-lost footage of Lewis himself speaking to reporters from his hospital bed following his severe beating on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma. With new details about his personal and professional relationships, John Lewis: A Life is the definitive biography of a man whose heroism during the Civil Rights movement helped to bring America a new birth of freedom.

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Historically Black

Alonzo Vereen

From 2024 Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris to Grammy Award-winning artist Megan Thee Stallion, HBCU attendees phenomenally excel and influence the world. Historically Blackcelebrates the achievements of these individuals and more iconic alumni in this vibrant collection of biographies and illustrated portraits.



The first HBCU was founded in 1837, and today, more than 100 colleges and universities are registered under the HBCU banner. The powerful bonds and traditions from attending an HBCU often extend well beyond attendee's college years -- like the Divine Nine sororities now supporting their Alpha Kappa Alpha sister and 2024 Presidential Nominee, Kamala Harris. Historically Black documents not only HBCU cultural traditions like legacy wielding marching bands and impressive homecomings but also the remarkable stories of former students as their global impact grows.



HBCU attendees in the book include: Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston, Howard Thurman, Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Leontyne Price, Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, John Lewis, Bob Hayes, Oprah Winfrey, Kamala Harris, Hakeem M. Oluseyi, Taraji P. Henson, Erykah Badu, Stacey Abrams, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Chadwick Boseman, Hebru Brantley, Ibram X. Kendi, J.R. Smith, Megan Thee Stallion, and Mo'ne Davis.

 

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HBCU Made

Ayesha Rascoe

In this joyous collection of essays about historically Black colleges and universities, alumni both famous and up-and-coming write testimonials about the schools and experiences that shaped their lives and made them who they are today. Edited by the host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, Ayesha Rascoe--with a distinguished and diverse set of contributors including Oprah Winfrey, Stacey Abrams, and Branford Marsalis, HBCU Made illuminates and celebrates the experience of going to a historically Black college or university. This book is for proud alumni, their loved ones, current students, and anyone considering an HBCU. The first book featuring famous alumni sharing personal accounts of the Black college experience, HBCU Made offers a series of warm, moving, and candid personal essays about the schools that nurtured and educated them. The contributors write about how they chose their HBCU, their first days on campus, the dynamic atmosphere of classes where students were constantly challenged to do their best, the professors who devoted themselves to the students, the marching bands and majorettes and their rigorous training. For some, the choice to attend an HBCU was an easy one, as they followed in the footsteps of their parents or siblings. For others, it was a carefully considered step away from a predominantly white institution to be educated in a place where they would never have to justify their presence. And for some authors here, it was an HBCU that took them in and cared for them like family, often helping them to overcome a rough patch.

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From Here to Equality, Second Edition

William A. Darity

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the early days of Reconstruction, when the U.S. government temporarily implemented a major redistribution of land from former slaveholders to the newly emancipated enslaved. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household has in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. In From Here to Equality, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen confront these injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. After opening the book with a stark assessment of the intergenerational effects of white supremacy on black economic well-being, Darity and Mullen look to both the past and the present to measure the inequalities borne of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, they next assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War. Finally, they offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. Taken individually, any one of the three eras of injustice outlined by Darity and Mullen - slavery, Jim Crow, and modern-day discrimination - makes a powerful case for black reparations. Taken collectively, they are impossible to ignore. --

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The Campus Color Line

Eddie R. Cole

"A stunning and ambitious origins story."—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning and #1 New York Times–bestselling author

The remarkable history of how college presidents shaped the struggle for racial equality


Some of America’s most pressing civil rights issues—desegregation, equal educational and employment opportunities, housing discrimination, and free speech—have been closely intertwined with higher education institutions. Although it is commonly known that college students and other activists, as well as politicians, actively participated in the fight for and against civil rights in the middle decades of the twentieth century, historical accounts have not adequately focused on the roles that the nation’s college presidents played in the debates concerning racism. Based on archival research conducted at a range of colleges and universities across the United States, The Campus Color Line sheds light on the important place of college presidents in the struggle for racial parity.

Focusing on the period between 1948 and 1968, Eddie Cole shows how college presidents, during a time of violence and unrest, strategically, yet often silently, initiated and shaped racial policies and practices inside and outside of the educational sphere. With courage and hope, as well as malice and cruelty, college presidents positioned themselves—sometimes precariously—amid conflicting interests and demands. Black college presidents challenged racist policies as their students demonstrated in the streets against segregation, while presidents of major universities lobbied for urban renewal programs that displaced Black communities near campus. Some presidents amended campus speech practices to accommodate white supremacist speakers, even as other academic leaders developed the nation’s first affirmative action programs in higher education.

The Campus Color Line illuminates how the legacy of academic leaders’ actions continues to influence the unfinished struggle for Black freedom and racial equity in education and beyond.

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America's historically Black colleges & universities : a narrative history from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first century

Bobby L. Lovett

Provides a comprehensive history of America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The book concludes that race, the Civil Rights movements, and black and white philanthropy had much affect on the development of these minority institutions. Northern white philanthropy had much to do with the start and maintenance of the nations HBCUs from 1837 into the 1940s. Even from 1950 to 1970, HBCUs depended upon financial support of philanthropic groups, benevolent societies, and federal and state government agencies, but the survival of HBCUs became dependent mostly on their own creative responses to the changing environment of higher education and have helped to shape our culture and society.
 

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Ain't I an anthropologist : Zora Neale Hurston beyond the literary icon

"Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston's literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what sociocultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to two of Hurston's areas of achievement by examining the critical response to her work across both fields. Drawing on a wide range of readings, Freeman Marshall explores Hurston's popular appeal as iconography, her elevation into the literary canon, her concurrent marginalization in anthropology despite her significant contributions, and her place within constructions of Black feminist literary traditions"-- Provided by publisher.

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You Deserve Good Gelato

Kacie Rose

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In this funny and honest feel-good memoir, social media star Kacie Rose offers a refreshingly honest take on navigating a new life abroad.

In 2021, Kacie decided to leave her life as a pro dancer in New York City and move to Italy - and she never looked back. Okay, that isn't strictly true... In You Deserve Good Gelato, Kacie reflects on everything from travel fails and homesickness to the joy of culture shocks and the power of doing the s*** that scares you. Because life is too short not to.

In this joyful memoir, you will find:


 

  • Personal essays that tell Kacie's story and empower you to challenge yourself
  • A candid outlook on life as an expat, covering everything from the terror of driving on Italian roads to the trials of speaking a new language and the genuine beauty of a slower pace of life
  • Inspirational quotes that encourage you to step out of your comfort zone


 

By sharing her personal stories of life under the Tuscan sun, Kacie explains how travel is a privilege, why cultural differences are the coolest things in the world, and how there's a positive you can take away from literally any situation. You Deserve Good Gelato will have you taking the leap and embracing this big beautiful world that we call home.

New York Times Bestseller - June 2024

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We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay

Gary Janetti

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · A RUPAUL'S BOOK CLUB PICK

A Town & Country Must-Read Book of Summer 2024!

One of Vulture's Best New Audiobooks of 2024.

"A delightful and sharp-witted tour through a lifetime's worth of travel exploits and misadventures. . . . Readers are bound to catch the travel bug."--Publishers Weekly

In this hilarious and often touching collection, the author, television writer, and producer takes us with him on travels across the globe.

Gary Janetti has gained a devoted following, with a huge audience on social media, and two bestselling collections of essays under his belt. His new collection will prompt laughter but also delighted recognition as Janetti tackles the absurdity and glory of travel.

In We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay, he shares stories of his varied trips around the world. Tag along as he enjoys an unexpectedly transformative stay at a rigorous Italian spa where he and his husband go from deep grumpiness to exaltation. Take a ride on the Orient Express to Venice and discover a surprising side of London, including a hilarious dinner with actress Maggie Smith. And pull up a deck chair to watch the entertainment as Gary embarks on a family cruise on the Queen Mary 2.

Interspersed with recollections of his trips are personal meditations on dining alone as well as journeys to such diverse destinations as Mykonos, Australia, a Noma pop-up, and other glamorous spots. Gary is unabashedly frank about his very exacting travel needs, and delivers practical advice on all aspects of the traveler's life, from very precise packing instructions, suggestions on how to get upgrades, and restaurant and hotel recommendations in his favorite cities.

Aspirational, charmingly acerbic, and as diverting as the best vacation can be, delivering both laughs and moments of sharp recognition, Gary's funny collection is the perfect getaway companion, for both seasoned nomads and curious armchair travelers.

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Wander Woman

Beth Santos

"The ideal companion for the solo traveler, both before and during her trip." -- Pauline Frommer 

Achieve your solo female travel dreams with this empowering guide for women who want to see the world--perfect for anyone who has felt the tug of wanderlust after reading Wild, Eat Pray Love, or What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding.



If you've ever wanted to travel solo, founder of global women's travel community Wanderful, Beth Santos, is here to tell you that you're not alone.



Travel isn't just about how many passport stamps you have--it's about your mindset. In Wander Woman, Santos busts myths about who can travel, empowering women to uncover the confidence they need to see the world for themselves, by themselves, and giving them the lifelong tools to challenge your preconceptions, try something new, and get out of your comfort zone--whether that's halfway around the world or just down the street. 



Readers will also learn...

  • A new rubric for personal safety that pushes back on traditional ideas of what's "safe" for women.
  • How to eat alone (and not have to make awkward small talk with the waiter).
  • Why a "Day Zero" will revolutionize your itinerary.
  • Where to find community and a new perspective on what "counts" as solo travel
  • How to travel ethically, sustainably, and in budget.



As much a how-to guide as it is a source of inspiration and support, Wander Woman invites us to be mindful about why we travel, who it affects, and how we can make it better for everyone.



Whether you're ready to chase your Under the Tuscan Sun fantasy, are preparing for study abroad, or just want to feel more comfortable on business trips, Wander Woman is your must-have guide to exploring the world without fear.

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Top 10 Montreal and Quebec City

Annelise Sorensen

"Montreal and Quebec City abound with history and culture. A profusion of world-class museums, art galleries, historic churches, châteaux, landscaped-parks and year-round festivals has ensconced these cities as Canada's cultural capitals. Your DK Eyewitness Top 10 travel guide ensures you'll find your way around Montreal and Quebec City with absolute ease. Our newly updated Top 10 travel guide breaks down the best of Montreal and Quebec City into helpful lists of ten -- from our own selected highlights to the best museums and galleries, places to eat, shops and festivals. You'll discover seven easy-to-follow itineraries, perfect for a two day or week-long trip; detailed Top 10 lists of Montreal and Quebec City's must-sees, including detailed descriptions of Parc du Mont-Royal, Basilique Notre-Dame, Parc Olympique, Musée Pointe-à-Callière, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, La Citadelle, Musée de la Civilisation de Québec, Basilique Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Île d'Orléans and Les Laurentides; Montreal and Quebec City's most interesting areas, with the best places for shopping, sightseeing and sampling local cuisine; Inspiration for different things to enjoy during your trip - including family activities, festivals and national holidays as well as things to do for free; [and] A laminated pull-out map of the two cities featuring the Montreal Metro map, plus 5 color neighborhood maps. Streetsmart advice: get ready, get around and stay safe. A lightweight format perfect for your pocket or bag when you're on the move"-- Provided by Amazon.

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DK Eyewitness South Africa

DK Eyewitness

From the wilds of Kruger National Park, to cosmopolitan Cape Town, to the lush western cape winelands, to the stunning beaches along the Garden Route, this guide leads you straight to the greatest attractions this fascinating and varied country has to offer. Get insider tips on everything from the best shopping, restaurants, and hotels, to outdoor activities such as whale-watching, surfing, and hiking, as well as practical information on how to get around. As a bonus, a comprehensive field guide—which includes the birds of South Africa—helps you get the most out of your time on safari.

Discover DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: South Africa.

   • Hotel and restaurant listings and recommendations. 
   • Detailed itineraries and "don't-miss" destination highlights at a glance. 
   • Illustrated cutaway 3-D drawings of important sights. 
   • Floor plans and guided visitor information for major museums. 
   • Free, color pull-out map (print edition) marked with sights, a selected site and street index, public transit map, practical information on getting around, and a distance chart for measuring walking distances. 
   • Guided walking tours, local drink and dining specialties to try, things to do, and places to eat, drink, and shop by area. 
   • Area maps marked with sights and restaurants. 
   • Detailed city maps include street finder index for easy navigation. 
   • Insights into history and culture to help you understand the stories behind the sights. 
   • Suggested day-trips and itineraries to explore beyond the city. 
 

With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that illuminate every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: South Africa truly shows you this country as no one else can.

Series Overview: For more than two decades, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides have helped travelers experience the world through the history, art, architecture, and culture of their destinations. Expert travel writers and researchers provide independent editorial advice, recommendations, and reviews. With guidebooks to hundreds of places around the globe available in print and digital formats, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides show travelers how they can discover more.

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The Rough Guide to Slow Travel in Europe

Rough Guides

The Rough Guide to Slow Travel in Europe -- the latest picture-packed addition to Rough Guides' Inspiration range -- reveals 28 inspirational journeys across Europe by rail, road and sea in a brand-new coffee-table book.

From scenic rail journeys to remote road trips and epic hikes, The Rough Guide to Slow Travel in Europe highlights 28 no-fly adventures across Europe in this photo-rich, first edition gift book. As such, it's the ideal gift for intrepid travellers who are looking to reduce their carbon footprint and seek sustainable alternatives.

Slow travel is as much about the journey as the destination, so every itinerary has been carefully handpicked by Rough Guides' dedicated team of experts. From a wild camping adventure through Sweden to an extraordinary train odyssey from Berlin to Istanbul, this brand-new book aims to inspire readers to embrace immersive travel.

At once inspirational and practical, each route will include a map, practical travel information and a short guide for each destination, including what to see and do, plus recommendations of independent shops, locally run hotels and restaurants.

With every itinerary and recommendation selected by expert Rough Guides' authors and editors, this brand-new book arms travellers with top tips and visual inspiration that'll enthuse them to get out there and explore the world in a more planet-friendly way.

Features of The Rough Guide to Slow Travel in Europe
- Stylish picture-packed coffee-table book with practical travel tips, maps and itineraries 
- Ideal gift for intrepid travellers who want to minimise their impact on the world they're exploring 
- Suffused in Rough Guides' "tell it like it is" ethos, and curated by Rough Guides' team of expert authors and editors

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The Rough Guide to the Top LGBTQ+ Friendly Places in the USA and Canada

Rough Guides

The Rough Guide to the Top LGBTQ+ Friendly Places in the USA & Canada - the latest picture-packed addition to Rough Guides' Inspiration range - reveals 24 destinations that will enthuse and reward LGBTQ+ travellers in a brand-new, inspirational coffee-table book.

From vibrant and edgy cities, to beauty spots and activities, the image-rich Rough Guide to the Top LGBTQ+ Friendly Places in the USA & Canada showcases 24 exceptional destinations that are renowned for being LGBTQ+-friendly, and for having notable LGBTQ+ connections.

The expert-selected destinations are organised by season to encourage rewarding year-round trip experiences for LGBTQ+ travellers.

Every destination entry boasts a pithy overview of what makes it special, with historic LGBTQ+- context, plus information about a renowned LGBTQ+ figure connected to the place.

Enlivened by photos, every entry also includes essential tips on what to see and do, with recommendations for the best places to eat, drink, sleep and shop.

Throughout, engaging text and inviting images combine to give a strong flavour of each destination, with a focus on what makes each spot rewarding and unmissable for LGBTQ+ travellers.

Features of The Rough Guide to the Top LGBTQ+ Friendly Places in the USA & Canada
- Uncovers the top 18 LGBTQ+ destinations to visit in the USA and the top 6 in Canada
- Stylish coffee-table book packed with inspiring photographs
- Includes historic context, and profiles of renowned local LGBTQ+ figures
- Suffused in Rough Guides' "tell it like it is" ethos, and curated by expert authors and editors
- Organised by season to inspire rewarding travel around the year

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Rough guide to Bath, Bristol & Somerset

Andrew Roberts, Keith Drew

This Bath, Bristol & Somerset guidebook is perfect for independent travellers planning a longer trip. It features all of the must-see sights and a wide range of off-the-beaten-track places. It also provides detailed practical information on preparing for a trip and what to do on the ground. And this Bath, Bristol & Somerset travel guidebook is printed on paper from responsible sources, and verified to meet the FSC's strict environmental and social standards.

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Rick Steves Europe through the Back Door

Rick Steves

With Rick Steves Europe Through the Back Door, you'll learn how to: Plan your itinerary and maximize your time ; Pack light and right ; Find good-value hotels and restaurants ; Travel smoothly by train, bus, car, and plane ; Avoid crowds and tourist scams ; Hurdle the language barrier ; Understand cultural differences and connect with locals ; Save money while enjoying the trip of a lifetime ; Travel safely and hygienically in the wake of Covid-19"--provided by publisher.

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Off the Rails

Beppe Severgnini

In this witty and entertaining collection of travel tales, an acclaimed journalist explores his obsession with trains--and what his rail journeys have taught him about culture and identity.

"I've gone around the world in installments. Every trip has been a revelation. I've watched regions, nations, and continents change moods and I've met more people on trains than in forty years of airplane flights. Every train trip has been a spectacle. Trains are stages, cafés, bazaars. The only talk show that will never go off the air..."

Beppe Severgnini has spent his life traveling the world, and not just because he's a journalist; he's a passionate, unflagging train buff. Off the Rails recounts some of his favorite trips across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States, each journey bringing readers not only to a different place but to a different time, from his honeymoon on the Trans-Siberian Express (in a four-person compartment!), to a winding journey from Russia to Turkey during the last summer of communism, to a recent coast-to-coast trip with his son from Washington, D.C., to Washington State.

Off the Rails is the perfect getaway for anyone with a touch of wanderlust, who dreams of escape or just likes to laugh. Filled with memorable characters and perceptive observations, it demonstrates--hilariously--what unites us.

With the world in chaos and life in perpetual fast-forward, it's always the right time to hop on board with Beppe Severgnini and meet your charming, hapless, quarrelsome, romantic, shifty, quirky, endearing neighbors.

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National Geographic Bucket List Family Travel

Jessica Gee

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BEST-SELLER!

In this indispensable guide by the mega-popular Bucket List Family, discover expert tips for traveling with kids and 50 not-to-be-missed destination itineraries.

As a family of five, the Bucket List Family has swum with whales in Tonga, slept in castles in Ireland, lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam, eaten breakfast with giraffes in Kenya, spent Halloween in Disneyland, and visited more than 90 countries around the world. Now, Jessica Gee brings her tips and tricks to you in the ultimate expert's guide to traveling as a family.

This beautifully illustrated guide provides all the know-how to fulfill your own family's bucket list--including how-tos for picking a destination, packing, budgeting, and even surviving a 12-hour plane ride. Along with personal family anecdotes, Jess offers 50 itineraries for family-friendly destinations and inspiring top-10 lists with destinations for every age. You'll learn everything you need to know to take a family vacation to:

 

  • South Africa, where you can walk on a beach with penguins
  • Utah, where ice castles bring a world of magic to a vacation full of natural wonders
  • Berlin, where holidays come to life at beloved Christmas markets
  • The Galapagos, where your kids will squeal with joy as they encounter penguins and larger-than-life tortoises
  • Alaska, where you'll feel you've gone truly wild in the last frontier
  • And so much more!


This insider's guide from one of the world's most traveled families will inspire you to create new and lasting memories with your family for years to come.

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Moon Lisbon and Beyond

Carrie-Marie Bratley

From the vibrant azulejo tiles and colorful rooftops to the warm, golden coastline, get to know the charming City of Seven Hills with Moon Lisbon & Beyond. Inside you'll find:

  • Strategic, flexible itineraries designed for visiting top sights and local favorites, whether you have a few days, a week, or longer
  • Must-see highlights and unique experiences: Hop on a tram to explore the hilly capital and marvel at 11th century castles. Shop for artisan treasures at a local flea market or soak up the vibrant colors of Lisbon's famous tiles at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo. Enjoy mouthwatering pasteis de Belém, order fresh grilled sardines at an outdoor bar, and people-watch as you snack on local cheese and charcuterie. Catch a traditional folk music show in a neighborhood fado house, chat with locals over a pint in a cozy pub, and sample delicious regional vintages at a hip wine bar
  • Get outside the city: Escape the crowds with an easy day trip or short overnight stay. Venture through the fascinating Chapel of Bones in Évora, go surfing in Ericeira, relax by the tranquil river in Tomar, or marvel at grand palaces in Sintra
  • Trusted, expert advice from longtime Portugal resident Carrie-Marie Bratley
  • Background information on the city's history and culture, plus handy tips for getting around, traveling sustainably, avoiding crowds, and supporting local businesses
  • Full-color photos and detailed maps throughout, plus a fold-out map
  • In-depth coverage of neighborhoods, like Baixa, Chiado, Bairro Alto, and Belém, and nearby regions, including the Setúbal Peninsula, the Portuguese Riviera, and the Costa da Caparica

Explore at your own pace and savor the city like a local with Moon Lisbon & Beyond. Visiting more of Europe? Check out Moon Norway or Moon Rome, Florence & Venice.



About Moon Travel Guides: Moon was founded in 1973 to empower independent, active, and conscious travel. We prioritize local businesses, outdoor recreation, and traveling strategically and sustainably. Moon Travel Guides are written by local, expert authors with great stories to tell--and they can't wait to share their favorite places with you.



For more inspiration, follow @moonguides on social media.

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Just Go

Drew Binsky

USA TODAY BESTSELLER

Popular travel YouTuber and content creator Drew Binsky, who has visited every single country, walks readers through the most amazing places in the world and shares everything you need to know to go anywhere you want.

In 2021, Drew Binsky completed his 10-year journey to travel to every country in the world—all 197 of them. Now, for the first time, Drew reveals his craziest stories and best moments, even from places the UN deems the most “dangerous” like Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. 

As you’ll discover with Drew as your guide, the world is more accessible than you think—and no matter where we’re from, people around the globe have more in common with us than differences. 

Just Go offers readers the adventure of a lifetime, presenting not only the tricks Drew himself used in his trips, but also the best-kept secrets from every corner of the world. Just Go is equally a practical handbook for globetrotters and aspiring travelers as it is an intimate and heartwarming celebration of people and cultures all over.

In this fun and friendly guide, Drew will show you how to:
 

  • Obtain visas for obscure destinations
  • Make fast friends with trustworthy locals
  • Find and enjoy street food like a pro
  • Navigate language barriers
  • Have the greatest adventure of your life


As one of the few people who traveled the globe in 2020, Drew witnessed and recorded the pandemic response in countries everywhere—and realized how crucial it is for the world to reconnect. In Just Go, filled with photos, stories, and tips Drew has never before shared, you’ll find the toolkit and the inspiration to do just that: get out there and go wherever you want!

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Lonely Planet Iceland

Meena Thiruvengadam

Lonely Planet's local travel experts reveal all you need to know to plan the trip of a lifetime to Iceland.

Discover popular and off the beaten track experiences from sailing among majestic icebergs in Iceland's most famous glacier lagoon, Jökulsárlón; to devouring lobster at the authentic small-town festival of Humarhátíð; and exploring Þingvellir National Park on horseback.

Build a trip to remember with Lonely Planet's Iceland Travel Guide:

  • Our classic guidebook format provides you with the most comprehensive level of information for planning multi-week trips
  • Updated with an all new structure and design so you can navigate Iceland and connect experiences together with ease
  • Create your perfect trip with exciting itineraries for extended journeys combined with suggested day trips, walking tours, and activities to match your passions
  • Get fresh takes on must-visit sights and swim between the continents at Silfra Fissure, explore Katla Geopark, hike through Snæfellsjökull National Park
  • Special features on capturing the Northern Lights, Reykjavik food and nightlife, and road trip through the Westfjords
  • Expert local recommendations on when to go, eating, drinking, nightlife, shopping, accommodation, adventure activities, festivals, and more
  • Essential information toolkit containing tips on arriving; transport; making the most of your time and money; LGBTIQ+ travel advice; useful words and phrases; accessibility; and responsible travel
  • Connect with Icelandic culture through stories that delve deep into local life, history, and traditions
  • Inspiring full-colour travel photography and maps including a pull out map of Reykjavik
  • Covers Reykjavik, Southwest Iceland & the Golden Circle, Southeast Iceland, West Iceland, The Westfjords, North Iceland, East Iceland, The Highlands

 

Create a trip that's uniquely yours and get to the heart of this extraordinary country with Lonely Planet's Iceland.

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Hidden Pockets in Kyoto

Steve Wide

Hidden Pockets in Kyoto is your guide to losing yourself in this Japanese city that seamlessly intertwines modern and traditional influences. Whether you're satisfying your tastebuds in contemporary cafes, wandering among the untarnished architecture of Gion, or heading back in time while visiting ancient temples and shrines, Kyoto is a captivating city to explore.

Curated by authors Steve Wide and Michelle Mackintosh, who consider Japan their 'home away from home', this travel guide navigates the country's cultural capital like a local, with chapters for kissatens (coffee shops), gardens, temples, omiyage (local products), mindful experiences and places to enjoy delectable sweets. Build your day with a variety of half-day and full-day itineraries and bask in Kyoto's seasonal beauty as you explore lantern-lit alleys that reveal the city's unique precincts, and uncover hidden artisanal treasures and flavours that will challenge and delight your senses.

Venture beyond the metropolis to unearth the heart of the city with this Curious Travel Guide.

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Fodor's Essential Croatia

Fodor's Travel Guides

Whether you want to explore Dubrovnik's Old Town, go sailing in Split, or drink wine in Istria, the local Fodor's travel experts in Croatia are here to help! Fodor's Essential Croatia guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos.

Fodor's "Essential" guides have been named by Booklist as the Best Travel Guide Series of 2020.

Fodor's Croatia travel guide includes:

  • AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and do
  • MULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your time
  • MORE THAN 25 DETAILED MAPS to help you navigate confidently
  • COLOR PHOTOS throughout to spark your wanderlust!
  • HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LOCALS on the best sights, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, performing arts, activities, and more
  • PHOTO-FILLED "BEST OF" FEATURES on "Best Islands in Croatia", "What to Eat and Drink in Croatia", and more
  • TRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and money
  • HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local people, politics, art, architecture, cuisine, geography and more
  • SPECIAL FEATURES on "Cruising and Sailing in Croatia" and "Wine in Croatia"
  • LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gems
  • CROATIAN LANGUAGE PRIMERS with useful words and essential phrases
  • UP-TO-DATE COVERAGE ON: Dubrovnik, Split, Istria, Hvar, Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Krk, Zadar, Montenegro, Slovenia, and more

Planning on visiting the rest of Europe? Check out Fodor's Essential Europe.

*Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition.

ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor's has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us @FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us!

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Fodor's Cancún and the Riviera Maya

Fodor's Travel Guides

Whether you want to party in Cancún, snorkel in Cozumel, or explore Mayan ruins and cenotes in Tulum, the local Fodor's travel experts in Mexico are here to help! Fodor's Cancún and the Riviera Maya guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has been fully-redesigned with an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos.

Fodor's Cancún & The Riviera Maya travel guide includes:

 

  • AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and do
  • MULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your time
  • MORE THAN 30 DETAILED MAPS to help you navigate confidently
  • COLOR PHOTOSthroughout to spark your wanderlust!
  • HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LOCALS on the best sights, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, activities, and more
  • PHOTO-FILLED "BEST OF" FEATURES on "Best Beaches," "Best Snorkeling and Diving," and more
  • TRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and money
  • HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local people, history, architecture, cuisine, geography and more
  • SPECIAL FEATURES on "Chichén Itzá," "Ancient Architects: The Maya," "Cozumel's Diving and Snorkeling," and "What to Eat and Drink"
  • LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gems
  • SPANISH LANGUAGE PRIMER with useful words and essential phrases
  • UP-TO-DATE COVERAGE ON: Cancún, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, The Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Cobá, The Costa Maya, Reserva de la Biósfera Sian Ka'an, Cozumel, Yucatán, Mérida, Uxmal, The Ruta Puuc, Chichén Itzá, Progreso, Isla Holbox, and much more.

 

Planning on visiting other beach destinations in Mexico? Check out Fodor's Puerto Vallarta and Fodor's Los Cabos.

*Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition.

ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor's has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us@FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us!

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The Countryside

Corinne Fowler

An Air Mail Editors’ Pick

Ten walks through idyllic scenery reveal rural Britain’s forgotten links to transatlantic slavery and colonialism—a “revelatory travelogue-cum-exposé” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) that will transform our understanding of the English countryside and its heritage.

For centuries, the green fields, rugged highlands, and rolling hills of England, Scotland, and Wales have captured the global imagination as backdrops for the tales of adventure and seclusion that have become enduring symbols of British culture. But beneath the romantic perception of these rural locales—grand country estates, shoreline villages, and inland hamlets alike—is a past and present irrevocably shaped by British transatlantic slavery and colonialism.

Over the course of ten country walks, scholar Corinne Fowler explores the unique colonial dimensions of British labor history, from agriculture to copper-mining, coastal trade to factory work. One route explores banking history in Southern England and its link to slavery on Louisianan plantations; another uncovers the historical impact of sugar profits on the Scottish isles and 18th-century tobacco imports on an English port. Each walk not only offers a fascinating exploration of the heart of British rural life, but also exposes its inextricable connection to colonial activity in the farthest reaches of the British empire.

Accompanying the author on her walks are a fascinating group of people—artists, musicians, and writers—with strong attachments to the landscapes featured in this book and family links to former British colonies like Barbados and Senegal. Alongside these companions, Fowler illuminates the meaning of colonial history in local settings. Crucially, this is not just a history book but “a deftly critical, readable contribution to the historiography of empire” (Kirkus Reviews)—a compassionate reflection on the way we respond to sensitive, shared histories which link people across cultures, generations, and political divides.

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Berlin Travel Guide

Captivating Travels

If you want to explore everything Berlin has to offer without the hassle of getting lost or missing out on hidden gems, then keep reading...

 

Have you ever dreamed of strolling beneath the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate?

 

Have you pictured yourself sipping a frothy cappuccino in a trendy Mitte café?

 

Do you yearn to lose yourself in the electrifying beats of a Kreuzberg techno club?

 

If these ideas of adventure ignite a spark within you, then "Berlin Travel Guide" is your passport to a city unlike any other. Inside this book, you'll find more than maps and tourist traps.

 

You'll discover:

 

 

This Berlin Travel Guide will transform your trip from a sightseeing checklist to an unforgettable journey. Discover the city's soul, savor its secrets, and create memories that will last a lifetime.

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Berlin. the Architecture Guide

Rainer Haubrich

An authoritative guidebook in chronological order whereby the buildings can be understood in their respective architectural-historical context.

Berlin is not just the capital city and largest metropolis in Germany. It is also characterised by its most varying architectural landscape. The present architecture guide, now in its latest expanded and updated version, creates comprehensive access to this amazing spectrum.

Proven experts guide the reader through all the historical architectural eras - from the Middle Ages right through the present. The chronological sequence and the high-quality color photos clearly reflect the typical characteristic of every era. As well as over 500 individual buildings, the most prominent architects of Berlin and every era are introduced and protrayed.
 

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Moon Atlantic Canada

Andrew Hempstead

From rugged coastline and uninhabited islands, to charming seaside towns full of friendly locals, experience the best of this adventurous region with Moon Atlantic Canada. Inside you'll find:

  • Strategic, flexible itineraries including scenic drives, aquatic adventures, and the two-week best of Atlantic Canada, designed for outdoor enthusiasts, families, history buffs, and more
  • Unique experiences and outdoor experiences: Kayak to a remote island for a picnic lunch, or sample local oysters at a waterfront restaurant. Drive the Cabot Trail or the Irish Loop and take in the stunning scenery, or bike through UNESCO protected towns. Relax at quaint colonial inns, or camp out under the stars. See if you can spot one of the world's rarest whales, or indulge your literary side by visiting sights from Anne of Green Gables
  • Expert advice from local Andrew Hempstead on when to go, where to stay, and how to get around
  • Full-color photos and detailed maps throughout
  • In-depth coverage of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador
  • Background information on the landscape, culture, history, and environment

With Moon's practical tips and local insight on the best things to do and see, you can experience the best of Atlantic Canada.

Sticking to one province? Check out Moon Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island.

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Be a King

Carole Boston Weatherford

You can be a King. Stamp out hatred. Put your foot down and walk tall.

You can be a King. Beat the drum for justice. March to your own conscience.

Featuring a dual narrative of the key moments of Dr. King's life alongside a modern class as the students learn about him, Carole Weatherford's poetic text encapsulates the moments that readers today can reenact in their own lives. See a class of young students as they begin a school project inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and learn to follow his example, as he dealt with adversity and never lost hope that a future of equality and justice would soon be a reality. As times change, Dr. King's example remains, encouraging a new generation of children to take charge and change the world . . . to be a King.

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Martin Luther King Jr.: Voice for Equality!

James Buckley

A graphic biography of civil rights leader and American icon Martin Luther King Jr.

This graphical biography tells the story of the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement. With full-color illustrations and a historically accurate narrative, Martin Luther King Jr.: Voice for Equality! will inform and entertain readers of all ages. From his childhood in Atlanta to his rise as an international icon of human rights and a fiery orator who refused to back down in the face of adversity, King’s life story serves as an ongoing source of inspiration. 
 

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Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Sally Lee

Martin Luther King Jr. led the American civil rights movement in the mid-1900s. His holiday honors this man who continues to inspire Americans to work toward equality more than 50 years after his death. Readers will learn about Martin Luther King Jr., the holiday named for him, and how they can continue to promote and celebrate equality today.

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Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'round

Kathlyn J. Kirkwood

This brilliant memoir-in-verse tells the moving story of how a nation learned to celebrate a hero. Through years of protests and petition, Kathlyn's story highlights the foot soldiers who fought to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday.

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round is a deeply moving middle grade memoir about what it means to be an everyday activist and foot solider for racial justice, as Kathlyn recounts how, drawn to activism from childhood, she went from attending protests as a teenager to fighting for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday to become a national holiday as an adult. A blueprint for kids starting down their own paths to civic awareness, it shows life beyond protests and details the sustained time, passion, and energy it takes to turn an idea into a law.

Deftly weaving together monumental historical events with a heartfelt coming-of-age story and in-depth information on law making, Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round is the perfect engaging example of how history can help inform the present.

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Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?: A Who Was? Board Book

Lisbeth Kaiser

Introducing the latest addition to the Who HQ program: board book biographies of relevant and important figures, created specifically for the preschool audience!

The #1 New York Times Bestselling Who Was? series expands into the board book space, bringing age-appropriate biographies of influential figures to readers ages 2-4. 

The chronology and themes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s meaningful life are presented in a masterfully succinct text, with just a few sentences per page. The fresh, stylized illustrations are sure to captivate young readers and adults alike. With a read-aloud biographical summary in the back, this age-appropriate introduction honors and shares the life and work of one of the most influential civil rights activists of our time.

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Love Will See You Through

Angela Farris Watkins

The niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. reveals six timeless and universal principles that encompass the civil rights leader’s greatest legacy: Love will see you through.

Growing up as the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Farris Watkins witnessed firsthand the principles and values that “Uncle M.L.” practiced and lived by throughout his fight for equality. Drawing from experiences and episodes both personal and well-known, Dr. Watkins artfully details the guiding beliefs of one of the greatest men in history. Including “have courage” and “love your enemies,” these six hallmarks of virtue and nonviolence reinforce the truth that “the universe honors love” and will inspire readers of all ages.

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The Story of Martin Luther King Jr.

Christine Platt

Discover the life of Martin Luther King Jr.—a story about standing up for civil rights for kids ages 6 to 9

Martin Luther King Jr. became one of the most important civil rights leaders in America by fighting for equality for Black people. Before he made history with his powerful speeches and peaceful protests, Martin was a dedicated, smart kid who loved to learn. He challenged racism and overcame hardships to follow his passion and do the right thing. Explore how Martin went from being a kid with a dream to an outstanding leader who made America a better place for everyone.

 

  • Independent reading—This Martin Luther King Jr. biography is broken down into short chapters and simple language so kids 6 to 9 can read and learn on their own.
  • Critical thinking—Kids will learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Martin's life, find definitions of new words, discussion questions, and more.
  • A lasting legacy—Find out how Martin made the world a more equal place for future generations in this African American history book for kids.



How will Martin Luther King Jr.'s life inspire you?

Discover activists, artists, athletes, and more from across history with the rest of The Story Of series, including famous figures like Ella Fitzgerald, Simone Biles, Sojourner Truth, Barack Obama, and John Lewis.

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Martin's Big Words

Doreen Rappaport

This picture book biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brings his life and the profound nature of his message to young children through his own words. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most influential and gifted speakers of all time. Doreen Rappaport uses quotes from some of his most beloved speeches to tell the story of his life and his work in a simple, direct way. Bryan Collier's stunning collage art combines remarkable watercolor paintings with vibrant patterns and textures. A timeline and a lsit of additional books and web sites help make this a standout biography of Dr. King.

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I've Seen the Promised Land

Walter Dean Myers

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of the most celebrated figures of the twentieth century. A crusader for nonviolent social justice, he led African Americans in their demands for equality through peaceful protests during one of the most tumultuous times in recent history.

Set against key moments in the civil rights movement, here is the story of the powerful, eloquent spiritual leader and his belief that nonviolence could be used to overcome racial discrimination.

Walter Dean Myers's moving narrative and Leonard Jenkins's compelling paintings portray a vivid and striking image of the man who moved American society closer to the ideals of freedom and fairness. Dr. King's dream that all Americans would be judged by their individual actions and character is one we still cherish today.

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A Place to Land

Barry Wittenstein

As a new generation of activists demands an end to racism, A Place to Land reflects on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and the movement that it galvanized.

Winner of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children
Selected for the Texas Bluebonnet Master List

Much has been written about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington. But there's little on his legendary speech and how he came to write it. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was once asked if the hardest part of preaching was knowing where to begin. No, he said. The hardest part is knowing where to end. "It's terrible to be circling up there without a place to land."

Finding this place to land was what Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled with, alongside advisors and fellow speech writers, in the Willard Hotel the night before the March on Washington, where he gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech. But those famous words were never intended to be heard on that day, not even written down for that day, not even once.

Barry Wittenstein teams up with legendary illustrator Jerry Pinkney to tell the story of how, against all odds, Martin found his place to land.

An ALA Notable Children's Book
A Capitol Choices Noteworthy Title
Nominated for an NAACP Image Award
A Bank Street Best Book of the Year
A Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
A Booklist Editors' Choice
Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal
Selected for the CBC Champions of Change Showcase

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March On!

Christine King Farris

From Dr. Martin Luther King's sister, the definitive tribute to the man, the march, and the speech that changed a nation.On a hot August day in 1963, hundreds of thousands of people made history when they marched into Washington, D.C., in search of equality. Martin Luther King, Jr., the younger brother of Christine King Farris, was one of them.Martin was scheduled to speak to the crowds of people on that day. But before he could stand up and inspire a nation, he had to get down to business. He first had to figure out what to say and how to say it. So he spent all night working on his "I Have a Dream" speech, one that would underscore a landmark moment in civil rights history--the Great March on Washington. This would be one of the first events televised all over the globe. The world would be listening, as one of the greatest orators of our time shared his vision for a new day.From the sister of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., comes this moving account of what that day was like for her, and for the man who inspired a crowd--and convinced a nation to let freedom ring.London Ladd's beautiful full-color illustrations bring to life the thousands of people from all over the country who came to the nation's capital. They sing, they join hands, they march, and they listen as speaker after speaker inspires social change, culminating in Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

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I Love Lunar New Year

Eva Wong Nava

Join Mai-Anne and her family as they celebrate Lunar New Year festivities!

 

It's almost Lunar New Year! Join Mai-Anne and her family as they prepare for a day of fun traditions!

 

Mai-Anne can't wait to participate in all of her favorite holiday traditions: hanging up red lanterns, eating a delicious Reunion Dinner, and listening to her Nai Nai recount the tale of the Great Race!

 

With gorgeous art, fantastic folk-tale imagery, and a heartwarming representation of familial love, this sweet story is a perfect read for all-year round!

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Lunar New Year

Natasha Yim

Lunar New Year captures the magic of the celebration by exploring how Ling and her family enjoy the biggest Chinese festival of the year.

The new year festival lasts for 15 days full of preparation, celebration, and symbolism. Join Ling, her sister Mei and granny Po Po as they clean the house from top to bottom, pick fresh flowers from the garden, visit friends and family, and carry red lanterns through their neighborhood. Ling invites the reader into her home and family, allowing the reader to experience this special celebration first-hand through an authentic narrative non-fiction story.

A fun16-page 'factivity' section follows the story and delves into more detail about how the festival is celebrated in China and beyond. Enriching activities are also included, such as guess the riddle, make your own red envelope, and a recipe to make delicious Lunar New Year 'pot sticker' dumplings. 

Learn all about the magic of Lunar New Year, by exploring:

  • The preparations in the lead-up to the festival
  • The Reunion dinner on New Year's Eve
  • New Year's day fireworks
  • Dragon dancing and the New Year Monster
  • The lantern festival

... and more! 

In the Celebrations & Festivals series, you are invited into a family's celebrations as you explore the magic and excitement of religious and cultural festivals around the world. The heart-warming story is followed by a fun 'factivity' section packed with information on the festival in more detail along with activities, recipes, and craft projects to enjoy. 

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Lunar New Year

Mary Man-Kong

Celebrate the Lunar New Year and learn about all of its traditions with this Big Golden Book!

Every year, millions of Asian families come together to celebrate the first new moon in the sky. Now preschoolers can learn about the zodiac animals, the delicious food, the exciting parades, and all the fun traditions. Filled with colorful illustrations and simple, yet informative text, this Big Golden Book is perfect for reading again and again to the whole family. Happy Lunar New Year!

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Tomorrow Is New Year's Day

Aram Kim

From Korean American author-illustrator Aram Kim, Tomorrow is New Year's Day follows a little girl sharing the fun customs of Seollal—the Korean Lunar New Year—with her classmates.

Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, is Mina’s favorite day of the year.

Mina can't wait to share the customs of Seollal with all of her friends at school. She will show her classmates her colorful hanbok, demonstrate how to do sebae, and then everyone will make tasty tteokguk in the cooking room. Yum! Her little brother may even join in on the fun... if he can find a way out of his bad mood.

In this joyful book about sharing age-old cultural celebrations with new friends, Aram Kim has created a must-have book for the New Year’s season. A glossary of Korean terms, with pronunciation guide, is included.

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Celebrate Chinese New Year

Carolyn Otto

Children have never had so many reasons to learn how Chinese people everywhere ring in the new and ring out the old. As China takes its new place on the global stage, understanding Chinese culture and values becomes ever more essential to our next generation.

For two joyous weeks red is all around. The color represents luck and happiness. Children receive money wrapped in red paper, and friends and loved ones exchange poems written on red paper. The Chinese New Year is also an opportunity to remember ancestors, and to wish peace and happiness to friends and family. The holiday ends with the Festival of Lanterns, as many large communities stage the famous Dragon Dance. Fireworks, parades, lanterns, presents, and feasts: these are some of the joys experienced by all who observe Chinese New Year.

Celebrate Chinese New Year is the latest, timely addition to National Geographic's popular Holidays Around the World series. With 25 colorful images and a simple, educational text, the book is a lively invitation to revel in this child-friendly, national and international holiday. Carolyn Otto brings the historical and cultural aspects of the Chinese New Year into focus, and young readers experience the full flavor of an event celebrated by over a billion people in China, and countless others worldwide.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

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Boys Don't Fry

Kimberly Lee

Jin wishes his family would ask him to help prepare the Lunar New Year feast. But boys, or Babas, never get asked—only Nyonyas, the girls.

It’s the eve of Lunar New Year, and Jin can’t wait for the big family reunion dinner. He loves the aromas and the bubbly chatter coming from the kitchen. His grandmother, Mamah, is cooking up a storm!

As his aunties dice, slice, and chop, there’s nothing Jin wants more than to learn about the history of his family’s cooking and to lend them a helping hand. After all, no one else can tell the difference between ginger and galangal as well as he can! But his aunties shoo him away, claiming he’ll just get bored or be in the way. Luckily, Mamah steps in and asks Jin to help her prepare their special meal. Soon, Jin is squeezing, slicing, and stirring, too!

This loving picture book about a young Malaysian boy who defies gender expectations will make hearts warm and stomachs hungry. With beautifully vibrant illustrations of a traditional nyonya kitchen, Boys Don’t Fry is a heartfelt celebration of family, culture, and traditions—both old and new.

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It's Your Year, Baby Snake

Little Bee Books

Baby Snake is wise and funny! Celebrate the Snake (2025) in your life with this fun board book series introducing kids to each zodiac sign through positive personality traits and adorable animal characters.

You are wise, calm, funny, and thoughtful, Baby Snake! This exciting board book celebrates all the wonderful ways you interact with your world, and all the amazing attributes you have.

This wonderful book joins It's Your Year, Baby Rabbit, It's Your Year, Baby Dragon, and It's Your Year, Baby Tiger in a new series introducing toddlers to each of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals through adorable characters.

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Someone You Can Build a Nest In

John Wiswell

An NPR, Washington Post, Book Riot, Library Journal and Audible Best Book of 2024! 

One of the Best Books of the Year So Far from: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Polygon, LitHub, Bookpage, Crime Reads, and Geek Girl Authority

“This unusual queer romance is a heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding.” —The Guardian 

"Sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It's a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it." —Alix E. Harrow, New York Times-bestselling author of Starling House

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by impolite monster hunters, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. 

Badly hurt by the hunters, Shesheshen’s nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human. Homily is kind and would make a great co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young can devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, Shesheshen realizes that eating her girlfriend isn’t an option.

Just as Shesheshen’s about to confess her identity, Homily reveals something else: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, so now she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As Shesheshen’s hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, the bigger challenge remains: learning how to build a life with, rather than in, the woman she loves.

A stealthily funny, slyly smart, and remarkably touching story. Its wisdom will creep up on
you as surely as your affection for its monstrous main character.”—Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of When Among Crows

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Missing White Woman

Kellye Garrett

A "propulsive page-turner" (Alyssa Cole) and "thriller not to be missed" (Michael Connelly) from the award-winning author of Like a Sister, in which a woman thinks she's waking up to a romantic vacation--only to find a body in her rental home and her boyfriend gone.



The truth is never skin deep.



It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna's new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything--the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, she's shocked. There's a stranger laying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found.



A Black woman alone in a new city, Bree is stranded and out of her depth--especially when it becomes clear the dead woman is none other than Janelle Beckett, the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed with. There's only one person Bree can turn to: her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. As the police and a social media mob close in, all looking for #JusticeForJanelle, Bree realizes that the only way she can help Ty--or herself--is to figure out what really happened that last night.



But when people only see what they want to see, can she uncover the truth hiding in plain sight?



"Fantastic. Only Garrett could craft a tale so adroitly attuned to our everyday fears." --S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed



"A propulsive murder mystery with relatable characters and heart-stopping twists."―Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple



"Bree is unforgettable . . . you are in for such a ride." --Rachel Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Villa

 

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The Warm Hands of Ghosts

Katherine Arden

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist, from the author of The Bear and the Nightingale.

“A wonderful clash of fire and ice—a book you won’t want to let go of.”—Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander

“Spectacular—a tour de force, wonderful and deep and haunting.”—Naomi Novik, author of A Deadly Education

ONE OF BOOKPAGE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, Laura receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital, where she soon hears whispers about haunted trenches and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?

November 1917. Freddie Iven awakens after an explosion to find himself trapped in an overturned pillbox with a wounded enemy soldier, a German by the name of Hans Winter. Against all odds, the two form an alliance and succeed in clawing their way out. Unable to bear the thought of returning to the killing fields, especially on opposite sides, they take refuge with a mysterious man who seems to have the power to make the hellscape of the trenches disappear.

As shells rain down on Flanders and ghosts move among those yet living, Laura’s and Freddie’s deepest traumas are reawakened. Now they must decide whether their world is worth salvaging—or better left behind entirely.

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The Wood at Midwinter

Susanna Clarke

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

From the bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scot is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees-and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst-and the path of her life is changed forever.

Featuring gorgeous illustrations truly worthy of the magic of this story and an afterword by Susanna Clarke explaining how she came to write it, this is a mesmerizing, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.

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Liquid, Fragile, Perishable

Carolyn Kuebler

"Told through interlocking narratives, this poignant debut novel captures a year in the life of a small Vermont town—but don’t let the pastoral locale fool you; this book is anything but sleepy. Moving effortlessly from the steamy to the heartbreaking, the novel handles themes such as poverty, first love, drug abuse, unplanned pregnancy, and lust with refreshing nuance." —Oprah Daily

A vivid and moving portrayal of the intricate web of relations and fate in a small New England town, told with interlocking storylines in a unique and mesmerizing voice of uncommon power in this debut novel.

May has arrived in the tiny hamlet of Glenville, Vermont, bringing with it currents of rejuvenation and rebirth. For 3 families, though, the year ahead will prove to be a roller coaster of life-changing events, promises, and tragedies.

Liquid, Fragile, Perishable unspools via a chorus of unforgettable voices: an old-school Christian beekeeping family and newly transplanted New Yorkers; a trio of teenage girls and a deeply rooted family of ne’er-do-wells; and one woman who just wants to live alone in the woods. The shifting set of relations among the citizens of this community encompasses teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, poverty—and a cavalcade of thwarted dreams, young love in bloom, and poignant missed connections.

This powerful debut is a subtle and beautiful story about the interlocking relationships among the residents of a small town out of Sherwood Anderson or Thornton Wilder—but with a very contemporary set of problems ... By turns sexy, shocking, and wistful, this coruscating debut conveys the hopes, the sadness, and the secrets of a whole great world.

Told in a vivid style of complete distinction, the novel has a magic and a momentum all its own, giving a look into the aching, silent heart of America.

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Listen for the Lie

Amy Tintera

New York Times Bestseller
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick

"A world-class whodunit."
--Stephen King

"An extremely successful high-wire act, balancing between dark comedy and darker thrills."
--Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Laugh-out-loud funny, thrilling and twisty..."
--Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author

What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy's blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It's been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can't remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.

But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast "Listen for the Lie," and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy's murder for the show's second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend's murder, even if she is the one that did it.

The truth is out there, if we just listen.

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My Favorite Thing is Monsters

Emil Ferris

"Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, and narrated by 10-year-old Karen Reyes, Monsters is told is told through a fictional graphic diary employing the iconography of B-movie horror imagery and pulp monster magazines. As the precocious Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her beautiful and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, we watch the interconnected and fascinating stories of those around her unfold" -- Publisher.

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You are Here

David Nicholls

THE INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

A Good Housekeeping "Book We're Most Looking Forward To" * An Independent Today "Best Fiction Books to Read" * A GQ Magazine (UK) "Best Book of 2024" * A Harper's Bazaar (UK) "Best Novels to Read" * A Daily Record "Best Novel"

"Captivating [and] flawless...An affectingly hard-won romance. [Michael is] a sturdy and slyly amusing authority figure, ... flailing amid the debris of a loving marriage gone sour. Marnie is a compulsively witty, winningly cranky near-agoraphobe...Both protagonists are prickly, smart and desperately yearning, but utterly guarded for understandably good reasons. Nicholls builds his own erotic and at times wrenchingly emotional suspense as the would-be lovers reveal past mishaps and surrendered dreams... As in the best romances, we cherish Michael's and Marnie's difficult personalities, and relish the unlikely process that might bring them together. The novel is sharp-tongued and irresistible." -- New York Times Book Review

"I finished this novel in two breathless sittings, as invested in its outcome as I would be in the happiness of a friend. This is the magic of You Are Here: warm, generous and funny, it invites readers into the world of Marnie and Michael with the promise that everyone is welcome, and that choosing happiness and being courageous in any small way we can is always possible. I loved this book." -- Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

From the internationally bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author of One Day, one of the most enduring love stories of its generation, comes an uplifting and unputdownable love story about second chances.

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way . . .

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he'll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she's battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it's passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they've been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.

A hilarious, hopeful, and heartwarming love story--the novel beloved New York Times bestselling author David Nicholls calls "my funniest book yet"--You Are Here is a bittersweet and hopeful story of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home.

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The Wedding People

Alison Espach

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew. 

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

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In the Hour of Crows

Dana Elmendorf

"This murder mystery steeped in magic is the perfect summer read."

--GMA Buzz Pick



"In the Hour of Crows enthralls like a delicious dark spell."

--Glendy Vanderah, bestselling author of Where the Forest Meets the Stars



In a small town in Appalachia, people paint their doorways blue to keep spirits away. Black ferns grow where death will follow. And Weatherly Opal Wilder is a Death Talker.



When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives--only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her unfamiliar ways when they don't.



Weatherly's cousin Adaire also has a gift: she's a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that's why Weatherly believes she was murdered--never thinking for a moment that it was an accident. But when Weatherly, for the first time, is unable to talk the death out of the mayor's son, the whole town suspects she is out for revenge, that she wouldn't save him.



With the help of clues Adaire left behind and her family's Granny Witch recipe box, Weatherly sets out to find the truth behind her cousin's death, whatever it takes.



Imbued with magic, witchery, and suspense, Dana Elmendorf's In the Hour of Crows is a thrilling tale of friendship, identity, and love.

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Colton Gentry's Third Act

Jeff Zentner

"Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he's opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he's married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he's hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend Duane was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, with his trauma festering and Jim Beam flowing through his veins, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly. Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he leaves rehab and retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown to move back in with his mom. He's resigned himself to has-been-dom until a chance encounter at his town's new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at life: a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention. Told through perspectives alternating between his senior year of high school, his time coming up with Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and the present, COLTON GENTRY'S THIRD ACT is a story of coming home, undoing past heartbreaks, navigating grief, and a reminder that there are next acts in life, no matter how remote they may seem"--

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Funny Story

Emily Henry

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

A New York Times Notable Book of 2024

Named a Must-Read Book of 2024 by TIME ∙ NPR ∙ ELLEWoman’s World and more!

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

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

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The Most

Jessica Anthony

Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. One of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2024​.

From "one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page" (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who goes for a swim in her apartment complex's swimming pool one morning...and won't come out. 

It's November 3, 1957. As Sputnik 2 launches into space, carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, a couple begin their day. Virgil Beckett, an insurance salesman, isn't particularly happy in his job but he fulfills the role. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion with a key shot up her sleeve, is now a mother and homemaker. On this unseasonably warm Sunday, Kathleen decides not to join her family at church. Instead, she unearths her old, red bathing suit and descends into the deserted swimming pool of their apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. And then she won't come out.

A riveting, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most masterly breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath.

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James

Percival Everett

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER - A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg - A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more.

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

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

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

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

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First Lie Wins: Reese's Book Club

Ashley Elston

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“This fast-paced read has everything you could want in a thriller: secret identities, a mysterious boss and a cat & mouse game that kept me guessing the whole way through.” —Reese Witherspoon

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn't like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there's still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn't be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .

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