CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS

nana kwame adjei-brenyah

Finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction • A Read With Jenna Book Club Pick

“An act of protest…in a voice that belongs only to Adjei-Brenyah, who bends the lurid into the lyrical—pretty words about hideous deeds. Some of his best fight sentences sound as if Joe Rogan had fallen into a trance and assumed the diction and rhythms of Toni Morrison. If you recoil at that unholy fusion, that’s kind of the point; and the author keeps pulling off this shock, page after page…There’s more than a little George Saunders in these high jinks…The novel is a thorough display of authorial control…As the plot careers forward, Adjei-Brenyah uses footnotes as tethers between fiction and reality, reminding us that his gladiatorial farce is just a little tragicomic leap from an extant American horror…The society in which [these characters] live defines them by their worst deeds, but the writer of this novel refuses to.”—New York Times Book Review

“[Adjei-Brenyah] belongs on anyone’s shortlist of great new American writers.”—Chicago Tribune

“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so upsetting and illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing…So raw and tragic and primal is Chain-Gang All-Stars that despite its futuristic elements, it has the patina of some timeworn epic…Shockingly intimate and moving.”—Washington Post

“Epic…Intoxicating…It is a testament to Adjei-Brenyah’s idiosyncratic talents as a satirist that this premise…feels disquietingly plausible by the novel’s end.”—The Atlantic

“Chain-Gang All-Stars is an extension of everything Adjei-Brenyah does so well: juggle love with death, satire with pain, the impossible with the possible…In ballad-like chapters, which move with the speed and emotional care of anime fight scenes, Adjei-Brenyah weaves a world of sci-fi torture and bloody profit, but a world not totally scrubbed of hope. In doing so, he doesn’t reinvent the genre novel so much as make it his own. The new maestro of dystopian lit has arrived.”—Wired

“Vividly imaginative and startling in its clarity of intent...A sort of The Hunger Games meets Gladiator meets WWE meets the modern private prison system.”—Elle

“Chain-Gang All-Stars surpasses all expectations…Adjei-Brenyah’s acerbic vision lands like a lightning bolt of truth.”—Esquire

"Gladiator meets Mad Max at the penal colony in the brutal, world-building latest from Adjei-Brenyah."—Entertainment Weekly

“So shocking and moving that it might just wake us up.”—Ron Charles, CBS’ Sunday Morning

“[A] ferocious debut novel…[An] indicting commentary on a nation unmoored from its morality…Adjei-Brenyah does not flinch. Neither does he miss his targets, because he has the stiff winds of history at his back…With Chain-Gang All-Stars he lets us think we’re reading a satire, but soon reveals a mirror of our dystopian days that lie not too far away.”—Boston Globe

“A rumbustious satire of the criminal justice system, a book that is far more entertaining than an attempt to convince its readers of the case for prison abolition has any right to be.”—The Guardian

"One of the most exciting young writers in America. His work is urgent, engaging, wildly entertaining, formally bold, and politically electrifying. Read one page, any page, and you'll see what I mean.”—George Saunders, author of Liberation Day

“A complex, brutal, beautiful, panoramic takedown of the prison-industrial complex… At once original, its own fresh creation, and clearly part of a lineage of American literature that links the opening ‘Battle Royal’ chapter in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to Native Son by Richard Wright, Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver and Soledad Brother by George Jackson…Adjei-Brenyah's distinguished novel updates this tradition to encompass our dizzying, barbaric, performative and capitalistic digital age.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Dazzling and mightily ambitious… A stunningly original and unflinchingly honest piece of satiric genius, Chain-Gang All-Stars not only showcases the horrific spectacle of the prison industrial complex but highlights how everyone is somehow complicit.”—Vulture, “Best Books of the Year So Far”

“A clear-eyed critique of our country's prison system, along with the profit and racism inherent in them.”—Salon

THE SHADOW DOCKET: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic

Stephen vladeck

New York Times Bestseller

"[The shadow docket] has been something that lawyers have been talking about for a long time; it’s really important for all of us to understand it.”―Rachel Maddow

“Important…Vladeck is a conscientious guide through the legal thickets…With The Shadow Docket, Vladeck has taken it upon himself to translate the court’s deliberately cryptic orders and legal technicalities into accessible English.”―The New York Times

“Mr. Vladeck offers a fascinating chronicle of the shadow docket’s rise…The author’s skill as a law professor shines in thorough, clear explanations of how the court has run roughshod over its own jurisprudence in shadow-docket cases involving abortion, religious liberty and election law…the illumination in The Shadow Docket could help bring more principle, accountability, and ‘procedural regularity’ to the justices work —and help stop a controversial institution going completely off the rails.”―The Economist

“Vladeck offers a well-researched indictment of how the supreme court has grown to rely on using procedural orders rather than rulings to make new law, escaping scrutiny while delivering major victories to the political right…The Shadow Docket is comprehensive and sensitive to nuance, written for concerned audiences.”―The Guardian

“In The Shadow Docket, Steve Vladeck tells an urgent story about an arcane aspect of American law that has momentous implications for a host of pressing political issues—and for the institutional legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself. In elegant, accessible prose, Vladeck exposes the degree to which significant battles, from abortion to immigration, are being adjudicated behind closed doors, in unseen, unsigned, unexplained decisions. This is a powerful work of argument and explication, and a call for a return to transparency and accountability in the decision making of our highest court.”―Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain

"The Supreme Court's polling numbers and legitimacy have taken a nosedive in recent years, but the cases it hands down are only part of the problem. The stuff that happens in the shadows is equally alarming, and nobody has been better at explaining these shadow matters than Steve Vladeck. Tackling intricate procedural questions, Vladeck makes absolutely plain that — to repurpose an old adage — procedure isn't just the handmaid of justice, it's now her lord and master. We ignore what happens in the shadows at our peril."―Dahlia Lithwick, author of Lady Justice

“Stephen Vladeck shines a harsh light on a little-understood SCOTUS sleight of hand — the shadow docket. Vladeck describes in clear and convincing language how the highest court in the land has increasingly used obscure procedural orders to shift the legal landscape to the right, at the expense of transparency, precedent, and fundamental rights. It is vital reading.”―Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York

“The best thing you can say about a Supreme Court book is that you learned something, and I learned a ton. Vladeck cogently describes the perhaps well-meant but insidious way that the Supreme Court, in liberal as well as conservative times, slowly eroded the legal levers that prevented the Court from engineering its own agenda.”―Nina Totenberg, award-winning legal affairs correspondent, NPR

RACHAEL'S GOOD EATS: Easy, Laid-Back, Nutrient-Rich Recipes

Rachael dEvaux

New York Times Bestseller

From an Instagram health, fitness, and food influencer with over half a million followers, Rachael's Good Eats is a beautiful, accessible four-color cookbook with over 100 recipes in every category from breakfasts, soups and hearty salads, to cozy comfort mains and all kinds of desserts!

Rachael DeVaux’s Good Eats makes cooking meals and daily treats enjoyable–and keeps the prep and kitchen clean-up easy as can be. Many dishes are one-pan, and almost all are expandable from “serves you and your roommate” to a crowd.

Most of Rachael’s recipes are vegetable-forward and emphasize food as fuel, but you’ll find that most are paleo-style and use an array of wholesome ingredients for flavor and to promote satiety. They are gluten-free, dairy-free (for the most part) and refined sugar-free. And her recipes are not only easy, but truly inventive:

Paleo Apple Crisp

Pistachio-Crusted Fish Tacos

Banana Chai Waffles With Whipped Honey Butter

Chocolate Chip Cookie Skillet

Rachael’s specialty is making over childhood favorites into healthy and better-for-you versions:

“Nutter Butters”

“Nutella” spread

“Twix” bars

These recipes take ingredients you already like–or already order out for–and boost them with flavor to be so good they get into regular rotation!

ABOVE GROUND: POEMS

clint smith

New York Times Bestseller

“I think there is an emergent theory, and maybe also a demand, when Clint Smith considers the brutalizing facts and language of war almost alongside a reverie about sprinkling sand on his baby’s feet; when he mourns the long and brutal and ongoing history of American slavery almost alongside making French toast with the kids or dancing until the whole family falls down. When he makes us witness the most incomprehensibly awful (and daily) brutalities not only beside but almost in tandem with the most incomprehensibly tender (and daily) actions of care. It’s a theory, and a demand, to which I think we must pay very close attention.”―Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy

“Clint Smith is a brilliant poet, one who knows ‘we are not all left / standing after the war has ended. Some of us have become ghosts,’ who knows that ‘you come from the parachute that didn't open -- / and then did.’—and who finds words to sing and to mourn, and to see us for who we are. Here is a poet who offers wisdom that ‘our bodies have / always been inexpricable vessels of energy we can / not control,’ and despite that (or perhaps because of it), also offers grace. This is a beautiful, vivid book, where ‘grandfather is a fist / full of embers’ and a dance party becomes a life-giving ceremony, and Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, is a reason enough to spark an love note. Much to love in this poetry collection, lyric keeping us above the ground, rooted into our world, blessed to be alive, despite it all. Clint Smith is a marvelous poet.”―Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa

“I’m so grateful that Clint Smith’s poems remind us of our interdependence on each other—on chrysanthemums, jellyfish, plankton, to note just a few of his magnificent poetic negotiations—all while turning his wide and generous eyes to fatherhood. This book is an illumination I sorely needed of both the outdoors and the quotidian—a joyful embrace and legacy of bright language and poignant questions.”―Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders

“Clint Smith’s poems make palpable the soap-bubble thinness of borders—the contingent boundaries of love and loss, past and present, sanctuary and violence, ‘us’ and ‘them.’ With inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom, he shows us the linkages that both bind and divide us—as family, as community, as nation, as world: ‘The river that gives us water to drink is the same one that might wash us away.’ I am so grateful for these luminous poems.

―Monica Youn, author of Blackacre

“Clint’s Smith’s Above Ground gives us one of our most urgent writers at the height of his powers. With these poems, Smith’s crystalline lyric illuminates every word with love’s deep regard. It’s so nourishing, the scope and hope and breadth of Smith’s tenderness. I recommend this book for everyone who has ever been a parent or a child, in love or beloved. I recommend it to everyone who has ever felt like a stranger inside of history, inside of a nation, or inside their own heart.”―Kaveh Akbar, author of Pilgrim Bell

"A gorgeous book...Smith’s pivots and pacing mirror the routes of our lives, and his gentle, attentive poems are downright sacramental....I appreciate poets like Smith who turn the page between hope and loss, fear and exuberance."―Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions

DIRTBAG, MASSCHUSETTS: A CONFESSIONAL

Isaac Fitzgerald

New York Times Bestseller • USA Today Bestseller • Winner of the New England Book Award for Nonfiction

“Fitzgerald nestles comfortably on a bar stool beside writers like Kerouac, Bukowski, Richard Price and Pete Hamill…The book’s charm is in its telling of male misbehavior and, occasionally, the things we men get right. The fights nearly all come with forgiveness. It is about the ways men struggle to make sense of themselves and the romance men too often find in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey... an endearing and tattered catalog of one man’s transgressions and the ways in which it is our sins, far more than our virtues, that make us who we are.”
—New York Times Book Review

“Isaac Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays is a bighearted read infused with candor, sharp humor, and the hope that comes from discovering saints can be found in all sorts of places.”
—Rolling Stone, "Top Culture Picks of the Month"

“Dirtbag, Massachusetts is the best of what memoir can accomplish. It's blisteringly honest and vulnerable, pulling no punches on the path to truth, but it always finds the capacity for grace and joy.”
—Esquire, "Best Memoirs of the Year"

“Told without piety or violin strains of uplift, but rather, an embrace of the chaos of just getting by.”
—Chicago Tribune, "Books for Summer 2022: Our Picks"

“Fitzgerald reflects on his origins―and coming to terms with self-consciousness, anger, and strained family relationships. His writing is gritty yet vulnerable.”
—TIME, "27 New Books You Need to Read This Summer"

“Fitzgerald never stopped searching for a community that would embrace him. That search took him from San Francisco to Burma (now Myanmar), and he candidly shares the formative experiences that helped him put aside anger to live with acceptance and understanding.”
—Washington Post, "12 Noteworthy Books for July"

"Fitzgerald’s project of openhearted self-interrogation still feels refreshing in a culture where men are socialized to bury their pain, or worse, turn it back on the world as misplaced resentment…In their casual, looping trajectories, some of Fitzgerald’s essays seem to mimic active processing, like a heart-to-heart over beers. It takes a great deal of trust to commit one’s shames ― and more than that, the shames of others ― to the page with honesty. Messily, lovingly, Fitzgerald lays it bare."
—The Los Angeles Review of Books

“[Fitzgerald] reflects on how his journey has both formed him as a man and helped to change his views of masculinity, race and identity. And while his recollections are pervaded by considerations of manliness, he never shuts out other genders or ways of being.”
—Los Angeles Times

"Isaac Fitzgerald contains multitudes in this frank, engaging memoir: severely lapsed Catholic, lifelong rabble-rouser, well-inked tattoo aficionado. [The tales] recounted here find the bittersweet spot between dirtbag and sublime."
—Entertainment Weekly, "Best New Books of July"

“A modern look at what it’s like to feel lost in America… he manages to handle these indisputably heavy subjects with clear-eyed, darkly humorous care… Dirtbag, Massachusetts is a confession in all the best senses of the word… Fitzgerald shows again and again that there is beauty to be found amid the pain, as hard as it can be to look. It’s a fitting lesson from a writer who is clearly as talented as he is tattooed.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“Introspective yet entertaining…The book’s highlight is a 45-page essay titled ‘Maybe I Could Die This Way.’ It starts off with Fitzgerald giving away his motorcycle because he knew he was in trouble after driving 70 miles back to San Francisco blackout drunk from Santa Cruz…Near the chapter’s end, Fitzgerald revisits that motorcycle incident with a twist designed to make you reflect, both on the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and how we must constantly find new ways to connect and bring meaning to the world. Like every story in Dirtbag, Massachusetts, it’s one worth hearing.”
—Boston Globe

THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS

Jessamine Chan

New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Pick

"Jessamine Chan’s infuriatingly timely debut novel, The School for Good Mothers, takes this widely accepted armchair quarterbacking of motherhood and ratchets it up to the level of a surveillance state — one that may read more like a preview than a dystopia, depending on your faith in the future of Roe v. Wade...chilling...clever."
—The New York Times Book Review

“The School for Good Mothers picks up the mantle of writers like Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro, with their skin-crawling themes of surveillance, control, and technology; but it also stands on its own as a remarkable, propulsive novel. At a moment when state control over women’s bodies (and autonomy) feels ever more chilling, the book feels horrifyingly unbelievable and eerily prescient all at once.”
—Vogue

"A surreal, dazzling witty tale." 
—People

"This debut novel was so captivating, thought-provoking and beautifully written, everything I tried to pick up next paled in comparison...It was all I wanted to talk about, think about and read." 
—The Today Show

"Intense, unputdownable debut that will doubtless spark conversation about what makes a good or bad mother." 
—Oprah.com

"It sounds dark and weird, and it is kind of dark and weird, but I found it really, really absorbing."
—Linda Holmes, NPR

"This scarily prescient novel that's reminiscent of Orwell and Vonnegut explores the depths of parents' love, how strictly we judge mothers and each other and the terrifying potential of government overreach." 
—Good Housekeeping

"Gutting and terrifying. Vivid and exquisite. In The School for Good Mothers, you'll find not only your favorite novel of the year, but also a new cultural touchstone, a reference point for the everyday horrors all parents experience and take for granted. This book is sharp, shocking, anxiety-provoking, superb. It is exactly what you want, and need, to read."
—Julia Philips, author of Disappearing Earth 

"A terrifying novel about mass surveillance, loneliness, and the impossible measurements of motherhood—The School for Good Mothers is a timely and remarkable debut."
—Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House

"The School for Good Mothers is an astonishing novel. Heartbreaking and daring, propulsive and wise.  In the way that The Handmaid's Tale made us fear for women's bodies, The School for Good Mothers makes us fear for women's souls. It's hard to distill all the love and longing this book contains, and how electrifying it is to be immersed in Chan's world. So let me just say, I read  with my heart in my throat and I held my kids tight."
—Diane Cook, author of The New Wilderness

“This book is like nothing I've read before--a tightly plotted, deeply moving novel that also offers profound insights into the state of contemporary motherhood within a country that offers very little in the way of societal support for parents. I found myself moved to tears by its conclusion. The School for Good Mothers is haunting and unforgettable, and I'm in awe of Jessamine Chan's mind.” 
—Liz Moore, author of Long Bright River

THE COMFORTABLE KITCHEN: A Defined Dish Book—105 Laid-Back, Healthy, and Wholesome Recipes

Alex Snodgrass

New York Times Bestseller • #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller

“The Comfortable Kitchen is your new go-to for healthy eating inspiration, with meals full of warm flavors, simply delicious ingredient combinations, and wholesome treats.”
—Melissa Urban, Whole30 cofounder and CEO

“Alex’s passion for food shines through in everything she does, and this book is no exception! It’s packed to the brim with unfussy recipes to nourish your family, your friends, and most important, yourself.”
—Gaby Dalkin, creator and author of What's Gaby Cooking

“Alex has done it again—this book is loaded with mouthwatering recipes with a modern American twang. These approachable dishes are quick to whip up even on the busiest of days. This stunning cookbook is a kitchen staple that you’ll be reaching for again and again!”
—Dzung Lewis, YouTuber and author of The Honeysuckle Cookbook

“Snodgrass puts a modern spin on comfort food in this versatile collection of nourishing dishes that never fall short on flavor. . . . This is perfect for busy home cooks who want to expand their repertoire of healthy recipes.” —Publishers Weekly

THE 1619 PROJECT: A new origin story

Created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

#1 New York Times Bestseller • NAACP Image Award Winne

Finalist for the Kirkus Prize • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist

“Pleasingly symmetrical . . . [a] mosaic of a book, which achieves the impossible on so many levels—moving from argument to fiction to argument, from theme to theme, and backward and forward in time, so smoothly.”
—Slate

“A wide-ranging, landmark summary of the Black experience in America: searing, rich in unfamiliar detail, exploring every aspect of slavery and its continuing legacy . . . Again and again, The 1619 Project brings the past to life in fresh ways. . . . Multifaceted and often brilliant.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“The groundbreaking project from The New York Times, which created a new origin story for America based on the very beginnings of American slavery, is expanded into a very large, very powerful full-length book.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“The ambitious project that got Americans rethinking our racial history—and sparked inevitable backlash—even before the reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder, is expanded into a book incorporating essays from pretty much everyone you want to hear from about the country’s great topic and great shame.”
—Los Angeles Times

“This fall’s required reading.”
—Ms.

“[A] groundbreaking compendium . . . These bracing and urgent works, by multidisciplinary visionaries ranging from Barry Jenkins to Jesmyn Ward, build on the existing scholarship of The 1619 Project, exploring how the nation’s original sin continues to shape everything from our music to our food to our democracy. This collection is an extraordinary update to an ongoing project of vital truth-telling.”
—Esquire

“Those readers open to fresh and startling interpretations of history will find this book a comprehensive education.”
—Kirkus Reviews ★

“Powerful . . . This invaluable book sets itself apart by reframing readers’ understanding of U.S. history, past and present.”
—Library Journal ★

“Pulitzer winner Hannah-Jones . . . and an impressive cast of historians, journalists, poets, novelists, and cultural critics deliver a sweeping study of the ‘unparalleled impact’ of African slavery on American society.”
—Publishers Weekly ★

“For any lover of American history or letters, The 1619 Project is a visionary work that casts a sweeping, introspective gaze over what many have aptly termed the country’s original sin.”
—BookPage ★

“Readers will discover something new and redefining on every page.”
—Booklist ★

THE JUDGE'S LIST

John Grisham

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller

Nonstop suspense from the #1 New York Times bestselling author: Investigator Lacy Stoltz follows the trail of a serial killer, and closes in on a shocking suspect—a sitting judge.

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.

Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.

He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction.

He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet.

STATE OF TERROR

Louise Penny & Hillary Rodham Clinton

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller

“[A] pulsating thriller.”
― People

"A Page-Turner Part Sly, Part Sweet….Surprising...The plot is ambitious and apocalyptic…. [and] a high-speed diplomatic race... This is a romp. The authors have a great deal of fun throwing up red herrings…. Political junkies will relish the veiled insults to real-life people….The emotional cast to the writing, the tendency to dangle portents and wait some time before resolving them, the depiction of friendship, the short paragraphs, the philosophical aperçus — these are all marks of Penny’s writing....If Clinton is slyly settling old political scores, she is also, sweetly, celebrating women’s support of one another later in life."
―The New York Times

"To say more would rob readers of the pleasures of discovery in this taut thriller, a story made all the more relevant by the U.S.’s recent withdrawal from Afghanistan. Possessed of both head and heart, 'State of Terror’s' layering of ethical tradeoffs, political intrigue, high-level espionage and pure evil perfectly melds Clinton’s intimate knowledge of the State Department and foreign policy with Penny’s mastery of genre mechanics."
―Los Angeles Times

“Consistently entertaining….Penny and Clinton demonstrate a sure hand at international intrigue and narrative pacing….The real key to ‘State of Terror,’ though, is its secret weapon: female friendship.”
―The Washington Post

"Hillary Rodham Clinton pairs up with powerhouse mystery novelist Louise Penny for State of Terror, a political thriller full of action and intrigue...Clinton and Penny create a heart-pounding mystery about terrorism, corruption and diplomacy, meticulously written with the promise of details only someone on the inside could contribute."
―TIME Magazine

"The real-life inspiration is clear, but this version is way more fun."
―Entertainment Weekly

"An utterly thrilling, mesmerizing, whiplash-inducing plot-driven story, ‘State of Terror’ will make you pull up the bedsheets as you stay up late trying to keep up with Secretary Adams and the team she assembles to crack the case."
―GoodMorningAmerica.com

"A page-turning political thriller...consider this your fall escape."
―CNN.com

“The thriller follows the journey of new secretary of state and main character, Ellen Adams.... Secretary Adams must navigate a terrorist plot, nuclear weapons and a Trump-like administration. Along the way, Adams battles sexist comments from her male counterparts but also finds friendship and support in the women around her...’State of Terror’ also tackles Washington's misogyny as the main character navigates jabs and sexist comments at the hands of the male antagonists. While the male characters are rude and crass, the women win by outsmarting their counterparts.”
―USA Today

THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. Du BOIS

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

An Instant New York Times Best Seller & Oprah’s Book Club Pick

"Epic…. I was just enraptured by the lineage and the story of this modern African-American family…. A combination of historical and modern story—I’ve never read anything quite like it. It just consumed me."
—Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club Pick

“Whatever must be said to get you to heft this daunting debut novel by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, I’ll say, because The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is the kind of book that comes around only once a decade. Yes, at roughly 800 pages, it is, indeed, a mountain to climb, but the journey is engrossing, and the view from the summit will transform your understanding of America. . . . With the depth of its intelligence and the breadth of its vision, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is simply magnificent.”
—Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Triumphant. . . . Quite simply the best book that I have read in a very, very long time. . . . An epic tale of adventure that brings to mind characters you never forget: Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time, Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn. . . . The historical archives of Black Americans are too often filled with broad outlines of what happened. . . . One of the many triumphs of Love Songs is how Jeffers transforms this large history into a story that feels specific and cinematic in the telling. . . . Just as Toni Morrison did in Beloved, Jeffers uses fiction to fill in the gaping blanks of those who have been rendered nameless and therefore storyless. . . . A sweeping, masterly debut.”
—Veronica Chambers, New York Times Book Review

"Stunning."
—People

“This sweeping, brilliant and beautiful narrative is at once a love song to Black girlhood, family, history, joy, pain . . . and so much more. In Jeffers's deft hands, the story of race and love in America becomes the great American novel.”
—Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone and Another Brooklyn

“A vibrant and tender coming-of-age novel. Ailey Pearl Garfield is a young girl reckoning with what it means to be a Black woman in America…. [Ailey’s] journey features complex and intimate narratives of love and heartbreak from her family’s two centuries in the American South, giving her not only insight into her family’s complicated past, but also the tools to imagine her own future.”
—Time

“As one of the most prolific poets of our time, Jeffers has penned a family saga that is just as brilliant as it is necessary, just as intimate as it is expansive. An outstanding portrait of an American family and in turn, an outstanding portrait of America.”
—Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give

“In this dazzling debut, generations of high yellow and brown ‘skin-ded’ women in one Georgia family explore the complexities of kin, the legacies of trauma, with all the sharp corners and blind alleys of real life. Wise, funny, deeply moving, I can’t tell you how much I love this book. A few times a generation a book comes along that gathers you up with its force, its insights, its sound and fury, its lyrical beauty. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is one of those books. Not merely a good novel, but a great and important one.”
—Stephanie Powell Watts, author of No One Is Coming to Save Us

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Clint Smith

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller

"The Atlantic writer drafts a history of slavery in this country unlike anything you’ve read before.”
―Entertainment Weekly

“Raises questions that we must all address, without recourse to wishful thinking or the collective ignorance and willful denial that fuels white supremacy.”
―Martha Anne Toll, The Washington Post

“Sketches an impressive and deeply affecting human cartography of America’s historical conscience…an extraordinary contribution to the way we understand ourselves.”
―Julian Lucas, New York Times Book Review

“Clint Smith, in his new book “How the Word Is Passed,” has created something subtle and extraordinary.”
―Christian Science Monitor

"Part of what makes this book so brilliant is its bothandedness. It is both a searching historical work and a journalistic account of how these historic sites operate today. Its both carefully researched and lyrical. I mean Smith is a poet and the sentences in this book just are piercingly alive. And it’s both extremely personal—it is the author’s story—and extraordinarily sweeping. It amplifies lots of other voices. Past and present. Reading it I kept thinking about that great Alice Walker line ‘All History is Current’.”
―John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed

“The summer’s most visionary work of nonfiction is this radical reckoning with slavery, as represented in the nation’s monuments, plantations, and landmarks.”
―Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire

“The detail and depth of the storytelling is vivid and visceral, making history present and real. Equally commendable is the care and compassion shown to those Smith interviews — whether tour guides or fellow visitors in these many spaces. Due to his care as an interviewer, the responses Smith elicits are resonant and powerful. . . . Smith deftly connects the past, hiding in plain sight, with today's lingering effects.”
―Hope Wabuke, NPR

“This isn’t just a work of history, it’s an intimate, active exploration of how we’re still constructing and distorting our history.”
―Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Both an honoring and an exposé of slavery’s legacy in America and how this nation is built upon the experiences, blood, sweat and tears of the formerly enslaved.”
―The Root

“What [Smith] does, quite successfully, is show that we whitewash our history at our own risk. That history is literally still here, taking up acres of space, memorializing the past, and teaching us how we got to be where we are, and the way we are. Bury it now and it will only come calling later."
―USA Today

COOK THIS BOOK: TECHNIQUES THAT TEACH AND RECIPES TO REPEAT: A COOKBOOK

Molly Baz

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

“Surprising no one, Molly has written a book as smart, stylish, and entertaining as she is. The recipes sound as good as they look, but it’s the extras that will make your cooking that much extra: her excellent explanations of how to balance flavors, the deep dive into the crunchy, spicy, and herbaceous condiments that will turn your dishes into taste sensations, and the instructional videos that bring every technique to life. I love this book as much as I love her (which is a lot!).”
—Carla Lalli Music, author of Where Cooking Begins

““Molly Baz is rethinking the way we engage with cookbooks”
—TASTE

“Cook This Book is for anyone who wants to learn kitchen skills that stick.”
—Esquire

“[Cook This Book is] packed with information about the principles of great flavor and instructions on technique.”
—Salon

“Recipe developer Baz delivers an exciting crash course in cooking fundamentals via 95 recipes that don’t ‘ask too much of the home cook.’”
—Publishers Weekly

“Cook This Book is devoted to teaching foundational kitchen info and basics that’ll help you cook efficiently.”
—theSkimm

“Cook This Book is a syllabus for how to become a more technically-skilled cook.”
—Epicurious

all the devils are here

louise penny

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller

“Although Penny touches on a wide range of subjects in this expansive story, her main concern is with the sacrifices we make for those we love. Here, even the loving relationship between Gamache and his son, Daniel, is challenged. If you think about it, the underlying theme of all of Penny’s books is Honor Thy Family ― the one you were born with, the one you’ve acquired during your lifetime and the Family of Man.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Penny excels at capturing the inner life, whether it’s a criminal’s or a resentful child’s. Series novices and die-hard fans alike will be left breathless―and moved.”
—People Magazine (Book of the Week)

“Armand Gamache seems as much a spiritual warrior as a homicide detective… What stays with the reader are the tender passages, the human insights, the reminders of what makes life worth living.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Penny's series has always been about the complexities and sustaining glories of family, and here she takes that theme even further, revealing fissures in the Gamache clan, but also showing the resilience and love at its root. Series devotees will revel in both Penny's evocation of Paris―every bit as sumptuous as her rendering of Three Pines―and in the increased role she allots to librarian Reine-Marie, whose research skills are crucial to untying the Gordian knot at the mystery's core.”
―Booklist (starred)

“Exceptional… Penny’s nuanced exploration of the human spirit continues to distinguish this brilliant series.”
―Publishers Weekly (starred)

“As always, Penny's mystery is meticulously constructed and reveals hard truths about the hidden workings of the world―as well as the workings of the Gamache family. But there's plenty of local color, too, with a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower to escape surveillance and a luxurious suite at the Hotel George V for good measure. If you're new to Penny's world, this would be a great place to jump in. Then go back and start the series from the beginning.”
―Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"The strengths of this latest procedural from the inimitable Penny will attract her longtime fans and also draw in new admirers. A deft touch with plotting, sensitive characterization, and the author’s warmth and humanity make this a must-have mystery, especially for collections owning the rest of series.”
―Library Journal (starred)

CAMINO WINDS

John Grisham

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller

“In American icon John Grisham’s new novel, Camino Winds, an odd assortment of mystery and crime authors, some of them felons themselves, discover one of their colleagues has been murdered during the fury of a massive hurricane—the perfect crime scene. Since officials are preoccupied with the aftermath of the storm, the authors set out to solve the mystery themselves, in the type of wild but smart caper that Grisham’s readers love.”
—Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing  

"Escapist entertainment...with elements of a more traditional Grisham thriller."
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“A cat-and-mouse caper…Mr. Grisham is an irresistible writer. His prose is fluent and gorgeous, and he has an ability to end each segment with a terse sentence than makes it all but impossible not to turn the page.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Robert Kolker

An Instant #1 New York Times Best Seller and Oprah’s Book Club Pick

““A feat of empathy and narrative journalism.”
—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
 
“Magisterial . . . A weave of gripping reportage and scientific detective story . . . Hidden Valley Road is destined to become a classic of narrative nonfiction.”
—Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“The curse of the Galvin family is the stuff of Greek tragedy. Kolker tells their story with great compassion, burrowing inside the particular delusions and hospitalizations of each brother while chronicling the family’s increasingly desperate search for help. But Hidden Valley Road is more than a narrative of despair, and some of the most compelling chapters come from its other half, as a medical mystery.”
—Sam Dolnick, The New York Times Book Review

“At once deeply compassionate and chilling.”
—Karen Iris Tucker, Washington Post
 
“Hidden Valley Road vividly conveys not only the inner experience of schizophrenia but its effects on the families whose members are afflicted . . . With the skill of a great novelist, Mr. Kolker brings every member of the family to life.”
—Richard J. McNally, Wall Street Journal

“A marvel of reportage, research, and style, Hidden Valley Road raises the bar on what is possible in narrative nonfiction. Robert Kolker dives into the exceptional story of one family besieged by humanity’s most mysterious malady. Kolker writes about the Galvin family with elegance and insight while weaving together the decades long quest to understand the genetics of schizophrenia, somehow creating a story that is as haunting and intriguing as a great gothic novel. This book is a triumph, an unforgettable story that you should read right now.”
—Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender

“Hidden Valley Road contains everything: scientific intrigue, meticulous reporting, startling revelations, and, most of all, a profound sense of humanity. It is that rare book that can be read again and again.”
—David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon
 
“An extraordinary case study and tour de force of reporting.”
—Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind
 
“This broad-ranging, highly readable, and deeply unsettling book tells the story of a family beset with schizophrenia, and in doing so provides meaningful insights into the devastation caused by the disease. It is, equally, a study of the multiple ways in which familial denial can exacerbate the inherent pain of mental illness, and of the courage required both of those who are themselves diagnosed with it and of those who choose to help and support them.”
—Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree

AMERICAN OLIGARCHS: The Kushners, The Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power

Andrea Bernstein

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

“Anyone concerned about American democracy should read Andrea Bernstein’s devastating exposé of the Trump and Kushner families. With meticulous precision, she documents the pernicious effects of dynastic wealth and power, now threatening to turn the highest rungs of the US government into a corrupt oligarchy.”
—Jane Mayer, The New Yorker staff writer and New York Times best-selling author of Dark Money

“A sweeping story of two American families, which shows that both the Trumps and the Kushners made their fortunes―often with government money. How did these ‘self-made men’ really get made? With donations, favors, intimidation and other people’s money. Nobody really beats city hall. The winners buy it, as Bernstein shows.”
—David Fahrenthold, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist at the Washington Post

“Riveting! Andrea Bernstein deftly tracks the history of the Trump and Kushner families from their roots through their immigration to the United States and their progression up through the socioeconomic ranks. American Oligarchs is comprehensive, brilliantly written, filled with detail and suspense―it reads like a financial thriller.”
—A. M. Homes, prize-winning author of Days of Awe and This Book Will Save Your Life

“Andrea Bernstein masterfully chronicles the sordid narrative that is the American reality. What elevates her book isn't just her gobsmacking tale of these two families; it's that she illuminates the contours of the system that brought us their corrupt reign.”
—Franklin Foer, staff writer at the Atlantic and author of World Without Mind

UNCANNY VALLEY: A MEMOIR

Anna Wiener

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

"[Wiener] is here to fill out our worst-case scenarios with shrewd insight and literary detail . . . Wiener is a droll yet gentle guide . . . The real strength of Uncanny Valley comes from her careful parsing of the complex motivations and implications that fortify this new surreality at every level, from the individual body to the body politic."
—Lauren Oyler, The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary . . . Wiener’s storytelling mode is keen and dry, her sentences spare―perfectly suited to let a steady thrum of dread emerge."
—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"Equal parts enchanting and subversive . . . [Wiener's] account of living inside the Bay Area bubble reads like HBO's Silicon Valley filtered through Renata Adler; Wiener is a trenchant cultural cartographer, mapping out a foggy world whose ruling class is fueled by empty scripts: 'People were saying nothing, and saying it all the tine.' The book's author does the very opposite."
—Lauren Mechling, Vogue

"Beautifully observed . . . Someone like Wiener makes for a good spy in the house of tech . . . Wiener excels at . . . the texture of life for people in a particular and pivotal time and place."
—Laura Miller, Slate

"I've never read anything like Uncanny Valley, which is both a searching bird's-eye study of an industry and a generation, as well as an intimate, microscopic portrait of ambition and hope and dread. Anna Wiener writes about the promise and the decay of Silicon Valley with the impossibly pleasurable combination of a precise, razored intellect and a soft, incandescent heart. Her memoir is diagnostic and exhilarating, a definitive document of a world in transition: I won't be alone in returning to it for clarity and consolation for many years to come."
―Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

"Like Joan Didion at a startup."
―Rebecca Solnit, author of Call Them By Their True Names

“A rare mix of acute, funny, up-to-the-minute social observation, dead-serious contemplation of the tech industry’s annexation of our lives, and a sincere first-person search for meaningful work and connection. How does an unworn pair of plain sneakers ‘become a monument to the end of sensuousness’? Read on.”
―William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

"Eschewing the caffeinated, self-referential keenness that defined the decade’s online writing, Wiener is cerebral and diagnostic in her observance of escalating corporate surveillance."
—Pete Tosiello, The Paris Review

LONG BRIGHT RIVER

Liz Moore

An Instant New York Times Best Seller

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick

"[Moore’s] careful balance of the hard-bitten with the heartfelt is what elevates Long Bright River from entertaining page-turner to a book that makes you want to call someone you love.”
—The New York Times Book Review

"This is police procedural and a thriller par excellence, one in which the city of Philadelphia itself is a character (think Boston and Mystic River). But it’s also a literary tale narrated by a strong woman with a richly drawn personal life – powerful and genre-defying.”
—People

"A thoughtful, powerful novel by a writer who displays enormous compassion for her characters. Long Bright River is an outstanding crime novel… I absolutely loved it."
—Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl on the Train

"Navigates assuredly between the plot twists and big reveals. . . Long Bright River is equal parts literary and thrilling."
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Long Bright River— a book that has garnered much ­pre-publication buzz — nervously twists, turns and subverts readers’ expectations till its very last pages. Simultaneously, it also manages to grow into something else: a sweeping, elegiac novel about a blighted city.”
—The Washington Post

"Long Bright River is a remarkable, profoundly moving novel about the ties that bind and the irrevocable wounds of childhood. It’s also a riveting mystery, perfectly paced. I loved every page of it."
—Dennis Lehane, New York Times-bestselling author of Since We Fell

"Liz Moore’s Long Bright River is the perfect literary page-turner. It’s a brilliantly plotted crime novel, yes, but it’s also a story about the complicated push and pull of family, and how much of our childhood traumas we carry forward through our lives. Anyone with a mother, a father, a brother, or a sister – anyone with a heart, for that matter – will love this book, as I did."
—Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes