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Get Hired Now!

Ian Siegel

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Accelerate your job search, stand out, and land your next great opportunity

In Get Hired Now!, ZipRecruiter founder and CEO Ian Siegel tells you exactly how to find a new job fast. With an insider's view of how over a million employers really make hires, Ian pulls insights from the data to give you step-by-step instructions for writing a resume that works, finding the right jobs to apply to, acing a job interview, and negotiating a job offer.

  • Debunk the conventional wisdom
  • Break the unconscious habits that are sabotaging your success
  • Get hired in record time

Relevant for every stage of your career and for every industry, Get Hired Now! is a one-stop resource for job seekers looking to level up, stand out, and land the job.

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Modernize Your Executive Job Search

Louise Kursmark

Modernize Your Executive Job Search: Get Noticed Get Hired is a clear and concrete guide to help senior executives advance to their next career opportunity. Strategies are designed to propel the careers of present-day C-suite executives, those targeting advancement to the highest leadership levels, rising/very senior-level executives, and candidates seeking opportunities to serve on boards of directors. The book begins with a 6-week accelerated job search plan comprising actionable steps that are rated according to ROI (return on investment) and provide an easy-to-follow blueprint for getting maximum results in minimum time. Key topics include working with retained search firms, VC/PE considerations, powerful networking strategies, targeted search plans, interview preparation and performance, responses to posted openings, social media optimization, differentiated follow-up approaches, and much more. Later sections provide to-the-point advice and examples for writing powerful executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and other career documents. A separate chapter addresses specific challenges often faced by executive job seekers and provides expert recommendations for overcoming hurdles that might easily derail the search or cause ongoing issues and delays. A key section of the book contains 10+ case studies of successful executive job searchesalong with all of the documents that these executives used to move on and move up in their careers. In addition to documents written by the authors, the book features contributions from a select group of credentialed, highly experienced writers who specialize in working with senior executives.

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Acing Your Job Search

Roy Mapleton

THE TOP 5 REASONS CANDIDATES ARE UNSUCCESSFUL IN THEIR JOB SEARCH

Job seekers spend hundreds of hours applying for jobs with little to no luck.
1. Not knowing how to maximize their job search strategy
2. Absence of a compelling resume or cover letter
3. Lack of knowledge of body language
4. Inexperience at interviewing and responding to tough situations
5. Ineffective at tying it all together and concluding effectively

Most guidance available for job search is either confusing, or scattered, or just incomplete. Don't set yourself up for failure by looking in the wrong places.

Regardless of what job you're looking for, your experience or skill level: here's your complete guide to every aspect of your search: creating your resume and other documents, improving your body language, applying and networking in the right places, and answering some of the most difficult HR interview questions.

To top it off, go beyond just getting a job, by using the tips in this book to improve your skills to make yourself more marketable!...

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Believe

M. B. Blacker

The job search is often scary, challenging, uncomfortable, anxiety inducing, and stressful, but it doesn't have to be that way. This book will provide methods to confront these issues successfully and make the job search easier and more manageable.

There have been many books published on the topic but none have addressed the balance between the job search process and the effects this process has on everyone. How does a job applicant manage the stress and anxiety affiliated with finding job opportunities, navigating the interview process, and designing the appropriate personal marketing materials?

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Bound-For-Career Guidebook

Frank Burtnett

The Bound-for-Career Guidebook views career identification, selection, entry, and progression as part of a larger developmental process--the career development process. In this guidebook for adolescents and young adults, the author outlines the experiences and tasks that will facilitate the career development process and lead to satisfaction and success. The reader will be exposed to the various educational and career transitions they must consider on the path to the workplace and specific guidance is offered on how to maximize entry and advancement. Along the career exploration, decision-making, and preparation path, the author answers frequently asked questions and offers an array of facts and myths that need to be considered. Empowered individuals are better able to guide themselves through their personal career journey. The reader's command of the information in the Bound-for-Career Guidebook will give them that power!

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Trash to Treasure

Pam Scheunemann

With easy step-by-step instructions, this book will help kids get creative and recycle and repurpose their trash into handmade treasures. All projects feature common everyday items to reuse in a fun new way. From bottle-top pop art to felted tin-can organizers, kids will love making useful crafts and helping the environment. Great tips and advice on reusing, garage sales, and spotting treasures are also provided. So start your upcycling with these fabric, paper, metal, glass & ceramics, and odds & ends projects. Book includes: visual supply & tool lists, step-by-step instructions and photos, fun advice & tips, and safety information.

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Smithsonian STEM Lab

Jack Challoner

From racing wind up cars to making music with a homemade guitar, STEM Lab will excite and inspire curious young minds.

STEM Lab is packed with 25 exciting STEM activities, perfect for firing up kids' imaginations. Explore and discover beautifully illustrated science activities with an easy to follow guide that will explain how science, technology, engineering and math shape the world around us.

A perfect balance between education and fun, STEM Lab teaches young readers through each experiment, describing the science behind it and providing engaging STEM facts. The richly illustrated activities promote further thinking by suggested "Test and Tweak" notes. Encourage young readers to take their projects to the next level, while furthering their understanding of the science behind it.

Each activity has its own 'How It Works" section covering STEM principles to help young minds understand answers to their science curiosity, exercising cognitive thinking and problem-solving skills.

Learn The Science Behind 25 Amazing Projects

Science activities for kids that can be done at home. Leap into the exciting world of STEM where Science, Technology, Engineering and Math combine in 25 fun and easy-to-do projects. STEM Lab teaches young readers how to make impressive insulating gloves, stunning spaghetti towers, amazing automations, and explores many more educational activities.

STEM subjects are a crucial part of a child's education. STEM Lab helps kids to practice STEM principles in a fun and engaging manner, while exercising motor skills and cognitive thinking. The four subject areas this book is based on are interrelated, and by combining them new insights, ideas and solutions to problems emerge. STEM Lab will teach you the principles of engineering and the science behind it.

This STEM filled activity book is organised into four sections:

- Forces and Motion
- Liquids and Reactions
- Shapes and Structures
- Light and Sound

STEM Lab combines fun and learning with hand-on activities that engages STEM principles.

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Mason Jar Crafts for Kids

Linda Z. Braden

Mason jars are no longer just for canning. Today we use them to drink from, to cook inside, and—with almost limitless possibilities—to craft with. In this fabulous new book, Linda Braden, author and owner of MasonJarCraftsLove.com and ItAllStartedWithPaint.com, offers up a collection of fun and creative Mason jar crafts for kids. Her ideas include everything from wild science experiments and delicious edible treats to holiday decor and gifts for the whole family. Kids won’t want to miss the fireworks in a jar or the lava lamp jar projects. And who could resist a Mason jar cupcake or a rainbow Jell-O jar? There are instructions for how to make your own lantern jars, snow globes, and even a Mason jar terrarium. This book will keep little hands busy all year round, with dozens of easy do-it-yourself projects.

Accompanied by photo tutorials and helpful step-by-step instructions, these projects are kid-friendly and offer a variety of options for both beginning and more advanced DIY fans. Each project is complete with age recommendations, a list of supplies you will need, and safety precautions. These projects are great for crafting with a big group or alone with your child, and perfect for long summer days, rainy weekends, and holiday preparation. Be inspired and discover the endless possibilities with the world’s most famous jar!

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Labcraft Wizards

John Austin

Being a wizard takes training, practice, and a few tips from an expert. Labcraft Wizards provides dozens of step-by-step projects to transform everyday objects into instruments of magic, such as a sculpted magic wand, gooey ogre snot, bouncy dragon eggs, edible brewed slugs, an enchanted hourglass, and more! Through its creative activities, Labcraft Wizards encourages scientific observation and helps eager minds explore basic concepts in chemistry and physics through experimentation.

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Karl's new beak : 3-D printing builds a bird a better life

Lela Nargi

Karl is an Abyssinian ground hornbill with a special challenge. His lower bill had broken off and made eating difficult. Karl did a great job of adapting and finding new ways to eat, but he wasn't getting all the food he needed. His zookeepers at the National Zoo and friends at the Smithsonian Institute wanted to help. Could an old bird skeleton and a 3-D printer give Karl a new beak? Karl's new adventure was about to begin! The Capstone Interactive edition comes with simultaneous access for every student in your school and includes read aloud audio recorded by professional voice over artists.

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Fun with Felt

Jane Yates

There are endless ways to get creative with felt! This book introduces readers to crafting with this affordable and versatile material. Readers will learn important techniques for making several projects, such as a felt pouch, bird ornament, and a monster stuffie. Easy and accessible instructions walk readers through each project, while photographs illustrate each step. Young crafters will have fun working on their very own felt masterpieces!

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Epic Cardboard Adventures

Leslie Manlapig

The creator behind the blog Pink Stripey Socks brings her crafting talent to cardboard! With these easy-to-make, imagination-growing cardboard crafts, kids can put on a show, travel back in time, and even rocket to outer space!

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Instagram For Business For Dummies

Jenn Herman

Put your best brand story in front of 1+ billion users!

One of the most energetically social of the major social media platforms, Instagram has the highest brand engagement rate of them all. Throw in the app's more than 1 billion active monthly users and its powerful business tools—including shoppable posts, devoted business profiles, and advanced analytics—and you have an unmissable opportunity to tell a gripping story that bonds you with your customers and makes your business an integral part of their social media lives.

The latest edition of Instagram For Business For Dummies puts you in the picture on how to showcase your product, craft your narrative, and gather insight into how your customers experience and react to your business. Presented in straightforward, practical language by three Instagram and marketing gurus, you'll swiftly go from setting up your account and profile to applying strategies for writing winning captions and creating content that deliver super-engaged customers.

  • Set up your account, profile, and analytics
  • Upload content and get smart with IG Stories and live video
  • Build and target paid advertising
  • Master the art of the hashtag

Whatever your current Instagram skill-level, there's always somewhere new to take you're the story of your business—and there's no better way to begin a gripping new chapter in that story than with this book.

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Business Doing Good

Shannon Deer

Outlines six principles and best practices for hiring and retaining women with challenging backgrounds Recently, business leaders have shifted their focus from a profit-only mindset to considering the impact of their businesses on all stakeholders. At the same time, the United Nations set aggressive Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) to improve our world by 2030. These SDGs address all major needs facing our world today, such as: eradication of poverty and hunger, access to clean water, gender equality, and decent work and economic growth. These are significant problems facing the world that have in the past largely been left to nonprofit organizations and governments to solve. Investors and customers have higher expectations for companies to make a positive social and environmental impact. They want to know business can do good. Following suit, today's business leaders are starting to recognize we will never fill the gap between where we are and where we want to be if businesses do not also do their part to contribute sustainable solutions to these enormous social problems. This book provides a guide for businesses to make a significant positive impact while also benefiting their businesses. Business Doing Good outlines six principles business leaders can implement to effectively hire women who have experienced incarceration, poverty, addiction, and/or engagement in the sex trade. While making a difference to both these women and communities, businesses benefit from the women's resourcefulness, resilience, ability to motivate, and other unique skills and perspectives only available to someone who has overcome difficulties. Investments in women, in general, are exponential as they are more likely to return that investment to future generations. The impact is endless. If we are going to end poverty and create economic development, women who have overcome challenging pasts cannot be excluded.

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The Elevated Communicator

Maryanne O'Brien

Discover your communication style and elevate consciousness at work to build trust, strengthen collaboration, relieve stress, and improve wellbeing.

Our work lives revolve around effective communication. It is essential for cultivating trust and team collaboration, as well as strengthening our motivation and wellbeing at work. And with teams experiencing more anxiety, stress, and burnout than ever before, strong communication skills have never been more essential.

The key to this clear and effective communication begins with understanding our own personal communication styles. Bringing our whole and authentic selves to work improves relationships and teamwork. The better we understand what drives us, how we impact others, and how our wellbeing impacts our communication, the faster we can close communication gaps to build healthy, successful, and satisfying work lives and more intentional careers.

Drawing on more than a decade of original research on communication tendencies, as well as proven mindfulness and habit-formation techniques, Maryanne O’Brien has developed a proprietary model of communication styles: Expressive, Reserved, Direct, or Harmonious.

In The Elevated Communicator you will find:
-A self-assessment to discover your own personal style
-An in-depth style profile to strengthen self-awareness and help you play to your style’s strengths
-The connection between emotional health and communication patterns
-Strategies to manage your communication style under stress
-Practices to improve your well-being and reduce conflict
-Ways to care for your communication style and improve your wellbeing
-Methods to flex toward other styles to communicate more effectively with people
-Advice on building healthy, trusted, and productive working relationships

Perfect for fans of StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies, The Elevated Communicator’s personalized, mindful approach inspires readers to develop daily practices to spiral up, raise consciousness, inspire accountability, and discover their full potential at work.

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Scale for Success

Jan Cavelle

'Both inspires and exposes the challenge of making it big.' – Financial Times

All it takes to start a business is a great idea and initial funding. But when it comes to growing and scaling a business – turning it into an enduring success – it becomes much more difficult to manage and sustain the various elements that are involved. You need to set out a clear plan, sustain funding, optimise marketing opportunities and develop an effective team. There are many opportunities to fail but, with Scale for Success, readers will gain valuable insights and practical advice from a global array of entrepreneurs and business leaders who have paved the way to their own versions of commercial success.
Scale for Success features 30 entrepreneurs and CEOs, including Dame Shellie Hunt, Jeremy Harbour, David Meerman Scott and Paris Cutler. These inspiring figures share their stories of successful growth and scaling and, most importantly, the practical and adaptable advice and guidance that led to their businesses moving effectively on to the next stage of growth. With insights from world-renowned figures in industries such as tech, real estate, marketing and fashion, this book provides an eclectic array of original ideas and approaches that have been proven to be effective. Narrated and curated by writer and former entrepreneur Jan Cavelle, this book provides an engaging and enlightening pathway to scaling success.

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Why Startups Fail

Tom Eisenmann

 

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail.
"Whether you're a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading."--Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way

Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn't answer it.

So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures.

* Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder's talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly.
* False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to "fail fast" and to "launch before you're ready," founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions.
* False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand.
* Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to "get big fast," hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures.
* Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both.
* Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong.

Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise--from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles--Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them.

A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

 

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Side Hustle to Main Hustle

Angel N. Livas

Side Hustle to Main Hustle helps women successfully transition to full-time entrepreneurship today.

Throughout Side Hustle to Main Hustle, author and award-winning host of The Woman Behind the Business Talk Show, Angel N. Livas shows women how a "B.E.A.S.T. Mentality" can aid them on their journey to full-time entrepreneurship. Within Side Hustle to Main Hustle, women learn how to:

  • Transition their side hustle into a full-time business
  • Build a sustainable business that's structurally sound
  • Develop strategies to address their business objectives
  • Identify and attract their target audience to increase clientele
  • Establish a brand that's trustworthy and authentic
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The Heart of Business

Hubert Joly

"It was Fall in Minnesota. It was getting cold and we were supposed to die." This is how Hubert Joly describes the early, dark days as CEO of Best Buy, a job most thought he was crazy to accept. Amazon was tearing a disruptive path through retail, but in the face of that existential threat Joly did something remarkable: he saved Best Buy and remade it into a thriving company rated as one of the most desirable businesses to work for. Having recently stepped down as Chairman and CEO, Joly is ready to share the leadership principles that underpinned the resurgence of Best Buy and that he believes are at the heart of business: pursue a noble purpose, put people at the center, unleash human magic, and treat profit as an outcome. There was a time when many would call this a soft philosophy. But times are changing. Best Buy and 180 other companies signed the momentous Business Roundtable statement in support of stakeholder capitalism. The Covid-19 pandemic further pushed many businesses to lead from a place of purpose and with humanity. The changes underway are not a revolt, but a revolution. And Joly provides concrete advice on how to implement principles that can serve as beacons for the next era of capitalism. Joly himself was transformed from a hard-charging, deeply analytical McKinsey consultant to a leader who believes in what he calls human magic. He will share how so much of what he initially learned about management is either dated, incomplete, or simply wrong-including how to turn around a business, develop and implement a strategy, mobilize an organization, and what it takes to be a great leader. The leadership principles Joly lays out worked at Best Buy. They can also contribute to the necessary re-foundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity"--

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Go Where There Is No Path

Christopher Gray

For all who dare to go off the beaten track, this is the inspirational, power-packed playbook for transforming your life and your world--from a young, Black social entrepreneur whose dorm-room tech startup has helped millions pay for college and access unprecedented opportunity.

Gray, the son of a single working mother who had him at age fourteen, grew up in deep poverty in Birmingham, Alabama. An academic star, he had every qualification for attending a top college--except for the financial means. Desperate, Gray headed off the beaten path, searching online to apply for every scholarship he could find. His hustle resulted in awards of 1.3 million dollars and became his call to action to help other students win their own "schollys." It inspired him to start up Scholly, an app that matches college applicants with millions of dollars in outside scholarships that often go unclaimed.

When he was a senior at Drexel University, he appeared on Shark Tank as CEO of Scholly. In the most heated fight in the show's history, the sharks challenged Gray as to whether his app was a charity or a profitable business. Both, he insisted, proposing a new paradigm for social entrepreneurship and netting deals from Lori Grenier and Daymond John.
 

At the time Scholly's subscriber base was 90,000 users. Today the app has 4 million subscribers who have won scholarships totaling more than $100 million. Meanwhile, Gray--without help from the mostly all-white boy's club of Silicon Valley--has emerged as a tech startup superhero now tackling the crisis of student debt with innovative, unrivaled strategies.

Gray's premise is that when you lead with the good--confronting issues such as poverty and racism--the money will follow. His story is proof that when you develop a mindset for success, you turn disadvantages into gold. And when you create opportunities for others, you enrich the marketplace for yourself too.

Gray shows us, we can carve out new paths to better days and leave trails for others.

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Persuade

Andres Lares

Transform your ability to persuade and negotiate with this practical new resource

In Persuade: The 4-Step Process to Influence People and Decisions, accomplished sales, negotiation, and influence experts Andres Lares, Jeff Cochran, and Shaun Digan PhD deliver a concise and insightful take on how to transform your ability to persuade others regardless of the setting.

In this important book you'll discover:

  • Original research and scientific studies shedding light on the human decision-making processes that drive success and failure in virtually all interactions
  • Real world examples and practical exercises to illustrate and practice the concepts discussed
  • A fun yet rigorous approach of a complex subject that can be practically applied in any business situation

Persuade is perfect for executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders and will earn a place in the libraries of any professional who negotiates or influences on a regular basis. It is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to improve their persuasion or deal-making abilities.

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Business Writing For Dummies

Natalie Canavor

Learn how to write for the results you want every time, in every medium!

Do you wish you could write better? In today’s business world, good writing is key to success in just about every endeavor. Writing is how you connect with colleagues, supervisors, clients, partners, employees, and people you’ve never met. No wonder strong writers win the jobs, promotions and contracts. Business Writing For Dummies shows you, from the ground up, how to create persuasive messages with the right content and language every time—messages your readers will understand and act on.

This friendly guide equips you with a step-by-step method for planning what to say and how to say it in writing. This sytem empowers you to handle every writing challenge with confidence, from emails to proposals, reports to resumes, presentations to video scripts, blogs to social posts, websites to books. Discover down-to-earth techniques for sharpening your language and correcting your own writing problems. Learn how to adapt content, tone and style for each medium and audience. And learn to use every message you write to build better relationships and solve problems, while getting to the “yes” you want.

Whether you’re aiming to land your first job or are an experienced specialist in your field, Business Writing For Dummies helps you build your communication confidence and stand out.

  • Present yourself with authority and credibility
  • Understand and use the tools of persuasion
  • Communicate as a remote worker, freelancer, consultant or entrepreneur
  • Strategize your online presence to support your goals
  • Bring out the best in people and foster team spirit as a leader
  • Prepare to ace interviews, pitches and confrontations

Good communication skills, particularly writing, are in high demand across all industries. Use this book to gain the edge you need to promote your own success, now and down the line as your career goals evolve.

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The Non-Obvious Guide to Working Remotely (Being Productive Without Getting Distracted, Lonely Or Bored)

Rohit Bhargava

"Any remote worker would find this book useful." --Booklist

An all new updated 2021 edition of the popular original guide to working from home and adjusting to virtual work featuring the best tips and advice from more than 50 top experts.

Most books on remote work repeat the same tired advice about being productive while wearing sweatpants. The advice in this book is different. Award winning author Rohit Bhargava reveals the secrets of remote work by curating advice from the experts.

In this book, you'll learn:

  • Why trying to recreate a "home studio" for presentations is overrated.
  • How you can build powerful relationships with people you've never met.
  • The seven rules of virtual meetings that everyone should know.
  • How to look and sound amazing on video, without spending a fortune.

Most guides to virtual work pretend like it is better than being face-to-face. It usually isn't. But in today's business world, there are many reasons you need to work remotely or do virtual meetings, from taking parental leave to navigating a global health pandemic.

In this short guide featuring a compilation of the best advice and insights from more than 50 experts from dozens of industries, you will learn the keys to being effective from afar. Whether you need to deliver a presentation to a virtual audience or collaborate with a global team, this handy guide will help you be more productive when you can't be there in person.

This is not a book that will convince you that you need to work remotely every day or that you should go to a Caribbean island and become a digital nomad. It's a guide for anyone forced to work remotely, stuck on too many Zoom calls, and looking for quick actionable advice on how to shift the way they work to get more done every day.

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The Introvert's Edge to Networking: a Step-By-Step Process to Creating Authentic Connections

Matthew Pollard

Finally - A Networking Book for Introverts!

The sequel to Pollard's international bestseller The Introvert's Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone, selected by BookAuthority as the #2 "Best Introvert Book of All Time" and listed by HubSpot as one of the "Most Highly-Rated Sales Books of All Time."

Introverts across the world have been sold a lie: One of the biggest myths that plagues the business world today is that our ability to network depends on having the "gift-of-gab." This is nonsense. You don't have to be outgoing to be successful at networking. You don't have to become a relentless self-promoter. In fact, you don't have to act like an extrovert at all.

The truth is, introverts make the best networkers . . . when armed with a plan that lets them be their authentic selves.

Matthew Pollard, an introvert himself, draws on over a decade of research and real-world examples to provide an actionable blueprint for introverted networking.

In this paradigm-shifting book, you'll discover how to:

  • Overcome your fear and discomfort when networking
  • Turn networking into a repeatable system
  • Leverage your innate introverted strengths
  • Target and connect with top influencers
  • Leverage the power of virtual and social networking

Whether you're a small business owner struggling to make a living or a professional who's hit a career plateau, The Introvert's Edge to Networking is your path to a higher income and a rolodex of powerful connections.

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Business Made Simple

"It's hard to be successful without a clear understanding of how business works. These daily readings are crucial for any professional or business owner who wants to take their career to the next level. In this 60-day guide, readers will be introduced to 10 areas where truly successful leaders and their businesses excel : Character, Leadership, Personal Productivity, Business Strategy, Messaging, Marketing, Sales, Negotiation, Management, Execution."

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America on Fire

Elizabeth Hinton

What began in spring 2020 as local protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police quickly exploded into a massive nationwide movement. Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation's streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors--and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.

Even in the aftermath of Donald Trump, many Americans consider the decades since the civil rights movement in the mid-1960s as a story of progress toward greater inclusiveness and equality. Hinton's sweeping narrative uncovers an altogether different history, taking us on a troubling journey from Detroit in 1967 and Miami in 1980 to Los Angeles in 1992 and beyond to chart the persistence of structural racism and one of its primary consequences, the so-called urban riot. Hinton offers a critical corrective: the word riot was nothing less than a racist trope applied to events that can only be properly understood as rebellions--explosions of collective resistance to an unequal and violent order. As she suggests, if rebellion and the conditions that precipitated it never disappeared, the optimistic story of a post-Jim Crow United States no longer holds.

Black rebellion, America on Fire powerfully illustrates, was born in response to poverty and exclusion, but most immediately in reaction to police violence. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson launched the "War on Crime," sending militarized police forces into impoverished Black neighborhoods. Facing increasing surveillance and brutality, residents threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at officers, plundered local businesses, and vandalized exploitative institutions. Hinton draws on exclusive sources to uncover a previously hidden geography of violence in smaller American cities, from York, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, to Stockton, California.

The central lesson from these eruptions--that police violence invariably leads to community violence--continues to escape policymakers, who respond by further criminalizing entire groups instead of addressing underlying socioeconomic causes. The results are the hugely expanded policing and prison regimes that shape the lives of so many Americans today. Presenting a new framework for understanding our nation's enduring strife, America on Fire is also a warning: rebellions will surely continue unless police are no longer called on to manage the consequences of dismal conditions beyond their control, and until an oppressive system is finally remade on the principles of justice and equality.

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A Worse Place Than Hell

John Matteson

December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln's government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country's law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American.

Guided by patriotism, driven by desire, all five moved toward singular destinies. A young Harvard intellectual steeped in courageous ideals, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. confronted grave challenges to his concept of duty. The one-eyed army chaplain Arthur Fuller pitted his frail body against the evils of slavery. Walt Whitman, a gay Brooklyn poet condemned by the guardians of propriety, and Louisa May Alcott, a struggling writer seeking an authentic voice and her father's admiration, tended soldiers' wracked bodies as nurses. On the other side of the national schism, John Pelham, a West Point cadet from Alabama, achieved a unique excellence in artillery tactics as he served a doomed and misbegotten cause.

A Worse Place Than Hell brings together the prodigious forces of war with the intimacy of individual lives. Matteson interweaves the historic and the personal in a work as beautiful as it is powerful.

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The Crooked Path to Abolition

James Oakes

The long and turning path to the abolition of American slavery has often been attributed to the equivocations and inconsistencies of antislavery leaders, including Lincoln himself. But James Oakes's brilliant history of Lincoln's antislavery strategies reveals a striking consistency and commitment extending over many years. The linchpin of antislavery for Lincoln was the Constitution of the United States.

Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action--in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade--they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad.

President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. Enslaved people who escaped to Union lines were declared free. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the King's cure: state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.

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The Howe Dynasty

Julie Flavell

In December 1774, Benjamin Franklin met Caroline Howe, the sister of British General Sir William Howe and Richard Admiral Lord Howe, in a London drawing room for "half a dozen Games of Chess." But as historian Julie Flavell reveals, these meetings were about much more than board games: they were cover for a last-ditch attempt to forestall the outbreak of the American War of Independence.

Aware that the distinguished Howe family, both the men and the women, have been known solely for the military exploits of the brothers, Flavell investigated the letters of Caroline Howe, which have been blatantly overlooked since the nineteenth century. Using revelatory documents and this correspondence, The Howe Dynasty provides a groundbreaking reinterpretation of one of England's most famous military families across four wars.

Contemporaries considered the Howes impenetrable and intensely private--or, as Horace Walpole called them, "brave and silent." Flavell traces their roots to modest beginnings at Langar Hall in rural Nottinghamshire and highlights the Georgian phenomenon of the politically involved aristocratic woman. In fact, the early careers of the brothers--George, Richard, and William--can be credited not to the maneuverings of their father, Scrope Lord Howe, but to those of their aunt, the savvy Mary Herbert Countess Pembroke. When eldest sister Caroline came of age during the reign of King George III, she too used her intimacy with the royal inner circle to promote her brothers, moving smoothly between a straitlaced court and an increasingly scandalous London high life.

With genuine suspense, Flavell skillfully recounts the most notable episodes of the brothers' military campaigns: how Richard, commanding the HMS Dunkirk in 1755, fired the first shot signaling the beginning of the Seven Years' War at sea; how George won the devotion of the American fighters he commanded at Fort Ticonderoga just three years later; and how youngest brother General William Howe, his sympathies torn, nonetheless commanded his troops to a bitter Pyrrhic victory in the Battle of Bunker Hill, only to be vilified for his failure as British commander-in-chief to subdue Washington's Continental Army.

Britain's desperate battles to guard its most vaunted colonial possession are here told in tandem with London parlor-room intrigues, where Caroline bravely fought to protect the Howe reputation in a gossipy aristocratic milieu. A riveting narrative and long overdue reassessment of the entire family, The Howe Dynasty forces us to reimagine the Revolutionary War in ways that would have been previously inconceivable.

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Four Hundred Souls

Ibram X. Kendi

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.

"A vital addition to [the] curriculum on race in America . . . a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain's impressive choir."--The Washington Post

"From journalist Hannah P. Jones on Jamestown's first slaves to historian Annette Gordon-Reed's portrait of Sally Hemings to the seductive cadences of poets Jericho Brown and Patricia Smith, Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence."--O: The Oprah Magazine

The story begins in 1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history.

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith--instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.

This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.

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Horizontal Vertigo

Juan Villoro

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.

Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city 's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today--one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers.

In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: "Living in the City," "City Characters," "Shocks," "Crossings," and "Ceremonies." What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City's genius loci, its spirit of place.

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Stampede

Brian Castner

 

A gripping and wholly original account of the epic human tragedy that was the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98. One hundred thousand men and women rushed heedlessly north to make their fortunes; very few did, but many thousands of them died in the attempt.
In 1897, the United States was mired in the worst economic depression that the country had yet endured. So when all the newspapers announced gold was to be found in wildly enriching quantities at the Klondike River region of the Yukon, a mob of economically desperate Americans swarmed north. Within weeks tens of thousands of them were embarking from western ports to throw themselves at some of the harshest terrain on the planet--in winter yet--woefully unprepared, with no experience at all in mining or mountaineering. It was a mass delusion that quickly proved deadly: avalanches, shipwrecks, starvation, murder.

 

Upon this stage, author Brian Castner tells a relentlessly driving story of the gold rush through the individual experiences of the iconic characters who endured it. A young Jack London, who would make his fortune but not in gold. Colonel Samuel Steele, who tried to save the stampeders from themselves. The notorious gangster Soapy Smith, goodtime girls and desperate miners, Skookum Jim, and the hotel entrepreneur Belinda Mulrooney. The unvarnished tale of this mass migration is always striking, revealing the amazing truth of what people will do for a chance to be rich.

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A Snake Falls to Earth

Darcie Little Badger

Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She's always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories.

Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake.

Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries.

And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.

Darcie Little Badger introduced herself to the world with Elatsoe. In A Snake Falls to Earth, she draws on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure to weave another unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. It is not to be missed.

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The Spymaster of Baghdad

Margaret Coker

From the former New York Times bureau chief in Baghdad comes the gripping and heroic story of an elite, top-secret team of unlikely spies who triumphed over ISIS.

The Spymaster of Baghdad tells the dramatic yet intimate account of how a covert Iraqi intelligence unit called "the Falcons" came together against all odds to defeat ISIS. The Falcons, comprised of ordinary men with little conventional espionage background, infiltrated the world's most powerful terrorist organization, ultimately turning the tide of war against the terrorist group and bringing safety to millions of Iraqis and the broader world. Centered around the relationship between two brothers, Harith al-Sudani, a rudderless college dropout who was recruited to the Falcons by his all-star younger brother Munaf, and their eponymous unit commander Abu Ali, The Spymaster of Baghdad follows their emotional journey as Harith volunteers for the most dangerous mission imaginable. With piercing lyricism and thrilling prose, Coker's deeply-reported account interweaves heartfelt portraits of these and other unforgettable characters as they navigate the streets of war-torn Baghdad and perform heroic feats of cunning and courage.

The Falcons' path crosses with that of Abrar, a young, radicalized university student who, after being snubbed by the head of the Islamic State's chemical weapons program, plots her own attack. At the near-final moment, the Falcons intercept Abrar's deadly plan to poison Baghdad's drinking water and arrest her in the middle of the night--just one of many covert counterterrorism operations revealed for the first time in the book.

Ultimately, The Spymaster of Baghdad is a page-turning account of wartime espionage in which ordinary people make extraordinary sacrifices for the greater good. Challenging our perceptions of terrorism and counterterrorism, war and peace, Iraq and the wider Middle East, American occupation and foreign intervention, The Spymaster of Baghdad is a testament to the power of personal choice and individual action to change the course of history--in a time when we need such stories more than ever.

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The World Turned Upside Down

Yang Jisheng

Yang Jisheng’s The World Turned Upside Down is the definitive history of the Cultural Revolution, in withering and heartbreaking detail.

As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People’s Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong’s ultra-leftist politics. Reacting in part to the Soviet Union’s "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This ten-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation’s economy.

Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today.

The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those ten years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.

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Three Tigers, One Mountain

Michael Booth

From the author of The Almost Nearly Perfect People, a lively tour through Japan, Korea, and China, exploring the intertwined cultures and often fraught history of these neighboring countries.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, “Two tigers cannot share the same mountain.” However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, is the enmity between these three “tiger” nations, and what prevents them from making peace. Currently China’s economic power continues to grow, Japan is becoming more militaristic, and Korea struggles to reconcile its westernized south with the dictatorial Communist north. Booth, long fascinated with the region, travels by car, ferry, train, and foot, experiencing the people and culture of these nations up close. No matter where he goes, the burden of history, and the memory of past atrocities, continues to overshadow present relationships. Ultimately, Booth seeks a way forward for these closely intertwined, neighboring nations.

An enlightening, entertaining and sometimes sobering journey through China, Japan, and Korea, Three Tigers, One Mountain is an intimate and in-depth look at some of the world’s most powerful and important countries.

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The Heartbreak Bakery

A. R. Capetta

Teenage baker Syd sends ripples of heartbreak through Austin's queer community when a batch of post-being-dumped brownies turns out to be magical--and makes everyone who eats them break up.

"What's done is done."
Unless, of course, it was done by my brownies. Then it's getting undone.

Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd's breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it's probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd's magical baking can fix things, too--one recipe at a time.

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The Bookseller of Florence

Ross King

The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings--the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.

At the heart of this activity, which bestselling author Ross King relates in his exhilarating new book, was a remarkable man: Vespasiano da Bisticci. Born in 1422, he became what a friend called "the king of the world's booksellers." At a time when all books were made by hand, over four decades Vespasiano produced and sold many hundreds of volumes from his bookshop, which also became a gathering spot for debate and discussion. Besides repositories of ancient wisdom by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian, his books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. His clients included a roll-call of popes, kings, and princes across Europe who wished to burnish their reputations by founding magnificent libraries.

Vespasiano reached the summit of his powers as Europe's most prolific merchant of knowledge when a new invention appeared: the printed book. By 1480, the king of the world's booksellers was swept away by this epic technological disruption, whereby cheaply produced books reached readers who never could have afforded one of Vespasiano's elegant manuscripts.

A thrilling chronicle of intellectual ferment set against the dramatic political and religious turmoil of the era, Ross King's brilliant The Bookseller of Florence is also an ode to books and bookmaking that charts the world-changing shift from script to print through the life of an extraordinary man long lost to history--one of the true titans of the Renaissance.

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The Hitler Years: Triumph, 1933-1939

Frank McDonough

From historian Frank McDonough, the first volume of a new chronicle of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand.

On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the German Chancellor of a coalition government by President Hindenburg. Within a few months he had installed a dictatorship, jailing and killing his leftwing opponents, terrorizing the rest of the population and driving Jews out of public life. He embarked on a crash program of militaristic Keynesianism, reviving the economy and achieving full employment through massive public works, vast armaments spending and the cancellations of foreign debts. After the grim years of the Great Depression, Germany seemed to have been reborn as a brutal and determined European power.

Over the course of the years from 1933 to 1939, Hitler won over most of the population to his vision of a renewed Reich. In these years of domestic triumph, cunning maneuvers, pitting neighboring powers against each other and biding his time, we see Hitler preparing for the moment that would realize his ambition. But what drove Hitler's success was also to be the fatal flaw of his regime: a relentless belief in war as the motor of greatness, a dream of vast conquests in Eastern Europe and an astonishingly fanatical racism.

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The Anglo-Saxons

Marc Morris

A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters.

The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being.

Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

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Red Line

Joby Warrick

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Black Flags, the thrilling unknown story of America's mission in Syria: to find and destroy Syria's chemical weapons and keep them out of the hands of the Islamic State

In August 2012, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When secret intelligence revealed that the dictator might resort to using chemical weapons, President Obama warned that doing so would cross "a red line." Assad did it anyway, bombing the Damascus suburb of Ghouta with sarin gas, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing Obama to decide if he would mire America in another unpopular Middle Eastern war. When Russia offered to broker the removal of Syria's chemical weapons, Obama leapt at the out.

So begins an electrifying race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war. The extraordinary little-known effort is a triumph for the Americans, but soon Russia's long game becomes clear: it will do anything to preserve Assad's rule. As America's ability to control events in Syria shrinks, the White House learns that ISIS, building its caliphate in Syria's war-tossed territory, is seeking chemical weapons for itself, with an eye to attacking the West.

Red Line is a classic Joby Warrick true-life thriller: a character-driven narrative with a cast of heroes and villains, including weapons hunters, politicians, doctors, diplomats, and spies. Drawing on astonishing original reporting, Warrick reveals how the United States embarked on a bold adventure to prevent one catastrophe but could not avoid a tragic chain of events that empowered America's enemies.

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The Daughters of Kobani

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won

"The Daughters of Kobani is an unforgettable and nearly mythic tale of women's power and courage. The young women profiled in this book fought a fearsome war against brutal men in impossible circumstances--and proved in the process what girls and women can accomplish when given the chance to lead. Brilliantly researched and respectfully reported, this book is a lesson in heroism, sacrifice, and the real meaning of sisterhood. I am so grateful that this story has been told." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love

"Absolutely fascinating and brilliantly written, The Daughters of Kobani is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand both the nobility and the brutality of war. This is one of the most compelling stories in modern warfare." --Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Make Your Bed

In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of: Kobani. By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting--house by house, street by street, city by city--the men who bought and sold women.

Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, bestselling author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace. In helping to cement the territorial defeat of ISIS, whose savagery toward women astounded the world, these women played a central role in neutralizing the threat the group posed worldwide. In the process they earned the respect--and significant military support--of U.S. Special Operations Forces.

Rigorously reported and powerfully told, The Daughters of Kobani shines a light on a group of women intent on not only defeating the Islamic State on the battlefield but also changing women's lives in their corner of the Middle East and beyond.

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Rotters

Daniel Kraus

Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.
    
Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.
    
Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.

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Send a Runner

Edison Eskeets

The Navajo tribe, the Diné, are the largest tribe in the United States and live across the American Southwest. But over a century ago, they were nearly wiped out by the Long Walk, a forced removal of most of the Diné people to a military-controlled reservation in New Mexico. The summer of 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the Navajos' return to their homelands. One Navajo family and their community decided to honor that return. Edison Eskeets and his family organized a ceremonial run from Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, to Santa Fé, New Mexico, in order to deliver a message and to honor the survivors of the Long Walk.

Both exhilarating and punishing, Send A Runner tells the story of a Navajo family using the power of running to honor their ancestors and the power of history to explain why the Long Walk happened. From these forces, they might also seek the vision of how the Diné--their people--will have a future.

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Wilmette at 150

John Jacoby

Wilmette at 150 is a collection of illuminating stories that feature and celebrate the people, places, and events that have shaped the village and created its unique character over the last century and a half. These stories present the grandeur of the lakefront, the turmoil of No Man's Land, the devastation wrought by a Palm Sunday tornado, the beauty of a tree memorial built for blind Judge Kolman, the final moments of notorious gangster Baby Face Nelson, the inspirational visit by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to promote racial justice and unity, and much more.

John Jacoby, a long-time Wilmette resident and former Village President (1989-1997), weaves all these stories into a fabric of village history-a history that includes success and failure, joy and tragedy, principle and pragmatism, unity and division. Wilmette at 150 is a tapestry that both honors the past and welcomes the future with insight, energy, and confidence.

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The Ground Breaking

Scott Ellsworth

One of The New York Times's 11 Books we Recommend This Week | One of Oprah Daily's 20 of the Best Books to Pick Up This May | One of The Oklahoman's 15 books to help you learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre as the 100-year anniversary approaches |A The Week book of the week

As seen in documentaries on History Channel and CNN/Lebron James' Spring Hill Productions

And then they were gone.


More than one-thousand homes and businesses. Restaurants and movie theaters, churches and doctors' offices, a hospital, a public library, a post office. Looted, burned, and bombed from the air.

Over the course of less than twenty-four hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa's infamous "Black Wall Street" was wiped off the map--and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than fifty years. But there were some secrets that would not die.

A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa Race Massacre. It also unearths the lost history of how the massacre was covered up, and of the courageous individuals who fought to keep the story alive. Most importantly, it recounts the ongoing archaeological saga and the search for the unmarked graves of the victims of the massacre, and of the fight to win restitution for the survivors and their families.

Both a forgotten chronicle from the nation's past, and a story ripped from today's headlines, The Ground Breaking is a page-turning reflection on how we, as Americans, must wrestle with the parts of our history that have been buried for far too long.

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Electric City

Thomas Hager

The extraordinary, unknown story of two giants of American history--Henry Ford and Thomas Edison--and their attempt to create an electric-powered city of tomorrow on the Tennessee River

During the roaring twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country's poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's "Detroit of the South" would be ten times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society, introducing mass commuting by car, use a new kind of currency called "energy dollars," and have the added benefit (from Ford and Edison's view) of crippling the growth of socialism.
The whole audacious scheme almost came off, with Southerners rallying to support what became known as the Ford Plan. But while some saw it as a way to conjure the future and reinvent the South, others saw it as one of the biggest land swindles of all time. They were all true.
Electric City is a rich chronicle of the time and the social backdrop, and offers a fresh look at the lives of the two men who almost saw the project to fruition, the forces that came to oppose them, and what rose in its stead: a new kind of public corporation called the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal. This is a history for a wide audience, including readers interested in American history, technology, politics, and the future.

 

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Bi the Way

Lois Shearing

Whether you are openly bisexual, still figuring things out or just interested in learning more about bisexuality, Bi the Way is your essential guide to understanding and embracing bisexuality. With first-hand accounts from bi advocates, it includes practical tips and guidance on topics including dating, sex, biphobia, bi-erasure, coming out, activism and gender identity, demystifying a community that is often erased or overlooked.

Rallying, honest and powerfully written, this must-read book is a manifesto for bisexual people everywhere and will empower you to live your most authentic bisexual life.

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Soul City

Thomas Healy

A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice

The fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”


In 1969, with America’s cities in turmoil and racial tensions high, civil rights leader Floyd McKissick announced an audacious plan: he would build a new city in rural North Carolina, open to all but intended primarily to benefit Black people. Named Soul City, the community secured funding from the Nixon administration, planning help from Harvard and the University of North Carolina, and endorsements from the New York Times and the Today show. Before long, the brand-new settlement – built on a former slave plantation – had roads, houses, a health care center, and an industrial plant. By the year 2000, projections said, Soul City would have fifty thousand residents.

But the utopian vision was not to be. The race-baiting Jesse Helms, newly elected as senator from North Carolina, swore to stop government spending on the project. Meanwhile, the liberal Raleigh News & Observer mistakenly claimed fraud and corruption in the construction effort. Battered from the left and the right, Soul City was shut down after just a decade. Today, it is a ghost town – and its industrial plant, erected to promote Black economic freedom, has been converted into a prison.

In a gripping, poignant narrative, acclaimed author Thomas Healy resurrects this forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality. Was it an impossible dream from the beginning? Or a brilliant idea thwarted by prejudice and ignorance? And how might America be different today if Soul City had been allowed to succeed?

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The Just

Jan Brokken

The remarkable story of how a consul and his allies helped save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in one of the greatest rescue operations of the twentieth century.

Jan Zwartendijk was just a businessman who worked for Philips, a manufacturer of lightbulbs and radios--until he became Dutch consul and concocted a secret plan that would ultimately save over 2,000 Jews from the Holocaust. An unsung hero, those he saved knew him only as "Mr. Philips Radio." This is his story.

In the capital of Lithuania, desperate Jewish refugees faced annihilation in the Holocaust. That was when Zwartendijk--with the help of Chiune Sugihara, the consul for Japan--chose to break his country's diplomatic rules. Together, the two officials opened a route to freedom. Zwartendijk issued thousands of visas to the Dutch colony of Curaçao on the other side of the world, and Sugihara ensured a clear path, allowing refugees to travel on the Trans-Siberian Express all through Soviet Russia to Vladivostok, further to Japan, and onwards to China.

Many of these Jewish refugees survived, but Zwartendijk and Sugihara were both shunned by their own countries after the war, their courageous actions left unheralded.

In The Just, renowned author Jan Brokken wrests this story from oblivion and traces the journeys of a number of the rescued Jews. This epic narrative shows how, even in life-threatening circumstances, some people make the right choice at the right time.

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Any Way the Wind Blows

Rainbow Rowell

New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell's epic fantasy, the Simon Snow trilogy, concludes with Any Way the Wind Blows.

In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong.

In Any Way the Wind Blows, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha have to decide how to move forward.

For Simon, that means deciding whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages — and if he doesn't, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she's smuggled an American Normal into London, and now she isn't sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough.

Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet.

This book is a finale. It tells secrets and answers questions and lays ghosts to rest.

Carry On was conceived as a book about Chosen One stories; Any Way the Wind Blows is an ending about endings. About catharsis and closure, and how we choose to move on from the traumas and triumphs that try to define us.

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Rainbow in the Dark

Sean McGinty

The Wizard of Oz meets Ready Player One in this darkly comic YA novel about identity, depression, giving up, and finding your way home.

High school senior Rainbow is trapped with three other teens in a game-like world that may or may not be real. Together, they must complete quests and gain experience in order to access their own forgotten memories, decode what has happened to them, and find a portal home.

As Rainbow's memories slowly return, the story of a lonely teen facing senior year as the new kid in a small town emerges. Surreal, absurdist humor balances sensitively handled themes of suicide, depression, and the search for identity in an unpredictable and ultimately hopeful page-turner that's perfect for fans of Shaun David Hutchinson, Adam Silvera, and Libba Bray's Going Bovine.

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Dagger Hill

Devon Taylor

Stranger Things meets One of Us Is Lying in Devon Taylor's creepy paranormal mystery about four friends who find themselves hunted by a malevolent presence in their sleepy hometown.

It knows your fear...

Summer, 1989. Four best friends—Gabe, Kimberly, Charlie, and Sonya—are preparing for their last summer together before senior year, after which they’ll all be splitting up to start college in different parts of the country. They make a promise to always find their way back to each other, no matter how far away from their sleepy Pennsylvania hometown they get.

But their plans are destroyed when a plane crashes right on top of their favorite hangout outside of town—and right on top of them.

In the catastrophic aftermath of the incident, Gabe, Sonya and Charlie are plagued by eerie visions and messages from an unknown watcher. They soon realize that the plane crash was no accident, and now they are being hunted by a sinister presence. And everyone is still searching for Kimberly, who has been missing ever since Gabe saw somebody wearing a gas mask carry her out of the woods the day the sky fell down on them...

Praise for Dagger Hill:

"A wild and satisfying romp through small town friendships, government conspiracies, bloody histories, long-kept secrets—and all of your deepest, darkest fears." —Katrina Leno, author of Horrid

"Visceral ... a jolting read in the style of Stephen King—one with plenty of 1980s nostalgia and a tender LGBTQ romance." —Publishers Weekly

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The Taking of Jake Livingston

Ryan Douglass

Get Out meets Holly Jackson in this YA social thriller where survival is not a guarantee.

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can't decide what's worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student--the handsome Allister--and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake.

Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he's a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game--one Jake is not sure he can win.

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The Fell of Dark

Caleb Roehrig

What's a boy to do—in Caleb Roehrig's YA paranormal romance The Fell of Dark—when his crush is a hot vampire with a mystery to solve?

The only thing August Pfeiffer hates more than algebra is living in a vampire town.

Located at a nexus of mystical energy fields, Fulton Heights is practically an electromagnet for supernatural drama. And when a mysterious (and annoyingly hot) vampire boy arrives with a cryptic warning, Auggie suddenly finds himself at the center of it.

An ancient and terrible power is returning to the earthly realm, and somehow Auggie seems to be the only one who can stop it.

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Through the Woods

Emily Carroll

Discover a terrifying world in the woods in this collection of five hauntingly beautiful graphic stories that includes the online webcomic sensation “His Face All Red,” in print for the first time.

Journey through the woods in this sinister, compellingly spooky collection that features four brand-new stories and one phenomenally popular tale in print for the first time. These are fairy tales gone seriously wrong, where you can travel to “Our Neighbor’s House”—though coming back might be a problem. Or find yourself a young bride in a house that holds a terrible secret in “A Lady’s Hands Are Cold.” You might try to figure out what is haunting “My Friend Janna,” or discover that your brother’s fiancée may not be what she seems in “The Nesting Place.” And of course you must revisit the horror of “His Face All Red,” the breakout webcomic hit that has been gorgeously translated to the printed page.

Already revered for her work online, award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll’s stunning visual style and impeccable pacing is on grand display in this entrancing anthology, her print debut.

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Sawkill Girls

Claire Legrand

From the New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn comes a breathtaking and spine-tingling novel about three teenage girls who face off against an insidious monster that preys upon young women. Perfect for fans of Victoria Schwab and Stranger Things.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: The newbie. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: The pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: The queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives; a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires. Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight…until now.

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The Cardboard Kingdom

Chad Sell

Welcome to a neighborhood of kids who transform ordinary boxes into colorful costumes, and their ordinary block into cardboard kingdom. This is the summer when sixteen kids encounter knights and rogues, robots and monsters--and their own inner demons

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Cape

Kate Hannigan

“Readers…will be enamored by this blend of history, mystery, and superpowered action.” —Booklist (starred review)
“Has the exciting pace of a superhero adventure.” —Kirkus Reviews

Hidden Figures meets Wonder Woman in this action-packed, comic-inspired adventure about a brilliant girl puzzler who discovers she’s part of a superhero team—the first in a new series!

Josie O’Malley does a lot to help out Mam after her father goes off to fight the Nazis, but she wishes she could do more—like all those caped heroes who now seem to have disappeared. If Josie can’t fly and control weather like her idol, Zenobia, maybe she can put her math smarts to use cracking puzzles for the government.

After an official tosses out her puzzler test because she’s a girl, it soon becomes clear that an even more top-secret agency has its eye on Josie, along with two other applicants: Akiko and Mae. The trio bonds over their shared love of female superhero celebrities, from Hauntima to Zenobia to Hopscotch. But during one extraordinary afternoon, they find themselves transformed into the newest (and youngest!) superheroes in town. As the girls’ abilities slowly begin to emerge, they learn that their skills will be crucial in thwarting a shapeshifting henchman of Hitler, and, just maybe, in solving an even larger mystery about the superheroes who’ve recently gone missing.

Inspired by remarkable real-life women from World War II—the human computers and earliest programmers called “the ENIAC Six”—this pulse-pounding adventure features bold action and brave thinking, with forty-eight pages of comic book style graphic panels throughout the book. Readers will want to don their own capes for an adventure, and realize they have the power to be a superhero, too!

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Hatchet

Gary Paulsen

The internationally best-selling story of survival against the odds. There was a wild crashing sound, a ripping of metal, and the plane blew through the trees, out over the water and down, down to slam into the lake...Brian is a city boy. Not used to living rough. Until his plane crashlands in the Canadian wilderness. All he has is a hatchet - and a desperate will to survive. Now Brian must learn to live the hard way - or die.

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The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Stacy McAnulty

A lightning strike gave her a super power...but even a super genius can't solve the problem of middle school. This smart and funny novel is perfect for fans of The Fourteenth Goldfish, Rain Reign, and Counting by Sevens.

Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning. She doesn't remember it, but it changed her life forever. The zap gave her genius-level math skills, and ever since, Lucy has been homeschooled. Now, at 12 years old, she's technically ready for college. She just has to pass 1 more test--middle school!

Lucy's grandma insists: Go to middle school for 1 year. Make 1 friend. Join 1 activity. And read 1 book (that's not a math textbook!). Lucy's not sure what a girl who does calculus homework for fun can possibly learn in 7th grade. She has everything she needs at home, where nobody can make fun of her rigid routines or her superpowered brain. The equation of Lucy's life has already been solved. Unless there's been a miscalculation?

A celebration of friendship, Stacy McAnulty's smart and thoughtful middle-grade debut reminds us all to get out of our comfort zones and embrace what makes us different.

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"An engaging story, full of heart and hope. Readers of all ages will root for Lucy, aka Lightning Girl. No miscalculations here!" --Kate Beasley, author of Gertie's Leap to Greatness

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New Kid

Jerry Craft

Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

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Drowned City

Don Brown

Sibert Honor Medalist ∙ Kirkus' Best of 2015 list ∙ School Library Journal Best of 2015 ∙ Publishers Weekly's Best of 2015 list ∙ Horn Book Fanfare Book ∙ Booklist Editor's Choice

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina's monstrous winds and surging water overwhelmed the protective levees around low-lying New Orleans, Louisiana. Eighty percent of the city flooded, in some places under twenty feet of water. Property damages across the Gulf Coast topped $100 billion. One thousand eight hundred and thirty-three people lost their lives. The riveting tale of this historic storm and the drowning of an American city is one of selflessness, heroism, and courage--and also of incompetence, racism, and criminality.
Don Brown's kinetic art and as-it-happens narrative capture both the tragedy and triumph of one of the worst natural disasters in American history. A portion of the proceeds from this book has been donated to Habitat for Humanity New Orleans.

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The Running Dream

Wendelin Van Draanen

Winner of the 2012 Schneider Family Book Award

Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run?

As she struggles to cope with crutches and a first cyborg-like prosthetic, Jessica feels oddly both in the spotlight and invisible. People who don't know what to say, act like she's not there. Which she could handle better if she weren't now keenly aware that she'd done the same thing herself to a girl with CP named Rosa. A girl who is going to tutor her through all the math she's missed. A girl who sees right into the heart of her.

With the support of family, friends, a coach, and her track teammates, Jessica may actually be able to run again. But that's not enough for her now. She doesn't just want to cross finish lines herself—she wants to take Rosa with her.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Drums, Girls, & Dangerous Pie

Jordan Sonnenblick

From first-time novelist Jordan Sonnenblick, a brave and beautiful story that will make readers laugh and break their hearts at the same time.

Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with his brother's illness and his parents' attempts to keep the family in one piece. Salted with humor and peppered with devastating realities, DRUMS, GIRLS, AND DANGEROUS PIE is a heart warming journey through a year in the life of a family in crisis.

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Holes

Louis Sachar

20 Years in Print

Winner of the National Book Award
TIME Magazine's 100 Best YA Books of All Time

“Dazzling” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Heartrending” —The Horn Book, starred review
“Brilliant” —School Library Journal, starred review
“Engrossing” —Kirkus Reviews
“A joyful, eerie tour de force” —The Boston Sunday Globe
“Wildly inventive” —The New York Times Book Review


Stanley Yelnats’s family has a history of bad luck, so he isn’t too surprised when a miscarriage of justice sends him to a boys’ juvenile detention center, Camp Green Lake. But there is no lake—it has been dry for over a hundred years—and it’s hardly a camp: as punishment, the boys must each dig a hole a day, five feet deep, five feet across, in the hard earth of the dried-up lake bed. The warden claims that this pointless labor builds character, but that’s a lie. Stanley must try to dig up the truth.

In this wonderfully inventive, compelling novel that is both serious and funny, Louis Sachar weaves a narrative puzzle that tangles and untangles, until it becomes clear that the hand of fate has been at work in the lives of the characters—and their forebears—for generations. It is a darkly humorous tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.

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Where the Red Fern Grows

Wilson Rawls

For fans of Old Yeller and Shiloh, Where the Red Fern Grows is a beloved classic that captures the powerful bond between man and man's best friend. This special edition includes new material, including a note to readers from Newbery Medal winner and Printz Honor winner Clare Vanderpool, a letter from Wilson Rawls to aspiring writers, original jacket artwork, and more.

Billy has long dreamt of owning not one, but two dogs. So when he's finally able to save up enough money for two pups to call his own--Old Dan and Little Ann--he's ecstatic. It's true that times are tough, but together they'll roam the hills of the Ozarks.
Soon Billy and his hounds become the finest hunting team in the valley. Stories of their great achievements spread throughout the region, and the combination of Old Dan's brawn, Little Ann's brains, and Billy's sheer will seems unbeatable. But tragedy awaits these determined hunters--now friends--and Billy learns that hope can grow out of despair.

Praise for Where the Red Fern Grows

A Top 100 Children's Novel, School Library Journal
A Must-Read for Kids 9 to 14, NPR
A Great American Read's Selection (PBS)
Winner of Multiple State Awards

Over 14 million copies in print!

"A rewarding book . . . [with] careful, precise observation, all of it rightly phrased....Very touching." --The New York Times Book Review

"One of the great classics of children's literature . . . Any child who doesn't get to read this beloved and powerfully emotional book has missed out on an important piece of childhood for the last 40-plus years." --Common Sense Media

"An exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget." --School Library Journal

"A book of unadorned naturalness." --Kirkus Reviews

"Written with so much feeling and sentiment that adults as well as children are drawn [in] with a passion." --Arizona Daily Star

"It's a story about a young boy and his two hunting dogs and . . . I can't even go on without getting a little misty." --The Huffington Post

"We tear up just thinking about it." --Time on the film adaptation

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The False Prince

Jennifer A. Nielsen

The thrilling first book in a brand-new trilogy filled with danger, deceit, and hidden identities will keep readers clinging to the edge of their seats.

Sage, an orphaned thief with a sharp tongue and a sharper wit, is one of four boys chosen to participate in a lethal contest. After being plucked from the streets by a nobleman named Conner, Sage learns that Conner plans to choose one of the orphans to impersonate a long-lost prince in the hopes of averting a civil war. Conner's rules of play become quite clear after he murders one of the boys who will not compete. Suddenly winning matters very much.

Sage is defiant and cunning and utterly irrepressible. He knows that Conner's motives are questionable at best, yet he also realizes that his life balances on a sword's point--he must be chosen to be the prince or he will certainly be killed. But the other two boys, Sage's rivals, have their own plans as well, and are competing as though their lives depend on it--which, they do.

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner's sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a stunning twist raises the stakes to an even deadlier level. Nothing is sacred, nothing is predictable, and nobody can be trusted.

The first book in a new trilogy, this brilliant and heart-racing tale is taut with danger and adventure, lies and deadly truths that will take the reader's breath away.

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A Night Divided

Jennifer A. Nielsen

From NYT bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen comes a stunning thriller about a girl who must escape to freedom after the Berlin Wall divides her family between east and west.

With the rise of the Berlin Wall, twelve-year-old Gerta finds her family suddenly divided. She, her mother, and her brother Fritz live on the eastern side, controlled by the Soviets. Her father and middle brother, who had gone west in search of work, cannot return home. Gerta knows it is dangerous to watch the wall, to think forbidden thoughts of freedom, yet she can't help herself. She sees the East German soldiers with their guns trained on their own citizens; she, her family, her neighbors and friends are prisoners in their own city.

But one day, while on her way to school, Gerta spots her father on a viewing platform on the western side, pantomiming a peculiar dance. Then, when she receives a mysterious drawing, Gerta puts two and two together and concludes that her father wants Gerta and Fritz to tunnel beneath the wall, out of East Berlin. However, if they are caught, the consequences will be deadly. No one can be trusted. Will Gerta and her family find their way to freedom?

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Every Soul A Star

Wendy Mass

And as streams of light fan out behind the darkened sun like the wings of a butterfly, I realize that I never saw real beauty until now.

At Moon Shadow, an isolated campground, thousands have gathered to catch a glimpse of a rare and extraordinary total eclipse of the sun. It's also were three lives are about to be changed forever:

Ally likes the simple things in life--labyrinths, star-gazing, and comet-hunting. Her home, the Moon Shadow campground, is a part of who she is, and she refuses to imagine it any other way.

Popular and gorgeous (everybody says so), Bree is a future homecoming queen for sure. Bree wears her beauty like a suit of armor. But what is she trying to hide?

Overweight and awkward, jack is used to spending a lot of time alone. But when opportunity knocks, he finds himself in situations he never would have imagined and making friends in the most unexpected situations.

Told from three distinct voices and perspectives, Wendy Mass weaves an intricate and compelling story about strangers coming together, unlikely friendships, and finding one's place in the universe.

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Lincoln's Grave Robbers

Steve Sheinkin

A true crime thriller -- the first book for teens to tell the nearly unknown tale of the brazen attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln's body!

The action begins in October of 1875, as Secret Service agents raid the Fulton, Illinois, workshop of master counterfeiter Ben Boyd. Soon after Boyd is hauled off to prison, members of his counterfeiting ring gather in the back room of a smoky Chicago saloon to discuss how to spring their ringleader. Their plan: grab Lincoln's body from its Springfield tomb, stash it in the sand dunes near Lake Michigan, and demand, as a ransom, the release of Ben Boyd --and $200,000 in cash. From here, the action alternates between the conspirators, the Secret Service agents on their trail, and the undercover agent moving back and forth between the two groups. Along the way readers get glimpses into the inner workings of counterfeiting, grave robbing, detective work, and the early days of the Secret Service. The plot moves toward a wild climax as robbers and lawmen converge at Lincoln's tomb on election night: November 7, 1876.

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Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom

Lynda Blackmon Lowery

A memoir of the Civil Rights Movement from one of its youngest heroes

A Sibert Informational Book Medal Honor Book
Kirkus Best Books of 2015

Booklist Editors' Choice 2015
BCCB Blue Ribbon 2015

As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Albama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

Straightforward and inspiring, this beautifully illustrated memoir brings readers into the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, complementing Common Core classroom learning and bringing history alive for young readers.

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Small Steps

Peg Kehret

Describes the months the author spent in a hospital as a twelve-year-old patient, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio and then slowly learning to walk again.

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Ghosts

Raina Telgemeier

From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile, Drama, and Sisters!

 

Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake -- and her own.Raina Telgemeier has masterfully created a moving and insightful story about the power of family and friendship, and how it gives us the courage to do what we never thought possible.

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A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel

Madeleine L'Engle

The world already knows Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, Calvin O'Keefe, and the three Mrs--Who, Whatsit, and Which--the memorable and wonderful characters who fight off a dark force and save our universe in the Newbery award-winning classic A Wrinkle in Time. But in 50 years of publication, the book has never been illustrated.  Now, Hope Larson takes the classic story to a new level with her vividly imagined interpretations of tessering and favorite characters like the Happy Medium and Aunt Beast. Perfect for old fans and winning over new ones, this graphic novel adaptation is a must-read.

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The Goldfish Boy

Lisa Anne Thompson

In this riveting debut, a boy struggling with OCD is uniquely qualified to solve a kidnapping.

 

Lisa Thompson's debut novel is a page-turning mystery with an emotionally-driven, complex character study at its core -- like Rear Window meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.Matthew Corbin suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He hasn't been to school in weeks. His hands are cracked and bleeding from cleaning. He refuses to leave his bedroom. To pass the time, he observes his neighbors from his bedroom window, making mundane notes about their habits as they bustle about the cul-de-sac. When a toddler staying next door goes missing, it becomes apparent that Matthew was the last person to see him alive. Suddenly, Matthew finds himself at the center of a high-stakes mystery, and every one of his neighbors is a suspect. Matthew is the key to figuring out what happened and potentially saving a child's life... but is he able to do so if it means exposing his own secrets, and stepping out from the safety of his home?

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Echo

Pam Muñoz Ryan

Music, magic, and a real-life miracle meld in this genre-defying masterpiece from storytelling maestro Pam Muñoz Ryan.

Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.

Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.

Richly imagined and masterfully crafted, ECHO pushes the boundaries of genre and form, and shows us what is possible in how we tell stories. The result is an impassioned, uplifting, and virtuosic tour de force that will resound in your heart long after the last note has been struck.

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The First Rule of Punk

Celia C. Pérez

A 2018 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book

The First Rule of Punk is a wry and heartfelt exploration of friendship, finding your place, and learning to rock out like no one's watching.

There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school--you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.

The real Malú loves rock music, skateboarding, zines, and Soyrizo (hold the cilantro, please). And when she assembles a group of like-minded misfits at school and starts a band, Malú finally begins to feel at home. She'll do anything to preserve this, which includes standing up to an anti-punk school administration to fight for her right to express herself!

Black and white illustrations and collage art throughout make The First Rule of Punk a perfect pick for fans of books like Roller Girl and online magazines like Rookie.

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Airborn

Kenneth Oppel

Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. Like riding a cloud. . . .

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.

In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.

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National Geographic Kids Everything Sports

Eric Zweig

Become an expert on sports, just in time for the 2016 Olympics! From archery to zip lining this book covers EVERYTHING about the world's favorite team and individual sports. With stunning visuals and energetic, impactful design, readers won't stop until they've learned everything there is to know about the history, rules and regs, training, and practice of dozens of athletic pursuits. Includes popular sports such as baseball, basketball, football, soccer, tennis, and quirkier sports such as fencing, curling, and table tennis.

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From an Idea to Lego

Lowey Bundy Sichol

For fans of the successful Who Was series, From an Idea to Lego is a behind-the-bricks look into the world's famous toy company, with humorous black & white illustrations throughout.

Today, LEGO is one of the biggest toy companies in the world, but a long time ago, a Danish carpenter, Ole Kirk Christiansen, started with just an idea. Find out more about LEGO's origins, those famous bricks, and their other inventive toys and movie ventures in this illustrated nonfiction book!

  • Find out the origin the name "LEGO." (Hint: it combines two Danish words)
  • See how LEGO grew from a carpentry shop to a multi-platform toy company.
  • Discover how LEGO bricks are made and how they came up with their design.
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Hilo: Out-Of-This-World Boxed Set

Judd Winick

An action-packed page turner with heart!--Dav Pilkey, author of DOG MAN

Take off on an action packed adventure with the first ever HILO box set ! Dog Man meets Big Nate in this hilarious New York Times bestselling graphic novel series that kids love!

MORE ACTION! MORE FUN! MORE LAUGHS! MORE ROBOTS! This collectible box includes the first three titles in the bestselling series--Hilo: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth, Hilo: Saving the Whole Wide World and Hilo: The Great Big Boom.

Hilo Book 1: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth:
BOOM! CLANG! CRASH! D Hilo just fell out of the sky and doesn't know where he came from, or what he's doing on Earth. . . But UH-OH, what if Hilo wasn't the only thing to fall to our planet?

Hilo Book 2: Saving the Whole Wide World:
Hilo, is just settling into life on earth when strange portals begin opening up all over town. Can Hilo, DJ, and GINA figure out how to send these creatures back to their worlds before they DESTROY the earth?

Hilo Book 3: The Great Big Boom:
Aah!!!! Everyone's favorite space boy is BACK! The trio will have to battle bad guys and face disgusting food, an angry mom, powerful magic, and more!

Here's what people (and robots!) are saying about Hilo!

More giant robotic ants and people going 'Aaaah!' than in the complete works of Jane Austen--Neil Gaiman, bestselling author

A perfect book for any kid who ever needed a friend and then had one with superpowers fall from space. --Seth Meyers, actor, comedian and writer

* A wholeheartedly weird and wonderful tale of friendship, acceptance, and robots.--Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

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Shouting at the Rain

Lynda Mullaly Hunt

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Fish in a Tree comes a compelling story about perspective and learning to love the family you have.

Delsie loves tracking the weather--lately, though, it seems the squalls are in her own life. She's always lived with her kindhearted Grammy, but now she's looking at their life with new eyes and wishing she could have a "regular family." Delsie observes other changes in the air, too--the most painful being a friend who's outgrown her. Luckily, she has neighbors with strong shoulders to support her, and Ronan, a new friend who is caring and courageous but also troubled by the losses he's endured. As Ronan and Delsie traipse around Cape Cod on their adventures, they both learn what it means to be angry versus sad, broken versus whole, and abandoned versus loved. And that, together, they can weather any storm.

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Gone Camping

Tamera Will Wissinger

Hiking in the great outdoors, catching fish, watching the stars come out at night--camping is fun. Until it's time to sleep. Then, Lucy wonders, what kinds of creatures lurk in the dark? With only her brother and grandpa as tent-mates, will Lucy be able to face her camping fears?
Filled with a variety of poetic forms--from aubade to haiku--as well as exuberant art and helpful writing tips about rhyme and rhythm, this entertaining companion to the award-winning Gone Fishing is packed with family humor and adventure. So grab a flashlight and get settled in to experience the joy of campfires, s'mores, and storytelling!

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Who Are Venus and Serena Williams?

James Buckley, Jr.

The dynamic story of the Williams sisters, both top-ranked professional tennis players.

Venus and Serena Williams are two of the most successful professional American tennis players of all time. Coached at an early age by their parents, the sisters have both gone on to become Grand Slam title winners. They have both achieved the World Number One ranking in both singles and doubles! Although completely professional and fiercely competitive, the sisters remain close. Who Are Venus and Serena Williams? follows the pair from their early days of training up through the ranks and to the Summer Olympic Games, where they have each won four gold medals--more than any other tennis players.

This title in the New York Times best-selling series has eighty illustrations that help bring the exciting story of tennis champs Venus and Serena Williams to life.

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Because of the Rabbit

Cynthia Lord

Newbery Honor-winning author Cynthia Lord has written a sensitive and accessible book about the challenges of fitting in when you know you're a little different.

 

On the last night of summer, Emma tags along with her game warden father on a routine call. They're supposed to rescue a wild rabbit from a picket fence, but instead they find a little bunny. Emma convinces her father to bring him home for the night.The next day, Emma starts public school for the very first time after years of being homeschooled. More than anything, Emma wants to make a best friend in school. But things don't go as planned. On the first day of school, she's paired with a boy named Jack for a project. He can't stay on topic, he speaks out of turn, and he's obsessed with animals. Jack doesn't fit in, and Emma's worried he'll make her stand out.Emma and Jack bond over her rescue rabbit. But will their new friendship keep Emma from finding the new best friend she's meant to have? Newbery Honor-winning author Cynthia Lord has written a beautiful and sensitive book about being different and staying true to yourself.

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Sleeping Beauties

Stephen King

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In this spectacular father/son collaboration, Stephen King and Owen King tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare.

One woman, the mysterious “Eve Black,” is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanting to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world.

Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women’s prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously dramatic father-son collaboration that feels particularly urgent and relevant today.

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Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons

Keith Rosson

With Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons, award-winning author Keith Rosson once again delves into notions of family, identity, indebtedness, loss, and hope, with the surefooted merging of literary fiction and magical realism he's explored in previous novels. In "Dunsmuir," a newly sober husband buys a hearse to help his wife spread her sister's ashes, while "The Lesser Horsemen" illustrates what happens when God instructs the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to go on a team-building cruise as a way of boosting their frayed morale. In "Brad Benske and the Hand of Light," an estranged husband seeks his wife's whereabouts through a fortuneteller after she absconds with a cult, and the returning soldier in "Homecoming" navigates the strange and ghostly confines of his hometown, as well as the boundaries of his own grief. With grace, imagination, and a brazen gallows humor, Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons merges the fantastic and the everyday, and includes new work as well as award-winning favorites.

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The Only Good Indians

Stephen Graham Jones

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a “masterpiece” (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. Labeled “one of 2020’s buzziest horror novels” (Entertainment Weekly), this is a remarkable horror story that “will give you nightmares—the good kind of course” (BuzzFeed).

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

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The Croning

Laird Barron

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us...

Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret...

...of The Croning.

From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

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The Rust Maidens

Gwendolyn Kiste

Something's happening to the girls on Denton Street.

It's the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what's happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls' bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.

As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of "the Rust Maidens" in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what's happening or why--except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they're telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.

Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens--and her own unwitting role in the transformations--before she loses everything she's held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.

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Nightingale

Amy Lukavics

"Takes a slice of mid-twentieth-century Americana and exposes it as an utter and ongoing gender inequality nightmare. Electric, tense, horrifying, and a righteously angry yowl."

--Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World

At seventeen, June Hardie is everything a young woman in 1951 shouldn't be--independent, rebellious, a dreamer. June longs to travel, to attend college and to write the dark science fiction stories that consume her waking hours. But her parents only care about making June a better young woman. Her mother grooms her to be a perfect little homemaker while her father pushes her to marry his business partner's domineering son. When June resists, her whole world is shattered--suburbia isn't the only prison for different women...

June's parents commit her to Burrow Place Asylum, aka the Institution. With its sickening conditions, terrifying staff and brutal "medical treatments," the Institution preys on June's darkest secrets and deepest fears. And she's not alone. The Institution terrorizes June's fragile roommate, Eleanor, and the other women locked away within its crumbling walls. Those who dare speak up disappear...or worse. Trapped between a gruesome reality and increasingly sinister hallucinations, June isn't sure where her nightmares end and real life begins. But she does know one thing: in order to survive, she must destroy the Institution before it finally claims them all.

"Nightingale is a beautifully constructed novel featuring out-of-this-world suspense, a classic Stephen King vibe and an edge all its own. If that wasn't enough, its powerful portrayal of gender roles and feminism makes it all too timely and important."

--Courtney Summers, author of Sadie and This Is Not a Test

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The Initial Insult

Mindy McGinnis

In the first book of a suspenseful YA duology, award-winning author Mindy McGinnis draws inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and masterfully delivers a dark, propulsive mystery in alternating points of view that unravels a friendship . . . forevermore. Perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying and Truly Devious!

Tress Montor's family used to mean something--until she didn't have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything. The entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the "White Trash Zoo."

Felicity Turnado has it all: looks, money, and a secret. One misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and she's worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. Felicity has buried what she knows so deeply that she can't even remember what it is . . . only that she can't look at Tress without feeling shame and guilt.

But Tress has a plan. A Halloween costume party at an abandoned house provides the ideal situation for Tress to pry the truth from Felicity--brick by brick--as she slowly seals her former best friend into a coal chute. Tress will have her answers--or settle for revenge.

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Clown in a Cornfield

Adam Cesare

Bram Stoker Award Winner for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

In Adam Cesare's terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress--that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don't know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half.

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It's a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.

YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee

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House of Hollow

Krystal Sutherland

A New York Times Bestseller!
An Instant Indie Bestseller!

A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they're changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. They have insatiable appetites yet never gain weight. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful, and inexplicably dangerous.

But now, ten years later, seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow is doing all she can to fit in and graduate high school on time--something her two famously glamourous globe-trotting older sisters, Grey and Vivi, never managed to do. But when Grey goes missing without a trace, leaving behind bizarre clues as to what might have happened, Iris and Vivi are left to trace her last few days. They aren't the only ones looking for her though. As they brush against the supernatural they realize that the story they've been told about their past is unraveling and the world that returned them seemingly unharmed ten years ago, might just be calling them home.

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Alone

Cyn Balog

This must-read for lovers of Stephen King's The Shining will leave readers breathless as Seda and her family find themselves at the mercy of a murderer in an isolated and snowbound hotel. Get ready for what Kirkus calls "A bloody, wonderfully creepy scare ride."

When her mom inherits an old, crumbling mansion, Seda's almost excited to spend the summer there. The grounds are beautiful and it's fun to explore the sprawling house with its creepy rooms and secret passages. Except now her mom wants to renovate, rather than sell the estate--which means they're not going back to the city...or Seda's friends and school.

As the days grow shorter, Seda is filled with dread. They're about to be cut off from the outside world, and she's not sure she can handle the solitude or the darkness it brings out in her.

Then a group of teens get stranded near the mansion during a blizzard. Seda has no choice but to offer them shelter, even though she knows danger lurks in the dilapidated mansion--and in herself. And as the snow continues to fall, what Seda fears most is about to become her reality...

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White Smoke

Tiffany D. Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House meets Get Out in this chilling YA psychological thriller and modern take on the classic haunted house story from New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson!

Marigold is running from ghosts. The phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small California beach town to the embattled Midwestern city of Cedarville might be the fresh start she needs. Her mom has accepted a new job with the Sterling Foundation that comes with a free house, one that Mari now has to share with her bratty ten-year-old stepsister, Piper.

The renovated picture-perfect home on Maple Street, sitting between dilapidated houses, surrounded by wary neighbors has its . . . secrets. That's only half the problem: household items vanish, doors open on their own, lights turn off, shadows walk past rooms, voices can be heard in the walls, and there's a foul smell seeping through the vents only Mari seems to notice. Worse: Piper keeps talking about a friend who wants Mari gone.

But "running from ghosts" is just a metaphor, right?

As the house closes in, Mari learns that the danger isn't limited to Maple Street. Cedarville has its secrets, too. And secrets always find their way through the cracks.

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Preserving Family Recipes

Valerie J. Frey

Heirloom dishes and family food traditions are rich sources of nostalgia and provide vivid ways to learn about our families’ past, yet they can be problematic. Many family recipes and food traditions are never documented in written or photographic form, existing only as unwritten know-how and lore that vanishes when a cook dies. Even when recipes are written down, they often fail to give the tricks and tips that would allow another cook to accurately replicate the dish. Unfortunately, recipes are also often damaged as we plunk Grandma’s handwritten cards on the countertop next to a steaming pot or a spattering mixer, shortening their lives.

This book is a guide for gathering, adjusting, supplementing, and safely preserving family recipes and for interviewing relatives, collecting oral histories, and conducting kitchen visits to document family food traditions from the everyday to special occasions. It blends commonsense tips with sound archival principles, helping you achieve effective results while avoiding unnecessary pitfalls. Chapters are also dedicated to unfamiliar regional or ethnic cooking challenges, as well as to working with recipes that are “orphans,” surrogates, or terribly outdated. Whether you simply want to save a few accurate recipes, help yesterday’s foodways evolve so they are relevant for today’s table, or create an extensive family cookbook, this guidebook will help you to savor your memories.

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A Most Beautiful Thing

Arshay Cooper

Now a documentary narrated by Common, produced by Grant Hill, Dwyane Wade, and 9th Wonder, from filmmaker Mary Mazzio

The moving true story of a group of young men growing up on Chicago's West side who form the first all-Black high school rowing team in the nation, and in doing so not only transform a sport, but their lives.


Growing up on Chicago’s Westside in the 90’s, Arshay Cooper knows the harder side of life. The street corners are full of gangs, the hallways of his apartment complex are haunted by drug addicts he calls “zombies” with strung out arms, clutching at him as he passes by. His mother is a recovering addict, and his three siblings all sleep in a one room apartment, a small infantry against the war zone on the street below.

Arshay keeps to himself, preferring to write poetry about the girl he has a crush on, and spends his school days in the home-ec kitchen dreaming of becoming a chef. And then one day as he’s walking out of school he notices a boat in the school lunchroom, and a poster that reads “Join the Crew Team”.

Having no idea what the sport of crew is, Arshay decides to take a chance. This decision to join is one that will forever change his life, and those of his fellow teammates. As Arshay and his teammates begin to come together to learn how to row--many never having been in water before--the sport takes them from the mean streets of Chicago, to the hallowed halls of the Ivy League. But Arshay and his teammates face adversity at every turn, from racism, gang violence, and a sport that has never seen anyone like them before.

A Most Beautiful Thing is the inspiring true story about the most unlikely band of brothers that form a family, and forever change a sport and their lives for the better.

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World of Wonders

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

A New York Times Best Seller
Barnes & Noble 2020 Book of the Year
A Kirkus Prize Finalist for Nonfiction
A Southern Book Prize Finalist
An NPR Best Book of 2020
An Esquire Best Book of 2020
A BookPage Best Book of 2020
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2020
A Wall Street Journal Holiday Gift Pick for 2020
An Indie Next Pick, September 2019
A Publishers Weekly Big Indie Book of Fall 2020
A BuzzFeed Best Book of Fall 2020
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2020
A Ralph Lauren Summer Reading Recommendation
A Garden & Gun Summer Reading Recommendation
A Bustle Best Book of Fall 2020
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by The Millions
An Alma Favorite Book for Fall 2020
A Literary Hub Recommended Climate Read for September 2020
A Mpls.St.Paul Magazine Reading Recommendation for Fall 2020

From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction--a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us.
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.
"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.
Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.

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