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Bonding

"Electrifying, urgent, and darkly funny, Mariel Franklin's debut, Bonding, is a story of sex, tech, and pharmaceuticals set in the messy tangle of our digital age." -- Provided by publisher

Great Black Hope

A young Black man is caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy a friend's mysterious death and his own arrest.

Via Ápia

"Life on the morro, the hill, is good. Five young people--the brothers Washington and Wesley and their friends Douglas, Murilo, and Biel--live close to Rocinha's main avenue, Via Ápia, just a quick bus ride from the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. But the rhythms of their lives stutter and scratch when Brazil's militarized police storm Rocinha as part of 'pacification' efforts ahead of the upcoming World Cup and an influx of international tourists. Via Ápia charts the expectant anxiousness before the police's invasion, the chaos born from their occupation of the hill, and the aftermath of their silent withdrawal from the favela after one year."-- Provided by publisher

Vera, or Faith

"The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love one another deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of twenty-first-century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage provide him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original. Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: to make a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world."-- Provided by publisher

The Trembling Hand

"A provocative, revelatory history of British Romanticism that examines the impact of the transatlantic slave economy on the lives and times of some of our most beloved poets-with urgent lessons for today. A scrap of Coleridge's handwriting. The sugar that Wordsworth stirred into his teacup. A bracelet made of Mary Shelley's hair. Percy Shelley's gilded baby rattle. The death mask preserving Keats's calm face. Byron's silk-lined leather boot. Who would have known there could be vast worlds contained in these items? In a completely new interpretation of the Romantics and their context, Whiting Award-winning scholar and literary sleuth Mathelinda Nabugodi uses these items to frame her interrogation of the poets, leading us on an expansive journey through time and memory, situating us in depth of their world, and her own. 'Freedom, liberty, autonomy are the period's favorite words,' Nabugodi writes. Romantic poets sought truth in the depth of their souls and in the mind's unbounded regions. Ideals of free speech and human rights were being forged. And yet the period was defined by a relentless commitment to the displacement and stolen labor of millions. Romanticism, she argues, can no longer be discussed without the racial violence with which it was complicit. Still, rather than using this idea to rehash Black pain and subjugation, she mines the archives for instances of resistance, beauty, and joy. Nabugodi moves effortlessly between the past and present. She takes us into the physical archives, and, with startling clarity, unpacks her relationships with them: what they are and should be; who built them; how they are entwined with an industry that was the antithesis of freedom; and how she feels holding the materials needed to write this book, as a someone whose ancestry is largely absent from their ledgers. The Trembling Hand presents a dazzling new way of reading the past. This transfixing, evocative book reframes not only the lives of the legendary Romantics, but also their poetry and the very era in which they lived. It is a reckoning with art, archives, and academia bound to echo through the conversation for a long time to come."-- Provided by publisher

Plundered

Follows the lives of two Detroit grandfathers--one Black the other white--and their grandchildren.

The Plunder of Black America

"Wealth is central to the American pursuit of happiness and is an overriding measure of well-being. Yet wealth is conspicuously absent from African American households. Why do some 3.5 million Black American families have zero or negative wealth? Historian Calvin Schermerhorn traces four hundred years of Black dispossession and decapitalization-what Frederick Douglass called plunder-through the stories of families who have strived to earn and keep the fruits of their toils. Their struggles reveal that the ever-evolving strategies to strip Black income and wealth have been critical to sustaining a structure of racialized disadvantage. These accounts also tell of the quiet heroism of those who worked to overcome obstacles and defy the plunder. From the story of Anthony and Mary Johnson, abducted from Angola and brought to Virginia in 1619, to the enslaved Black workers dispossessed by the Custis-Washington family, to Venture Smith (born Broteer Furro), who purchased his freedom, to three generations of a family enslaved in the South who moved north after Emancipation, to the Tulsa massacre and the subprime lending crisis, Schermerhorn shows that we cannot reckon with today's racial wealth inequality without understanding its unrelenting role in American history." -- Dust jacket

Notes on Infinity

"A singular, extraordinary debut about Zoe and Jack, Harvard students who find themselves propelled into the intoxicating biotech startup world when they announce they've discovered the cure for aging. A different kind of love story where the thirst for achievement consumes and the stakes are forever. Zoe, the daughter of an MIT professor who grew up in her brother's shadow, can envision her future anew at Harvard. Jack, a boy in Zoe's organic chemistry class with unruly hair and a gleam of competitiveness, matches her intellect and curiosity with every breath. When Jack refers Zoe for a position in a prestigious professor's lab, the two become entwined as colleagues, staying up late to discuss scientific ideas. They find themselves on the cusp of a breakthrough: the promise of immortality through a novel antiaging drug. Zoe and Jack set off on their new project in secret. Finding encouraging results, they bring their work to an investor, drop out of Harvard, and form a startup. But after the money, the magazine covers, and the national news stories detailing their success, Zoe and Jack receive a startling accusation that threatens to destroy both the company they built and their partnership. A captivating novel about young love, the allure of immortality, and the recklessness that can come with early success, Notes on Infinity asks: How far would you go to achieve your dreams?"-- Provided by publisher

A Marriage at Sea

A Marriage at Sea tells the true story of Maurice and Maralyn, an unlikely couple who abandon ordinary life to sail the world--only to face disaster when a whale sinks their boat in the Pacific. Stranded in a raft with little hope of rescue, they battle starvation, the elements, and each other in a gripping tale of survival, obsession, and the limits of love.

Killing Stella

"Left alone for the weekend while her husband and two children are visiting her in-laws, the narrator of Killing Stella recounts the addition of her friend's daughter, Stella, into their already tense and tumultuous household. Staring out the window at her garden, she worries about the baby bird in the linden tree, about her husband, Richard (who flits from one adulterous affair to another), about her son's gloomy demeanor and her daughter's obliviousness, and, most of all, she worries about Stella, a confused teenager who has just met a sudden and disastrous end. A domestic horror story that builds to an apocalyptic ending, Killing Stella distills many of the themes of Marlen Haushofer's acclaimed novel The Wall into a claustrophobic, gothic, shattering novella"-- Provided by publisher

The Key to Everything

"One of the most important and original poets of the twentieth century, May Swenson (1913-1989) was born in Utah to Swedish immigrant parents. After graduating from Utah State University and working briefly as a reporter, she moved to New York City in the mid-1930s and began her life as a poet. She took various office jobs to support herself, including time with the Federal Writers' Project and, later, as a manuscript reader for New Directions in the 1950s. Swenson went on to publish seven collections of poetry (with several more collections published posthumously), and three poetry books for children. Swenson's work is often compared to the poetry of E. E. Cummings and Elizabeth Bishop, with whom Swenson corresponded for decades. Her many awards include the Shelley Memorial Award, the Bollingen Prize, and the Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She was a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1980 to 1989. This book provides an account of Swenson's life that draws on her extensive diaries, which have never been made available to the public. The narrative concentrates on Swenson's life from 1935 to 1959, a period that encompasses her departure from Utah, her personal and professional struggles before her first breakthrough publications, and her early years of literary success. The poet expresses her anxieties and aspirations as she experiments with her sexuality, extricates herself from a sheltered Mormon upbringing, and begins a new life in New York at the height of the Depression. The author traces Swenson's struggles with poverty, anonymity, and predatory men; her romantic relationships, primarily with women; the people she met, books she read, and the work she produced, offering a unique portrait of the times, the place, and a poet who resisted labels throughout her life."-- Provided by publisher

A Day like Any Other

"The first biography of the poet James Schuyler, the Pulitzer Prize winner who helped shape the New York School of poetry in the 1960s."-- Provided by publisher

Black Power Scorecard

"Historically, Black Americans' quest for power has been understood as an attempt to gain equal protections under the law. But power in America requires more than basic democratic freedoms. It is inextricably linked with economic influence and ownership-of one's self, home, business, and creations. Andre M. Perry draws on extensive research and analysis to quantify how much power Black Americans actually have. Ranging from property, business, and wealth to education, health, and social mobility, he moves across the country, evaluating people's ability to set the rules of the game and calculating how that translates into the ultimate means of power-life itself, and the longevity of Black communities. Along the way, he identifies woefully overlooked areas of investment that can close the power gap and benefit all. An expansive take on power supported by documentation and data, Black Power Scorecard is a fresh contribution to the country's reckoning with structural inequality, one that offers a new approach to redressing it."-- Provided by publisher

Bad Company

Bad Company by Megan Greenwell exposes the pervasive influence of private equity in American life, from healthcare and housing to media and infrastructure. Through the personal stories of four workers devastated by private equity takeovers, the book reveals how these firms enrich a powerful elite while destabilizing communities and deepening inequality. Combining investigative journalism with human-centered storytelling, it offers a powerful critique of one of the most consequential yet opaque forces in the U.S. economy.

The Silk Road

"In 2019, Christopher embarked on an ambitious 40,000 kilometer overland expedition. Camera in hand, he followed the historic trade route from one end of Eurasia to the other. As he traveled across 15 different countries via car, bus, train, ferry, horse, and camel, his lens captured the essence of the Silk Road, from the Renaissance masterpieces of Venice to the bustling bazaars of Iran and the serene landscapes of Kyrgyzstan. The resulting collection of 160 photographs offers an intimate glimpse into the richness of cultures and the enduring legacy of connectivity that define the legendary trade network. Featuring thoughtful essays by the photographer and a preface by Oxford historian and bestselling author Peter Frankopan, The Silk Road: A Living History tells the story of one journey across Eurasia. It is a celebration of diversity, the traditional practices and customs that live on today, and the flourishing connections that endure along this historical, human network." -- Amazon

The Beast in the Clouds

"The Himalayas--a snowcapped mountain range that hides treacherous glacier crossings, raiders poised to attack unsuspecting travelers, and air so thin that even seasoned explorers die of oxygen deprivation. Yet among the dangers lies one of the most beautiful and fragile ecosystems in the world. During the 1920s, dozens of expeditions scoured the Chinese and Tibetan wilderness in search of the panda bear, a beast that many believed did not exist. When the two eldest sons of President Theodore Roosevelt sought the bear in 1928, they had little hope of success. Together with a team of scientists and naturalists, they accomplished what a decade of explorers could not, ultimately introducing the panda to the West. In the process, they documented a vanishing world and set off a new era of conservation biology. Along the way, the Roosevelt expedition faced an incredible series of hardships as they disappeared in a blizzard, were attacked by robbers, overcome by sickness and disease, and lost their food supply in the mountains. The explorers would emerge transformed, although not everyone would survive. Beast in the Clouds brings alive these extraordinary events in a potent nonfiction thriller featuring the indomitable Roosevelt family. From the soaring beauty of the Tibetan plateau to the somber depths of human struggle, Nathalia Holt brings her signature 'immersive, evocative' (Bookreporter) voice to this astonishing tale of adventure, harrowing defeat, and dazzling success." -- Provided by publisher

Coded Justice

"Avery Keene is back! The fan-favorite former Supreme Court clerk has finally gone out on her own, securing a prestigious position at a high-end law firm in Washington, D.C., where she is about to earn real money and get her life in order after a tumultuous run working as a clerk on the Supreme Court. With her reputation preceding her, Avery is quickly tasked at her new job with becoming a corporate internal investigator. Her new client is Camasca--a mega-tech firm that's on the forefront of developing a new integrated AI system poised to revolutionize the medical industry, particularly by delivering vastly improved health care to veterans. The AI potential is breathtaking, but some disturbing anomalies have plagued Camasca in early testing--including the mysterious death of a Camasca engineer. Avery and her colleagues, Jared, Ling, and Noah, find themselves on a journey to determine whether the anomalies are mere technical glitches, or something much more concerning. Full of twists, behind-the-scenes financial machinations, and the continued blossoming of Avery and her vibrant cast of friends, Coded Justice finds Stacey Abrams' riveting series to be in full swing."-- Provided by publisher

The Tiny Things Are Heavier

This heart-rending debut novel follows Sommy, a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for graduate school two weeks after her brother, Mezie, attempts suicide. Plagued by the guilt of leaving Mezie behind, Sommy struggles to fit into her new life as a student and an immigrant. Lonely and homesick, Sommy soon enters a complicated relationship with her boisterous Nigerian roommate, Bayo, a relationship that plummets into deceit when Sommy falls for Bryan, a biracial American, whose estranged Nigerian father left the States immediately after his birth. Bonded by their feelings of unbelonging and a vague sense of kinship, Sommy and Bryan transcend the challenges of their new relationship. During summer break, Sommy and Bryan visit the bustling city of Lagos, Nigeria, where Sommy hopes to reconcile with Mezie and Bryan plans to connect with his father. But when a shocking and unexpected event throws their lives into disarray, it exposes the cracks in Sommy's relationships and forces her to confront her notions of self and familial love. A daring and ambitious novel rendered in stirring, tender prose, "The Tiny Things Are Heavier" is a captivating portrait that explores the hardships of migration, the subtleties of Nigeria's class system, and how far we'll go to protect those we love.

Patriarchy Inc.

"Work remains much as it always has: men occupy the vast majority of leadership roles and are overrepresented in positions from engineer to plumber. We see many jobs as "male" or "female," with women dominating in healthcare and childcare professions. Pretending that this is the natural state of things--or that, instead, both sexes should submit to working 24/7--is just not right. In Patriarchy Inc., Cordelia Fine examines with razor-sharp and quick-witted analysis why gender inequality is embedded in the workplace and why it has to change. Drawing on theories from evolutionary science, psychology, economics, and sociology, she examines two of the most prominent movements in the corporate world. The Different But Equal viewpoint espouses that women are in the jobs they want despite their lower status and salaries. In the meantime, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) has become a slogan that emphasizes productivity and profit, not fair play. Fine shows how both are wrong and the bad effects on everyone when men are still stuck in traditional breadwinner roles and women are having to fight for their due."-- Provided by publisher

10,000 Ink Stains

"Featuring his brilliant work from Sweet Tooth, Essex County, Black Hammer, Descender, and so much more. Lemire takes the reader book-by-book, writing essays about the making of each project, showcasing artwork from all of them, details about his personal life during the creation of each book, sharing some never-before-seen process material on each book, and unpublished stories as well."-- Provided by publisher

Nothing More of This Land

"From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, a sweeping, personal exploration of Indigenous identity and the challenges facing Indigenous people around the world." -- Provided by publisher

Make It Ours

"Virgil Abloh's appointment as head of menswear for Louis Vuitton in 2018 shocked the fashion industry, as he became the first Black designer to serve as artistic director in the brand's 164-year history. But as Pulitzer Prize-winning culture critic Robin Givhan reveals, Abloh's story encompasses so much more than his own journey. Using Abloh's surprising path to the top of the luxury establishment, Givhan unfolds the larger story of how the cloistered, exclusive fashion world faced a revolution from below in the form of streetwear and designers unafraid to storm the gates--how their notions of what was luxury simultaneously anticipated and upended consumer preferences, and how a simple T-shirt held as much cultural power as a haute couture gown. As Givhan relays, Abloh rose during a time of existential angst for a fashion industry trying to make sense of its responsibilities to a diverse audience and the challenges of selling status to a generation of consumers who fetishized sneakers and prioritized comfort. The story of how that moment came to be, and how someone like Abloh--who had no formal training in pattern-making or tailoring--could come to symbolize and embody the industry's way forward, is the story at the heart of this book. Make It Ours is at once a remarkable biography of a singular creative force and a powerful meditation on fashion and race, taste and exclusivity, genius and luxury. With access to Abloh's family, friends, collaborators, and contemporaries, and featuring a cast of fascinating characters ranging from visionary Black designers like Ozwald Boateng to Abloh's mercurial but critical employer and mentor Kanye West, Givhan weaves a spellbinding tale of a young man's rise amid a cultural moment that would upend a century's worth of ideas about luxury and taste."-- Provided by publisher

Lawless

A Crooked Media podcast host shines a light on what she sees as the unabashed lawlessness embraced by conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices and shows Americans how to fight back.

The Jailhouse Lawyer

"A searing and ultimately hopeful account of Calvin Duncan, "the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time" (Sister Helen Prejean), and his thirty-year path through Angola after a wrongful murder conviction, his coming-of-age as a legal mind while imprisoned, and his continued advocacy for those on the inside Calvin Duncan was nineteen when he was incarcerated for a 1981 New Orleans murder he didn't commit. The victim of wildly incompetent public defenders and a badly compromised witness, Duncan was left to rot in the waking nightmare of confinement. Armed with little education, he took matters into his own hands. At twenty, he filed his first motion from jail: "Motion for a Law Book," which launched his highly successful, self-taught, legal career. Trapped within this wholly corrupted system, Calvin became a legal advocate for himself and his fellow prisoners as an Inmate Counsel Substitute at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary known as Angola. During his decades of incarceration, Calvin helped hundreds of other inmates navigate their cases, offering support to individuals the state had long since written off. Despite his tremendous work, his own case remained stalled. A defense lawyer once responded to his request for documents with a response regarding his legal status: "You are not a person." Prison reform advocate Sophie Cull met Duncan after he was released from prison and began working at her firm; Calvin began to tell her his story. Together, they've written a bracing condemnation of the criminal legal system, and an intimate portrait of a heroic and brilliant man and of his resilience in the face of injustice."-- Provided by publisher