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On the Future of Species

"What if we could create new species? What if we could supersede evolution? Adrian Woolfson, a scientist at the forefront of synthetic genomics, shows us how the application of artificial intelligence now gives us the power to produce new forms of life--and explores the dangers that will come with that power." -- Provided by publisher

Work, Retire, Repeat

"The issue of the future of Social Security, on which millions of Americans depend, produced great political theater at the State of the Union address. That highlighted a bigger problem of financing retirement as baby boomers seek to retire, often with limited resources. Many argue that the solution to the problem is for people to work longer. Teresa Ghilarducci, a noted expert on retirement, argues that the 'working longer' idea is wrong, unnecessary, and discriminates against people who work in lower wage occupations. Ghilarducci pushes for a national plan to finance retirement that would draw on contributions by both employers and employees to replace our privatized and ramshackle personal retirement system and make changes in the tax system that supports Social Security to give people a real choice whether to retire or continue to work in their later years. This book tells the stories of people locked into jobs later in life not because they love to work but because they must work. She demonstrates how relatively low-cost changes in the way we manage, and finance retirement will enable people in their so-called 'golden years' to choose how to spend their time. Ghilarducci has a good public platform, writes for Bloomberg and other outlets, and is passionate about her ideas and reaching as broad a public as possible. The book is for the growing number of people in the public and policy community who are worried about their retirement and engaged in the renewed debate about Social Security and Medicare."-- Provided by publisher

Whidbey

"Birdie Chang didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She's a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend's eyes--and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who's now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution and plan for revenge. But Birdie isn't the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There's also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book's spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin's loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered. Calvin's death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that's sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?"-- Publisher's website

Stories

"A finely etched collection of short stories from the "generous, category-defying imagination" (The New York Times Book Review) of Helen Garner, one of Australia's most beloved writers. A woman sends postcards to a former lover from the idyllic Gold Coast. A chorus of hometown voices gossip about a wayward friend returned. A young girl discovers a hidden box of horrors. Helen Garner is best known for her frank, unsparing, and intricate portraits of Australian life. Now, in Stories, comes the collected short fiction of a singular literary voice. These stories delve into the complexities of love and longing, of the pain, darkness, and joy of life, and all told with Garner's characteristic sharpness, honesty, and humor. Each one is a perfect piece, but together they showcase a rare talent and a master of many literary forms." -- Provided by publisher

The Paradox of the Organism

"The unity of the organism - an assembly of organs, tissues, cells, and genes working toward a common goal-has long been taken for granted. The essays in this collection pierce the organismal veil to consider how an organism persists, even as internal conflict, from cancer cells to selfish genes, threatens its integrity and survival."-- Provided by publisher

Leaving Home

"Simultaneously heart-breaking and hilarious, Leaving Home is a portrait of the artist both as a child and as an adult. His parents were not really cut out for the job of having children. They were cut out, respectively, for the jobs of designing abattoirs and keeping a pathologically clean and tidy house. At least he had the consolations of The Weetabix Solar System Wallchart, walnut whips and the occasional Babycham. Astringently honest and scalpel sharp, this is a book about being different and seeing the world differently. It's about being a cartoonist and a care assistant. It's about family. It's about knickerbocker glories and heart surgery, about papier mâché and mental breakdown and great white sharks. It's about how art, in all its varied forms, provides a way of understanding and coming to terms with the mess of human life. It's richly illustrated throughout with images from the author's childhood, some of them altered in unforgiveable ways. As bracing as it is embracing, Leaving Home is about escaping a place that never felt like home and learning to create somewhere that does."-- Publisher's website

The Keeper

"On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Arknakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she's dead in the river. In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn't simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancée Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty's tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel's death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line."-- Book jacket flap

Fashioning the Crown

"Fashioning the Crown tells the story of a tumultuous half-century of British history through the lens of royal fashion and image-making. Informed by Justine Picardie's entirely original research in the Royal Archives, as well her own interactions with Elizabeth II and her family, it will reveal how, from the outbreak of the First World War to 1960, the soft power of clothing played a crucial role in helping the Royal Family, and the nation, to navigate seismic changes and challenges. Justine will take us behind the glamor and mystique of the Crown, introducing us afresh to three generations of royals, including the glamorous Queen Mary; the Chanel-wearing young flapper who would become the Queen Mother; and the little Princess Lillibet, already setting fashion trends at the age of three. Justine will reveal the crucial importance of image-making in an era of abdications and assassinations, and amidst the rise of revolutions and fascism. She will also uncover the fascinating, little-known lives of the couturiers behind the clothes." -- Amazon

The Elusive Body

"A compelling, necessary, and timely investigation into the diagnosis crisis in the American healthcare system, from the patients living with undiagnosed illnesses, to the doctors searching for answers, and what their quests reveal about our flawed medical system Millions of Americans live with conditions that elude diagnosis, often navigating a healthcare system that fails to recognize or effectively address their suffering. Journalist Alexandra Sifferlin has spent years investigating the diagnosis crisis in America-what it means to live without an accurate diagnosis and how both medical and patient communities are working to improve the diagnostic process. The National Institutes of Health's Undiagnosed Diseases Network, a series of clinics of last resort where physicians and researchers work tirelessly to solve some of medicine's most confounding cases, is at the forefront of change, showing what's possible when healthcare providers and scientists are freed from the bureaucracy of a system beholden to insurance companies, and encouraged to work together with the aim of solving some of medicine's most perplexing mysteries. A correct diagnosis is more than a label; it's a lifeline that opens doors to treatment options, financial support, and an understanding community. Weaving the profound, maddening, and uplifting stories of patients seeking answers to unexplainable symptoms, the doctors trying to help them, and the latest research on diagnosis, The Elusive Body illuminates the diagnostic journey, revealing why diagnoses matter and how they have the power to transform lives, the medical system, and even society, one case at a time." -- Provided by publisher

Down Time

"Without Cassandra, Aaron would probably be dead. Fortunately, she won't leave him - despite the drinking, flirting, solipsism, armchair socialism, overspending, infidelity, catastrophic depression, and disparate but increasingly frequent spells of drug- and booze-addled debauchery. Unfortunately, she might be reaching the end of her rope. Cass and Aaron, like the other neurotic, ambivalent intellctuals in their orbit, are getting older. There's Malcolm, with his own alcoholism and marginally more successful writing career; his partner, Violet, a doctor with little patience for either; Antonia, a teaching fellow whose book about ecocide may get her tenure at a prestigious university near Harvard Square - yes, that one. When Sam, a charming trust-fund punk at the center of this loose network, dies suddenly and a global pandemic takes hold, all five must contend with the lives they've made: their desires and disappointments, habits and hang-ups, pathologies and addictions, and the possibilities of making art and being good as the earth whirls to its end. Down Time marks the delightful return of Andrew Martin, the author of the pitch-perfect slacker classics Early Work and Cool for America. Compulsively readable and contagiously intelligent, this is a wryly comic novel of settling down, selling out, growing up, and getting out that turns a terrifically funny and hyperliterate eye on our most desperately guarded ambitions: to love and be loved, to know and be known, to stay sane, if only just." -- Book jacket flap

Chain of Ideas

"What is behind the rise of the authoritarian and xenophobic movements threatening democracies around the globe? The #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist argues that the answer lies in the great replacement theory-a racist lie that has moved from the margins to the mainstream. What is the great replacement theory? Variations on the theory have existed for centuries, but it was articulated in its current form by French nationalists in the late twentieth century who believed that black and brown immigrants were being brought into Europe by nefarious forces to "replace" Europe's white population. The idea was picked up by white supremacist movements in the United States and eventually merged into the mainstream via commentators like Tucker Carlson, who pushed the theory to millions. In their telling, immigration and integration are nothing short of an extinction-level event for white people-and from this fear, a tide of extremist political ideas follow. Even as it's being embraced by increasing numbers of their fellow citizens, most Americans are unfamiliar with the theory, its origins, and its dire implications for this country's future. In Chain of Ideas, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi examines the roots of the theory in American history and its manifestations in countries around the globe, from Hungary and Russia to France and the United Kingdom-a fascinating tour of antidemocratic ideas that are once again on the rise here at home. His exploration will help readers make sense of our fast-shifting political landscape and equip them to fight this profound threat to the American ideal of multiracial democracy." -- Provided by publisher

Backstitch

"[A] fascinating and rewarding novel." - The New York Times "Backstitch is a splendid, irreducible work of art - about making art, about time, about memory, about the stars in the heavens, and maybe most of all about family." - Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers Two sisters, Violet and Marigold, reunite at a retrospective of their troubled mother's art. Together they must confront the consequences of her ambition and the difficult, private reality of the family's public narrative. Moving through the gallery's rooms and through time to arrive at the truth of her life and death, the daughters unravel their family ties, the gift and cost of artistic talent, and the legacy that they must carry.

American Men

"'American Men' is a journalistic account of the lives of four men from vastly different backgrounds and experiences, charting how each of them construct their relationship to masculinity, and how they navigate that relationship over time. The book searches the rarely-discussed crevices of men's lives, chronicling traumas they've suffered and ways they've recovered, the ways they've both inflicted and survived violence, their relationships to sex and their own bodies, how they've wielded power and struggled with powerlessness, while trying to build families, friendships, and fuller relationships to themselves. The book's protagonists include Ryan, an amateur MMA fighter who lives on a Mohawk reservation, struggling to come to terms with both his sexuality as a closeted gay man and his draw toward bar room violence; Gideon, an itinerant, tall and handsome West Point graduate and former baseball star who unravels when he encounters challenges to his status as the masculine ideal; Joseph, a Seattle law student whose marriage teeters on the brink as he tries on his own to contend with the effects of childhood sexual trauma; and Nate, an Ohio man still living at home and trying to establish security for himself in a rural pocket of a red state, where he's under threat as someone who is Black, trans, and poor. Drawing from five years of interviewing these men and following them though their daily lives, "American Men" interweaves their stories into a mosaic that explores identity, heritage, and the pressures and performance of modern American masculinity."-- Provided by publisher

The Madness of Believing

"At twenty-four-years old, Josh Owens dropped out of film school when a job offer arrived from the very world that had already begun to warp his sense of reality. After years of being pulled in by Alex Jones's magnetic persona and anti-establishment defiance, he'd become entangled in a universe built on suspicion, spectacle, and carefully manufactured lies. When the call came, he packed up his life and moved halfway across the country, setting off on a journey that would unravel everything he thought he believed. THE MADNESS OF BELIEVING follows Josh's experience working at Infowars, where he became one of Jones's most trusted employees. He began traveling across the world creating "news" stories, staging chaos, and spreading outright lies to Infowars's ever-growing audience. As he rose through the ranks, his skepticism grew, and Josh underwent a personal transformation just as Infowars too changed from a fringe community to a mainstream disinformation machine. Josh's story is one playing out across America: that of impressionable young people pulled into a dangerous world where reality and fiction are blurred, and extremist beliefs gain steam. THE MADNESS OF BELIEVING is a reckoning with this climate, one that provides riveting insight into these supposedly radical, truth-driven organizations while exposing their dangerous rhetoric and lies"-- Provided by publisher

Who Needs Friends

"'You don't really have any friends, do you, Dad?' A seemingly innocuous, if direct, question from Andrew McCarthy's son left him reeling. McCarthy did have friends, but like so many other men, the necessities of modern adult life had forced his friendships to the background. At one point his friends had been instrumental in broadening his horizons, bolstering his courage, providing safe harbor. Now, McCarthy found himself questioning what had happened to those friendships, whether he needed them, what he valued, and what he had to offer. A simple question had become a moment that demanded a reckoning. WHO NEEDS FRIENDS charts McCarthy's journey over nearly ten thousand miles behind the wheel, following him on often-unexpected travels through Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Rocky Mountains with one driving purpose: to reconnect. Along the way he talks to countless men about their male friendships, from cowboys and blues musicians to preachers and rootless teens. What began as a simple desire to catch up with a few friends turned into a deep exploration of the challenges and rewards that men experience in forming bonds with each other. In McCarthy's own words, "It turns out that guys have a difficult time with friendship." But that's not the way it needs to be."-- Provided by publisher

Warning Signs

"The heart-stopping second novel from the author of Nightwatching, in which a father-son ski weekend becomes a desperate fight for survival."-- Provided by publisher

The Violet Hour

"Thomas Haller has achieved the kind of fame that most artists only dream of: shows in London and New York, paintings sold for a fortune. The vision he presents to the world is one of an untouchable genius at the top of his game. It is also a lie. Between his ruthless new dealer and a property mogul obsessed with his work, the appetite for Thomas and his art is all-consuming. Who is the real Thomas Haller? His oldest friend and former dealer, Lorna, might once have known--before Thomas traded their early intimacy for international fame. On the eve of his latest show, the luminaries of the art world gather. But the sudden death of a young man has put everyone on edge--and so begins a chain of events that will lead a group of friends back into the past to confront who they have become. A story of deception, power-play, and longing, The Violet Hour exposes the unsettling underbelly of the art world, asking, who is granted admission to a world that seems to glitter and shimmer, and who is left outside, their faces pressed to the glass?" -- Dust jacket

Stay Alive

"An astonishing account of the human capacity for survival amidst a great city's descent into utter annihilation."-- Provided by publisher

Sisters in Yellow

"Rising star Mieko Kawakami reaches new heights in this pacy, thrilling novel, a Japanese Breaking Bad, in which a group of friends fight for freedom, independence, and survival in Tokyo of the 1990s, a world rapidly dividing into haves and have-nots. All of them are fleeing something. Growing up without a father, Hana's tired of the pity in her classmates' eyes, and finds a flashier mother figure in Kimiko. Kimiko is older than Hana's mother but seems much younger, chatting easily about school and boys and wanting a better life. Fate throws them together with two more young women-bruised but not broken by life. Together the four set out to remake their lives, fighting predatory lenders, organized criminals, and plain bad luck as they open a bar called Lemon. Keeping the business going, and trying to take care of each other, forms the core of this enrapturing novel. It is a story of startling reversals and vivid portraits of the matriarchy of Tokyo nightlife and its adjacent criminal underclasses. From the bar owners to the aging hostesses to the young street touts coaxing people off the street to places like Lemon, everyone wants a chance at renewal, but can everyone get it? Narrated by Hana in Kawakami's trademark evocatively poetic style and paced like a noir, Sisters in Yellow will be the literary blockbuster of the season. This epic of friendship and betrayal is the kind of book one longs to return to when away from it: a world until itself, and a book that makes you think while it produces immensities of feeling. It is a major novel that, like so many of the best recent phenomena - from Donna Tartt to Hanya Yanigahara - explores how we survive (or don't) together."-- Provided by publisher

Scale Boy

"Patrice Nganang, the award-winning novelist and international activist, chronicles his youth in Cameroon and his discovery of the textures of his community and the world beyond." -- Provided by publisher

Saoirse

"For fans of Colm Tóibín and Claire Keegan, Saoirse is a propulsive story set in the US and Ireland about one woman and the lies she has told in order to survive In the wilds of Donegal, Ireland, 1999, Saoirse is an artist living an idyllic life. Her handsome partner, Daithí, and two beautiful daughters are regular subjects for her work and are the continual source of her hope and inspiration. Each day, she pours her heart into her family, using her painting and sketching to express her love for them. But Saoirse is not entirely who she says she is. And when her Dublin exhibition wins a prestigious award, the unanticipated recognition that comes with it threatens to expose all she has had to do in order to escape her old life, bringing a decade's worth of buried memories to the surface. At the age of seventeen, Saoirse went on the run from her hometown in Michigan, booking a one-way ticket to Ireland and developing an entangled relationship with a young man along the way. As she leaned into her new identity, she hoped she'd made it to safety once and for all. But she can't outrun her past forever, and now that Saoirse's cherished world is put in peril, facing her painful childhood might prove to be her only salvation. Saoirse is an evocative, suspenseful, and inventive exploration of the intimate relationship between art and life and the lies we tell ourselves in the name of reinvention." -- Provided by publisher

Repetition

"A prize-winning novel by one of the foremost writers of her generation explores the horror and beauty of being sixteen years old."-- Provided by publisher

One of Us

"When Fliss, the eccentric grown daughter of the powerful Fitzmaurice clan, is found dead on a beach in Bali, what seems like a tragic accident stirs more suspicion than closure for those who've traded favors with--and within--her family for decades. There is Ben, Fliss's brother, eager to minimize his sister's passing, since it's suddenly clear he's next in line to be Prime Minister. And Martin-Ben's erstwhile best friend--who is just happy that Fliss's memorial gives him the chance to re-enter the Fitzmaurice orbit, seeking revenge and acceptance. He can't help but notice that Ben's wife, Serena, seems to have discovered in middle age that her privileged existence is more like a gilded cage. Or that Ben and Serena's daughter Cosima has become an environmental activist fighting against everything her parents seem to stand for--a pivot her late aunt would've applauded. Where does Richard Take--Ben's disgraced colleague, determined to make his big comeback, fit in? And circling them all is Andrew Jarvis and his money: Has he been their loyal hero, or the one who has thrown his weight around just to keep them all in check? Delivering incisive commentary on the hypocrisies of the elite, this juicy ensemble drama about old friends and dazzling wealth perfectly captures the uneasy balance between personal ambition and collective responsibility. One of Us is a page-turner with teeth, a mash-up of The Wedding People and Succession--darkly comic and cutting, as well as unexpectedly hopeful." -- Provided by publisher

On Morrison

"Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and one of our most beloved writers, has inspired generations of readers. But her artistic genius is often overshadowed by her monumental public persona, perhaps because, as Namwali Serpell puts it, "she is our only truly canonical black, female writer-and her work is highly complex." In On Morrison, Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and professor who teaches a course on Morrison to illuminate her masterful experiments with literary form. This is Morrison as you've never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre-her fiction and criticism, as well as her lesser-known dramatic works and poetry-with contextual guidance, archival discoveries, and original close readings. At once accessible and uncompromisingly rigorous, On Morrison is a primer not only on how to read one of the most significant American authors of all time, but also on how to read great works of literature in general. This dialogue on the page between two black women artist-readers is stylish, edifying, and thrilling in its scope and intelligence." -- Provided by publisher