New in November

If old age was thought of as an evening, ending in midnight oblivion, they were well into the eleventh hour.Two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, experience private tragedy against the backdrop of national calamity. Revisiting the Bombay neighbourhood of Midnight's Children, a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire. In an English university college, an undead academic asks a lonely student to avenge his former tormentor.These five dazzling works of fiction move between the three countries that Salman Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life. They are the reckoning with mortality that we all must one day make, and speak deeply to what the author has come from and through.Do we accommodate ourselves to death, or rail against it? How can we bid farewell to the places that we have made home? How do we achieve fulfilment with our lives if we don't know the end of our own stories? The Eleventh Hour ponders life and death, legacy and identity with the penetrating insight and boundless imagination that have made Salman Rushdie one of the most celebrated writers of our time.Endorsements“More than 40 years after Midnight's Children, there is still nobody who spins a yarn quite like Salman Rushdie” — Spectator“Rushdie has not just enlarged literature’s capacities, he has expanded the world’s imaginative possibilities” — The Times“Salman Rushdie is a genius” — A.M. Homes

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf.But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning. Perhaps even a deliberate misdirection. One he fell into. Something deeper and darker, more damaging, is planned. Did he in fact arrest the Black Wolf, or are they still out there? Armand is appalled to think his mistake has allowed their conspiracy to grow, to gather supporters. To spread lies, manufacture enemies, and feed hatred and division.Still recovering from wounds received in stopping the first attack, Armand is confined to the village of Three Pines, leading a covert investigation from there. He must be careful not to let the Black Wolf know he has recognized his mistake. In a quiet church basement, he and his senior agents Beauvoir and Lacoste pore over what little evidence they have. Two notebooks. A few mysterious numbers on a tattered map of Québec. And a phrase repeated by the person they had called the Grey Wolf. A warning…Gamache and his small team of supporters realize that for the Black Wolf to have gotten this far, they must have powerful allies, in law enforcement, in industry, in organized crime, in the halls of government.From the apparent peace of his little village, Gamache finds himself playing a lethal game of cat and mouse with an invisible foe who is gathering forces and preparing to strike.Somewhere out there, in the darkness, a black wolf is feeding. In a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Saeris Fane doesn't want power. The very last thing she needs is her name whispered on an entire court's lips, but now that she's been crowned queen of the Blood Court, she's discovering that a queen's life is not her own. A heavy weight rests upon her shoulders.Her ward — and her brother — need her back in her homeland... but the changes that have strengthened Saeris have also made her weak. Born under blazing suns, Saeris will surely die if she makes her way home through the Quicksilver. Which means that, once again, she must send someone else in her stead...'Keep your mouth shut. Stick to the shadows. And for the love of all seven Gods, do NOT crack any jokes.'Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate has defeated armies and survived all manner of horrors, but traveling back to Zilvaren with Carrion Swift might just be the death of him. The male just will not shut up. Hidden dangers await them down the narrow alleyways of the Silver City. Unfolding secrets pose impossible threats. Fisher must wrangle the smuggler and accomplish his goals quickly if he wants to see his mate again.Duty. Blood. Honour. Power. A darkness falls across Yvelia. The realm and their friends are in danger. Together, Saeris and Fisher will pass through fire and brimstone to save them.

Hannah Rooney knows how to be invisible. At twenty, she keeps her head down and her eyes open, and so far, she’s managed to avoid being pulled into the dealings of her notorious criminal family. Hannah lives her life in countdown mode, biding her time in nursing school as she waits for her beloved sister, Kaylie, to turn eighteen so Hannah can get them both far, far away from Rockaway Watch and start a new life.Tobias Hawthorne II acts every inch the entitled heir that he is. As the only son of one of the country's richest men, there isn't a door that isn't open to him. Yet behind his razor sharp cheekbones and devil-may-care attitude, Toby is guarding a nest of deadly secrets and a fiery anger fierce enough to burn everything in his path.Their lives collide in one tragic, stormy night, where an act of arson and nature leave Kaylie and two others dead and Toby just barely alive—with no memory of who he is. The fisherman who pulls him from the ocean enlists Hannah to help save the very person who she knows took away her sister. Fueled by her hatred, Hannah is determined to deny Toby's death wish by keeping him alive. He is the last person that she should ever develop feelings for, and she is the first thing he ever remembers seeing.Some things cannot happen—and some things cannot be stopped.A star-crossed, enemies-to-lovers, tragic love story. Read her side of the story, then flip the book over to experience their love anew through his eyes.EndorsementsNew York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes

From play dates on the playground to sneaking into movie theatres, Dani and Alec were inseparable as kids. Until Dani moved away. Years later, Dani is back in Minnesota, and excited to reconnect with the nerdy, comforting Alec. But teenage Alec is nothing like the boy she remembers. He's the hockey star in a town where hockey players are worshipped as gods — and he loves it.When one thing leads to another and Dani and Alec find themselves thrown together and playing the role of boyfriend and girlfriend, “complicated” becomes an understatement. In this Minnesota town, hockey may rule, but romance is about to take its place.Childhood sweethearts reunite in a hockey-loving town where romance is about to heat up the ice. For fans of Hannah Grace.EndorsementsA swoony, boy-next-door fake dating romance — New York Times bestseller Lynn Painter.

The celebration comes to a halt for our heroes in Dog Big Jim Believes when the mischievous Space Cuties From Space return. Our caped crusaders — Dog Man (aka Scarlet Shedder), Commander Cupcake, and Sprinkles — along with Mecha Molly discover that the city has changed, and nothing is how it should be. Can Big Jim's positivity and innocence help our heroes? Will Dog Man, Big Jim, Grampa, and Molly have the courage to trust each other and save the day? How does the past help shape the future? And who is the chosen one?Power up with Dog Big Jim Believes by Dav Pilkey. Join the journey as our heroes discover the influence of belief and find truth from within. With threads of self-awareness, confidence, and integrity, Dav Pilkey masterfully crafts a humorous and heartfelt adventure, weaving together the importance of truth, goodness, and believing in yourself.

The invitation arrives out of the blue.In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never fully understood.Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, openhearted brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary.With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater.And everyone here is lying.Featuring beachy gothic atmosphere, family intrigue, and high-stakes romance.EndorsementsNumber-one New York Times bestselling author — E. Lockhart.

The forests of Northeast Asia are home to a marvelous range of animals—fish owls and brown bears, musk deer and moose, wolves and raccoon dogs, and leopards and tigers. But in the final years of the Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur River basin. Soon, the Soviet Union fell and catastrophe arrived, as poaching and logging took a fast, astonishing toll on an already vulnerable species.Just as these changes arrived, scientists came together to found the Siberian Tiger Project. Led by the moose researcher Dale Miquelle and Zhenya Smirnov, who studied rodents, the team captured and released more than 114 tigers over three decades, witnessed their mating rituals and fights, their hunting and feeding, their ceding and taking of territory, their creation of families.Within the pages of Jonathan C. Slaght’s Tigers Between Empires, these characters, both feline and human, come fully alive as we travel with them through the quiet and changing forests of Amur. We travel across time, too, as the species is shaped by the history and politics of empires—like the Qing dynasty’s Willow Palisade that once slowed human settlement, or the later introduction of roads through Russian reserves. The Siberian Tiger Project became the longest running tiger research initiative anywhere in the world; its work continues to guide conservationists today.The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.

A “cure” for obesity has long been the holy grail for the pharmaceutical industry, one that seemed unattainable until recent breakthroughs in type 2 diabetes research led to the development of Ozempic, a weight loss medication that activates hormones in the stomach, making people feel fuller for longer. The treatment is so effective that it is already disrupting many industries—from health care to fast food to fashion—and it has quickly made its creator, Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, the most valuable company in Europe. But the impact of these drugs goes far beyond billion dollar profits; a true long-term cure for obesity could save 40% of American adults from dangerous preventable illnesses. And as their success continues to grow, one question looms in the minds of investors and healthcare workers: are they too good to be true?In Off the Scales, Reuters journalist Aimee Donnellan illuminates the history of the latest medical breakthrough that is poised to change the world, while bringing difficult social questions about inequality and morality to the forefront. Through original reporting and rigorous research, she forecasts the future of Ozempic and similar medications—and examines what their explosive popularity tells us about our ideals of beauty, the lengths to which people will go in order to become thin, the current state of healthcare, and the inner workings of the pharmaceutical industry.Along the way, Donnellan profiles the scientist who first discovered GLP-1 and her fight for recognition while her colleagues were thrust into the limelight, and offers new insights into the ways that the food and beauty industries made billions while promoting unhealthy and unrealistic body image standards and accelerating the obesity crisis. She also reveals the lengths that the celebrity class went to obtain this medication when supplies were limited and prescriptions were costly, and relates the firsthand accounts of several early Ozempic users and the transformative effect the drug has had on their weight loss journeys. Above all, Off the Scales is an informative and entertaining study of the unexpected social consequences of finally getting what we've wanted for so long.The inside story of the race to develop Ozempic, and its potentially revolutionary impact on public health and culture.

When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.There is also the matter of the family “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace...” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?Cursed Daughters is a brilliant cocktail of modernity and superstition, vibrant humor and hard-won wisdom, romantic love and familial obligation. With its unforgettable cast of characters, it asks us what it means to be given a second chance and how to live both wisely and well with what we’ve been given.A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry, and superstition.Endorsements“A bombshell of a book... Sharp, explosive, hilarious.” — New York Times

In the great walled city of Isara, political turmoil ignites a rebellion one hundred years in the making. But when a legionnaire falls in love with a Magistrate's daughter, their love will threaten the fate of the city and the will of the gods.Luca Matius has one purpose—to carry on the family name, maintaining its presence in the Forum once his powerful and cruel uncle dies. But his noviceship with the city's Philosopher places him in the middle of a catastrophe that will alter the destiny of his people.Maris Casoeria was raised amidst the strategic maneuvers of the Citadel's inner workings, and she knows what her future holds—a lifetime of service to a corrupt city. But her years of serving as a novice to the last Priestess who possesses the stolen magic of the Old War has made her envision a different kind of future for the city. When she meets Luca, a fated chain of events is set into motion that will divinely entangle their lives.As a secret comes to light and throws the city into chaos, Luca and Maris hatch a plot to create a calculated alliance that could tip the scales of power. But when an execution forces Luca to become the symbol of rebellion, he and Maris are thrown onto opposite sides of a holy war. As their fates diverge, they learn they are at the center of a story the gods are writing. And even if they can find their way back to each other, there may be nothing left.

Meddy has spent her whole life as a footnote in someone else’s story. Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents—both gods, albeit minor ones—she dreams of leaving her family’s island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home.In Athens’ colorful market streets and the clandestine chambers of the temple, Meddy flourishes in her role as Athena’s favored acolyte, getting her first tastes of purpose and power. But when she is noticed by another Olympian, Poseidon, a drunken night between Meddy and the god ends in violence, and the course of Meddy’s promising future is suddenly and irrevocably altered.Her locs transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Medusa must embrace a new identity—not as a victim, but as a vigilante—and with it, the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr, and myth.Exploding with rage, heartbreak, and love, I, Medusa portrays a young woman caught in the cross currents between her heart’s deepest desires and the cruel, careless games the Olympian gods play.EndorsementsFrom New York Times bestselling author Ayana Gray.

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer’s. Her daughter Amelia, a once fiery and strong-willed activist, can’t bear to see her mother’s mind fade. Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world’s first experimental merging process for Alzheimer’s patients, in which Laurie’s ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia’s healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one.Soon Amelia and Laurie join the opaque and mysterious group of others: teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancée Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his addict daughter, Lara. As they prepare to move to The Village, a luxurious rehabilitation center for those who have merged, they quickly begin to question whether everything is really as it seems.A thrilling and ominously prophetic debut set in a world when Earth and its resources have been pushed to breaking point, giving rise to a revolutionary—and highly controversial—procedure in which two people’s consciousness can be combined to exist in one body. How far would you go to never say goodbye? An exhilarating, immersive debut, The Merge is a personal story of love, family, and sacrifice, as well as a thought-provoking examination of the limits of control, resistance, and freedom in our modern world.

The follow-up to The Will of the Many follows Vis as he grapples with a dangerous secret that could change the course of history across alternate dimensions.Omne trium perfectum.The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am.But with all that has happened—with what I fear is coming—I am not sure it matters anymore.I am no longer one. I won the Iudicium, and lost everything—and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives. I have to hide; fight; play politics. I have to train; trust; lie. I have to kill; heal; prove myself again, and again, and again.I am loved, and hated, and entirely alone.Above all, though, I need to find answers before it’s too late. To understand the nature of what has happened to me, and why.I need to find a way to stop the coming Cataclysm, because if all I have learned is true, I may be the only one who can.

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts, which is rarely as useful as one would think. She and her sister have maintained the family business, eking out a paltry living by selling fraudulent spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders took place.Mallory is a self-proclaimed expert on Count Bastien Saphir — otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu — who brutally killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet Bastien's great-grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine Sisters are as talented as they claim. The perfect mark. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu's ghost, she can’t resist. A paid vacation at Armand’s country manor? It’s practically a dream come true, never mind the ghosts of murdered wives and the monsters that are as common as household pests.But when murder again comes to the House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the center of the investigation—and she is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.But that all sounds relatively easy compared to her biggest challenge: learning to trust her heart. Especially when the person her heart wants the most might be a murderer himself.

When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, has been checking into the Inter-Continental since 1988. And here, she uses its story to craft a richly immersive history of modern Afghanistan.It is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel’s 1970s glory days—an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the ‘Paris of Asia’. It is the story of Abida, who became the first female chef to cook in the Inter-Con’s famous kitchen after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And it is the story of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-something staff who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy—only to witness the Taliban roaring back in 2021.The result is a remarkably vivid history of how Afghans have survived a half century of destruction and disruption.The story of a hotel. The story of a nation. It is the story of a hotel but also the story of a people.

1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, with a presidential election looming and a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader predicted to win. United Fruits, a giant American corporation responsible for a large percentage of the country’s GNP, meanwhile, is not pleased by this prospect. Neither is the CIA. Amid the uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the fallout from the election.Upon arrival, Gabriel meets Frank Sartorius, the local CIA agent. Despite Sartorius’s genial manner, Gabriel suspects something untrustworthy brewing under the surface. Soon, a political assassination with suspicions of Mafia involvement leads to riots, and Dax escapes to Europe, thinking he will finally return to his normal life as a travel writer. But when Green compels him to investigate some shady characters in West Berlin, it becomes clear that an even greater danger is afoot as the magnetic young President Kennedy prepares to arrive for a state visit.A gripping novel of politics and spy craft with dramatic twists and turns, The Predicament shows Boyd to be one of our most masterful contemporary storytellers.Endorsements“Boyd is one of my favorite authors.” — Kate Atkinson

When Lea Ypi discovers that a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Italian Alps in 1941 has been posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with deeply unsettling questions. Growing up, she had been told all records of her grandmother’s youth were destroyed “when the police came and took everything” in the early days of communism in Albania. But there Leman was with her husband, Asllan, glamorous newlyweds while World War II was raging in the background.What follows is a thrilling reimagining of the past as we are transported to the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy in Salonica, the making of modern Greece and Albania, a global financial crisis, the horrors of war and the dawn of communism in the Balkans, through secret police archives and muddied memories. While investigating the truth about her family, Ypi grapples with uncertainty. Who is the real Leman Ypi? If her family lived in the Ottoman Empire, why did she speak French? What made her move to Tirana as a young woman and meet a socialist who sympathized with the Popular Front while his father led a collaborationist government? And, above all, why was she smiling in the winter of 1941? All these questions were also asked by the Albanian secret police.As much a sweeping story about lost worlds as it is a philosophical inquiry, Indignity shows what it is like to make choices against the tide of history. Through reports of communist spies, court depositions, anecdotes and characters that live on in Ypi’s memory, we move between "now" and "then", fact and fiction, what we learn from archives and what we can imagine, to reckon with the injustices of the past.By turns epic and intimate, profound and gripping, Indignity is a meditation on the fragility of truth, both personal and political. Ultimately, Ypi asks, with what moral authority do we judge the acts of previous generations? And what do we really know about the people closest to us?

It is September 1974. Two men meet in Venice. One, Nicholas, is a young artist, plausible, English, desperate. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the illusionist responsible for realizing the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini’s Casanova. A young apprentice is just what he needs.He brings Nicholas back to Rome and introduces him to the looking-glass world of Cinecittà, the studio where Casanova’s Venice will be ingeniously assembled. In the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Salò, Pasolini’s horrifying fable of fascism.But Nicholas has a secret, and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amid the rising tensions of the Years of Lead, he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn’t intend.Art, power, desire, and illusion collide in a hypnotic novel from Olivia Laing, set in the months leading up to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975. Olivia Laing’s The Silver Book is at once a queer love story and a noir-ish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema. It is a fictional account of real things, and an investigation into the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power.

The Humpty Dumpty Club is distraught when its powerhouse leader, Joan Hargrove, takes a bad fall down her stairs, knocking her out of commission. Now, as well as running errands and shepherding those less able to their doctors’ appointments, they have to pick up the slack.Between navigating their own relationships and aging bodies, and attending choir practice, these invisible yet indomitable women help where they can. They bake cookies, they care for pets, they pick up prescriptions, they sit vigil by the sick, and most of all, they show up for the people they’ve pledged to help. In the face of death, divorce, and the myriad directions our lives can take, the Humpty Dumpty Club represents the power of community and chosen family.Weaving together the perspectives of the four cardinal members as they tend to those in need, Stewart O’Nan revisits beloved characters from his past work — most notably Emily Maxwell — to fashion a rich and moving novel that celebrates our capacity for patience and care. Vivid, warm, and often wryly funny, Evensong reminds us that life is made up of moments both climactic and quotidian, and we weather those moments with the people we choose to keep close.An intimate, moving novel that follows The Humpty Dumpty Club, a group of women of a certain age who band together to help one another and their circle of friends in Pittsburgh as they face the challenges of their golden years.Endorsements“Stewart O’Nan has been one of the best chroniclers of the lives of American women.” — Susan Straight

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and awe, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time.Through the stories of those who have obsessed over this phenomenon, Helm's extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm - and the farmer's daughter who loved Helm. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.Rich, wild and vital, Helm is the story of a unique life force, and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They’ve raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs of a long life spent together. But eight years after Claire was diagnosed with cancer, the end is near, and it is time to gather loved ones and prepare for the inevitable.Over the years of Claire’s illness, Eliot has willingly—lovingly—shifted into the role of caregiver, appreciating the intimacy and tenderness that comes with a role even more layered and complex than the one he performed as a devoted husband. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last days and weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling. In a moment, his carefully constructed world is shattered.What if your partner’s dying wish broke your heart? How well do we know the deepest desires of those we love dearly? As Eliot is confronted with this profound turning point in his marriage and his life, he grapples with the man and husband he’s been, and with the great unknowns of Claire’s last days.An intimate and profoundly moving look at a long marriage and the ways in which a startling request can change a couple’s understanding of who they are, together and apart. Tender and raw, visceral and unexpected. Emotionally vibrant and complex, Some Bright Nowhere explores the profound gifts and unexpected costs of truly loving someone, and the fears and desires we experience as the end of life draws near.Endorsements“Profound and moving and real.” — Andrew Sean Greer“Some Bright Nowhere is a novel that draws you in deeply and holds you there. Wonderful.” — Meg Wolitzer

December 1962, a small village near Bristol.Eric and Irene and Bill and Rita. Two young couples living next to each other, the first in a beautiful cottage—suitable for a newly appointed local doctor—the second in a rundown, perennially under-heated farm. Despite their apparent differences, the two women (both pregnant) strike an easy friendship, a connection that comes as a respite from the surprising tediousness of married life, with its unfulfilled expectations, growing resentments and the ghosts of a recent past.But as one of the coldest winters on record grips England in a never-ending frost and as the country is enveloped in a thick, soft, unmoving layer of snow, the two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. And without the small distractions of everyday existence, suddenly old tensions and shocking new discoveries threaten to change the course of their lives forever.A masterful, page-turning examination of the minutiae of life, The Land in Winter is a masterclass in storytelling — proof yet again that Andrew Miller is one of Britain's most dazzling chroniclers of the human heart.

A pulse-pounding science fiction adventure following the daughter of rebel instigators and the heir of a power-drunk ruler who team up to save their empire…or destroy it in the process.Fen’s world is crumbling. Newearth, a once-promising planet gifted by the all-powerful alien Makers, now suffers from failed terraforming, leaving its people on the brink of collapse. Fen has spent her life working as a mercenary bodyguard for a cunning magistrate, entangled in the politics of the empire that shattered her family. But then her fathers—her last remaining tether to hope—are executed by the ruthless Sovereign, who marks Fen for the same fate.With nothing left to lose, Fen escapes with a single map and an old quarterstaff, embarking on a dangerous quest to seek out the last remnants of her parents’ rebellion. But the underground insurgents she finds may be even more dangerous than the Sovereign’s army. At the center of it all stands Alekhai, the Sovereign’s heir—a brutal, power-hungry force of destruction. Though he embodies everything Fen despises, his dangerous plans might be the empire’s last chance at survival…or the final push to its doom.Perfect for fans of fast-paced dystopian adventures, intergalactic intrigue, and morally complex heroes, The King Must Die weaves an unforgettable story of rebellion, survival, and impossible choices. Will Fen save her world—or ensure its destruction?EndorsementsFrom the USA TODAY bestselling author

1978: A scholarship draws Nancy from Gambia's warmth into Sweden's winter. When her friendship with charismatic scholar Lars blossoms into something more, she thinks she may have finally found her place. But there's more to Lars than his charming persona, and Nancy is about to discover the danger of being drawn into his world.2006: Tina has had her taste of fame as the nation's sweetheart pop princess. But beneath her glittery façade, Tina is desperate to discover who she really is. Her mother, Nancy, seems desperate to keep the past under wraps, but will an unexpected figure help open the door?Spanning four decades and three continents, Bitter Honey is a story of mothers, daughters, and the importance of carving your own path.Two women. Four decades. A lifetime of secrets.

The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city’s second homeowners, but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions.Diane Riley, Chip’s wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes—including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. The Rileys' eldest son Joe is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their youngest son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle and sexual openness of Paul’s clique but burdened by his sense of obligation to his father.Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing his brother to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul’s readiness for office. And within their growing circle of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds an unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region’s complexity, as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks' exclusive circle.Spanning six months from Memorial Day to Election Day, Town & Country paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a community in flux.For readers of Fredrik Backman and Jen Beagin.Endorsements“A big-hearted and true.” — Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winner“Powerful and extremely well-written.” — Colum McCann, National Book Award winner

From acclaimed and prize-winning historian Paul Gillingham, a rich and vibrant history of one of the world's most diverse, politically ground-breaking, and influential countriesAt the beginning of his masterful work of scholarship and narration, Paul Gillingham writes, "From its outset, Mexico was more profoundly, globally hybrid than anywhere else in the prior history of the world." Over the ensuing five centuries, Mexicans have prefigured and shaped the course of human lives across the globe.Gillingham begins in 1511 with the dramatic shipwreck of two Spanish sailors in the far south of Mexico. Ten years later, Hernán Cortés led an army of European adventurers and indigenous rebels to seize the legendary island city of Tenochtitlán, the center of Montezuma's empire, the largest in the Americas. The capture of the future Mexico City was more than an extraordinary military event: it was the collision of two long-separated worlds, radically different in everything from biota to urban planning. Spaniards discovered tomatoes, chocolate, and a city larger and more sophisticated than anything they had ever seen. Mexicans discovered horses, wheels, and lethal germs, sparking a cataclysmic century of disease that wiped out a majority of the pre-existing population and led to a unique recombination of European and indigenous cultures. The industrial mining of Mexico's silver transformed the wealth and trade of the world. Mexico's independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821 led to a calamitous mid-century war with the United States and one of the first great social revolutions that brought peace for Mexicans throughout many of the global horrors of the 20th century, before the country itself collapsed into the violence of the cartels and a refugee crisis in the 2000s.The history of Mexico has been, Gillingham shows, one of empire and suffering but also of overcoming. Through it all the country set new standards for inclusivity, for progressive social policies, for artistic expression, for adroitly balancing dictatorship and democracy. While racial divides endured, so too did indigenous peoples, who enjoyed rights unthinkable in the United States. Mexico was among the first countries to abolish slavery in 1829, and Mexicans elected North America's first Black president, Vicente Guerrero; its only indigenous president, Benito Juárez; and its only woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum.As elegantly written as it is powerful in scope and rich in character and anecdote, Mexico uses the latest research to dazzling effect, showing how often Mexico has been a dynamic and vital shaper of world affairs.

Between 1941 and 1944, the British army contributed relatively little to World War II. On D-Day (June 6, 1944) that changed—35,000 British infantrymen, airmen, and special service operatives were sent headfirst into the white heat of war, almost overnight.Max Hastings’ Sword Beach tells the story of a handful of British soldiers and their critical role in D-Day’s parachute and seaborne offensive. On Sword, the codename of one of the two beaches assaulted by the British, scores of soldiers were killed by the first shots that they ever heard fired in anger. One British corporal insisted on apologizing to his enemy prisoners, and the Free French troops, 120-men strong, suffered 60 percent losses in the first days of fighting. In granular detail, Sword Beach describes a small number of men on a single day who faced the transition from make-believe battle to war at its most violent.

OneTaste hoped orgasm would change the world. Emerging in the midst of the late-aughts for-profit wellness boom, the company was unwavering in its faith in orgasmic meditation, or OM, a fifteen-minute practice featuring a woman being clitorally stimulated by a clothed, usually male partner. Nicole Daedone, the group’s magnetic and cunning founder, envisioned a world where OM was as widespread as yoga. But behind the militant loyalty she inspired and the millions of dollars she raised was a cult of manipulation, abuse, and coercion driven by a relentless quest for control. And by the time the FBI showed up at her door in 2023 with an indictment alleging forced labor and grooming, even Daedone herself was no longer safe.Building on the viral Bloomberg article that exposed the truth behind OneTaste and Daedone, Ellen Huet’s Empire of Orgasm is a deeply reported and cinematic chronicle of how a boundary-pushing wellness program became a cult that ruthlessly exploited its members. Huet, the undeniable authority on the group, reveals how, in demanding absolute fealty to Daedone as a path to enlightenment and healing, OneTaste pushed its followers into nonconsensual sex, forced them into debt, and destroyed their personal lives.A riveting true-crime saga and a nuanced exploration of the mechanics of manipulation, Empire of Orgasm is an extraordinary chronicle of wellness gone wrong.A cautionary tale of sex and salvation for the wellness era: how orgasmic meditation turned into a cult.

From her series The Climate of Man to her book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert’s work has shaped the way we think about the environment in the twenty-first century. Collected in Life on a Little-Known Planet are her most influential and thought-provoking essays.An intrepid reporter and a skillful translator of scientific ideas, Kolbert expertly captures the wonders of nature and paints vivid portraits of the researchers and concerned citizens working to preserve them. She takes readers all around the globe, from an island in Denmark that’s succeeded in going carbon neutral, to a community in Florida that voted to give rights to waterways, to the Greenland ice sheet, which is melting in a way that has implications for everyone. We meet a biologist who believes we can talk to whales, an entomologist racing to find rare caterpillars before they disappear, and a climatologist who’s considered the "father of global warming," among other scientists at the forefront of environmental protection.The threats to our planet that Kolbert has devoted so much of her career to exposing have only grown more serious. Now is the time to deepen our understanding of the world we are in danger of losing.A landmark collection of Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural world.Endorsements"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth, you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." — Rolling StoneElizabeth Kolbert — Pulitzer Prize winnerThe Climate of Man — National Magazine Award

Over the past twenty-five years, pop culture has suffered from a perplexing lack of reinvention. We’ve entered a cultural “blank space”—an era when reboots, rehashes, and fads flourish, while bold artistic experimentation struggles to gain recognition. Why is risk no longer rewarded, and how did playing it safe become the formula for success? Acclaimed cultural historian W. David Marx sets out to uncover the answers.In this ambitious cultural history, Marx guides us through the blur of the twenty-first century so far, from the Obama era to the rise of K-pop, from Paris Hilton to the Marvel cinematic universe, from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift to... Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, whose enduring influence highlights both their adaptability and the broader shifts in pop culture. Combining sociological, economic, and political insights with a deep dive into art, street culture, fashion, and technology, Blank Space dissects the rise of profit-driven, formulaic trends and the shifting cultural norms that often prioritize going viral over innovation. He reveals how backlash against indie snobbery and nineties counterculture gave rise to a “counter-counterculture”—one marked by antiliberal sentiment, the celebration of business heroes, and the increasing influence of industry plants and the elite class. In a world of crypto bros, nepo babies, and AI-driven art, Marx offers readers a much-needed dose of clarity and context.Vibrantly narrated and sharply argued, Blank Space is an essential guide for anyone looking to understand the chaos of the twenty-first century, the trends, tastemakers, and icons who shaped it, and how we might push our culture forward over the next quarter century—through renewed emphasis on creativity, community, and the values that transcend mere profit.A revealing exploration of a quarter century of cultural stagnation, examining the commercial and technological forces that have come to dominate contemporary culture—from music and fashion to art, film, TV, and beyond.

Swifterature captures a unique fusion of fandom, feminism, and a defense of both literature and popular culture. The narrative is split into thirteen chapters that use Swift's lyrics as departure points. The reader experiences the inspiring influence of English literature as Swift’s lens breathes new vitality and urgency into older texts. McCausland also writes about her own experiences as she copes with intense media scrutiny and is forced to defend her academic integrity. She argues that Swift, through her self-conscious engagement with classic works of literature and her extraordinary popularity, invites us to reflect not only on the culture of our past but also on our present. Swifterature shows how Swift’s place on the world’s stage can teach us about many things, from feminism to politics, nature to childhood. In the process, the book makes a compelling case that studying Taylor Swift also turns us into better readers, not only of literature but of ourselves and each other. An exciting literary fusion of fandom and feminism, Swifterature captures the special connection between English literature and the worldwide phenomenon of Taylor Swift.

In this fresh, eye-opening global history, economist David McWilliams charts the relationship between humans and money—from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley.The story of humanity is inextricable from that of money. No innovation has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet’s history so dramatically. And yet despite money’s primacy, most of us don’t truly understand it.As leading economist David McWilliams shows, money is central to every aspect of our civilization, from the political to the artistic. "Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. But not only that; it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen. Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity. It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks. Money also brings out humanity’s darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism."In The History of Money, McWilliams takes us across the world, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the Silk Road, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street. Along the way, we meet a host of innovators, emperors, frauds, and speculators, who have disrupted society and transformed the way we live. Filled with memorable anecdotes and with a foreword by Michael Lewis, The History of Money is an essential, extremely readable history of humanity’s most consequential invention.

Palantir Technologies is the most interesting company in the world – and the most controversial.Palantir builds data-integration software: its technology ingests vast quantities of information and quickly identifies patterns, trends and connections that might elude the human eye. Founded in 2003 to help the U.S. government in the war on terrorism – an early investor was the CIA – Palantir is now a $400 billion global colossus whose software is used by major intelligence services (including the Mossad), the U.S. military, the National Health Service in England, and corporate giants like Airbus and BP. From AI to counterterrorism to climate change to immigration to financial fraud to healthcare to the future of warfare, the company is at the nexus of the most critical issues of the twenty-first century.Its billionaire CEO, Alex Karp, is a distinctive figure on the global business scene. A biracial Jew who is also severely dyslexic, Karp has built Palantir into a tech giant despite having no background in either business or computer science. Instead, he’s a trained philosopher who has become known for his strongly held views on a range of issues and for his willingness to grapple with the moral and ethical implications of Palantir’s work. Those questions have taken on added urgency during the Trump era, which has also brought attention to the political activism of Karp’s close friend and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.In The Philosopher in the Valley, journalist Michael Steinberger is the first to tell the story of Alex Karp and Palantir from the beginning. Steinberger offers new biographical details and a rich psychological portrait of the man leading one of the world’s most secretive companies. Full of revelations, this is an urgent and insightful book about technological power, the surveillance state and the future we all face.

The first ever collection of John Edgar Wideman’s most influential essays and articles, five decades of cultural and literary criticism that paint a vivid portrait of America’s changing landscape and chronicle the emergence and evolution of a major presence in fiction.John Edgar Wideman, renowned for his award-winning fiction and memoirs, first made waves in American literature with his sharp, insightful commentary. Now, for the first time, his extensive body of long-form journalism and essays, personally curated by Wideman himself and spanning nearly five decades of his remarkable career, showcase his intellectual depth and lasting influence.Originally featured in publications such as Esquire, Vogue, and The New Yorker, Wideman’s writings explore the core of American culture, politics, and identity. With his unique perspective on iconic figures like Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Emmett Till, and Michael Jordan, Wideman offers a fresh view on the changing tides of American society.This volume goes beyond mere compilation; it narrates the story of a nation in transition, from the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement to the rise of the Obama era and beyond.Wideman’s prose is both relatable and profound, making this collection a perfect introduction for newcomers and a treasured addition for longtime admirers.Endorsements“Master of language.” — The New York Times

The characters in False War are ambivalent castaways living lives of deep estrangement from their home country, stranded in an existential no-man’s land. Some of them want to leave and can’t, others do leave but never quite get anywhere.In this multivoiced novel, employing a dazzling range of narrative styles from noir to autofiction, Carlos Manuel Álvarez brings together the stories of many people from all walks of life through a series of interconnected daisy chains. From Havana to Mexico City to Miami, from New York to Paris to Berlin, whether toiling in a barber shop, roaring in Yankee Stadium, lost in the Louvre, intensely competing in a chess hall in Cuba, plotting a theft, or on a junket for émigré dissidents in Berlin, these characters learn that while they may seem to be on the move, in reality they are paralyzed, immersed in a fake war waged with little real passion.The fractured narrative, filled with extraordinary portraits of ordinary people, reflects the disintegration that comes from being uprooted. At the same time it is full of tenderness, moments of joy and profound release.An ambitious, panoptic novel about exile as both condition and state of being by a major young Cuban writer

LilaMy innocence was ripped from me one fateful night under the starless sky. Resulting in an unwanted teenage pregnancy and a secret the Camorra must bury. My father decided to hand me off to the highest bidder. The lucky winner? Tiernan Callaghan, psychopath extraordinaire. The Irish mafia prince wants me for all the wrong reasons. Alliance. Money. Prestige. War. I am but a pawn in his twisted game. The man who sits on a throne of his enemies' skulls thinks I’m a weakling. Little does he know, in this chess game, the underdog wins. Because the thing about bad bishops? They protect good pawns.The first book in the new dark and decadent Society of Villains series, this is a dark age-gap mafia romance... He's Deathless. She's trying to find a reason to live.

There's only one rule in Endlock: obey or die.In Dividium, all crimes are punishable by life in prison. A prison that's a life sentence in more ways than one. Where the wealthy can hunt the inmates for sport.Raven’s mission is simple: infiltrate the infamous and deadly Endlock Prison to save her brother.There's just one problem: Raven has a target on her back. Her reputation as the most ruthless bounty hunter in Dividium precedes her, and the inmates she's sent to Endlock want their revenge.So when the prison guard she's sworn to hate becomes her only chance to survive, Raven has no choice but to trust the one person she shouldn't...The Hunger Games meets Prison Break in this enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance series that's perfect for fans of Veronica Roth and Tahereh Mafi who loved the 2010s dystopian era and are looking for the adult version of those books. A deadly prison. A forbidden romance. A fight for survival.

Between 2012 and 2023, Ian Graham worked as Liverpool FC's Director of Research. His tenure coincided with the club’s greatest period of success since the 1980s, including winning the Premier League in 2020 — Liverpool’s first league title after an agonising 30 years.Here for the first time, Graham reveals the fascinating data that informed some of the club’s most pivotal moments of the past decade, from the appointment of Jürgen Klopp as manager in 2015 to the signing of Mohamed Salah in 2017. Along the way, he shares groundbreaking insight into the modern game, including how a season largely played behind closed doors transformed our understanding of home-side advantage, and why the GOAT (greatest of all time) might not be who you think. In a game increasingly dominated by an elite few, Graham charts a path for the future where a data-savvy competitor will always find the edge.The insider account of the data revolution that has swept through the modern football world, written by one of its key architects, Ian Graham.Endorsements'The best book on football I have ever read' — Daniel Finkelstein'Deserves a place among the great modern books on football' — Sam Wallace, chief football writer, Telegraph

In the past two decades, few writers have mastered the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her writing, at once an occasion for personal reckoning and communal reflection, studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds grounds for solidarity and compassion.The new collection brings Smith’s dexterity as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five thematic sections—eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing—she unspools intimate dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, and to her desk while researching the Tichborne trial and writing her novel The Fraud. She asks us to look at the young Michael Jackson and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth, and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivaled ability to think through, critically and humanely, some of the most urgent preoccupations of our troubled times.With an eye towards the past and the present, Smith examines what it means to identify with our contemporary world and the history that frames it.A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays.EndorsementsTár — Pulitzer Prize finalist.The Fraud — New York Times bestseller.

Avery is a grad student in New York working on a collection of cultural reports and flailing financially and emotionally. She dates older men for money, and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In an act of desperation, Avery takes a job at a right-wing dating app. The "white-paper" she is tasked to write for the startup eventually merges with her dissertation, resulting in a metafictional text that reveals itself over the course of the novel.Meanwhile, her best friend, Frances, an effortlessly chic emerging filmmaker from a wealthy Southern family, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish her first feature documentary. Frances's triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery into a final tailspin, pushing her to make a series of devastating decisions.In this generational portrait, attention spans are at an all-time low and dopamine tolerance is at an all-time high. Flat Earth is a story of coming of age in America, a novel about commodification, conspiracy theories, mimetic desire, and the difficulties of female friendship that’s as sharp and sardonic as it is heartbreaking.A young woman struggles with the artistic success of her more privileged, beautiful best friend in this ruthless portrait of the New York art scene in which relationships are transactional, men are vampiric, and women have limited time to trade on their youth, beauty, and talent—it’s Renata Adler’s Speedboat for the Adderall generation.Endorsements"I read this book in a night, breathless and enraptured; wanting to save everyone in it, and wanting to watch them burn forever." — Leslie Jamison

Informed by an intense pressure of language, wit, and energy, Things That Are Funny on a Submarine but Not Really enraptures with the colorful world of David, nicknamed "Dead Man," and his shipmates. Stationed in Guam, they sail the depths of the oceans, swapping jokes and stories while strengthening bonds continually tested by the rigors of submarine life. But when one shipmate is revealed as a Chinese spy, and another takes his own life, Dead Man is burdened by a repressed guilt and left with a lingering trauma.Searching for a change, Dead Man leaves the Navy to start fresh as a college student, but his past refuses to let go. The ghosts of former shipmates—both dead and alive—continue to haunt him, and unwilling to stay mired in his turbulent memories, Dead Man navigates the complex terrain of identity and searches for meaning after reentering a way of life that feels increasingly foreign.Written with Yannick Murphy’s distinctive and darkly humorous style, Things That Are Funny on a Submarine but Not Really is a headlong, entertaining dive into an authentic and emotional exploration of what it means to find one's way in a rapidly changing world.

A group of Christmas shoppers discover the doors have been locked.It's Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London's winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights.But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn't long before they realize this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, someone will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped—and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa's grotto...For those that survive the night, it will be a Christmas to remember.

This wry, big-hearted noir brings 1950s New York to life from the tenements of Hell’s Kitchen to the mansions of Riverdale, from Sing Sing to City Hall, with a gripping murder mystery laying bare the explosive conflicts between its big wheels, its working stiffs, its gangsters, and its dreamers.July 1950: Mick Mulligan has just hung out his shingle as a private investigator in New York’s sweaty Hell’s Kitchen. A former Hollywood cartoonist whose life fell apart when he was blacklisted during a communist witch hunt, Mick is broke, divorced, and in need of a paying gig to make his child support payments. But maybe not this gig. First off, it’s impossible. Worse, it’s liable to get him killed.Last year, universally reviled cab company owner Irwin Johnson was murdered. One of his drivers, an African American Communist Party member named Harold Williams, was arrested, tried, and found guilty, despite scant evidence. Now his execution date is two weeks away. No one has come out to fight the miscarriage of justice—not the liberals, not the unions, not the Communists. New York City labor leader Duke Rogowski asks Mick to make one last effort on Harold’s behalf—can he find fresh evidence that might buy Harold a stay of execution?Lots of people might have wanted Irwin Johnson dead—anyone from his cuckolded wife to his jilted mistresses’ jealous husbands to the mafiosi he was stealing business from or one of the workers he exploited—but no one has any reason to help Mick exonerate Harold Williams, and some of Irwin’s former associates are happy to take a blunt object to the head of anyone asking awkward questions. Yet Mick can’t abandon a potentially innocent man to the electric chair, and he agrees to go to bat for a Negro Communist no one else wants anything to do with. Can he pull off a miracle?

Alone in a frontier town in the nineteenth-century Northwest, Gentle Montgomery is grieving his best friend. Liam was an alchemist, killed when he tried to capture a creature that shouldn’t exist: a giant salamander that drives men mad. When Gentle’s teenage nephew Kitt arrives at his doorstep, the two set out together to track the monster down, so they can use its blood in an alchemical formula that will bring Liam back to life.It's a hard and haunted journey. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it—and the terrifying visions it causes—before it’s too late. And as Gentle struggles to comprehend the creature, his lost friend, his nephew, and his fellow seekers, it becomes clear that the Great Work of the alchemists may pale in comparison to the small work of human connection.Sheldon Costa’s dark, vivid, and strangely hopeful debut novel is a supernatural adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.An alchemist and his young nephew hunt down a legend in this profound and unsettling speculative Western, for fans of Karen Russell and Victor LaValle.

Our world is dominated by a handful of tech platforms. They provide great conveniences and entertainment, but also stand as some of the most effective instruments of wealth extraction ever invented, seizing immense amounts of money, data, and attention from all of us. An economy driven by digital platforms and AI influence offers the potential to enrich us, and also threatens to marginalize entire industries, widen the wealth gap, and foster a two-class nation. As technology evolves and our markets adapt, can society cultivate a better life for everyone? Is it possible to balance economic growth and egalitarianism, or are we too far gone?Tim Wu—the preeminent scholar and former White House official who coined the phrase “net neutrality”—explores the rise of platform power and details the risks and rewards of working within such systems. The Age of Extraction tells the story of an Internet that promised widespread wealth and democracy in the 1990s and 2000s, only to create new economic classes and aid the spread of autocracy instead. Wu frames our current moment with lessons from recent history—from generative AI and predictive social data to the antimonopoly and crypto movements—and envisions a future where technological advances can serve the greatest possible good. Concise and hopeful, The Age of Extraction offers consequential proposals for taking back control in order to achieve a better economic balance and prosperity for all.Tech platforms manipulate attention, extract wealth, and deepen inequality. In this new book, Tim Wu (The Attention Merchants) explains how we can reclaim control and create a balanced economy that works for everyone.Endorsements“The magic of Tim Wu’s The Age of Extraction is its simplicity. Wu deftly breaks down one of the greatest challenges of our age—the unaccountable power of tech platforms—into such digestible pieces that the solutions for what to do become dead obvious. Essential reading.” — Karen Hao, author of Empire of Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI“It’s not just in your head—your online life is draining your wallet.... [The Age of Extraction is] a sharp and eye-opening introduction to how we arrived at platform capitalism—where no good click goes unmonetized.” — Kirkus Reviews

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

Generation Z has entered the workforce and is challenging leaders in ways they have never experienced before. Gen Zers often have little work experience following college graduation, with parents encouraging them to focus on academics. Having grown up on screens, they often have lower levels of emotional intelligence than earlier generations.Today, four in five hiring managers say Generation Z is the most difficult population to manage. Almost one in three avoid hiring them altogether. We cannot walk away from this challenge, as these young teammates represent the future. While the boss has visibility on the past, they have visibility on the future. This resource, The Future Begins with Z, offers nine strategies to inspire and connect with the next generation of workers as they transform the workforce. Some of those strategies:How to attract and onboard them so they'll want to stay.How to offer firm feedback to a fragile young employee.How to uniquely motivate and incentivize them.How to cultivate full engagement in Gen Z teammates.How to equip them to manage their mental health challenges.If we lead them well, we'll find young professionals often enter their careers with greater insight into social media and how to monetize it; they seem to understand what young consumers want, and they possess deeper intuition about where culture is going. They are not tied to expectations for how work is done and are more open to new ideas. To succeed, today's leaders will need to listen more and coach more than we once did. The future is in our hands. Let's make the very most of it.What if your greatest challenge could become your greatest solution?Endorsements“A definitive guide to engaging with members of Gen Z in the workplace.” — Publishers Weekly

Drawn from over 500,000 words of interviews with McCartney, family and band members, and other key participants, Wings recounts—now with a half-century’s wisdom—the musical odyssey of a man searching for his identity in the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup. He was soon joined by his wife, American photographer Linda McCartney (keyboards and vocals), drummer Denny Seiwell, and guitarist Denny Laine; together they sowed the seeds for a new band that would later provide the soundtrack of the decade.Organized chronologically around McCartney, RAM, and nine Wings albums, the narrative begins when a twenty-seven-year-old superstar, rumored to be dead, fled with his new wife to a remote sheep farm in Scotland amid a sea of legal and personal rows. Despite the harsh conditions, the Scottish setting gave McCartney time to create, and it was here where this new band emerged. Wings then follows the group as they play unannounced shows at university halls, tour in a sheared-off double-decker bus with their children, survive a robbery on the streets of Nigeria, and eventually perform blockbuster stadium shows on their world tour, all while producing some of the most enduring music of the time.With extraordinary recollections collected by Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville and edited into an oral history by Ted Widmer, Wings transports the reader to the grit and glamour of the 1970s. Introduced with a personal, heartfelt foreword by McCartney, the volume contains 150 black-and-white and color photographs, many previously unseen, as well as timelines, a gigography, and a full discography.An engrossing oral history of a band that came to define a generation, The Story of a Band on the Run tells the madcap story of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band, from their humble beginnings in the early 1970s to their dissolution barely a decade later. The Story of a Band on the Run emerges as a work of soaring originality that presents a new art form all its own.Endorsements“We made what seemed like an impossible dream come true.” — Paul McCartney

The Humble Pie likes to give others the spotlight. Aw, shucks! — they deserve it!But when he’s paired with his best friend, Jake the Cake, for a school project, he soon realizes that staying in the shadows isn’t always as sweet as pie. Readers of all ages will laugh along as their new pie pal discovers that letting your voice be heard always takes the cake!Jory John and Pete Oswald serve up another heaping plate of laughs and lessons with this empowering, witty, and charming addition to their series!EndorsementsPart of the #1 New York Times bestselling Food Group series.

In the beginning, there was happiness. Maya, an artist obsessed with the nature of beauty, and Noah, a quantum physicist preoccupied by the mysteries of the universe, found in each other a shared curiosity about the world. But beneath the surface of their happy marriage is a third: Serena, the lost child that Noah had with his ex-wife, Eileen.One day Noah gets a call from an eccentric billionaire, asking him to participate in a clandestine project aiming to unravel the secrets of time and consciousness. The couple agrees to relocate to the Janus Lab, deep in the desert, where Noah finds himself drawn into a dangerous kind of time travel that could result in seeing Serena again.As Noah delves into this groundbreaking, fringe work, his past begins to overtake him. And when his ex-wife, Eileen, joins the project, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past, one that takes her to Japan, to her family, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah, Maya, and Eileen grapple with the balance between holding on and letting go, new information emerges that the Janus Lab might not be exactly what it seems.A luminous novel of love, loss, science, and art that asks if the past can ever be truly revisited, and at what cost? A heart-achingly moving novel, Lightbreakers plumbs the mysteries of human connection and explores how to love in a world where time is both a healer and a thief.

Academy Award–winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins delves into his illustrious film and theater career, difficult childhood, and path to sobriety in his honest, moving, and long-awaited memoir.Born and raised in Port Talbot—a small Welsh steelworks town—amid war and depression, Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up around men who were tough, to say the least, and eschewed all forms of emotional vulnerability in favor of alcoholism and brutality. A struggling student in school, he was deemed by his peers, his parents, and other adults as a failure with no future ahead of him. But, on a fateful Saturday night, the disregarded Welsh boy watched the 1948 adaptation of Hamlet, sparking a passion for acting that would lead him on a path that no one could have predicted.With candor and a voice that is both arresting and vulnerable, Sir Anthony recounts his various career milestones and provides a once-in-a-lifetime look into the brilliance behind some of his most iconic roles. His performance as Iago gets him admitted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and places him under the wing of Laurence Olivier. He meets Richard Burton by chance as a young boy in his art teacher’s apartment, and later, backstage before a performance of Equus as an established actor meeting his hero. His iconic portrayal of Hannibal Lecter was informed by the creepy performance of Bela Lugosi in Dracula and the razor-sharp precision of his acting teacher. He pulls raw emotion from the stoicism of his father and grandfather for an unforgettable performance in King Lear.Sir Anthony also takes a deeply honest look at the low points in his personal life. His addiction cost him his first marriage, his relationship with his only child, and nearly his life—the latter ultimately propelling him toward sobriety, a commitment he has maintained for nearly half a century. He constantly battles against the desire to move through life alone and avoid connection for fear of getting hurt—much like the men in his family—and as the years go by, he deals with questions of mortality, getting ready to discover what his father called The Big Secret.Featuring a special collection of personal photographs throughout, We Did OK, Kid is a raw and passionate memoir from a complex, iconic man who has inspired audiences with remarkable performances for over sixty years.

In the SeaWing kingdom, a young prince learns he is an animus—capable of wonderful magic that comes with a terrible price.In the mind of a NightWing dragonet, a thousand futures unfold—and almost all of them, she knows, lead to disaster and destruction.And under three full moons and the watchful eyes of his NightWing mother and IceWing father, the most powerful dragon Pyrrhia will ever know is clawing his way out of his egg. Darkstalker, the dragon who will change the world forever.Long before the SandWing war, lifetimes before the Dragonet Prophecy... darkness is born.Three dragons. One unavoidable, unpredictable destiny. This is the beginning... of the end.EndorsementsThe New York Times bestseller

Nina, a Peruvian writer in Spain on the eve of the pandemic, is pulled back into her nation’s fraught history after a fleeting encounter with a woman who is a doppelgänger of Bárbara, a cousin lost to time. The games, the candor, and the secrets of her youth come alive again, but these memories are tinged with disquiet, and what unfolds takes Nina back to a village nestled in the Andes where she must confront the terrors that stalked Peru in the early 1980s. As she travels from Cusco to Apurimac to uncover Bárbara’s fate, Nina begins to weave a new cloth of memory. She learns more about Bárbara’s political radicalization and involvement with the Shining Path, the Maoist terrorist group that instigated a bloody period of political violence in which tens of thousands of mostly indigenous Peruvians disappeared or were killed.In her first novel to be translated into English, Karina Pacheco Medrano explores how war transforms family stories and complicates the distinction between prey and hunter. Part bildungsroman, part detective novel, The Year of the Wind records a significant chapter in Peruvian history rarely considered in the literature of political violence, exploring the anonymous stories marked by horror, loss, bewilderment, and, in some cases, redemption.A lyrical novel depicting the devastating effects of political violence in Peru on three women’s lives