Collection: Adult

A groundbreaking history of political struggle in the Spanish New World, where commoners and elites alike challenged the social order through the remarkable power of paperwork.

As Spanish conquistadors swept through the New World, the Crown envisioned that a rigidly hierarchical aristocratic order would flourish in their wake. At first, this vision seemed to be within reach: the great conquistadors ruled as noblemen over millions. Yet contrary to all expectations, the Spanish empire in the New World quickly became a hotbed of radical efforts to overturn the emerging order. With the conquistadors in retreat, new enclaves controlled by powerful friars and native lords arose. But they too collapsed, again to the surprise of many.

As Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra and Adrian Masters show, these social orders broke down thanks to the challenges mounted by countless individuals across the Spanish Americas--including non-elite Spanish and Indigenous people, women, and the enslaved. To achieve their goals, they turned not only to outright violence but also to massive amounts of paperwork: petitions, complaints, lawsuits, and secret testimonies. Through this grassroots "lawfare," vassals undercut the emerging seigneurial dynasties of the conquistadors, stripped the friars of theocratic authority, and curtailed the might of native lords. Collectively, they spearheaded movements against tyranny and slavery, proposed and challenged laws, produced new types of knowledge, created archives and historical accounts, and questioned the nature of truth itself. In the process, however, these actors also gradually co-created a lasting new society of orders--one that would solidify in the 1570s with viceroys, bishops, and inquisitors at its apex.

Dramatically recasting a pivotal era in colonial history, The Radical Spanish Empire illuminates how the power of paperwork forever transformed the New World.

An incisive exploration of how cyberattacks are transforming geopolitics

Cyberattacks are the ultimate geopolitical weapon of the 21st century. They are used to damage presidential campaigns, shut down electric grids, sway public sentiment, and cost businesses and governments alike billions of dollars.

Popular culture portrays cyberattacks as unstoppable and mysterious actions taken by shadowy, unpredictable forces.

Code War: How Nations Hack, Spy, and Shape the Digital Battlefield shatters this depiction, revealing nation-state cyberattacks for what they are: calculated, measured actions to achieve state objectives.

World-renowned cybersecurity expert Allie Mellen draws on her extensive experience with nation-state cyberattacks and AI threats to break down how and why nations deploy cyberattacks in their own unique ways, driven by their military doctrine, national history, and, most importantly, geopolitical strategy.

Mellen deconstructs the most infamous cyberattacks of our time to reveal how and why attacks like Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, and the Sony Pictures hack happened and how their success altered the international landscape.

Code War also demonstrates how individuals, business professionals, and government officials can use this knowledge to understand and respond to the practical realities of nation-state cyberattacks.

Readers will also find:

• An overview of how cyberattacks operate, where governments most frequently use them, their limitations, and where they provide the most value.
• A breakdown of threats from countries like Iran, Russia, Israel, North Korea, and many others, who fund cyber threat actors like Fancy Bear, Scattered Spider, the Lazarus Group, and the Equation Group.
• Deep dives into the histories and attacks perpetrated by governments with the most prolific cyberattacks: China, Russia, and the United States.

An eye-opening guide to the world of nation-state cyberattacks, Code War is a must-read for business and government leaders responsible for protecting against these attacks. It's also a fascinating look into the world of cyberattacks for anyone interested in foreign relations who wants to keep up with the evolving weapons of war.

A new job can be killer in this series debut mystery set in Wales, perfect for fans of Sheila Connolly and Paige Shelton.

After crossing the pond, Dr. Gwen Griffith finds herself in the quirky place she fell in love with, Dillynaidd, Wales. A former managing editor for a Texan newspaper, Gwen is ready for the next stage in her life as the head of the journalism department at the local university in town. With her best friend, Carolyn Sparks-who is also the university's dean-at her side, Dillynaidd feels like a dream, until murder comes knocking at her doorstep.

Gwen had only just met the victim, Dr. Alice Rice, at a faculty party, but that doesn't stop police detective Gareth Jones from suspecting her of foul play-after all, the victim was found on her doorstep. With her journalism background, Gwen decides that it's up to her to clear her own name. But she'll need all the help she can get when her idyllic small-town life is turned upside down in order to stay one step ahead of the killer.

This brand-new series by Lucy Connelly, author of the Scottish Isle mysteries, will charm cozy mystery readers everywhere.

After the double blow of divorce and her mother's death, Emma Shrader receives an invitation to meet her estranged father for the first time. Alex Spencer is a wealthy, renowned author who had a brief fling with Emma's mom, then disappeared. Now he'd like Emma to come stay at his beautiful home on Cheshire Lake in Maine.

Spencer House is a towering Victorian steeped in history and lore, from its ornate turret to the little cemetery nestled in the adjoining woods. It should be an inspiring place for Emma to finish working on her own novel, especially with Alex's guidance. But when a neighbor is found dead under strange circumstances, the surroundings begin to feel less idyllic and welcoming. Not everyone is happy about Emma's arrival, either--especially not Alex's other daughter, Sunny.

There are things Emma keeps to herself about her chaotic childhood and ex-husband, but Cheshire Lake harbors secrets too--some recent, some decades old. What exactly has been going on in this quiet, close-knit community? And how much of it has to do with Emma's arrival?
As Emma learns of other disappearances and mysterious deaths, what seemed like a fresh start begins to fill her with unease. Emma thought Cheshire Lake held the home and family she'd long been looking for. Now she wonders if she'll ever be allowed to leave alive . . .

The latest novel in this sharply witty new Hollywood mystery series delivers behind-the-scenes dish, clever intrigue, and maybe even true love between actresses Bexley Simon and Sam Farmer . . .

Since the hugely successful reunion special for their hit show Craven's Daughter, TV detectives Bex and Sam find themselves busier than ever--but, unfortunately, two thousand miles apart for long months. So much for quickly coaxing the long-simmering spark between them into flame. Finally back in L.A., though, all bets are off, and Bex and Sam are looking forward to some IRL time by the pool--at least until Bex's sister Vic brings home a truly juicy bit of gossip garnered from her nepo baby girl
squad . . .

Ramona Watts was once the Gen X It Girl--Hollywood darling, household name, muse, and coolest of the cool, until the "Icon with Issues" spectacularly crashed and burned. But now she has a new hit horror series, The Howling, and she's bringing all her charm and 90s nostalgia to the role. Suddenly, Ramona Watts is a name again--which makes it surprising when she fails to show up on set.

It's none of their business, of course, but Bex and Sam are curious. And they both have Hollywood connections left, right, and center stage, some of whom would love to see them sleuthing again. Plus, spending that kind of time together means another chance at a real romance. So what if they're not actual detectives? In Hollywood, isn't everyone playing a role?

As pregnant Siobhán O'Sullivan awaits bringing new life into the world, she's bringing new life to her village of Kilbane in County Cork, Ireland, with a music and matchmaking festival. But one matchmaker is about to find out that Cupid's arrow can be fatal.

Siobhán loves to see the joy playing trad music brings to her brother Ciaran, but his concern that he'll never find a mate pulls at her heartstrings. So she proposes that Kilbane host a music and matchmaking festival to draw single trad musicians. While renowned matchmaker Liam Noone plays Cupid with his Lucky Book, music--and hopefully love--will fill the pubs and the autumn air.

Turning over his precious Lucky Book to Siobhán for safekeeping, Liam takes the stage to introduce matched musician couples who will kick off the festival in the town square. Suddenly all goes black. When the lights come back on, the matchmaker has met his maker, impaled through the heart with an arrow made from the sharpened bow of a bass.

Was it the fiddle player, the flute player, the drummer, the piper, the squeeze box player, or the bass player who struck a sour note? Garda Siobhán and her husband Macdara must pick up the tempo to make whoever committed this crime of passion face the music . . .

In turn-of-the-century California, two Japanese amateur detectives uncover the dark underbelly of their multicultural city--from the Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Clark and Division.

Pasadena, 1903: Eighteen-year-old Ryunosuke "Ryui" Wada staggers off the boat from Yokohama, Japan, ready to reinvent himself after the untimely deaths of his parents. Though battling loneliness and culture shock, Ryui does his best to settle into his work as an art dealer's apprentice while adjusting to his new home. From his enigmatic photographer roommate, Jack, to the beautiful seamstress living downstairs, Ryui finds himself surrounded by colorful characters and unbelievable opportunities and is soon utterly swept up in all "Crown City" has to offer.

But tensions are seething under Pasadena's bustling prosperity. Ryui is the victim of an anti-Japanese attack, and a painting is stolen from the studio of Toshio Aoki, Pasadena's most successful Japanese artist, who then hires Ryui and Jack to investigate. It's not long before their sleuthing leads them into real danger. Ryui is a naive young man in a foreign country--has he bitten off more than he can chew?

In this fish-out-of-water mystery, studded with cameos by real historical figures, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara brings to life a little-known slice of California history.

"Tell me who your enemies are, so that I can help you to hate them." This was a favorite line of the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins (1894-1973), and likely how she greeted Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) at their first meeting, at the opening of an exhibition of her work in 1943.

The clandestine love affair that burned between these two artists for the remainder of the decade was fueled not only by romantic passion but also by a deep appreciation of each other's work. Some of the greatest of Martins's Surrealist sculptures were inspired by her relationship with Duchamp--including Impossible, whose title perhaps refers to their situation. (Martins was married to the Brazilian ambassador to the United States.) And it was during their affair that Duchamp--widely believed to have "retired" from art--secretly began his astonishing final work, which would be revealed only after his death. This work, the sculptural tableau Étant donnés, was heavily influenced by Martins: it takes formal cues from her work, and it was she who modeled for the startlingly realistic nude at its center.

This surprising story--highly readable yet meticulously researched, and abundantly illustrated with artworks and archival images--will affirm the importance of Maria Martins's tropically inflected Surrealism and challenge the perception of Duchamp as a purely cool and cerebral artist.

"A lean, energetic memoir of the club that turned a Tuesday night into a cultural flashpoint." --Kirkus Reviews

A history of the club that set the '80s alight.

The short-lived Blitz club in London's Covent Garden was more than a place to hang out or be seen: it was the catalyst for a cultural explosion, a counter-culture blast against all that Thatcher's leadership had ushered in by the dawn of the 80s. Tuesday nights boasted a ferocious, fearless cast - from Boy George and Spandau Ballet to Grayson Perry and Peter Doig, Sade and Wham! to Michele Clapton and Alexander McQueen. They were the vanguard of a very different England; socially liberal, loud and proud, celebrating diversity, but also fiercely individualistic and above all determined to succeed. Britain stood in black and white; between 1979 and 1980, the Blitz Kids switched on the color.

In Blitz, Robert Elms reflects on the club night, founded by a group of working-class kids, which made its mark on the worlds of Art, Literature, Fashion and Music, one whose impact reverberated far beyond its doors and is still felt today, in the UK, across Europe and in America.

Want to thrive in today's fast-changing world? Curiosity is your competitive edge.

Growth, resilience, and adaptability are qualities that are not only desirable but essential in today's workplace. Dr. Debra Clary, a narrative scientist and transformational leader, has discovered that the driving force behind these qualities is curiosity. If you're a leader in any sector, The Curiosity Curve will guide you to create a culture of curiosity for long-term, sustainable growth.

A culture of curiosity fuels success by:

- Driving agility, enabling organizations to adapt swiftly to change instead of clinging to outdated practices.

- Unleashing innovation, empowering employees to contribute their best ideas and challenge the status quo.

- Strengthening collaboration, fostering teams that work seamlessly to tackle complex challenges.

- Extending market leadership, equipping organizations to pioneer new solutions and stay ahead in rapidly evolving industries.

The Curiosity Curve demonstrates how to nurture curiosity by encouraging structured exploration, focused engagement, inspirational creativity, and openness to new ideas, ensuring that curiosity isn't just supported in theory but integrated into the day-to-day workings of a company. With conscious effort, you can build a workplace culture where curiosity thrives, which leads to greater engagement, improved problem-solving, and higher job satisfaction--all of which drive organizational growth.

A sweeping, unforgettable debut novel of espionage, war love, and tragedy that redefines our understanding of the first half of the twentieth century.

Ernst Baerwald, the scion of an aristocratic German-Jewish family, is a gifted linguist, a talented musician, and a fearless idealist at the dawn of the twentieth century. His work in Milan and then Japan for what will become the German chemical company IG Farben, which is developing a chemical compound that will save humanity from the brink of famine, provides pretext to his undercover work as a spy, while his complicated love life fulfills his romantic sensibilities. Yet as one world war breaks out and then another, irrevocably changing all he once believed in, Ernst discovers that his skills in diplomacy and stealth are now useful in ways he never anticipated. As he struggles to stay true to his convictions, he comes to understand that sometimes it is necessary to destroy what you love most for the greater good.

Based on the life of David Baerwald's grandfather, The Fire Agent is an astonishing work of fiction that takes us from the idealism of nineteenth-century German science to the dawning of chemical warfare; from Japan's Yakuza to FDR's boutique spy shops; from the rise of fascism in Japan and Germany to America's global dominance at the dawn of the Cold War. A haunting novel about the weight of inheritance and the invisible strings of history that shape us, it has deep resonance for our own times.

William Kentridge, one of the leading artists of our time, offers a personal account of his childhood, creative practice, and the studio spaces--understood both as physical places and a way of thinking--that have shaped his life and work

For more than thirty years, Kentridge's art has been celebrated for its profound engagement with history, politics, and the uncertainties of the human condition. In 2024, he delivered the prestigious Slade Lectures at the University of Oxford; A Natural History of the Studio brings these together in a lively, book-length exploration of the creative process.

Moving between memory, art history, and experiment, Kentridge shows how "the outside world dissolves" into the artist's materials. Inside his studio, films are run backwards and forwards, a glimpse of dappled light brushes up against Constable's vast river landscapes, and Kentridge's own work slowly takes shape and comes into view. Playful and erudite, he emerges as the rare artist with a gift for writing clearly and generously about the creative act.

Dave Robicheaux, James Lee Burke's iconic detective, returns to investigate the death of an unidentified woman, pulling him into a vortex of
corruption and violence in the Louisiana bayou

When a cloaked, disfigured man leaves a dead woman in a garbage bag on Dave Robicheaux's property, he knows his world and family are about to change.

With Valerie Benoit, a detective new to the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department who is grappling with sexist and racist harassment from their colleagues, and the volatile but fiercely loyal Clete Purcel, Dave embarks on an investigation that brings him into the most dangerous moments of his career and threatens the lives of Valerie and his daughter Alafair.

He encounters a local handyman who leaves cryptic notes and warns of the ghosts who roam the shores of the bayou and is targeted by a vicious New Orleans button man and gangsters from the north.

Through brilliant prose and a quintessential cast of characters, James Lee Burke weaves a portrait of a gritty, violent Louisiana at the turn of the 20th century. Visceral, atmospheric, and wholly original, The Hadacol Boogie brings to life Dave Robicheaux's fierce determination to confront evil both past and present.

Petrarch's Canzoniere stands as one of the greatest and most influential collections of love poetry ever written. In a classic story of love at first sight, the young poet expresses in beautiful verse his unrequited reverence for Laura, a muse who would prove as inspirational as Beatrice to Dante. Stricken with grief after Laura's death, Petrarch transmuted his sorrow onto the page and continued working on the Canzoniere until his own passing. At once movingly romantic and grandly meditative, always present within Petrarch's lines is a tension between his earthly desire and his spiritual longing for divine grace.

In this monumental translation, the project of a lifetime, renowned poet A.M. Juster preserves the original text's formal elegance, honoring Petrarch's rhyme and meter while also capturing the profound religious and philosophical undertones that imbue the work. Rather than framing Canzoniere as mere "troubadour poetry," this version, along with a panoramic introduction by Andrew Frisardi, highlights its classical roots and contemporary sensibilities. Juster, a celebrated poet and translator, brings Petrarch's vision to life with precision and grace, offering a rendition that is both faithful to the original and eminently accessible to contemporary readers.

For many years, Diane Ravitch was among the country's leading conservative thinkers on education. The cure for what ailed the school system was clear, she believed: high-stakes standardized testing, national standards, accountability, competition, charters, and vouchers. Then Ravitch saw what happened when these ideas were put into practice and recanted her long-held views. The problem was not bad teachers or failing schools, as conservatives claimed, but poverty. She denounced privatization as a hoax that did not help students and that harmed the public school system. She urged action to address the root causes of inequality.

In this intimate and timely memoir of her life's work as a historian and advocate, Ravitch traces her ideological evolution. She recounts her personal and intellectual journey: her childhood in Houston, her years among the New York intelligentsia, her service in government, and her leftward turn. Ravitch shares how she came to hold conservative views and why she eventually abandoned them, exploring her switch from championing standards-based curriculum and standardized testing to arguing for greater investment in professional teachers and in public schools. Bringing together candid reflections with decades of research on education, Ravitch makes a powerful case for becoming, as she calls herself, "an activist on behalf of public schools."