Collection: Adult

A history of police unions that reveals how American law enforcement built a political movement that made cops untouchable.

"A tour de force ... Read it now." --Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography

In America today, police enjoy unmatched power. On the streets, officers employ violence at their own discretion. Behind closed doors, they are even more powerful. In city halls, police strong-arm local leaders and nullify attempts at public oversight. And in state legislatures and Washington, DC, police lobbyists and union leaders zealously uphold a bipartisan consensus against even mild reform. Yet as recently as fifty years ago, police still served at the pleasure of democratically elected politicians, not the other way around. In Blue Power, Stuart Schrader narrates the rise of a bottom-up movement of rank-and-file officers who lifted policing above the law.

Organizers launched their campaign in the 1960s, courting a public backlash to urban uprisings and civil rights. City by city, county by county, they formed unions and other organizations and won control over working conditions, impunity from oversight, and insulation from lean budgets. By the 2000s, this movement had triumphed nationally, shoring up the power of the police to overrule the public interest in the name of law and order.

Through deep archival detective work, Blue Power reveals how police forced American democracy to back the blue.

A surprising look at the big business of owning small businesses and what America's franchise economy means for its workers.

Walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the United States, and it will be identical to every other McDonald's in the country. Yet, that particular store is almost certainly owned and operated by an "independent" franchisee. While McDonald's presents an image of centralized uniformity to the consumer, it shows a different face to the small business owners operating its stores under its control and the workers preparing its product to its standards. How then does McDonald's--and its big business peers--manage to be two things at once?

In this revelatory work, economist Brian Callaci shows how franchisors have altered the legal treatment of corporations in their favor through a decades-long crusade of lobbying and litigation. Their efforts subsequently unleashed a slew of legal and economic sins upon the US economy and labor force, allowing multinational corporations to control continent-spanning empires while outsourcing employment and scapegoating legal responsibilities onto small businesses. The result: the unfettered growth of some of America's most recognizable businesses, at the aggregate expense of America's workers.

Remarkable in both its scale and synthesis, Callaci's story is the first chronicle of this business movement--initially resisted by US courts before experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortune after decades of campaigning by some of America's most established entrepreneurs. An urgent and erudite history, Chains of Command reveals how the US labor market was tamed one small business at a time.

Very Good Salads is a seasonal cookbook filled with delicious salads, vegetable dishes, and dips to enjoy all year round.

Very Good Salads is filled with more than fifty Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired recipes that showcase the best of the season's produce.

From Shuki Rosenboim and Louisa Allan, the team behind cult-favorite restaurant Very Good Falafel in Melbourne, Australia, this cookbook includes veggie-filled plates, salads, dips, pita, and pickles, alongside their beloved falafel recipe.

Each dish makes use of the whole vegetable, with classic and less-expected pairings such as watermelon salad with za'atar, radish, and fried pita; or roasted leek with pomegranate, walnuts, mint, and lemon zest; as well as larger offerings such as sweet potato and harissa gratin and stuffed tomatoes with saffron, rice, and mint. In addition, the book shares recipes for traditional dips and a flawless pita bread recipe to stuff or serve alongside salads and share plates. It's simple, classic fare but food that has earned Shuki and Louisa a place in Melbourne restaurant royalty.

This beautiful cookbook is the perfect gift for salad fiends, vegetable lovers, wholefood cooks, and those looking for new and creative ways to enjoy the best seasonal produce.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Could this be the best book on football ever?" --Tyler Cowen

"Another masterwork from one of our greatest minds." --Esquire

"[An] essential playoff-season read." --People

A hilarious but nonetheless groundbreaking contribution to the argument about which force shapes American life the most. For two kinds of readers--those who know it's football and those who are about to find out.

Chuck Klosterman--New York Times bestselling critic, journalist, and, yes, football psychotic--did not write this book to deepen your appreciation of the game. He's not trying to help you become that person at the party, or to teach you how to make better bets, or to validate any preexisting views you might have about the sport (positive or negative). Football does, in fact, do all of those things. But not in the way such things have been done in the past, and never in a way any normal person would expect.

Cultural theorists talk about hyperobjects--phenomena that bulk so large that their true dimensions are hidden in plain sight. In 2023, 93 of the 100 most-watched programs on U.S. television were NFL football games. This is not an anomaly. This is how society is best understood. Football is not merely the country's most popular sport; it is engrained in almost everything that explains what America is, even for those who barely pay attention.

Klosterman gets to the bottom of all of it. He takes us to a metaphorical projection of Texas, where the religion of six-man football merges with America's Team [sic] and makes an inexplicable impact on a boy in North Dakota. He dissects the question of natural greatness, the paradox of gambling and war, and the timeless caricature of the uncompromising head coach. He interrogates the perfection of football's marriage with television and the morality of acceptable risk. He even conjures an extinction-level event. If Zizek liked the SEC more than he liked cinema, if Stephen Jay Gould cared about linebackers more than he cared about dinosaurs, if Steve Martin played quarterback instead of the banjo . . . it would still be nothing like this.

A century ago, Yale's legendary coach Walter Camp wrote his unified theory of the game. He called it Football. Chuck Klosterman has given us a new Camp for the new age, rooted in a personal history he cannot escape.

This richly personal cookbook celebrates African plant-based cuisine from across Africa through its regional traditions, powerful storytelling, and vibrant, nourishing recipes.

In her debut cookbook, African plant-based food educator and chef Jane Nshuti invites readers on a journey across the continent, guided by the flavors and food memories that have shaped her life--from her roots in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to her current home in Cape Town.
Blending deep cultural roots with a modern, accessible approach, Nshuti brings warmth, insight, and soul to African cooking. Organized by region--South, East, West, and North Africa--the book features more than 70 flavorful recipes, including amaranth leaf stew from South Africa, spicy cassava from Rwanda, jollof rice from Ghana, and Moroccan tagines. Each dish is grounded in memory and tradition, with personal reflections that illuminate the emotional and cultural meaning behind the meals.
From everyday comforts to celebratory feasts, Nshuti's food fosters connection, identity, and joy. Her tips and thoughtful substitutions make unfamiliar ingredients approachable for home cooks of all levels. With bold visuals and a design that reflects the vibrancy of African tradition, this visually striking tribute to heritage, resilience, and community nourishment is ideal for vegans, food lovers, and anyone eager to explore the depth and diversity of African plant-based cooking.

A deeply human narrative of healing, sobriety, and achievement in the face of adversity

In Show Up and Shimmy: Discover Your Worth, Recognize Your Potential, and Lead the Life You Deserve, certified motivational speaker Bruce Brackett delivers a stirring narrative that reminds us of what we're worth, the value we bring to the world, and our unique ability to engage with the people we care about. The book combines the straightforward, effective affirmations Brackett is known for with an unflinching and realistic look at the challenges he's faced throughout his life - and how he meets them head-on every day.

Show Up and Shimmy offers simple, grounded slogans that remind you to focus on the positive and "Keep Moving Forward," even when life seems intent on doing everything it can to stop you. It offers a compelling argument for the idea that - regardless of how difficult or intimidating your circumstances are right now - there is a way forward, it is achievable, and you are worth every bit of the effort it will take.

Inside the book:

• Inspiring and true details about the author's successful journey to sobriety and how he negotiated the difficult path back from the brink of serious alcohol and methamphetamine abuse
• Effective strategies for dealing with major obstacles and life events, including death, loss, and grief
• An original and persuasive discussion about the universal human capacities for recovery, transformation, healing, and achievement

Perfect for everyone doing their best to meet the world as it is, Positivity contains the tools, stories, strategies, and inspiration you need to show up as your best self every single day.

The queen of dark mafia romance, Sadie Kincaid, begins her new explosively sexy Wages of Sin series with The Auction. Beauty and the Beast meets organized crime in this tense slow-burn romance with scorching spice, thrilling suspense, and life-altering secrets.

I was trained to be a pawn, but I will rise as a queen.
My life has never been my own. After the death of my parents, I was saved by my grandfather, with the promise that he would turn me over to the Brotherhood on my twenty-first birthday.

I was kept away from the outside world so I could one day be sold to the highest bidder--pure and unsullied. Penance for my parents' alleged crimes.

That's how I come to be sold at an auction.

And who buys me but the reclusive billionaire, Lincoln Knight?

Some say that he's a monster, more dangerous than any of the evil men from the Brotherhood. That he wears a mask to cover his scars. But I believe he's hiding more than just his face behind his mask.

My fate is sealed when he takes me to his crumbling mansion deep in the woods. I'm trapped. Entirely at his mercy.

I have to escape.

But something here isn't what it seems.

Lincoln isn't what he seems. Maybe he's not a monster at all. I'm drawn to him in a way that I can't explain. Until I discover that his secrets go far beyond his mask.

He's everything I've been taught to fear, but what if everything I've ever known has been a lie?

Perfect for readers who love:

• Scorching hot spice
• Masked men
• Morally grey alpha heroes
• Determined heroines
• Gothic vibes
• Fiery slow burns
• Beauty and the Beast, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights inspo
• God of Malice, Ruthless Creatures, and The Kiss Thief

Coming of age in 1950s Kansas, a misunderstood young woman must find her way through a society ill-equipped to give her grace in this powerful, exhilarating story about loyalty, family, and hard-won self-acceptance for readers of Jayne Anne Phillips, Patti Callahan Henry, and Donna Everhart.

Billie Enholm has never known quite how to define what makes her different from her schoolmates and her cousins, but there's no denying that she is. Bright but awkward, gifted with numbers and words yet baffled by the ease with which others interact, Billie lives with a constant, nagging voice that insists she's doing everything wrong. Even Billie's mother, Dixie, describes her as an "odd-wad."

When Billie's father dies and Dixie retreats deeper into beer and apathy, Billie's alienation grows. Summers spent at her grandparents' house in small-town Wiley, eighty-some miles away, have always been a source of comfort--until rejection by her favorite cousin leaves her feeling even more alone. No one can fathom how Billie sees the world--the piercing moments of beauty and heartache she experiences, her uncompromising honesty and lack of guile. And while it feels as if everywhere else, the 1960s are ushering in a new era of protest and change, her own prospects remain stagnant.

Then tragedy engulfs the Enholm family, prompting revelations, questions, and a life-changing dilemma. Out of these unlikely circumstances comes a chance for forgiveness and understanding, and a way, at last, for Billie to reconcile her desire for love with her need for acceptance, just as she is.

In a novel as emotional and nuanced as her acclaimed first novel, Elizabeth Hardinger gives readers a wholly original heroine whose journey is as unforgettable as it is ultimately uplifting.

Lose weight, boost energy, and eat better with 150 high-protein Mediterranean recipes designed for quick, healthy, and satisfying meals.

Triple-tested Good Housekeeping recipes--each with at least 20 grams of protein and many ready in 30 minutes or less--make healthy eating easy every day.

Incorporate the Mediterranean diet into your busy life with fast, flavorful, and 150 protein-rich recipes from the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen. This easy Mediterranean cookbook for beginners makes healthy eating simple, delicious, and sustainable--with every recipe triple-tested for taste, balance, and nutrition.

Discover how a high-protein Mediterranean diet supports better heart health, steady energy, and natural weight loss. Learn why protein is essential, how much your body needs daily, and how to make every meal more satisfying.

This high-protein cookbook for weight loss also includes:

• Mediterranean diet basics and science-backed health benefits
• Meal prep strategies with pantry staples and serving suggestions
• A 7-day jumpstart meal plan featuring simple, flavor-packed favorites like Open-Face Frittata Sandwiches (28g protein), Butternut Squash White Bean Soup (26g protein), and Skillet Shrimp with Tomato-Feta Orzo (28g protein)

Whether you're new to the Mediterranean way of eating or looking for healthy recipes for your family, this Good Housekeeping cookbook helps you build habits that last. With easy, high-protein recipes and heart-healthy meal prep ideas, it's your go-to Mediterranean diet cookbook for beginners--bringing vibrant flavor, better health, and effortless balance to your everyday table.

One book. Two strangers. An unforgettable journey as they rewrite the ending.

Daisy Douglas has spent her life behind the scenes: at work, in her relationships, and now, in planning a wedding she isn't sure she even wants. As an entertainment journalist, she can spot the start of a story a mile away. So when her routine 4 a.m. bus ride to the newsroom takes a surprising turn, she notices.

For months, the same man has boarded at the same stop, reading the same tattered copy of Virginia Woolf's Orlando over and over as if his life depends on it. When a broken-down bus and a shared walk through the quiet early-morning London streets finally throws them together, Tom reveals the heartbreaking truth as to why he can't be without his novel.

Determined to help him find the answer to the riddle hidden in its pages, Daisy joins Tom on his strange literary quest--one that leads them to places neither of them ever expected. But as their friendship deepens, she starts to wonder if what they're both looking for might not be in the book after all.

You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question--many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when things are not going well, but you're also likely to still ask this question when you've finally received that promotion, achieved a goal, or raised your children--exactly when it seems like the question shouldn't arise.

In The Meaning of It All, Rivka Weinberg argues this is because there are different kinds of meaning, and some of them, sadly, are impossible to achieve. She explains what they are, illuminates which types of meaning are possible, which are impossible, and shows us how we might orient our lives in light of these bittersweet truths. Although we all die in the end, Weinberg explains why death doesn't make life more or less meaningful. Instead, it is time that is necessary for meaning, even as it also undermines it by wearing away the fruits of our efforts and commitments. Weinberg shows that most advice on how to reduce the agony of time's erosions cannot work. However, she also shows how we can tease out some insights from failed attempts to escape time's wounds and thereby make progress toward coping with things as they are. A meaningful life is one lived in the fullness of time, accepting suffering, acknowledging our tragic losses and limitations, and making the most of Everyday Meaning.

From America's Pastime to a global phenomenon--the life of the spectacular game as it is played and celebrated in communities around the world

All over the world, masses of people watch, follow, document, and obsess over baseball. Everything remarkable about the impact of baseball derives from the game's history and cultural status as events that draw people together in these ways. Understanding baseball as a cultural phenomenon is therefore less a matter of mastering the vocabulary of the game or merely recollecting its iconic stadiums, players, and stats. While all those details compel insiders and inspire fans, baseball's peculiar and persistent appeal can only be understood by adopting a wider lens. It requires reckoning with the history of structured competition. The classic backyard game of catch between a father and son draws meaning from its associations with the organized sport and its history. The challenge lies less in finding one perfect spot to look, but rather in identifying the many different places where baseball has accumulated significance.

Out of the Ballpark reconsiders the character, meaning, and delights of the game by exploring both baseball's unusual features and the sport's many resonances with other aspects of modern life. To this end, it abandons several assumptions and mythologies that underlie most approaches to histories of baseball: that it is unique among sports and fundamentally different from other kinds of entertainment; that it is specific to the United States; that it has changed fundamentally in recent years; and that the keys to understanding it lie primarily in examining what happens on the field of play.

Instead, David M. Henkin moves across time and space to examine baseball's history since the nineteenth century and beyond US borders. He takes readers inside the structures of clubs and leagues, interprets the sacred scripture of rulebooks, and illuminates some of baseball's rites and rituals that are often associated with honor and manhood. He charts baseball's significance along the routes of American and Japanese imperial expansion and the shifting maps of race and ethnicity in the US. Baseball is found at negotiating tables that pit capital against labor and in pivotal moments in the history of mass media. Here, we are shown how baseball might offer a complex and capacious space for thinking about such things as spectatorship, success, community, order, and contingency in the modern world.

California's Billion-Dollar SMART Train: America's Most Expensive Transit Failure

The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) train stands as one of the most catastrophic government transportation investments in U.S. history. After burning through over $1 billion in taxpayer funds, this suburban rail system carries fewer than 3,000 daily riders while subsidizing 94% of operating costs--making it among the nation's most expensive transit failures per passenger.

The Great Train Heist exposes how political ambition created a "ghost train to nowhere" that primarily serves affluent commuters. The average SMART rider earns nearly $100,000 annually, meaning working-class taxpayers subsidize recreational train rides for the middle class. Despite promises to reduce Highway 101 traffic congestion, SMART's impact on vehicle miles traveled remains virtually zero--the diesel-powered trains often run nearly empty.

Author Michael J. Coffino reveals the shocking financial mismanagement, misleading voter campaigns, and conflicts of interest that enabled this boondoggle. From hidden cost overruns to inflated ridership projections, SMART exemplifies everything wrong with government transportation planning. With sales tax funding expiring in 2029, taxpayers face a critical decision about continuing to subsidize this failed experiment.

Perfect for readers interested in government accountability, transportation policy failures, and California politics, this meticulously researched exposé demonstrates how unlimited budgets and good intentions can create transit disasters that burden working families while serving only the wealthy. This is what every voter should know about the upcoming SMART sales tax measure.

The innovative countercultural movement from one of the most notable twentieth-century presses.

In this long-awaited book, Rebecca Kosick chronicles the rise, work, and legacy of the Alternative Press, a grassroots art and poetry publishing initiative founded in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan. Operated by Ken and Ann Mikolowski out of their home, the Alternative Press published original countercultural artwork and poetry by nationally renowned artists, including Alice Notley, Victor Hernández Cruz, and Robert Creeley, and Detroit-based powerhouse artists, such as Jim Gustafson, Donna Brook, Ray Johnson, and John Sinclair. The postcards, bumper stickers, bookmarks, and broadsides produced by the Alternative Press circulated among poets, creatives, and subscribers across the United States. Kosick's research reanimates the Alternative Press's unconventional publications with more than one hundred full-color images, while illuminating the national impact their avant-garde interventions had at the intersection of politics, art, and life in the twentieth century.

Exquisite photography showcases the beauty of gleaming freshwater pearls, a carved walrus tusk, and 100+ other natural history treasures from all 50 states from a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

Explore the breadth and magnificence of the world's largest natural history collection and marvel at the most awe-inspiring natural specimens and cultural objects from across the United States. With visually stunning photographs, From These Lands features more than 100 objects from all 50 states, Washington, DC, and five inhabited territories--American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands, including:

• Geodized crocodilian egg (Wyoming)
• Petrified wood fossil (Arizona)
• Longfin squid (Rhode Island)

• Menominee dugout canoe (Wisconsin)

• Martha, the last passenger pigeon (Ohio)
• Megalodon teeth (North Carolina)
• Gypsum stalactite (Kentucky)
• Tools made by CHamoru blacksmiths (Guam)

Book spreads also group shells, pinecones, insects, and birds from across the country to display the diversity that can be found even among the most common specimens. The book explores regional nature and culture to reveal how a range of distinct geographies and environments make up the place we call home. From These Lands tours through the nation's natural and cultural history to reveal the beauty, complexity, and wonder all around us.

This is your passport to 100 places designed to impress - think Italy's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Australia's Sydney Opera House and the USA's Empire State Building. These are the landmarks that define destinations, fill photo galleries and stick in your memory long after the trip is over, and now it's time to see them for yourself.

Organized by continent, the book takes you on a global tour of must-see sights, from ancient temples and Art Deco hotels to Modernist marvels and mega-tall megastructures. Inside you'll find:

- 100 world-class landmarks chosen for their visual wow-factor and cultural impact
- chapters organised by continent for easy browsing and destination dreaming
- striking full-page photography plus top tips for photo ops and iconic viewpoints
- bite-sized insights with cultural context, historical tidbits and reasons to visit
- smart travel notes: when to go, how to get there and other landmarks to see while you're there

Whether you're building your bucket list or just craving new ideas for what to see next, this book is your guide to the humanmade wonders worth the trip.