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Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You
"Through honest stories and inspiring lessons from her life, A'ja Wilson reminds us to never doubt who we are or apologize for being true to ourselves. Dear Black Girls is a must-read for every Black girl out there." ―Gabrielle Union
This one is for all the girls with an apostrophe in their names.
This is for all the girls who are labeled "too loud" and "too emotional."
This is for all the girls who are constantly asked, "Oh, what did you do with your hair? That's new."
This is for my Black girls. Despite gold medals, WNBA championships, and a list of accolades, A'ja Wilson knows how it feels to be swept under the rug--to not be heard, to not feel seen, to not be taken seriously. As a fourth grader going to a primarily white school in South Carolina, A'ja was told she'd have to stay outside for a classmate's birthday party. "Huh?" she asked. Because the birthday girl's father didn't like Black people. Wilson tells stories like this, about how even when life tried to hold her down, it didn't stop her. She shares her contribution to "The Talk," and how to keep fighting, all while igniting strength, passion, and joy. Dear Black Girls is a necessary and meaningful exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in America today--and a rallying cry to lift up women and girls everywhere. "Dear Black Girls is filled with phenomenal stories and empowering insight on what it means to be a woman in today's world. I didn't want to put it down." ―Tunde Oyeneyin, New York Times bestselling author of Speak -
I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Everything I Wish I Never Had to Learn about Money
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A big-hearted, no-bullshit memoir from the TikTok superstar about her journey from living paycheck to paycheck to creating a multi-million-dollar business that offers a compassionate alternative to capitalism - Includes no-nonsense life and money advice, from negotiating pay and building credit to putting home ownership within reach "Madeline's life is unique yet wildly relatable...Readers will be thoroughly engaged, as every hardship comes with a lesson that Madeline skillfully shares with us. A thought-provoking, mind-tingling reading experience."--Mercury Stardust, the Trans Handy Ma'am and author of Safe and Sound Imagine a job where you work four days a week and earn as much as the CEO. You also get full benefits, a gym membership, free lunch, and unlimited time off, no questions asked. Hard-won profits don't just end up in the CEO's pocket--they're distributed equally among all employees. The company even buys you your very own car. It sounds too good to be true, but this is the reality at Tunnel Vision, the clothing company that Madeline Pendleton built from the ground up. Like so many Americans, Madeline used to struggle to make ends meet. Raised by a punk dad and a goth mom in Fresno, California, she spent her teens intermittently homeless, relying on the kindness and spare couches of the local punk community to get by. By her twenties, she was drowning in student loans and credit card debt, working long hours and sick of her bosses treating her as disposable. Then her boyfriend, struggling with financial stress, died by suicide. Capitalism was literally killing her loved ones--she knew there must be a better way. Madeline decided to study the rules of capitalism, the game everyone is forced to play. She used what she learned to build a new kind of business, one rooted in an ethos of community care. Millennials and Gen Zers like Madeline are facing an unprecedented financial reality: Stagnant wages, skyrocketing housing costs, a student debt crisis. I Survived Capitalism is essential reading for anyone searching for hope and stability in an unjust world.Sold out -
Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
A Best Book of 2020: The Washington Post * NPR * Chicago Tribune * Smithsonian A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab, Why Fish Don't Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and--possibly--even murder. "At one point, Miller dives into the ocean into a school of fish...comes up for air, and realizes she's in love. That's how I felt: Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten." --The New York Times Book Review David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake--which sent more than a thousand discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life's work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world. When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool--a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don't Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail. -
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale
The definitive edition of the graphic novel acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker) - PULITZER PRIZE WINNER - One of Variety's "Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read" A brutally moving work of art--widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written--Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author's father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma. -
The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir
From the legendary author Edmund White, a stunning, revelatory memoir of a lifetime of gay love and sex.
"A raw, frightening, funny, and beautiful testimony, brimming with transgressive wisdom" -Robert Jones, Jr. I'm at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them-for me it would be thousands of sex partners.
"The story of [Edmund White's] sex life reads like a beautifully crafted, very moving (and very funny!) novel." -John Irving
The 85-year-old "paterfamilias of queer literature" (New York Times) recounts the sixty-plus years of sexual escapades that have inspired his many masterpieces. He explores the sex he had with other closeted boys of the 50s Midwest, with women as a young man trying to be straight, the sex he's paid for and been paid for, sex during the Stonewall and HIV eras, and in the age of the apps. Through tales of transactional sex, mutual admiration, open relationships, domination, submission, love, and loss, he paints an indelible portrait of queer history in America and abroad in a way only someone who has lived through it can. Written with White's signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms. -
Perfectly Queer: Facing Big Fears, Living Hard Truths, and Loving Myself Fully Out of the Closet
This humorous, heartwarming memoir follows a wife and mother's journey of self-discovery and acceptance as she comes out as a lesbian in her late 30s. Jill had a happy, healthy 20-year relationship with her college sweetheart, two wonderful kids, and rescue cat from the Humane Society. They lived in a nice suburban home with a white picket fence and owned a small bar that was rated one of the "Best Mom & Pop" businesses in Tampa Bay. From the outside, everything looked perfect. Perfectly Queer takes the reader on Jillian Abby's poignant and painfully funny rollercoaster of self-discovery as she identifies and eventually accepts herself as a lesbian just before her 40th birthday. Living her new truth means leaving behind a life that, by societal standards, is nearly perfect. This is a story for anyone who is hiding a piece of themselves and wants to know if it's safe to be revealed. It's for the parent who must choose between their own happiness and the stability of their family, wondering if prioritizing themselves is selfish. It's for the person potentially facing a major life upheaval filled with unknowns in the future who is seeking reassurance that everything will work out just fine. It's a story of hope and inspiration to those who are starting or are in the middle of their journey, and an affirmation to those who have been through it to stand proudly on the other side. -
The Heartbreak of Static Cling
In the heart of mid-1960s New York, Robert embarks on his freshman year at the School of Visual Arts, where he is introduced to the iconic Andy Warhol and his menagerie of fabulous crackpots. Robert finds another home in Max's Kansas City, the pulsating core of the city's creative underbelly, with superstars burning so bright they self-destruct right before his eyes.
Malcolm Morley, Robert's former instructor, secures a prestigious commission to paint England's Prime Minister and invites Robert to join him as an assistant. Robert's European escapades are filled with serendipitous meetings and collaborations with a cast of characters as vivid and dynamic as any he'd encountered in New York.
This speeding bullet thrill ride continues throughout Robert's career on Madison Avenue, becoming an executive creative director on top of his game at a world-acclaimed advertising agency, and he's front and center with the famous: Jennifer Connelly, Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger, Antonio Lopez, Bill King, Truman Capote, and more. A twist of fate introduces him to Don Hall, the love of his life, with whom he builds a remarkable existence. Together they become a major force in the fight against AIDS until tragedy strikes, leaving Robert to navigate the depths of grief and rediscover his purpose in Los Angeles.
With a twisted sense of humor and love for the absurd, Robert faces life's harshest trials-including multiple battles with cancer, surviving a cult kidnapping, and enduring the agony of loss during the AIDS crisis-his indomitable spirit and quirky humor seeing him through. Through a series of astoundingly outrageous and unexpected events, fueled by his unwavering dedication to his loved ones, Robert finds a reason to fight and move forward, determined to overcome his biggest challenge: to free himself from grief's paralyzing static, clinging to his soul.
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Didion and Babitz
Joan Didion is revealed at last in this outrageously provocative and profoundly moving new work "that reads like a propulsive novel" (Oprah Daily) on the mutual attractions--and mutual antagonisms--of Didion and her fellow literary titan, Eve Babitz. Could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny, Joan? --Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972 Joan Didion, revealed at last... Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in the wrack, ruin, and filth of her apartment, a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. The boxes were pristine, the seals of duct tape unbroken. Inside, a lost world. This world turned for a certain number of years in the late sixties and early seventies, and centered on a two-story rental in a down-at-heel section of Hollywood. 7406 Franklin Avenue, a combination salon-hotbed-living end where writers and artists mixed with movie stars, rock 'n' rollers, and drug trash. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion, a mystery behind her dark glasses and cool expression; an enigma inside her storied marriage to John Gregory Dunne, their union as tortured as it was enduring. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the breaking and then the remaking--and thus the true making--of another great American writer: Eve Babitz, goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky, nude of Marcel Duchamp, consort of Jim Morrison (among many, many others), a woman who burned so hot she finally almost burned herself alive. Didion and Babitz formed a complicated alliance, a friendship that went bad, amity turning to enmity. Didion, in spite of her confessional style, is so little known or understood. She's remained opaque, elusive. Until now. With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz, Babitz's brilliance of observation, Babitz's incisive intelligence, and, most of all, Babitz's diary-like letters--letters found in those sealed boxes, letters so intimate you don't read them so much as breathe them--as the key to unlocking Didion. -
The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House
The most powerful woman in American political history tells the story of her transformation from housewife to House Speaker--how she became a master legislator, a key partner to presidents, and the most visible leader of the Trump resistance. When, at age forty-six, Nancy Pelosi, mother of five, asked her youngest daughter if she should run for Congress, Alexandra Pelosi answered: "Mother, get a life!" And so Nancy did, and what a life it has been. In The Art of Power, Pelosi describes for the first time what it takes to make history--not only as the first woman to ascend to the most powerful legislative role in our nation, but to pass laws that would save lives and livelihoods, from the emergency rescue of the economy in 2008 to transforming health care. She describes the perseverance, persuasion, and respect for her members that it took to succeed, but also the joy of seeing America change for the better. Among the best-prepared and hardest working Speakers in history, Pelosi worked to find common ground, or stand her ground, with presidents from Bush to Biden. She also shares moving moments with soldiers sent to the front lines, women who inspired her, and human rights activists who fought by her side. Pelosi took positions that established her as a prophetic voice on the major moral issues of the day, warning early about the dangers of the Iraq War and of the Chinese government's long record of misbehavior. This moral courage prepared her for the arrival of Trump, with whom she famously tangled, becoming a red-coated symbol of resistance to his destructive presidency. Here, she reveals how she went toe-to-toe with Trump, leading up to January 6, 2021, when he unleashed his post-election fury on the Congress. Pelosi gives us her personal account of that day: the assault not only on the symbol of our democracy but on the men and women who had come to serve the nation, never expecting to hide under desks or flee for their lives--and her determined efforts to get the National Guard to the Capitol. Nearly two years later, violence and fury would erupt inside Pelosi's own home when an intruder, demanding to see the Speaker, viciously attacked her beloved husband, Paul. Here, Pelosi shares that horrifying day and the traumatic aftermath for her and her family. The woman who has been lauded by her opposition as "the most powerful Speaker" ever shows us why she is not afraid of a good fight. The Art of Power is about the fighting spirit that has always animated her, and the historic legacy that spirit has produced. -
Christopher Isherwood Inside Out
A stunningly intimate exploration of the writer and gay cultural icon and of his lifelong search for authenticity.
The story of Christopher Isherwood's life is one of pilgrimage: away from the constraints of inheritance and empire and toward authenticity and spiritual illumination. Isherwood--the author of Goodbye to Berlin, which inspired Cabaret, and A Single Man--was born the heir to a crumbling English estate. He died an icon of gay liberation in California while his partner of thirty years, Don Bachardy, painted his death portrait. Isherwood began his career depicting the psychological wreckage of World War I. While living in Berlin, he began to write his reputation-making fiction and (with W. H. Auden) plays inspired by the city's nightlife, its artistic underbelly, its fevered politics. When Hitler took power, he fled with his German boyfriend, who was pursued and arrested by the Gestapo. Isherwood left Europe and found work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, where he became the disciple of a Hindu monk, Swami Prabhavananda. Together they translated the Bhagavad Gita. Isherwood shed his family ghosts and became a chief instigator of the cultural shift that made gay liberation possible. Every step of the journey served his writing; one of our greatest diarists, he recorded his experiences and transformed them in fiction and memoir. Katherine Bucknell charts the quest of the restless, penetrating, blackly comic mind through books, films, foreign lands, love affairs, and collaborations toward self-understanding and happiness. Here is Christopher Isherwood Inside Out. -
Cocaine and Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette
From the creator of the acclaimed country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones, comes the epic American saga of country music's legendary royal couple--George Jones and Tammy Wynette. By the early 1960s nearly everybody paying attention to country music agreed that George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After taking honky-tonk rockers like "White Lightning" all the way up the country charts, he revealed himself to be an unmatched virtuoso on "She Thinks I Still Care," thus cementing his status as a living legend. That's where the trouble started. Only at this new level of fame did Jones realize he suffered from extreme stage fright. His method of dealing with that involved great quantities of alcohol, which his audience soon discovered as Jones more often than not showed up to concerts falling-down drunk or failed to show up at all. But the fans always forgave him because he just kept singing so damn good. Then he got married to Tammy Wynette right around the time she became one of the most famous women alive with the release of "Stand by Your Man." Tammy Wynette grew up believing George Jones was the greatest country singer of all time. After deciding to become a country singer herself, she went to Nashville, got a record deal, then met and married her hero. With the pop crossover success of "Stand by Your Man" (and the international political drama surrounding the song's lyrics) came a gigantic audience, who were sold a fairy tale image of a couple soon being called The King and Queen of Country Music. Many fans still believe that fairy tale today. The behind-the-scenes truth is very different from the images shown on album covers. Illustrated throughout by singular artist Wayne White, Cocaine & Rhinestones is an unprecedented look at the lives of two indelible country icons, reframing their careers within country music as well as modern history itself. -
Sold outAnd My Blood Sang
This collection is a story about the perseverance of the self and the strength of the community; the inevitability of becoming broken and beaten; the reminder that we are connected and we are exquisite; that our scars show where we did not die: and that when we are underestimated, bloodied, and battered, we will rise again.
Both personal and communal, drawing strength specifically from the Yazidi people through her time in Iraq - Maia tries to make sense of the utterly unimaginable and the all too common, so that the reader may take solace in exploring the beauty and depth of their own sheer strength in the face of pain and anguish.
The universe will always promise brutality and struggle.
Individuals will always possess the power of resilience.
Humanity will always offer a future.Sold out -
Gay AF: The Military Career of a Georgia Drag Queen
Meet Jay Claypool, and his alter ego Dixie Crystal. On his own from an early age, and embracing his sexuality and the performance art of drag, Jay recounts his early years as a nightclub performer, the 9-11 tragedy; and how it propelled him into a 20 plus years military career in the United States Air Force. A collection of stories that are hilarious, heartbreaking; and at times surreal, Gay AF is the autobiography of an entertainer who has persevered through the often-changing legal landscape and demanding service reorganizations within the DoD. Jay finds himself working within some of the most elite Air Force organizations, planning and executing unique no-fail missions; and Dixie Crystal is always along for the adventure.
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Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism's Forgotten Radicals
The extraordinary story of a group of forgotten radicals who found themselves drawn to communist Moscow's hotbed of international revolutionary activity: the Hotel Lux. Hotel Lux follows Irish radical May O'Callaghan and her friends, three revolutionary families brought together by their vision for a communist future and their time spent in the Comintern's Moscow living quarters, the Hotel Lux. Historian Maurice Casey reveals the connections and disconnections of a group of forgotten communist activists whose lives collided in 1920s Moscow: a brilliant Irish translator, a maverick author, the rebel daughters of an East London Jewish family, and a family of determined German anti-fascists. The dramatic and interlocking histories of the O'Flahertys, Cohens and Leonhards offer an intimate insight into the legacies of the Russian Revolution from its earliest idealism through to the brutal Stalinist purges and beyond. Hotel Lux uncovers a world of forgotten radicals who saw their hopes and dreams crash against reality yet retained their faith in a beautiful future for all. Culminating in a queer love story that saw the daughters of the Cohens and Leonhards create an enduring partnership even as their parents' political visions crumbled, this is a multi-generational rebel odyssey and a history of international communism, one which looks as much to the future as it does to the past. -
Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES AND A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
"I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education 'reform' in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I loved to dream."
--Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist
In the tradition of Michelle Alexander, an unflinching reckoning with the impact of 40 years of racist public school policy on generations of Black lives In Punished for Dreaming Dr. Bettina Love argues forcefully that Reagan's presidency ushered in a War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing, closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior, egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration. Today, there is little national conversation about a structural overhaul of American schools; cosmetic changes, rooted in anti-Blackness, are now passed off as justice. It is time to put a price tag on the miseducation of Black children. In this prequel to The New Jim Crow, Dr. Love serves up a blistering account of four decades of educational reform through the lens of the people who lived it. Punished for Dreaming lays bare the devastating effect on 25 Black Americans caught in the intersection of economic gain and racist ideology. Then, with input from leading U.S. economists, Dr. Love offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.
