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Newcomers: The Story of Anthony and Grietje and the Founding of New York
A man thought to be a Muslim from Morocco and a German barmaid fleeing poverty are hardly the images we have of America's august founders. In Newcomers, Alan Mikhail upends the traditional story of America's origins through the revelatory tale of a seventeenth-century immigrant couple by the names of Anthony and Grietje.
Married in Amsterdam, the destitute pair emerged from lives of piracy and prostitution in Europe and arrived in 1630s Dutch New Amsterdam, hoping to build a new life. Upon landing on New York City's shores, the swarthy Anthony was attacked for being the Muslim he was not, while Grietje, branded a whore by crude harbor denizens, would become the model of an independent colonial American woman, defiantly mooning her attackers rather than accepting their derision. They endured intense bigotry on crooked neighborhood warrens and in the primitive watering holes of New Amsterdam, battling Dutch authorities and brawling with their neighbors, their appearances in court so frequent that their rebellious existence is seared into the records of early America forever. Eventually ejected from New Amsterdam by Dutch authorities in 1639, they were exiled to the "frontier," to what is now Gravesend Brooklyn, where they and their four daughters farmed and seized land from Native Americans while fighting English colonists from the north. After Grietje died, Anthony moved back to what had become English Manhattan and ended up being one of the richest men in seventeenth-century New York. What is ironic is that this rowdy couple's descendants include some of the most distinguished names in American social and political history, among them the Vanderbilts and President Warren G. Harding.
"Through meticulous research" (Russell Shorto), Mikhail has done nothing less than reframe America's original family story, in the process showing that where we have immigration, prejudice trails never far behind. Indeed, we learn of harsh, anti-Muslim sentiment through Anthony and of female defiance, rare that it was, through Grietje. "Promising to change the way we understand Colonial Gotham's formative first years" (Susanah Shaw Romney), Alan Mikhail's Newcomers tells the story of America's fledgling beginnings in a way that it has never been depicted before. -
Sold outBirds in the Boat
Audrey Weber's lush new picture book follows a family of birds and their animal friends as they take off on adventures: floating atop the waves, sailing in a rowboat, singing to greet the day, and soaring through the skies, all while knowing that a safe treetop and a nap awaits them.
With simple, lyrical text and a vibrant, retro art style, The Birds in the Boat is as gentle as a lullaby and as bright as a summer morning--an ebullient, rich story of taking delight in the magic of a new day.
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Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America
The story of American history is often told as a hard-won march toward the promise of equality, derived from Thomas Jefferson's famous proclamation that "all men are created equal."
But this inspiring story obscures a parallel tradition: an enduring and organized argument against equality itself. Again and again, influential Americans have asserted a fundamental inequality among human beings, arguing that the social, economic, and racial hierarchies in which some groups of people rule over others are not only natural but good.
In Country of Lords acclaimed historian Kim Phillips-Fein traces this argument for inequality through six vivid archetypes. She discusses the natural aristocrats, such as John Adams, who feared the tumult of too much democracy; the social Darwinists, led by Yale professor William Graham Sumner, who blamed the poor for their own miseries; those who preached a gospel of production, including Henry Ford, who wanted an industrial hierarchy in which the "best" people ruled over compliant inferiors; utilitarian racists who advocated for eugenics and a racial hierarchy; meritocrats like Harvard psychologist Richard Hernstein who described an economic caste system based on "intelligence" in his co-authored book, The Bell Curve; and most recently, technocrats who seem to see themselves as superior because they are closest to the machines destined to outstrip and supplant fallible flesh-and-blood humanity.
The anti-egalitarian lineage Phillips-Fein traces is both clear and deeply unsettling. It challenges readers to think about the fragility of the ideal of equality and to reckon with the disturbing arguments of those who have campaigned against it over the past two and a half centuries. Country of Lords is essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of the widening gap between the nation we claim to be and the nation we are becoming.
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Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music
In American popular music, we often glorify rebellious artists and "outlaws." But in The Midnight Special, Colin Asher tells a deeper story about the criminal justice system's impact on our musicians, explored through compelling portraits of five artists whose careers span the twentieth century.
Opening with folk and blues artist Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, who was made to perform wearing prison clothes, Asher traces the intertwined histories of music and incarceration, from Southern prison farms of the Jim Crow era, through the heroin-driven mid-century drug wars that villainized a generation of jazz artists, and to our present era of mass incarceration.
Asher shows how the suggestion of criminality has often benefited white artists, while prosecutions often hurt Black musicians. Comparing the divergent trajectories of jazz pianist Elmo Hope with country singer Johnny Cash, Asher examines how violent and discriminatory policing stifled Hope's career and led to the creation of his album Sounds from Rikers Island (1963), while forgiveness and lenience brought us Cash's masterpiece At San Quentin (1969).
With keen musical analysis and sociological insight, The Midnight Special examines key themes in culture and criminal justice, from the movement for prison reform that allowed soul musician Ike White to stage thrilling concerts while locked up and record his album Changin' Times (1977), to the crushing cultural weight of mass incarceration a generation later. Closing with Tupac Shakur's Me Against the World (1995) and stories of music in prisons today, The Midnight Special recounts how prisons occasionally incubate talent but more often shorten careers and distort the public's perception of musicians and their value to society.
An urgent book about the ways music can affirm an individual's sense of humanity in dehumanizing circumstances, The Midnight Special writes the history of prisons into American music--a story as important as it is overlooked.
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Snake Men: Rebels, Reptiles, and the Race to Name the Creatures of Earth
Raymond Hoser is known as the Snakeman, a moniker he has zealously defended. As a day job, Hoser runs a business in Melbourne that offers several services. One service is snake removal, a common trade in Australia. Another is snake shows, most often performed at children's birthday parties. But by the 2010s, Hoser had become famous around the world for an entirely different activity: his work as a taxonomist, a namer of new species. In a decade-long spree, Hoser had named thousands of new creatures, including more snakes than any other scientist. To some, Hoser's accomplishments were a scientific triumph. But others have accused Hoser of what they call "taxonomic vandalism," the results of which, they argue, could alter the very course of life on Earth.
Snake Men recounts this outrageous and humorous story, tracing the surprising intersection between taxonomists, the sober and serious class of scientists who have for centuries cooperated in a global effort to understand the order of life, and Raymond Hoser and other snake men. The results--chaotic, mischievous, the stuff of legends--hint at the rebellious impulse that lies coiled somewhere deep inside us all.
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Trinity: An Illustrated History of the World's First Atomic Test
Explore the scientific crescendo of the Manhattan Project through newly contextualized and never-before-seen photographs from Los Alamos National Laboratory's legacy collections--some just declassified.
Twenty-one days before the world learned of the atomic bomb through its wartime use against Japan, a team of scientists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer detonated the first nuclear device on a remote stretch of New Mexico desert, in an operation codenamed Trinity. Both a military proof test and an elaborate, well-documented scientific experiment, the Trinity shot on July 16, 1945, brought under the control of humankind a new fire: the energy of the atom. In this expertly curated journey through the beginning of the atomic age, hundreds of carefully restored photographs, still frames, and once-secret documents bring new and vivid focus to a watershed moment in science and history. Written for all to understand, Trinity weaves steadily through subplots and surprises set against the evolving, looming backdrop of a world at war. It shadows the humans and hardware at work in the rugged landscape of the test operation; dissects a fiery mushroom cloud unfurling frame by frame, frozen in time; and follows soldiers, scientists, and two atomic bombs across the Pacific Ocean to Tinian Island, onto the strike planes Enola Gay and Bockscar, and to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities devastated on August 6 and 9, 1945. Inviting readers into the clandestine spaces where a new era began--behind the cameras, the bunker doors, the gates and guard posts--Trinity strives, grieves, celebrates, and ponders. It artfully captures that extraordinary summer when scientists invented urgently in the waning months of the "before"--and the tension between violence and progress, hope and fear, that persists into the after. -
Bats
This field guide has 50 entries highlighting a variety of North American bats. Readers will gain a greater understanding about these creatures and will be able to identify them in the wild. Features include a helpful introduction to the topic, a glossary, and additional resources. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Field Guides is an imprint of Abdo Reference, a division of ABDO. -
Science Hobbies: Stargazing, Beekeeping, Engineering & More: Stargazing, Beekeeping, Engineering & More
Do you like stargazing, beekeeping, or engineering? A science hobby may be right for you! Learn how to get the tools, skills, and space necessary for a new hobby. Then complete fun projects designed to explore each hobby. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Abdo & Daughters is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO. -
Sold outFunjeepups: A Star Wish
Meet the Funjeepups, three curious and adorable woodland critters, in this "first comic" picture book series from the creator of Kitties on Dinosaurs! In this story, Button, Dot and Dollop go on an overnight camping adventure! Button, Dot and Dollop love exploring the magical forest they live in. They love vine swinging. They love guppie bumping. They love making nature art. But what they love most is returning home after an exciting day of adventuring. The Funjeepups want to make a wish on a star, so they decide to go on an overnight camping trip. But with clouds in the sky, there are no stars . . . and no wishes! Button, Dot and Dollop make the most of the night, though -- with treats, games and a brand-new friend who happens to glow. Maybe their wish can come true after all? Young readers will be inspired to go on their own nighttime adventure alongside the Funjeepups in this light and funny picture book series by Michael Slack!Sold out -
Integration at Second Base: Jackie Robinson and the Quest for Black Citizenship
A new biography revealing the remarkable story of Jackie Robinson as a civil rights crusader
Jackie Robinson is one of the most enduring icons of the great American pastime--the man who broke baseball's color line in the twentieth century, opening the door for his fellow professionals and allowing rising generations to dream of fame and glory on the diamond. But for number 42, playing for the Dodgers was just a beginning. As Peter Eisenstadt demonstrates in this compelling new biography, Robinson's trailblazing journey was more than a role that fate thrust on him--it was politically informed and consciously connected in Robinson's mind to a vision of integration and full Black citizenship.
When he ventured out of the Negro Leagues and into the majors, as the league's sole Black player, his triumph could have stopped at mere tokenism. Eisenstadt reveals a more ambitious goal on Robinson's part, as well as a side to the great sports hero we have never fully appreciated. This book explores the political and spiritual roots of Jackie Robinson's quest for Black citizenship from his boyhood in Pasadena to his service days--during which he was court-martialed for refusing to change seats on a segregated bus--to a transcendent athletic career that included an MVP award, a World Series victory, and eventually a place in the Hall of Fame. In his life after baseball, Robinson went on to serve as a civil rights leader, columnist, and political advocate.
The determination that spurred his great achievements was always accompanied by an understanding of just how far society still needed to go: despite his success, at the end of his life he was convinced that he "never had it made." In telling the story of Robinson's remarkable life, this book sheds invaluable light on the complex meanings of integration.
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Prehistoric Face-Off! (Face-Off Book with Replica Teeth)
Learn all about these epic prehistoric creatures and decide who will emerge victorious in this book that comes with two replica teeth!
Prehistoric beasts face-off against each other in this epic book of unbelievable showdowns! Packed with images of and information about the amazing animals that ruled earth millions of years ago, this book is perfect for fans of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures alike. After you read all about them, decide who will win in a prehistoric face-off! It also comes with a replica mosasaurus tooth and a replica T.rex tooth to add to your collection!
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Mary Pain
Mary Pain's hit rock bottom with nothing left to lose ... but she's also absolutely free.
Mary Pain might just be the patron saint of second chances. Unemployed and all out of options, she buys a one-way bus ticket to the dead-end town she grew up in. Time stands still there--all the same people still telling the same old gossip she's been running from for ages. Back in her childhood home, she needs to find a way to save the house from foreclosure, care for her ailing grandfather, and make peace with her mother's ghost, whose telephone calls still come in on the old kitchen landline. With the odds stacked against her, Mary Pain doesn't let her mid-life rut keep her down: She picks up men for midnight trysts in the park, and remains open to deepening connections with childhood friends, new lovers, and precocious altar boys. Lola Lorente's slick black inkwork feels sophisticated and voluptuous, and her rendering of townsfolk and their customs is a sensorial delight. Her devoted attention to fabric textures, body shapes, and one-of-a-kind faces brings this cast of oddballs and weirdos, sometimes verging on the grotesque, fully to life. Translated from the Spanish by Andrea Rosenberg, Lorente's English debut is a sorrowful yet hopeful portrait of a young adult at a crossroads in life--a quintessential loser looking for meaning and redemption in a town full of ghosts. -
Sold outWe Interrupt This Broadcast: Poems
From a master lyric poet characterized by Mary Oliver as "a Walt Whitman without an inch of Whitman's bunting and oratory" comes this late-life collection that takes its overall title from the venerable phrase that alerted listeners and viewers to an urgent event of public significance. Again and again, the poems in We Interrupt This Broadcast dramatize, in simple and deep language, what it feels like to be alive in our time.
The disconnects that haunt and animate these poems are political, ecological, and psychological. Some, like "Un-Earth: A Sequence," revisit early trauma experienced both intimately and socially, while others contemplate our present ecological crises.
Set against this somber background of disconnects, Gregory Orr invokes the natural world and human intimacy as sources of growth and hope. Giving voice to both personal and universal anguish, We Interrupt This Broadcast repeatedly transforms desolation into celebration, silence and suffering into song.
From "So often there's a disconnect . . ."
So often there's a disconnect:
You know the world
Is ending and you eat your soup.I'm weeding in my garden
As a flash flood warning
Comes my way, complete with siren.
The sky's gray, but nothing else
Indicates so dire a situation.Sold out -
Hinterlands: The New Cold War Brewing at the Peripheries of the West
Hannah Lucinda Smith, a Pulitzer grantee and acclaimed foreign correspondent, has devoted well over a decade to intrepid, on-the-ground reporting where few dare travel: the small, often disputed territories at the edges of Europe and Russia. There, Smith finds, the influence of Vladimir Putin and his favored strongmen--along with Turkish president and regional lynchpin Recep Tayyip Erdogan--fan territorial disputes and destabilize already fragile democracies.
Hinterlands offers a rare glimpse into the ghost towns of Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, the cryptocurrency farms of Transnistria, the brittle border communities of Bosnia and its Republika Srpska, and the enclaves of Northern Cyprus that Russian oligarchs call home. In rarely seen places in Crimea and the Caucasus, frontiers have shifted and new countries have been made. Informed by her encounters with politicians, combatants, and the ordinary people caught in the crosshairs, Smith paints a vivid portrait of the places where geopolitical alliances are forged and broken, where the violent ambitions of dictators are most keenly felt.
This indispensable account of events in the gray zones of Eurasia gives vital context to our rapidly changing world and sounds a clear-eyed, urgent warning: We ignore the hinterlands at our own peril. What happens inside them has the power to redraw the fault lines of a new Cold War and shape the future of the West.Sold out -
Sold outDC Pride: The Heart Wants
The Eisner, Ringo, and GLAAD award-winning DC Pride celebrates its fifth anniversary with an all-new anthology in an all-new format, featuring stories that celebrate community when it's needed most! Contributors to DC Pride 2025 include writers Tim Sheridan, Vita Ayala, Josh Trujillo, Sam Maggs, Maya Houston, and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, and artists Emilio Pilliu, Skylar Patridge, A.L. Kaplan, and Vincent Cecil. When a 100-year-old queer speakeasy-turned-bar-turned-restaurant-and-community-space in Gotham announces that it will soon be closing its doors, generations of patrons come to pay their respects--including Alan Scott, the Green Lantern. After all, this is the place where he and his first love, Johnny Ladd, long ago carved their names into the basement wall before it all went to hell...and a love lost is never a love forgotten. But they weren't the only ones to put their names on the wall over the years, and suddenly queer heroes, villains, and civilians alike from across the DCU--the Question, Midnighter and Apollo, Harley Quinn, Green Lantern Jo Mullein, Bunker, Connor Hawke, and Blue Snowman among them--find themselves spirited away to a strange alternate dimension that seems to provide everything they could possibly want...but at what cost? In this story of interweaving narratives, the vanished will need to unite if they hope to escape that which ensnares them in this triumphant and timely story of community amid chaos!Sold out -
1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, and the Making of the Modern World
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Literary Hub From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lords of Finance, a magnificent and timely reckoning with the first truly global financial calamity and the famous banking family at the center of the whirlwind Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, during the first era of globalization, the world experienced an unprecedented economic boom. Fueling this expansion was an explosion in the global bond market, at the hub of which stood one family--the Rothschilds, arguably the wealthiest banking family in history. While the giant sums of capital provided through the bond market built the railroads, the century's most transformative investments, the money raised also unleashed a frenzy of speculation, massive overinvestment, and wasteful borrowing by governments. With excessive euphoria leading to disappointed expectations, in the early 1870s the bubble burst. Stock markets from Vienna to New York crashed, and dozens of railroads and many governments defaulted. Financial officials responded by blundering into a precipitous remaking of the global currency system--exacerbating the ensuing economic collapse and setting the stage for decades of a punitive deflation that sparked waves of anti-globalist populism. As Liaquat Ahamed shows us in this enthralling history, the crisis of 1873 was, among other things, a death blow to Reconstruction in the United States and the proximate cause of the Ottoman Empire's slow death spiral. Ironically, though the Rothschilds had presciently kept a low profile during the bubble, when the deluge came, they were viciously scapegoated as part of a wider hatred directed at "Jewish finance," a strain of antisemitism that would come to full evil flower during the twentieth century. 1873 is a bird's-eye reckoning with the full dimension of the crisis, from its buildup to its long aftermath. The Rothschilds and a cast of other witnesses give us the human perspective. And we have a brilliant financial historian's grasp of the larger forces at play, resulting in a global narrative with thrilling explanatory power.Sold out