The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady


Edith Holden - 1977
    We are very pleased to be the first U.S. publisher to offer Ediths timeless watercolors.

Alcatraz from Inside


Jim Quillen - 1991
    He thinks he made a lucky escape, until he is caught and sentenced to 45 years inside America's toughest prison, US Penitentiary Alcatraz Island.This is one man's true story of life inside America's most notorious prison, from terrifying times in solitary confinement to daily encounters with the "Birdman." An inspiring, moving, and dramatic tale.

Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers


Taisia Kitaiskaia - 2017
    Through poetic portraits, Taisia Kitaiskaia and Katy Horan honor the witchy qualities of well-known and obscure authors alike, including Virginia Woolf, Mira Bai, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Octavia E. Butler, Sandra Cisneros, and many more.Perfect for both book lovers and coven members, Literary Witches is a treasure and a source of inspiration. Kitaiskaia and Horan bring fresh insights on your most beloved authors, suggest enchanting new writers, and invite you to rediscover the magic of literature.

The Lives of Lee Miller


Antony Penrose - 1985
    Compiled by her son, this book offers a record of Miller's life and work.

We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive


Laurie Notaro - 2005
    Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no–it’s happened. She has officially lost her marbles. From the kid at the pet-food store checkout line whose coif is so bizarre it makes her seethe “I’m going to kick his hair’s ass!” to the hapless Sears customer-service rep on the receiving end of her Campaign of Terror, no one is safe from Laurie’s wrath. Her cranky side seems to have eaten the rest of her–inner-thigh Chub Rub and all. And the results are breathtaking. Her riffs on e-mail spam (“With all of these irresistible offers served up to me on a plate, I WANT A PENIS NOW!!”), eBay (“There should be an eBay wading pool, where you can only bid on Precious Moments figurines and Avon products, that you have to make it through before jumping into the deep end”), and the perils of St. Patrick’s Day (“When I’m driving, the last thing I need is a herd of inebriates darting in and out of traffic like loaded chickens”) are the stuff of legend. And for Laurie, it’s all true.

A Beautiful Work In Progress


Mirna Valerio - 2017
    When you meet her on the trail, you might be surprised to see she doesn’t quite fit the typical image of a long-distance runner. She’s neither skinny nor white, and she’s here to show just how misguided these stereotypes can be.In this prejudice-busting, body-positive memoir told with raw honesty, an adventurous spirit, and a sharp sense of humor, Valerio takes readers along on her journey from first-time racer to ultramarathoner and proves that anyone can become a successful athlete.

A Writer's Diary


Virginia Woolf - 1953
    The first entry included here is dated 1918 and the last, three weeks before her death in 1941. Between these points of time unfolds the private world??—??the anguish, the triumph, the creative vision??—??of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. “A Writer’s Diary . . . is Virginia Woolf . . . The whole vibrates with the ups and downs of a passionate relationship . . . in the intensities, variations, alarms and excursions, panics and exaltations of her relationship to her art.”??—??New York Times Book ReviewEdited and with a Preface by Leonard Woolf.

Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law


Jeffrey Rosen - 2019
    Rosen, a veteran legal journalist, scholar, and president of the National Constitution Center, shares with us the justice's observations on a variety of topics, and her intellect, compassion, sense of humor, and humanity shine through. The affection they have for each other as friends is apparent in their banter and in their shared love for the Constitution--and for opera.In Conversations with RBG, Justice Ginsburg discusses the future of Roe v. Wade, her favorite dissents, the cases she would most like to see overruled, the #MeToo movement, how to be a good listener, how to lead a productive and compassionate life, and of course the future of the Supreme Court itself. These frank exchanges illuminate the steely determination, self-mastery, and wit that have inspired Americans of all ages to embrace the woman known to all as "Notorious RBG."Whatever the topic, Justice Ginsburg always has something interesting--and often surprising--to say. And while few of us will ever have the opportunity to chat with her face-to-face, Jeffrey Rosen brings us by her side as never before. Conversations with RBG is a deeply felt portrait of an American hero.

Negroland


Margo Jefferson - 2015
      Born in upper-crust black Chicago—her father was for years head of pediatrics at Provident, at the time the nation’s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialite—Margo Jefferson has spent most of her life among (call them what you will) the colored aristocracy, the colored elite, the blue-vein society. Since the nineteenth century they have stood apart, these inhabitants of Negroland, “a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty.”   Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments—the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of postracial America—Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions. Aware as it is of heart-wrenching despair and depression, this book is a triumphant paean to the grace of perseverance.

Why We Can't Wait


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1964
    Martin Luther King’s classic exploration of the events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement—including his Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”In 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States. The campaign launched by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights movement on the segregated streets of Birmingham demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action.In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.Since its publication in the 1960s, Why We Can’t Wait has become an indisputable classic. Now, more than ever, it is an enduring testament to the wise and courageous vision of Martin Luther King, Jr.Includes photographs and an afterword by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual


Luvvie Ajayi Jones - 2016
    "This truth-riot of a book gives us everything from hilarious lectures on the bad behavior all around us to the razor sharp essays on media and culture" (Shonda Rhimes, New York Times best-selling author of Year of Yes and executive producer of Scandal and Grey's Anatomy) "I don't know how Luvvie Ajayi got so smart so young about so many things, from feminism to social media, from the pervasiveness of rape culture to the excellence of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I'm just grateful she has chosen to share her wisdom with the rest of us..." (Jennifer Weiner, number-one New York Times best-selling author of Best Friends Forever) "You will love Luvvie Ajayi's I'm Judging You, and you will argue with it, laugh hysterically at it, shout 'AW HELL YES' at it, and carry parts of it in your heart to dissect or inspire... Perfect for starting important and meaty discussions about all of the topics your mama told you never to bring up at polite dinner parties." (Jenny Lawson, New York Times best-selling author of Furiously Happy) With over 500,000 readers a month at her enormously popular blog, AwesomelyLuvvie.com, Luvvie Ajayi has become a go-to source for smart takes on pop culture. I'm Judging You is her debut book of humorous essays that dissects our cultural obsessions and calls out bad behavior in our increasingly digital, connected lives—from the importance of the newest Shonda Rhimes television drama to serious discussions of race and media representation to what to do about your fool cousin sharing casket pictures from Grandma's wake on Facebook. With a lighthearted, razor-sharp wit and a unique perspective, I'm Judging You is the audiobook the world needs, doling out the hard truths and a road map for bringing some "act right" into our lives, social media, and popular culture.

Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers


Janet Malcolm - 2013
    Malcolm is "among the most intellectually provocative of authors," writes David Lehman in The Boston Globe, "able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."Here, in Forty-one False Starts, Malcolm brings together essays published over the course of several decades (largely in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books) that reflect her preoccupation with artists and their work. Her subjects are painters, photographers, writers, and critics. She explores Bloomsbury's obsessive desire to create things visual and literary; the "passionate collaborations" behind Edward Weston's nudes; and the character of the German art photographer Thomas Struth, who is "haunted by the Nazi past," yet whose photographs have "a lightness of spirit." In "The Woman Who Hated Women," Malcolm delves beneath the "onyx surface" of Edith Wharton's fiction, while in "Advanced Placement" she relishes the black comedy of the Gossip Girl novels of Cecily von Zeigesar. In "Salinger's Cigarettes," Malcolm writes that "the pettiness, vulgarity, banality, and vanity that few of us are free of, and thus can tolerate in others, are like ragweed for Salinger's helplessly uncontaminated heroes and heroines." "Over and over," as Ian Frazier writes in his introduction, "she has demonstrated that nonfiction—a book of reporting, an article in a magazine, something we see every day—can rise to the highest level of literature."One of Publishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of 2013

Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History


Camille T. Dungy - 2017
    She crisscrossed America and beyond with her daughter in tow, history shadowing their steps, always intensely aware of how they were perceived, not just as mother and child but as black women. From the San Francisco of settlers’ dreams to the slave-trading ports of Ghana, from snow-white Maine to a festive yet threatening bonfire in the Virginia pinewoods, Dungy finds fear and trauma but also mercy, kindness, and community. Penetrating and generous, this is an essential guide for a troubled land.

Love, Lucy


Lucille Ball - 1996
    The legendary star of the classic sitcom I Love Lucy was at the pinnacle of her success when she sat down to record the story of her life. No comedienne had made America laugh so hard, no television actress had made the leap from radio and B movies to become one of the world's best-loved performers. This is her story--in her own words.The story of the ingenue from Jamestown, New York, determined to go to Broadway, destined to make a big splash, bound to marry her Valentino, Desi Arnaz. In her own inimitable style, she tells of their life together--both storybook and turbulent; intimate memories of their children and friends; wonderful backstage anecdotes; the empire they founded; the dissolution of their marriage. And, with a heartfelt happy ending, her enduring marriage to Gary Morton.Here is the lost manuscript that her fans and loved ones will treasure. Here is the laughter. Here is the life. Here's Lucy...

Afropean: Notes from Black Europe


Johny Pitts - 2019
    Here was a space where blackness was taking part in shaping European identity ... A continent of Algerian flea markets, Surinamese shamanism, German Reggae and Moorish castles. Yes, all this was part of Europe too, and these were people and places it needed to understand and embrace if it wanted fully functional societies. And Black Europeans, too, need to demand the right to document and disseminate our stories ... With my brown skin and my British passport - still a ticket into mainland Europe at the time of writing - I set out in search of the Afropeans, on a cold October morning.'Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is an alternative map of the continent, taking the reader to places like Cova Da Moura, the Cape Verdean shantytown on the outskirts of Lisbon with its own underground economy, and Rinkeby, the area of Stockholm that is eighty per cent Muslim. Johny Pitts visits the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where West African students are still making the most of Cold War ties with the USSR, and Clichy Sous Bois in Paris, which gave birth to the 2005 riots, all the while presenting Afropeans as lead actors in their own story.