From Joya Goffney, author of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry and Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl, both of which received starred reviews and stellar buzz, comes her fourth riveting YA romance novel about a book-smart wallflower who suddenly wins the attention of the school hottie—but only during seventh period. Perfect for fans of the hit rom-com John Tucker Must Die and filled with Joya's signature humor, complex characters, and searing romance.
Sunnaya Bates can’t stop thinking about Xavier Walker… and neither can six others.
When self-proclaimed wallflower Sunnaya Bates begins her first day of junior year, she’s not expecting to have the attention of star football player Omari Walker by seventh period. But Naya isn’t the only one that Zay has eyes for, in fact, Zay has a flirtationship with a different girl for every period. Everyone knows Zay doesn’t do relationships, so no harm, no foul… right?

And being a member of The Seven has its perks. People finally remember Naya’s name, Zahara is in the running for class president, and Raven gets the followers she needs to maintain her social media status. However, when Zay begins to only have eyes for new student Jesse Ramirez, things change for the newfound group, and so, they quickly hatch a plan to destroy Jesse’s status to retain theirs’. But Naya begins to struggle with her role in the plan and the feelings that are blooming between her and a certain should-be-annoying coworker. When things go too far, will Naya give up what she’s formed with The Seven to do what’s right?

A prize-winning sociologist’s radical vision of the social power of erotic life. 

“Fearless, candid, and bold, Sex in Public is necessary reading for anyone interested in imagining a different kind of world, one that approaches eroticism and freedom as fundamentally linked.” —Jennifer C. Nash, author of Black Feminism Reimagined

Whether we are contending with shame, healing from trauma, or experimenting in the bedroom, there is a common tendency to cast anything sexual as a problem best solved in private. Fears of judgment fuel an air of oppression around something that should be liberating. According to feminist sociologist Angela Jones, we must reject this solitary vision of desire to claim the pleasure fundamental to our freedom.

Sex in Public offers a revolutionary new paradigm for understanding sexuality. Sex is never strictly personal, but relentlessly social, shaped by power relations, and possessing outsized power of its own. To make this case, Jones charts the inner and interrelated workings of our desires, behaviors, identities, relationships, and communities. 

Guiding readers through field-leading sociology, sexual science, and the voices of sexual rule-breakers worldwide, Jones pinpoints the repressive forces that distort eroticism’s power, but also reveals our means of breaking free. Championing a rebellious spirit that uplifts bodily autonomy, justice, and care, Sex in Public makes a tantalizing promise: better sex lives and empowerment await, if only we dare to know our sexualities fully, reimagining society as we do.

Zimbabwean girl meets gender-fluid Afro-Brit boy. They can't stand each other but fall hopelessly in love, before being traumatised into separate paths by their mutual prejudices

Shamiso is a young girl, thoughtful but uncertain, taken by her family from rural Zimbabwe to bustling Harare. As she grows up there, she watches the world: her distant, stern father, her angry stepmother and her father's strange, loving cousin, the elderly Jimson, who encourages Shamiso to discover her passion for art, her place in their family, and her voice in the world.

When she takes a leap to leave Zimbabwe behind for Brighton, England, Shamiso must find a new family and a new way of living. There she falls in love for the first time with George - whose female identity, Georgie, is everything Shamiso has ever wanted or needed. But can such happiness last, when neither of them knows yet who they truly are?

Quirky, challenging and mischievous, this tender coming-of-age story brilliantly examines selfhood, love and the many shapes family can take. From first moments to final steps, Shamiso is a thought-provoking, blazing work of modern existence and all its contradictions.

An inspiring and practical catalyst to break out of survival mindset and walk in the fullness of God’s plan for your life—from the New York Times bestselling author of When God Speaks.

With so much happening in the world, we are carrying more than we ever expected—pressure, responsibilities, unanswered questions, and the weight of discerning what matters most in uncertain times. But there is a revelation to be found right where you are.

Pastor, prophet, and bestselling author Joshua Giles weaves together spiritual and behavioral insights to help you move out of survival mode and into the life God is calling you to live. Discover how to

• identify and break free from survival mode’s gravitational pull
• let go of the past and begin dreaming again about your future
• understand the transitions between your night and day seasons—and receive the promises and blessings in both
• recognize spiritual resistance at pivotal moments and respond with wisdom, authority, and faith
• design your environment to better support your calling

This message is a catalyst to awaken you to the gifts and opportunities around you and build the future God has planned.

Your moment is here. It’s time to shift your life.

"Randall tricks the heart into feeling by using sleight of language...[and] explores what it means to try to fix the fractured bits of our emotional lives, regardless of age. A gift!" ―#1 New York Times-bestselling author Jason Reynolds

"Absolutely vibrating with energy and heart, Shook is a masterful middle-grade novel." ―Newbery Honoree Jasmine Warga

Shake's dream of making the varsity basketball team is in peril when he gets injured. Can he rebound and make his way back onto the court―and back to feeling like himself? For fans of Kwame Alexander and Jason Reynolds.

Beautifully designed with illustrations.

Malik Page―though unless you're his mama, call him "Shake"―dreams of making the Marshall Grove varsity basketball squad as an eighth grader. Then he'll be on his way to joining the ranks of Chicago legends like his pops and late Uncle Kenny. But when Shake fractures his ankle in a championship game, he's sidelined for the first time since his first dribble.

As his world is turned upside down, Shake feels like there’s ginger ale bubbling in his chest and sweat slicking on his palms. With a best friend who’s getting more distant by the day, a growing silence between him and his dad, and varsity tryouts fast approaching, Shake will have to cross up every obstacle to find a way back onto the court―and back to being himself. Thankfully in Marshall Grove, the sky is always full of hope.

"Readers, make permanent room on your shelves―and in your hearts― for this witty and poignant novel." ―National Book Award winner Elizabeth Acevedo

"Stunning. This book is powerful." ―Newbery Medalist Tae Keller

"Witty, electric and profound, Randall’s verse dribbles, twists and weaves highlighting the complicated inner world of a middle-school boy with nuance and care." ―National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride

A lyrically haunting and powerful account of women surviving femicide and destruction in Mexico, using fantasy to relate atrocities that exist beyond language.

From the award-winning author of the highly praised novel, Fury, one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of 2024 and an Indie Next Pick.

Silencio tells the story of Águeda, a young woman mourning the death of her mother. When the townspeople deny her a grave in the local cemetery, the mother’s body vanishes. Águeda knows her father is hiding it, and when she confronts him, he punishes her defiance with confinement.

Serving her sentence in a house, Águeda lives within those walls as if in a second maternal womb—one that will transform her. In chapters alternating between the real and the imaginary, she mourns the destroyed futures of those who were silenced as she listens to her neighbors’ stories of loss—a child worker; a boy from the Tacuate community; and Mexican refugees in Canada. Through the walls, she senses the world: birds in dialogue, the beauty of the arid landscape, experiences of love and devastation. She comes to realize that in this mountain region that resembles the author’s hometown of Oaxaca, where organized crime holds sway, many—like her—mourn their dead and search for the disappeared.

In her second book to be translated into English, Clyo Mendoza transcends the limits of language and realism to represent with lyric brutality the unspeakable violence in towns where narcotrafficking rules.

A dark, emotionally charged thriller where three sisters, bound by blood and divided by secrets, are forced to confront the violent past that made them.

Stormi Feathers learned early that monsters can live inside the people meant to protect you. The night she stopped her mother's abuser, she also silenced her fear and awakened something darker within herself. Years later, she and her sisters, Rayne and Skye, have built a shadow empire that delivers justice to those the system forgets. Each woman has a role- Rayne handles logistics, Skye covers digital traces, and Stormi carries out the sentences. Together, they've turned pain into power.

But when Stormi meets Niles Grey, a former homicide detective with a haunted past, she feels something she's long suppressed. For the first time, she begins to imagine a life untouched by violence, until she discovers Niles is connected to an unlikely suspect.

Now Stormi must choose between protecting her sisters and trusting the one man who makes her believe she deserves more than vengeance.

Any girl would kill to be a Gamma.

“Barber and Shaienne’s juicy, sexy, vicious collab is like America’s Next Top Model stitched with The Art of War. You’ll be equally riveted by the reality TV-level drama and the raw authenticity of the characters in this sure-to-go-viral sorority rush thriller.” ― Layne Fargo, bestselling author of The Favorites and They Never Learn

Being a Gamma at Southern State University means belonging to the most desirable, exclusive sisterhood there is. For Ava, it means even more―it’s the last connection she has to her beloved late mother, and she’ll do anything to wear the Gamma letters.

But the Gammas didn’t become the best house on campus by letting just anyone in, and every prospective pledge is expected to earn her spot. As president, Madison is the ultimate gatekeeper, and she has a special test for Ava.

Rival sorority Theta is nipping at the Gammas’ heels for the top spot on campus, and president Shay is proud they’ve gotten there by rising above the hyper-competitive gamesmanship that consumes other houses. She knows she’s made some enemies in her quest to change the Greek system from the inside, but she can’t imagine the depth of Madison’s resentment for her … or how far Ava will go to become a Gamma.

The sisterhood, the parties, the elite status―and the connection to her mother―are what Ava has always wanted, but she never guessed the cost of membership would be so high. Three women, two houses, one dead body: rush has never been this messy.

Raven Leilani’s Luster meets Halle Butler’s The New Me, SOFT SPOTS is a darkly funny and off-kilter coming-of-age novel following recent college graduate Robin Clarke after she runs away from her family, only to be forced to confront whether she should reconcile with her father when his health takes a sudden turn for the worst.

After miraculously securing a teaching job at a dysfunctional high school, loner Robin moves to South Bend, Indiana, where she’s paired with an eerily perfect roommate: Naomi. Freshly estranged from her abusive parents, Robin obsesses over two absurd goals: to be the best teacher at the school, despite never having taught, and to become best friends with Naomi, who could not be more her opposite. Meanwhile back home, Robin’s brother must decide between being loyal to his sister or their parents.

Just as Robin grows closer to her students and Naomi, she receives earth-shattering news from her brother. Desperate to cope, Robin redoubles her efforts to befriend Naomi, spiraling even deeper into obsession and self-sabotage. Everything comes to a head when one of Robin’s many bad choices come back to bite her, and she must confront the limits of forgiveness, the weight of memory, and the true cost of estrangement.

WINNER OF THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

“An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South—and thus of America—by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration.” —Isabel Wilkerson

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. South to America is an essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South—and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America

We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.

Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Analyzing how artists reimagine migrant disappearance and visibility at the US–Mexico border.

In the mid-1990s, the US government implemented Prevention through Deterrence, a major buildup of troops, walls, and surveillance around El Paso and San Diego. Cut off from these crucial urban crossings, migrants flowed into the dangerous surrounding deserts, where some ten thousand have since died. This is all according to plan: Pentagon documents describe the strategy of funneling migrants toward “mortal danger.”

In this bracing critique, China Medel explores the aesthetics enabling and resisting the crisis of migrant death. The nation-state’s performance of sovereignty along the border, predicated on mass casualties, is tolerated and even celebrated, thanks to the images in our heads of racialized and therefore criminal bodies, made invisible as they disintegrate in the baking sand. Spectral Aesthetics shows how state officials and mainstream media, relying on postracial ideologies and white-supremacist agendas, collectively foster this picture of a brown body so abject that it is disposable. In close readings of artworks contesting this murderous visual regime, Medel discovers an alternative kind of sight, one emphasizing the ghostly traces of the dead. These are images not of the individual “alien” but of life itself, indisposable.

Michael Jackson’s closest sister pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of the Jackson family, Michael’s tortured soul, and her own love for her brother in this intimate portrait of a beloved, yet troubled, pop legend.

In this shocking New York Times bestselling memoir, La Toya Jackson pays heartfelt tribute to her legendary brother Michael’s tortured soul and offers unprecedented insight into the troubled entertainer’s tragic destruction.

La Toya Jackson was always closer to Michael than anyone knew. Now, she sheds light on the intimate moments she shared with the beloved pop legend and unveils the disturbing behind-the-scenes dealings that she believes foretold his death. Like Michael, La Toya experienced an upbringing that made her vulnerable to exploitation, and her own journey led to hell and back at the hands of her former manager and husband. Here, in vivid and candid detail, she reveals the most painful episodes of her deeply personal story and explores how anyone—regardless of fame, fortune, or status—can be trapped in a cycle of abuse. La Toya ultimately found the courage to break free, rebuild her life and career, and reconcile with her close-knit family. Her unforgettable story will touch the hearts of millions of fans and inspire anyone who feels as if there’s nowhere to go that it is possible to truly start over...

A twisty thriller about a woman who vanishes from a luxury hotel, and the detective who believes the case is tied to the unsolved disappearances of other Black women in the city.

Giovanni Mason worked hard to become the first Black head concierge at Chicago’s exclusive and glamorous Ivory Hotel. It’s a job that requires patience, perfection, and, above all, self-control. But when Giovanni reunites with her former best friend, makeup influencer Natalie Moore, things get heated as a mending of fences morphs into a public argument in the hotel restaurant, and Giovanni loses her cool. Hours later, Natalie is missing. Evidence piles against Giovanni—a ransacked, blood-spattered hotel room, fresh bruises on her body, and a troubling gap in her memory from the last twelve hours.

Detective Redding Stark is the only one unconvinced of Giovanni’s guilt. She sees disturbing parallels to a series of disappearances targeting Black women and believes Natalie’s case is part of something bigger. Together, she and Giovanni are pulled into a dangerous web of privilege, power, and betrayal inside—and far beyond—the walls of the Ivory Hotel.

Will Giovanni and Detective Stark find Natalie or join the missing?

Returning to print after nearly 50 years, Survivor completes Octavia E. Butler’s thrilling Patternist series, including a short story from the Patternist saga and new historical essays from a major Butler scholar.

This deluxe edition includes: 
* An incredible new cover and package
* Premium French flaps and newly designed, full color interior covers
*  High-quality paper with elegant deckled-edges  

The Patternist books (Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, and Patternmaster) comprise Butler's longest, most complex series, stretching from late 17th century Africa to outer space in the far future, as rival factions of humanity develop incredible powers—only to use them to subjugate others. For nearly half a century, the fourth volume, Survivor, has been out of print at Octavia E. Butler's request.

It tells the story of Alanna, a colonist fleeing a plague-scarred Earth. But the planet she lands on is inhabited by the alien Kohn, whose battling tribes soon trap Alanna in their war. She must make alliances—while plotting betrayals. She must protect her heart—while putting it at risk. And she must decide if the best way to retain her humanity . . . is to leave it behind.

Now returning to print, Survivor is put into its proper historical context thanks to contributions from scholar and Octavia E. Butler Fellow Alyssa Collins.
This long-awaited volume also contains "A Necessary Being," the only short fiction set in the Patternist universe, to finally, fully bring together and complete the Patternist series for readers everywhere.

America’s favorite astrophysicist has written the most entertaining and universally appealing book of his stellar career: a practical guide for dealing with Alien visitors, an exploration of how it might happen, and a cultural history of our fascination with extraterrestrials.

“Ever since childhood,” writes Neil deGrasse Tyson, “I’ve wanted to be abducted by Aliens.”

Take Me to Your Leader is the culmination of a lifetime of fascination, speculation, and the amassing of scientific data about the possibility of Aliens visiting Earth. Drawing on a wealth of depictions from history, literature, pop culture, and film, Tyson applies the universal laws of physics to make the case for what Aliens might look like, act like, how they might travel through the universe to reach us, and what they might think of us upon arrival. Should such an event occur, Tyson further offers useful etiquette tips for your first close encounter.

If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many UFO sightings, or whether Aliens might already be among us, Tyson offers an informed perspective that is both factual and fun. Take Me to Your Leader is a tantalizing exploration of what would be the most mind-blowing experience of your life—the book for anyone who has ever wondered: Are we alone?

Most Anticipated Book of 2026: People

"Take What You Can is so brilliantly, unbelievably good I have a burning in my heart.... Love is utterly bewildering, and nobody writes about it better than Naima Coster."—Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

From the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, a rich, panoramic exploration of female friendship, class, new motherhood, and independence

Val and Milly fell in love with France at the same time they fell in love with each other and became immediate best friends. Then, they bonded as the only Black students on a study-abroad trip. Now, they are in their thirties, each married and with a baby girl on the way. When Milly suggests Val move to New York to raise their daughters together after a decade apart, it’s a resounding yes.

Despite their excitement, the pair secretly wonder if their friendship has always worked best as a trio. From that first trip to France, these two motherless daughters were taken under the wing of an older woman named Helene. She showered them with money, love and attention, and showed them the possibilities of a meaningful future. But without Helene, who are Milly and Val?

Milly, a successful influencer married to restaurant royalty, is occupied with her desire for independence. Val, a brilliant journalist, is struggling to write her first book and fit into her old friend’s new world. The realities of class and social capital, of strained marriages and the demands of motherhood, serve as constant reminders of how far apart they’ve grown. And no matter how much they try to avoid it, everything comes back to the rift that began all those years ago in France. What they’ve long tried to bury may finally destroy their sisterhood.

Weaving between Brooklyn brownstones and the glittering beaches of southern France, Take What You Can is a dazzling novel exploring what it means to be a mother when you have none, a sister without blood ties, and a woman in pursuit of the life she wants. With her signature sharply-observed prose, Coster illustrates what it means to be—and to stay—someone’s person through all phases of life.

A profound and poetic memoir, tracing the wounds that racism and colonialism have left on Black people across borders. 

With astute insight and immersive prose, Bonhomme outlines a personal and political history of life in the United States, Haiti, and Germany, discovering what it means to be Black at home and abroad. She unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism and explores how communities are resisting the weight of centuries of history.

Whether examining debt, medical racism, art, or reparations, Tending to Our Wounds cuts a breathtaking course between the past and the present, the individual and the collective―identifying the tendrils of history in the everyday and outlining a path to real freedom.

A major landmark of 20th-century Caribbean poetry. “Those who lament that the Age of Giants is over have evidently never read Kamau Brathwaite” (Eliot Weinberger)

Here, in a single volume, is Kamau Brathwaite’s early groundbreaking trilogy The Arrivants―containing Rights of Passage (1967), Masks (1968), and Islands (1969)―a brilliant and visionary exploration of the predicament of the poet living in the New World. Through the tension of regional dialect, musical rhythms, historical flashbacks, and excursions to Europe, New York, and Africa, Brathwaite interweaves the past and present of his Caribbean homeland―its natural beauty, its violent history, and the values that sustain its people―into a vigorous and unforgettable poetic work.

A radical reclamation of the Black Madonna as a liberatory figure that offers a richly spiritual and politically charged vision of Black divinity and resistance.

Social psychologist and author of God Is a Black Woman Christena Cleveland brings forth Black Madonna as a Divine icon and spiritual home. This is a call to reclaim a spirituality that has always been ours. Through story, image, reflection, and ritual, the spiritually curious and justice-minded are invited to move beyond dogma and toward embodied, mystical liberation. Written in a voice that bridges scholarship and devotion, this work is for all who are longing for a decolonized, diasporic, and feminine-rooted sacred—one that speaks directly to the soul’s hunger for belonging, meaning, and collective healing.

Drawing on Christian mysticism, Black feminist theology, ancestral memory, and global iconography, this work is both a historical excavation and a contemporary invocation of an iconic figure. Each chapter brings the reader into conversation with a different embodiment of the Black Madonna, from ancient statues hidden in caves to modern artistic visions, illuminating her power as a sacred symbol.

Both an epic history and an intimate family story, a startling account of the lives of Black cops in one Midwestern city.

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, a Black police organization in Cleveland called the Black Shield was causing a stir. Officers broke ranks with their fellow cops, aligning themselves with local Black Lives Matter activists and supporting demands for radical reforms. In the midst of these fissures, Wilbert L. Cooper returned to his hometown to write a profile of the organization's president, who had become notorious years earlier for shooting a young unarmed Black man.

For Cooper, the news was deeply personal. Both of his parents are retired Black Cleveland cops, his sister was a Cleveland cop, and on his mother's side, there’s been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. Unearthing the dramatic histories of the Black Shield and his own family, Cooper tells the intertwined stories of the two: his relatives, who trace their roots back to the Great Migration and who chose policing because it was one of the few stepping stones to economic security and status in a segregated city; and an organization that, over decades of cultural and political upheaval, cycled endlessly between rebellion and acquiescence.

An intimate, bold work of literary nonfiction, The Black Shield is an urgent exploration of the complex duality of the Black cop. Cooper grapples with a knot of contradictions: Is the Black officer a sign of progressive change, or of the system’s masterful way of changing its appearance without changing its outcomes? How can he reconcile the fact that policing helped lift his family out of poverty, and the equally real panic that accompanies being pulled over? Fearless and singularly powerful, Cooper gives us an American story about race and power of a kind that has never been told before.

An extraordinary new novel about family, legacy, and an inherited curse, from National Book Award–nominated author LaToya Watkins

Set across Texas and spanning four generations, The Book of Chuck is a gimlet-eyed investigation into birthright and belonging through the story of one family in which certain members have clairvoyant powers.

“Pa, no go. Him burn.” When baby Nannie utters these prophetic words in 1936, she marks herself as cursed. The ability to see death before it happens forever changes the course of her life, and the lives of her descendants.

Forty years later, Chuck is about to become a father. He intends to make a home filled with love, unlike the one he was born into. But when he begins paying visits to his estranged mother, Nannie, in search of answers, she starts pushing him away from the life he’s always wanted.

It’s the cusp of a new millennium, and Baby is on the precipice of major change. Her mother is packing up their home and moving them into a religious community that believes the world is ending. But when Baby begins to have surprising visions of death, she investigates her lineage, piecing together what she can about her father, Chuck, and her family’s deeply shrouded past. These visions, once seen as a curse, become an indelible link to her history—recasting what she thought she understood of love, parentage, and prophecy.

Selected as One of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2025

A Barack Obama Summer Read

A Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Shelf Awareness, Toronto Star, and Publishers Weekly Best of the Year

Kirkus Reviews Best Historical Fiction

The New York Times bestseller and “horror masterpiece” (NPR) from Stephen Graham Jones—the master of modern horror—is a chilling historical horror novel tracing the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

“Jones has written his Interview with the Indigenous Vampire. A landmark of horror and historical fiction alike, perhaps the closest thing we have to horror’s Moby-Dick.” —Vulture

“Inventive and spine-tingling…a master class in voice. Queasy, uneasy, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter plays with the interplay between religion and historical guilt, identity and appetite.” —The Washington Post

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

From one of America's most cherished and celebrated poets, a landmark collection of Nikki Giovanni's early work from the transformational years of 1968-1998!

“Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures.”—Gloria Naylor

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, HarperCollins is proud to present this library of American classics drawn from our storied catalog. This timeless classic brings readers Nikki Giovanni's poems from her books Black Feeling Black Talk; Black Judgement; Re: Creation; My House; The Women and the Men; Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day; and Those Who Ride the Night Winds.

When Nikki Giovanni’s poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, she immediately took a place among the most celebrated and controversial artists of our time. More than 50 years later, Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices to grace America’s political and poetic landscape.

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, these poems heralded the arrival of an indelible literary voice that resounds to this day.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times

From Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock, a sermon in the public square on the issues that plague us most

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination.

His sermon on the book of Isaiah draws from ideals resonant in his own faith and all the great faiths and other moral traditions, offering a bold vision of how to live and relate to one another in the land. A moral topography, he calls it, a geopolitics that centers love and justice, or as Dr. King would so often say, the beloved community. The Crooked Places Made Straight examines six crises at the center of American life: voting rights and voter suppression, gun violence, mass incarceration, the persistence of poverty, dark money in politics, and the climate emergency.

This is not a naive faith, either. As Senator Warnock writes: Isaiah is no stranger to frustration with institutional leadership. He knows well the perils of public corruption, sophisticated legalized bribery, and a political class more interested in preserving its own power than in serving the people. . . . He’s fed up with political leaders who are focused on their own gain at the expense of the people. “Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves,” he says.

For Senator Warnock, democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea. A vote is a kind of prayer. The Crooked Places Made Straight is his inspiring vision for a more just and equitable America where communities thrive with hope and possibility and every child has a chance.

“Now offered in translation for the first time, this collection featuring women navigating societal expectations (and their small rebellions) is a classic.” — Boston Globe

A spiky, edgy collection of five sly yet sensitive stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult” women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time.

The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In “Naked,” a woman who’s simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a “loser” in the eyes of society. In “Planarian,” a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women—as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work—chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men.

First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic—available for the first time outside Asia and in English—remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.

Translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom

From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings: a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences

In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gay―a “battyman” in Jamaican argot―and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare.

One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical. As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution.

In The Disappearers, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ● READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

From the award-winning author of A Good Kind of Trouble, Lisa Moore Ramée, comes a hilarious and heartfelt young middle grade novel, in the vein of Judy Blume, about friendship, fitting in, and the ups and downs of middle school. Sure to resonate with fans of Rebecca Stead, Meg Medina, and Kelly Yang.

Eleven-year-old Kylie’s friends seem so much more mature than she is. And with middle school just a summer away, she’s worried her friends might leave her behind, especially because she keeps embarrassing them.

So Kylie applies her scientific brain to solve the problem and comes up with the Everybody Experiment:

Hypothesis: Kylie Stanton will be mature if she does what everybody else does.

Experiment: This summer, when all of Kylie’s friends do something, she will do it too.

Suddenly it’s a whole new grown-up world for Kylie, with parties, unsupervised excursions, and boys. But the more research Kylie puts into the Everybody Experiment, the more she begins to wonder how she can do what everybody else does . . . without letting go of herself.

Guilt, shame, and suspicion swirl as a small community in upstate New York turns on itself in this moody, propulsive thriller from the award-winning writer of In West Mills.

“Endlessly entertaining . . . Does anyone write about the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality with more honesty and intensity than De’Shawn Charles Winslow?”—Wiley Cash, author of When Ghosts Come Home

The truth is closer than you think—just beyond the fence.

The year is 1982, and the people of the Hudson Valley community of Fervent have begun to move on from a homicide that upended the once quiet town. When the former neighbors who were convicted of the crime, James and Ella White, are proven innocent, released from prison, and return to Fervent, some people have cause for concern.

Sylvia Upshaw and her best friend, Lafayette “Fate” Jolly, are uneasy about the Whites’ return. While the Whites were incarcerated, Sylvia revealed an explosive secret to their adopted son, Morgan, with devastating consequences. During the murder trial, Fate’s testimony helped seal their fate. James and Ella won’t let the betrayals go unpunished. Sylvia and Fate quickly become victims of harassment from the Whites, and when another murder is committed in Fervent, the town is left to fend for itself.

Intimate and chilling, The Fervent Whites examines how small communities with long-simmering tensions behave when pushed to the limits of civility.

An American sports legend offers a sweeping Black history of boxing, celebrating the trailblazing athletes who fought in the ring and against racial injustice.

Features a 16-page photo insert.

Here is Peter Jackson, a free-born Black tradesman and boxer from the island of St. Croix who KO’d the white boxer Tom Leeds in the thirtieth round to win the Australian Heavyweight championship in 1886. Most white fighters refused to get into the ring with Jackson. “Gentleman” Jim Corbett was one of the few who not only fought him, but said of him afterwards that Jackson was the most intelligent fighter he ever faced and could beat any heavyweight that Corbett ever fought or ever saw.

Here too of course are boxing legends Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, but also the dozens of outstanding Black boxers who fought from the late 1800s to the end of the 20th century, overcoming their opponents and facing discrimination in an array of forms, from being disqualified unfairly after winning fights to being mobbed and injured in the ring by white assailants while referees and judges looked on impassively, to having mobster managers who gave them only a minute portion of their winnings.

Here is Joe Gans, the first American-born Black boxer to win a world championship, in 1902, and who dominated the sport throughout the first decade of the 20th century. Here too is Sam Langford, who became heavyweight champ in 1923. But through most of the first half of the twentieth century Black boxers were separated into Black leagues and there were Black champions rather than world champions who were Black. That all began to change in the 1930s with Joe Louis. A new generation of Black boxers would come up after him, standing on Joe Louis’s shoulders, Floyd Patterson, George Foreman, Sonny Liston, Archie Moore, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Joe Frazier, and finally the young Cassius Clay, who would rename himself Muhammad Ali and come to dominate the sport for decades, and after him, though not a heavyweight, the great Sugar Ray Leonard.

Scott’s unique perspective brings fresh insight and passion even to well-known stories about the fight game, and every time he adds something new.

Douglass’s letters from the 1880s reveal both his unrelenting efforts to protect African American rights and little-known details about his personal life
 
The fourth volume of the Correspondence Series presents Frederick Douglass as a still-influential public figure but also as a man aware that the gains African Americans made during the Civil War and Reconstruction were not as well secured as he had hoped.
 
For this volume, the editors selected 247 of the 914 known letters sent to or from Douglass between 1881 and 1888. An active partisan, Douglass corresponded regularly with Republican party leaders from the local to national level about campaign tactics and strategies. Douglass also often received letters from African Americans who detailed the deteriorating state of race relations across the South in the 1880s. Douglass used his correspondence to advance the political stature of Republicans he regarded as most sympathetic to protecting African American rights.
 
Douglass wrote about his taste in reading; his fondness for carriage riding; his feuds with family members and neighbors; his first wife, Anna Murray; and his remarriage, to Helen Pitts, and the controversy that the interracial marriage generated. Douglass’s correspondence details the seven-month honeymoon the couple took in Europe and Egypt, the reunion with old abolitionist friends in Great Britain, and candid appraisals of places he visited and people he met overseas.