From beloved content creator Taryn Delanie Smith, comes a luminous and comforting vision of the afterlife—told through her beloved character, Denise, Heaven’s sharp-witted and big-hearted receptionist.

For millions of followers, Denise has become a guide to the great beyond: welcoming new arrivals at Heaven’s front desk, answering their most pressing questions, and offering reassurance with humor, grace, and a knowing wink. What is there to do in Heaven? Can our loved ones still sense us? What about our pets? Do we get to choose our eternal outfit? Denise has heard it all—and she’s ready with answers that are as thoughtful as they are disarming.

In Welcome to the Afterlife, Smith expands the world that has captivated those who know her from social media, inviting readers on a richly imagined tour of the “Upstairs.” From horseback riding and bingo nights to flying lessons and long-awaited reunions, Heaven is revealed as a place of joy, restoration, and deep connection. But Denise doesn’t shy away from the harder questions: What happens to unfinished business? How are babies cared for? How do we forgive ourselves—and each other—once we’ve crossed over?

Along the way, we meet unforgettable souls, and with each encounter, Denise gently reminds us that love endures, and that those we’ve lost are never truly far away.

Behind the humor and sparkle lies Smith’s own grounding in philosophy and religion, lending depth and nuance to Denise’s voice. The result is a work that is at once playful and profound—a comforting meditation on grief, grace, and the invisible threads that bind us to one another.

Warm, funny, and unexpectedly wise, Welcome to the Afterlife offers solace to anyone who has loved and lost—and a hopeful reminder that what awaits us may be far less frightening, and far more beautiful, than we imagine.

Emmy-winning comedian Katt Williams delivers a raw, unfiltered memoir that takes readers on a wild ride from homelessness to Hollywood, revealing the resilience, faith, and unapologetic humor that define his iconic career. With a forward by Shaquille O’Neal.

At thirteen, Micah Williams told his devout Jehovah’s Witness parents he was done. Knocking on doors wasn’t his calling, but knocking out audiences would be. He hitchhiked to Florida, hustled odd jobs, and years later would transform into Katt Williams, Emmy-winner, five-foot-five giant of comedy. The only man in Hollywood who can rock both a press and curl and sold-out arenas.

Katt details the grit and unwavering self-belief that fueled his ascent from an impromptu set at a small Florida comedy club to commanding audiences worldwide. He funded his own tours, kept his ownership, and he learned early that if you’re going to be underestimated, you might as well profit from it.

Katt also reveals the quieter side of the man behind the mic: thoughtful, spiritually grounded, and deeply committed to fatherhood. He addresses the headlines head-on, sets the record straight on his legal battles, while sharing what it really means to survive Hollywood without losing ownership of your money, your voice, or your peace.

From the soul of a man who refuses to fail, this memoir is part comedy masterclass and part middle finger to convention. It’s not just for fans; it’s for anyone who’s ever been told their dreams were too loud. Katt delivers a blueprint for betting on yourself…and winning.

A posthumous book from hip-hop legend DMX that brings readers into the heart of his faith—a raw, redemptive collection of prayers and never-before-seen spiritual writings revealing the struggle and hope behind one of music’s most uncompromising voices. Authorized by the Estate of Earl “DMX” Simmons and carefully curated by co-administrators Desiree Lindstrom and Sasha Simmons, and featuring a foreword by Rakim.

DMX was celebrated for his brutally honest lyrics and raw, emotional delivery. Beneath that intensity was a man of deep and unshakable faith, relentlessly searching for grace while openly wrestling with temptation, suffering, and redemption. His prayers, whether whispered in solitude or spoken before thousands, revealed a soul determined to reconcile pain with purpose and anger with surrender. Through that vulnerability, he transformed hip-hop into testimony.

In quiet moments, DMX recorded his spiritual reflections wherever he could—on napkins, receipts, and hotel notepads—capturing his faith in its most immediate and unfiltered form. The Gospel According to DMX gathers this legacy into a posthumous collection of his prayers, sermons, spiritual writings, and selected lyrics. Presented in a beautifully designed edition crafted to echo the enduring form of a Bible, and including a moving foreword from Rakim, the book features never-before-seen handwritten pages that offer an intimate window into the private devotions of a man whose faith was as fierce as his artistry.

Despite its title, The Gospel According to DMX is not a religious or doctrinal text. Readers should note that some portions of this book contain profanity, explicit language, and mature themes. Earl Simmons's archival materials are presented in their original form and should be considered in the context of the complete body of work.

This handsome hardback edition presents Sun Tzu's classic text, The Art of War, gloriously illustrated with traditional, full-color artwork and striking laser-cut page edges.

The Art of War is one of the most successful treatises on warfare and military strategy of all time. Written by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu in the 6th century BC, it has since been consulted by countless military leaders, politicians and business moguls, from General Gouglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Divided into thirteen chapters covering all aspects of warfare, Sun Tzu's lessons are as relevant today as they ever were. Flexible strategies, quick thinking on the battlefield, the use of intelligence, and understanding the enemy's intentions are all crucial ingredients for success. Whether you wish to get ahead in business, sport, or politics, The Art of War will help you to steal a march on your competitors.

Featuring stunning full-color illustrations throughout and Lionel Giles's classic translation, this attractive hardback edition is a wonderful companion for anyone interested in ancient wisdom.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Edge-Cut Classics series brings together luxurious gift editions of classic works of literature, presented with striking laser-cut, page-edge effects for a spectacular visual finish.

This stunning hardback collection showcases myths and legends that have been told and treasured by the African peoples for generations.

Featuring stories from across the continent and rooted in the diverse cultures from which they originate, the tales within include valuable life lessons that are sure to have a lasting impact. With wise animals, cunning tricksters, and unexpected adventures that will thrill readers young and old, there is much to discover.

This ornate hardback edition features gold embossing on the font and back cover, full-colour endpaper designs, ivory pages and stencilled page-edges, making a wonderful collectible edition for any mythology lover.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Collectable Myth and Legends series contains luxurious gold embossed gift editions of classic myth and legends from around the world, featuring full-colour endpaper designs, ivory pages and striking stencilled page edges.

A stunning collection of African-Australian short stories from the multi-award-winning author Eugen Bacon.

Black Dingo is a cross-genre miscellany that embraces multi-award-winning author Eugen Bacon’s hybridity as an African Australian who is ‘betwixt’, ‘a sum of parts’ – she is a mother, a daughter, a sister, a woman, a writer, an author, an editor, a scholar and a friend. She is many, and it reflects in this collection that transverses transformative stories of longing and belonging, unlimited futures, a collision of worlds, mythology, and more.

Featuring a black heroine, in each story is a cameo or secondary character of a dingo. Black Dingo is sponsored through Eugen’s Otherwise Fellowship awarded by the Otherwise Motherboard; this speculative fiction cases black people in bold and evocative text, at times deeply flawed but potentially redeemable protagonists in rich hues of blackness and light. The literary strange unravels in these genre-bending Afro-irreal tales of longing and belonging, unlimited futures, a collision of worlds and everything in between: rich hues of shadow and light.

The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.

A stunning collection of Black American horror short stories curated by the prolific author-editor-scholar team of Maurice Broaddus and Dr. Chesya Burke.

Edited by award-winning writer, community organizer and educator Maurice Broaddus and scholar, professor and award-winning author Dr. Chesya Burke, with an introduction by Dr. Burke, Black Horror: Canonical Voices from Then to Now is a landmark anthology offering the evolution of Black American literary horror while boldly imagining its future. The stories within recognize the legacy of Black horror, its literary milestones, cultural roots, and innovative voices, while pushing the genre into new, daring territory. Authors featured in the anthology include: Tananarive Due, P. Djeli Clark, Linda D. Addison, Brandon Massey, Justina Ireland, Jewelle Gomez, Sheree Renee Thomas, Wrath James White and Victor Lavalle. It also includes a small selection of stories chosen from open submissions. This book revels in the power of horror to unsettle, illuminate, or transform, while drawing from Black American cultural histories, mythologies, and lived experiences; it will surprise you with fresh nightmares, folklore, and futures, honoring the past while writing fearlessly toward tomorrow.

The Flame Tree Beyond and Within short story collections bring together tales of myth and imagination by modern and contemporary writers, carefully selected by anthologists, and sometimes featuring short stories from a single author. Overall, the series presents a wide range of diverse and inclusive voices with myth, folkloric-inflected short fiction, and an emphasis on the supernatural, science fiction, the mysterious and the speculative. The books themselves are gorgeous, with foiled covers, printed edges and published only in hardcover editions, offering a lifetime of reading pleasure.

Three starred reviews!

In this “beautifully executed victory lap” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) to Jason Reynolds’s award-winning and New York Times bestselling Track series, meet Coach as a boy striving to come into his own as a track star while facing upheaval at home.

Before Coach was the man who gave caring yet firm-handed guidance to Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny on the Defenders track team, he was little Otie Brody, who was obsessed with Mr. 9.99 (a.k.a. Carl Lewis) and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Like Mr. 9.99—and his own dad—Otie is a sprinter. Sprint free or die is practically his motto.

Then his dad, who is always away on business trips, comes home with a pair of Jordans. JORDANS. Fine as fine can be. Otie puts them on and feels like he can leap to the moon…maybe even leap like Mr. 9.99 when he won the Olympic gold medal in the long jump. But one morning he wakes up to find his brand-new secret weapon kicks are missing—right off his feet! And Otie just might have a fuzzy memory of his dad easing them off as Otie was sleeping, but that can’t be right, can it?

Unless all the reasons for his dad’s “gone’s” are very different from what he’s been told… Because now, not only are the Jordans missing, but so is his father.

Hit the ground running with all five books in Jason Reynolds’s award-winning and New York Times bestselling Track series, now available together in one paperback boxed set.

Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. A fast and fiery group of kids from wildly different backgrounds, chosen to compete on an elite track team. They all have a lot to lose, a lot to gain, and, most of all, a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Under the caring yet firm-handed guidance of their coach, however, they may achieve more than they ever dreamed possible.

Here are all their stories, even Coach’s from when he was a boy coming into his own as a track superstar, in this explosive five-book series.

This paperback boxed set includes:
Ghost
Patina
Sunny
Lu
Coach

In this dazzling book, perfect for gift giving, bestselling creators Regis and Kahran Bethencourt shake up Christmas with their iconic flare.

It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!
Let’s vibe with good cheer.
Let’s break out the classics
we share once a year.
 
We recite Christmas poems
and sing carols with soul.
We all get together
to let the good times roll!

Gather around and celebrate the warmth of the season with enchanting photographs by the husband-and-wife duo behind CreativeSoul Photography. Festive favorites—from “Jingle Bells”and “Silent Night“to A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker—are reimagined and paired with glittering photos that capture the beauty of Black and brown children. Like the perfect sugar cookie or most beautifully wrapped gift, every spread brims with holiday cheer.

More picture books from Regis and Kahran Bethencourt:
The Me I Choose to Be
Greatness

In the spirit of American cultural prophecy―from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Rebecca Solnit―acclaimed writer Casey Gerald offers a groundbreaking work of joyous dissent and stunning vision, a survival guide to a society in crisis.

“Somehow Casey Gerald has pulled off the most urgently political, most deeply personal, and most engagingly spiritual statement of our time by just looking outside his window and inside himself. Extraordinary.” ―Marlon James on There Will Be No Miracles Here

Most afternoons for the past three years, Casey Gerald took a walk. He would pass the compound that Elon Musk was building in his neighborhood; the burned-down Freedman's church; the little house where he and his lover Jack had seen a shooting star. He knew the world was crumbling, but he didn't fret. He had been promised: When it breaks, you'll be ready.

"There is a great unfolding going on," Gerald writes, "and all the clues for what's to come are planted in the people." In this quietly redemptive and lyrical book, Gerald shares his map for finding those clues, finding each other, and finding our way out of this dark and wearied time. On the other side of No, Gerald insists, there is a Yes―an embrace of what we really want, what we might finally claim once we refuse.

Calling forth a kaleidoscopic cast, from Odysseus to D'Angelo, Sun Tzu to Simone Biles, Black literati and desert mystics, Gerald implores us to take our power back and to remake the world together, on our terms. Written with Didion's cold eye and Baldwin's unflinching urgency, and with the dark humor of a man who’s seen too much but still wants to see what’s next, The Great Refusal is a lifeline from the other side of ruin.

What if the biggest obstacle to happiness isn't your environment, your past, or other people — but a blindness to some uncomfortable truths about yourself?
 
In the book his fans have been waiting for, one of the internet’s most beloved therapists, Kier Gaines, sets the record straight: mantras and toxic positivity won’t solve your problems. Instead, Gaines offers a bold new path to getting what you want in life: You need to know yourself better. A lot better than you do now.
 
In It All Starts When You Do, Gaines walks you through the hard but rewarding work you need to do when you simply can’t figure out what feels off in your life. Whether your career is stuck in neutral, your family is driving you crazy, or you’re struggling to find love, you'll learn how to:
 
●     Begin healing from the inner wounds you might not even be aware you have
●     Conquer unconscious emotional hijacking
●     Align your actions with your true desires
●     Build self-esteem based on solid evidence and effort, not empty affirmations
●     Stop consuming the empty calories of negative self-talk which can destroy progress
●     Overcome the illusion of comfort that keeps you stuck
●     And much more
 
It All Starts When You Do will arm you with the tools you need to stop sabotaging your life, and get down to the business of living it.

The gripping, untold stories of three unsung Black physicians and their critical contributions to the field of medicine and American culture, from the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Medical Apartheid

Between 1847 and 1952, three New York City doctors transformed medicine, catalyzed racial equity, elevated American culture, then were all but lost to history―until now.

James McCune Smith, MD., Rudolph Fisher, MD., and Louis T. Wright, MD each helped shape our nation and advance medicine while sharing overlapping passions―an uncompromising, even militant opposition to racial fetters; medical research that refused racial denigration; and literary acumen. While not strictly contemporaries, they were bound across time through obstacles that parallel those we confront today. Medical exclusion and disparagement, rampant healthcare inequities paired with housing segregation, racial abuse and police violence, lynching, the suppression of Black history ―and even racial bars to higher medical education―that mirrored today’s challenges to affirmative action. 

In this comprehensive slice of previously unrevealed history, renowned writer and scholar Harriet Washington sheds light on Black physicians who pioneered important medical achievements that benefit the health of all Americans. Renaissance Men draws parallels between contemporary and historical medical exclusion and healthcare inequities and reveals a powerful argument for supporting current medical aspirants of color. Surfacing this long-buried history shows us what genius we stand to lose if medicine doesn’t rectify its current course of racial exclusion.

Perfect for fans of The Shadows Between Us and Powerless, this high stakes romantasy follows a vengeful teen who cons her way into an elite society of tyrannical witches. But her warring feelings for two people—an enemy prince and her childhood friend—could ruin everything.

Caya was once the ward of Coventry’s royal family…until they were killed by the three witch Houses that now rule the peninsula.
 
Now eighteen, Caya plans to infiltrate the witches' glittering world to enact justice. With the help of a mysterious benefactor, she adopts the persona of Marisol Vinyet, a disarmingly beautiful aristocrat. As Marisol, she'll attend the annual Coronet, a cutthroat social season during which witches increase their power by binding new members to their Houses. The Coronet will draw even the prince of neighboring Domingo—Tómas Castellan—to the peninsula just in time for “Marisol” to kill him. After all, his family set the witches upon Coventry in the first place.
 
But Tómas is more charming than Caya ever anticipated. Worse, her estranged childhood friend, Bas Arroyo, is the prince’s protector, and she struggles to control her complicated feelings for him.
 
To take down the witches from within, Caya will have to keep both her identity and her desperate heart under wraps: Although she’s made herself a weapon, she might be the one to bleed.

A sixth grader discovers she has synesthesia in this middle grade graphic novel about rumors, friendship, and the power of new (and colorful!) perspectives. Perfect for fans of Allergic.

Most kids have five senses. Rosie has six.

Eleven-year-old Rosie can sense colors—and she thought everyone else could, too. After the first meeting of her middle school’s math league ends in confusion, Rosie wonders why nobody seems to know that every letter, number, and song has a special hue of their own. While her best friend Harper is too busy impressing the cool kids to care, Rosie befriends Yara, a lonely classmate who informs her that this condition has a name—synesthesia! But when Rosie’s secret gets out, rumors start to spread. The math league's first tournament is only a few weeks away, and no one trusts the girl with “brain colors” anymore.

With difficult friendships and a competitive academic club to navigate, can Rosie find the courage to embrace her unique gift after all?

Malcolm Gladwell returns with his most urgent book yet: a provocative investigation of America's epidemic of gun violence. 

The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?

In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity”―how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.

Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?

In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.

A powerful memoir about the path to freedom and justice from one of the most important activists in American history, freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Editions line.

Born into slavery in New York, Isabella Baumfree became Sojourner Truth, one of the 19th century’s most powerful and outspoken advocates for abolition and women’s rights. In her remarkable 1850 narrative—dictated to a friend because she could not read or write—she recounts her incredible journey to freedom.

This foundational work of American literature offers an intimate and unflinching account of the brutalities of slavery in the North, the spiritual awakening that fueled Truth’s activism, and her tireless fight for justice. Both raw and deeply moving, her autobiography is a testament to speaking truth to power.

This debut novel from a former NFL player is a hard-hitting, heart wrenching crime novel that brilliantly blends elements of jazz, football, and a gritty portrait of a city divided―perfect for fans of S.A. Cosby and Walter Mosley.

Coltrane Davis is at once a knight and a hustler. He has risen to wealth and success, graduating from San Diego's back alleys to the halls of power through his partnership with Saul Sollman, a crooked kingmaker among the city's elite. Running multimillion dollar scams with Saul, he has been Saul's fixer, but now he wants out of the hustle so that he can focus on his teenage daughter's burgeoning tennis career and finally be the dad he has always wanted to be.

But when the Los Angeles Chargers' star running back vanishes one evening before a big game, Coltrane is drawn into an investigation of what happened by Saul and his protégé, the player's agent; the stakes escalate with a gut-punch when the trail leads into San Diego’s underworld of drugs and prostitution and reveals clues to the disappearance of his daughter's best friend, whose loss has haunted him.

Torn by the unreconcilable demands of the life he can't seem to quit and the fierce desire he has to protect his own, Coltrane brings himself and his loved ones to the brink of destruction in his quest to free himself once and for all of Saul's control―and focus on what really matters: family.

The defining and uncompromising memoir from Super Bowl quarterback and renowned Civil Right activist, Colin Kaepernick.

On September 1, 2016, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, but the world has never fully understood the whole story. Not the "why." Not what it cost. Not what it took to become the man who was ready for that moment.

That story begins in Turlock, California, where Kaepernick, a Black kid adopted into a white family, spent his earliest years navigating an identity the world around him didn't always know how to hold. Everything that connected him to who he truly was--his Blackness, his culture, his sense of self--was met with resistance. Sports became his refuge and his proving ground. On the field, his talent could not be questioned, minimized, or taken from him. It was the one space that was entirely his. And what that space produced was extraordinary: a quarterback whose arm and instincts would carry him to the Super Bowl and into the history books.

But success brought with it an education he hadn't anticipated. He began to see the NFL not just as a league, but as a mirror of American capitalism, of racial exploitation, of a country that celebrated Black entertainment and criminalized Black lives in the same breath. He had been reading: Malcolm X. Muhammad Ali. Huey P. Newton. Angela Davis. He had been watching. And what he saw in the NFL, in Turlock, in the repeated, unpunished killing of Black and Brown Americans by the very systems claiming to protect them, converged into an undeniable truth: this was not someone else's fight. It was his. It is ours.

When Kaepernick knelt, he was not acting on impulse. He was acting on years of becoming, of absorbing, reckoning, and refusing to look away. In response, the NFL blackballed him, the country revealed its true self, and the man who had spent his whole life earning his place chose, deliberately, to risk all of it for something larger than himself.

But in the ten years since he took a knee, the questions his protest raised about race, power, identity, and the courage it takes to fight for a more equitable world have not gone away. They are the questions of our time. They are the questions this book answers.

In THE PERILOUS FIGHT, Kaepernick delivers his story with the same unflinching conviction that defined the moment the world watched. Equal parts memoir and manifesto, it traces the off-the-field battles that turned a single act of protest into a movement that changed American sports and culture forever. This is the story of a man who became someone the moment demanded. It is a story about identity, sacrifice, and the cost of courage. And it is, ultimately, a story about all of us and the future we are still fighting to build.

A hemispheric history of how free and fugitive antebellum African Americans sought freedom in Latin America 

"A groundbreaking account of African American freedom struggles." ―Alice Baumgartner, author of South to Freedom

Fifty years before the United States went to war over the issue, Chile abolished slavery. Colombia followed in 1821, and Mexico soon after. Black Americans took note. As plantation slavery terrorized their communities, Latin America emerged as the place they could be free.

Many have written about the Underground Railroad and northward migration to Canada, but for thousands of African Americans, freedom lay to the south. Abolitionists from Boston to San Antonio celebrated anti-slavery efforts in Latin America.  Freed and fugitive slaves began to see the region as a viable place to migrate, a land where they could find stability, safety, and opportunity. Some went on their own initiative. Others were motivated by organized political movements, like a Lincoln-backed colony in Panama and hotly debated proposals for mass emigration to Central America. 

Drawing on travelogues, runaway slave ads, and hundreds of other archival sources across the Americas, Yesenia Barragan rewrites conventional histories of slavery in the antebellum era to prove that emancipation was a hemispheric effort. Eloquent and cutting-edge, In Latin America You Could Be Free is a powerful account of how African Americans pursued freedom in the darkest of circumstances.

This festive picture book celebrates the culture, community, and family at the heart of Kwanzaa’s seven principlesby a two-time Coretta Scott King Award recipient.

When Kanoni receives a kinara for Christmas, she begins to learn about Kwanzaa and prepare for her first celebration. That same night, her neighbor's home catches fire and burns down. Emboldened by the holiday spirit of giving, Kanoni, with her big heart, pledges to do everything she can to help her friends through this difficult ordeal. Her first Kwanzaa is full of kindness and community―just the way Kwanzaa should be.

Through lyrical poems full of holiday warmth, this heartfelt picture book follows Kanoni’s first Kwanzaa and highlights the many different ways to uplift its seven principles.

Celebrate a child's first experience meeting a Black Santa Claus!

Christmas is just around the corner, and Khalil can’t wait to celebrate with his favorite traditions. He’s excited to search for the perfect tree, dance to festive jingles, and, of course, meet Santa. But after a classmate says his drawing of Santa isn’t quite right, Khalil is left with one important question:

Is there a Santa like me? 
 
With inspiring text from Tonya Abari and warm illustrations from Raissa Figueroa, this story pairs holiday joy with the power of representation.

A dying gangster's plea sends Joe King Oliver on a quest for a missing woman across America's coasts―unraveling a dark and violent family history along the way―in this engrossing new novel from one of the most celebrated and acclaimed crime writers at work today.

Joe King Oliver is the big man you call to solve the most delicate and dangerous of problems. Fresh off unraveling the mystery of his own parents’ fates, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer.

Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing.

As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right?

The must-have companion for classic cocktails, mocktails, and creative drinks, plus historical insights, from a celebrated industry icon.

Good Spirits is a culture-rich cocktail exploration that seamlessly blends practiced technique with deep historical knowledge. For master bartender and cocktail educator Tiffanie Barriere, the bar has always been a place where history, creativity, and community combine. From gold-standard martinis and expert Manhattans to drinks inspired by mood, the cocktail curious will learn not only how to skillfully mix and pour with joy, but also about the fascinating and often untold history behind our favorite drinks and spirits.

In addition to the backstories and recipes for 125 cocktails, enthusiasts will find illuminating essays about choosing and using spirits and the legacies (both bitter and sweet) behind them; important historical figures who invented our favorite drinks, liqueurs, and bar tools; and truths that track the impact of trends and cocktail movements. Zero-proof variations abound thanks to the ingenious concept of cocktail “stock”, while dozens of bold-flavored syrups, shrubs, and infusions make it just as easy and exciting to take a drink in a no-alcohol direction as a boozy one. Insights on tools, garnishing, ice types, and the difference between shaking, rolling, and aerating set you up to hone your mixology and make drinks with confidence.

Malcolm Gladwell’s most urgent book yet: a provocative investigation of America’s epidemic of gun violence.

The United States has far more homicides than any of its peers around the world. Why?

In this groundbreaking book, Malcolm Gladwell explores the American “peculiarity”―how the world’s wealthiest country came to suffer from a problem typically only seen in the world’s poorest countries.

Drawing on original interviews, archival and social science research, and his trademark insight, Gladwell approaches the American paradox through a series of stories. What can we learn from the miracle of a young gunshot victim in Washington, D.C.? How have the legal troubles of a seventeenth-century English knight influenced American attempts at gun control? Why would a European police chief be baffled by the graduation ceremony at any American police academy?

In a sweeping narrative, Gladwell travels from a shooting range in North Carolina, to the South Side of Chicago, to an old plantation house in Alabama, painting a picture of a country that does not understand its most pressing social problem, and as result, does not understand how to fix it.

*As featured as an editor's pick on Radio Four's OPEN BOOK*

*One of the Guardian's books to look out for in 2024*

"An immersive feminist novel that meshes the personal and political to moving effect" Preti Taneja, Financial Times

"A brilliant novel of the Palestinian diaspora. Funny and gritty, and bursting with life and humour" Ahdaf Soueif, Guardian

Born a girl to parents who expected a boy, Jihad grows up treated like the eldest son, wearing boy's clothing and sharing the financial burden of head of the household with her father.

Now middle-aged, each night Jihad tells her daughter a story from her life. As Maleka prepares to leave home to attend university abroad, her mother revisits the past of their Palestinian family, tenderly describing their life in exile in Kuwait and her own experiences of love and loss as she grows up.

Huzama Habayeb weaves a richly observed and affectionate portrait of a Palestinian family displaced from their homeland, exploring with humour and poise the love and betrayal that pursues Jihad and her family from Kuwait to Jordan to Dubai. This is a novel whose words will resound long after you finish the final page.

Translated from the Arabic by Kay Heikkinen

This standout creative nonfiction debut explores the lives and histories of plants considered nonnative or invasive as metaphors for the Black experience in America.

In Tending the Vines, Ashia S. Ajani illuminates how eight unique plants tell the story of the Black diaspora in America. Each chapter is a deep dive into one plant―including eucalyptus, passionflower, wild mustard, and kudzu―exploring their significance in African tradition, their role through the Middle Passage and Chattel Slavery, and their enduring importance in modern households and communities.

Tending the Vines unpacks the complex rhetorical lives of these plants, most of which have been used as both ugly metaphors for Black incursion as well as powerful symbols for Black liberation. It also highlights the ethnobotanical uses that have sustained displaced populations for centuries. Throughout, Ajani complicates our notions of “invasive” and belonging, by contextualizing how plants move, are moved, and, of course, move us.

Nova invents a robot named Cody to help her with her chores so she has more time to do science, but then Cody tries to take over her secret lab—and the world!

Science-loving Nova is back and ready to hit the lab! But cleaning her room and doing other tasks is taking up all her time. When she hears about a robot-building contest, she knows exactly what to do. She gets to work and invents the perfect robot, using coding from her AI assistant Comet, and programs Cody to do her chores so she can get back to her experiments. But Cody is a little too efficient. He quickly moves on from chores and starts helping Nova with her lab work. Before she knows it, he won’t listen to her and has completely taken over! What has she created? And can she stop him before it’s too late?

What if what you drew came to life? Destiny Ink uses her imagination and love of drawing to overcome her worries in this second book of a highly illustrated series for newly emerging readers.

Destiny is so excited to perform magic tricks in the community talent show! It'll be INK-TASTIC!

But when Destiny goes to the rehearsal, the stage is very big and she gets cold feet. So she uses her trusty sketchbook to doodle her ideas and work through her nerves. She even draws a magic wand—wishing she had a real one, so none of the tricks would go wrong and she wouldn't be nervous. . . .

When Destiny tries it out, though, it turns out the wand really is magic. But does she actually need the wand after all, or is the magic already within her?

Roshanak Kheshti opens her book with a line from one of Zora Neale Hurston’s earliest stories: “we see with the skin.” From this brief but potent line, Kheshti examines how Hurston’s understanding of Black skin as both seen and seeing offers radical insight into racialized perception and Black consciousness. Kheshti follows Hurston’s travels across the back woods of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana as a filmmaker and sensory ethnographer of the African diasporic spiritual practice of hoodoo. Through her travels, Hurston encountered a sensibility that could animate the object status of being colored with the power of a return gaze. Kheshti considers both how Hurston poetically exploited the synesthetic logic at the heart of race thinking—being colored—and how her embodied performance ethnography catalogued an outside to that logic. We See with the Skin is an original mapping of Hurston’s synesthetic theory and its broader implications for understanding minoritarian perception and thought.

Toward Border Abolition is an interdisciplinary exploration of border abolition that brings together scholars of international migration, border studies, and law who historicize the current border regime, critique the violence of border policing, and consider alternatives. The contributors explore the ways that migrants practice objective border abolitionism by circumventing the sociopolitical order imposed by nation-states. They illustrate how various methods of migrating, from seeking asylum to “unauthorized” border crossing, all enact a fundamentally human freedom of movement that precedes state border control as it exists today. Ultimately, Toward Border Abolition questions the assumed legitimacy of borders, nation-states, and immigration law while simultaneously showing how migrants’ transgression of borders opens new vistas for remaking the world.

The worship of Yoruba deities known as oriṣa is commonly understood as an indigenous African religion, but Ayodeji Ogunnaike argues that these traditions initially differed from the modern Western concept of religion. In Forms of Worship, Ogunnaike analyzes how the configuration of oriṣa worship has changed across the Yoruba diaspora and homeland. As the meaning of the Yoruba word ẹsin, usually translated as “religion,” is closer to “form of worship,” he examines how reorienting understandings of oriṣa traditions as multiple forms of worship changes how religious identity, practice, and dynamics can be understood in contemporary and historical perspectives. By developing indigenous models for religious phenomena, Ogunnaike accounts for Yoruba cultural dynamics, including the high degree of religious harmony, syncretism, and interaction prevalent both in Nigeria and Brazil. Furthermore, he tracks the subtle and largely unperceived shift in oriṣa worship toward a more modern, closed, and rigid conception of religion and its resulting complications. Forms of Worship demonstrates how the advent of Western religious rigidity regarding practice and identity has led to rising religious tensions and fragmentation.