Adult Nonfiction

By: Ali Abunimah (Author), 2014, Paperback

In this essential work, journalist Ali Abunimah takes a comprehensive look at the shifting tides of the politics of Palestine and the Israelis in a neoliberal world—and makes a compelling and surprising case for why the Palestine solidarity movement just might win.

By: Sonya Renee Taylor (Author), Ijeoma Olio (Foreword), 2021, Paperback

"To build a world that works for everyone, we must first make the radical decision to love every facet of ourselves...'The body is not an apology' is the mantra we should all embrace."
--Kimberlé Crenshaw, legal scholar and founder and Executive Director, African American Policy Forum

"Taylor invites us to break up with shame, to deepen our literacy, and to liberate our practice of celebrating every body and never apologizing for this body that is mine and takes care of me so well."
--Alicia Garza, cocreator of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and Strategy + Partnerships Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance

"Her manifesto on radical self-love is life altering--required reading for anyone who struggles with body image."
--Claire Foster, Foreword Review

Humans are a varied and divergent bunch with all manner of beliefs, morals, and bodies. Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies.

The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.

By: Evan Friss (Author), 2024, Hardcover

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Goodreads Choice Award Winner in History & Biography

One of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

"A spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category." —The New York Times

"It is a delight to wander through the bookstores of American history in this warm, generous book." —Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author and owner of Books Are Magic

An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop,we see the stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including the Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, the Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who signed books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.

Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast cancer and a radical mastectomy.

A Penguin Classic

First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and mastectomy. Long before narratives explored the silences around illness and women's pain, Lorde questioned the rules of conformity for women's body images and supported the need to confront physical loss not hidden by prosthesis. Living as a "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," Lorde heals and re-envisions herself on her own terms and offers her voice, grief, resistance, and courage to those dealing with their own diagnosis. Poetic and profoundly feminist, Lorde's testament gives visibility and strength to women with cancer to define themselves, and to transform their silence into language and action.

We are in the midst of a global crisis of care. How do we get out of it?

The Care Manifesto puts care at the heart of the debates of our current crisis: from intimate care--childcare, healthcare, elder care--to care for the natural world. We live in a world where carelessness reigns, but it does not have to be this way.

The Care Manifesto puts forth a vision for a truly caring world. The authors want to reimagine the role of care in our everyday lives, making it the organising principle in every dimension and at every scale of life. We are all dependent on each other, and only by nurturing these interdependencies can we cultivate a world in which each and every one of us can not only live but thrive.

The Care Manifesto demands that we must put care at the heart of the state and the economy. A caring government must promote collective joy, not the satisfaction of individual desire. This means the transformation of how we organise work through co-operatives, localism and nationalisation. It proposes the expansion of our understanding of kinship for a more 'promiscuous care'. It calls for caring places through the reclamation of public space, to make a more convivial city. It sets out an agenda for the environment, most urgent of all, putting care at the centre of our relationship to the natural world.

This is not your mother's memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch
expertly moves the reader through issues of gender, sexuality, violence, and the
family from the point of view of a lifelong swimmer turned artist. In writing
that explores the nature of memoir itself, her story traces the effect of
extreme grief on a young woman's developing sexuality that some define as
untraditional because of her attraction to both men and women. Her emergence as
a writer evolves at the same time and takes the narrator on a journey of
addiction, self-destruction, and ultimately survival that finally comes in the
shape of love and motherhood.

Winner of the MLA's 2016 Alan Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies
How BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The Color of Kink explores black women's representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power for black women.

Based on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers, producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and media studies, Cruz argues that BDSM is a productive space from which to consider the complexity and diverseness of black women's sexual practice and the mutability of black female sexuality. Illuminating the cross-pollination of black sexuality and BDSM, The Color of Kink makes a unique contribution to the growing scholarship on racialized sexuality.

By Zora Neal Hurston, Paperback

Short Stories This collection of Zora Neale Hurston’s complete stories provides a window into the evolution of one of the most important African American writers. This edition has been repackaged as a modern classic with a new cover and a P.S. section which includes insights, interviews, and more. Zora Neale Hurston wrote four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine; Their Eyes Were Watching God; Moses, Man of the Mountains; and Seraph on the Suwanee) and was still working on her fifth novel, The Life of Herod the Great, when she died; three books of folklore (Mules and Men and the posthumously published Go Gator and Muddy the Water and Every Tongue Got to Confess); a work of anthropological research (Tell My Horse); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road); an international bestselling ethnographic work (Barracoon); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama, grew up in Eatonville, Florida, and lived her last years in Fort Pierce, Florida.

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY. INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER.

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Winner of the 2021 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. One of The Washington Post's Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2020.

From a young Harvard- and Cambridge-trained historian, and the Creator and Executive Producer of The Book of Queer (coming June 2022 to Discovery+), the secret history of the fight for gay rights that began a generation before Stonewall.

In 1957, Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department in Hawaii, received a summons to report immediately to Washington, D.C. The Pentagon had reason to believe he was a homosexual, and after a series of humiliating interviews, Kameny, like countless gay men and women before him, was promptly dismissed from his government job. Unlike many others, though, Kameny fought back.

Based on firsthand accounts, recently declassified FBI records, and forty thousand personal documents, Eric Cervini's The Deviant's War unfolds over the course of the 1960s, as the Mattachine Society of Washington, the group Kameny founded, became the first organization to protest the systematic persecution of gay federal employees. It traces the forgotten ties that bound gay rights to the Black Freedom Movement, the New Left, lesbian activism, and trans resistance. Above all, it is a story of America (and Washington) at a cultural and sexual crossroads; of shocking, byzantine public battles with Congress; of FBI informants; murder; betrayal; sex; love; and ultimately victory.

In this raw and lyrical memoir as rich and insightful as How to Say Babylon and as vulnerable and provocative as Heavy, an Emmy Award-winning director chronicles his struggle to break free from―and live outside of―the prescribed paradigms of Blackness and masculinity that shaped him.

Long before every moment of our lives was tracked by technology, Phill Branch was under surveillance. His father was a football-playing, weed-smoking, Army vet―the guy men wanted to be around, and women loved. Phill was different. His father treated him as if he were defective and continually searched for proof to support this belief. Phill paid greatly for his failures at boyhood, especially when he was caught playing jump rope with girls. This taught him there were standards to be met, codes that were not to be violated, and strict punishment for any deviation from a Black man’s assigned position in the world.

In this poignant, illuminating personal narrative, Branch reckons with the patriarchy and tradition of these social structures in Black America, their legacy, and how they molded and silenced him. Taking us from Newark, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, California, Branch writes unflinchingly about growing up as the queer black son of a complicated and often absent father with rigid ideas of masculinity. From early inappropriate relationships with men twice his age, to his successful rebranding at Hampton University, to the dichotomy of Hollywood―living in a world of wealthy celebrities while struggling to survive as a writer―Branch navigates his complex emotions surrounding success, perceptions of manhood, and ultimately his father.

The Double Dutch Fuss recounts growing up under the heavy burden of expectation―to be a boy, to be Black, and to be queer in ways that conform to rigid, often unforgiving norms. It is about the knotted path of becoming, while navigating the always-present fear of emotional and physical violence, and the threat of isolation for simply being who you are. Branch explores the cosmic pull between fathers and sons, and how healing wounds can open a pathway toward freedom and wholeness. His is an insightful and surprisingly humorous reflection on identity, masculinity, and the quiet, radical act of choosing to exist on your own terms.

Take a deep dive into dream interpretation with this A-to-Z guide.

Unlock the secrets of your dream life with this comprehensive A-to-Z reference book on dream interpretation. By understanding the unique meanings of dream symbols, you can gain new perspectives into your waking life and discover connections among the people, places, and ideas that you encountered in your dreams. Cross-references and helpful insights into the nature of dream symbolism make The Dream Dictionary a wonderfully useful guide for those who seek insights into the meaning of their dreams.

A plan for transitioning to a more sustainable world--while keeping the economy afloat

Ulrike Hermann is an economics correspondent whose books on social and economic policy issues are bestsellers in Germany. Here--translated by journalist and international broadcaster David Shaw--Ulrike explores how we might manage to transition to a more sustainable world without the collapse of the economy.

The End of Capitalism tells the story of Capitalism--from its beginnings in 1760 England, where textiles manufacturers had the idea to replace human workers with machines--and what it really means for the world when individual profits overshadow communal and environmental needs.

Hermann makes an argument for a "circular economy," an economy where only what can be recycled is consumed. We know by now the ruinous effects of Capitalism on the climate and environment. While we hear that "green growth" is meant to be the savior, Ulrike argues that we need "green shrinkage" instead.

Her example for a solution is the British war economy of the 1940s. This is not a utopian scenario (it would involve personal restrictions and government planning) but a comprehensive example of how resources can be diverted.

An interesting and important read for serious thinkers who hope to upend Capitalism, The End of Capitalism offers a realistic alternative from an expert in the field. Readers of Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein and Rutgar Bregman; progressive-minded readers; and anyone interested in a different future should read this.

The translation of this book was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.

The classic guide to love, sex, and intimacy beyond the limits of conventional monogamy has been fully updated to reflect today’s modern attitudes and the latest information on nontraditional relationships. 

“One of the most useful relationship books you could ever read, no matter what your lifestyle choices. It’s chock-full of great information about communication, jealousy, asking for what you want, and maintaining a relationship with integrity.”—Annie Sprinkle, PhD, sexologist and author of Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex 

For 20 years The Ethical Slut—widely known as the “Poly Bible”—has dispelled myths and showed curious readers how to maintain a successful polyamorous lifestyle through open communication, emotional honesty, and safer sex practices. The third edition of this timeless guide to the ethics of relationships, communication, and sex has been revised to include:
 
• Interviews with poly millennials (young people who have grown up without the prejudices their elders encountered regarding gender, orientation, sexuality, and relationships)
• Tributes to polyamory pioneers
• Tools for conflict resolution and instructions on how to improve interpersonal dynamics
• New sidebars on topics such as asexuality, sex workers, LGBTQ terminology, and ways polys can connect and thrive
 
The authors also include new content addressing nontraditional relationships beyond the polyamorous paradigm of “more than two”: couples who don't live together, couples who don't have sex with each other, nonparallel arrangements, couples with widely divergent sex styles, power disparities, and cross-orientation relationships, while utilizing nonbinary gender language and new terms that have come into common usage since the last edition.

Over twenty-two months in 1979 and 1981 nearly two dozen children were unspeakably murdered in Atlanta despite national attention and outcry; they were all Black. James Baldwin investigated these murders, the Black administration in Atlanta, and Wayne Williams, the Black man tried for the crimes. Because there was only evidence to convict Williams for the murders of two men, the children's cases were closed, offering no justice to the families or the country. Baldwin's incisive analysis implicates the failures of integration as the guilt party, arguing, "There could be no more devastating proof of this assault than the slaughter of the children."

As Stacey Abrams writes in her foreword, "The humanity of black children, of black men and women, of black lives, has ever been a conundrum for America. Forty years on, Baldwin's writing reminds us that we have never resolved the core query: Do black lives matter? Unequivocally, the moral answer is yes, but James Baldwin refuses such rhetorical comfort." In this, his last book, by excavating American race relations Baldwin exposes the hard-to-face ingrained issues and demands that we all reckon with them.

Now in a revised and updated 6th edition, the groundbreaking, research-based approach to understanding and parenting children who frequently exhibit severe fits of temper and other challenging behaviors, from a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the field.

What’s an explosive child? A child who responds to routine problems with extreme frustration—crying, screaming, swearing, kicking, hitting, biting, spitting, destroying property, and worse. A child whose frequent, severe outbursts leave his or her parents feeling frustrated, scared, worried, and desperate for help. Most of these parents have tried everything-reasoning, explaining, punishing, sticker charts, therapy, medication—but to no avail. They can’t figure out why their child acts the way he or she does; they wonder why the strategies that work for other kids don’t work for theirs; and they don’t know what to do instead.

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren’t attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach to parenting.

Throughout this compassionate, insightful, and practical book, Dr. Greene provides a new conceptual framework for understanding their difficulties, based on research in the neurosciences. He explains why traditional parenting and treatment often don’t work with these children, and he describes what to do instead. Instead of relying on rewarding and punishing, Dr. Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model promotes working with explosive children to solve the problems that precipitate explosive episodes, and teaching these kids the skills they lack.