Books

A clear-eyed account of one woman's fight to survive late-stage colorectal cancer

As a single working parent, the last thing on Shannon Ivey's mind in 2016 was her own health. Then she was diagnosed with late–stage III colorectal cancer and given a 40 percent chance of being alive in five years. Shannon discovered that she was part of a trend of younger people and more women receiving the diagnosis: By 2030, colorectal cancer is projected to be the No. 1 cancer killer for people ages 20 to 49. Shannon had entered a terrifying new reality, navigating a medical system ill-equipped to recognize her unique circumstances.

In Welcome to the Sh*t Show, Shannon delivers a frank account of her battle with cancer. She chronicles her journey from diagnosis through grueling treatment and arriving at her "new normal." Throughout, she shares candid insights into the physical and emotional toll of treatment, social expectations, systemic barriers and inequities, and grappling with structural and internalized ableism. In the face of these obstacles, Shannon learned to advocate for her needs and built partnerships with her care team and the friends who remained by her side.

Shannon's honesty, resilient spirit, and biting humor transform a terrifying experience into a powerful message of hope, urging readers to fight for a meaningful and authentic life, no matter the odds.

Introduce your little ones to wepa, or what is better known medically as ADHD, in both English and Spanish!

A 2023 Best Book for Kids, New York Public Library

Her mom thinks she is too messy; her teachers think she is too loud. But Abuela says that’s nonsense. Mia Emilia Lucia Renata simply has too much wepa! In this case, wepa is a metaphor for Mia's fire, her energy, or what is better known medically as ADHD, and how it's often misunderstood by family and loved ones.

Mia tries to bottle up her wepa, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t contain it. With a bit of inspiration from Abuela and her friends, Mia discovers the perfect place to release her wepa. A place where her wepa is celebrated and isn’t too much.

Parents will celebrate the wepa behind this bilingual English-Spanish hardcover as it helps the reader develop an understanding of ADHD and how to encouarge little ones to feel connected with a supportive community.

An Instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller
A Barnes & Noble Best Horror Book of 2024
A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee

Now in paperback, this New York Times bestseller is the chilling gothic sequel to What Moves the Dead, a new adventure featuring beloved sworn soldier Alex Easton.

After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia.

In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.

Also by T. Kingfisher
A House with Good Bones
Nettle & Bone
Thornhedge
A Sorceress Comes to Call

By: Robby Weber (Author), 2024, Hardcover

Theater star Teddy McGuire is ready for all his dreams to come true. He and his best friend, Annie, have been counting down the days to the end-of-the-year drama club trip to New York City. To make it even more magical, if they can win the annual scavenger hunt, they’ll get a chance to meet their popstar idol, Benji Keaton.

But the universe has other plans: when Annie can’t go on the trip, Teddy is forced to room with tech crew loner Sebastian, who has no interest in the scavenger hunt—or Teddy—and seems to have a secret agenda of his own.

On a larger-than-life adventure across the city, the boys will discover a lot more than what’s on their checklist, including masquerade mishaps, obstacles of Jurassic proportions, Hollywood starlets, and, most surprisingly of all, sparks beginning to fly between them.

In a joyful romp from author Robby Weber about chasing your destiny, Teddy and Sebastian are about to learn the secret to making their own luck.

Finalist for the 2014 Lambda Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult

“What Makes a Baby is extraordinary! Cory is a Dr. Spock for the 21st century.”—Susie Bright

“A Truly Inclusive Way to Answer the Question 'Where Do Babies Come From?': The new book What Makes a Baby offers an origin story for all children, no matter what their families look like." —The Atlantic

"This is a solid, occasionally quirky book on an important topic."—School Library Journal

Geared to readers from preschool to age eight, What Makes a Baby is a book for every kind of family and every kind of kid. It is a twenty-first century children’s picture book about conception, gestation, and birth, which reflects the reality of our modern time by being inclusive of all kinds of kids, adults, and families, regardless of how many people were involved, their orientation, gender and other identity, or family composition. Just as important, the story doesn’t gender people or body parts, so most parents and families will find that it leaves room for them to educate their child without having to erase their own experience. 

Written by sexuality educator Cory Silverberg, and illustrated by award-winning Canadian artist Fiona Smyth, What Makes a Baby is as fun to look at as it is useful to read.

Physiologically, when you’re at your happiest, most relaxed, you often fart. It’s why people fart when they sleep, why people fart on the massage table, why author and book lover Marla Taviano farts in bookstores.

So, when Marla asks people what they’re passionate about, and they say “I don’t know,” she says, “Well, what makes you fart?”

One big key to finding your life’s passion is to remember what you loved as a kid—before the responsibilities of growing up squeezed all the creativity and imagination out of you.

Marla’s dream is for every person to love something deeply—and have the time, energy, and resources to happily explore it.

This book is full of practical tips, funny quips, and inspiring anecdotes to help you discover what makes you fart—then do that thing with all your heart.

(Sworn Soldier, 1)

An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller
A Barnes & Noble Book of the Year Finalist
A Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award Nominee

A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

The next novella in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America

Alex Easton does not want to visit America.

They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.

But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin―who went missing in that very mine―well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do...

How did a spontaneous protest outside of a New York City bar fifty years ago spark a social movement across America? Find out about the history of LGBTQ rights in this Who HQ title.

In the early-morning hours of June 28, 1969, police arrived at the Stonewall Inn's doors and yelled, "Police! We're taking the place!" But the people in this New York City neighborhood bar, members of the LGBTQ community, were tired of being harassed. They rebelled in the streets, turning one moment into a civil rights movement and launching the fight for equality among LGBTQ people in the United States.

Discover what it means to be a young transgender and/or non-binary person in the twenty-first century in this candid and funny guide for teens from the bestselling author of This Book is Gay.

In What's the T? Stonewall ambassador and bestselling author Juno Dawson is back again, this time with everything you've wanted to know about labels and identities and offering uncensored advice on coming out, sex, and relationships with her trademark humor and lightness of touch. It is informative, helpful, optimistic, and funny but with a good dose of reality and some of the things that can downright suck too.

The companion title to the groundbreaking This Book Is Gay, What's the T? tackles the complex realities of growing up trans with honesty and humor and is joyfully illustrated by gender non-conforming artist Soofiya.

This book is for:

* Anyone with questions
* Parents of trans and/or non-binary kids
* Educators looking for advice about the transgender community

Praise for This Book is Gay:

A Guardian Best Book of the Year

2018 Garden State Teen Book Award Winner

"The book every LGBT person would have killed for as a teenager, told in the voice of a wise best friend. Frank, warm, funny, USEFUL."--Patrick Ness, New York Times bestselling author

"This egregious gap has now been filled to a fare-thee-well by Dawson's book."--Booklist *STARRED REVIEW*

Ever wondered what your cat might be thinking? Jamie Shelman is here to help you learn their lingo with over 100 classic cat thoughts explained.

Our feline masters have many ways of keeping us in line, from a paw in the face to tearing up our favorite Persian rug, from the unwanted appearance of gifts to the passive-aggressive pouf of the tail, and it’s up to us to work out what each purr, pout, and scratch stands for.

This clever little book features over 100 original witty illustrations and explains the most common feline behaviors to help you unlock the cat code in no time at all.

The ultimate gift for any human owned by a cat.

By: Kyle Lukoff (author), Kaylani Juanita (Illustrator). 2019, Hardcover

Stonewall Book Award Winner - American Library Association (ALA)

This sweet and groundbreaking picture book, winner of the 2020 Stonewall Book Award, celebrates the changes in a transgender boy's life, from his initial coming-out to becoming a big brother.

When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life.

Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does "making things right" actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.

When Aidan Became a Brother is a heartwarming book that will resonate with transgender children, reassure any child concerned about becoming an older sibling, and celebrate the many transitions a family can experience.

Feminist icon bell hooks reminds us of the full spectrum of feeling we spend in love through her inspiring collection of love poetry, with a new introduction by Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies.

Written from the heart, When Angels Speak of Love is a book of fifty love poems by bell hooks, one our most beloved public intellectuals, and author of over twenty books, including the bestselling All About Love. Poem after poem, hooks challenges our views and experiences with love—tracing the links between seduction and surrender, the intensity of desire, and the anguish of death. “Love must clean house, choose memories to keep, and memories to let go,” she writes. These verses are expansive yet accessible—encompassing romantic love, to love of family, friends, or oneself. In any iteration, these poems remind us of both the beauty and possibility of love.

By: Hugh Ryan, 2020, Paperback

Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond. No other book, movie, or exhibition has ever told this sweeping story. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history―a great forgetting.

Ryan is here to unearth that history for the first time. In intimate, evocative, moving prose he discusses in new light the fundamental questions of what history is, who tells it, and how we can only make sense of ourselves through its retelling; and shows how the formation of the Brooklyn we know today is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. Through them, When Brooklyn Was Queer brings Brooklyn’s queer past to life, and claims its place as a modern classic.