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Take
A provocative, fast-paced novel about two creative women--a young writer fighting to be heard and an older producer clinging to relevancy--and the age reversal treatment that intertwines both of their lives...from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the beloved Front Desk series Would you sell your youth for $3 million? Maggie Wang, a broke young Asian American writer, needs a lifeline. Ingrid Parker, a veteran white Hollywood producer with her career on the edge, offers an irresistible deal: $3 million for ten experimental medical sessions to reverse her aging, using Maggie as a transfusion partner, and mentorship. For Ingrid, it's a chance to reboot her fading career. For Maggie, it's access and freedom--money to support her parents and the connections to finally get her novel published. What starts as a professional transaction exchanging blood quickly becomes a complex psychological dance. As Maggie gains unprecedented access to Ingrid's hard-earned wisdom, Ingrid sees in Maggie a weapon against an industry that's been trying to sideline her. As their relationship intensifies, the rules around aging begin to shift. So does the balance of power between the two women, leaving both questioning who holds the upper hand and what they're willing to sacrifice to succeed. Sharp, timely, and utterly compelling, The Take is perfect for readers of Yellowface and Such a Fun Age--a searing portrait of two women fighting to rewrite their story. -
Nicked
AN NPR NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR - From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint "[A] rollicking comic novel."--NPR "The 11th century queer romantic adventure you didn't know you were looking for."--Los Angeles Times "Miracles, marvels, saints, sinners, love, plague, and treachery! A medieval feast of a novel, stuffed with everything I could have wished for."--Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus. Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for "liberating" holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the "dreamer," will be his guide. What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders. -
Middle Spoon
"Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability. . . . Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart." --Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less and Less Is Lost "A rollicking delight! . . . Varela asks provocative questions about the shape of family and the nature of love." --Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Crush One of TODAY's 50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2025 A whipsmart, blazingly funny novel about heartbreak, unconventional love, and the way society could be, from National Book Award finalist Alejandro Varela The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the dream: He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life--and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he's left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible. With a big heart and just the right dose of the anxieties that define the modern era, Middle Spoon skewers the unspoken rules we still live by--from taboos around intimacy to the shortcomings of Oscar season, pop culture, and gluten-free food--offering a surprising perspective on love, loss, and reinvention. Equal parts heart-wrenching and uproariously funny, Middle Spoon is for anyone who has longed, nursed a broken heart, or grappled with love at its messiest. -
Masquerade
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author's name is the same as Meadow's own in Chinese, Liu Tian--a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings. Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks, a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
Exploring social, cultural, and sexual identities in New York, Shanghai, and beyond, Mike Fu's Masquerade is a skillfully layered, brilliantly interwoven debut novel of friendship, queer longing, and worlds on the brink, asking how we can find ourselves among ghosts of all kinds, and who we can trust when nothing--and no one--is as it seems. -
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Winner of the Hugo Award!
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future. -
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War
"Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out." -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation--also known as Babel.
Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working--the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars--has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire's quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide...
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
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A Court of Mist and Fury
The seductive and stunning #1 New York Times bestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas's spellbinding A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people. As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different people: one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil. Bestselling author Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights. -
Legendary Children: The First Decade of Rupaul's Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life
A definitive deep-dive into queer history and culture with hit reality show RuPaul's Drag Race as a touchstone, by the creators of the pop culture blog Tom and Lorenzo NPR's Best Books of the Year 2020 pick
A New York Times New & Noteworthy book
One of Logo/NewNowNext's "11 Queer Books We Can't Wait to Read This Spring" From the singular voices behind Tom and Lorenzo comes the ultimate guide to all-things RuPaul's Drag Race and its influence on modern LGBTQ culture. Legendary Children centers itself around the idea that not only is RuPaul's Drag Race the queerest show in the history of television, but that RuPaul and company devised a show that serves as an actual museum of queer cultural and social history, drawing on queer traditions and the work of legendary figures going back nearly a century. In doing so, Drag Race became not only a repository of queer history and culture, but also an examination and illustration of queer life in the modern age. It is a snapshot of how LGBTQ folks live, struggle, work, and reach out to one another--and how they always have--and every bit of it is tied directly to Drag Race. Each chapter is an examination of a specific aspect of the show--the Werk Room, the Library, the Pit Crew, the runway, the Untucked lounge, the Snatch Game--that ties to a specific aspect of queer cultural history and/or the work of certain legendary figures in queer cultural history. -
Great LGBTQ+ Speeches: Empowering Voices That Engage and Inspire
Discover the inspiring voices that have changed our world, and started a new conversation. A sister title to Great Women's Speeches (2021), and the pocket edition of Loud and Proud (2020), Great LGBTQ+ Speeches is a pioneering collection of over 40 empowering and influential speeches that chart the history of the LGBTQ+ movement. Photocollage portraits and enlightening commentaries accompany the words of Audre Lorde, Harvey Milk, Munroe Bergdorf, Sir Elton John and more. Together these speakers touch on all aspects of LGBTQ+ life from equal marriage to the AIDS crisis, bullying to parenthood, the first 19th century campaigns through to trans rights allyship today. We are stronger when we stand together, and this collection from award-winning activist Tea Uglow encourages us to do just that whilst celebrating the beauty of our differences.
- Pour through a pioneering collection of talks, declarations and lectures, from people whose voices have too often been marginalised and the allies that support them;
- Find over 40 empowering and influential speeches that chart the history of the LGBTQ+ movement up to the present day;
- Each speech is presented with a striking photographic portrait and an insightful introduction, offering essential context, fresh insights and a nuanced understanding that brings each character and their words to life.
The voices: Audre Lorde; Harvey Milk; Munroe Bergdorf; Sir Elton John; Sir Ian McKellen; George Takei; Sylvia Rivera; Bayard Rustin; Elizabeth Toledo; Alison Bechdel; Loretta E. Lynch; Hanne Gaby Odiele; Vito Russo; Tammy Baldwin; Hillary Rodham Clinton; Barak Obama; Senator Karl Heinrich Ulrichs; Robert G. Ingersoll; Theodora Ana Sprungli; Franklin "Frank" Kameny; Sally Gearhart; Harry Hay; Sue Hyde; Mary Fisher; Essex Hemphill; Simon Nkoli; Urvashi Vaid; Eric Rofes; Justice Michael Kirby; Evan Wolfson; Paul Martin; Ian Hunter; Dan Savage and Terry Miller; Rabbi Kleinbaum; Penny Wong; Arsham Parsi; Anna Grodzka; Debi Jackson; Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir; Lee Mokobe; Ban Ki-moon; Geraldine Roman; Cecilia Chung; Olly Alexander.
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A Conspiracy of Truths
A wrongfully imprisoned storyteller spins stories from his jail cell that just might have the power to save him--and take down a corrupt government. Arrested on accusations of witchcraft and treason, Chant finds himself trapped in a cold, filthy jail cell in a foreign land. With only his advocate, the unhelpful and uninterested Consanza, he quickly finds himself cast as a bargaining chip in a brewing battle between the five rulers of this small, backwards, and petty nation. Or, at least, that's how he would tell the story. In truth, Chant has little idea of what is happening outside the walls of his cell, but he must quickly start to unravel the puzzle of his imprisonment before they execute him for his alleged crimes. But Chant is no witch--he is a member of a rare and obscure order of wandering storytellers. With no country to call his home, and no people to claim as his own, all Chant has is his wits and his apprentice, a lad more interested in wooing handsome shepherds than learning the ways of the world. And yet, he has one great power: his stories in the ears of the rulers determined to prosecute him for betraying a nation he knows next to nothing about. The tales he tells will topple the Queens of Nuryevet and just maybe, save his life. -
Can't Spell Treason Without Tea
Now with beautiful jade sprayed edges and brand-new original art!
All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters... all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen's private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn't so easy. But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she's thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility-all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams. What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm's biggest temper tantrum. In a story brimming with hurt/comfort and quiet fireside conversations, these two women will discover just what they mean to each other... and the world.
In the tradition of Legends & Lattes, comes a cozy fantasy steeped in sapphic romance about one of the Queen's private guards and a powerful mage who want to open a bookshop and live happily ever after...if only the world would let them. -
Maurice
Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and into his father's firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way--except that he is homosexual.
Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote....In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."
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How You Get the Girl
Chemistry sizzles in this workplace rom-com set in the world of high school basketball as the author of Love & Other Disasters delivers a sapphic romance full of humor and heart. When a smart-mouthed junior joins East Nashville High's basketball team, Coach Julie Parker's ready for the challenge. What she's not prepared for is the teen's new foster parent, a super-hot ex-WNBA baller and star of Julie's fantasies. Julie knows the cool and confident Elle Cochrane is way out of her league. But despite being completely tongue-tied around her, somehow Julie persuades Elle to step in as her assistant coach. Elle has not been on a court since her career-ending injury, but she can't seem to resist Julie, who is just as adorable as her nervous babbling. Maybe because being around her makes Elle feel sparks for the first time in long while--which is why she offers to help when Julie reveals her lifelong insecurity about dating and how she wishes she could practice at it...like sports. As Elle helps Julie navigate dating life, lines grow increasingly blurred, and the two must decide whether they'll stay on the sidelines--or finally take their shot. -
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A "bracing" (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America's turn towards authoritarianism, from "a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present" (The New York Times) "Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings."--Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. -
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women." --Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, in The Atlantic "One of the most important books of the current moment."--Time "A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone."--Gabrielle Union, author of We're Going to Need More Wine
A potent and electrifying critique of today's feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on reproductive rights, politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed. -
Time Is a Mother
The New York Times-bestselling collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean Vuong "Take your time with these poems, and return to them often." --The Washington Post How else do we return to ourselves but to fold
The page so it points to the good part In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, these poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break. The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellowship, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once.