"In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to...
"In a series of personal essays, journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys."-- Publisher's description.
A young girl growing up in an Alabama town in the 1930s learns of injustice and violence when her father, a widowed lawyer, defends a black man falsely accused of rape. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many distinctions since its original publication in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize, has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and been made into an...
"Emily Hunt went missing from her affluent liberal arts school on graduation weekend. Her body was found floating in a river, and a quiet loner who most people on campus really didn't know died by suicide. A tenuous link--one text--bound the two dead students together and was enough for law enforcement to close the case. But they got it wrong and now someone is determined to set it right. Twelve years later, college friends gather to celebrate an...
"They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they...
"A stunning deluxe edition for the fortieth anniversary of an unparalleled cornerstone of feminist literature, featuring the original cover art and a short, unpublished essay penned in 1986 by Margaret Atwood, "the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction" (The New York Times). In Margaret Atwood's dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of...
Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic, fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.
The memoir of Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped on June 10, 1991 from a school bus stop within sight of her home in Tahoe, California, when she was 11 years old. She was held prisoner by convicted sex offender Phillip Garrido and his wife, Nancy Garrido. She was held captive by the Garridos for over eighteen years, all the while living in a tent on the Garrido property. During her captivity she gave birth to two children fathered by Garrido. She reappeared...
"Community, Identity, Stability' is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a 'Feelie, ' a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women...
“Plague stories remind us that we cannot manage without community . . . Year of Wonders is a testament to that very notion.” – The Washington Post
An unforgettable tale, set in 17th century England, of a village that quarantines itself to arrest the spread of the plague, from the author The Secret Chord and of March, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. [It] captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice...
Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thought crimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can't escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching. A startling and haunting novel, 1984 creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from...
Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from...
"This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games-- games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer...
This depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she...
Originally published: Waxahachie, Tex. : Writer's Coffee Shop Publishing House, 2011.
When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind -- until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro...
"F. Scott Fitzgerald's captivating classic is available now in a striking, new edition with illustrations of iconic scenes from the novel. Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American Dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the...
"In the dazzling lights of 1920s Paris, falling in love comes easily. Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley are part of the Lost Generation, disillusioned by the tragedies of World War I and seeking immediate pleasures. They begin an all-consuming love affair that leads them to the Spanish city of Pamplona, with its invigorating bullfights and gaudy matadors. But is their love as fleeting as the fiesta? The Sun Also Rises was Hemingway's first novel and...
