If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation at the age of 22. Instead, he was marched into a maximum-security federal prison, facing life under mandatory drug sentencing laws. Like far too many young Black men from his neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, this was where his story was supposed to end. But one day in the prison library, a book caught his eye: an encyclopedia. As he began to turn the pages, Chris felt himself transported. He began to confront the nihilism around him, the trauma of his past, and the cruelty of a system determined to confine him. At his sentencing hearing, Chris gave such a moving speech that the judge resigned from his lifetime appointment to the bench and fought to free him.

Have you ever swapped stories on a porch with Amish snowbirds in Florida? Searched for reindeer with the Siberian Yupik in Alaska? Been a guest on a houseboat deep in the Louisiana bayou? Peter Santenello hadn’t either until, after years spent traveling through 85 countries and living abroad, he realized the most unfamiliar territory was often his own American backyard. And so, with a camera in hand and an open mind, he began visiting communities across the country, places that most of the media overlooks or misrepresents, from tiny towns in Appalachia to the streets of East LA. What began as curiosity became --- one story at a time --- an intimate, revealing portrait of America today.

From the bestselling author of BLACK FLAGS, BLUE WATERS comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the 11 surviving crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, tribal wars and dashed hopes, award–winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor’s doomed voyage, the years of perilous captivity, and the delicate negotiations and fraught naval rescue mission that followed.

Buzz Busby’s move to Washington, DC, in 1951 helped launch bluegrass in the nation’s capital while the intensity of his mandolin playing drew raves for its unrelenting pace and innovative style. Kip Lornell and Tom Mindte draw on interviews and some 50 hours of Busby speaking about his life to tell the story of a largely forgotten bluegrass virtuoso. Busby and his band, the Bayou Boys, stood front and center on a mid-1950s DC-area TV show that, though short-lived, catalyzed the formation of the city’s bluegrass community. Time with the Louisiana Hayride and classic, if little-heard, bluegrass sides like “Lonesome Wind” seemed to promise a bright future. But a devastating car wreck and a host of legal and personal troubles triggered a long decline into drug and alcohol abuse that undermined Busby’s career.

Facing the global threat of a rising Communist world power in the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. employed hundreds of Black Americans to speed read Russian communications and gather essential information on their most dangerous nuclear rival. The result was the creation of a segregated civilian codebreaking unit known as the Traffic Processing Division --- The Plantation. Its 100 college-educated Black women made invaluable breakthroughs in the country’s Soviet intelligence, even as the Red Scare and the backlash against civil rights eroded their democratic freedoms at home. Their underappreciated top-secret work led directly to victory over the USSR and the end of the Cold War 30 years later. In DECODING THE DEVIL, Sarah Valentine tells their remarkable story in full for the first time. 

Reyna Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages and two identities has shaped the woman, mother and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival. Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?

West Point cadet Brooks Jenson is only months away from graduation, and he does not expect anything to block his path to a productive career in the Army. But when he finds fellow cadet Jed Figueroa murdered, everything takes a turn for the worst. Brooks is a witness who becomes a suspect as the investigation continues. As Brooks struggles through his classes and every other aspect of cadet life, he leans on friends, family and professors for support --- especially Colonel Zac Madison, a heroine of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who now teaches at West Point. As the investigation into Jed’s death takes one startling turn after another, Brooks must find his footing if he wants to finish West Point alive.

Kate Middleton is one of the most photographed, most talked about, most written about women in the world --- heiress to Princess Diana’s glamour and mystique, wife of one future monarch and mother of another. But as the daughter of an airline attendant who grew up in public housing, Kate was not destined for this fate. She had to fight for it --- and for the love of the future king. In this illuminating portrait, Christopher Andersen chronicles Kate’s life, beginning with her humble upbringing; her off-again, on-again love story with William that catapulted her to global fame; and the 2011 “Wedding of the Century.” Throughout their marriage, Kate has proven that she is more than just a prince’s wife. Yet her story is more complex than the public knows.

Growing up in Depression-era Texas, Mary Kathlyn Wagner is a dutiful daughter and diligent student with ambition aplenty and no place to use it. Married at 16, she is a grandmother at 34. When she is not cooking or taking care of the kids, she peddles cleaning products to other housewives. In 1963, she sets up her own company, selling second chance and self-invention for the price of a skin care showcase. Soon millions know her as the little lady in the big wig who gives away pink Cadillacs. From its unpromising start in a 500-square-foot Dallas storefront, Mary Kay Inc. grows into a global phenomenon. Based on 15 years of research, SELLING OPPORTUNITY gives us a page-turning rags-to-riches story set against the background of direct selling in all its overstated, over-the-top glory.

From the moment she first sang at church in McComb, Mississippi, Brandy knew her voice was special. At 14, she landed her first record deal. At 15, her album went platinum. At 16, she was starring in the hit sitcom “Moesha” and became the first Black actress to play Cinderella on screen alongside fairy godmother Whitney Houston. Yet, as the accolades piled up, so too did the pressure to maintain a flawless image. To onlookers, she had crafted the blueprint for the teenage “it” girl. But behind closed doors, “The Vocal Bible,” as she was known, was struggling. In PHASES, Brandy shares the humble roots of her decades-spanning career, her early struggles with bullies and insecurities as a high schooler, the inside stories behind her most iconic songs and albums, and so much more.