"Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing” felt. She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant...

"Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly...

"In this moving true story, Kao Kalia Yang shares her experiences as a young Hmong refugee navigating life at home and at school. Having seen the poor treatment her parents received when making their best efforts at speaking English, she no longer speaks at school. Kalia feels as though a rock has become lodged in her throat, and it grows heavier each day. Although the narrative is somber, it is also infused with moments of beauty, love, and hope."--...

"I went to a lot of trouble to create Boy George and then I went through a whole battle for years about not wanting to be him. But now I enjoy and embrace it in a way that I wasn't able to as a young person.... I'm finally learning to be George Alan O'Dowd from Eltham.' Karma is the definitive autobiography from the incomparable Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello award-winning lead singer of Culture Club and LGBTQ+ vanguard: Boy George. Told in his inimitable...

So much of modern-day diplomacy still takes place behind closed doors, away from cameras and prying eyes. So what does this vital role really look like in today's world -and what does it take to do it well? From 2009 to 2014, Cathy Ashton was the EU's first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, effectively Europe's foreign policy supremo responsible for coordinating the EU's response to international crises. Arriving in Brussels as...

"The Blind Boys of Alabama are the quintessential Gospel vocal group, and the longest-running musical institution in America. Their story intersects with pivotal moments and issues in American history and is an ideal prism through which to trace music, culture, history, and race in America. Spirit of the Century invites readers to follow along the Blind Boys’ eight-decade journey together from a segregated trade school, through the rough and tumble...

"Jacqueline Alnes was a Division One runner during her freshman year of college, but her season was cut short by a series of inexplicable neurological symptoms. What started with a cough, escalated to Alnes collapsing on the track and experiencing months of unremembered episodes that stole her ability to walk and speak. Two years after quitting the team to heal, Alnes's symptoms returned with a severity that left her using a wheelchair for a period...

Millicent E. Brown's family home at 270 Ashley Avenue in Charleston, South Carolina, was a center of civil rights activity. There Brown gained intimate knowledge of the struggle for racial justice, and those experiences set her on a life course dedicated to the civil rights struggle. Best known as the named plaintiff in the federal court case that, in 1963, forced the initial desegregation of public schools in South Carolina, her experiences as an...

A passionate musician growing up in the war-torn streets of Kabul takes her forbidden talents abroad in this triumphant memoir from debut author Zarifa Adiba. As an Afghan girl, Zarifa Adiba has big, unfathomable dreams. Her family is poor, her country mired in conflict. Walking to school in Kabul, Zarifa has to navigate suicide bombers. But Zarifa perseveres, nurturing her passion for music despite its "sinful" nature under Taliban law. At sixteen...

"Before being struck down by the US Supreme Court in June 2023, affirmative action remained one of the few remaining policy tools to address racial inequalities, revealing peculiar contours of racism and anti-racist strategies in America. Through personal reflective essays for and about her daughter, OiYan Poon looks at how the debate over affirmative action reveals the divergent ways Asian Americans conceive of their identity. With moving sincerity...