List

Category
Audience
Tags

Placeless

Patrick Markee

In the tradition of Matthew Desmond's Evicted, a longtime housing activist presents a vivid and myth-breaking account of why homelessness endures in contemporary America...

Millions of people are affected by homelessness, but media pundits and politicians see homelessness as a social work problem, or a matter of personal pathology, or some peculiar subspecies of urban poverty.

Informed by the author’s own front-line experiences from more than two decades working as an advocate for homeless people in New York City and his work with housing activists across the country. Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age presents an alternative and innovative, wide-angle view of homelessness and displacement in New York and elsewhere.

A tour of the geography of homelessness in New York City, where some 100,000 people a night sleep in the city’s shelter system, Markee visits certain city landmarks where homeless New Yorkers struggle to survive:

  • armories once built to quarter militias who put down worker uprisings
  • a train tunnel underneath Riverside Park
  • a grim intake center where infants, children, and families were forced to sleep on office floors
  • a former psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital now sheltering hundreds of homeless men each night
  • a Manhattan park surrounded by luxury condos where the police routinely harassed homeless street-dwellers


Blending historical analysis, urban theory, and the latest policy research, Markee considers homelessness in America as a tragic yet inevitable consequence of economic shifts inaugurated in the Reagan era, worsening inequality and housing affordability, systemic racism, and neoliberal government policies.

At a moment where tabloids and politicians use homelessness as an excuse to whip up fear, Placeless is a powerful and moving account of a social problem whose solution is entirely possible.

View Details >>

All My Bones

P. J. Nelson

Madeline Brimley, new owner of a bookstore in a small Georgia town, finds herself playing sleuth when a friend is charged with the murder of a much-disliked woman.

Madeline Brimley recently inherited a bookstore in Enigma, Georgia, is embarking on her second career, after her first one (acting) founders upon the metaphorical rocks. Settling in, Madeline recruits her friend Gloria Coleman, the local Episcopal priest, to help her plant azaleas in the front yard of the old Victorian that houses the bookstore. Turning the soil, however, uncovers the body of one Beatrice Glassie, a troublesome woman who has been missing for the past six months. 

When her friend Gloria is arrested for the murder, Madeline is determined to prove her innocence and, as she quickly finds out, there aren't many people in town who hadn't wanted to kill Bea Glassie at one point or another. And the very expensive and rare first edition of a particular volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales—ordered by the victim and her sister is somehow tied to the grim death. With the help of her not-quite-boyfriend, a local lawman, and her deceased aunt's best friend, Madeline plans to set a trap to catch the real murderer—before she becomes the next victim.

View Details >>

The Problem with Plastic

Judith Enck

"Plastic pollution has reached crisis proportions, and false solutions abound. But as The Problem with Plastic shows, there are real solutions out there. And, fortunately, there are people like Judith Enck working to enact them." --Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction

A powerful investigation into plastic's impact on human health and the environment, and how we can fight back

Plastic is everywhere--wrapped around our food, stitched into our clothes, even coursing through our veins. Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without it can seem impossible. Over the last seventy-five years, plastic has cradled our planet in a synthetic embrace.

The Problem with Plastic critically examines the paradox of this material, first celebrated for its innovations and now recognized for its devastating environmental and public health impacts. With clarity and urgency, the book reveals how plastic pollution contributes to poisoned oceans, polluted air, a warming planet, and overwhelming waste, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities who bear the brunt of petrochemical pollution.

Revealing the alarming extent of microplastics infiltrating both the natural world and the human body, this compelling narrative challenges the illusion that recycling alone will save us. It unpacks the mechanisms of environmental racism and the deceptive greenwashing strategies used by the plastics industry to maintain the status quo.

More than a critique, The Problem with Plastic emphasizes the urgent need for action against plastic's toxic legacy. It higlights powerful stories of frontline resistance in places like Louisiana, Texas, and Appalachia, and equips readers with practical tools--including a "Household Waste Audit" to track and reduce plastic consumption, as well as model policy guides for driving legislative change.

Urgent, eye-opening, and ultimately empowering, The Problem with Plastic reminds us: plastic is a problem--but together, we can be the solution.

View Details >>

Whispers at Painswick Court

Julie Klassen

She expected her return to Painswick would bring memories of the past--not danger and romance. 

Anne Loveday, a surgeon's daughter, is determined to live a single, useful life. To escape her matchmaking stepmother, she accepts an invitation from an old friend to return to Painswick, the place where she and her sister spent many happy summers until that last, fateful year. 

Soon after arriving, Anne is asked to serve as sickroom nurse to Lady Celia, who forbade her nephew to marry Anne's sister years before. Pushing aside resentments, Anne moves into Painswick Court, a shadowy old house rumored to be haunted. Also in residence are Lady Celia's spinster daughter, her handsome adult nephews, and a secretive new lady's maid. Two local doctors visit regularly as well, one of whom admires Anne while concealing secrets of his own. 

As an escalating series of mishaps befalls her patient, Anne realizes someone is trying to kill the woman. But who? When Anne finds herself a suspect and her resolution to avoid romance challenged, can she discover the real culprit--and protect her heart--before it's too late?

Agatha Christie meets Jane Austen in this compelling Regency-era novel laced with intrigue, love, and English village charm for fans of historical romance and whodunit mysteries.

View Details >>

Smartphone Nation

Kaitlyn Regehr, PhD

“A candid, rigorous, and witty read on how to stop digital devices from wreaking havoc on our lives. As a leading expert on social media and internet policy, Kaitlyn Regehr illuminates what we can do—individually and collectively—to put our smartphones in their place.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the podcast Re:Thinking

A transformative guide to outsmarting your screen and establishing healthier tech habits that will help you and your family live better—for anyone who read The Anxious Generation and wants to know what to do next.

Dr. Kaitlyn Regehr—a celebrated researcher and professor of digital humanities—explains how we can hold on to the myriad benefits of technology while evading their hidden dangers. We are all using (and parenting around) a technology we didn’t grow up with; it makes sense that we feel overwhelmed. In Smartphone Nation, Regehr explains how these technologies work, giving you the power to change the way you (and your family) use your devices. Regehr proposes a new, food pyramid–like framework for understanding and improving our digital consumption. Some tech, like nutrient-dense food, is good for us; it is vital in our lives. But so much of what we consume via algorithms is like candy that rots our teeth: it’s disastrous for our wellbeing. Regehr’s groundbreaking research reveals how we can reclaim control and maintain a healthy digital diet.

Essential reading anyone who knows there’s more to life than staring at a screen—or who wants to raise children who believe that, too—Smartphone Nation shows how to:

• Navigate the attention economy, which prioritizes engagement at all costs
• Improve your digital nutrition for better mental health
• Spring clean your viewing experience
• Game the algorithm
• Catch misinformation
• Parent your children in the digital age

Thoughtful, clearsighted, and empowering, Smartphone Nation is essential reading for anyone who owns a phone.

View Details >>

Prowl

Colleen Coble

Prowl, the second book in USA TODAY bestselling author Colleen Coble's Sanctuary series (following Ambush), delivers exactly what her fans want: the ideal blend of suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat with just the right amount of romance. Perfect for fans of Laura Dave, Allison Brennan, and Dani Pettrey.

When a worker at the Sanctuary is discovered dead in the tiger enclosure, authorities assume the big cat killed her. But when the autopsy shows she was killed by a lethal dose of anesthetic delivered by a tranquilizer gun, suspicion falls on Blake Lawson, co-owner of the Sanctuary. Blake has his hands full trying to clear his name as well as get the Sanctuary finances back in the black. When a soil test turns up traces of rare earth, he's even more puzzled. Is someone trying to run them out of business to get to whatever is under the ground?

Meanwhile, wildlife veterinarian Paradise Alden is determined to find the brother she only recently learned even existed. When the results of the DNA test she ran mysteriously disappear from her portal before she can read them, she realizes someone must not want her to know the truth. A break-in at her new apartment is alarming, but she tries to pass it off as someone trying to scare her away. She refuses to turn tail and run when she is desperate for answers.

For Blake, the only solid ground is his relationship with Paradise, and he longs to propose--but how can they even think about starting a life together with so many forces working against them?

Colleen Coble's Prowl combines gripping suspense with closed-door romance and includes intriguing mysteries from both the past and present, sabotage and danger, second-chance romance, found family, and themes of overcoming pain and how the past doesn't have to define you.

Also in this series: Ambush (book 1, available now) and Conspiracy (book 3, available July 2026).

View Details >>

Every Day I Read

Hwang Bo-reum

From the author of the international bestseller Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, a heartfelt invitation to reflect on your relationship with reading and celebrate the joys of books.

Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure?

How often do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading? In each of the essays in Every Day I Read, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more.

Every Day I Read provides many quiet moments for introspection and reflection, encouraging book-lovers to explore what reading means to each of us. While this is a book about books, at its heart is an attitude to life, one outside capitalism and climbing the corporate ladder. Lifelong and new readers will take inspiration from it, including a treasure trove of book recommendations blended seamlessly within.

View Details >>

A Christmas Witness

Charles Todd

December 1921: Being single and a new Chief, Inspector Rutledge of Scotland Yard gets the short straw at Christmastime and is called upon by Chief Superintendent Markum to go to the Kentish home of a lord recovering from an attempt on his life. In bed with a concussion, the man is convinced someone is trying to kill him after he claims he was struck by the hoof of a running horse whose rider never stopped to check on him.

Struggling with his own demons from the war and misgivings about helping a man who, as a colonel, oversaw the suffering of those on the frontlines from afar, Rutledge undertakes an uneasy investigation. And as the winter holiday approaches, he becomes increasingly convinced that nothing is as it seems...

View Details >>

The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

James Patterson

"Electrifying... A spellbinding new account of the star's final days by the world's greatest thriller writer." -- Daily Mail

"Entertaining...bursting with anecdotes...zippy pacing and novelistic detail. ...Readers with a soft spot for Hollywood's perennial muse will find plenty to enjoy." -- Publishers Weekly

The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe is a true crime thriller about a woman who changed Hollywood history, and whose indelible image captures our imagination to this day.

In life, Marilyn Monroe's superstardom defies classification. In death, she remains shrouded in mystery. 

In the months before her death, Marilyn polishes the script for her ultimately unfinished film, Something's Got to Give. 

In the weeks before her death, she drinks champagne on Santa Monica Beach with the last photographer to take her picture. 

In the days before her death, she's a guest of Frank Sinatra in the Celebrity Room at the Cal Neva Lodge. 

In the hours before her death, she argues with US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and his brother-in-law Peter Lawford. 

In an emergency session with her psychiatrist, she confesses: "Here I am, the most beautiful woman in the world, and I do not have a date for Saturday night." 

On June 1, 2026, the world celebrates Marilyn Monroe's one hundredth birthday.

Without her.

View Details >>

Exit Strategy

Lee Child

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Jack Reacher will make three stops today. Not all of them were planned for. The “blockbuster” (Esquire) new Jack Reacher thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child, featuring “the best villain yet” (USA Today)!

Don’t miss the hit streaming series Reacher!

First—a Baltimore coffee shop. A seat in the corner, facing the door. Black coffee, two refills, no messing around. A minor interruption from two of the customers, but nothing he can’t deal with swiftly. As he leaves, a young guy brushes against him in the doorway. Instinctively Reacher checks the pocket holding his cash and passport. There’s no problem. Nothing is missing.

Second—a store to buy a coat. Nothing fancy. Something he can ditch when he heads to warmer climates. Large enough to fit a man the size of a bank vault. As he pulls out his cash, he finds something new in his pocket. A handwritten note. A desperate plea for help.

Third—wherever this bend in the road takes him. Impressed by the guy’s technique and intrigued by the message, Reacher makes it his mission to find out more . . .

View Details >>