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A real-life technological thriller about a band of eccentric misfits taking on the biggest cybersecurity threats of our time."What Michael Lewis did for baseball in Moneyball, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden do brilliantly for the world of ransomware and hackers. Cinematic, big in scope, and meticulously reported, this book is impossible to put down." -Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of In Harm's Way and Horse SoldiersScattered across the world, an elite team of code crackers is working tirelessly to thwart the defining cyber scourge of our time. You've probably never heard of them. But if you work for a school, a business, a hospital, or a municipal government, or simply cherish your digital data, you may be painfully familiar with the team's sworn enemy: ransomware. Again and again, an unlikely band of misfits, mostly self-taught and often struggling to make ends meet, have outwitted the underworld of hackers who lock computer networks and demand huge payments in return for the keys.The Ransomware Hunting Team traces the adventures of these unassuming heroes and how they have used their skills to save millions of ransomware victims from paying billions of dollars to criminals. Working tirelessly from bedrooms and back offices, and refusing payment, they've rescued those whom the often hapless FBI has been unwilling or unable to help. Foremost among them is Michael Gillespie, a cancer survivor and cat lover who got his start cracking ransomware while working at a Nerds on Call store in the town of Normal, Illinois. Other teammates include the brilliant, reclusive Fabian Wosar, a high school dropout from Germany who enjoys bantering with the attackers he foils, and his protégé, the British computer science prodigy Sarah White. Together, they have established themselves as the most effective force against an escalating global threat. This book follows them as they put their health, personal relationships, and financial security on the line to navigate the technological and moral challenges of combating digital hostage taking.Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden's The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller that illuminates a dangerous new era of cybercrime.

Finalist for the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates PrizeA new collection of stories by David Means, a visionary "master of the form" (The Observer). Two nurses meet in the hospital parking lot to share a cigarette. They flirt and imagine a future together. They tell stories of patients lost and patients saved, of the darkest corners of human suffering and the luminous moments that break through, even here, in the shadow of death.In David Means's virtuosic new collection, time unfolds in unexpected ways: a single, quiet moment swells with the echoes of a widower's complicated marriage; a dachshund, given a new name and a new life by a new owner, catches the scent of the troubled man who previously abandoned her; young lovers become old; estranged couples return to their vows; and those who have died live on in perpetuity in the memories of those whom they touched. The stories in this collection-which have won the O. Henry Prize and the Pushcart Prize, and have been featured in The Best American Short Stories-confirm the promise of a writer who "believes in the power of stories to rescue and redeem people" (Max Liu, Financial Times).A revelatory meditation on trauma and catharsis, isolation and communion, Two Nurses, Smoking reflects the dislocations and anguish of our age, as well as the humanity and humor that buoy us.

#1 New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas E. Ricks offers a new take on the Civil Rights Movement, stressing its unexpected use of military strategy and its lessons for nonviolent resistance around the world."Ricks does a tremendous job of putting the reader inside the hearts and souls of the young men and women who risked so much to change America . . . Riveting." -Charles Kaiser, The Guardian In Waging a Good War, the bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a fresh perspective on America's greatest moral revolution-the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s-and its legacy today. While the Movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning war reporter, draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to advance a surprising but revelatory idea: the greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century were won not by idealism alone, but by paying attention to recruiting, training, discipline, and organization-the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.An engaging storyteller, Ricks deftly narrates the Movement's triumphs and defeats. He follows King and other key figures from Montgomery to Memphis, demonstrating that Gandhian nonviolence was a philosophy of active, not passive, resistance. While bringing legends such as Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis into new focus, Ricks also highlights lesser-known figures-the activists James Lawson, James Bevel, Diane Nash, and Septima Clark foremost among them. Rich with fresh interpretations of familiar events and overlooked aspects of America's civil rights struggle, Waging a Good War is an indispensable addition to the literature of racial justice and social change.

"Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds." -Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife.Within a decade and a half, Suleyman held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander, Barbarossa, placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power, where the sultan sleeps head-to-toe with his best friend and eats from wooden spoons with his baby boy.In The Lion House, Christopher de Bellaigue tells the story not just of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.

Winner of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2022 Slightly Foxed Best First Biography PrizeShortlisted for the 2023 Plutarch AwardA Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Book of 2022 A New York Times Notable Book of the YearNamed a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, and Literary HubFrom the standout scholar Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite presents a sparkling and very modern biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death.Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing.He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, a member of Parliament-and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year-old girl without her father's consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children, and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from surges of misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love.In Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell embarks on a fleet-footed act of evangelism, showing us the many sides of Donne's extraordinary life, his obsessions, his blazing words, and his tempestuous Elizabethan times-unveiling Donne as the most remarkable mind and as a lesson in living.

"Each chapter is a gem of insight into the human experience, cut and polished to perfection by the renowned psychologist David Myers. Better than any book I can recall, this book answers questions about why we think, feel, and act as we do-but also makes us curious to learn more." -Angela DuckworthA delightful tour of the wonders of our humanity from David G. Myers, the award-winning professor and author of psychology's bestselling textbook.Over the past three decades, millions of students have learned about psychology from textbooks by David G. Myers. To create these books and to satisfy his own endless curiosity about the human mind, Myers monitors the leading journals to discover the most extraordinary developments in psychological science.How Do We Know Ourselves? is a compendium of the most wondrous verities that Myers has found, revealing thought-provoking insights into our everyday lives. His astute observations and sharp-witted wisdom enable readers to think smarter and live happier.Myers's subjects range from why we so often fear the wrong things to how simply going for a walk with someone can increase rapport and empathy. He reveals why we repeatedly mishear song lyrics and how the color of President Obama's suits aided in his decision-making. Myers also explores the powers and perils of our intuition, explaining why anything can seem obvious once it happens.These forty essays offer fresh insight into our sometimes bewildering but ever-fascinating lives. Myers is engaging and intellectually provocative, and he brings a wealth of knowledge from more than fifty years of teaching and writing about psychology to this lively and informative collection. He inspires us to ponder timeless questions, including what might be the most intriguing one of all: How do we know ourselves?

Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is the study of a brave, curious, multilayered woman-an acutely intelligent portrait of the many lives behind a single name. Now a major motion picture.What part of our selves do we hide away in order to create a stable, successful adult life?Pippa Lee has just such a life in place at age fifty, when her older husband, a retired publisher, decides they should move to a retirement community outside New York City. Pippa is suddenly deprived of the stimulation and distraction that had held everything in place. She begins losing track of her own mind; her foundations start to shudder, and gradually we learn the truth of the young life that led her finally to settle down in marriage-years of neglect and rebellion, wild transgressions and powerful defiance.

An intimate, revealing memoir from one of the most important activists of our time. While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera. In 2011, she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013, she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison.The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison.In README.txt, Manning recounts how her pleas for increased institutional transparency and government accountability took place alongside a fight to defend her rights as a trans woman. Manning details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence as a naive, computer-savvy kid, what drew her to the military, and the fierce pride she has about the work she does. This powerful, observant memoir will stand as one of the definitive testaments of our digital, information-driven age.

From one of England's most celebrated writers, a funny and superbly observed novella about the Queen of England and the subversive power of readingWhen her corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace, the Queen feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Discovering the joy of reading widely (from J. R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, and Ivy Compton-Burnett to the classics) and intelligently, she finds that her view of the world changes dramatically. Abetted in her newfound obsession by Norman, a young man from the royal kitchens, the Queen comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with the routines of her role as monarch. Her new passion for reading initially alarms the palace staff and soon leads to surprising and very funny consequences for the country at large. With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best-loved author Alan Bennett revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life.

From the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Alice McDermott, The Ninth Hour is the critically acclaimed "haunting and vivid portrait of an Irish Catholic clan in early twentieth century America" (The Associated Press).One of Time Magazine's Top Ten Novels of the YearA 2017 Kirkus Prize FinalistA New York Times Book Review Notable Book On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove-to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife-that "the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man's brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives-testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott's The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island, Theresa is her town's most sought-after babysitter-cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has come to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place. While Theresa copes with the challenges presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-cheek sense of order is tested as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood.In her deeply etched rendering of all that happened that seemingly idyllic season, Alice McDermott once again peers into the depths of everyday life with inimitable insight and grace. As Margaret Atwood wrote in The New York Review of Books, Child of My Heart is "richly textured [and] intricately woven . . . A work not only of, but about, the imagination."

This is a book about yoga. Or at least it was. Emmanuel Carrère is a renowned writer. After decades of emotional upheaval, he has begun to live successfully-he is healthy; he works; he loves. He practices meditation, striving to observe the world without evaluating it. In this state of heightened awareness, he sets out for a ten-day silent retreat in the French heartland, leaving his phone, his books, and his daily life behind. But he's also gathering material for his next book, which he thinks will be a pleasant, useful introduction to yoga. Four days later, there's a tap on the window: something has happened. Forced to leave the retreat early, he returns to a Paris in crisis. Life is derailed. His city is in turmoil. His work in progress falters. His marriage begins to unravel, as does his entanglement with another woman. He wavers between opposites-self-destruction and self-control, sanity and madness, elation and despair. The story he has told about himself falls away. And still, he continues to live. This is a book about one man's desire to get better, and to be better. It is laced with doubt and animated by the dangerous interplay of fiction and reality. Loving, humorous, harrowing, and profound, Yoga hurls us toward the outer edges of consciousness, where, finally, we can see things as they really are.

Rebecca Miller returns to short fiction for the first time since her prodigious collection of stories, Personal Velocity, with the arresting, darkly prescient Total.From Dublin to Martha's Vineyard, from the anxious comforts of motherhood to a technologically infected near future that mirrors today with dark prescience, each of the seven stories in Total is a world of its own, painted with vivid strokes, whose people and questions stay with the reader long after the story has ended. Joad, one of the first characters we meet, finds onionskin pages crammed in a locked desk drawer while refurbishing a Hudson Valley farmhouse; the terrifying words on the fragile paper haunt Joad and her husband, the woman who wrote them looming over the couple like a malevolent spirit. Her words embody the power of the act of creation and the insidious, untamable force of language once it has left one's pen. The author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Jacob's Folly, as well as an award-winning filmmaker, Miller has "the soaring eye of the epicist and the sly instinct of the satirist" (The New Yorker), and her talents are on full display in Total. Each voice and life captured in these haunting stories is unforgettable.

The memoirs of Mary Rodgers-writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and "a woman who tried everything.""What am I, bologna?" Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent's overwhelming gift, to become not just a theater figure in her own right but also a renowned author of books for young readers (including the classic Freaky Friday) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the chairman of the Juilliard School. But in telling these stories-with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times-Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms. Whether writing for Judy Holliday or Rin Tin Tin, dating Hal Prince or falling for Stephen Sondheim over a game of chess at thirteen, Rodgers grabbed every chance possible-and then some. Both an eyewitness report from the golden age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don't make anymore-and never did. They make themselves.

A fun, dazzling exploration of the strange numbers that illuminate the ultimate nature of reality.For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists such as James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, and Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe? In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. They include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite nature can never be definitively proved because to do so would take so much time that the universe would experience a Poincaré recurrence, resetting to precisely the state it currently holds, down to the arrangement of individual atoms; and 10^{-120}, measuring the desperately unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than just a moment, to extend beyond the size of a single atom. Leading us down the rabbit hole to a deeper knowledge of reality, Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the keys to grasping such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant-that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict each other. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is a combination of popular and cutting-edge science-and a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental units of the universe.

A New Yorker Best Book of the YearA New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceA Must-Read at People, Entertainment Weekly, Nylon, and LitHub"Stylish, reckless . . . Glittering." -Molly Young, The New York TimesA power ballad to female friendship, Girls They Write Songs About is a thrumming, searching novel about the bonds that shape us more than any love affair.We moved to New York to want undisturbed and unchecked. And what did we want?New York, 1997. As the city's gritty edges are being smoothed into something safer and shinier, two aspiring writers meet at a music magazine. Rose-brash and self-possessed-is a staff writer. Charlotte-hesitant, bookish-is an editor. First wary, then slowly admiring, they recognize in each other an insatiable and previously unmatched ambition. Soon they're inseparable, falling into the kind of friendship that makes every day an adventure, and makes you believe that you will, of course, achieve extraordinary things.Together, Charlotte and Rose find love and lose it; they hit their strides and stumble; they make choices and live past them. They say to each other, "Don't ever leave me." It's their favorite joke, but they know that they could never say a truer thing. But then the steady beats of their sisterhood fall out of sync. They have seen each other through so much-marriage, motherhood, divorce, career glories and catastrophes, a million small but necessary choices. What will it mean if they have to give up dreaming together? That the friendship that once made them sing out now shuts them down? And even if they can reconcile themselves to the lives they've chosen, can they make peace with the ones they didn't?As smart and comic as it is gloriously exuberant, Carlene Bauer's Girls They Write Songs About takes a timeless story and turns it into a pulsing, wrecking, clear-eyed tale of two women reckoning with the loss of the friendship that helped define them, and the countless ways all the women they've known have made them who they are.

The story of the model, actress, and American icon Edie Sedgwick is told by her sister with empathy, insight, and firsthand observations of her meteoric life.As It Turns Out is a family story. Alice Sedgwick Wohl is writing to her brother Bobby, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1965, just before their sister Edie Sedgwick met Andy Warhol. After unexpectedly coming across Edie's image in a clip from Warhol's extraordinary film Outer and Inner Space, Wohl was moved to put her inner dialogue with Bobby on the page in an attempt to reconstruct Edie's life and figure out what made Edie and Andy such iconic figures in American culture. What was it about Andy that enabled him to anticipate so much of contemporary culture? Why did Edie draw attention wherever she went? Who exactly was she, who fascinated Warhol and captured the imagination of a generation? Wohl tells the story as only a sister could, from their childhood on a California ranch and the beginnings of Edie's lifelong troubles in the world of their parents to her life and relationship with Warhol within the silver walls of the Factory, in the fashionable arenas of New York, and as projected in the various critically acclaimed films he made with her. As Wohl seeks to understand the conjunction of Edie and Andy, she writes with a keen critical eye and careful reflection about their enduring impact. As It Turns Out is a meditation addressed to her brother about their sister, about the girl behind the magnetic image, and about the culture she and Warhol introduced.

"This is the ultimate insider's view of perhaps the darkest chapter of the Forever Wars. Michael R. Gordon knows everyone, was seemingly everywhere, and brings a lifetime of brilliant reporting to telling this crucial story." -Retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, Sixteenth Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and author of To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of DecisionAn essential account of the struggle against ISIS-and of how Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden have waged war.In the summer of 2014, President Barack Obama faced an unwelcome surprise: insurgents from the Islamic State had seized the Iraqi city of Mosul and proclaimed a new caliphate, which they were ruling with an iron fist and using to launch terrorist attacks abroad. After considerable deliberation, President Obama sent American troops back to Iraq. The new mission was to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS, primarily by advising Iraqi and Syrian partners who would do the bulk of the fighting and by supporting them with airpower and artillery. More than four years later, the caliphate had been dismantled, the cities of Mosul and Raqqa lay in ruins, and several thousand U.S. troops remained to prevent ISIS from making a comeback. The "by, with, and through" strategy was hailed as a template for future campaigns. But how was the war actually fought? What were the key decisions, successes, and failures? And what was learned?In Degrade and Destroy, the bestselling author and Wall Street Journal national security correspondent Michael R. Gordon reveals the strategy debates, diplomatic gambits, and military operations that shaped the struggle against the Islamic State. With extraordinary access to top U.S. officials and military commanders and to the forces on the battlefield, Gordon offers a riveting narrative that ferrets out some of the war's most guarded secrets.Degrade and Destroy takes us inside National Security Council meetings at which Obama and his top aides grapple with early setbacks and discuss whether the war can be won. It also offers the most detailed account to date of how President Donald Trump waged war-delegating greater authority to the Pentagon but jeopardizing the outcome with a rush for the exit. Drawing on his reporting in Iraq and Syria, Gordon documents the closed-door deliberations of U.S. generals with their Iraqi and Syrian counterparts and describes some of the toughest urban battles since World War II. As Americans debate the future of using force abroad, Gordon's book offers vital insights into how our wars today are fought against militant foes, and the enduring lessons we can draw from them.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND NATIONAL BESTSELLER"There's no such thing as a book you can't put down, but this one was close." -Stephen King"Smart suspense at its very best." -John GrishamTautly wound and expertly crafted, Two Nights in Lisbon is a riveting thriller about a woman under pressure, and how far she will go when everything is on the line.You think you know a person . . .Ariel Pryce wakes up in Lisbon alone. Her husband is gone-no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong.She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, each time confronting questions she can't fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new-and much younger-husband?The clock is ticking. Ariel is increasingly frustrated and desperate, running out of time, and the one person in the world who can help is the person she least wants to ask.Bestselling author Chris Pavone delivers sparkling prose and razor-sharp insights in this stunning and sophisticated thriller. Two Nights in Lisbon will stick with you long after the surprising final page.

In the wake of Brexit, Ian Morris chronicles the ten-thousand-year history of Britain's relationship to Europe as it has changed in the context of a globalizing world.When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the 48 percent who wanted to stay and the 52 percent who wanted to go each accused the other of stupidity, fraud, and treason. In reality, the Brexit debate merely reran a script written ten thousand years earlier, when the rising seas physically separated the British Isles from the European continent. Ever since, geography has been destiny-yet it is humans who get to decide what that destiny means.Ian Morris, the critically acclaimed author of Why the West Rules-for Now, describes how technology and organization have steadily enlarged Britain's arena, and how its people have tried to turn this to their advantage. For the first seventy-five hundred years, the British were never more than bit players at the western edge of a European stage, struggling to find a role among bigger, richer, and more sophisticated continental rivals. By 1500 CE, however, new kinds of ships and governments had turned the European stage into an Atlantic one; with the English Channel now functioning as a barrier, England transformed the British Isles into a United Kingdom that created a worldwide empire. Since 1900, thanks to rapid globalization, Britain has been overshadowed by American, European, and-increasingly-Chinese actors. In trying to find its place in a global economy, Britain has been looking in all the wrong places. The ten-thousand-year story bracingly chronicled by Geography Is Destiny shows that the great question for the current century is not what to do about Brussels; it's what to do about Beijing.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE AND PAPERBACK ROW"[Holleran's] new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted . . . In 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon, the sheer, careless pleasure of it: Dancer from the Dance. Now, at almost eighty years of age, he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity, for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time." -Colm Tóibín, The New York Times Book Review"It's rare to find fiction that takes this kind of dying of the light as its subject and doesn't make its heroes feel either pathetic or polished with a gleam of false dignity . . . This sad, beautiful book captures the sensations Holleran's characters are chasing-as well as the darkness that inevitably comes for them, and us." -Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles TimesOne of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse.The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dread-Andrew Holleran's first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parents-during the height of the AIDS epidemic-and has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town.At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earl's health is failing, and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies, he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while, he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking.Holleran's first novel, Dancer from the Dance, is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. Reviewers have described his subsequent books as beautiful, exhilarating, seductive, haunting, and bold. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleran's considerable gifts; it's an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, especially as we count down our days.

A short book about the challenges to liberalism from the right and the left by the bestselling author of The Origins of Political OrderClassical liberalism is in a state of crisis. Developed in the wake of Europe's wars over religion and nationalism, liberalism is a system for governing diverse societies that is grounded in fundamental principles of equality and the rule of law. It emphasizes the rights of individuals to pursue their own forms of happiness free from encroachment by government.It's no secret that liberalism hasn't always lived up to its own ideals. In the United States, many have long been denied equality before the law, excluded from the category of full human beings worthy of universal rights. Only recently has this definition expanded to include, to varying degrees, women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and other historically marginalized groups. As the renowned political philosopher Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left: neoliberals have made a cult of economic freedom, and progressives have focused on identity over human universality as central to their political vision. The result, Fukuyama argues, has been a fracturing of our civil society and increasing peril to our democracy.In this succinct, clear account of our current political discontents, Fukuyama offers an essential defense of a revitalized liberalism for the twenty-first century.

A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth-until one insane man makes her tell the truth.Liarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.

One of Esquire's best books of spring 2022An extended meditation on late style and last works from "one of our greatest living critics" (Kathryn Schulz, New York).How and when do artists and athletes know that their careers are coming to an end? What if the end comes early in a writer's life? How to keep going even as the ability to do so diminishes? In this ingeniously structured investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last works of writers, painters, musicians, and sports stars who've mattered to him throughout his life. With playful charm and penetrating intelligence, he considers Friedrich Nietzsche's breakdown in Turin, Bob Dylan's reinventions of old songs, J.M.W. Turner's proto-abstract paintings of blazing light, Jean Rhys's late-life resurgence, and John Coltrane's final works.Ranging from Burning Man to Beethoven, from Eve Babitz to William Basinski, and from Annie Dillard to Giorgio de Chirico, Dyer's study of last things is also a book about how to go on living with art and beauty-and the sudden rejuvenation offered by books, films, and music discovered late in life. Praised by Kathryn Schulz as "one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself," and by Tom Bissell as "perhaps the most bafflingly great writer at work in the English language today," Dyer has now blended criticism, memoir, and badinage of the most serious kind into something entirely new. The Last Days of Roger Federer is a summation of Dyer's passions and the perfect introduction to his sly and joyous work.

The Letters of Thom Gunn presents the first complete portrait of the private life, reflections, and relationships of a maverick figure in the history of British and American poetry"I write about love, I write about friendship," remarked Thom Gunn. "I find that they are absolutely intertwined." These core values permeate his correspondence with friends, family, lovers, and fellow poets, and they shed new light on "one of the most singular and compelling poets in English during the past half-century" (Hugh Haughton, The Times Literary Supplement).The Letters of Thom Gunn, edited by August Kleinzahler, Michael Nott, and Clive Wilmer, reveals the evolution of Gunn's work and illuminates the fascinating life that informed his poems: his struggle to come to terms with his mother's suicide; settling in San Francisco and his complex relationship with England; his changing relationship with his life partner, Mike Kitay; the LSD trips that led to his celebrated collection Moly (1971); and the deaths of friends from AIDS that inspired the powerful, unsparing elegies of The Man with Night Sweats (1992).

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE"Luminous." -Jonathan Myerson, The Guardian"Vivid, thought-provoking." -Malcolm Forbes, Star TribuneIn 1979, as violence erupts all over Ireland, two outsiders travel to a small island off the west coast in search of their own answers, despite what it may cost the islanders.It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. Mr. Lloyd takes the last leg by currach, though boats with engines are available and he doesn't much like the sea. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him, give him room to create. He doesn't know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home. He is fiercely protective of their isolation, deems it essential to exploring his theories of language preservation and identity.But the people who live on this rock-three miles long and half a mile wide-have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them-from great-grandmother Bean Uí Fhloinn, to widowed Mairéad, to fifteen-year-old James, who is determined to avoid the life of a fisherman-will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.An expertly woven portrait of character and place, a stirring investigation into yearning to find one's way, and an unflinchingly political critique of the long, seething cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee's The Colony is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.

Hilariously insightful and delightfully suspenseful, Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK of 2022 at Glamour, W, Nylon, Fortune, Literary Hub, The Millions, and more!One night in New York City's Chinatown, a woman is at a reunion dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into an ex-boyfriend. And then another. And . . . another. Nothing is quite what it seems as the city becomes awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. What would normally pass for coincidence becomes something far stranger. The recently engaged Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but with the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned mystical guru, might have an unhealthy investment in the outcome. Memories of the past swirl and converge in ways both comic and eerie as Lola is forced to decide if she will surrender herself to the conspiring of one very contemporary cult. Is it possible to have a happy ending in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale? With her gimlet eye, Sloane Crosley spins a wry literary fantasy that is equal parts page-turner and poignant portrayal of alienation.

Will Jawando's My Seven Black Fathers tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color at a time when Black men are routinely stigmatized."Will Jawando's account of mentorship, service, and healing lays waste to the racist stereotype of the absent Black father. By arguing that Black fathers are not just found in individual families, but are indeed the treasure of entire Black communities, Will makes the case for a bold idea: that Black men can counter racist ideas and policies by virtue of their presence in the lives of Black boys and young men. This is a story we need to hear." -Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an AntiracistAs a boy growing up outside DC, Will, who went by his Nigerian name, Yemi, was shunted from school to school, never quite fitting in. He was a Black kid with a divorced white mother, a frayed relationship with his biological father, and teachers who scolded him for being disruptive. Eventually, he became close to Kalfani, a kid he looked up to on the basketball court. Years after he got the call telling him that Kalfani was dead, another victim of gun violence, Will looks back on the relationships he had with a series of extraordinary mentors who enabled him to thrive.Among them were Mr. Williams, the rare Black male grade school teacher, who found a way to bolster Will's self-esteem; Jay Fletcher, the openly gay colleague of his mother's who got him off junk food and took him to his first play; Wayne Holmes, the high school coach and chorus director who saw him through a crushing disappointment; Deen Sanwoola, the businessman who helped him bridge the gap between his American upbringing and his Nigerian heritage, eventually leading to a dramatic reconciliation with his biological father; and President Barack Obama, who made Will his associate director of public engagement at the White House-and invited him to play basketball on more than one occasion. Without the influence of these men, Will knows he would not be who he is today: a civil rights and education policy attorney, a civic leader, a husband, and a father.Drawing on Will's inspiring personal story, My Seven Black Fathers offers a transformative way for Black men to shape the next generation.