Twelve Trees by Daniel Lewis

A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees that represent the challenges facing our planet, and the ways that scientists are working urgently to save our forests and our future.

The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history—from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world’s most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats.

Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. When a once-common tree goes extinct in the wild but survives in a botanical garden, what happens next? How can scientists reconstruct lost genomes and habitats? How does a tree store thousands of gallons of water, or offer up perfectly preserved insects from millions of years ago, or root itself in muddy swamps and remain standing? How does a 5,000-year-old tree manage to live, and what can we learn from it? And how can science account for the survival of one species at the expense of others? To study the science of trees is to study not just the present, but the story of the world, its past, and its future.

Note—species include: The Lost Tree of Easter Island (Sophora toromiro) * The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) * Hymenaea protera [a fossil tree] * The Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) * East Indian sandalwood (Santanum album) * The Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) * West African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) * The Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) * Olive tree (Olea europaea) * Baobab (Adansonia digitata) * the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) * The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet

Say Hello to My Little Friend is a masterclass in pace and precision. Crucet can make you cry before you’ve even realized you’ve become invested and make you laugh even through the hurt. Brilliant.” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, National Book Award Finalist of Chain Gang All Stars

Scarface meets Moby Dick in this groundbreaking, darkly comic novel about a young man’s attempt to capitalize on his mother’s murky legacy—a story steeped in Miami’s marvelous and sinister magic.

Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes—you can call him Izzy—might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist letter from Pitbull’s legal team and living in his aunt’s garage-turned-efficiency, Izzy embarks on an absurd quest to turn himself into a modern-day Tony Montana.

When Izzy’s efforts lead him to the tank that houses Lolita, a captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium, she proves just how powerful she and the water surrounding her really are—permeating everything from Miami’s sinking streets to Izzy’s memories to the very heart of the novel itself. What begins as Izzy’s story turns into a super-saturated fever dream as sprawling and surreal as the Magic City, one as sharp as an iguana’s claws, and as menacing as a killer whale’s teeth. As the truth surrounding Izzy’s boyhood escape from Cuba surfaces, the novel reckons with the forces of nature, with the limits and absence of love, and with the dangers of pursuing a tragic inheritance. Wildly narrated and expertly rendered, Say Hello to My Little Friend is Jennine Capó Crucet’s most daring, heart-breaking, and fearless book yet.

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date—a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance. A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity, The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag.

Central to RuPaul’s success has been his chameleonic adaptability. From drag icon to powerhouse producer of one of the world’s largest television franchises, RuPaul’s ever-shifting nature has always been part of his brand as both supermodel and supermogul. Yet that adaptability has made him enigmatic to the public. In this memoir, his most intimate and detailed book yet, RuPaul makes himself truly known.

In The House of Hidden Meanings, RuPaul strips away all artifice and recounts the story of his life with breathtaking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography. From his early years growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego navigating complex relationships with his absent father and temperamental mother, to forging an identity in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, to finding enduring love with his husband Georges LeBar and self-acceptance in sobriety, RuPaul excavates his own biography life-story, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history.

Here in RuPaul’s singular and extraordinary story is a manual for living—a personal philosophy that testifies to the value of chosen family, the importance of harnessing what makes you different, and the transformational power of facing yourself fearlessly.

A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity, The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag. “I’ve always loved to view the world with analytical eyes, examining what lies beneath the surface. Here, the focus is on my own life—as RuPaul Andre Charles,” says RuPaul.

If we’re all born naked and the rest is drag, then this is RuPaul totally out of drag. This is RuPaul stripped bare. 

The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez

A TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick!

A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.

Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister’s surgery. When she sees a young man—Omar—who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid.

John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice. 

Searing and empathetic,The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers—those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.

Named a Most Anticipated Book By:  Washington Post * Book Riot * Electric Literature * LitHub * ELLE * The Millions * Goodreads * Reader’s Digest

A History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabelle Hirsch

Discover the hidden history of women—and the world—through this visual exploration of intimate objects and the surprising, sometimes shocking stories behind them.

“I adored this book!”—Olivia Colman

This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular: a single journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, manifold, and too often overlooked histories of women.

With engaging prose, compelling stories, and a beautiful full-page image of each object, Annabelle Hirsch’s book contains a curated and diverse compendium of women and their things, uncovering the thoughts and feelings at the heart of women’s daily lives. The result is an intimate and stirring alternative history of humans in the world. The objects date from prehistory to today and are assembled chronologically to show the evolution of how women were perceived by others, how they perceived themselves, how they fought for freedom. Some (like a sixteenth-century glass dildo) are objects of female pleasure, some (a thumbscrew) of female subjugation. These are artifacts of women celebrated by history and of women unfairly forgotten by it. With variety and nuance, A History of Women in 101 Objects cracks open the fissures of what we think we know in order to illuminate a much richer retelling: What do handprints on early cave paintings tell us about the role of women in hunting? How is a cell phone related to femicides? What does Kim Kardashian’s diamond ring have to do with Elena Ferrante?

Wide-ranging, subversive, witty, and superbly researched, this is a book that upends all our assumptions about, and presentations of, the past, proving that it has always been as complicated and fascinating as the women who peopled it.

March Staff Pick: Under the Henfluence

Bookseller Camila with one of her chickens and Under the Henfluence, by Tove Danovich

Under the Henfluence, by Tove Danovich (Agate Midway), picked by Bookseller Camila

Bookseller Camila with one of her chickens and Under the Henfluence, by Tove Danovich

“This book is about chickens, yes, but it is also about how they can change your life if you let them,” Tove Danovich, Under the Henfluence.

It’s March! Spring is in the air and what better way to celebrate the upcoming season, than to immerse yourself in the weird and wonderful world of chickens. Tove’s book (newly released in paperback), Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them expertly weaves the history and business of chicken keeping with extensive research and personal anecdotes. Tove not only raises her own backyard flock of chickens, she is a gifted researcher, storyteller, and journalist.

“It’s a mix of stories from my own flock and reporting on chickens as a species which asks the question of what we owe to the animals we’ve tamed,” Tove Danovich.

I have my own backyard flock of hens. They are what you would call “corona chickens,” or chickens purchased during COVID-19 while we were stuck at home with time on our hands. They are our pets that not only provide eggs, they bring us joy, love, and endless entertainment. “When times get tough, as one hatchery employee told me, people turn to chickens.”

I connected with Tove’s personal anecdotes on her experiences with her flock. Her stories were my stories. We shared in the joys and heartbreak that go with loving your flock. It was also fascinating to learn about our 3,000 (plus) years of chicken domestication. She writes about the chicken industry, 4-H clubs, chicken showing, chicken therapy, all the while sharing her personal journey and experiences. While reading this book, I found myself becoming mindful about where we get our eggs and poultry. I learned what “free-range” versus “cage-free” really means, and how terrible the lives of chickens can be in large industrial facilities meant to provide us with eggs and meat. Where we get our food matters. How animals are treated matters.

I laughed, I cried, and I connected with Tove’s informative book about the world of backyard chicken keeping. You don’t need a flock of your own to LOVE this book! You’ll certainly gain an appreciation for our feathered friends and the people that love them!

~ Camila

A Q&A with Bushra Rehman, author of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

Bushra Rehman with her book, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

We are excited to host Bushra Rehman, author of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion on Saturday, March 16 at 6:30 at Hugh’s View. Prior to hearing from her in person, we had the opportunity to ask a few questions:

Q: Would you tell us a little about Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion and what you hope readers will get out of it?

A: Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a story about female friendship and queer desire in a Pakistani-American community. The main character, Razia grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friends by her side. As she and her friends get older, they embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city. 

When Razia is accepted to high school in Manhattan, the gulf between her and her world in Queens, between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be widens. At her new school, Razia meets Angela, an Italian-Greek girl, and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding.

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a book for anyone who’s ever had to leave the world they grew up in to be who they needed to be, anyone who’s felt different or struggled with limiting expectations. It’s for those who remember what it was like to be queer and not have the words to express it at first.

Razia is a character I’ve always wanted to see in literature: a young Muslim woman experiencing both her Muslim spirituality and her queer desires. I’ve rarely seen three-dimensional portrayals of us as Muslim women or of our families: our love, resilience, and humor. I hope Roses lessens that void.

Q: For you, as a poet and a fiction writer, what do you feel your work as a poet brings to your fiction?

A: The seed of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion was a series of poems I wrote about the beauty of Corona. I wanted to share both the danger and the joy of what it felt like to grow up there. As the poems started to become a novel, the character of Razia Mirza emerged. Even when the poems morphed into fiction, I treated each sentence as a line of poetry. This is probably why it took forever to write this book.

Q: Sense of place appears to be incredibly important to your work (the New York Public Library named Corona, your prior novel, one of its favorite books about the city), what do you find yourself noticing or paying attention to about other places as you travel?

A: I love to travel, and I treat all travel like a journey. I love going to oceans, mountains, rivers and forests. When I travel to towns, I love visiting bookstores and public parks.  Wherever I go, I like to spend time walking, observing and journaling. And what I love about Key West is it’s an adventure of a walking island with deep literary history.

Q: And on a similar point, what are you looking forward to doing or seeing in Key West?

A: I’m excited to see the sunsets in Key West, to eat food at local restaurants, to soak in the sunshine (it’s been a grim winter in NY!) and to meet up with old and new friends. I’m so honored and excited to meet readers at Books & Books @ The Studios of Key West and to join in the literary world of Key West.

Thirty years ago, ago, when I was much younger, I used to spend time in Key West with a friends who lived here. I used to get on the Greyhound from NYC! I even wrote a story in which Razia is on the way to Key West. Perhaps this trip will inspire the chapter of what happens next. I’d love to weave in Key West’s distinctive literary history into this story.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to share about works in progress or upcoming publications?

A: I’ve been writing about the adventures of Razia after the ending of Roses. The Key West story is one of these stories. There are also stories that take place at a Puritan village in Salem, Massachusetts, and in the Strand bookstore in NYC. In the Strand story, Razia has just returned to NYC and gets a job at the Strand. The year is 1989 and The Satanic Verses controversy is raging. While other stores stop carrying the book, the Strand continues to sell it. Razia is swept up into protests, counter-protests and debates on freedom of expression that are marred by Islamophobia. She finds solace in her mentors at the Strand, including the iconic bookseller Ben McFall.  

Q: What are you reading and recommending these days?

A: I’m currently reading and recommending Ibtisam Barakat’s A Palestinian Childhood, Kamilah Aisha Moon’s She Has a Name and Starshine & Clay, Noor Hindi’s Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow, Mosab Abu Toha’s Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, the collection A Light in Gaza, and Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues.

I also love recommending books which influenced me early on: Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Toni Morison’s Song of Solomon, Audre Lorde’s Black Unicorn and Sister Outsider, Vijay Prashad’s Karma of Brown Folk, Sharon Olds’s The Dead and the Living and Satan Says, Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina and of course Judy Blume’s books especially, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I related so much to Margaret who has her own relationship with the divine. I saw myself in her. I hope readers will feel the same about Razia.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There (“Pure soaring beauty.”The New York Times Book Review) delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

“For the sake of knowing, of understanding, Wandering Stars blew my heart into a thousand pieces and put it all back together again. This is a masterwork that will not be forgotten, a masterwork that will forever be part of you.” —Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle,where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There—warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts—asking what it means to bethe children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.

Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year: TIME, The Washington Post, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Publishers Weekly, Paste, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, Lit Hub, Real Simple, Nylon, BookPage, The Story Exchange, Sunset, and Zibby Mag.

Disarmingly witty and poignant, Sloane Crosley’s memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of her closest friend.

How do we live without the ones we love? Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and suspenseful portrait of friendship, and a book about loss that is profuse with life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.

For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane’s apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.

When Russell dies exactly one month later, his suicide propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.

Sloane Crosley’s search for truth is frank, darkly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the “grief memoir,” Grief Is for People is a category-defying story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A modern elegy, it rises precisely to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

A gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates—from the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow

“A genius conceit . . . thoughtful, courageous, exciting . . . a splendid work.”—Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets

Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family’s rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite—and with help from these strong women—Ady learns how to put herself first. So begins her journey toward liberation and imagining a new future.

The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph that reminds us what is possible when a community bands together to fight for their freedom.