Category: Book

A raw, heartfelt memoir from Darius Rucker, the three-time Grammy Award–winning, Diamond-selling lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish and Country music sensation—told through the remarkable stories of the music that coursed through his life.

“If I look back at my life and try to see into my past, everything seems blurry. But then I lean in and start to hear something. Melodies. Chords. Harmonies. Lyrics.”—From the Introduction

Raised by a single mother in Charleston, South Carolina, Darius Rucker founded Hootie & the Blowfish with three classmates at the University of South Carolina in 1986. What began as a party band playing frat houses and dive bars quickly became a global rock pop phenomenon through their Diamond-certified debut album Cracked Rear View, featuring the era-defining hit songs “Only Wanna Be With You,” “Let Her Cry,” and “Hold My Hand.” Later, Darius would also chart a pioneering path as a solo Country music artist, with the Diamond-certified hit “Wagon Wheel,” plus timeless anthems such as “Alright” and “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” while sharing the stage and a mic with the likes of David Crosby, Al Green, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Adele, Taylor Swift, and more.

Nearly 40 years into his illustrious career, Darius tells the story of his life through the music that made him, including songs by everyone from Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder to R.E.M., KISS, Prince and, of course, his own music with Hootie and as a solo artist. He recounts the unlikely ascent of his band and wild tales of his road-hardened life—one filled with stumbles, missteps and battles with demons, but ultimately resulting in triumph. LIFE’S TOO SHORT is the story of a man, his music and his life; a page-turning memoir that is raw, real, hilarious and deeply emotional.

From the New York Times best-selling author of City on Fire, an intimate epic that plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, betrayal, and redemption

“Beautiful and daring.” —Nathan Hill, author of Oprah’s Book Club pick Wellness

“Breathtaking.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of #1 New York Times best seller Orphan Train

When thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear his daughter’s in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home.

So begins the journey that will, in time, push Jolie and Ethan—child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same—out past their depths.

Full of yearning and revelation, The Second Coming is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can the people we love ever really change?

The five-hundred-year history of printed books, told through the people who created them

Books tell all kinds of stories—romances, tragedies, comedies—but if we learn to read the signs correctly, they can tell us the story of their own making too. The Book-Makers offers a new way into the story of Western culture’s most important object, the book, through dynamic portraits of eighteen individuals who helped to define it.

Books have transformed humankind by enabling authors to create, document, and entertain. Yet we know little about the individuals who brought these fascinating objects into existence and of those who first experimented in the art of printing, design, and binding. Who were the renegade book-makers who changed the course of history?

From Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of fifteenth-century bestsellers to Nancy Cunard’s avant-garde pamphlets produced on her small press in Normandy, this is a celebration of the book with the people put back in.

From award-winning actor and comedian Paul Scheer, a candid and hilarious memoir-in-essays on coming to terms with childhood trauma and finding the joy in embracing your authentic self.

Paul Scheer has entertained countless fans and podcast listeners with stories about the odd, wild, and absurd details of his life. Yet these tales have pointed to deeper, more difficult truths that the actor and comedian has kept to himself. Now, he is finally ready to share those truths for the first time—but, of course, with a healthy dose of humor.

Blending the confident, affable voice that has won him a dedicated following with a refreshing level of candor, Joyful Recollections of Trauma chronicles Paul’s often shocking, admittedly tumultuous childhood and how the experiences of his youth have reverberated throughout his life. In his comedy, Paul has always been unafraid to “go there,” to play naïve, cringeworthy characters, imbuing them with disarming charm and humanity. That daring openness is on display in the pages of this memoir, but in true Paul fashion, it is also surprising, eye-opening, and side-splitting.

In this madcap journey through the inner working of his mind and creative process, Paul Scheer demonstrates once again that the truth is often stranger—and funnier—than fiction. Joyful Recollections of Trauma offers a unique perspective on universal themes: growing up, working through a challenging childhood, staying true to yourself, and finding success, fulfillment, and happiness in often strange and difficult circumstances. Throughout, Paul shares both the hard-fought lessons and the laughter that can be found in the darkest parts of life, and reminds us that what matters is not what you’ve been through but who you are becoming. If you loved recent memoirs by Molly Shannon, Maria Bamford, RuPaul, and Jennette McCurdy—or any book that moves you to both laughter and tears—Joyful Recollections of Trauma is the perfect read for you.

From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.

A striking literary memoir of genderfluidity, class, masculinity, and the American Southwest that captures the author’s experience coming of age in a Tucson, Arizona, trailer park.

Newly arrived in the Sonoran Desert, eleven-year-old Zoë’s world is one of giant beetles, thundering javelinas, and gnarled paloverde trees. With the family’s move to Cactus Country RV Park, Zoë has been given a fresh start and a new, shorter haircut. Although Zoë doesn’t have the words to express it, he experiences life as a trans boy—and in Cactus Country, others begin to see him as a boy, too. Here, Zoë spends hot days chasing shade and freight trains with an ever-rotating pack of sunburned desert kids, and nights fending off his own questions about the body underneath his baggy clothes.

Equal parts harsh and tender, Cactus Country is an invitation for readers to consider how we find our place in a world that insists on stark binaries, and a precisely rendered journey of self-determination that will resonate with anyone who’s ever had to fight to be themself.

As Zoë enters adolescence, he must reckon with the sexism, racism, substance abuse, and violence endemic to the working class Cactus Country men he’s grown close to, whose hard masculinity seems as embedded in the desert landscape as the cacti sprouting from parched earth. In response, Zoë adopts an androgynous style and new pronouns, but still cannot escape what it means to live in a gendered body, particularly when a fraught first love destabilizes their sense of self. But beauty flowers in this desert, too. Zoë persists in searching for answers that can’t be found in Cactus Country, dreaming of a day they might leave the park behind to embrace whatever awaits beyond.

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From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.

Solve the murder to save what’s left of the world.

Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don’t even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

“A WONDERFUL READ … Christine’s deep love for turtles comes through on each page.”–CRAIG FOSTER, MY OCTOPUS TEACHER – “Will appeal to anyone interested in the world around us.”–DR. JANE GOODALL

Filled with reverence and wonder for the natural world, this captivating book reveals the secret life of sea turtles, one of the oldest living creatures on Earth, and the story of one female scientist’s fight to save their future.

In 2015, a team of researchers carefully removed a plastic straw from a sea turtle’s nostril off the coast of Costa Rica. The disturbing incident, which was captured on video, went viral, leading to corporate straw bans around the world. In this evocative book, reminiscent of Jane Goodall’s memoir In the Shadow of Man, the marine biologist behind the camera, Christine Figgener, recounts her own life spent studying and protecting sea turtles.

From the time she was a young girl, Figgener was determined to become a biologist, and study the marvels of the marine world. In My Life With Sea Turtles, she shares how she went from a small, gray town on the edge of industry to the lush coastline of Costa Rica, where she fell in love with the local environment and its famous residents: the sea turtles.

Figgener describes patrolling the beach at night, swimming with turtles in the open ocean, watching tiny turtles emerge from sandy nests, and risking her life during tropical storms. We learn about her experience as a woman in conservation, a male dominated space where she struggles to be taken seriously. Through discovering the fascinating science of sea turtles and the threats they face today, readers will be inspired to live their own lives differently to ensure the survival of these magnificent creatures.

A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From the iconic internationally bestselling author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy: A forbidden affair erupts volcanically amid a decadent tropical wedding in this outrageous comedy of manners from the iconic author of Crazy Rich Asians.

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending, and behind all the magazine covers and Instagram stories manors and yachts lies nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort, a veritable who’s-who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs, and seduce a woman with money.

Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong? When a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials and a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, the Gresham family plans—and their reputation—go up in flames.

Can the once-great dukedom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist?

In a globetrotting tale that takes us from the black sand beaches of Hawaii to the skies of Marrakech, from the glitzy bachelor pads of Los Angeles to the inner sanctums of England’s oldest family estates, Kevin Kwan unfurls a juicy, hilarious, sophisticated and thrillingly plotted story of love, money, murder, sex, and the lies we tell about them all.