"When Chris Arnone was born in Independence, Missouri, nobody could tell what sex he was. For the first few days of his life, until a chromosome test confirmed he was a boy, his parents called him Baby. From this first, literal 'coming out,' it was clear he was different. His life was punctuated by a string of surgeries and trips to the ER, unrecognizable and confusing diagrams in sex ed class, and the need to preface every intimate encounter by explaining his medical history. But it wasn't until he was thirty-seven that he discovered he didn't have 'birth defects'--he was intersex. In this fresh and affirming memoir, Chris's struggles with anxiety, confusion, and a painful journey toward self-acceptance will be familiar to LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. But he also offers a perspective that is largely untold: that of an intersex man, existing in the toxic masculine culture of the heartland; parents who were open and accepting of his differences; and doctors who (mostly) did no harm. It is a deep and wide exploration of religion and politics, gender and sexuality, frat parties, burlesque shows, and Magic: The Gathering. Arnone boldly shows how the lives of intersex folks can be so different and yet so familiar to everyone, helping us all take one step closer to understanding and acceptance. With raw vulnerability, emotional range, and a quick wit, My Name Was Baby offers something inspiring for everyone, from self-assured manly men to confused genderqueer kids. It is the story of someone who came to love who he is and hopes everyone else can love themselves, too."

"Discover how the book and TV miniseries Roots became a cultural phenomenon that has shaped our understanding of heritage, race, identity, and family for fifty years. As we approach the 50th anniversaries of Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots (1976) and its landmark television adaptation (1977), journalist and storyteller Lucas L. Johnson II reflects on the enduring legacy of Haley's work through the voices of those it continues to move, including scholars, artists, genealogists, students, and original cast members like LeVar Burton and Ben Vereen. With vivid personal anecdotes, emotional tributes, and probing reflections, Remembering Roots shows how Haley's vision gave birth to a genealogy movement, inspired generations to reclaim their identities, and challenged America to confront its past. From a sixth-grader who became the first lawyer in her family, to a blind musician empowered by his father's retelling of Roots' most iconic scene, Johnson traces the ripple effects of Haley's griot storytelling across time and culture. As debates rage over which histories get told, Remembering Roots boldly asserts the necessity to remember and retell our stories. A call to action, this book reaffirms that storytelling is not just an art--it's a path to healing"--

"When war came to the nation in 1861, Michiganians rallied around the Stars and Stripes and readily agreed with a veteran politician who declared, "He who is not for his country is against her." Even as the conflict grew bloody and costly, they remained committed to suppressing the rebellion. By war's end, an astonishing 50 percent of its military-age males had enlisted in the army. This Michigan Civil War chronicle is more than a story about soldiers' heroism on distant battlefields. It also includes the often-overlooked role of women-some of whom refused to stay home and went to war. Also buried in the historical record are accounts of white soldiers whose views on slavery and African Americans, especially those in uniform, were transformed. There is also a much-needed exploration of Michigan's response to the shocking assassination of a beloved president. Many a Hand captures these stories in a single volume"-- Provided by publisher.

"Rural America deserves more than an elegy: a powerful story of hope, resilience, and political resistance where you least expect it, from Idaho's first openly LGBTQ+ lawmaker. Cole LeFavour was 11 years old when their hippie parents moved the family to a guest ranch in Idaho. Hours to the north, as the LeFavours unpacked pots and pans, Richard Butler dreamed of establishing a white separatist nation. It's here, in one of the reddest states on the map, where Cole learned to raise ducklings, hike the wilderness alone, and build political resistance where you'd least expect it. This is the story rural America deserves to tell--and that the rest of the country needs to hear. Follow LeFavour's journey from their 2-mile walk to the school bus along a dirt road to their monumental election as Idaho's first openly queer state senator. Cole recounts anti-apartheid protests at Berkeley, the solitary life of a fire lookout, and the gravitational pull of unexpected romance and loss. In the Arms of Mountains is a memoir with dirt under its nails and heart on its sleeve. It shatters the carefully constructed "monolithic heartland" myth and rewrites Hillbilly Elegy's bleak epitaph. Haunting, hopeful, and full of fight, Cole's story reminds us of what's possible when we look beyond red and blue, right and left, to meet each other at the edge of the wild"-- Provided by publisher.

One woman's journey through progressive blindness and the extraordinary guide dog who kept her safe along the way. When ethics scholar Deni Elliott, born with limited vision, realized she could no longer navigate the world safely alone, she turned to a guide dog--a decision that reshaped her understanding of disability and independence. Co-authored with master trainer Graham Buck, Catching Sight offers a behind-the-scenes look at the world of guide dog breeding and training, revealing the intelligence and decision-making skills these dogs develop from birth. Catching Sight is for readers interested in the transformative power of human relationships with animals. As Deni confronts her changing reality, she shares the hidden world of guide dog training and introduces Alberta, a yellow Lab whose quiet brilliance changed her interaction with the world and herself. Catching Sight offers a fresh and unforgettable perspective on disability, identity, and the power of partnership.

"The remarkable untold story of a network of amateur researchers who debunked the Warren Report, raising questions about JFK's assassination that remain unanswered to this day-a riveting history of obsession, heartbreak, and the myth of the great American century from an Atlantic staff writer"-- Provided by publisher.

"A long-overdue reappraisal of the groundbreaking nineteenth-century writer who reshaped the literary and social norms of her age. By the age of thirty, the young woman who was born Aurore Dupin in 1804 in a Paris garret had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English, her novels were outselling even Victor Hugo. Her enormous and radical corpus would grow to include seventy novels, travel writing, plays, autobiography, and political writing. But despite this prodigious talent, Sand was simultaneously a figure of scandal. Cigar-smoking, cross-dressing, and promiscuous, she seemed to break all the rules society set for women. Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy? Or did her sexual and emotional relationships with the leading figures of her day--from Fryderyk Chopin to Gustave Flaubert, and Alfred de Musset to Eugène Delacroix--form part of her dialogue with the world around her: a dialogue that's intrinsic to writing itself? To what extent do we invent ourselves? And what can we learn, from Sand's life and art, about how writers in particular invent themselves, and are reinvented by the society around them? This year marks the 150th anniversary of Sand's death, and Becoming George is a fitting celebration of her literary genius--as well as the first new biography in nearly twenty-five years. Award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates an artistic and intellectual giant who still speaks to us today. Brilliantly prescient--about ecology, politics, society, gender--George Sand was truly a figure ahead of her time."--

"An irresistible delight, this hilarious and heartwarming essay collection gathers essential tales about growing up in the South, the pitfalls of date night, and why no one should ever tell a Black girl how to Black Girl"--

"A sublime photographic chronicle of the efforts of several counterculture families to adopt a traditional Nuevomexicano life in the tiny village of Petaca, New Mexico, in the early 1970s. In the early 1970s there weren't many women photographers, and fewer still who used their camera to make ethnographic studies. Lynn Adler was a self-taught photographer using an old 35 mm camera her mother had left to her. But her instinct for seeing the collision of cultures, along with her savant's eye for constructing beautiful frames, allowed her to capture a moment both rare and spectacular in a tiny village in Northern New Mexico called Petaca. At the time, Petaca was home to about fifty very traditional Hispano families with roots in the area going back well over a hundred years. The town had no schools, no hospital, no stoplights; it had one church, one bar, one dry-goods store, and a single gas pump. Spanish was nearly everyone's first language, and the only real employment had been a mineral mine, shut down in the 1950s. Most families got by as subsistence farmers. These families were joined by people who had left San Francisco and New York City, seeking a simpler life. It was while visiting friends who had made this move that Lynn Adler made these photographs between 1970 and 1974.Lynn's photographs show her friends deep in the hard work of homesteading and raising families; they show the local people tending the crops and looking after their animals, and they show when members of both groups came together. It has been half a century since Adler last looked through her viewfinder at Petaca. The children who ran through her pictures are now deep into middle age, and the older people are gone. And So We Moved to Petaca is a moving portrait of a time and place. If not for these photographs, this fleeting moment would have been lost to time, and this story of community and conflict would never have been shared"-- Provided by publisher.

Thirty-four beautiful, accessible, and practical projects you can make with warp-faced tabby bandweaving, complete with easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, diagrams, and color photos.

"A...revisionist narrative history of the Soviet Union in its post-Stalin heyday, bringing a forgotten society to vivid life and offering a new explanation for how it suddenly collapsed"--Back cover.

"Have you ever frozen when someone asks, 'So, tell me about yourself?' If so, take a page from I'm a Lot. Alison Leiby proudly embraces the identities we're often encouraged to hide: Housewives stan. Discount shopaholic. Former jock. Happily single. Childless by choice and proud cat mom. Through these different roles and identities, Leiby reveals her hard-earned wisdom about what it's like to be a woman who does it all (except for the things that make her say 'uh, no thank you'). When she was nineteen years old, a complication from back surgery left Leiby on her deathbed. After a surprising recovery, you might assume Leiby was ready to seize life by the you-know-whats. But instead of letting this one miraculous experience define her, Leiby's brush with death made her realize there is nothing more beautiful in this life than just getting to be yourself. And while women are still expected to conform to many patriarchal labels, Leiby ignores the pressure to be palatable and instead champions all the joyful, weird, and complicated selves she brings to the world. In fourteen personal essays full of deadpan jokes, tender moments of candid introspection, and insightful social commentary, Leiby encourages us to ditch the manufactured Instagram persona and embrace the fact that sometimes the puzzle pieces don't always fit to create a perfect picture, but that doesn't mean we are incomplete." --

Blending lyrical prose with personal reflection, Kenneth Steven explores mountains and glens, rivers and rugged coasts in search of gemstones, rocks and crystals. He discovers gold glinting in Highland burns, agates nestling in riverbeds, and aquamarines, amethysts, garnets, amber and pearls in wild places where others rarely roam. Beguiled by their forms, colors, textures and sometimes glittering brilliance, he finds the thrill of unearthing natural riches more precious and delightful even than the gems themselves. Stone by stone, he considers the origins and allure of these treasures, revealing not only their geological stories but their place in history and imagination.

"A foolproof system for brainstorming innovative solutions-whether you want to disrupt an industry, enhance your team's productivity, or simply get unstuck-from one of the most influential pioneers in comedy history. In this outrageously enjoyable guide to productive inspiration, discover a four-step, repeatable process for thinking better, leveraging your mind's every resource, and developing winning ideas in any context. The wheels of creativity are spinning faster than ever thanks to the democratization of information, the proliferation of digital platforms, and the rapid rise of AI. In Creativity Machine, bestselling author, comedian, and the Onion's longest serving editor in chief Scott Dikkers shows you how to make these tools work for you. Discover: How an idea-generation structure can yield remarkable outcomes and stronger teams Ways to utilize these practices everywhere-for business, hobbies, and homemaking Strategies for incorporating AI in your creative process without diluting the unrivaled power of the human mind Why "eureka moments" aren't as important as you think The vital importance of having fun With guidance from a mentor to the best of the best delivered with his trademark humor, you'll tap into a goldmine of amazing creative ideas. Creativity Machine is a timely roadmap for the future of work in a world that requires more than just everyday creative powers-it demands creative superpowers. Unmask yours in these pages"-- Provided by publisher.

"From award-winning journalist Nicole Carr comes a landmark narrative revealing the untold history of Black medical professionals who have long fought to heal their communities--while confronting a system built to exclude them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Americans died at nearly twice the rate of their white counterparts--a disparity rooted not only in access to care but in a long history of exclusion, exploitation, and systemic racism. How did we get here, and why, despite generations of Black medical excellence, do these inequities persist? In The Price of Exclusion, journalist Nicole Carr uncovers that history and its urgent consequences, exposing the hidden toll of America's refusal to value Black doctors and their patients. At the center is the extraordinary life of Carr's great-grandfather, Dr. Lawrence St. Clair Ferguson, a Jamaican-born physician who served in World War I and attended medical school during the Spanish Flu pandemic. His journey from colonial Jamaica to a racially divided America provides both an intimate family portrait and a sweeping history of how Black physicians persevered despite segregation, erasure, and relentless barriers to practice. Through vivid storytelling and meticulous research, Carr resurrects the lives of pioneers who transformed medicine against impossible odds. From America's first four-year medical school located at a historically Black college in North Carolina to the generations of Black physicians whose contributions were pushed aside by institutions of power, Carr shows how these figures were not only doctors but also advocates and innovators whose work reshaped public health and opened doors for those who followed. Carr also reveals the systemic campaigns that actively disempowered Black doctors, from the American Medical Association's exclusionary policies to the devastating closures of Black medical schools after the Flexner Report. That legacy fuels today's shortage of Black medical professionals and the lingering distrust in medicine that continues to cost lives."--

"The United States is only the latest country to face a leader who wields fear as a weapon, punishes political enemies, disappears people off the street, and undermines free and fair elections. Today nearly three out of four people on earth live under authoritarianism, the highest rate since the late 1970s. But even under repressive conditions, each of us holds the power to help defeat autocrats. Based on their acclaimed The New Yorker essay "So You Want to Be a Dissident?," veteran reporter Julia Angwin and political strategist Ami Fields-Meyer give us a captivating - and profoundly hopeful - guide to courage in an age of fear."--

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, racist demagoguery fomented a campaign of terror against Asian Americans. But these attacks were part of a much longer pattern that made anti-Asian racism integral to the outbreak of white supremacist, misogynist, and colonial violence across 175 years of U.S. history. From the lynching of Asian immigrants during the exclusion era to the ongoing slaughter of Asian civilians by the U.S. military, the book connects domestic and global events that have been erased from the official record. Going beyond victimhood, Scott Kurashige traces the rise of Asian American community protest and activism in response to the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin and other overlooked tragedies. While many have worked to legislate and prosecute hate crimes, American Peril argues that hope lies in grassroots organizing for multi-racial solidarity.

"The NYT bestselling author of The Girls of Atomic City challenges the traditional mythology of the American Revolution by bringing to light the essential role women played in the fight for independence. We think we know the history and the figures of the American Revolution--the founding fathers and the great leaders--but we've only been told half of the story. Spanning from early colonial resistance through the founding of the United States, Obstinate Daughters widens the lens through which we've observed the American Revolution by recognizing the women who played a vital part in the fight for our independence. Because without these heroic individuals, armies would not have been funded, bullets not forged, and declarations not signed. Without the stories of these brave humans, history is simply incomplete. In Obstinate Daughters, readers will meet the woman who picked up a musket and took matters into her own hands; the Cherokee leader who warned settlements of impending attacks; the young women whose ingenuity funded the fight in the South; the newspaper and tavern keepers who kept a fledgling nation informed and motivated; and the woman who fought for her own independence, in a battle within the revolution, to end slavery. This is the most intriguing, compelling, and long overdue history that's never been told, and the undersung roles of these characters serve as a touchstone for all of us who feel our contributions go unnoticed. Kiernan masterfully carves out a place in history for impactful females and reminds us that history is always meant to be challenged"-- Provided by publisher.

L'Shleimut uncovers an overlooked Jewish tradition of resistance to capitalist science and medicine. Yarden Azoulay Katz traces the lives and work of Jewish scientists, healers, artists, and activists who challenged the racist, sexist, and for-profit expectations of science and medicine. They all aspired toward shleimut (wholeness): repairing what's broken in this world and creating life-affirming alternatives. The book explores diverse figures, including anarchist midwives, radical herbalists, AIDS activists, and socialist biologists. Working as part of broader social movements, these Jewish radicals employed their own ancestral traditions in fighting capitalism while creating an interdependent view of our bodies, our health, and ecology. Accompanied by original illustrations from physician-artist Anna Zeligowski, L'Shleimut shows how this radical tradition has been passed down from generation to generation. It offers wholeness as a principle to inspire anyone engaged in the struggle for a better world.

"Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity, and the Modern World reveals leprosy as the world's foundational stigma, underlying the colonialism, exclusion, and exploitation that has shaped contemporary life. After hearing leprosy being used as an anti-immigration dog whistle, Oliver Basciano began a journey into the past, uncovering how this ancient disease has been weaponized, used to justify forced exile and social ostracism around the world. Traveling from the last leprosarium in Europe to remote villages in Mozambique, from Siberian settlements to Brazil's hinterlands, Basciano builds a history that centers the voices of patients and those forced into the colony system. Along the way, he finds communities formed in exile, patient activism, and the persistent human capacity for joy. In this pulsating, compassionate book, the trope of medieval suffering is transformed into a bitingly relevant study of hope and solidarity"-- Provided by publisher.

Our world is going through a fundamental shift. The crises and threats pile up: AI takeover, climate carnage, intensified conflicts, technofascist rule and authoritarianism. Why now, and why everything, all at once? In I Eat the Stars, Sarah Wilson explains that we are in the midst of what every sophisticated civilisation before us has experienced - complex systems collapse. She goes on to explore how we, as tender-hearted humans, can navigate this radical moment together. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with scientists, philosophers, economists, historians and spiritual leaders, she offers a compassionate guide to help us navigate the 'too-muchness', make meaningful choices for our lives and rise to our full humanity - all while refusing to succumb to despair. With her warm, incisive voice, Wilson reframes collapse not as a finality but as an invitation to reconnect with what matters to us, and to meet the future with courage, creativity and unprecedented care. What if, she asks, this new world we're entering is more stunning than we'd ever imagined?

"The book kicks off with a comprehensive getting-started section that teaches you everything you need to know about watercolor paper, paintbrushes, color mixing, and basic watercolor techniques, setting you up for success no matter your skill level. Then you can get cooking with 34 different foods, organized by season and presented in a variety of learning approaches: fully illustrated step-by-step tutorials, inspirational pieces with simple color and shape guidelines, and unique painted-recipe breakdowns to help you think outside the box."--

"In 1990 in Washington state, the bodies of Yolanda Sapp, Nickie Lowe, and Kathy Brisbois were found on the banks of the Spokane River. They were part of a close-knit alliance of sex workers whose oath to protect each other was, in the end, hopeless. For twenty-two years their brutal murders went unsolved. In 2012, a DNA cold hit pointed to Douglas Perry. A repeat assault offender, Douglas was currently incarcerated in Carswell, Texas. But there was a twist: The facility was for female prisoners. The man authorities hunted for decades was now Donna Perry. Her gender reassignment not only helped to mask the evil deeds of the past, it ended a life of childhood traumas and a pent-up rage unleashed on nearly thirty victims, according to Donna herself. Through total reinvention, she believed she'd finally slayed the monster within. By the River's Edge is the astonishing true story of an elusive serial killer, an escape plan like no other, and the women who lived and died on the fringes of the Lilac City for whom justice was at long last served"--