David Grann

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

"A tour de force of narrative nonfiction." --The Wall Street Journal

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.

The Wager

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Lee Mandelo

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The Woods All Black is equal parts historical horror, trans romance, and blood-soaked revenge, all set in 1920s Appalachia Leslie Bruin is assigned to the backwoods township of Spar Creek by the Frontier Nursing Service, under its usual mandate: vaccinate the flock, birth babies, and weather the judgements of churchy locals who look at him and see a failed woman. Forged in the fires of the Western Front and reborn in the cafes of Paris, Leslie believes he can handle whatever is thrown at him—but Spar Creek holds a darkness beyond his nightmares. Something ugly festers within the local congregation, and its malice has focused on a young person they insist is an unruly tomboy who must be brought to heel. Violence is bubbling when Leslie arrives, ready to spill over, and he'll have to act fast if he intends to be of use. But the hills enfolding Spar Creek have a mind of their own, and the woods are haunted in ways Leslie does not understand. The Woods All Black is a story of passion, prejudice, and power — an Appalachian period piece that explores reproductive justice and bodily autonomy, the terrors of small-town religiosity, and the necessity of fighting tooth and claw to live as who you truly are.

The Woods All Black

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Cynthia Carr

Dreamer, Icon, Superstar

From the acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr, the first full portrait of the queer icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling. Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world. Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York’s early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play. Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: “I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me." Candy died at twenty-nine in 1974, as conversations about gender and identity were really just starting. She never knew it, but she changed the world. Packed with tales of luminaries and gossip and meticulous research, immersive and laced with Candy’s words and her friends' recollections, Cynthia Carr's Candy Darling is Candy's long-overdue return to the spotlight.

Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar

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Stephen King

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Presents a collection of twenty stories of horror and nightmarish fantasy that transform everyday situations into experiences of compelling terror in the worlds of the living, the dying, and the nonliving.

Night Shift

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Whitley Strieber

Barton Royal, a deranged misfit, kidnaps twelve-year-old Billy Neary from the video arcade at the Crossland Mall and imprisons him in the secret black room beneath his house, in a tale of madness and evil

Billy

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Annie Dillard

"For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling, conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." -- Chicago Tribune

From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life.

In these short essays, Annie Dillard--the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood--illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard's own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.

The Writing Life

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Miles Harvey

A True Story of Cartographic Crime

Explores the unusual odyssey of Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., an antiques dealer from South Florida, who stole dozens of centuries-old maps from some of the most important research libraries in Canada and the U.S.

The Island of Lost Maps

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The Hours Before Dawn

Blood of My Brother

Crooked House

Mary Gabriel

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A Rebel Life

In this riveting biography, award-winning author Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion--as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles--taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. Within two years of her 1983 debut album, a flagship Macy's store in Manhattan held a Madonna lookalike contest featuring Andy Warhol as a judge, and opened a department called "Madonna-land." But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanor of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever--and be whoever--they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And, as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films, and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time.

Madonna

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Mark Dawidziak

The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author's life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.

It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and "in great distress" on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own?

Mystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe--and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe's death was haunting him all his life.

In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe's increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.

A Mystery of Mysteries

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David Bret

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Scandalous Life

Marlene Dietrich called her "The most immoral woman who ever lived"; Cecil Beaton described her as a "wicked archangel"; but no one better summed up this fascinating woman than Tallulah herself in an unending succession of anecdotes and one-liners, peppered with expletives that became her trademark. Born in Alabama in 1903, she became a big star in London, England in the early 1920's. Branded "an unsafe and unsavory person" by the Hays commission in the 1930's her career went from tremendous stage success in such hits as The Little Foxes and Fallen Angels, to appearances in some of the worst plays ever written, which she turned into triumphs by improvising lewd and outrageous asides to satisfy the cravings of her largely gay audiences. Confessing to over 500 love affairs with both men and women, Tallulah married just once...to a man who divorced her citing mental cruelty. A headline writer's dream throughout her life, at the height of her fame she was said to drink two bottles of bourbon a day, smoke 100 cigarettes and take pills to help her sleep, pills to keep her awake, and pills to help her cope with the pills. But while there always seemed to be someone on hand to record Tallulah's indiscretions, the other side of her personality went largely unrecorded. She raised vast amounts of money for children's charities, delivered stringent speeches against communism and racial and sexual prejudice, and actively supported the presidential campaigns of two friends: Truman and Kennedy. In this highly entertaining book David Bret tells Tallulah's story in the only way it could be told: with shocking honesty and wit. What emerges is a vivid portrait of an immoral and wicked woman whowas every inch a star and remains one of the greatest legends this century has seen.

Tallulah Bankhead

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Jill Watts

An Icon in Black and White

"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend?
Sifting through previously untapped sources, author Jill Watts unravels the enigmatic life of Mae West, tracing her early years spent in the Brooklyn subculture of boxers and underworld figures, and follows her journey through burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood, where she quickly became one of the big screen's most popular--and colorful--stars. Exploring West's penchant for contradiction and her carefully perpetuated paradoxes, Watts convincingly argues that Mae West borrowed heavily from African American culture, music, dance and humor, creating a subversive voice for herself by which she artfully challenged society and its assumptions regarding race, class and gender. Viewing West as a trickster, Watts demonstrates that by appropriating for her character the black tradition of double-speak and "signifying," West also may have hinted at her own African-American ancestry and the phenomenon of a black woman passing for white.
This absolutely fascinating study is the first comprehensive, interpretive account of Mae West's life and work. It reveals a beloved icon as a radically subversive artist consciously creating her own complex image.


Mae West

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Kenneth C. Davis

Untold Tales from America's Hidden History

"History in Davis's hands is loud, coarse, painful, funny, irreverent--and memorable."

-- San Francisco Chronicle

Following on his New York Times bestsellers America's Hidden History and Don't Know Much About History, Ken Davis explores the next chapter in the country's hidden history: the gritty first half of the 19th century, among the most tumultuous in the nation's short life.

A Nation Rising

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Catharine Arnold

Life in Shakespeare's London

A fascinating portrait of life in Shakespeare’s London, as seen from the theatrical perspective by popular historian Catharine Arnold. The life of William Shakespeare, Britain’s greatest dramatist, is inextricably linked with the history of London. Together, the great writer and the great city came of age and confronted triumph and tragedy. Triumph came when Shakespeare’s company, the Chamberlain’s Men, opened the Globe playhouse on Bankside in 1599, under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I. Tragedy touched the lives of many of his contemporaries, from fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe to the disgraced Earl of Essex, while London struggled against the ever-present threat of riots, rebellions and outbreaks of plague. Globe takes readers on a sweeping tour of London through Shakespeare’s life and work, as Catharine Arnold recounts in fascinating detail how acting came of age. We learn about James Burbage, founder of the original Theatre in Shoreditch, who carried timbers across the Thames to build the Globe among the bear-gardens and brothels of Bankside, and of the terrible night in 1613 when the theatre caught fire during a performance of King Henry VIII. Rebuilt, the Globe continued to stand as a monument to Shakespeare’s genius until 1642 when it was destroyed on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. And finally we learn how 300 years later, Shakespeare’s Globe opened once more upon the Bankside, to great acclaim, rising like a phoenix from the flames. Arnold has created a vivid portrait of Shakespeare and his London from the bard’s own plays and contemporary sources, combining a novelist’s eye for detail with a historian’s grasp of his unique contribution to the development of the English theatre. This is a definitive and compelling portrait of Shakespeare, London, the man and the myth.

Globe

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365 Devotionals with Real-Life Stories

Jesus Calling

Susanna Hoffs

A Novel

A delightfully funny and romantic debut novel from Susanna Hoffs, celebrated performer and co-founder of The Bangles, that is "part British romcom, part Jane Eyre, and one hundred percent enjoyable" (Tom Perrotta).



Music. Fate. Redemption. Love.



Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song--written by world-famous superstar Jonesy--but Jane hasn't had a breakout since. Now she's living out of four garbage bags at her parents' house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom. 

 

But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she's seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight--the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it's not Jane's past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy's earlier hit, and into the light of her own?

 

In turns deeply sexy, riotously funny, and utterly joyful, This Bird Has Flown explores love, passion, and the ghosts of our past, and offers a glimpse inside the music business that could only come from beloved songwriter Susanna Hoffs.



"In this sexy, page-turning treat, Susanna Hoffs writes as engagingly as she sings." --Helen Fielding, author of the bestselling sensation Bridget Jones's Diary



 "A little bit romance, a little bit rock-and-roll--this isn't just a book, it's a love song, and it should come as no surprise that Susanna Hoffs has crafted the perfect one to put on your playlist."―Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners

This Bird Has Flown

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Marybeth Hamilton

Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment

In a world of trendsetting film icons, few are more familiar than Mae West. Yet for all her public controversy, West is also a mystery. Marybeth Hamilton combines elements of biography, cultural analysis, and social history to unmask West and reveal her commercial savvy, willpower, and truly shocking theatrical transgressions.

When I'm Bad, I'm Better

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Sarah Young

A Jesus Calling Guided Journal

Sarah Young's Jesus Calling has drawn millions of people around the world closer to Jesus. Now Life in His Presence calls us to a new experience reflecting on the truths of Jesus Calling as we take another step on our spiritual journey. Each entry in Life in His Presence includes an excerpted devotion from Jesus Calling alongside a key Scripture verse, as well as thoughtful journaling prompts and memorable quotes. Beautifully designed callouts accentuate the reading and journaling experience. Although suited for individual use, Life in His Presence also lends itself to prayer partners and intimate small groups. Combining biblical wisdom, beautiful design, and the encouraging words of a beloved author, Life in His Presence is a wonderful reminder to each of us that God loves for His children to draw near.

Life in His Presence

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Paul Schneider

The Lives Behind the Legend

Set in a dirt-poor Texas landscape that spawned the star-crossed outlaws, this brilliantly researched and dramatically crafted true story opens with a murderous jail break and ends with the ambush and shoot-out that consigned their bullet-riddled bodies to the front seat of a hopped-up getaway car. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow's relationship was a toxic combination of infatuation blended with an instinct for going too far too fast. The poetry-writing, petite Bonnie and her diminutive, gun-crazy lover (she was four feet ten inches and he was barely nine stone) drove lawmen wild, slipping the noose every time. That is, until their infamy caught up with them in the famous ambush that literally blasted them away. Without glamourising the killers, or vilifying the cops, Bonnie and Clyde is alive with action and high-level entertainment and provides a fascinating picture of America's most famous outlaw couple and the culture that created them. Paul Schneider is the author of three critically acclaimed books, including a New York Times Book Review notable book. He spends his time between Florida and Massachusetts.

Bonnie and Clyde

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P. J. Vernon

A Thriller

Bath Haus is utterly brilliant. It's perfectly paced, gripping from go, and its clean, elegant prose goes down like scotch on the rocks. Once I picked it up, I couldn't stop. It's one of the best thrillers I've read in a very long time.--Cristina Alger, New York Times bestselling author of Girls Like Us Bath Haus follows a young gay man in a perfect marriage who will do anything to keep a dangerous indiscretion from his loving husband. For Oliver Park, a young recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in age and disparate backgrounds, they've made a perfect life together. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn't be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it's a line crossed. Inside, he follows a man into a private room, and it's the final line. Whatever happens next, Nathan can never know. But then, everything goes wrong, terribly wrong, and Oliver barely escapes with his life. He races home in full-blown terror as the hand-shaped bruise grows dark on his neck. The truth will destroy Nathan and everything they have together, so Oliver does the thing he used to do so well: he lies. What follows is a classic runaway-train narrative, full of the exquisite escalations, edge-of-your-seat thrills, and oh-my-god twists. P. J. Vernon's Bath Haus is a scintillating thriller with an emotional punch, perfect for readers curious for their next must-read novel.

Bath Haus

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Plague, War and Hellfire

1666

Greg King

Penny Wilson

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Leopold and Loeb and the Truth Behind the Murder That Rocked 1920s America

Greg King and Penny Wilson turn the original crime of the century on its head in this riveting exploration of the murder trial of Leopold & Loeb, Nothing but the Night...

Nothing but the Night

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Jared Stearns

Browse by categories

David Grann

The Wager

Lee Mandelo

The Woods All Black

Cynthia Carr

Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar

Stephen King

Night Shift

Whitley Strieber

Billy

Annie Dillard

The Writing Life

Miles Harvey

The Island of Lost Maps

Celia Fremlin

The Hours Before Dawn

C.H. Thames

Blood of My Brother

Agatha Christie

Crooked House

Mary Gabriel

Madonna

Mark Dawidziak

A Mystery of Mysteries

David Bret

Tallulah Bankhead

Jill Watts

Mae West

Kenneth C. Davis

A Nation Rising

Catharine Arnold

Globe

Sarah Young

Jesus Calling

Susanna Hoffs

This Bird Has Flown

Marybeth Hamilton

When I'm Bad, I'm Better

Sarah Young

Life in His Presence

Paul Schneider

Bonnie and Clyde

P. J. Vernon

Bath Haus

Rebecca Rideal

1666

Greg King; Penny Wilson

Nothing but the Night

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