In this poignant coming-of-age novel, a gay teen struggles to find his identity in the contrasting worlds of rural Mississippi and the big city of New Orleans. Growing up in a small Mississippi town in the early 1990s, shy and inexperienced Mason spends much of his time with his best friend and secret childhood crush, the charming and daring Billy. When a six-pack of beer leads to a passionate encounter between the two teenagers, Mason believes his dreams may have finally come true. Billy's apparent disregard for the incident, however, leaves Mason feeling confused and betrayed. When Billy slips off to glamorous New York City immediately after high school graduation, Mason fears he's doomed to spend another humid Mississippi summer scooping ice cream. But Mason's life changes dramatically when vivacious Aunt Savannah invites him to live with her in New Orleans and work in the box office of her drag queen cabaret. It's there-in the decadent and liberating French Quarter-that Mason begins to fall for Joey, a strikingly handsome and sweet nineteen-year-old, who may just be ready to open his heart to someone new. A surprise visit from Billy hints that he may be ready to return Mason's feelings, and Mason faces a difficult choice. With the help of his spirited aunt and a sassy drag queen, Miss Althea, Mason learns that sometimes it's best to roll life's dice and take a chance.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

Full of sass, soul, and the type of empowering wisdom that no woman should live without, Choosing ME before WE is like a heart-to-heart with your closest girlfriend. And best of all, you’ll discover that your closest girlfriend is your own truest self, inside you, always ready to offer wise, loving advice and counsel about what is best for you. Designed to challenge and guide women to create the relationships they want instead of the ones they often find themselves stuck in, this book is packed with: stimulating questions to uncover what’s true for you, daring you to get downright real about yourself and your relationships powerful techniques to change old habits that sabotage your dreams real-life experiences shared by the author, her friends, and her clients Author Christine Arylo, who almost married the wrong guy for all the wrong reasons, speaks to women of all ages, whether they’re seeking a relationship, evaluating a less-than-fulfilling one, rebounding from a bad breakup, or working through issues with a partner. Choosing ME before WE teaches women to stop settling, to get real about the kind of partner they’re looking for, and to start exploring and creating what they truly want in themselves and their relationships.

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect “antidote to mansplaining” (The Stranger). In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!” This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. “In this series of personal but unsentimental essays, Solnit gives succinct shorthand to a familiar female experience that before had gone unarticulated, perhaps even unrecognized.” —The New York Times “Essential feminist reading.” —The New Republic “This slim book hums with power and wit.” —Boston Globe “Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Essential.” —Marketplace “Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions.” —Salon

'And when I shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars.' This collection of Shakespeare's soliloquies, including both old favourites and lesser-known pieces, shows him at his dazzling best. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

I wanted his heart, but he gave me something else...my life. The man of my dreams came to me in the form of a playboy doctor with a bad reputation. Dr. Carl Wilson had flirted with me from the moment we met, and he captured my heart. The only problem was, I needed a transplant, or I wasn’t going to live much longer. I sold everything I owned to pay for treatment. I was put on the list hoping that I would find a match. With time running out, and a donor match becoming more and more difficult, I feared I would spend my last days being in love, but not experiencing anything real. And then, a miracle occurred. A donor was found and I was prepped for surgery right away. But when I woke, all that was left was a note from Carl… You Before Me. I had my life, but lost my love… Would I ever find it again? Author's Note: There are no cliffhangers and it has an HEA. This full-length novel is a love story.

A Table before me: The Meditating Christian reveals God as the Living God who has spoken to His people definitively through Jesus Christ and who continues to speak daily through His Word. God prepares a table before us each day, where He sits with us and feeds us His Word. The secret of meditation is that we do not have to force our entry into God's Word. God delights to speak to all who will listen. He only requires that we listen, by opening ourselves to Him as He speaks, by focusing on the words that we read, and by allowing His Spirit to plant those words in our innermost being, just as a farmer plants seeds in the springtime. The result will be a transformed prayer life, deeper communion with God and a new joy in participating in God's redeeming work throughout the world. The Korean edition of this book is a best seller in Korea, and translation has begun on the Chinese edition. David and Ellen Ross are Presbyterians who have served as missionaries to the Korean people for over forty-five years. Co-founders of Youth With A Mission Korea, and The Antioch Institute for International Ministries, their present ministry includes teaching and writing, providing pastoral care for long-term, cross-cultural missionaries, and ministry to North Korea. David is the author of two books on North Korea as well as numerous Bible study manuals.

Throughout junior high school, Jackson was among the most popular kids until nasty rumors about him spread, something he couldn’t control. He decided to move away from the drama and start over north of town. Jackson undertakes his first days in high school, and more misfortune arises. He creates a second personality to hide his reality from the world. It is a personality that shows nothing about his past. He spends his days as a flight sergeant in a squadron or a musician in school, but whenever he’s alone, the mask disappears, the darkness of his past creeps back in. Jackson lives a double life he doesn’t want to endure. Jackson has a choice to end it all but instead, he decides to retrace his steps to remember who he is.