Nearly sixty teens awaken halfway through their training, stranded on a harsh alien world with few supplies, no adults, and led by a treacherous artificial intelligence, but their greatest enemy is each other.

A "persuasive and essential" (Matthew Desmond) work that will forever change how we look at life after prison in America through Miller's "stunning, and deeply painful reckoning with our nation's carceral system" (Heather Ann Thompson). Each year, more than half a million Americans are released from prison and join a population of twenty million people who live with a felony record. Reuben Miller, a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and now a sociologist studying mass incarceration, spent years alongside prisoners, ex-prisoners, their friends, and their families to understand the lifelong burden that even a single arrest can entail. What his work revealed is a simple, if overlooked truth: life after incarceration is its own form of prison. The idea that one can serve their debt and return to life as a full-fledge member of society is one of America's most nefarious myths. Recently released individuals are faced with jobs that are off-limits, apartments that cannot be occupied and votes that cannot be cast. As The Color of Law exposed about our understanding of housing segregation, Halfway Home shows that the American justice system was not created to rehabilitate. Parole is structured to keep classes of Americans impoverished, unstable, and disenfranchised long after they've paid their debt to society. Informed by Miller's experience as the son and brother of incarcerated men, captures the stories of the men, women, and communities fighting against a system that is designed for them to fail. It is a poignant and eye-opening call to arms that reveals how laws, rules, and regulations extract a tangible cost not only from those working to rebuild their lives, but also our democracy. As Miller searchingly explores, America must acknowledge and value the lives of its formerly imprisoned citizens. PEN America 2022 John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist Winner of the 2022 PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences 2022 PROSE Awards Finalist 2022 PROSE Awards Category Winner for Cultural Anthropology and Sociology An NPR Selected 2021 Books We Love As heard on NPR’s Fresh Air

From a searing new literary voice, a raw, compulsively readable memoir about a young man seeking hope, community, and ultimately recovery from addiction in a series of halfway houses and boys’ homes—the first book to so vividly capture this world. In his late teens Tom Macher rebelled against a world that seemed stacked against him. Raised in a broken family and estranged from an absentee father suffering with AIDS, Macher turned to alcohol to escape the painful loneliness of his reality. In quick succession, he is kicked out of school, and then his mother’s house, sent to a boys’ home in Montana, and later, a halfway house in a truck-stop town of Louisiana. It was there that Macher encounters a community of young men struggling to survive—outcasts and thieves, liars and ex-cons, men seeking redemption, men running from the past. As he moves further away from boyhood and embraces a hard-won sobriety, these men—the broken, the hardscrabble, the near gone—become his salvation. Macher captures the trials of sobriety—suicide, death, recovery—and the unusual beauty that forms in the bonds of those who suffer. In visceral, striking prose, he introduces the unforgettable characters he meets along the way, from a former child actor, a young teen struggling with schizophrenia, a tough-love addiction counselor, a sex-addicted social worker, to Matt O, who became Macher’s loyal friend and wingman. Raw, disarming, frenetic, and subversive, Halfway is a brutally honest portrait of the world of down-and-out recovering alcoholics, and a story of how, in their darkest hour, these men create the bonds that form a family.

Madison gave her heart to a boy at the age of sixteen, but all she got in return was a broken heart and a swollen belly. Alone with a baby and desperate for the love and affection she hadn't found, she turned to a man who sealed his claim of devotion with a diamond ring. He promised her a family. A life. A future. But his lies had only been a cover for the personal hell he introduced her to daily. Now, at twenty-five, Madison has long since stopped believing in love. It's simply not a square on her bingo card. Balancing single parenthood, three jobs, and online courses, she doesn't have the time anyway. So when the broody neighbor living in the other side of her duplex leaves a rude note on her door, she's not interested. Not in his dark hair, not in his physique, and definitely not in the dimples she's only seen a hint of. She's one hundred percent, absolutely, not interested. Not even a little.

This is a collection of stories by, and usually about, river guides and outfitters. The tales focus on river related events that usually have little to do with whitewater. Many don't even take place on a river. All say a lot about the culture of guiding and the people attracted to wild places and the odd things that happen once they get there. These are the stories shared around a campfire after a day on the water. Some are funny, some sad, some quirky, but they all come from personal river experiences and lifelong friendships. Join some guides on their day off when they decide to take a raft over a dam to see if they can make it right-side up. Dive into a vast garbage dump to find the $500 drysuits you threw out with the trash from a 21 day Grand Canyon trip. Try to explain how your employees set a Forest Service employee on fire during a torch-lit dance on a picnic table. Share an evening with an outfitter who is about to lose his business because one of his guests has disappeared on a hike and has been missing all night. Get ready to set your underwear on fire if precipitation stays below average because that's how you end a drought. Take the Vice President of the United States down a river but never get him or anyone else wet. Be part of the wedding of two guides who really only wanted to sleep together but found themselves ?together forever.? Steal a bus and lead a wild chase down a mountain canyon highway looking for a group coming off the river. Drive home from the airport naked and try to sneak into the house without your wife noticing your lack of attire. Not every story is about good times. A few are tributes to friends who are no longer with us but belong around our campfire. You probably never heard their names but you will enjoy meeting them here. They told great stories. There is an odd thing that brings folks back for river trips. They usually come the first time because of the excitement of rapids and whitewater. They come back for another trip because of all the other stuff that happens. This book attempts to capture some of that magic, the memories and good times running a river with friends fosters.

A heartfelt middle-grade novel from New York Times bestselling author Barbara O’Connor about a boy whose life is upended after the loss of his older brother—timeless, classic, and whimsical. Walter Tipple is looking for adventure. He keeps having a dream that his big brother, Tank, appears before him and says, “Let’s you and me go see my world, little man.” But Tank went to the army and never came home, and Walter doesn’t know how to see the world without him. Then he meets Posey, the brash new girl from next door, and an eccentric man named Banjo, who’s off on a bodacious adventure of his own. What follows is a summer of taking chances, becoming braver, and making friends—and maybe Walter can learn who he wants to be without the brother he always wanted to be like. Halfway to Harmony is an utterly charming story about change and growing up. Don't miss Barbara O'Connor's other middle-grade work—like Wish; Wonderland; How to Steal a Dog; Greetings from Nowhere; Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia; The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester; and more!

Dyamonde knows it's what's on the inside that counts! Dyamonde loves eating her mom's pancakes. Free loves eating . . . period. But lately Damaris just pushes her food around her plate, and Dyamonde suspects it has something to do with the mean things classmates have been saying about people's weight. Damaris wonders if they might be talking about her too. Dyamonde knows that Damaris doesn't have a weight problem and is perfect just the way she is--so now it's time for her to make sure Damaris knows that, too. In this fourth installment of the award-winning series, Coretta Scott King Award winner Nikki Grimes's lovable Dyamonde Daniel is back, with a timely message about self-acceptance and healthy eating habits--delivered with her trademark spunk.

This book is a story of a mother and a child who were both abused and found love in the middle of a struggle to become whole. When I decided to write this book, I promised myself that I would be honest, even if it would mean that others would view me differently or disagree with me. I am entitled to express the voice of circumstance and changes that have occurred in my life, and I have chosen to do so by writing.

Halfway Herbert only does things half way and never finishes anything, but when he tells a half-truth, deciding he isn't exactly lying, everything falls apart. Suddenly Halfway Herbert learns that a Christlike life takes more than a partial effort. But can he finally give something his all? Halfway Herbert helps children discover the importance of honesty and offering their best for God in all they do. It's a delightful tale about how even a child can follow the 1st commandment and live fully for God.