Babes in Toyland burst onto the Minneapolis music scene in the late 1980s and quickly established itself at the forefront of punk/alternative rock. The all-female trio featured a shy, seventeen-year-old Jewish teen from the suburbs on bass guitar—an instrument she had never played before joining the band. Over the next few years, Michelle Leon lived the rock-and-roll lifestyle—playing live concerts, recording in studios, touring across the United States and Europe, and spending endless hours in stuffy vans, staying in two-star motels, and sleeping on strangers’ couches in town after town. The grind and drama of life in the band gradually wore on Leon, however, and a heartbreaking tragedy led her to rethink her commitment to the band and the music scene. Leon’s sensitive, sensory prose puts readers right on stage with Babes in Toyland while also conveying the uncertainty, vulnerability, and courage needed by a girl who never felt like she fit in to somehow find her place in the world. “A crucial and compelling account of what it was to be a woman making music in the nineties. . . . Fantastic and ferocious.”—Jessica Hopper, music and culture critic and author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic “Profound, poetic, badass, tender, and inspiring.”—Will Hermes, author of Love Goes to Buildings on Fire “I Live Inside feels as real and personal as reading your own memories. . . . Parts read like a fairy tale while others are so haunting they will never leave you.”—Kelli Mayo, musician (Skating Polly) “Leon draws you right into the Babes in Toyland van, shows you the after party tensions and what is in the mind of this particular girl in a band.”—Darcey Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair: A Novel and others “[Leon’s] prose is stunning, her eye is wry, and her heart enormous; the result is a compelling memoir filled with pop culture, travel, intrigue, and a young artist’s quest to find her voice.”—Laurie Lindeen, musician (Zuzu’s Petals) and author of Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story “By the end of this lyrical, tough, and moving memoir, you’ll not only feel like you know Michelle Leon, you’ll also want to talk and dance and listen to music with her.”—Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear “A vivid, poetic memoir.”—Mark Yarm, author of Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge “This is Planet Leon.”—David Markey, filmmaker, author, and musician

With the ease and simplicity of a nursery rhyme, this lively story delivers an important message of social acceptance to young readers. Themes associated with child development and social harmony, such as friendship, acceptance, self-esteem, and diversity are promoted in simple and straightforward prose. Vivid illustrations of children's activities for all cultures, such as swimming in the ocean, hugging, catching butterflies, and eating birthday cake are also provided. This delightful picturebook offers a wonderful venue through which parents and teachers can discuss important social concepts with their children.

An Architectural Record Notable Book A fascinating, thought-provoking journey into our built environment Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside, shuttling between homes and offices, schools and stores, restaurants and gyms. And yet, in many ways, the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings, we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors? Our productivity, performance, and relationships? In this wide-ranging, character-driven book, science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound, and sometimes unexpected, ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research, she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance, how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems, and how cafeteria design affects what—and how much—we eat. Along the way, Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors, a school designed to boost students’ physical fitness, and a prison designed to support inmates’ psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future, from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon. The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world—one room at a time.

A major new collection of stories by one of the most exciting and creative voices in contemporary Chinese literature Can Xue’s stories observe no obvious conventions of plot or characterization. That is the only rule they follow. Instead, they tend to limn a disordered and poetic state given structure by philosophical wonder and emotional rigor. Combining elements of both Chinese materiality—the love of physical things—and Western abstract thinking, Can Xue invites her readers into an immersive landscape that blends empirical fact and illusion, mixes the physical and spiritual, and probes the space between consciousness and oblivion. She brings us to a place that is both readily familiar yet unmappable and can make us hyperaware of the inherent unreliability in our relationship to the world around us. Delightful, enchanting, and filled with secrets, Can Xue’s newest collection shines a light on the forces that give contours to the visible terrain we acknowledge as reality.

In the ruins of an old parking garage, there is an effigy lashed to a pillar. To anyone else, the remains of the woman with the goat skull head is a warning. To a lonely young boy looking for escape, it is a god of salvation. At its feet lay tattered old notebooks, scattered stories, tales of strange encounters, of broken people and monstrous things, and of corrupt hearts and evil minds. In order to complete his transfiguration, the boy must read these stories, but he has no idea the fate that awaits him. WE LIVE INSIDE YOUR EYES is the much anticipated new collection from Bram Stoker Award-winning horror author Kealan Patrick Burke, featuring previously uncollected stories and a brand new tale written especially for this collection, the short story "You Have Nothing to Fear From Me". With an introduction and story notes by the author.

"WE LIVE INSIDE YOU is fucking terrific. Jeremy Robert Johnson is dancing to a way different drummer. He loves language, he loves the edge, and he loves us people. These stories have range and style and wit. This is entertainment... and literature."-JACK KETCHUM, author of Off Season, The Girl Next Door, and The Woman (w/Lucky McKee) We are within you, and we are growing. Watching. Waiting for your empires to fall. It won't be long now. We are the fear of death that drives you and the terrible hunger that reshapes you in its name. We are the vengeance born from senseless slaughter and the pulsing reptile desire that negates your consciousness. We are the lie on your lips, the collapsing star in your heart, and the still-warm gun in your shaking hands. The illusion of control is all we'll allow you, and no matter what you do... WE LIVE INSIDE YOU

From days on the stoop, playing hopscotch and watching fireworks from the rooftops, to school field trips into the city, where zoos and museums await, Michelle introduces readers to her favorite places and things to do. Mari Takabayashi’s diminutive scenes, busy with cheerful detail, bring the beauty and bustle of New York City to life for children all around the world.

In her 1985 CBC Massey Lectures Doris Lessing addresses the question of personal freedom and individual responsibility in a world increasingly prone to political rhetoric, mass emotions, and inherited structures of unquestioned belief. The Nobel Prize-winning author of more than thirty books, Doris Lessing is one of our most challenging and important writers.

Shange's lyrical poem is a tribute to the language of music and the magical, often mystical, rhythms that connect people. Music defines who we are as individuals, the places where we live, and how we exist within our communities. Music is life.Written in a syncopated style that has its own melody, the poem is perfectly married to twenty-one extraordinary and diverse works from Romare Bearden who once said, "I paint in the tradition of the blues."Here is a unique and visionary book that speaks, indeed sings, to both children and adults and is, at once, compelling, profond, and entertaining.

The stigma of mental health is still all too real. Too many people are continuing to struggle alone, in the dark, too afraid to ask for help. Far too often, many of these individuals happen to be people of color who still view the conversation surrounding mental health as a taboo subject to discuss. As we continue having tough conversations surrounding the experiences of black, indigenous and people of color throughout our society, I think it is more than vital that we discuss the mental health experiences of this population. Often underserved and left without adequate psychological services, people of color continue to suffer in silence without many places to turn to. Through these six stories, The Box I Live In aims to shine a bright light on the experiences of people everywhere, while also illuminating the racial disparities within the mental healthcare system.