"A novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, following the intersecting lives of the local families fighting to protect their homeland, the West Indian laborers recruited to dig the waterway, and the white Americans who gained profit and glory for themselves"--

"While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture's most insightful music critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the '90s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make...

"The first major history of Mormonism in a decade, drawing on newly available sources to reveal a profoundly divided faith that has nevertheless shaped the nation."--

"A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country's history. Distilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s legendary Harvard introductory course in African American Studies, The Black Box: Writing the Race, is the story of Black self-definition in...

"On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state's Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick...

"At 7:00 a.m. on December 9, 1937, St. Paul firefighters battling an arsonist's fire in the abandoned Aberdeen Hotel discovered the badly burned body of a woman. The victim was soon identified as 31-year-old Ruth Munson, a waitress at the Union Depot--a "small-town girl" who had moved to the big city in search of a new life. Using original police records, Ruth's own diary and letters, newspaper accounts, public documents, and other primary sources,...

"Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston's rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors-the last documented survivors of any slave ship-whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways"--

"A Kingdom Divided Raised in a home filled with violence, Arianne Pemberton experiences love and gentleness only after her arranged marriage to Richard, Duke of Gavenshire. But before she can feel confident both in Richard's love and in God's personal care for her, a mysterious enemy from Richard's Past over-powers the castle and takes Arianne hostage. Who is Tancred, and why is he set on revenge? What fuels the animosity between the two men? Exercising...

"How do you pick car racing GOATs? Richard Petty and Jeff Gordon get a lot of attention. But what about NHRA champion Brittany Force? And what about the versatile driver A.J. Foyt? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches. Read more about some of the legends of car racing and see if you agree that they're the greatest of all time"--

Smoke Jensen: the beginning -- In 1861, shots were fired in Charleston Harbor, and Kirby Jensen’s father and brother went off to war. From raging Civil War battles to border state raids to the kind of frontier justice achieved only by bullets and blood, Kirby Jensen journeys into a manhood shaped by violence and a young man’s thirst for justice. Filled with actual historical events and legendary characters, the story of Smoke Jensen’s early...