American High

On October 3, 1807, Thomas Jefferson was contacted by an unknown traveler urgently pleading for a private "interview" with the president, promising to disclose "a matter of momentous importance". By the next day, Jefferson held in his hands two astonishing manuscripts whose history has been lost for over two centuries. Authored by Muslims fleeing captivity in rural Kentucky, these documents delivered to the president in 1807 were penned by literate African slaves, and written entirely in Arabic.

On Saturday, September 22, 1928, Barbara Griffiths, aged four, strayed into the woods surrounding the upstate village of Massena, New York. Hundreds of people looked everywhere for the child but could not find her. At one point, someone suggested that Barbara had been kidnapped and killed by Jews, and as the search continued, policemen and townspeople alike gave credence to the quickly-spreading rumors. The allegation of ritual murder, known to Jews as "blood libel", took hold.

A sweet and fast-paced contemporary teen romance from USA Today bestselling author Kristina Forest. High school senior Margot Whitman is an intern at Healing Hearts Inc., the company that created the innovative pill that can erase a person’s heartbreak overnight. Every weekend, Margot...

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton's book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy's political polarization - a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.

Historian Sean Wilentz presents two key insights that together reveal a clearer, much-needed vision of American political history. First, partisanship has almost always been a feature of American history and in fact has made possible the nation's greatest social reforms. There is little to be gained from a "postpartisan" political world. Second, the recent attention to economic inequality has a long history. From the founders' generation to the present, America's egalitarian tradition has appeared and reappeared like an underground river.

WINNER OF THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD AND THE HIGH PLAINS BOOK AWARD ● For readers of Jhumpa Lahiri and Maile Meloy, a collection of stories about Indian immigrants in the rural American West full of “such grace and understated power that you know you are in the presence of an incredible new...

Long before their country officially joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. Two such Americans were Martha and Waitstill Sharp, who were originally sent to Prague as part of a relief effort but turned immediately to helping Jews and dissidents after the 1939 invasion by Germany. They were not the only ones. Renowned historian Debórah Dwork follows the story of rescue workers in five major cities as the refugee crisis expanded to Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon. Followed by Nazi agents, spiriting people across borders, they learned secrecy.

As citizens continue to evolve and diversify within the United States, the ingredients that make up each flavorful household are waiting to be discovered and devoured. In Colorful Palate, author Raj Tawney shares his coming-of-age memoir as a young man born into an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian American family, his struggles with understanding his own identity, and the mouthwatering flavors of the melting pot from within his own childhood kitchen.

Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature.

High Drama explores rock climbing's transformation from a pursuit of select anti-establishment vagabonds to a sport embraced by competitors of all ages, social classes, and backgrounds. Climbing magazine's John Burgman weaves a multi-layered story of traditionalists and opportunists, grassroots organizers and business-minded developers, free-spirited rebels and rigorously coached athletes. Deeply reported and compellingly told, this is a celebration of climbing and the pivotal figures who made its growth possible....

Think you know Elizabeth Pipko? Guess again. She's been described by many as a rising star in the conservative movement, but how did she get here? And more importantly, did she ever plan to? In Finding My Place, Elizabeth takes us back to the beginning. As the daughter of immigrants and a proud religious Jew, Elizabeth dives into the core of what drives her: the sacrifices of her parents and grandparents and all that they had to endure to make sure that she had the opportunity to live the American dream.

The recent Hollywood film Hidden Figures presents a portrait of how African American women shaped the US effort in aerospace during the height of Jim Crow. In Storming the Heavens, Gerald Horne presents the necessary back story to this account and goes further to detail the earlier struggle of African Americans to gain the right to fly.

In 1765, as the Stamp Act riled eastern seaports, frontiersmen clashed with the British Empire over another issue: Indian relations. When British officials launched a diplomatic expedition into the American interior to open trade with the Indian warrior Pontiac, the Black Boys formed to stop it and led an uprising that threatened the future of Britain's empire. Clashing with traders, diplomats, Native warriors, and imperious British officials, the Black Boys evolved into an organized political movement that resisted the Crown years before the Declaration of Independence.

The Burden, edited by award-winning Detroit newspaper columnist Rochelle Riley, is a powerful collection of essays that create a chorus of evidence that the burden is real. The Burden expresses the voices of well-known Americans, such as actor/director Tim Reid who compares slavery to a cancer diagnosis, and former Detroit News columnist Betty DeRamus who recounts the discrimination she encountered as a young Black Detroiter in the south.

A satirical series of reports from a young progressive student to the DNC, outlining ways to undermine the conservative movement and create a progressive nation.

It’s 1895 and 13-year-old Rory Mac, a poor, fatherless newsboy for Pulitzer’s New York World, needs a break. He gets one when Hamilton “Ton” Fish, member of the storied Fish family and star athlete at Columbia University, asks him to work his corner for an underground boxing match at McSorley’s Alehouse, setting in motion an unexpected but inspiring friendship.

Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. Zelnik traces the emerging bonds of affinity that white male settlers in North America cultivated through their shared, transformative experience of mirth. This humor—a category that includes not only jokes but also play, riot, revelry, and mimicry—shaped the democratic and anti-elitist sensibilities of Americans.

Royal children no longer desire merely the throne of their kingdom. The prize they seek is a seat on the High Council as a God. The quake of footsteps from the divine shape the fabric of the realm. These All Beings walk among mortals and their children hold the titles of king and queen. When blessed blood is threatened, lines are drawn. Aron Barre II, a newly crowned ruler, is thrusted in the middle of a conflict between the rivaling kingdoms of the Fallows. The political journey he embarks on will change the course of Caldonia forever.

A riveting, swoon-worthy teen romance about two high achievers fighting for the title of high school valedictorian . . . and falling in love along the way “Romantic, real, and tender.”—Elise Bryant, author of Happily Ever After “Big-hearted with a pitch-perfect voice, this...

An overachiever must decide if risking her heart by working with her former crush turned enemy is worth the reward in this snappy rom-com, perfect for fans of Tweet Cute and Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry. High school senior Autumn Reeves has been waitlisted at her dream school. Determined to move...