Politics and Prose Presents

A dazzling novel in stories from a master of the form that follows the Royal family across generations of obsession, betrayal, and reinvention. For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff. In postwar Paris, a boy is seduced by his mysterious nanny into a world of adult secrets. In 1950s New York, a young caretaker struggles to protect her charge, a married woman weakened by a recent stroke, as new...

From the Booker Prize-winning and  New York Times  bestselling author of  Shuggie Bain  and  Young Mungo  comes a vivid, moving novel following a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, a portrait of a father's expectations and a son's desires Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to...

From the beloved host of NPR’s  Weekend Edition Saturday , moving tales of the marvelous animals who have crossed his path. Scott Simon’s household does not make much distinction between humans and other animals. Whether two legged or four, flesh-covered, fur-covered, feathered, or gilled—everyone is family. Today, the beloved radio host lives with the haiku-writing and  absolument charmant  Frenc...

How to do more with less and use limits to stimulate creativity, innovation, and collaboration, from the #1  New York Times  bestselling author of  Range We live in a world that gives us seemingly infinite choices and values freedom above all else. The irony is that total freedom can be paralyzing, and unlimited resources don’t necessarily lead to the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, overvaluing co...

A history of the engineering marvels behind one of America's most innovative and beloved entertainment experiences When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In this fascinating book,  Roland Betancourt  tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the techn...

Following his captivating and popular  A Hundred Lovers,  Hofmann’s new collection is a queer coming-of-age, tinged with myth: poems that bring us into a fever dream of antiquity and desire at its limits Recognizing the fragility of the body and soul in a world of threat, these startling poems stem from a central boyhood memory—the author’s near-drowning in a swimming pool on Crete. The observant...

Stretching from the present day to the near future, from China to America and beyond, M Lin’s piercing and melodious debut captures the spirit of China’s One-Child Generation as its characters navigate homes and cultures, hopes and contradictions, survival and resistance. These frank, tender, and playful stories offer profound insight into the ambivalence of migration, the perverse ways race and c...

WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY TRIVEDI SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE Award-winning author and leading neurologist Masud Husain shares seven fascinating cases of brain disorders from across his career - and shows what they can teach us about our own brains What makes us who we are? Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create, c...

Molly Irani, the visionary cofounder of the James Beard Award–winning restaurant Chai Pani, shares her passion for hospitality and story of building a thriving business that puts people first. Growing up with parents who owned a restaurant, Molly understood the power of service but also had a keen understanding of the industry’s challenges. When her husband Meherwan wanted to open a restaurant tha...

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by  Literary Hub The best in short fiction from around the world, from celebrated anthologist and author John Freeman and award-winning novelist Rabih Alameddine In  The Penguin Book of the International Short Story , writers from different nations, languages, and sensibilities come together in a globe-spanning and long overdue tour of modern fiction. In “Supe...

What is driving the rise of fascism--and how can we stop it? In this singular investigation into the sinister realms of fascism and its many guises, Omer Aziz, author of the acclaimed  Brown Boy  and contributing writer for the  Boston Globe , sets out to answer the question: Why are so many young people like him drifting to the ultranationalist right?  Shadows of the Republic   offers a haunting...

Tread Upon - by turns tender and furious, and wholly original--attempts to depict the various scales upon which climate change unfolds around us. Bold, incisive, and wholly original,  Christopher Kondrich's Tread Upon  explores the social, political, religious, and economic drivers behind the chronic devaluation of the living world. In this book-length sequence, in which each section unravels...

From the acclaimed author of  Number One Chinese Restaurant  comes an affecting novel about an unforgettable group of friends trying to make their way in the world without losing themselves, or one another. Diana, Justin, Errol, and Vivian were always told that success is guaranteed by following a simple checklist. They worked hard, got A's, and attended a good university—only to graduate into...

“An indispensable book, as intellectually provocative as it is emotionally wrenching.” —Greg Grandin¸ author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning  The End of the Myth Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), hist...

In this deftly comedic and deeply contemplative memoir, the  New York Times  bestselling author faces life's biggest curveball only to find resilience in the most unlikely places. After Annabelle Gurwitch received an out-of-the blue diagnosis of Stage 4 lung cancer, an existential dread set in. Precision medicine offered a temporary reprieve--but instead of turning into a cancer warrior, Annab...

Author and historian Garrett Peck traces Willa Cather’s adventures in the Southwest and how they influenced her best book. Six months before she died, Willa Cather called her 1927 novel  Death Comes for the Archbishop  her “best book.”  The Atlantic  magazine concurred, including  Archbishop  on its Great American Novels list in 2024. A perennial favorite for people who love New Mexico, the novel...

By his longtime friend and a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, the definitive biography of Larry McMurtry, the legendary author and screenwriter of  Lonesome Dove ,  The Last Picture Show , and  Brokeback Mountain,  who transformed our vision of the West. Before Larry McMurtry became one of the most celebrated writers of the twentieth century, he worked on his family’s ranch in rural Texas. At ni...

Democracy is fracturing—and one woman may hold the key to saving it. This electrifying new thriller from former CIA officer and TikTok sensation Brittany Butler is the perfect geopolitical thriller for fans of David McCloskey and Alma Katsu. When a wave of Russian cyberattacks ignites a disinformation firestorm, the United States is pushed to the brink of a civil war. State governments defy Washin...

From the award-winning author of American Sirens and A Thousand Naked Strangers comes a real-life thriller about the most daring rescue in air-medical history.  JULY 2014. Two American medical volunteers who joined the fight against the deadliest Ebola outbreak in world history have gotten infected. The virus kills in just over a week and they’re trapped in a hot zone with the clock ticking. If th...

How the war on drugs created the gold standard treatment for addiction—until America’s opioid crisis got privatized for profit, to the detriment of patients.   Despite epidemic levels of overdoses in the United States, by 2020, only twenty percent of Americans suffering from opioid use disorder (OUD) received medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the gold standard of addiction treatment, which uses...

In this blend of police thriller and poignant autofiction, a writer revisits a tragic crime from his adolescence and reckons with a dark, underexplored side of Spain. On Christmas Eve 1995, Miguel Ángel Hernández’s best friend murdered his sister and took his own life by jumping off a cliff. It happened in a small hamlet in the Murcia countryside. No one ever knew why. The investigation was closed...

In  The Soldier’s House , Helen Benedict tells the story of an Iraq War veteran who saves the lives of his assassinated Iraqi interpreter’s widow and child by bringing them to his home in upstate New York. For the soldier, this is a way of making amends for his interpreter’s death. But the widow finds being rescued by the enemy both humiliating and compromising. This is a compassionate tale that e...

From Marginalian Editions comes a gorgeous reissue of celebrated poet and naturalist  Diane Ackerman's  debut: a soaring ode to our solar system, planet to planet, blending science and imagination, astronomy and cosmology, as well as fantasy, satire, myth, and confession. First published in 1973,   The Planets: A Cosmic Pastora l  introduced not only a splendid new poet but a whole new adventu...

This event will be in partnership with  The Atlantic . An invigorating guide to fighting back—part philosophy, part history, and part manual for living with integrity in an age of conformity and authoritarian drift How do we push back in a world where political leaders wield fear and intimidation? Where digital technology dehumanizes and flattens us? We need role models, and in this engaging book,...

A major revisionist history of the Lewis and Clark expedition: For the first time in a generation,  This Vast Enterprise  offers a fresh and more accurate account of one of the most important episodes in American history, humanizing forgotten figures and shattering long-held myths.   Celebrated young historian Craig Fehrman, whose first book,  Author in Chief , was hailed by Thomas Mallon in  The...