Hardcover Nonfiction

by Kamala Harris · Simon & Schuster

For the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, former Vice President Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history. Your Secret Service code name is Pioneer. You are the first woman in history to be elected vice president of the United States. On July 21, 2024, your running mate, Joe Biden, announces that he will not be seeking reelection. The presidential election will occur on November 5, 2024. You have 107 days. From the chaos of campaign strategy sessions to the intensity of debate prep under relentless scrutiny and the private moments that rarely make headlines, Kamala Harris offers an unfiltered look at the pressures, triumphs, and heartbreaks of a history-defining race. With behind-the-scenes details and a voice that is both intimate and urgent, this is more than a political memoir—it’s a chronicle of resilience, leadership, and the high stakes of democracy in action. Written with candor, a unique perspective, and the pace of a page-turning novel, 107 Days takes you inside the race for the presidency as no one has ever done before.

by Matthew McConaughey · Crown

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Academy Award–winning actor and author of Greenlights comes an inspiring, faith-filled, and often hilarious collection of personal poetry and prayers about navigating the rodeo of life and chasing down the original dream, belief. My prayers are my poems are my prayers. I’ve always relied on logic to make sense of myself and the world. A prescriptionist at heart, I’ve always looked to reason to find the rhyme, the practical to get to the mystical, the choreography to find the dance, the proof to get to the truth, and reality to get to the dream. I’ve been finding that tougher to do lately. It’s more than hard to know what to believe in; it’s hard to believe. But I don’t want to quit believing, and I don’t want to stop believing in . . . humanity, you, myself, our potential. I think it’s time for us to flip the script on what’s historically been our means of making sense, and instead open our aperture to enchantment and look to faith, belief, and dreams for our reality. Let’s sing more than we might make sense, believe in more than the world can conclude, get more impressed with the wow instead of the how, let inspiration interrupt our appointments, dream our way to reality, serve some soul food to our hungry heads, put proof on the shelf for a season, and rhyme our way to reason. Forget logic, certainty, owning, or making a start-up company of it; let’s go beyond what we can merely imagine, and believe, in the poetry of life.

by Jen Hatmaker · Avid Reader

"From Jen Hatmaker beloved New York Times bestselling author and host of the For the Love podcast a brutally honest, funny, and revealing memoir about the traumatic end of her twenty-six-year-long marriage, and the beginning of a different kind of love story."--

by Bill O'Reilly and Josh Hammer · St. Martin's

The biblical book of Genesis clearly defines it when Cain kills his brother Abel out of jealousy. Evil is a choice to make another suffer. As long as human beings have walked, evil has been close by. Confronting Evil by Bill O'Reilly and Josh Hammer recounts the deeds of the worst people in history: Genghis Khan. The Roman Emperor Caligula. Henry VIII. The collective evil of the 19th century slave traders and the 20th century robber barons. Stalin. Hitler. Mao. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Putin. The Mexican drug cartels. Collectively, these warlords, tyrants, businessmen, and criminals are directly responsible for the death and misery of hundreds of millions of people. By telling what they did and why they did it, Confronting Evil explains the struggle between good and evil--a choice every person in the Judeo-Christian tradition is compelled to make. But many defer. We avoid the life decision. We look away. It's easier. Prepare yourself to read the consequences of that inaction. As John Stuart Mill said in his inaugural address to the University of St. Andrews in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley with Mary Jane Ross · Grand Central

The long-awaited, candid memoir by Priscilla Presley chronicling her difficult, inspiring journey beyond the walls of Graceland and behind the elegant image the world sees. The Elvis legacy seen from the inside ... Priscilla Presley's divorce from Elvis left his fans incredulous. How could she leave the man every woman wanted? From the outside, life in Elvis's mansion looked glamorous and enviable, and in many respects, it was. But inside the mansion, her husband was constantly surrounded by a male entourage while at the gates, lines of beautiful women waited hopefully for an audience with the King. From the time she was seventeen years old, that life was all Priscilla had known. During her ten years with Elvis, it became painfully apparent that she had no idea who she was outside Elvis's world. The only way to find herself was to leave that world and seek a new life of her own, because leaving was the only way to survive, for herself and for her daughter. Softly, As I Leave You, is the deeply personal story of what Priscilla lost and what she found when she walked away from the man she loved. Despite the legal separation, their love for one another transformed into a touching and tender dynamic that endured until Elvis's untimely death four years later. Shattered by Elvis's passing, she had to reinvent herself a second time as the single mother of a talented, often headstrong daughter who never really recovered from her father's death. Priscilla's dedication to motherhood was enriched by the birth of her second child, and she gradually found her footing as a businesswoman, actress, designer, and legislative advocate. She transformed Graceland into an international destination and helped guide the development of Elvis Presley Enterprises. But the unexpected, shattering loss of three immediate family members years later brought Priscilla to her knees. She shares her journey with a quiet dignity that will comfort and reassure anyone who has suffered - and survived - seemingly unbearable loss. A passionate, compassionate, and inspiring story of finding your place in the world, Softly, As I Leave You, is a sweet Southern melody that will take the reader with Priscilla on her long road home.

by Elizabeth Gilbert · Riverhead

An essential, universally resonant new memoir from the number one bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic

by Charlie Sheen · Gallery

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER For the first time, Charlie Sheen, the star of Platoon, Wall Street, Major League, and Two and a Half Men, writes the story of his extraordinary life in an unfiltered memoir. “We can live the stories or hear about them later from others. I choose the former.” Charlie Sheen should not be alive to write this book. But in The Book of Sheen, the movie and TV star, who has defied the odds, finally presents his story, in his own words. Charlie Sheen was born the third of four children to actor Martin Sheen and his wife, Janet. He grew up on film sets—from his father’s all over the world, to his own in Malibu. There he made ambitious Super 8s, with a roster of friends who went on to become household names themselves, including his brother Emilio, Sean and Chris Penn, and the Lowe brothers. Sheen broke into movies in the 1980s, playing a hoodlum in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a young soldier in Platoon, and an ethically compromised trader in Wall Street. But somewhere along the way, despite a successful transition to TV leading man in Spin City and Two and a Half Men, Sheen descended into a vortex of extracurricular activities. Now sober, Sheen delivers a clear-eyed narrative of his highs and lows with humor, candor, and a vivid, captivating writing style that is uniquely his. The Book of Sheen reads like a far-fetched, overstuffed novel of Hollywood life—yet it is all true.

by Jonathan Haidt · Penguin Press

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of 2024 • A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book • One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024 • A TIME 100 Must-Read Book of 2024 • Named a Best Book of 2024 by the Economist, the New York Post, and Town & Country • The Goodreads Choice Award Nonfiction Book of the Year • Finalist for the PEN Literary Awards A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. “With tenacity and candor, Haidt lays out the consequences that have come with allowing kids to drift further into the virtual world . . . While also offering suggestions and solutions that could help protect a new generation of kids.” —Shannon Carlin, TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

by Michael Harriot · Dey Street

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE * AMAZON'S TOP 20 HISTORY BOOKS OF 2023 * B&N BEST OF EDUCATIONAL HISTORY * THE ROOT'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history. Combining unapologetically provocative storytelling with meticulous research based on primary sources as well as the work of pioneering Black historians, scholars, and journalists, Harriot removes the white sugarcoating from the American story, placing Black people squarely at the center. With incisive wit, Harriot speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power, subverting conventional historical narratives with little-known stories about the experiences of Black Americans. From the African Americans who arrived before 1619 to the unenslavable bandit who inspired America’s first police force, this long overdue corrective provides a revealing look into our past that is as urgent as it is necessary. For too long, we have refused to acknowledge that American history is white history. Not this one. This history is Black AF.

by David McCullough · Simon & Schuster

In this posthumous collection of thought-provoking essays—many never published before—Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and bestselling author David McCullough affirms the value of history, how we can be guided by its lessons, and the enduring legacy of American ideals. History Matters brings together selected essays by beloved historian David McCullough, some published here for the first time, written at different points over the course of his long career but all focused on the subject of his lifelong passion: the importance of history in understanding our present and future. Edited by McCullough’s daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill, History Matters is a tribute to a master historian and offers fresh insights into McCullough’s enduring interests and writing life. The book also features a foreword by Jon Meacham. McCullough highlights the importance of character in political leaders, with Harry Truman and George Washington serving as exemplars of American values like optimism and determination. He shares his early influences, from the books he cherished in his youth to the people who mentored him. He also pays homage to those who inspired him, such as writer Paul Horgan and painter Thomas Eakins, illustrating the diverse influences on his writing as well as the influence of art. Rich with McCullough’s signature grace, curiosity, and narrative gifts, these essays offer vital lessons in viewing history through the eyes of its participants, a perspective that McCullough believed was crucial to understanding the present as well as the past. History Matters is testament to McCullough’s legacy as one of the great storytellers of this nation’s history and of the lasting promise of American ideals.

by Paul Kingsnorth · Thesis

How a force that’s hard to name, but which we all feel, is reshaping what it means to be human In Against the Machine, “furiously gifted” (The Washington Post) novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a wholly original—and terrifying—account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. With insight into the spiritual and economic roots of techno-capitalism, Kingsnorth reveals how the Machine, in the name of progress, has choked Western civilization, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us in its image. From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, he shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how your very soul is at stake. It takes effort to remain truly human in the age of the Machine. Here Kingsnorth reminds us what humanity requires: a healthy suspicion of entrenched power; connection to land, nature and heritage; and a deep attention to matters of the spirit. Prophetic and poetic, Against the Machine is a spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age.

by Steven Pinker · Scribner

'One of the most insightful books I’ve read about what makes us human and how we understand each other' Bill Gates Steven Pinker, one of the world's greatest thinkers and bestselling author of Enlightenment Now, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Language Instinct, reveals the power and perils of thinking alike As a cognitive scientist, the ultimate subject of Steven Pinker’s fascination is how we think about each other’s thoughts, ad infinitum. It sounds impossible, but Steven Pinker shows that we do it all the time. This awareness, which we experience as something that is public or “out there,” is called common knowledge, and it has a momentous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. Common knowledge, Pinker shows, can make sense of many of life’s enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretence of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. In exploring the paradoxes of human behaviour, When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows... invites us to understand the ways we try to get into each other’s heads, and the harmonies, hypocrisies, and outrages that result.

by Kevin Fredericks · Convergent

Being successful is no laughing matter . . . unless the road there is littered with flops, fool’s errands, fizzles, and straight-up failures—from the New York Times bestselling co-author of Marriage Be Hard. “I’m so happy Kev failed, because these stories will set so many free from perfection!”—Tabitha Brown, bestselling author of Feeding the Soul Kevin Fredericks (aka KevOnStage) is a viral stand-up star, an NAACP Image Award–winning comedian, the founder of KevOnStage Studios, a New York Times bestselling author, and a superstar on social media. But his path to success wasn’t always smooth. As a kid, Kevin noticed something useful: If he made people laugh, the grown-ups would let him stay up late. In church plays, his commitment to the role of Goliath led to a busted lip, and the audience couldn’t get enough. He dreamed of becoming a performer, of finding that big break that would launch him into the bright lights of pop culture fame. But as he soon found, the road to the life we want is longer, weirder, more embarrassing, and more entertaining than we think it will be. In Successful Failure, the comedian recounts hilarious stories and sincere insight from his adventures (and misadventures) trying to make it in life. From performing under an alias to avoid getting fired from his suit-and-tie day job to breaking a chair onstage and quitting stand-up for six months, from pooping his pants on a bus next to his future wife to starting a clothing line called Dreams Don’t Die (they sure do if the merch doesn’t sell), Kevin reminds readers that while we might not be The Rock, Warren Buffett, or Kevin Hart, we’re all out here trying, and that’s okay. Laugh-out-loud in one moment and perceptive in the next, Successful Failure is a wild ride from one of America’s funniest comics and a sendup of our ideals around hustle culture and success.

by Hunter Prosper · Simon Element

A collection of one hundred deeply personal stories—covering love and heartbreak, growth and resilience—brought to life by the creator of the wildly popular TikTok account @HunterProsper. Every person has a story. Dick knew that it was love at first sight when he saw Nancy across the church steps—they got married a week later and have been best friends ever since, still going strong over fifty years later. Nathalia’s first boyfriend told her that her facial scars made her even more beautiful, and it gave her the confidence to become the strong woman she is today. When Ghada learned that her young son was ill, she refused to give up—he’s thriving over twenty years later. We’re more alike than we are different. In Stories from a Stranger, Hunter Prosper—creator of the viral social media phenomenon of the same name—brings together these three and ninety-seven other unforgettable, never-before-published interviews that illuminate the depths of the human heart. He asks the questions that matter most: Who was your greatest love? What’s the most painful thing you’ve been told? What do you see when you look in the mirror? The answers reveal raw, breathtaking glimpses into lives filled with love, resilience, and hope. As an ICU nurse, Hunter has stood at the crossroads of life and loss, bearing witness to whispered confessions, final goodbyes, and moments of unexpected grace. In the midst of turmoil, he turned to storytelling—first to make sense of his own emotions, then to give voice to those who could no longer speak. What started as a simple question evolved into a movement, resonating with millions longing for connection. Moving, humbling, and profoundly inspiring, Stories from a Stranger is more than a book—it’s a celebration of our shared humanity and the invisible threads that bind us together.

by Jill Lepore · Liveright

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, New Yorker, Smithsonian, Bookpage, and the Chicago Public Library Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction "[Lepore's] 15th book, We the People, a history of the U.S. Constitution, may be her best yet, a capacious work that lands at the right moment, like a life buoy, as our ship of state takes on water." —Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era. The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades—and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths. Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding—the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions—We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. “One of the Constitution’s founding purposes was to prevent change,” Lepore writes. “Another was to allow for change without violence.” Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends in this “gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past” that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process. Lepore’s remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore “has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union.” At a time when the Constitution’s vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.