Hardcover Nonfiction

by Isabel Klee · Morrow

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee—known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue—comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman’s search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she got her chance, ditching her college upstate and moving into a grungy basement apartment in Manhattan. Dog-obsessed since childhood, her first post-grad job was becoming an assistant to a dog photographer, and something clicked into place: a career focused on helping dogs was the new dream. Isabel quickly found a passion for rehabilitating rescue dogs and helping them get adopted. At the same time, she was caught up in a whirlwind of friendships, parties, fickle boyfriends and grand romances, which she recounts in honest, tender, and sometimes devastating chapters about the search for love and belonging. Isabel’s first true love, though, was Simon, a fluffy puppy who’d been saved from the meat trade. As the highs and lows of her twenties hit Isabel in wave after wave, it was Simon who kept her grounded. Together, Isabel and Simon created a community of dog-lovers and a tight-knit group of friends pursuing their dreams. In this honest and moving memoir, Isabel weaves together the stories of her foster dogs—and the challenges she helped them overcome—with tales of complicated relationships, hard decisions, and great loves in New York City, all leading to a happy ending not only for the rescue pups, but for Isabel herself.

by Belle Burden · Dial Press

A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriage—an aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joy "Riveting...examines the very nature of intimacy."—Joyce Carol Oates It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t. In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha's Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone whose nickname was “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice. With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.

by Lena Dunham · Random House

In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. For the last decade, as she’s spent countless hours in doctor’s waiting rooms searching for diagnoses, treatments, and relief, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt, as she puts it, “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you—as a twenty-five-year-old—are writing, directing, producing, and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist’s office to discuss the latest internet disaster. But Dunham does it—even if it means interminable hospital stays, vomiting in the bathroom when she’s meant to be meeting Oprah, or terrifying those closest to her—because she can no longer tell the difference between fighting to do what she loves and being a servant to her own ambition. All the while, she is holding out for a love that can withstand her personal and public challenges and, more than anything, yearning to feel like herself again—if only she could remember who that self was. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame—from selling the pilot of Girls to the present—in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare. When an endless supply of drugs can’t protect you from pain—and begins to control your every move—being famous doesn’t stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience. In Famesick, Dunham asks herself what the cost of fulfilling her dreams has really been, and whether it was worth it. What she finds is deeper than physical relief, and more lasting, as she learns to live with what she can’t change and turn her regrets into wisdom that can carry her forward, as she reconnects to what, and who, she loves.

by Rachel Goldberg-Polin · Random House

Once upon a time, I was meandering down the road of life with my husband, Jon. It was a regular and beige life, and it worked. It was a warm beige. We felt, and were, blessed and lucky. Normal. On the morning of October 7th, 2023, Rachel Goldberg-Polin's beloved twenty-three-year-old son, Hersh, was stolen from a music festival billed as a celebration of unity and love-and, in that moment, her life was forever separated into The Before and The After. Over the next eleven months, she and her husband, Jon, would work tirelessly-in public and behind the scenes-to secure the hostages' release, to breathe some humanity into the situation while they were experiencing relentless emotional and psychological torment. The power of her raw and fervent pleas soon made her the face of the hostage crisis. And when Hersh and five other captives were executed after surviving 328 days of violence and cruelty, she would also become the face of its ultimate cost. In When We See You Again, Rachel pours her pain, love, and longing onto paper, giving voice to the broken among us, and reminding us that even when the world feels choked with darkness, light exists in a different way. How do we find it? Her own experience has been extreme, but at its essence, this is a universal story of trying to live with grief. It is a story of how we remember and how we persevere, of how we suffer and how we love. 'There are days when I break completely,' she writes. 'I have cried for an entire day straight. I didn't think it was physically possible, but the weeping never let up. That is a very long time to cry. I kept hoping I would run out of tears. And then there are days when there is a whisper of sun. Not out there in the sky. In me. In us.'

by Patrick Radden Keefe · Doubleday

From the bestselling, prize-winning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface. In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river. In a quiet London neighbourhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: Her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice. In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private night clubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.

by Bunnie Xo · Dey Street

From the trailer parks of Vegas to the mansions of Nashville, Bunnie Xo has lived a lot of lives and seen the darkest sides of humanity. Her memoir, Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic, is cold, clear evidence that no one is irredeemable. With a heavy dose of humor and a refreshing sense of self-awareness, Bunnie pulls no punches as she shares her journey of redemption while offering some homespun wisdom to those who need a little saving themselves. Alisa DeFord, known to her millions of fans as Bunnie Xo, started at the bottom and spent the first part of her life falling even deeper. Now, Bunnie Xo is one of today's most successful podcasters and has paved her way through the entertainment industry as the owner of Dumb Blonde Productions, building an empire with heart and personality at the forefront. Stripped Down is the story of how Bunnie Xo rose to the top, how she used her own wiles to reach her goals, how she knew redemption was up to her--and that no one could hand it to her--and a message to anyone who needs advice on breaking their own cycles. Hilarious, earnest, thought-provoking, and occasionally downright shocking, Stripped Down is a modern-day rag-to-riches story and a message of hope to anyone struggling to redeem themselves.

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 Christopher Whitcomb · Harper Select

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In one of the most extraordinary true crime stories ever published, Broken Plea questions what really happened in the house on King Road—and the results of that investigation will astound you. In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho—and a nation demanded answers. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served. Broken Plea challenges that assumption. Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements, and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory. As the official narrative hardened, critical leads went unexplored, contradictory evidence was minimized, and alternative explanations faded from view. This book does not claim certainty where none exists. Instead, it asks the questions that were never fully pursued: What happens when pressure to close a case outweighs the search for truth? What evidence may have been sidelined, and why? And what are the consequences when a plea doesn’t end scrutiny but invites it? Clear-eyed, unsparing, and deeply unsettling, Broken Plea reopens the case—and invites readers to look again at what justice demands when the truth remains unresolved.

by Susie Wolff · Holt

Instant Sunday Times bestseller An inside look at the competitive world of Formula One and trailblazer Susie Wolff's 20-year career, taking readers from the driver’s seat and the F1 paddock all the way to the future of the sport. As a young girl, Susie Wolff dreamed of one day racing Formula One cars—the fastest in the world, reaching speeds of over 200 mph. But F1 was completely dominated by men. The sport is grueling both mentally and physically. Turning a corner can feel like four times your body weight is pressing against you. And the question always hovered: Could a woman really compete with the men? After years of sacrifice and doubt, Susie rose through the ranks to earn her spot behind the wheel of an F1 car. She became the first woman in more than two decades to take part in a Formula One race weekend. But her story didn’t end at the checkered flag. Shifting to the business side and inspired by her husband, Toto, who runs one of the most successful F1 teams in history, she led her own Formula E team to championship contention. In 2023 she took over the leadership of F1 Academy with the mission of bringing the next generation of young women into the sport. Driven is a thrilling story about the highest levels of driving—but more than that, it’s a story of perseverance bound to inspire anyone on or off the track.

by Steve Brusatte · Mariner

From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 10,000+ extraordinary species alive today. Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home—and many places we do not. With their flamboyant plumage, joyous dawn serenades, extraordinary aerial feats, they have captivated human imagination for millennia. Undeniably delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by downy feathers, how did such a seemingly fragile species break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, how have they survived millennia, and how does their legacy shape our world? Hailed as “one of the stars of modern paleontology” (National Geographic), Steve Brusatte now tells the extraordinary story of the dinosaurs' living legacy: birds. He begins by exploring how dinosaurs gradually developed the trademark features of birds one-by-one—feathers, wings, beaks, big brains, keen senses, and warm-blooded metabolisms. He investigates why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago and chronicles how these survivors rapidly proliferated to produce the diversity of avian species we know today. Along the way, we meet a variety of remarkable – now extinct – species: 10-foot-tall terror birds with beaks that sliced flesh Elephant birds that lived on Madagascar and laid eggs the size of footballs Pelagornithid seabirds with 20-foot wingspans A ferocious Jamaican ibis that used its wings as clubs to attack rivals Yet, Brusatte also urges us to appreciate the extraordinariness of birds alive today – penguins that literally fly underwater, parrots that can mimic human speech and crows that can make tools and are smarter than most mammals. A fascinating scientific history that unearths the origins of birds, The Story of Birds establishes the living legacy of this remarkable species.

by Francesca Albanese · Other

The first woman to serve as United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territory conveys the spirit of a people through 10 unforgettable stories of resilience and humanity. Francesca Albanese is the most lucid voice against Israel’s apartheid policies in Gaza and the West Bank, a voice that has been heard around the world when it comes to speaking the truth about the Palestinian genocide. In the wake of October 7, 2023, and Israel’s retaliatory war, the renowned Italian jurist has become a lightning rod for her staunch defense of human rights. Reflecting on her years living in Jerusalem and her personal and professional journey toward understanding the Palestinian struggle, Albanese pays tribute to 10 people whose profoundly affecting stories opened her eyes, from Hind Rajab, a young Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces, to the remarkable Jewish scholars who acted as Albanese’s mentors: forensic architect Eyal Weizman, trauma expert Gabor Maté, and Holocaust historian Alon Confino. When the World Sleeps is a courageous testimony of the harsh reality that Palestinians face. It raises critical questions about the past, present, and future of Palestine: What are the consequences of the occupation? Where is a refugee’s home? In what conditions do Palestinians live? With the uncertain end of the war, will there be a Palestinian state? Will Palestinians have the right to self-determination, and will they be able to live in peace, free at last from the coercion of Israel?

by Roy K. Altman · Advantage

In Israel on Trial, United States District Judge Roy K. Altman brings legal rigor to the world's most contentious debate.

by Mary Cain · Mariner

Few women have ever run 800 meters in under two minutes. Even fewer people have taken on running’s abusive training culture and won. Mary Cain has done both. She emerged as a running phenom at age 12, a straight-A student obsessed with Greco-Roman mythology and the freedom she felt when she ran fast. Like any middle-schooler, she just wanted to fit in, so she learned to run through the discomfort of hard training sessions, and the confusion of her coaches’ and teammates’ bullying. And she was overjoyed when, at 16, Alberto Salazar called to invite her to train with the famed Nike Oregon Project. Cain was poised to transform the sport, Salazar told her. She resolved to hold on to his favor, even as he insisted she lose weight and push through the pain of emerging injury. For years, she excelled, setting records against elite runners twice her age. The Olympics were in her sights. But off the track, Cain was crumbling. She snuck granola bars in the middle of the night and sank into a deep depression as injury after injury set in. Finally, she left the Oregon Project, telling herself she just needed a break. A chorus rang out across the running community: What happened to Mary Cain? Now, with her suit against Nike behind her, Cain is ready to share her side of the story—and to flip the script on abuse in youth sports. She draws on her diaries from this wrenching period of abuse to show, with clarity we rarely see, how young minds respond to the win-at-all-costs culture that pervades youth sports today. By turns raw, wry, and impassioned, This Is Not About Running is a fierce memoir of the damage wrought when we prioritize competition over mental health.

by Sean Spicer · Regnery

President Donald J. Trump’s second term in office will be the most consequential administration in history because of the people and the policies that are markedly different than his first term. While the Left and their conspirators in the media thought they had vanquished Trump after the 2020 election, the leader of the Make America Great Again movement didn’t disappear as they had hoped. During President Biden’s administration, Trump was assembling the people and building the policies that will forever change the direction of this country. He was not just preparing for his return to power. He was preparing for the revolution to permanently transform the country. President Trump has now returned to office, and this time his agenda will not be stopped. This time the president has the people and the policies to initiate historically unprecedented and monumental changes. From the border, to tariffs, to NATO, to DOGE, to the American people’s health, and everything in between, this is not just another presidency. This is the battle for the future of the United States. This is the battle for the future of the world. This is Trump 2.0. Sean Spicer, the former communications director of the Republican National Committee, served as the 30th White House Press Secretary during President Trump’s first term in office. His insider’s look into Trump 2.0 is sure to inspire Republicans and infuriate Democrats. Above all, his landmark contribution to our understanding of President Trump’s second administration is sure to leave a trail of controversy and debate in its wake.

by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon · Crown

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two lifelong peace activists and guides to Israel/Palestine, both of whom have lost family in the conflict, take readers on a revealing life-changing journey across this holy, bloodstained land and discover the mythic, political, and personal history that divides but also binds them and their peoples. “[A] short but immensely poignant account of a shared journey across Israel and the West Bank . . . raw with pain and rage and yet bravely insistent on the imperative of hope.”—The New York Times “We do not see ourselves as Palestinians and Israelis, or as Jews and Arabs, but as human beings who believe in fostering a culture of dialogue, a culture of forgiveness, and a culture of peace. To those who see only division lines, we say: If you must divide us, let it be as those who believe in peace and equality and those who don’t ... yet.” Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli Maoz Inon forged a bond of brotherhood when the world expected them to be enemies. Both have lost family to the conflict. Both have known the bitterness of righteous anger. Yet, they chose a different path. In The Future Is Peace, Sarah and Inon take readers on a transformative weeklong journey across a sacred and bloodstained land. Facing competing narratives, they explore how compassion and unity can pull humanity back from the precipice of blind hatred. Throughout their travels, they have been constantly asked: In the face of so much loss, how can we ever find hope? Their answer is always the same. One cannot find hope. We must create it. This book is a rebuttal to a broken world and a bold challenge to the belief that more violence can ever bring security. Told with unflinching honesty, their story is proof that peace is not a naive dream, but a courageous choice—for reconciliation to heal the wounds of revenge, for partnerships to change a destiny of war, and for empathy to save us from drowning in sorrow. Pairing unapologetic candor and inspirational prose, Sarah and Inon are sending an urgent message that the people have the power to make change. Peace is inevitable. For Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the world that awaits their example, it is not just possible—it is the future.