"Legends Never Die: How rock icons like Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Bob Dylan, and more have remained in the ever-changing music game. When Paul McCartney closed Live Aid in July of 1985, we thought he was rock's Grand Old Man. He was forty-three years old. As the forty years since have shown, he--and many others of his generation--were just getting started.

"From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. On October 25th, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: 'One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.'

"The incredible untold story of four women who spun the web of deception that helped win World War II. Betty MacDonald was a 28-year-old reporter from Hawaii. Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by the time she was 21. Jane Smith-Hutton was the wife of a naval attaché living in Tokyo. Marlene Dietrich, the German-American actress and singer, was of course one of the biggest stars of the 20th century.

"The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today. Scaachi Koul's first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she'd be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents.

"Brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present"-- Provided by publisher.

"The never-before-told story of the epic battle of wills between Andrew Mellon and Winston Churchill, as they debated the repayment of the enormous sums loaned by America to Great Britain during World War I. Andrew Mellon, one of the most accomplished businessmen of his era, is almost unknown today. To this shy, diffident (but brilliant) man fell the daunting task of collecting the war debts from European governments still devastated by World War I and struggling to recover economically.

"An urgent and illuminating insider/outsider perspective that offers a window into how the most pernicious aspects of the venture capital ethos is reaching all areas of our lives, into everything from healthcare to food to entertainment to the labor market, and leaving a trail destruction in their wake"-- Provided by publisher.

"Happiness isn't just a state of mind. It's also a state of body. Standing straight can give you a shot of confidence and forcing a smile might improve your mood. But do you know why? We generally believe that the brain is a big computer telling our bodies how to respond, but new research shows that the system often works in reverse. Your body reacts first, and your brain then interprets the physical signals. As you walk by a dark alley, your heart starts pounding and only then does your brain get the message I'm scared!

"An insider look at the Large Language Models (LLMs) that are revolutionizing our relationship to technology, exploring their surprising history, what they can and should do for us today, and where they will go in the future--from an AI pioneer and neuroscientist. In this accessible, up-to-date, and authoritative examination of the world's most radical technology, neuroscientist and AI researcher Christopher Summerfield explores what it really takes to build a brain from scratch.

"Using a combination of patient narrative, historical analysis, and scientific research, Dr. Adam Ratner, pediatrician and infectious disease specialist, argues that the reawakening of measles and the subsequent coronavirus pandemic are bellwethers of forgotten knowledge--indicators of decaying trust in science and an underfunded public health infrastructure. Our collective amnesia is starkly revealed in the growth of the antivaccine movement and the missteps in our responses to the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, leading to preventable tragedies in both cases.

"Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down. She introduces us to reactionary Catholic activists, atheist billionaires, pseudo-Platonist intellectuals, self-appointed apostles of Jesus, disciples of Ayn Rand, women-hating opponents of "the gynocracy," pronatalists preoccupied with the dearth of white babies, Covid truthers, militia members masquerading as "concerned moms" and battalions of spirit warriors who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about attacking democracy at its foundations.

"When the jolly Italian peasant-turned-cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli of Venice was elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, change was in the air. The Church, many said, had refused to enter the 20th century. In response, Pope John launched Vatican II, an "ecumenical council" that summoned hundreds of church leaders to Rome. It marked one of the most progressive turns the Church had taken in centuries: "medicine of mercy," as Pope John called it. Yet, not everyone in the Church was prepared to accept this modernization.

"The first comprehensive book about Michael Stewart, the young Black artist and model who died after an altercation with the police in 1983, from Elon Green, the Edgar Award-winning author of Last Call. At twenty-five years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay, and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of the early 1980's New York City.

"It was a quiet way to announce a revolution: In 2019, in an obscure case that the Supreme Court refused to even hear, Justice Clarence Thomas raised the prospect of overturning the legendary New York Times vs. Sullivan decision. Though hardly a household name, Sullivan is one of the most consequential free speech decisions ever. By shielding journalists from abusive lawsuits, the ruling has enabled everyone from top national publications and revered local newspapers to independent bloggers and podcast hosts to pursue the truth aggressively and hold the wealthy, powerful, and corrupt to account. Thomas's words were a warning--the public awakening of an idea that had been fomenting on the conservative fringe for years. Now it is going mainstream.

Alexander Lemons is a Marine Corps scout sniper who, after serving multiple tours during the Iraq War, returned home seriously and mysteriously ill. Joshua Howe is an environmental historian who met Lemons as a student in one of his classes. Together they have crafted a vital book that challenges us to think beyond warfare's acute violence of bullets and bombs to the "slow violence" of toxic exposure and lasting trauma.

"A radical work of history that re-centers the American story around El Paso, Texas, gateway between north and south, center of indigenous power and resistance, locus of European colonization of North America, centuries-long hub of immigration, and underappreciated modern blueprint for a changing United States."-- From publisher description.

"[A] critical deep-dive into the history of Naples during WWII ... Even before the fall of Mussolini, Naples was a place of great contrasts filled with palaces and slums, beloved cuisine and widespread hunger. After the Allied liberation, these contrasts made the city instantly notorious ... Naples was the first major European city to be liberated by the Allies. What they found there would set a template for the whole of the rest of Europe in the years to come"-- Provided by publisher.

In this riveting cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would come to unravel over the course of her career.

"In lucid, lively prose, Spiegelhalter guides us through the principles of probability, illustrating how they can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to sports to climate change forecasts. He demonstrates how taking a mathematical approach to phenomena we might otherwise attribute to fate or luck can help us sort hidden patterns from mere coincidences, better evaluate cause and effect, and predict what's likely to happen in the future.

"Cassidy Randall draws on extensive archival research and original interviews to tell an engrossing, edge-of-the-seat adventure story about a forgotten group of climbers who had the audacity to believe that women could walk alone in extraordinary and treacherous heights. Grace Hoeman dreamed of standing on top of Denali.

"Celebrated author and artist A. Kendra Greene's No Less Strange or Wonderful is a brilliant and generous meditation-on the complex wonder of being alive, on how to pay attention to even the tiniest (sometimes strangest) details that glitter with insight, whimsy, and deep humanity, if only we'd really look. In twenty-six sparkling essays, illuminated through both text and image, Greene is trying to make sense-of anything, really-but especially the things that matter most in life: love, connection, death, grief, the universe, meaning, nothingness, and everythingness.

"In an age when Christianity has been corrupted and co-opted by cultural forces and personal agendas, pastor and theologian Glenn Packiam shows how an ancient Creed can save the modern church--and might just save your faith. The Church today has lost its way. We've pursued the wrong priorities, put our hope in personalities, and elevated popularity over spiritual maturity. And it's not just the Church that's lost; we are too. As culture wars rage and competing voices argue, many Christians are left asking a basic question, What's a Christian, anyway?

"Since the 1960s, the Supreme Court has enabled mass incarceration through rulings that violate constitutional curbs on pretrial detention, coercive plea bargaining, excessive sentences, and other forms of state overreach. Detailing their flaws, Rachel Barkow argues that a Court committed to constitutional rights must overturn these precedents"-- Provided by publisher.