Special Collections

Noor

Sorayya Khan's debut novel is a powerful and poignant story of memory, family, tragedy, and forgiveness. Set in modern-day Islambad, Pakistan, the book depicts an extraordinary child who enables her mother, Sajida, and her grandfather, Ali, to confront the pasts they have chosen to suppress. Through Noor's artwork, her family members are transported through their haunted memories of the 1970 cyclone that claimed the lives of a million people and the violent atrocities of the 1971 conflict between East and West Pakistan that eventually created the independent country of Bangladesh. As Noor's drawings bring to life sights, sounds, smells, and sensations from the past, her family is forced to admit of the betrayals and disillusionments that they thought had been buried with time. Moving, heartbreaking, and unsettling by turns, Noor is a novel about the horrors of war, the power of forgiveness, and, most important, the strength of the human spirit.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Flow

In this hip, hilarious and truly eye-opening cultural history, menstruation is talked about as never before. Flow spans its fascinating, occasionally wacky and sometimes downright scary story: from mikvahs (ritual cleansing baths) to menopause, hysteria to hysterectomies—not to mention the Pill, cramps, the history of underwear, and the movie about puberty they showed you in 5th grade.

Flow answers such questions as: What’s the point of getting a period? What did women do before pads and tampons? What about new drugs that promise to end periods—a hot idea or not? Sex during your period: gross or a turn-on? And what’s normal, anyway? With color reproductions of (campy) historical ads and early (excruciating) femcare devices, it also provides a fascinating (and mind-boggling) gallery of this complex, personal and uniquely female process.

As irreverent as it is informative, Flow gives an everyday occurrence its true props – and eradicates the stigma placed on it for centuries.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Fear Your Future

It’s become fashionable to demean millennials as the “snowflake” generation. Raised during the peace and prosperity of the ‘90s, they’re often perceived as carrying an entitlement mentality and of being incapable of handling adversity. But Philip Klein sees them differently. Given the economic headwinds they faced at the start of their working lives, millennials have shown commendable fortitude. And as Klein argues, they will need to maintain this character strength going forward because further challenges loom in their future. The aftershocks of the Great Recession, the skyrocketing cost of living, and the titanic weight of student loan debt have made the American Dream seem to be forever retreating toward the horizon. As if that weren’t enough, millennials will face the largest federal debt in history as boomers retire and extract trillions of dollars from Social Security and Medicare—far more than they contributed. Now politicians clamoring for the millennial vote in 2020 are making overtures toward socialism, and millennials are responding positively—understandably so, considering how the economic cards are stacked against them. But, as Philip Klein shows, the reality is that such policies would only make their burden infinitely heavier. In this concise, data-driven book, Klein begins the work of brightening the future for millennials by analyzing the problem compassionately yet objectively. There are real reasons to worry about what lies ahead if nothing changes. But the facts laid out in Klein’s book can steer the conversation to realistic solutions.

Date Added: 09/22/2020

The Punch Escrow

"An alt-futuristic hard-science thriller with twists and turns you'll never see coming. I couldn't put it down." —Felicia Day, founder of Geek & Sundry

It’s the year 2147. Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We’ve genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure... Arrival... Delight!

Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-fifth century guy. He spends his days training artificial-intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980’s new wave—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting.

Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.

Date Added: 12/09/2020

A Broken Queen

Sarah Kozloff, author of Queen of Raiders, continues her breathtaking and cinematic epic fantasy series The Nine Realms with book three, A Broken Queen, and all four books will be published within a month of each other, so you can binge your favorite new fantasy series.

Time can heal all wounds, but not all wounds are visible. Barely surviving her ordeal in Oromondo and scarred by its Fire Spirit, Cerulia is taken to a recovery house in Wyeland to heal from the trauma. In a ward with others who are all bound to serve each other, she discovers that not all scars are visible, and dying can be done with grace and acceptance. While she would like to stay in this place of healing, will she ever be able to leave the peace she has found to re-take the throne?

Date Added: 11/09/2020

The Prince of Souls

"Acair of Ceangail has, almost willingly, shouldered the quest of saving the world. Armed with nothing but his charm, a nose for trouble, and the determination to keep his beloved out of the magical fray, he's marching off once again into the deepening gloom to engage in Noble Deeds. Léirsinn of Sàraichte asked for magic, despite its devastating effects, to protect Acair as he seeks to fight a mage of terrible power and soul-draining spells. She just hadn't expected her part in their quest to be quite so critical. Time is beginning to run out for the two of them, and the battle to save the world and those they love draws ever closer. They just never dreamed how close to home that battle might be..."--

Date Added: 10/29/2020

Tomorrow's Tomorrow

Tomorrow's Tomorrowis a pioneering sociological study of black girls growing up in the city. The author, in a substantial new introduction, considers what has changed and what has remained constant for them since the book was first published in 1971. Joyce A. Ladner spent four years interviewing, observing, and socializing with more than a hundred girls living in the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. She was challenged by preconceived academic ideas and labels and by her own past as a black child in rural Mississippi. Rejecting the white middle-class perspective of "deviant" behavior, she examined the expectations and aspirations of these representative black girls and their feelings about parents and boyfriends, marriage, pregnancy, and child-rearing. Ladner asked what life was like in the urban black community for the "average" girl, how she defined her roles and behaviors, and where she found her role models. She was interested in any significant disparity between aspirations and the resources to achieve them. To what extent did the black teenager share the world of her white peers? If the questions were searching, the conclusions were provocative. According to Ladner, "The total misrepresentation of the Black community and the various myths which surround it can be seen in microcosm in the Black female adolescent."

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Assassin's Strike

In a Syrian palace, the presidents of Russia and Iran undertake a clandestine meeting. No staff or advisors are permitted in the room. No records are kept. By necessity, however, there are two witnesses: the interpreters. The Russian, Ludmilla Kravchuk, returns to her hotel room burdened by what she has heard. When her Iranian counterpart is murdered before her eyes, Kravchuk fears she is next and goes into hiding in Syria.

The CIA gets word of the defection. Desperate to uncover the purpose of the meeting, they task their newest off-the-books operator—legendary assassin David Slaton—to undertake a daring rescue. Deep inside Syria’s war-torn borders, what Slaton finds is a plot that will tear the Middle East apart. And one that only he can stop.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Returning To Oneness

Returning to Oneness offers quick, practical, potent methods for integrating the mind, body, emotions, and spirit. Complex, esoteric information is presented in an uncomplicated way and encapsulated as seven keys of understanding, which are a foundation for the teachings of non-duality and prepare us for living in unity consciousness in the body.

It explains why and how limiting states of consciousness, common to everyone in this world, (for example, the perception of loss and the fear of death), keep our chakras closed down, blocking the energy flows in the body and stifling our ability to function at our full potential. The seven keys are enlightened mental understandings, integrated states of consciousness, which have the power to open the chakras and restore the energy flows in the body.

When used as a regular practice, the seven keys become highly effective tools for awakening the movement of the life force throughout the whole being. We experience full mental clarity, emotional balance, and luminous presence in the body. Our perception of life radically changes. We are no longer drained by or driven by negativity, fear, anger, or victimhood. The flow of life force, or kundalini, moves easily up to the crown chakra, connecting us with higher intelligence, and down to the root, eventually removing our fear of death so that the whole body-mind system functions in synchronicity with the Self.

Date Added: 04/03/2020

Go Fetch

I think you need to stay out of my life, Viking. She tried to yank her hand out of his grasp, but he wasnt letting go. And I think you fail to realize that I now have the upper hand here. What? For drugging you? You expect me to believe for a second youd hurt me or turn me in to the cops? No. But who knows what I would do to him. Miki froze. Those big, beautiful brown eyes staring up at him. You. Wouldnt. Dare. You spit food at me. You set me up with the cops at the airport. And you drugged me. Do you really want to test the you wouldnt dare theory now? He could see the muscles of her jaw clenching and unclenching. She was so pissed off, which only made her smell so tasty. Leave him alone, Conall. He didnt do anything to you. He kicked her backpack out of the way. But what about you, Mik? Does he have you? Nobody has me. He stepped toward her until she backed herself up against the wall. Hed never worked so hard to be menacing before, but Miki kept bringing that out in him. And it didnt help that every time he did it, the smell of her lust punched him in the face. But I want you. So I gathered.

Date Added: 04/14/2020

Pack Challenge

What's an Alpha Male to do when he meets the Alpha Female of his dreams? Step one, hide all sharp objects. All Zach Sheridan ever wanted was to become Alpha Male of his Pack and be left alone. What he definitely didn't need in his life was some needy female demanding his attention. What he never saw coming was the vicious, scarred female who not only demanded his attention but knew exactly how to get it. Sara Morrighan knew this was the best she could expect from her life. Good friends. A nice place to live. And a safe job. But when Zach rode into her small Texas town with his motorcycle club, Sara knew she wanted more. She knew she wanted him. But after one sexy encounter with her dream biker, everything is starting to change. Her body. Her strength. That new thing she's doing with the snarling. Even her best friends are starting to wonder what's going on with her. But this is only the beginning. Sara's about to find out her life was meant for so much more. And Zach's about to find true love with the one woman who makes him absolutely insane. Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic language, and strong violence.

Date Added: 04/15/2020

The Collected Poems Of William Carlos Williams

So that readers could more fully understand the extent of Williams' radical simplicity, all of his published poetry, excluding Paterson, was reissued in two definite volumes, of which this is the first.

Date Added: 04/14/2020

The Road Beyond Ruin

A breathtaking novel of secrets, lies, and survival in post-World War II Germany, where alliances may not be what they seem.

August 1945. As Stefano, an Italian POW, heads toward home across war-ravaged Germany, he encounters a young child beside his dead mother. Unable to leave him to an unknown fate, Stefano takes the boy with him, finding refuge in a seemingly abandoned house in a secluded woodland. But the house is far from vacant. Stefano wakes at the arrival of its owner, Erich, a former German soldier, who invites the travelers to stay until they can find safe passage home. Stefano cautiously agrees, intrigued by the disarming German, his reclusive neighbor Rosalind, and her traumatized husband, Georg. Stefano is also drawn to Monique, the girl in a photograph on Rosalind's wall, who went missing during the war. But when he discovers letters written by Monique, a darker truth emerges. This place of refuge could be one of reckoning, and the secrets of the past might prevent the travelers from ever getting home.

Date Added: 09/22/2020

Just One Drop

Jennifer Adams, best friend to Jacque Pierce and Sally Morgan, spicy, out spoken, a little crazy and human...or so she thought.

Jen has just found out that human DNA is not the only thing that resides in her veins, she happens to share that little pesky werewolf gene, although it isn't more than just a drop. Now that she and her friends are living in Romania with Fane's pack, she is also oh so conveniently stuck with the object of her affection, the fur ball Decebel. Drawn to each other by something they don't understand Jen finds herself frustrated by the lack of mating signs between her and said fur ball. Not only is she dealing with that not so un-frustrating problem, she now has been informed that because of that little drop of werewolf blood in her she is now required to attended a multi-pack gathering for un-mated wolves.

This type of gathering hasn't taken place in over a century but with a shortage of females among the werewolf population the males are getting worried they won't ever find their true mates. Meanwhile Decebel struggles with the emotions he is feeling towards Jen. He tries to keep his distance but there is just something about the mouthy blonde that keeps him coming back for more of her verbal abuse that he just can't seem to get enough of...go figure

Date Added: 05/28/2020

Lies

Six days ago, Joe Lynch was a happily married man, a devoted father, and a respected teacher living in a well-to-do London suburb. But that was before he spotted his wife’s car entering a hotel parking garage. Before he saw her in a heated argument with her best friend’s husband. Before Joe confronted the other man in an altercation where he left him for dead, bleeding and unconscious.

Now, Joe’s life is unraveling. His wife has lied to him. Her deception has put their entire family in jeopardy. The man she met at the hotel has vanished. And as the police investigate his disappearance, suspicion falls on Joe.

Unable to trust the woman he loves, Joe finds himself at the mercy of her revelations and deceits, unsure of who or what to believe. All he knows is that her actions have brought someone dangerous into their lives—someone obsessed with her and determined to tear Joe’s world apart.

What if your whole life was based on LIES?

Date Added: 04/15/2020

Last Summer

Lifestyle journalist Ella Skye remembers every celebrity she interviewed, every politician she charmed between the sheets, and every socialite who eyed her with envy. The chance meeting with her husband, Damien; their rapid free fall into love; and their low-key, intimate wedding are all locked in her memory. But what she can't remember is the tragic car accident that ripped her unborn child from her. Ella can't even recall being pregnant.

Hoping to find the memories of a lost pregnancy that's left her husband devastated and their home empty, Ella begins delving into her past when she's assigned an exclusive story about Nathan Donovan, a retired celebrity adventurer who seems to know more about her than she does him. To unravel the mystery of her selective memory loss, Ella follows Nathan from the snowcapped Sierra Nevada to the frozen slopes of southeast Alaska. There she discovers the people she trusts most aren't the only ones keeping secrets from her--she's hiding them from herself. Ella quickly learns that some truths are best left forgotten.

Date Added: 04/08/2020

Return to Sex and Intimacy

What can a fully impotent, chemically castrated, survivor of two cancers and his post-menopausal partner possibly share about sex, intimacy and relationships? Everything! - including a world of extraordinary emotional, sexual and spiritual intimacy most couples cannot even fathom possible.

Whether your relationship is impacted by impotence, cancer or not, this groundbreaking book is your proven guide to profound relationship fulfillment on all levels that only gets better over time, regardless of circumstances.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Girl On Pointe

Chloe Lukasiak is a big believer that things happen for a reason. She knows that life would be easier without disappointments, bullying, and medical issues-but sometimes it takes challenges to inspire you to achieve big things. From her status as fan favorite on the hit reality television show Dance Moms through her life as a social media star with millions of fans, Chloe has found that self-acceptance and kindness are the key to getting over the rough spots in life and realizing your passions. This full-color, heavily designed book featuring never-before-seen photos, inspirational quotes, and Chloe's own doodles and poetry offers exclusive insight into Chloe's world as well as a message that will inspire all readers to be their very best selves.

Date Added: 07/15/2020

Power, Marginality, And The Body In Medieval Islam

From rulers to uninvited guests, from women to thieves, from dreams to names, from blindness to torture - in a series of ground-breaking studies, Power, Marginality, and the Body in Medieval Islam explores the multi-layered and complex textual universe of medieval Islam. The power of the ruler sits alongside the power of the trickster, as games of detection and verbal erudition are displayed for the edification of the reader. Humour is not lacking either as male and female characters indulge in various forms of wit that redefine and recast the sacred. For much of this world, the body reigns supreme: not only in illness and miracle cures but in displays of transgression and torture. Covering the range of literature from sacred text to history, biography and anecdote, this book provides a stimulating analysis of the world of medieval Islamic mentalités.

Date Added: 12/09/2020

The Mirror and the Light

With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage. The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze? Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.

Date Added: 10/29/2020

The Battlemage

The epic conclusion to the New York Times-bestselling Summoner trilogy, by Taran Matharu!

Fletcher and his friends fight for survival in the ether, where they pursue a mortally dangerous quest to rebuild their world and broker peace.

Even as hatred threatens to turn friend into foe in The Battlemage, Fletcher must lead a small army of soldiers into battle to protect his ancestral homeland, and face his biggest challenge yet: his nemesis, the albino orc, Khan, who seeks to destroy everything Fletcher holds dear.

Date Added: 05/28/2020

Treason and Betrayal

This book not only takes an in-depth look at both Trump’s entire history from his childhood to the present, but also provides a detailed analysis as to how and why Trump is now a co-opted agent for Russia who presents a clear and present danger to the U.S. as long as he is permitted to occupy the White House.

The author is also in a relatively unique position to explain and comment on the current Trump/Russia investigation by Special Counsel Mueller’s office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) since he is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Special Assistant Attorney General whose civil RICO lawsuit against Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and other close associates of Trump provided some of the early evidence of money laundering and contacts with Russia agents and oligarchs that helped jump-start certain aspects of the federal probe into the Trump Campaign and its close ties to Russia. The book also presents a strong case that Trump’s pro-Russian policies and obstruction of justice regarding the FBI’s and Mueller’s investigation of his collusion with the Russians amounts to Treason under the U.S. Constitution and federal criminal law, and presents the country for the first time in its history with the stark reality that we have a Traitor in the White House.

Date Added: 12/09/2020

The Politics Of Heroin

The first book to prove CIA and U.S. government complicity in global drug trafficking, The Politics of Heroin includes meticulous documentation of dishonesty and dirty dealings at the highest levels from the Cold War until today. Maintaining a global perspective, this groundbreaking study details the mechanics of drug trafficking in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and South and Central America. New chapters detail U.S. involvement in the narcotics trade in Afghanistan and Pakistan before and after the fall of the Taliban, and how U.S. drug policy in Central America and Colombia has increased the global supply of illicit drugs.

Date Added: 04/03/2020

A New Climate For Theology

Climate change promises monumental changes to human and other planetary life in the next generations. Yet government, business, and individuals have been largely in denial of the possibility that global warming may put our species on the road to extinction. Further, says Sallie McFague, we have failed to see the real root of our behavioral troubles in an economic model that actually reflects distorted religious views of the person. At its heart, she maintains, global warming occurs because we lack an appropriate understanding of ourselves as inextricably bound to the planet and its systems. A New Climate for Theology not only traces the distorted notion of unlimited desire that fuels our market system; it also paints an alternative idea of what being human means and what a just and sustainable economy might mean. Convincing, specific, and wise, McFague argues for an alternative economic order and for our relational identity as part of an unfolding universe that expresses divine love and human freedom. It is a view that can inspire real change, an altered lifestyle, and a form of Christian discipleship and desire appropriate to who we really are. Table of Contents Preface Part One: The Science and its Significance for Theology Chapter 1: Climate Change: The Evidence and Consequences Chapter 2: Global Warming: A Theological Problem Part Two: Exploring God and the World within Climate Change Chapter 3: Who Are We? Ecological Anthropology Chapter 4: Who Is God? Creation and Providence Chapter 5: How Shall We Live? Christianity and Planetary Economics Part Three: Serving God and City Living within Climate Change Chapter 6: Why We Worship: Praise and Compassion as Intimations of Transcendence Chapter 7: Where We Live: Urban Ecotheology Part Four: Despair and Hope within Climate Change Chapter 8: Is a Different World Possible? Human Dignity and the Integrity of Creation in a Time of Global Warming Chapter 9: ?The Dearest Freshness Deep Down Things: The Holy Spirit and Climate Change Notes

Date Added: 04/14/2020

Beautiful Burn

Fresh out of college, Ellison Edson has fallen through the cracks of rock bottom. While staying in her family's vacation home in Colorado, her behavior has finally gained the attention of her parents-but not in the way she hoped. Cut off from the millions she's always taken for granted, and left alone to fend for herself, Ellie spirals further out of control, making a mistake she can't take back. Like his twin brother Taylor, Tyler Maddox is a member of the Alpine Hotshots, fighting wildland fires on the frontline. As arrogant as he is charming, Tyler's nomadic lifestyle makes it easy to contain his relationships to one night. When he meets Ellie at a local party during off-season, her extreme personality and dismissive attitude fascinates him at first, but as his feelings deepen, Tyler realizes that the crippling inner demons of the woman he loves might be the strongest enemy any Maddox has ever faced.

Date Added: 04/15/2020