Why do we place romantic partnership on a pedestal? What do we lose when we expect one person to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives? In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal the freedom and challenges of embracing a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't just the stuff of daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but possible in real life. Based on years of original reporting and drawing on striking social science research, Cohen argues that we make romantic relationships more fragile by expecting too much of them, while we undermine friendships by expecting too little of them. She traces how, throughout history, our society hasn’t always fixated on marriage as the greatest source of meaning, or even love. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," Cohen makes the case that one model of a flourishing adulthood—lifelong romantic partnership—isn't enough. A rousing and incisive book, The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships—not just what we’re supposed to want—and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.

Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

A publishing event ten years in the making—a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

A practical program rooted in optimism to help you live fully and joyfully in an imperfect, turbulent world As the first medical director and attending psychiatrist at the World Trade Center Mental Health Program, Dr. Sue Varma worked directly with civilian and first-responder survivors in the aftermath of 9/11. There, she met people at every point of the stress and trauma continuum. She saw devastation and stagnancy as much as she saw amazing resilience and growth. She asked how do some people survive, even thrive, despite profound challenges? And how can we optimize the things we have control over, while buffering ourselves from stress? Through her work with patients and combining philosophy, her own personal experience, and a review of the latest research in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and neuroscience, Dr. Varma discovered that the answer lies in cultivating an optimistic mindset that stays tethered to the real world and helps us make sound and reasonable decisions. This epiphany inspired Practical Optimism, Dr. Varma’s powerful program with eight pillars to help all of us experience a sense of meaning, mastery, and self-acceptance and create lives filled with joy and purpose. Optimists, research has shown, are not just happier and more successful, but physically healthier. And if you’re a natural-born pessimist? No the most vital piece of the Practical Optimism program is that it is a practice , a skillset that we can choose to adopt and get better at every day. This book isn’t about magical thinking. Practical optimists are resourceful, realistic, and thoughtful problem solvers who possess something of rare the inner resources to cope during a crisis and to use as fuel to flourish. Complete with self-assessment quizzes and exercises, Practical Optimism will help us all see the world for the better and reach our true potential. Practical Optimism is a scientific and tangible pathway to boosting health, happiness, resilience, success, and longevity.

A publishing event ten years in the making—a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until — betrayed and brokenhearted — she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America – but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses--until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses--until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

A practical program rooted in optimism to help you live fully and joyfully in an imperfect, turbulent world As the first medical director and attending psychiatrist at the World Trade Center Mental Health Program, Dr. Sue Varma worked directly with civilian and first-responder survivors in the aftermath of 9/11. There, she met people at every point of the stress and trauma continuum. She saw devastation and stagnancy as much as she saw amazing resilience and growth. She asked how do some people survive, even thrive, despite profound challenges? And how can we optimize the things we have control over, while buffering ourselves from stress? Through her work with patients and combining philosophy, her own personal experience, and a review of the latest research in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and neuroscience, Dr. Varma discovered that the answer lies in cultivating an optimistic mindset that stays tethered to the real world and helps us make sound and reasonable decisions. This epiphany inspired Practical Optimism, Dr. Varma’s powerful program with eight pillars to help all of us experience a sense of meaning, mastery, and self-acceptance and create lives filled with joy and purpose. Optimists, research has shown, are not just happier and more successful, but physically healthier. And if you’re a natural-born pessimist? No the most vital piece of the Practical Optimism program is that it is a practice , a skillset that we can choose to adopt and get better at every day. This book isn’t about magical thinking. Practical optimists are resourceful, realistic, and thoughtful problem solvers who possess something of rare the inner resources to cope during a crisis and to use as fuel to flourish. Complete with self-assessment quizzes and exercises, Practical Optimism will help us all see the world for the better and reach our true potential. Practical Optimism is a scientific and tangible pathway to boosting health, happiness, resilience, success, and longevity.

Theobald Thomas e Bluma Janek estão fadados a ficar juntos desde que vêm ao mundo. Os livros são o seu ponto de encontro. Mas a Berlim do pós-guerra, uma cidade enlutada e dividida, haverá de contrariar o que o destino parecia ter escrito. Numa noite de Agosto, sem aviso, o chão de Berlim é rasgado pelos alicerces de um muro - o mais famoso da História -, adiando a promessa do primeiro beijo. Este romance de Afonso Cruz parte de uma trama real em que o amor e a guerra se entrelaçam para questionar certos limites, encontrando no fado individual de dois amantes uma pergunta universal: o que seríamos capazes de fazer por paixão, que barreiras ultrapassaríamos? Pode o amor saltar muros sem que alguém se magoe?

Theobald Thomas e Bluma Janek estão fadados a ficar juntos desde que vêm ao mundo. Os livros são o seu ponto de encontro. Mas a Berlim do pós-guerra, uma cidade enlutada e dividida, haverá de contrariar o que o destino parecia ter escrito. Numa noite de Agosto, sem aviso, o chão de Berlim é rasgado pelos alicerces de um muro - o mais famoso da História -, adiando a promessa do primeiro beijo. Este romance de Afonso Cruz parte de uma trama real em que o amor e a guerra se entrelaçam para questionar certos limites, encontrando no fado individual de dois amantes uma pergunta universal: o que seríamos capazes de fazer por paixão, que barreiras ultrapassaríamos? Pode o amor saltar muros sem que alguém se magoe?

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 'Gripping and courageous' – Guardian 'Brims with the sensory flavours of remembered experience.' – Daily Mail Makes sensual evocative poetry of the deepest, fiercest emotions. – Big Issue In a time of war, what is the shape of love? Saba arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl, devastated to have been wrenched from school and forced to abandon her books as her family flees to safety. In this unfamiliar, crowded and often hostile environment, she must carve out a new existence. As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, she remains fiercely protective of her mute brother, Hagos – each sibling resisting the roles gender and society assign. Through a cast of complex, beautifully drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home or a future. Addonia has written an insider's view of the textures of life in a refugee camp. Both intimate and epic, this subversive tale of transgression dissects society's ability to wage war on its own women and explores the stories we must tell to survive in a broken, inhospitable environment.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 'Gripping and courageous' – Guardian 'Brims with the sensory flavours of remembered experience.' – Daily Mail Makes sensual evocative poetry of the deepest, fiercest emotions. – Big Issue In a time of war, what is the shape of love? Saba arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl, devastated to have been wrenched from school and forced to abandon her books as her family flees to safety. In this unfamiliar, crowded and often hostile environment, she must carve out a new existence. As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, she remains fiercely protective of her mute brother, Hagos – each sibling resisting the roles gender and society assign. Through a cast of complex, beautifully drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home or a future. Addonia has written an insider's view of the textures of life in a refugee camp. Both intimate and epic, this subversive tale of transgression dissects society's ability to wage war on its own women and explores the stories we must tell to survive in a broken, inhospitable environment.

An award-winning Haitian novel about silence, beauty, and the solidarity of tears. Airports are distillations of the world. I like thinking of them that way. The hope of leaving and the desire to come home, existing side by side. Any voyage is possible. My mind flies off toward the blue province once again. I don’t know, anymore, why I always associate it with blue. It isn’t even my favorite color. Traveling alone from Miami to Port-au-Prince, our narrator finds comfort at the airport. She feels free to ponder the silence that surrounds her homeland, her mother, her aunts, and her own inner thoughts. Between two places, she sees how living in poverty keeps women silent, forging their identities around practicality and resilience. From a distance, she is drawn inevitably homeward toward her family and the glittering blue Caribbean Sea. Blue comes alive through vivid images crowding the page, just as memories do in real life, as if the author is trying to sort through them, to come to grips with her own emotional conflict. Balancing the pain and anger are spiritual bonds that connect the author to the women who have come before her, who have created her, and with Haiti itself, her motherland. No amount of glittering opportunity up north can prevent her from finding her way home.

An award-winning Haitian novel about silence, beauty, and the solidarity of tears. Airports are distillations of the world. I like thinking of them that way. The hope of leaving and the desire to come home, existing side by side. Any voyage is possible. My mind flies off toward the blue province once again. I don’t know, anymore, why I always associate it with blue. It isn’t even my favorite color. Traveling alone from Miami to Port-au-Prince, our narrator finds comfort at the airport. She feels free to ponder the silence that surrounds her homeland, her mother, her aunts, and her own inner thoughts. Between two places, she sees how living in poverty keeps women silent, forging their identities around practicality and resilience. From a distance, she is drawn inevitably homeward toward her family and the glittering blue Caribbean Sea. Blue comes alive through vivid images crowding the page, just as memories do in real life, as if the author is trying to sort through them, to come to grips with her own emotional conflict. Balancing the pain and anger are spiritual bonds that connect the author to the women who have come before her, who have created her, and with Haiti itself, her motherland. No amount of glittering opportunity up north can prevent her from finding her way home.

Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide—a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst. When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly-coveted position in the ministry. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, post-war politics, intrigue, and history. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski has crafted an indelible and thought-provoking literary debut that explores freedom and love in all its incarnations.

Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide—a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of Andre Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst. When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly-coveted position in the ministry. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, post-war politics, intrigue, and history. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski has crafted an indelible and thought-provoking literary debut that explores freedom and love in all its incarnations.

«Usted no escribirá nada sobre esto, me preguntó o me ordenó mi papá, su índice elevado, su tono a medio camino entre súplica y mandamiento. Pensé en responderle que un escritor nunca sabe de qué escribirá, que un escritor no elige sus historias sino que éstas lo eligen a él, que un escritor no es más que una hoja seca en el soplo de su propia narrativa. Pero por suerte no dije nada. Usted no escribirá nada sobre esto, repitió mi papá, su tono ahora más fuerte, casi autoritario. Sentí el peso de sus palabras. Por supuesto que no, le dije, quizás sincero, o quizás ya sabiendo que ninguna historia es imperativa, ninguna historia necesaria, salvo aquellas que alguien nos prohíbe contar.» En este nuevo libro del proyecto literario de Eduardo Halfon, el autor guatemalteco, siempre indagando en los mecanismos de la construcción de la identidad, se sumerge en aquellos que se originan en las relaciones fraternales: duelo como combate que se inicia con el nacimiento de un hermano y duelo también como luto por su muerte. Una novela profunda y emotiva que acrecienta la reputación del autor, «uno de esos escasísimos escritores –como señaló la revista francesa Lire– que no necesitan escribir largo para decir mucho».