What is fascism? Many authors have proposed definitions, but most fail to move beyond the abstract. The esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question for the first time by focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up “enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, to Germany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged. The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

From award-winning poet Vanessa Angélica Villarreal comes a brilliant, singular collection of essays that looks to music, fantasy, and pop culture to excavate and reimagine what has been disappeared by the forces of migration and colonialism.   In Magical/Realism, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal offers us an intimate mosaic of migration, violence, and colonial erasure through the lens of her marriage and her experiences navigating American monoculture. As she attempts to recover the truth from the absences and silences within her life, her relationships, and those of her ancestors, Vanessa pieces together her story from the fragments of music, memory, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all.    The trauma of remembering gives the collection its unique Each chapter is an attempt to reimagine and re-world what has been lost. In one essay, Vanessa examines the gender performativity of Nirvana and Selena; in another, she offers a radical but crucial racial reading of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones; and throughout the collection, she explores how fantasy can provide healing when grief feels insurmountable. She reflects on the moments of her life that are too painful to remember—her difficult adolescence, her role as the eldest daughter of Mexican immigrants, her divorce—and finds a new way to archive her history and map her future(s), one infused with the hope and joy of fantasy and magical thinking.   By engaging readers in her project of rebuilding narrative, Vanessa broadens our understanding of what memoir and cultural criticism can be. Magical/Realism is a wise, tender, and essential collection that carves a path toward a new way of remembering and telling our stories.

Would our cities be more lively, more liveable, if we broke the rules more often? Crowded streets, sidewalk vendors, jumbled architecture, constant clamor, graffitied walls, parks gone wild: are these signs of a poorly managed city or indicators of urban vitality? With pieces on guerrilla gardening, facadism, queer ecology, and decolonizing public engagement written by experts from all walks of life, Messy Cities makes the case for embracing disorder while not shying away from confronting its challenges. Messy Cities: Why We Can’t Plan Everything argues that messiness is not a liability but an essential element in all thriving cities. Forty essays by a range of writers from around the world illuminate the role of messy urbanism in enabling creativity, enterprise, and grassroots initiatives to flourish within dense modern cities.

Two of the foremost American educators and healers in the Chinese medical profession demystify Chinese medicine's centuries-old approach to health. Combining Eastern traditions with Western sensibilities in a unique blend that is relevant today, Between Heaven and Earth opens the door to a vast storehouse of knowledge that bridges the gap between mind and body, theory and practice, professional and self-care, East and West.

Activist Jen Soriano brings to light the lingering impacts of transgenerational trauma and uses science, history, and family stories to flow toward transformation in this powerful collection that brings together the lyric storytelling, cultural exploration, and thoughtful analysis of The Argonauts, The Woman Warrior, What My Bones Know, and Minor Feelings. The power of quiet can haunt us over generations, crystallizing in pain that Jen Soriano views as a form of embodied history. In this searing memoir in essays, Soriano, the daughter of a neurosurgeon, journeys to understand the origins of her chronic pain and mental health struggles. By the end, she finds both the source and the delta of what bodies impacted by trauma might need to thrive. In 14 essays connected by theme and experience, Soriano traverses centuries and continents, weaving together memory and history, sociology and personal stories, neuroscience and public health, into a vivid tapestry of what it takes to transform trauma not just body by body, but through the body politic and ecosystems at large. Beginning with a shocking timeline juxtaposing Soriano’s medical history with the history of hysteria and witch hunts, Nervous navigates the human body—centering neurodiverse, disabled, and genderqueer bodies of color—within larger systems that have harmed and silenced Filipinos for generations. Soriano’s wide-ranging essays contemplate the Spanish-American War that ushered in United States colonization in the Philippines; the healing power of an inherited legacy of music; a chosen family of activists from the Bay Area to the Philippines; and how the fluidity of our nervous systems can teach us how to shape a trauma-wise future. With Nervous, Soriano boldly invites us along on a watershed journey toward healing, understanding, and communion. 

Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of magic, graphic earthiness, bittersweet wit - and recipes. A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her, so that Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.

In this atmospheric Appalachian gothic, the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia must unearth long-buried secrets to carve out a future when the supernatural bargain entwining their fate with their ancestral land is suddenly ruptured Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future. Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself. Brimming with aching loss and the universal struggle between honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one’s own, The Bog Wife is a haunting invocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bound us.

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception. Demeter just wants to do her shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula. The queer love child of pulp horror and ​classic ​sci-fi, Of Monsters and ​Mainframes ​is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society’s monsters—and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.

In a world of hidden meanings and yearnful glances, she fatefully runs into him one summer. But all she wants to know is what his bathroom tiles look like… Mila is in her late 20s and she’s made it this far in life without really being alive. She is constantly thinking about herself from the outside in. All of that changes when she tries to find herself within two men who are so different yet so alike. One has a knowing smile, the other wears an enchanting grin. Both offer her moments so ripe they may as well be juicy nectarines for her to devour—but if it’s love or devotion, she can’t figure out. Working in an antique shop with a portal into endless possibilities, Mila interacts with the many faces of her being. She catapults her self-actualization when she confronts the watchful eye that lives within her. Sundays are—finally—made holy when she starts worshiping herself. Written using tarot cards, Only Alive on Sundays blurs the line between the magical and the mundane. Rashidi weaves the narrative of each Major Arcana card into an electric tale exploring the romance of pursuing selfhood, painting an image of what it would look like to be caught in the midst of The Lovers, The Tower, The Moon…