In the summer of 1860, more than fifty years after the United States legally abolished the international slave trade, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were brought ashore in Alabama under cover of night. They were the last recorded group of Africans deported to the United States as slaves. Timothy Meaher, an established Mobile businessman, sent the slave ship, the Clotilda, to Africa, on a bet that he could "bring a shipful of niggers right into Mobile Bay under the officers' noses." He won the bet. This book reconstructs the lives of the people in West Africa, recounts their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describes their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women. After emancipation, the group reunited from various plantations, bought land, and founded their own settlement, known as African Town. They ruled it according to customary African laws, spoke their own regional language and, when giving interviews, insisted that writers use their African names so that their families would know that they were still alive. The last survivor of the Clotilda died in 1935, but African Town is still home to a community of Clotilda descendants. The publication of Dreams of Africa in Alabama marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Winner of the Wesley-Logan Prize of the American Historical Association (2007)

An NPR Best Book of the Year. The incredible true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day—by the journalist who discovered the ship's remains. Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide evidence of the crime, allowing the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation's most important historical artifacts. Traveling from Alabama to the ancient African kingdom of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, Raines recounts the ship's perilous journey, the story of its rediscovery, and its complex legacy. Against all odds, Africatown, the Alabama community founded by the captives of the Clotilda, prospered in the Jim Crow South. Zora Neale Hurston visited in 1927 to interview Cudjo Lewis, telling the story of his enslavement in the New York Times bestseller Barracoon. And yet the haunting memory of bondage has been passed on through generations. Clotilda is a ghost haunting three communities—the descendants of those transported into slavery, the descendants of their fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their American enslavers. This connection binds these groups together to this day. At the turn of the century, descendants of the captain who financed the Clotilda's journey lived nearby—where, as significant players in the local real estate market, they disenfranchised and impoverished residents of Africatown. From these parallel stories emerges a profound depiction of America as it struggles to grapple with the traumatic past of slavery and the ways in which racial oppression continue to this day. And yet, at its heart, The Last Slave Ship remains optimistic—an epic tale of one community's triumphs over great adversity and a celebration of the power of human curiosity to uncover the truth about our past and heal its wounds.

‘A stimulating, elegant yet pugnacious essay’—Observer In this highly acclaimed seminal work, Edward Said surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, considering Orientalism as a powerful European ideological creation—a way for writers, philosophers and colonial administrators to deal with the ‘otherness’ of Eastern culture, customs and beliefs. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Nerval and Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West’s romantic and exotic picture of the Orient. In the Afterword, Said examines the effect of continuing Western imperialism.

The #tradwife murder mystery we’ve all been waiting for. From the bestselling author of The Sicilian Inheritance and the creator of the Under the Influence podcast comes an explosive thriller about two estranged friends, a grisly murder, a sudden disappearance, and the truly shocking revelation that everyone is lying to you about something . . .Lizzie and Bex were best friends in college. After graduation, Bex vanished, leaving Lizzie confused and devastated. Fifteen years later, Bex is now Rebecca Sommers, a “traditional” Instagram influencer with millions of followers who salivate over her perfect life on her ranch with her five children and handsome husband, Gray. Lizzie is a struggling magazine writer, watching reels while her young children demand her attention. One night out of the blue, Bex calls Lizzie with a career-making proposition—an exclusive interview with her about her multimillion-dollar business venture and an invitation to MomBomb, the high-profile influencing conference. At the conference, Bex goes missing and Gray is found brutally murdered on their ranch. Lizzie finds herself plunged into the dark side of the cutthroat world of social media that includes jealousy, sordid affairs, swingers, and backstabbing. She must learn who her old friend has become and who she has double-crossed to try to find her, clear her name, and maybe even save her life.   Piazza’s master storytelling and razor-sharp insight into the world of social media brings us a pulpy, juicy, and cleverly plotted read that will have you guessing all the way through and leave you gasping for more.

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…

A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at America’s largest military base, and what the crimes reveal about drug-trafficking and impunity among elite special operations soldiers Two dead bodies were discovered in a forested area of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2020. One, William “Billy” Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive “black ops” unit in the military. A long-serving veteran of America’s classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed. The other, Timothy Dumas, was a supply officer attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan. As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, all with some apparent connection to drug-trafficking, as well as dozens of fatal overdoses. Drawing on trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.

A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help us start anew. It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe―which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other. In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach's The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined―and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

A Today Show #ReadwithJenna Book Club Pick A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help us start anew. It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe―which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other. In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach's The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined―and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

A gothic tale of family, the legend of the selkies - shapeshifting mythological creatures - and a young woman who is offered an impossible choice. The only daughter in a family of Scottish seal-hunters, Kier Sealgair is becoming a burden. She cannot kill, and the family are facing hard times now that her father is ailing. On the neighbouring cliffs stands Erskine Manor, home to a mysterious and wealthy family. Servants arrive in town to buy supplies, but the family is never seen, and waves of rumour spread in the struggling small-town community. Then, one day, after a chance encounter, Lady Erskine finds Kier and offers her a bargain that could save Kier's father and change the town's impending fate. But questions remain. Who lives in the five towers of the manor? Is the Lord of the house alive? And are the children of the manor even human, or are the tales of spine-toothed monsters who roam the grounds true? A period gothic tale of legends, secrets and monsters in the deep, weaving myth and folklore, The Bone Diver is perfect for fans of Jenni Fagan, Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry.

A major new assessment of one of the most controversial topics in history Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.The Bible observes that God made humanity ‘for a little while lower than the angels’. If humans are that close to angels, where lies the difference? Is it human sexuality and what we do with it? In a single lifetime, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary about-turns in attitudes to sex and gender in human history. There have followed revolutions in the place of women in society, a new place for same-sex love amid the spectrum of human emotions, and a public exploration of gender and trans identity. For many the new situation has brought exciting liberation – for others, fury and fear.This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a three-thousand-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender and the family, with noises off from their sacred texts. The message of Lower Than The Angels is simple, necessary and to pay attention to the sheer glorious complexity and contradictions in the history of Christianity. The reader can decide from the story told here whether there is a single Christian theology of sex, or many contending voices in a symphony that is not at all complete. Oxford’s Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church introduces an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity’s deepest desires, fears and hopes.

The rich, recorded history of Sicily reaches back for more than three thousand years. Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy and the modern era have all held sway, and left lasting influences on the island’s culture and architecture. And yet no contemporary book tells the story of Sicily in a single volume for the general reader. Tourists, armchair travelers, and historians will all delight in this fluid narrative that can be read straight through, dipped into over time, or used as a reference guide to each period in Sicily’s fascinating tale. It is a general history, an account of welfare and warfare. Emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to the island through the centuries. Immigrants have included several who became Sicily’s rulers, along with Jews, Ligurians, and Albanians. All are ancestors of modern Sicilians. Sicily’s character has also been determined by what passed it events that affected Europe generally, namely the Crusades and Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, had remarkably little influence on Italy’s most famous island. Maps, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, a glossary, pronunciation keys, and much more make this book as essential as it is enjoyable.

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society. Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land. During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors. Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land. In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.  

A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel. On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it. Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds. But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.