Books in the News

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST!

Discover the power and hope of this acclaimed, bestselling, often-banned novel that gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood.

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in Nepal.  They’ve always made ends meet, but when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who promises to find her work as a maid in the city. To help her family, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns an unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she tries to live by her mother’s words—Simply to endure is to triumph. Gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new reality, until the day comes when she must make a decision: will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative verse vignettes by the acclaimed co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who  dares to dream of more than just survival.

* “Hard-hitting … The author beautifully balances the harshness of brothel life with the poignant relationships among its residents.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

* “An unforgettable account of sexual slavery as it exists now.” —Booklist (starred review)

Publishers Weekly Best 100 Books of the Year
NPR’s Best Books of the Year
American Library Association Top Ten List, Best Books of the Year
Gustav-Heinemann Peace Prize
Booklist Editor’s Choice Award
New York Public Library Best Books for Teens
Children’s Literature Council’s Choice 
Book Sense Pick

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko returns with a breathtaking contemporary epic: a masterpiece by turns sweeping and intimate, that reckons with ambition and moderation, lust and loyalty, personal dreams and familial duty.

Min Jin Lee brings grand ambition, fierce heart, and the tenderest hope to a novel I didn’t want to end.” —Roxane Gay, bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger

In schools and churches, hotel rooms and nail salons, law firms and fried-fish shops; in cramped, dingy apartments and luxury, gated communities, the men, women, and children in American Hagwon struggle to find satisfaction and meaning in a world that seems to grow less forgiving with each passing year. Once comfortably middle class in Korea, John and Helen Koh and their three children—Bo, DH, and Mido—find their lives upended, first by a shocking betrayal by John’s oldest friend, then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Desperately striving to regain their footing, they leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in Southern California—where new vistas of opportunity open up for the children as their parents, strangers in a strange land, must adjust to a new life in which their experience and education mean little, and they set their sights on whatever it takes to provide for their children’s futures. The Kohs, their friends, relatives, and even their foes move in and out of each other’s lives as they navigate new courses across the years, always nursing the almost all-consuming faith that education will lead the next generation to success and security.

In American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee has crafted an unforgettable, panoramic novel where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repercussions, where the bonds of family and of memory twist and fray but rarely break, and where willful self-sacrifice—for the benefit of loved ones and even strangers—is a kind of prayer.

An immersive, engrossing novel … this is panorama told in brilliant detail.”—Colm Tóibín, bestselling author ofLong IslandandBrooklyn

From Jacob Tierney, the creator of Heated Rivalry, in partnership with Brendan Brady and Accent Aigu, comes an official and complete collection of annotated scripts for the biggest cultural sensation of the year, with all new exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

Based on Rachel Reid’s blockbuster Game Changers book series, Heated Rivalry premiered on Crave and HBO in late 2025 and immediately took the world by storm. I’ll Believe in Anything takes readers behind the curtain, showing how Tierney, his producing partner Brendan Brady, and the entire Accent Aigu team drew on a deep reverence for Reid’s work, impeccable casting, clever sets and costume design, and thoughtful sex scene choreography to both rewrite the playbook for adapting romance novels to the screen and obliterate the long-held misconception that queer love stories have limited appeal.

I’ll Believe in Anything answers all the questions fans of this groundbreaking series have been asking. How did Tierney interweave Ilya and Shane’s rivalry with Scott and Kip’s love story to create the ultimate television moment? Where did the idea for that incredible Canadian Olympic fleece originate? And what does it look like for a full team, led by Tierney and Brady, to plan, choreograph, and film some of the best sex scenes in television history? Featuring annotations on scene directions, intimacy choreography, costume insights, and more, alongside Tierney’s never-before-seen scripts, this book gives fans a brand-new way to come to the cottage!

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award | Winner of the 2026 Wingate Prize | Winner of the Bernstein Prize | Winner of the 2026 Sami Rohr Prize

The Gates of Gaza is a gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023—a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas’s attacks that day.

On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City.

Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”

Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.

In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family’s ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades.

More than one family’s odyssey, this is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.

Collin Gosselin, one of the sextuplets from ​Jon & Kate Plus 8, breaks his silence ​to share the shocking story hidden behind the facade of a ​picture-perfect family.

“Collin’s story is a powerful reminder that even our deepest wounds can become the foundation for growth, healing and hope.”
—Jay Shetty

“As someone who knows firsthand the lasting impact institutional trauma can have on a young person’s life, I was deeply moved by Collin’s honesty and strength. So proud of Collin for turning his pain into purpose and powerfully sharing his story with the world.”
—Paris Hilton

For years, the world watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 through a lens of curated joy. But while the cameras captured the milestones, they missed the moments that defined Collin Gosselin’s life: the Christmas morning where the gifts were reclaimed as soon as the cameras went down, and the basement room where silence was his only companion.

In the Shadow of Eight is the first account of a secret childhood lived in the gaps between the frames. Collin is finally sharing the truth about being held down, the basement cell where he was hidden for years, and the cocktail of powerful antipsychotics forced on an eleven-year-old boy. This is a reckoning with the dark side of fame: the systems, the entourage, and the institutions that allowed one boy to be erased. This is the never before told story of how he escaped and found his way back from the dark.

How sabotage and disorder threaten the fragile network of undersea cables and pipelines that makes modern life possible—and how it may already be drawing the world into an all-out underwater war.

“Excellent… Braw’s writing sparkles.” —Financial Times

The world depends on a tangle of underwater tubes on the ocean floor. Every day undersea cables transmit nearly all the world’s data, while intercontinental pipelines convey two-thirds of the world’s oil and gas. They do their jobs so reliably that few would guess that “the cloud” is actually underwater, or that global economic stability relies on pipelines on the seafloor. But as award-winning security expert Elisabeth Braw reveals, an invisible battle over those cables and pipelines is ramping up.

Undersea War tells the story of the underwater infrastructure that supports everyday life. In 2022, after decades of seeming undersea harmony, two pipelines in the Baltic Sea mysteriously exploded. Within months, the cutting of the data links between Taiwan’s Matsu Islands’ and the world along with the the subsequent destruction of additional Baltic cables and a pipeline signaled that the harmony in the ocean depths was over. Superpowers are now racing to protect themselves as the seabed itself becomes a battlefield.

Blending engrossing historical narrative with acute strategic analysis, Undersea War shows that the next battle for global supremacy may unfold on the ocean floor.

Lisa Vanderpump—businesswoman, producer, philanthropist, and arguably the most successful housewife to come out of the Bravo franchise—invites readers into her world with a cookbook showing how to cook and live like a Vanderpump with both glamour and style.

Millions of Lisa Vanderpump’s fans know her from the enviable life she leads on her eponymous shows Vanderpump Rules and Vanderpump Villa and formerly the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Now, in her first cookbook, Lisa invites them into her home to share how she cooks family meals, entertains, hosts holiday dinners, mixes cocktails for guests, and more. Lisa’s approach is low effort and high reward. She shows how to whip up a four-course meal from scratch and dress up a store-bought cake for dessert. She bakes cookies with her grandsons and treats for her dogs. She makes life a little bit easier (and more welcoming) by keeping some easy make-ahead appetizers and drinks on hand for when guests stop by.

Home at Villa Rosa is an inside look into Lisa’s world, including her British heritage and the influence of her grandmothers, which informs how she cooks even today. Cleverly organized into thematic sections, readers will access 70 of Lisa’s favorite recipes, including the tea cakes she learned from her sister-in-law, a chef in the royal household; the riding sandwich she makes for her husband Ken; the cocktails made famous on Vanderpump Rules; and the desserts she serves at Christmastime. It’s a unique and revealing look into what makes Lisa the most glamorous, successful, and relatable Bravo-lebrity yet and shows how anyone can cook like a Vanderpump.

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Anxious Generation shows how a deeper understanding of the world’s philosophical wisdom can enrich and transform our lives.

“Wonderfully smart and readable.” —Washington Post

In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt skillfully combines philosophical wisdom and scientific research to explore ten “Great Ideas” that have been discovered by several of the world’s civilizations. In each chapter, Haidt questions a Great Idea in light of what we now know, and extracts from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives, thereby illuminating the causes of human flourishing.

Now with a new preface, The Happiness Hypothesis expertly unravels the world’s philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims—such as “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”—and tackles the eternal question “How can I live a meaningful life?”

75 effortless desserts made with everyday, accessible ingredients, each in one pan—no stand mixer required—from baking expert Dan Langan.

Dan Langan has never met a recipe he couldn’t improve upon: he believes there’s always more flavor to coax from ingredients, better texture to develop, and of course, a quicker path to rewards (with fewer dishes, too). His drive to make baking more enjoyable has led him to develop more relaxed recipes that always delivered great results.

Every recipe in Short & Sweet features a brief list of accessible ingredients (no specialty flour here!) and minimal tools (all you need is a bowl and a whisk!) so you can save time and money. Dan shares streamlined classic confections such as melt-in-your-mouth Butter Sprinkle Cookies and Strawberry Shortcakes, whose light and airy texture comes from adding egg to the biscuit dough. He has creative twists like Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies, where thin crackly brownie crust meets rich vanilla-y swirls, and even chilled delights, like Ruby Raspberry Sherbet, smooth and soft thanks to a touch of honey. Dan even quickens rise times for yeasted and kneaded bakes like Hot and Buttered Soft Pretzels, and Philly Provolone Pizza so you can enjoy fuss-free savory bakes, too. Plus, Dan gives his top tips for substitutions and smart baking techniques, so dessert is always within reach.

The first cookbook from the cult-status Asian grocery store chain is a visual celebration with Korean recipes, ingredient spotlights, cultural deep dives, how-tos, and more.

When the first H Mart opened in 1982, it was just a humble grocery store in Queens, carrying the most basic of Korean ingredients. In the 43 years since then, the tiny shop has grown into America’s largest Asian supermarket chain. And for the nearly 20 million Asian Americans living across the country, H Mart has become more than a simple grocery store. It’s a place of community, a joyous connection to their culture and heritage. Cooking with H Mart is here to bring that joy home. This gorgeous, oversized cookbook and guidebook contains everything a person could ever want to know about H Mart: From its history and profiles to ingredient spotlights and how-tos.

The highlight of the book is the 75 home-cook friendly recipes that make the most of H Mart’s ingredients. There are classic Korean dishes, like Spicy Cucumber Salad (Oi Muchim), Braised Beef Short Ribs (Galbi Jjim), and Stir-Fried Sweet Potato Noodles (Japchae) as well as unique twists using contemporary flavors. Pizza-Stuffed Fish-Shaped Waffles (Pizza Bunggeobbang) rethinks a popular Korean street food by swapping out the traditional red bean paste with pizza toppings. And Cheesy Kimchi Fried Rice (Cheese Buldak Kimchi Bokkeumbap) combines hot sauce, spicy kimchi, and mozzarella to make a truly addictive comfort meal.

Overflowing with brilliantly colored photography and illustrations, charts, and infographics, Cooking with H Mart will help any reader make the most of their next grocery run.

In the long-awaited sequel to one of the world’s most beloved and widely read books of the last twenty years—The Shack—unrivaled storyteller Wm. Paul Young leads us back to the great questions of human existence: How does life go on in the face of irreconcilable loss? How can the irredeemable find redemption?

Ten years after the devastating events of The Shack, Mackenzie Allen Phillips is still living in the shadow of loss. Though life has moved forward, grief continues to haunt his family, his relationships, his faith, and his very sense of self. Nan, his wife, carries her own hidden sorrow. They are two people bound together by love yet often divided by pain.

On what would have been their daughter Missy’s sixteenth birthday, Mack and Nan confront the unthinkable when Mack is asked to visit death row to speak with the serial killer who abducted and murdered her. In the stark silence of the prison, Mack encounters not only the brokenness of another human being but also the raw weight of his own anger, doubt, and disappointment with God. Where is God when unbearable suffering endures? How can a shattered heart ever heal?

In Return to the Shack, William Paul Young invites readers on a profound journey into the depths of grief, the complexity of trauma, and the surprising humanity of those we most fear. With honesty and compassion, he explores the devastating impact of mental illness, abuse, and violence, the strain of loss on relationships, and the staggering cost—and unexpected freedom—of forgiveness.

This long-awaited sequel dares to ask the hardest questions: What does it mean to forgive the unforgivable? How do we live with God’s silence when our wounds cry out for answers? And can even the darkest prison and the most desolate wreckage of broken dreams become places where grace and redemption take root?

Both tender and unflinching, Return to the Shack is a story of pain, faith, and the relentless possibility of hope.

“A love letter to humanity written by a woman of brilliance and heart.”―Priya Parker

From the bestselling author of Reclaiming Conversation, an urgent warning about how our ever-increasing reliance on AI chatbots is eroding our capacity for the very qualities that make us human.

If social media came for our attention, artificial intelligence is now coming for our capacity for attachment. Chatbots offer themselves as best friends, lovers, and psychotherapists—but when we allow AI to fill these roles, we accept as sufficient its mere performance of intimacy, empathy, and love. We begin to think that pretend empathy is empathy enough. The consequences are profound and troubling: Technology, by offering to do everything, is teaching us that we neither need nor have the capacity to take risks, have hard conversations, struggle through uncertainty and insecurity, or rely on our own faculties and judgment. In the process, it is producing a generation more alienated, depressed, and lonely than ever before.

In Artificial Intimacy, Sherry Turkle—the psychologist who pioneered our understanding of human-computer relationships—draws on vivid stories as well as decades of experience as a chronicler and analyst of digital culture to present an urgent warning about what these “perfect” companions are doing to our minds and relationships. Tracing our new habit of talking to machines through the human lifecycle—from children’s earliest attachments to how we face death—Turkle offers both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for reclaiming our humanity in the age of AI.

“A necessary exploration of what happens when we seek the comforts of connection over the demands of relationships.”―Esther Perel

“[Turkle is] the most qualified member of Team Humanity to call us back to our senses, and to each other.”―Jonathan Haidt

Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A boy lost in the shadow of his father’s legacy.

A gifted artist dismissed as just a “TV actor.”

A first-time film producer who stunned the world by winning an Oscar at 31.

A maverick who changed Hollywood and became a global movie star. 

Hollywood icon Michael Douglas tells the unfiltered story of his life for the first time. 
 
“I spent a significant portion of my career playing some version of the modern, flawed, American male. You’ll see from these pages that it wasn’t exactly a stretch for me.”
 
Beginning with his fractured childhood and a complex relationship with his superstar father, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas finally gives the full and uncensored account of a remarkable life. One Helluva Ride reveals incredible behind-the-scenes stories featuring a Who’s Who of Hollywood, many of them never revealed before and some outrageously funny, with an unflinching honesty about his sometimes bad-boy life.
 
Initially dismissed as just the handsome son of a legendary movie star, at age thirty-one he shook up Hollywood when he won his first Oscar for producing the five-time Academy Award-winning classic film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Told he would never be more than a “TV actor,” he quit the hit series The Streets of San Francisco to become an international movie star, with a list of classic films that have grossed billions of dollars, winning a second Oscar for his riveting performance as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.
 
“I can’t think about my life without thinking of my movies,” Douglas says, and he recounts his career through twelve of his most iconic films, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The China Syndrome, Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, War of the Roses, Basic Instinct, Falling Down, The American President, Traffic and Behind the Candelabra.  These movies not only captured the cultural zeitgeist but often defined it. 

Yet as Douglas’s fame grew, so did his personal struggles. He recounts the full, unfiltered story of his turbulent first mar­riage; infidelity and affairs with some of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood; his own serious struggle with alcohol, drugs and rehab; the heartbreaking fight to save his son from an addiction that sent him to prison; and his against-all-odds battle with stage IV cancer.

He saw Catherine Zeta Jones on a movie screen and instantly fell for her. Their incredible love story transformed his life and proved all the tabloids wrong, enduring after twenty-five years of marriage. 

Father, son, husband, actor, producer, brother and friend. This is the real, raw, deeply honest and vulnerable Michael Douglas you didn’t know—until now.

** INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! **

What if the biggest obstacle to happiness isn’t your environment, your past, or other people―but a blindness to some uncomfortable truths about yourself?

In the book his fans have been waiting for, one of the internet’s most beloved therapists, Kier Gaines, sets the record straight: mantras and toxic positivity won’t solve your problems. Instead, Gaines offers a bold new path to getting what you want in life: You need to know yourself better. A lot better than you do now.

In It All Starts When You Do, Gaines walks you through the hard but rewarding work you need to do when you simply can’t figure out what feels off in your life. Whether your career is stuck in neutral, your family is driving you crazy, or you’re struggling to find love, you’ll learn how to:

• Begin healing from the inner wounds you might not even be aware you have
• Conquer unconscious emotional hijacking
• Align your actions with your true desires
• Build self-esteem based on solid evidence and effort, not empty affirmations
• Stop consuming the empty calories of negative self-talk which can destroy progress
• Overcome the illusion of comfort that keeps you stuck
• And much more

It All Starts When You Do will arm you with the tools you need to stop sabotaging your life, and get down to the business of living it.

• How to recognize what bulbs you love and personalize your garden to match your vision
• Planting techniques and design ideas for growing bulbs in any size garden
• Incorporating bulbs for pollinators, and the importance of ecological methods
• Tips for creating a brilliant bulb container garden in every season
• A wide array of bulb varieties with in-depth planting information