SURVIVAL TAKES A WILD IMAGINATION de Fariha Róisín

In the powerful follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut collection, poet and activist Fariha Róisín is writing, praying, clawing, and scratching her way out of the grips of generational trauma on the search for the freedom her mother never received and the kindness she couldn’t give.

SURVIVAL TAKES A WILD IMAGINATION
by Fariha Róisín
Andrews McMeel, October 2023

This collection of poetry asks a kaleidoscope of questions: Who is my family? My father? How do I love a mother no longer here? Can I see myself? What does it mean to be Bangladeshi? What is a border? Innately hopeful and resolutely strong, Fariha’s voice turns to the optimism and beauty inherent in rebuilding the self, and in turn, the world that the self moves through. Ubiquitous to the human experience, Survival Takes a Wild Imagination is an illuminating breath of fresh air from a powerful poetic voice.

Fariha Róisín is a multidisciplinary artist, born in Ontario, Canada. She was raised in Sydney, Australia, and is based in Los Angeles, California. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Her work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam, and queer identities and has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Village Voice, and others. Róisín has published a book of poetry entitled How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams, 2019), a journal called Being In Your Body (Abrams, 2019) and a novel named Like A Bird (Unnamed Press, 2020) which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, a must-read by Buzzfeed News and received a starred review by the Library Journal. Her first work of non-fiction Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who it Leaves Behind (HarperWave, 2022) was released last year.

TIME WILL TELL de Courtney Peppernell

A collection of introspective poetry from bestselling author Courtney Peppernell. Discover what it means to start inward and evolve into the version of yourself the world knows you can be.

TIME WILL TELL
by Courtney Peppernell
Andrews McMeel, August 2023

From the bestselling author of Pillow Thoughts and Watering the Soul comes another deeply honest and moving collection of poetry and prose, about the strength and resilience we embody in the face of hardship and change. TIME WILL TELL offers what Courtney Peppernell does best: hope, encouragement, and the beauty of looking inward.

Courtney Peppernell is a bestselling author from Sydney, Australia, best known for her Pillow Thoughts poetry collection. The series has achieved acclaimed success worldwide, with more than a million copies sold since the initial launch in 2017. Courtney spends her days writing and working on many projects with her beloved dogs in tow. She hopes to continue exploring expression and the art of healing through stories, novels, and poetry for years to come.

OFFICE GODS de Catharina Octorina

Gods, demigods, and true romance? OFFICE GODS, based on the hit webcomic, is an addictive rom-com set in the corporate HQ of the Olympians themselves!

OFFICE GODS
by Catharina Octorina
Andrews McMeel, November 2023

Iris, a young human woman, is swept into the world of divine bureaucracy when she’s recruited to work in the office of the gods, in the department of Hermes. The gods and goddesses may be beautiful beyond human comprehension, but she quickly learns that they’re every bit as petty and quarrelsome as they were thousands of years ago. Can she survive Eros’ antics, Aphrodite’s temper, and getting caught between a love triangle with the demigod sons of Athena and Hades?

Cathy Octorina (@DemonicBlackCat) is a former advertising professional turned author. She has written webcomics such as The God of Pain’s Groom and Maid for Hire. She lives in Indonesia.

THE LITTLE LIAR de Mitch Albom

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with a powerful novel that moves from a small village in Greece during the Holocaust, to America, where the intertwined lives of three survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

THE LITTLE LIAR
by Mitch Albom
Harper, November 2023
(via David Black Literary)

Credit: Jenny Risher

Eleven-year-old Nico Crispi never told a lie. When the Nazi’s invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading towards “the east” where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved—and all the others—to their doom at Auschwitz.
Nico never tells the truth again.
In THE LITTLE LIAR, his first novel set during the Holocaust, Mitch Albom interweaves the stories of Nico, his brother Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, who miraculously survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, Albom reveals the consequences of what they said, did, and endured.
A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion, THE LITTLE LIAR is Mitch Albom at his very best. Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, it is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to ultimately redeem us.

Mitch Albom is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction, which have collectively sold more than forty million copies in forty-seven languages worldwide. He has written seven number-one New York Times bestsellers – including Tuesdays with Morrie, the bestselling memoir of all time, which topped the list for four straight years – award-winning TV films, stage plays, screenplays, a nationally syndicated newspaper column, and a musical. Through his work at the Detroit Free Press, he was inducted into both the National Sports Media Association and Michigan Sports halls of fame and is the recipient of the 2010 Red Smith Award for lifetime achievement. After bestselling memoir Finding Chika and “Human Touch,” the weekly serial written and published online in real-time to raise funds for pandemic relief, his latest work is a return to fiction with The Stranger in the Lifeboat (Harper, November 2021). He founded and oversees SAY Detroit, a consortium of nine different charitable operations in his hometown, including a nonprofit dessert shop and food product line to fund programs for Detroit’s most underserved citizens. He also operates an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, which he visits monthly. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan.

A+ PARENTING d’Eva Moskowitz

Eva Moskowitz, founder of the highly lauded Success Academy Charter Schools, shares her advice for raising smart, successful, and intellectually engaged children.

A+ PARENTING:
The Surprisingly Fun Guide to Raising Surprisingly Smart Kids
by Eva Moskowitz
Harvest/HarperCollins, October 2023

Eva Moskowitz has built a national reputation as the founder and leader of Success Academy Charter Schools, one of the country’s most highly regarded networks of schools, but while most people know Eva for her success in educating 20,000 mainly low-income students who are routinely accepted to our nation’s best universities, she has also been responsible for raising three children of her own. In A+ PARENTING, Eva shares what she has learned both as a parent and an educator about raising children to be enthusiastic and successful learners.
Eva’s most important message is that parents can and should play a critical role in their children’s intellectual development. Each year, children only spend about 180 days in school; how they spend the remaining 185 days is up to their parents. Children who continue to learn when they are out of school will make far more progress than those who don’t, but parents need not attempt to recreate school at home. Instead, they can encourage their children to engage in fun activities that will have a huge impact on their creativity, intellectual curiosity, and attention span.
A+ PARENTING is every parent’s must-have guide to enriching every aspect of a child’s life, from the morning carpool to the soccer field to the dinner table—without having to hire tutors or carve out more hours in the day. Moskowitz explains how to take the time you’re already spending with your children and make it more fulfilling and intellectually stimulating for them. The book is full of practical guidance such as:

• Which extracurricular activities are best for a child’s development.
• How children can learn by watching movies and playing games—and why you should reach for chess or Monopoly over checkers or Candyland.
• How to help your child overcome a learning disability and ensure it doesn’t undermine their self-confidence.
• Why getting angry at children doesn’t work but expressing disappointment does.

In addition to advice, this book is filled with carefully curated lists of educational activities, including games to play, movies to watch, puzzles to solve, books to read, music to listen to, and experiments to perform. These activities, supported with love and joy, are all parents need to turn their children into lifelong learners.

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools and a former New York City council member. She has a PhD in American history from Johns Hopkins University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School. She lives in Harlem with her husband and their three children.