Adult

It’s July 1921, “flickers” are all the rage, and Irene Van Beck has just declared her own independence by jumping off a moving train to escape her fate in a traveling burlesque show. When her friends, fellow dancer Millie Martin and comedian Henry Weiss, leap after her, the trio finds their way to the bright lights of Hollywood with hopes of making it big in the burgeoning silent film industry. But success doesn’t come easy, and nothing can prepare Irene, Millie and Henry for the poverty, temptation and heartbreak that lie ahead. With their ambitions challenged by both the men above them and the prejudice surrounding them, their friendship is the only constant through desperate times, as each struggles to find their true calling in an uncertain world.

Harry Caray is one of the most famous and beloved sports broadcasters of all time, with a career that lasted over 50 years. Always a baseball fan, Caray once vowed to become a broadcaster who was the true voice of the fans. His distinctive style soon resonated across St. Louis, then Chicago and eventually across the nation. In THE LEGENDARY HARRY CARAY, Don Zminda delivers the first full-length biography of Caray since his death in 1998. It includes details of Caray's orphaned childhood, his 25 years as the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals, his tempestuous 11 years broadcasting games for the Chicago White Sox, and the 16 years he broadcast for the Chicago Cubs while also becoming a nationally known celebrity.

Don't bunt in a blowout. Don't pimp your home runs. Act like you've been here before. In UNWRITTEN, national baseball writer Danny Knobler dives deep beyond the brushbacks and brawls to examine shifting attitudes towards Major League Baseball's once-sacred player codes. What emerges in the process is a much larger story, one of a more youthful, more exuberant, more diverse game in the midst of a fascinating culture clash. Featuring countless interviews with some of baseball's biggest names, including current and former major-league players, coaches, scouts and journalists, UNWRITTEN is a revealing, thoroughly of-the-moment portrait of a sport grappling with the loaded question of what it means to play the game the right way.

FIGHT LIKE A MOTHER is the incredible account of how one mother’s cry for change became the driving force behind gun safety progress. Along with stories of perseverance, courage and compassion, Shannon Watts shines a light on the unique power of women --- starting with what they have, leading with their maternal strengths, and doubling down instead of backing down. While not everyone can be on the front lines lobbying Congress, every mom is already a multi-tasking organizer, and Shannon explains how to go from amateur activist to having a real impact in your community and beyond.

Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, the creators of #IMOMSOHARD, know that you probably didn’t get to shower today and that the last thing you need is more advice on how to be a better parent. Instead, they invite you to join their laugh-out-loud, best friend banter on the 80 bajillion ways moms give their all every day. Come for the laughs, stay for the kinship with two friends who are just getting it right, getting it wrong, and leaning on each other for a laugh at the end of the day. They don’t care if your house is a mess, and they won’t judge you if you pee a little when you sneeze. So kick back, relax and enjoy. You deserve it.

"How did you get this number?" Those were the first words Jill Biden spoke to U.S. senator Joe Biden when he called her out of the blue to ask her on a date. Growing up, Jill had wanted two things: a marriage like her parents' and a career. An early heartbreak had left her uncertain about love, until she met Joe. But as they grew closer, Jill faced difficult questions: How would politics shape her family and professional life? And was she ready to become a mother to Joe's two young sons? This is the story of how Jill built a family --- and a life --- of her own. From the pranks she played to keep everyone laughing to the traditions she formed that would carry them through tragedy, hers is the spirited journey of a woman embracing many roles.

For the first time in book form, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work in these evocatively written, personal pieces. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses, including longtime residents wrenchingly displaced by the construction of Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway and Lady Bird Johnson acknowledging the beauty and influence of one of LBJ's mistresses. He gratefully remembers how, after years of working in solitude, he found a writers' community at the New York Public Library, and details the ways he goes about planning and composing his books.

Virginia Hall was a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." She became the first Allied woman deployed behind enemy lines and --- despite her prosthetic leg --- helped to light the flame of the French Resistance, revolutionizing secret warfare as we know it. Based on new and extensive research, Sonia Purnell has for the first time uncovered the full secret life of Virginia Hall --- an astounding and inspiring story of heroism, spycraft, resistance and personal triumph over shocking adversity.

The Cuban Revolution took everything from sugar heiress Beatriz Perez. Recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fidel Castro's inner circle and pulled into the dangerous world of espionage, Beatriz is consumed by her quest for revenge and her desire to reclaim the life she lost. As the Cold War swells like a hurricane over the shores of the Florida Strait, Beatriz is caught between the clash of Cuban American politics and the perils of a forbidden affair with a powerful man driven by ambitions of his own. When the ever-changing tides of history threaten everything she has fought for, she must make a choice between her past and future. But the wrong move could cost Beatriz everything --- not just the island she loves, but also the man who has stolen her heart.

In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed --- or untoyed with --- by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls --- until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside down.