Okey Ndibe’s memoir tells of his move from Nigeria to America, where he came to edit the influential --- but forever teetering on the verge of insolvency --- African Commentary magazine. It recounts stories of Ndibe’s relationships with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and other literary figures; examines the differences between Nigerian and American etiquette and politics; recalls an incident of racial profiling just 13 days after he arrived in the US, in which he was mistaken for a bank robber; considers American stereotypes about Africa (and vice-versa); and juxtaposes African folk tales with Wall Street trickery.

The most atypical of bluegrass artists, Bill Clifton has enjoyed a long career as a recording artist, performer and champion of old-time music. Bill C. Malone now pens the story of Clifton's eclectic life and influential career. Born into a prominent Maryland family, Clifton connected with old-time music as a boy. He made records around earning a Master's degree, 15 years in the British folk scene, and stints in the Peace Corps and Marines. Yet that was just the beginning. Clifton altered our very perceptions of the music --- organizing one of the first outdoor bluegrass festivals, publishing a book of folk and gospel standards that became a cornerstone of the folk revival, and introducing both traditional and progressive bluegrass around the world.

In 1942, social worker Irena Sendler was granted access to the Warsaw ghetto as a public health specialist. While there, she reached out to the trapped Jewish families, going from door to door and asking the parents to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling them out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them. Driven to extreme measures and with the help of a network of local tradesmen, ghetto residents, and her star-crossed lover in the Jewish resistance, Irena ultimately smuggled thousands of children past the Nazis. In IRENA’S CHILDREN, Tilar Mazzeo tells the incredible story of this courageous and brave woman who risked her life to save innocent children from the Holocaust.

Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the 20th century was home to a large African American community. Many black residents were poor sharecroppers, but others owned their own farms. But then in September 1912, three young black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One man was dragged from a jail cell and lynched on the town square, two teenagers were hung after a one-day trial, and soon bands of white “night riders” launched a coordinated campaign of arson and terror. National Book Award finalist Patrick Phillips tells Forsyth’s tragic story in vivid detail and traces its long history of racial violence all the way back to antebellum Georgia.

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over 400 years, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society --- where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics --- a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.

Widely considered the first female presidential chief of staff, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand was the right-hand woman to FDR for more than 20 years. Although her official title as personal secretary was relatively humble, her power and influence were unparalleled. She was one of his most trusted advisors, affording her a unique perspective on the president that no one else could claim. With unprecedented access to Missy’s family and original source materials, journalist Kathryn Smith tells the captivating and forgotten story of the intelligent, loyal and clever woman who had a front-row seat to history in the making.

Volker Ullrich's HITLER, the first in a two-volume biography, has changed the way scholars and laypeople alike understand the man who has become the personification of evil. Drawing on previously unseen papers and new scholarly research, Ullrich charts Hitler's life from his childhood through his experiences in the First World War and his subsequent rise as a far-right leader. Focusing on the personality behind the policies, Ullrich creates a vivid portrait of a man and his megalomania, political skill and horrifying worldview.

1956 was one of the most remarkable years of the 20th century. All across the globe, ordinary people spoke out, filled the streets and city squares, and took up arms in an attempt to win their freedom. Simon Hall takes the long view of the year's events --- putting them in their post-war context and looking toward their influence on the counterculture movements of the 1960s --- to tell the story of the year's epic, global struggles from the point of view of the freedom fighters, dissidents, and countless ordinary people who worked to overturn oppressive and authoritarian systems in order to build a brave new world.

We may love books, but do we know what lies behind them? In THE BOOK, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue and board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages --- of civilizations, empires, human ingenuity and madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2,000-year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations and binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers and paperbacks of today.

In 1953, a 27-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison --- who suffered from severe epilepsy --- received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry’s seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next 60 years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today. Luke Dittrich’s investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history.