“What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. In THE BOYS, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" offered fame, joy and opportunity --- but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as "Gentle Ben" and "Star Trek" petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons. With the perspective of time and success --- Ron as a filmmaker, producer and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor --- the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but.

Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Lee was just six years old. Award-winning historian Allen Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity.

As a teen, Anna Qu is sent by her mother to work in her family's garment factory in Queens. At home, she is treated as a maid and suffers punishment for doing her homework at night. Her mother wants to teach her a lesson: she is Chinese, not American. But instead of acquiescing, Qu alerts the Office of Children and Family Services, an act with consequences that impact the rest of her life. Nearly 20 years later, estranged from her mother and working at a Manhattan start-up, Qu requests her OCFS report. When it arrives, key details are wrong. Faced with this false narrative, Qu looks once more at her life's truths, from abandonment to an abusive family to seeking dignity and meaning in work.

THE GIRLS WHO STEPPED OUT OF LINE are the heroes of the Greatest Generation that you hardly ever hear about. These women who did extraordinary things didn't expect thanks and shied away from medals and recognition. Despite their amazing accomplishments, they've gone mostly unheralded and unrewarded. No longer. These are the women of World War II who served, fought, struggled and made things happen --- in and out of uniform. Retired U.S. Army Major General Mari K. Eder wrote this book because she knew their stories needed to be told --- and the sooner the better. For theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.

With a claim on artists from Jimmie Rodgers to Jason Isbell, Americana can be hard to define, but you know it when you hear it. John Milward’s AMERICANALAND is filled with the enduring performers and vivid stories that are at the heart of Americana. At base a hybrid of rock and country, Americana is also infused with folk, blues, R&B, bluegrass and other types of roots music. Performers like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Gram Parsons used these ingredients to create influential music that took well-established genres down exciting new roads. The name Americana was coined in the 1990s to describe similarly inclined artists like Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Wilco. Today, Brandi Carlile and I’m With Her are among the musicians carrying the genre into the 21st century.

It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world --- Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, and the future is bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in BETTER TO HAVE GONE, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice.

When Catherine Raven finished her PhD in biology, she built herself a tiny cottage on an isolated plot of land in Montana. She viewed it as a way station, a temporary rest stop where she could gather her nerves and fill out applications for what she hoped would be a real job that would help her fit into society. In the meantime, she taught remotely and led field classes in nearby Yellowstone National Park. Then one day she realized that a mangy-looking fox was showing up on her property every afternoon at 4:15 p.m. She sat as close to him as she dared and began reading to him from THE LITTLE PRINCE. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, yet as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself and they became friends.

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard is facing her own battle. Her husband of 21 years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened --- by Elizabeth's intellect, independence and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. One summer morning, Theophilus has her committed to an insane asylum. The conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are horrific, and there are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line. No one is willing to fight for their freedom, and they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose.

Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes. In BATTLE FOR THE BIG TOP, New York Times bestselling author Les Standiford brings to life a remarkable era when three circus kings --- James Bailey, P.T. Barnum and John Ringling --- all vied for control of the vastly profitable and influential American Circus. Ultimately, the rivalry of these three men resulted in the creation of an institution that would surpass all intentions and, for 147 years, hold a nation spellbound.

When Alan Maimon got the assignment in 2000 to report on life in rural Eastern Kentucky, his editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal told him to cover the region “like a foreign correspondent would.” Maimon had landed in a place in the vice grip of ecological devastation and a corporate-made opioid epidemic. While reporting on the intense religious allegiances, the bitter, bare-knuckled political rivalries, and the faltering attempts to emerge from a century-long coal-based economy, Maimon learns that everything --- and nothing --- you have heard about the region is true. And far from being a foreign place, it is a region whose generations-long struggles are driven by quintessentially American forces.