At 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force to subdue a black man named Rodney King, and failed to reach a verdict on the same charges involving a fourth officer. Less than two hours later, the city exploded in violence that lasted six days. In nearly 121 hours, 53 lives were lost. Ryan Gattis tells 17 interconnected first-person narratives that paint a portrait of modern America itself --- laying bare our history, our prejudices and our complexities.

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men --- bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it?

Maren Yearly is a young woman who wants the same things we all do. She wants to be someone people admire, respect and love. But her secret, shameful needs have forced her into exile. She hates herself for the bad thing she does --- she doesn't just break hearts, she devours them. Love may come in many shapes and sizes, but for Maren, it always ends the same --- with her hiding the evidence and her mother packing up the car. But when her mother abandons her the day after her 16th birthday, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, and finds much more than she bargained for along the way.

Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to new heights while its depravity plunges to the blackest depths. This is the world in which Zoey Ashe finds herself, navigating a futuristic city in which one can find elements of the fantastic, nightmarish and ridiculous on any street corner. Will Zoey figure it all out in time? Or maybe the better question is, will you? After all, the future is coming sooner than you think.

New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war --- secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.

Sometimes a girl is touched by Mother War --- Thorn is such a girl. Desperate to avenge her dead father, she lives to fight. But she has been named a murderer by the very man who trained her to kill. She finds herself caught up in the schemes of Father Yarvi, Gettland’s deeply cunning minister. Crossing half the world to find allies against the ruthless High King, she learns harsh lessons of blood and deceit. Beside her on the journey is Brand, a young warrior who hates to kill, a failure in his eyes and hers, but with one chance at redemption

In the summer of 2010, photographer Brandon Stanton began an ambitious project  --- to single-handedly create a photographic census of New York City. The photos he took and the accompanying interviews became the blog Humans of New York. Now, Brandon is back with the follow up to his first book, HUMANS OF NEW YORK, that his loyal followers have been waiting for: HUMANS OF NEW YORK: Stories. It presents a whole new group of humans, complete with stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candor. Let Brandon Stanton and the people he's photographed astonish you.

While Dan-el was only in grade school, his family, facing tremendous obstacles without papers, joined the ranks of New York City’s homeless. Dan-el, his mother, and brother lived in a downtown shelter where Dan-el’s only refuge was the meager library. There he met Jeff, a young volunteer from a wealthy family. Jeff was immediately struck by Dan-el’s passion for books and learning. With Jeff’s help, Dan-el was accepted on scholarship to Collegiate, the oldest private school in the country, and then later went on to Princeton, where he would thrive.

Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls’ basketball team, seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. At the periphery of her world floats team manager Illa Stark, who is spellbound by Mercy’s beauty and talent. But a note discovered in Mercy’s gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears. The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect.