"Christian Cooper is a self-described Blerd (Black nerd), an avid comics fan, and an expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City.When birdwatching in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old. But when a routine encounter with a dog-walker...

The first major biography of one of our most influential but least known activist lawyers that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century.
Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST •  Named a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate, and People
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023
“Brave and nuanced . . . an act of tremendous compassion and a literary triumph.” —The New York Times
“Immensely emotional and...

Margaret Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as Editorial Director for the last 6. She first made her name in gardening, writing a classic gardening book among other things. She now has a hugely popular gardening blog, "A Way to Garden." But despite the financial and professional rewards of her job, Margaret felt unfulfilled. So she moved to her weekend house upstate in an effort to lead a more authentic life by connecting...

One of The New Yorker's "Books We Loved in 2017" "Arbitrary Stupid Goal is a completely riveting world-when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life." -Miranda July In Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich Village of her bohemian childhood, a funky, tight-knit...

In a newspaper career spanning decades, Jimmy Breslin covered the stories that he knew mattered most: the human stories beyond the front page. From the JFK assassination, to the Son of Sam killings, mafia heists, the Crown Heights riots, and the Occupy movement, Breslin's influential columns captured the lifebeat of the second half of the twentieth century. A quintessential New Yorker, Breslin rubbed shoulders with world leaders and neighborhood arsonists,...

“They say comedy equals tragedy plus time: This very funny account of an often miserable childhood is proof.” —People
“What a strong, funny, heartbreaking memoir, with a voice that is completely its own (written by a woman who very much seems to be completely her own, as well.) I loved it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love
 
An...

The true story of the New York society couple portrayed in the John Singer Sargent painting-an architect and an heiress who became passionate reformers. Contemporaries of the Astors and Vanderbilts, they grew up together along the shores of bucolic Staten Island, linked by privilege-her grandparents built the world's fastest clipper ship, while his family owned most of Murray Hill. Theirs was a world filled with mansions, balls, summer homes, and...