The hit Oscar winning drama, that launched the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, tells the tale of a headstrong, working-class genius who's failing the lessons of life, until he meets a relatable psychology professor (Robin Williams).
Greed and class discrimination threaten the relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan in Bong Joon Ho's darkly hilarious modern fairytale.
Winner of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Film at the Academy Awards. Winner of Best Foreign Motion Picture – Foreign Language at the Golden Globe Awards. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Alvy Singer is one of Manhattan's most brilliant comedians, but when it comes to romance, his delivery needs a little work. Alvy falls in love with the delightful nightclub singer Annie Hall, but when Alvy's insecurities sabotage the affair, Annie leaves Alvy for a new life. Knowing he may have lost her forever, Alvy's will go to any lengths to recapture Annie's heart.
The classic war drama has been remastered with an extra 49 minutes of footage added. Set during the Vietnam War, a wayward army captain is sent on a mission to assassinate an American colonel who has gone awry.
Based on the novel by James Baldwin, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, is a soulful drama about a young couple fighting for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.
This audacious romantic dramedy from director Sean Baker follows Anora (Mikey Madison), a young woman from Brooklyn, whose impulsive marriage to a Russian oligarch’s son upends her life, drawing both chaos and unexpected self‑discovery amid cultural collisions.
Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Anora went on to triumph at the 97th Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay.
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. An early working title for 8 ½ was "The Beautiful Confusion," and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act.
Winner of two Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (Black and White), and consistently placed in The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll of the ten greatest films of all time.
Hollywood 1927. George Valentin is a very successful silent movie star, but the arrival of talking pictures could mark the end of his career.
Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen bring to the screen Cormac McCarthy's sizzling bestseller with heart stopping thrills. When a man stumbles on a bloody crime scene containing a pickup truck loaded with heroin and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence. Tommy Lee Jones leads a powerful cast that includes Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Woody Harrelson.
When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team - led by expert translator Louise Banks (Academy Award® nominee Amy Adams) – races against time to decipher their intent. As tensions mount between fearful governments, Banks discovers the aliens’ true purpose and, to avert global war, takes a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. Oscar® nominee Jeremy Renner and Academy Award® winner Forest Whitaker co-star in this mesmerizing masterpiece with a mind-blowing ending.
Charlie just discovered he has an autistic brother named Raymond and is taking him on the ride of his life. Or is it the other way around? Raymond first pushes hot-headed Charlie to the limits of his patience and then pulls him completely out of his self-centered world. And what began as an unsentimental journey for the brothers becomes so much more
Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers an Oscar® -winning performance (2006, Best Actor) as Truman Capote, who embarks upon a journey to write the book of a lifetime, "In Cold Blood," based upon the murder of a family in Kansas. Developing a unique relationship with one of the imprisoned murderers (Clifton Collins Jr.), even he wonders if he can write the great book he believes destiny has handed him.
Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, the film adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play takes a passionate look at former baseball player Troy Maxson as he fights to provide for those he loves in a world that threatens to push him down.
Based on the unbelievable but true events, I, TONYA is a dark comedic tale of American figure skater, Tonya Harding, and one of the most sensational scandals in sports history.
Winner of Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role and nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Achievement in Film Editing at the Academy Awards.
Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, an aging silent-film queen, and William Holden, as the struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in SUNSET BOULEVARD. Winner of three Academy Awards, director Billy Wilder's powerful orchestration of this bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic.
From the unforgettable opening sequence - a body found floating in a decayed mansion's swimming pool - through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, SUNSET BOULEVARD is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood.
Winner of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay and nominated for 8 other awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, at the Academy Awards. Winner of Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Director, and Best Actress - Drama (Gloria Swanson) at the Golden Globes. Chosen for preservation by the National Film Preservation Board, USA.
"Still the best Hollywood movie ever made about Hollywood." - Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
During a party given by his parents to celebrate his graduation, Benjamin Braddock is seduced by Mrs. Robinson. Benjamin is shy and inexperienced; Mrs. Robinson is the wife of one of his father's closest friends. They have an affair. But then, Benjamin falls in love with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine. Jealous and angry, Mrs. Robinson does everything to keep the young couple apart.
A searing historical drama set in turn-of-the-century California, this film follows ruthless oil prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he builds an empire through ambition, manipulation, and betrayal. As he clashes with a charismatic young preacher (Paul Dano) in a small frontier town, their battle for power spirals into obsession and madness. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight), the film was nominated for eight Oscars and won two, including Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography.
Three men (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Brent Briscoe) come across a downed plane with a rotting corpse inside…and over $4 million stuffed inside a duffel bag in the snowy Minnesota woods. They devise a plan to split the fortune. Things quickly go wrong, however, dramatically affecting the trio and those around them.
Nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Billy Bob Thornton) and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes.
"…one of the year's best films for a lot of reasons, including its ability to involve the audience almost breathlessly in a story of mounting tragedy.." - Robert Ebert, RobertEbert.com
The story of three women in different times, related only by a parallel in their personal lives. One, present day, throwing a party for a writer friend suffering from AIDS. Another living in 1949 Los Angeles, suffering as a young wife and mother. The last, Virginia Woolf, writing 'Mrs. Dalloway' and contemplating suicide. Based on Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp. A hypnotic and deeply chilling masterpiece from filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (Under the Skin), starring Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel. Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Russian filmmaker Vadim Perelman makes his feature-film debut with the psychological drama House of Sand and Fog, based on the novel by Andre Dubus III. Ben Kingsley plays Massoud Amir Behrani, an Iranian immigrant living the United States. Even though he was a high-ranking official in Iran, he works several menial jobs in order to provide his wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and his son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout), with an apartment in California. He buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send Esmail to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy (Jennifer Connelly). After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer (Frances Fisher) and befriends a police officer (Ron Eldard). Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.
Nominated for 3 Academy Awards.
Winner of both the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro) brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.
With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, Black Orpheus was an international cultural event, and it kicked off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.
In 1970, John Wayne won an Academy Award. for his larger-than-life performance as the drunken, uncouth and totally fearless one-eyed U.S. Marshal, Rooster Cogburn. The cantankerous Rooster is hired by a headstrong young girl (Kim Darby) to find the man who murdered her father and fled with the family savings. When Cogburn's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter, sparks fly. And the situation goes from troubled to disastrous when an inexperienced but enthusiastic Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) joins the party. Laughter and tears punctuate the wild action in this extraordinary Western which features performances by Robert Duvall and Strother Martin.
Alfred Hitchcock directed this classic suspense tale--widely considered one of the master's best works--tapping into the evil that lies hidden just beneath the surface of each of us. When two strangers--tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger), whose wife will not grant him a divorce, and wealthy but deranged young Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who wants to be rid of his father--happen to meet on a train from Washington to New York, the conversation casually turns to a possibly perfect crime: what if each committed a murder for the other? There is nothing to connect the two men. No apparent motive for either killing. When the trip ends, Guy believes the conversation was hypothetical, and that he will never see Bruno again. Then his wife is murdered . . . and Bruno returns for payback.
Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) grow up enduring the harsh training of the Peking Opera Academy, where instructors regularly beat the students to instill in them the discipline needed to master the complex physical and vocal techniques of this ancient art. As the two boys mature, they develop complementary talents: Dieyi, with his fine, delicate features, assumes the female roles while Xiaolou plays masculine warlords. Their dramatic identities become real for Dieyi when he falls in love with Xiaolou, who fails to fully reciprocate his affections and marries a courtesan, Juxian (Gong Li), creating a dangerous, jealousy-filled romantic triangle.
Based on the true story of four outsiders (Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt) who saw what the big banks, media and government refused to: the global collapse of the economy. A bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of banking, where everyone and everything is in question.
Winner of an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and nominated for Best Film. Nominated for four Golden Globes including Best Picture.
"A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, "The Big Short" will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood." - A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Dorothy is a lonely widow whose body is failing, but her mind remains as bright as ever. When 17-year-old JJ accidentally kicks his football into her garden, he upends Dorothy’s daily routine of pills, prunes and crosswords, and an unlikely friendship blossoms. Despite being worlds apart in every way, the two come to find they have more in common than they could ever imagine.
Available to stream on Kanopy.
Set in contemporary Oslo, this sharp romantic comedy follows Julie (Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve), a witty and impulsive woman in her thirties, as she ricochets between careers, lovers, and existential doubts. Torn between the stable, older Aksel and the free-spirited Eivind, she stumbles through a whirlwind of breakups, hookups, and self-reinvention. With bursts of surreal humor and emotional honesty, her search for meaning becomes both chaotic and painfully relatable. Nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards.
2025 AUDIE AWARD: MULTI-VOICED PERFORMANCE WINNER
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Absolutely gripping.” —The Washington Post • “A masterpiece of oral history…stirring, surprising, grim, joyous, moving, and always riveting.” —Evan Thomas
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Pulitzer Prize finalist for Watergate comes the most complete and up-to-date account of D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history and the moment that secured the Allied victory in World War II—featuring hundreds of eyewitness accounts.
June 6, 1944—known to us all as D-Day—is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military triumphs. The surprise sunrise landing of more than 150,000 Allied troops on the beaches of occupied northern France is one of the most consequential days of the 20th century. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff, historian and author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Watergate, brings them all together in a one-of-a-kind, bestselling oral history that explores this seminal event in vivid, heart-pounding detail.
The story begins in the opening months of the 1940s, as the Germany army tightens its grip across Europe, seizing control of entire nations. The United States, who has resolved to remain neutral, is forced to enter the conflict after an unexpected attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. For the second time in fifty years, the world is at war, with the stakes higher than they’ve ever been before. Then in 1943, Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Casablanca to discuss a new plan for victory: a coordinated invasion of occupied France, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Failure is not an option. Over the next eighteen months, the large-scale action is organized, mobilizing soldiers across Europe by land, sea, and sky. And when the day comes, it is unlike anything the world has ever seen.
These moments and more are seen in real time. A visceral, page-turning drama told through the eyes of those who experienced them—from soldiers, nurses, pilots, children, neighbors, sailors, politicians, volunteers, photographers, reporters and so many more, When the Sea Came Alive “is the sort of book that is smart, inspiring, and powerful—and adds so much to our knowledge of what that day was like and its historic importance forever” (Chris Bohjalian)—an unforgettable, fitting tribute to the men and women of the Greatest Generation.
2024 AUDIE AWARD: THRILLER/SUSPENSE WINNER
“Fresh and exhilarating. . . Cosby keeps his eye on the story and the pedal to the metal.” —Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review
“An atmospheric pressure cooker.” —People
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.
Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.
With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.
Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.
Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction” (The Washington Post).
2024 AUDIE AWARD: MULTI-VOICED PERFORMANCE WINNER
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.”*
That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go...
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
“With its beautiful parts that add up to a brilliant whole, No Two Persons made my reader’s heart sing.”—*Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair
2025 AUDIE AWARD: NARRATION BY THE AUTHOR WINNER
From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life.
If it weren't for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010--and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later--she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone.
Emma raised her children not just to survive, but to thrive. In this intimate and heartfelt memoir, Whoopi shares many of the deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time. Growing up in the projects in New York City, there were trips to Coney Island, the Ice Capades, and museums, and every Christmas was a magical experience. To this day, she doesn't know how her mother was able to give them such an enriching childhood, despite the struggles they faced--and it wasn't until she was well into adulthood that Whoopi learned just how traumatic some of those struggles were.
Fans of personal memoirs such as Finding Me by Viola Davis and In Pieces by Sally Field will be touched by Bits and Pieces: a moving tribute from a daughter to her mother, and a beautiful portrait of three people who loved each other deeply. Whoopi writes, "Not everybody gets to walk this earth with folks who let you be exactly who you are and who give you the confidence to become exactly who you want to be. So, I thought I'd share mine with you."
2021 AUDIE AWARD: THRILLER/SUSPENSE WINNER
"If Rear Window and Get Out got married and had a baby that was a book, it would indeed be When No One Is Watching, which takes place in contemporary Brooklyn and combines a page-turning thriller with shrewd social commentary on race, gentrification and greed." -- Seattle Times
Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she's known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community's past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block--her neighbor Theo.
But Sydney and Theo's deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.
When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other--or themselves--long enough to find out before they too disappear?
2020 AUDIE AWARD: MYSTERY WINNER
“A full-throttle thriller in the tradition of classic Stieg Larsson, drenched in atmosphere and charged with adrenaline. Buckle up. You’ll gulp down every word. I loved this book.”—A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
If you find one, he’s already found you.
A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen.
His calling card is a “chestnut man”—a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts—which he leaves at each bloody crime scene.
Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery—a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago.
A tragic coincidence—or something more twisted?
To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues.
Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over.
And no one is safe.
2024 AUDIE AWARD: MYSTERY WINNER
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.
What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?
2024 AUDIE AWARD: ROMANCE WINNER
Sparks fly when a romance writer and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the ultimate Hollywood love story—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script—from the “divine” (Jodi Picoult) New York Times bestselling authors of Love and Other Words and The Unhoneymooners.
Felicity “Fizzy” Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.
Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?
Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work but when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.
“Full of big laughs, a few tears, and some seriously steamy scenes” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in the New York Times bestselling The Soulmate Equation.
2023 AUDIE AWARD: BEST MALE NARRATOR WINNER
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.
Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
King’s storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy—and his dog—must lead the battle.
Early in the Pandemic, King asked himself: “What could you write that would make you happy?”
“As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city—deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn’t know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell.”
2021 AUDIE AWARD: NON-FICTION WINNER
The harrowing story of the most destructive American wildfire in a century.
There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, California. On November 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swallowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. The catastrophe seared the American imagination, taking the front page of every major national newspaper and top billing on the news networks. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold.
Fire in Paradise is a dramatic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police, and scientific experts. Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano are California-based journalists who have reported on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are intimate and unforgettable, including the local who left her home on foot as fire approached while her 82-year-old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. Gee and Anguiano also explain the science of wildfires, write powerfully about the role of the power company PG&E in the blaze, and describe the poignant efforts to raise Paradise from the ruins.
This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devastating global shift—of a remarkable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also the story of a lost community, one that epitomized a provincial, affordable kind of Californian existence that is increasingly unattainable. It is, finally, a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Paradise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again.
2022 AUDIE AWARD: AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER; SCIENCE FICTION WINNER
HUGO AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: Bill Gates, GatesNotes, New York Public Library, Parade, Newsweek, Polygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“An epic story of redemption, discovery and cool speculative sci-fi.”—USA Today
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.
And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.
Or does he?
An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
2023 AUDIE AWARD: AUTOBIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR WINNER
From Billy Porter, the incomparable Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award winner, Unprotected is a powerful and revealing autobiography about race, sexuality, art, and healing.
"Bold, hilarious, honest, and singular. Unprotected is a record of survival, commitment to authenticity, and healing; a road map out of hell." --Leslie Odom Jr.
Billy Porter is a multitalented, multifaceted treasure at the top of his game, and Unprotected is a resonant, inspirational story of trauma and healing, shot through with his singular voice.
It's easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy.
Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic Emmy-winning performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the groundbreaking Tony and Grammy award-winning star of Broadway's Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, director, and all-around legend, Porter was a young boy in Pittsburgh who was seen as different, who didn't fit in.
At five years old, Porter was sent to therapy to "fix" his effeminacy. He was endlessly bullied at school, sexually abused by his stepfather, and criticized at his church. Porter came of age in a world where simply being himself was a constant struggle.
Unprotected is the story of a boy whose talent and courage opened doors for him, but only a crack. It is the story of a teenager discovering himself, learning his voice and his craft amid deep trauma. And it is the story of a young man whose unbreakable determination led him through countless hard times to where he is now; a proud icon who refuses to back down or hide.
Billy Porter's Unprotected is the life story of a singular artist and survivor in his own words.
2021 AUDIE AWARD: FANTASY WINNER; BEST FEMALE NARRATOR WINNER
Three-time Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N.K. Jemisin crafts her most incredible novel yet, a "glorious" story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six.
"A glorious fantasy." --Neil Gaiman
2021AUDIE AWARD: FICTION WINNER
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
2024 AUDIE AWARD: FICTION WINNER
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers.
"Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." --The Guardian
In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.