Almost

Poetry. LGBT Studies. Politics. Ecopoetics. Covers letterpressed by the author. Mycelium is the largest organism on the planet. It is the collective root structure from which all mushrooms emerge. It lives three inches under the ground and can span for thousands of acres. Any of its threads can connect to the collective body at any point. ALMOST ANY SHIT WILL DO pulls language from mycelium studies to investigate the underground of political unrest, from its emergence as riots to the single moment of impact: a body in protest thrown to the ground by the cop. How can we mark the shifting boundary between the individual and the movement in the midst of a riot? It is in the continuous attempt to define these terms that we begin to articulate the utopia that is always already happening, three inches below the surface. "This is the space of the underground, where the intersection evidences the site of violence as a weight that pulls our attention via contours in the grid. Here, the lines bend around the individual and extend that body into the multitude: the movement, ALMOST ANY SHIT WILL DO is a statement of rage, where, when pushed to the edge, we might learn the most from a silent source the ultimate Other." JH Phrydas"

A New York Times Notable Book: “The most engrossing novel I’ve come across in a long time.” —Newsweek Fortysomething Sophy Chase has just begun her new, lighthearted, romantically adventurous life in New York City. But it comes to a screeching halt when she learns that her ex-husband—or technically, her almost-ex-husband, who is also an ex-CIA agent—has been found dead, on the island off of Massachusetts where she left him just months before. Lured back to New England by feelings she thought she’d left behind, Sophy must navigate her grown stepdaughters; a former lover who is now a celebrity lawyer; the mystery of her husband’s death—and her own darkest impulses—in a “novel about death, divorce, exes, lovers and surrogate children on and off a snooty East Coast island. . . . Page-turning suspense that doesn’t skimp on characterization or intelligence” (Publishers Weekly). “Benedict captures finely tuned calibrations of feeling. . . . [She] seems to understand humor’s real function . . . to get us through the day.” —Newsday

From the author of the National Book Award nominee A TANGLE OF KNOTS comes an inspiring novel about figuring out who you are and doing what you love. Albie has never been the smartest kid in his class. He has never been the tallest. Or the best at gym. Or the greatest artist. Or the most musical. In fact, Albie has a long list of the things he's not very good at. But then Albie gets a new babysitter, Calista, who helps him figure out all of the things he is good at and how he can take pride in himself. A perfect companion to Lisa Graff's National Book Award-nominated A Tangle of Knots, this novel explores a similar theme in a realistic contemporary world where kids will easily be able to relate their own struggles to Albie's. Great for fans of Rebecca Stead's Liar and Spy, RJ Palacio's Wonder and Cynthia Lord's Rules. Praise for Lisa Graff's novels Tangle of Knots (nominated for a National Book Award) * "Combining the literary sensibility of E. B. White with the insouciance of Louis Sachar, Graff has written a tangle that should satisfy readers for years to come."--Booklist, starred review Double Dog Dare "Graff's...story is lighthearted and humorous, but honestly addresses the emotions associated with divorce. Her characters' voices, interactions, and hangups are relatable, as they battle each other and adjust to their families' reconfigurations."--Publishers Weekly

From Anne Lamott, the New York Times-bestselling author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Help, Thanks, Wow, comes the book we need from her now: How to bring hope back into our lives "I am stockpiling antibiotics for the Apocalypse, even as I await the blossoming of paperwhites on the windowsill in the kitchen," Anne Lamott admits at the beginning of Almost Everything. Despair and uncertainty surround us: in the news, in our families, and in ourselves. But even when life is at its bleakest--when we are, as she puts it, "doomed, stunned, exhausted, and over-caffeinated"--the seeds of rejuvenation are at hand. "All truth is paradox," Lamott writes, "and this turns out to be a reason for hope. If you arrive at a place in life that is miserable, it will change." That is the time when we must pledge not to give up but "to do what Wendell Berry wrote: 'Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.'" In this profound and funny book, Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. Divided into short chapters that explore life's essential truths, Almost Everything pinpoints these moments of insight as it shines an encouraging light forward. Candid and caring, insightful and sometimes hilarious, Almost Everything is the book we need and that only Anne Lamott can write.

Following the enchanting story recounted in When I Was Puerto Rican of the author’s emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the prestigious Performing Arts High School in Manhattan, Esmeralda Santiago delivers the tale of her young adulthood, where she continually strives to find a balance between becoming American and staying Puerto Rican. While translating for her mother Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York’s prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she begins to defy her mother’s protective rules, only to find that independence brings new dangers and dilemmas.

A new picture book from the hilarious author of the bestselling Dear Dumb Diary series! When Donut the bear is told his story is over and he has to leave, he donut want to do it. After all, he hasn't had a chance to have any fun! Will Donut's sneaky schemes and elaborate disguises be enough to keep his story from ending?Donut's silly antics in this clever picture book from New York Times bestselling author Jim Benton are sure to delight kids who never want their favorite stories toreach The End.

The third book in the Dyamonde Daniels series, by bestselling author Nikki Grimes, is perfect for fans of the Keena Ford, Judy Moody, and Magnificent Mya Tibbs series and includes illustrations by Coretta Scott King honor winner R. Gregory Christie. Dyamonde really wants red high-top sneakers. Too bad they're so expensive! A classmate tells her it's her mom's job to give her what she needs, but when Dyamonde tries that argument, her mom teaches her a lesson by literally only giving her what she needs. Now Dyamonde is down to almost zero outfits! But then she finds out one of her friends has it much worse, and she's determined to do what she can to help.

Lindy and her doll Sally are best friends - wherever Lindy goes, Sally stays right by her side. They eat together, sleep together, and even pick cotton together. So, on the night Lindy and her mama run away in search of freedom, Sally goes too. This young girl's rag doll vividly narrates her enslaved family's courageous escape through the Underground Railroad. At once heart-wrenching and uplifting, this story about friendship and the strength of the human spirit will touch the lives of all readers long after the journey has ended.

Existing in myriad forms, containing multitudes in its reflection, and coursing through each and every one of us, water sustains the world around us--and life itself.

Beginning in the late seventeenth century and concluding with the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, Almost Dead reveals how the thousands of captives who lived, bled, and resisted in the Black Urban Atlantic survived to form dynamic communities. Michael Lawrence Dickinson uses cities with close commercial ties to shed light on similarities, variations, and linkages between urban Atlantic slave communities in mainland America and the Caribbean. The study adopts the perspectives of those enslaved to reveal that, in the eyes of the enslaved, the distinctions were often of degree rather than kind as cities throughout the Black Urban Atlantic remained spaces for Black oppression and resilience. The tenets of subjugation remained all too similar, as did captives’ need to stave off social death and hold on to their humanity. Almost Dead argues that urban environments provided unique barriers to and avenues for social rebirth: the process by which African-descended peoples reconstructed their lives individually and collectively after forced exportation from West Africa. This was an active process of cultural remembrance, continued resistance, and communal survival. It was in these urban slave communities—within the connections between neighbors and kinfolk—that the enslaved found the physical and psychological resources necessary to endure the seemingly unendurable. Whether sites of first arrival, commodification, sale, short-term captivity, or lifetime enslavement, the urban Atlantic shaped and was shaped by Black lives.