Raya and the last dragon by 
Text Me When You Get Home by
'Text me when you get home.' After joyful nights out together, female friends say this to one another as a way of cementing their love. It's about safety; but more than that, it's about solidarity. Journalist Kayleen Schaefer relays her journey of modern female friendship from a new sociological perspective: from being a competitive teenager to trying to be one of the guys in the workplace to ultimately awakening to the power of female friendship and the soulmates, girl squads, and chosen families that come with it.
You Ought to Do a Story about Me by
In 1990, while covering a story about homelessness for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Ted Jackson encountered a drug addict sleeping under a bridge. After snapping a photo, Jackson woke the man. Pointing to the daily newspaper by his feet, the homeless stranger looked the photojournalist in the eye and said, "You ought to do a story about me." When Ted asked why, he was stunned by the answer. "Because, I've played in three Super Bowls." That chance meeting was the start of Ted's thirty-year relationship with Jackie Wallace, a former NFL star who rose to the pinnacle of fame and fortune, only to crash and lose it all. Getting to know Jackie, Ted learned the details of his life, and how he spiraled into the "vortex of darkness" that left him addicted and living on the streets of New Orleans. Ted chronicles Jackie's life from his teenage years in New Orleans through college and the NFL to the end of his pro career and the untimely death of his mother--devastating events that led him into addiction and homelessness. Throughout, Ted pays tribute to the enduring friendship he shares with this man he has come to know and also look at as an inspiration. But Ted is not naïve; he speaks frankly about the vulnerability of such a relationship: Can a man like Jackie recover, or is he destined to roam the streets until his end? Tragic and triumphant, inspiring and unexpected, You Ought to Do a Story About Me offers a rare glimpse into the precarious world of homelessness and the lingering impact of racism and poverty on the lives of NOLA's citizens. Lyrical and evocative, Ted's account is pure, singular, and ambitious--a timeless tale about loss, redemption, and hope in their multifarious forms. "This book will melt your heart. The story of Jackie Wallace is an unforgettable tale of hope, grace, and the miracle of the human spirit. Ted Jackson writes with searing honesty and deep love for a troubled man who started as his subject and became his lifelong friend."--Jonathan Eig, bestselling author of Ali: A Life and Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Beyond the Miracle Worker by
After many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she, along with other historians and biographers, had failed Anne Sullivan Macy. While Macy is remembered primarily as Helen Keller’s teacher and mythologized as a straightforward educational superhero, the real story of this brilliant, complex, and misunderstood woman, who described herself as a “badly constructed human being,” has never been completely told. Beyond the Miracle Worker, the first biography of Macy in nearly fifty years, complicates the typical Helen-Annie “feel good” narrative in surprising ways. By telling the life from Macy’s perspective—not Keller’s—the biography is the first to put Macy squarely at the center of the story. It presents a new and fascinating tale about a wounded but determined woman and her quest for a successful, meaningful life. Born in 1866 to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants, the parentless and deserted Macy suffered part of her childhood in the Massachusetts State Almshouse at Tewksbury. Seeking escape, in love with literature, and profoundly stubborn, she successfully fought to gain an education at the Perkins School for the Blind. As an adult, Macy taught Keller, helping the girl realize her immense potential, and Macy’s intimate friendship with Keller remained powerful throughout their lives. Yet as Macy floundered with her own blindness, ill health, and depression, as well as a tumultuous and triangulated marriage, she came to lean on her former student, emotionally, physically, and economically. Based on privately held primary source material, including materials at both the American Foundation for the Blind and the Perkins School for the Blind,Beyond the Miracle Workeris revelatory and absorbing, unraveling one of the best known—and least understood—friendships of the twentieth century.
The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom by
"A delicate and heartbreaking mystery story...Thorpe's book is a reminder that in an era of nativism, some Americans are still breaking down walls and nurturing newcomers, the seeds of the great American experiment." --The New York Times Book Review "The teens we meet have endured things none of us can imagine...and [this book has] never been more crucial than at this moment." --USA TODAY "Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature." --Malcolm Gladwell From the award-winning, "meticulously observant" author of Soldier Girls and Just Like Us comes a powerful and moving account of how refugee teenagers at a public high school learn English and become Americans, in the care of a compassionate teacher. The Newcomers follows the lives of twenty-two immigrant teenagers throughout the course of the 2015-2016 school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado. These newcomers, from fourteen to nineteen years old, come from nations convulsed by drought or famine or war. Many come directly from refugee camps, after experiencing dire forms of cataclysm. Some arrive alone, having left or lost every other member of their original family. At the center of their story is Mr. Williams, their dedicated and endlessly resourceful teacher of English Language Acquisition. If Mr. Williams does his job right, the newcomers will leave his class at the end of the school year with basic English skills and new confidence, their foundation for becoming Americans and finding a place in their new home. Ultimately, "The Newcomers reads more like an anthropologist's notebook than a work of reportage: Helen Thorpe not only observes, she chips in her two cents and participates. Like her, we're moved and agitated by this story of refugee teenagers...Donald Trump's gross slander of refugees and immigrants is countered on every page by the evidence of these students' lives and characters" (Los Angeles Review of Books). With the US at a political crossroads around questions of immigration, multiculturalism, and America's role on the global stage, Thorpe presents a fresh and nuanced perspective. The Newcomers is "not only an intimate look at lives immigrant teens live, but it is a primer on the art and science of new language acquisition and a portrait of ongoing and emerging global horrors and the human fallout that arrives on our shores" (USA TODAY).
Black, White, and the Grey by
Food brings people together, but can it help heal the racial divide? At The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, a rising-star black woman chef and a food-obsessed white businessman are equal partners who're breaking barriers--one plate at a time. A story about the trials and triumphs of a Black chef from Queens, New York, and a White media entrepreneur from Staten Island who built a relationship and a restaurant in the Deep South, hoping to bridge biases and get people talking about race, gender, class, and culture. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GARDEN & GUN . "Black, White, and The Grey blew me away."-David Chang In this dual memoir,MashamaBailey andJohn O.Morisano take turns telling how they went from tentative business partners to dear friends while turning a dilapidated formerly segregated Greyhound bus station intoThe Grey, nowone of the most celebrated restaurants in the country. Recounting the trying process of building their restaurant business, they examine their most painful and joyous times, revealing how they came to understand their differences, recognize their biases, and continuously challenge themselves and each other to be better. Through it all, Bailey and Morisano display the uncommon vulnerability, humor, and humanity that anchor their relationship, showing how two citizens commit to playing their own small part in advancing equality against a backdrop of racism.
Dissident Friendships by 
Veteran Friendships across Lifetimes : Brothers and Sisters in Arms by 
I'll Push You by 
