In this enchanting first novel, an irrepressibly optimistic oddball orphan is thrust into the wilds of postwar New York City after an extraordinary childhood in a theater—Candide by way of John Irving, with a hint of Charles Dickens. Abandoned as an infant by his actress mother in her theater dressing room, August March was raised by an ancient laundress. Highly intelligent, a tad feral, August is a true child of the theater –able to recite Shakespeare before he knew the alphabet. But like all productions, August’s wondrous time inside the theater comes to a close, and he finds himself in the wilds of postwar New York City, where he quickly rises from pickpocket street urchin to star student at the stuffiest boarding school in the nation. To survive, August must rely upon the kindness of strangers, only some of whom have his best interests at heart. As he grows up, his heart begins to yearn for love—which he may or may not finally find in Penny, a clever and gifted con artist. Aaron Jackson has crafted a brilliant, enchanting story at once profound and delightfully entertaining. Like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The World According to Garp, and Be Frank with Me, this razor-sharp debut—a classic tale of a young innocent who finally finds his way, reminds us that everyone can find love. Even August March.

Wildly original, funny and moving, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is an extraordinary story of a life lived again and again from World Fantasy Award-winning author Claire North. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message." This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

2016 NAACP Image Award Winner An award-winning journalist reveals a little-known and shameful episode in American history, when an African man was used as a human zoo exhibit—a shocking story of racial prejudice, science, and tragedy in the early years of the twentieth century in the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Devil in the White City, and Medical Apartheid. In 1904, Ota Benga, a young Congolese “pygmy”—a person of petite stature—arrived from central Africa and was featured in an anthropology exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Two years later, the New York Zoological Gardens displayed him in its Monkey House, caging the slight 103-pound, 4-foot 11-inch tall man with an orangutan. The attraction became an international sensation, drawing thousands of New Yorkers and commanding headlines from across the nation and Europe. Spectacle explores the circumstances of Ota Benga’s captivity, the international controversy it inspired, and his efforts to adjust to American life. It also reveals why, decades later, the man most responsible for his exploitation would be hailed as his friend and savior, while those who truly fought for Ota have been banished to the shadows of history. Using primary historical documents, Pamela Newkirk traces Ota’s tragic life, from Africa to St. Louis to New York, and finally to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he lived out the remainder of his short life. Illuminating this unimaginable event, Spectacle charts the evolution of science and race relations in New York City during the early years of the twentieth century, exploring this racially fraught era for Africa-Americans and the rising tide of political disenfranchisement and social scorn they endured, forty years after the end of the Civil War. Shocking and compelling Spectacle is a masterful work of social history that raises difficult questions about racial prejudice and discrimination that continue to haunt us today.

National Book Award Winner! This deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today. It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments — and his own chilling role in them. Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, M. T. Anderson's extraordinary novel takes place at a time when American Patriots rioted and battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they would never claim. The first of two parts, this deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today.

Twelve-year old Raybert and his best friend Palmer share a deep relationship in a North Carolina mill town in 1968, as they both struggle with unstable parents and a growing mistrust for adults.

“...propulsive and compelling...a gripping [story].” — New York Times Book Review “Beautifully subtle. . . . It draws the reader in page after page.” — Boston Globe “Astonishing Splashes of Colours is a brave and startling book, tinted, shaded and stained like life itself.” — Philadelphia Inquirer “This finely constructed novel, Booker Prize (shortlist), should please readers of both popular and literary fiction.” — Library Journal (starred review) “Wellington, a memorable heroine, narrates “Astonishing Splashes of Color,” a terrific debut novel by British writer Clare Morrall.” — Buffalo News “An extraordinary, gripping novel written with no sentimentality. A wonderful piece of writing” — Professor John Carey, Chair of the Man Booker Prize “A heart-breaking and accomplished debut.” — Bookseller (London) “An extremely good first novel: deceptively simple, subtly observed, with a plot that drags you forward like a strong current.” — Daily Mail (London) “A moving novel about loss, and particularly lost children” — The Guardian (UK) “A core of truth, suffused with a golden glow, becoming more pleasurable the more [it] wander[s].” — San Francisco Chronicle “Equally dangerous and endearing, ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR is a poignant tour through the many moods of loss.” — Laurie Fox, author of The Lost Girls “Astonishing Splashes of Color commands us from the first page...” — Jacquelyn Mitchard “This finely constructed novel, Booker Prize (shortlist), should please readers of both popular and literary fiction.” — Library Journal “An inprobably uplifting novel about depression and its sources.” — Independent (UK) “Absorbing and sure-footed first novel...extremely well written and cimpulsively readable...a genuinely solid and satisfying work of fiction.” — Sunday Times (London)

When he and his tutor escape to British-occupied Boston, Octavian learns of Lord Dunmore's proclamation offering freedom to slaves who join the counterrevolutionary forces. 75,000 first printing.