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DANCING ON COALS

The author was a child living in the Bahamas when local Bahamians were “rebelling against three hundred years of British domination”; in response, her English mother and stepfather moved the family to Geneva in 1963. There, Moore was enrolled in a finishing school that she found cold, gray, and stodgy. She resolved to make the […]

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CHINA’S QUEST FOR MILITARY SUPREMACY

Wuthnow and Saunders, of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, emphasize that just as the 2008 Olympics marked China’s emergence as a global heavyweight, the recent military demonstrations against Taiwan symbolize a new era for the People’s Liberation Army. It’s stronger, more modern, and more confident today, yet there remain intrinsic flaws that neither technology […]

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THE BOY AND THE BIG WHITE ROCK

In some ways, the author’s childhood was like one long summer at camp—he and his seven siblings were raised on a sprawling 84-acre Community Conservation Corps–built park property his parents bought at the end of the Depression and rehabilitated over the course of the 1940s. The seventh of eight children, Antil enjoyed an idyllic upbringing […]

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THE HEART IS MEAT

Through an unfolding series of raw moods and memories, author Backus transports himself back to 1983, when, as a young man out of college, he’d just arrived in Manhattan from Indiana, driving his dead grandmother’s 1968 Chevy Caprice to work at a pork-packing company with dreams of becoming a writer. His mundane work of meat […]

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A SOLDIER’S LIFE

Cummings, who grew up in a military family, honors the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a division of the WACs, the only Black unit that served overseas. Made up of women of color, with 855 members, its mission was organizing, sorting, and moving out mail to soldiers during World War II. In a segregated army, […]

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THE TALE OF MR. CROCODILE TAKES TEA

The author returns to the world of anthropomorphic animals, this time in a transcontinental adventure that explores what it means to be human—even for members of other species. The story opens in an unnamed African village on the banks of the Sillibilli River, where a family of crocodiles, led by the very large Mr. Crocodile, […]

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THE QUEEN’S MUSICIAN

Mark Smeaton is born into inauspicious circumstances; his father is a poor carpenter, which, for most, would set one’s destiny in stone. However, he’s also a prodigiously talented musician—a composer, singer, and lutenist—and becomes a court musician for the king, who admires his abilities. He impresses Anne Boleyn as well, a beautiful woman of “silken […]

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DAVID HOCKNEY

Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many […]

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JUNAH AT THE END OF THE WORLD

It’s September 1999, and Y2K is on the horizon. On Junah’s first day of sixth grade, his teacher, Miss Meechum, assigns an unusual project: Fill a shoebox “with things that tell what it was like to be alive in Carolina at the end of the world. Your capsule will tell your story.” This is the […]

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MAKING LIGHT BLOOM

Until Clara Driscoll’s letters to her family were found, no one knew that she was responsible for these creations. After studying art and design, Clara moved from her Ohio farm to New York City and was hired by glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany to work on his stained glass windows. He liked her “flair for glass” […]