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THE REAL ONES

Rupert argues that while “authenticity is supposed to [be freeing], for some…it stands in the way of freedom.” Drawing on her background as a presidential campaign manager and adviser and her lived experience as a Black woman, Rupert reveals how authenticity actually operates as a barrier to both equality and inclusion. While running former San […]

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MIGRANT MIDWEST

Burkham, professor of human geography at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and a self-described “Midwesterner by birth and disposition,” makes the case for immigration as a way to stave off the impacts of population decline in the Midwest. Outmigration, lower fertility rates, an aging baby boom cohort, and low rates of immigration have led to “demographic winter”—where […]

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SPEAK OF THE DEVIL

One month after Samhain, Younwity Hidden Institute of Witchcraft is still afflicted by the dark spell Lilith cast on school grounds, and even the Coven can’t fix things. The recently formed magical fissure is causing significant tremors and weird occurrences, like monsoons in the dining hall. Abigail and her friend Noreen continue to be bullied […]

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DARKENING SONG

Eva, an 18-year-old intern at London-based Low Slang Records, wants to break into the A&R side of the music industry but spends her days fetching coffee for higher-ups who won’t give her the time of day. Then she finds 16-year-old Alora Storm-Jones. When Eva comes across a video of Alora singing, she’s transfixed by her […]

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TELL ME WHERE IT HURTS

Zoffness, a clinical psychologist, here debunks many common beliefs about pain—those held by the general public and doctors alike. For starters, Zoffness bemoans that “for a variety of reasons, many to do with our profit-driven healthcare system, pain medicine remains rooted in the antiquated biomedical model. We continue to be treated as disconnected body parts, […]

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ALL THAT CHANDNI KNOWS

The Indian government has a family-planning slogan: “Hum do hamare do”—literally “two of us, two of ours,” or “[Mom + Dad] + [Kid 1 + Kid 2].” So why does 12-year-old Chandni’s household number five, with Diya Masi, her maternal aunt, living under the same roof? Neither Chandni nor her older brother, Suraj, ever asks; […]

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WHERE TYRANNY BEGINS

In a hard-hitting book characterized by careful research and documentation, two-time Pulitzer winner Rohde, author of In Deep and Endgame, delineates how the Trump White House violated well-established post-Watergate norms about judicial conduct, upending and devaluing the work of the DOJ. The trajectory of the successful attempts to sway judicial philosophy started in the first […]

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THANKS FOR THIS RIOT

The stories in this collection plumb the performance of womanhood. Daughters, wives, girlfriends, and caretakers writ large reflect on their prescribed familial roles, their bodies, their professions, or their solitude with dry wit. Broken into three sections—“External Riots: Threats and Violence,” “Internal Riots: Secrets and Lies,” and “Laugh Riots: Growing and Trying”—the book grapples with […]

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OUR CONGRESS

Left to her own devices while Mom takes care of official business, Alice finds a series of friendly tour guides—including the specters of a cat, James Madison, and Blanche Bruce, the first Black senator to serve a full term—who take her around the building and fill her in on the party and electoral systems, the […]

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THE MONEY TRAP

Sama opens with a scenario worthy of a Matt Damon hero: threatened with blackmail by an unnamed bad guy, he connects with two ex-Mossad agents in downtown London who deliver the news that “there is a conspiracy to remove you from your job” and demand a cool million bucks to make it go away. Go […]