“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you! You should be grateful that you were adopted.” Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors. She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily.

Healing isn't possible, though, without first uncovering the hurts—starting with adoption's central players: adoptees, who are so often in pain, suffering from what the latest brain science validates as the long-term emotional effects of separation trauma. By encouraging others to vulnerably share their stories, the authors discover that adoptees aren't the only ones in the adoption constellation who are hurting. Birth parents regularly shut down after being shut out by adoptive parents.

Dr. Peter H. Kim, the world’s leading expert in the rapidly growing field of trust repair, has conducted over two decades of groundbreaking research to answer that question. In How Trust Works, he draws on this research and the work of other social scientists to reveal the surprising truths about how relationships are built, how they are broken, and how they are repaired. Dr. Kim’s work shows how we are often more trusting than we think and how easily our trust in others can be distorted.

Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook. As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life.

To catch a Florida Man, you have to become one, and that’s what Officer Jeff Babauta did. As his ponytailed, whiskey-soaked alter ego, he established Sunshine Alligator Farm. His goal? Infiltrate the shady world of illegal poachers in the Florida Everglades in order to protect the natural world. A head-spinning adventure soon unfolds.

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research.

Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear. Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism.

The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.

When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a glorified personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.

They were granddaughters of Queen Victoria and two of the most beautiful princesses in Europe. Princesses Alix and Ella were destined to wed well and wisely. But while their grandmother wants to join them to the English and German royal families, the sisters fall in love with Russia—and the Romanovs.

The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy today: a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift.

This is a spectacular story of error and innovation, a wild ride from a vision to the realization of an iconic cultural landscape. It reflects the park’s uniqueness, but just as strongly that of the man who built it with a watchmaker’s precision, an artist’s conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.

Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.

On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored.

Healing isn't possible, though, without first uncovering the hurts—starting with adoption's central players: adoptees, who are so often in pain, suffering from what the latest brain science validates as the long-term emotional effects of separation trauma. By encouraging others to vulnerably share their stories, the authors discover that adoptees aren't the only ones in the adoption constellation who are hurting. Birth parents regularly shut down after being shut out by adoptive parents.

In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade.

The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.

“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you! You should be grateful that you were adopted.” Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors. She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily.

Can writing your story save your life? I should have come with a manual. My parents thought they were getting one thing when they adopted me - a baby of their own - when what they got was a human being with a story of her own. As a child, I traded safety for silence. As an adult, I had no idea who I was, why I quit nearly everything I started, why I struggled with things that came more easily to my friends (jobs, relationships, finances, self-esteem), why I seemed hell-bent on throwing myself away.

The Child Catchers is a shocking exposé of what the adoption industry has become and how it got there, told through deep investigative reporting and the heartbreaking stories of individuals who became collateral damage in a market driven by profit and, now, pulpit command. Anyone who seeks to adopt - of whatever faith or no faith, and however well-meaning - is affected by the evangelical adoption movement, whether they know it or not. Joyce reveals with great sensitivity and empathy why, if we truly care for children, we need to see more clearly.

The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame. With warmth and candor, Sherrie Eldridge reveals the 20 complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love.

Children who have been adopted and/or shuttled through the foster-care system experience trauma at a much higher rate than other kids, which can make it difficult for them to trust, relax, regulate their emotions, and connect with their new families. As a parent, learning how to heal attachment trauma, attune to your child's needs, identify triggers, and create felt safety is essential to providing the loving, supportive, and stable home they need to thrive. Written for parents of adopted and foster kids of all ages, this book offers resources for handling common concerns.

The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family - and addressing their special needs - requires care, consideration, and compassion.

Adopting or fostering a child brings its own unique set of challenges only another parent facing the same uphill climb could possibly understand. From parenting children with traumatic pasts, to dealing with attachment issues, to raising a children with special needs, it can sometimes be a struggle just getting through the day. Mike Berry knows the loneliness and isolation you can easily feel in your particular parenting role - because he's been there.

Joining the ranks of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, a former caseworker’s searing, clear-eyed investigation of the child welfare system—from foster care to incarceration—that exposes the deep-rooted biases shaping the system, witnessed through the lives of several Black families.

If you're the White parent of a transracially or internationally adopted child, you may have been told that if you try your best and work your hardest, good intentions and a whole lot of love will be enough to give your child the security, attachment, and nurturing family life they need to thrive. The only problem? It's not true. What White Parents Need to Know About Transracial Adoption breaks down the dynamics that frequently fly under the radar of the whitewashed, happily-ever-after adoption stories we hear so often.

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.

Renée DiResta’s powerful, original investigation into the way power and influence have been profoundly transformed reveals how a virtual rumor mill of niche propagandists increasingly shapes public opinion. While propagandists position themselves as trustworthy Davids, their reach, influence, and economics make them classic Goliaths—invisible rulers who create bespoke realities to revolutionize politics, culture, and society. Their work is driven by a simple maxim: if you make it trend, you make it true.

In this unique book, the reader is provided with a description of the unfolding of the adoptee's personality from birth, detailing each developmental milestone along the way, followed by different methods of healing the adoptee's wounds, including inner child work, visualizations, healing affirmations, and anger management. Every chapter includes a Myths and Realities of adoption section, a summary of the chapter and exercises to do one's own.