Published in cooperation with Oregon Black Pioneers A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon 1788-1940 remains the most comprehensive chronology of Black life in Oregon more than forty years after its original publication in 1980. The book has long been a resource for those seeking information on the legal and social barriers faced by people of African descent in Oregon. Elizabeth McLagan's work reveals how in spite of those barriers, Black individuals and families made Oregon their home, and helped create the state's modern Black communities. Long out of print, the book is available again through this co-publication with Oregon Black Pioneers, Oregon's statewide African American historical society. The revised second edition includes additional details for students and scholars, an expanded reading list, a new selection of historic images, and a new foreword by Gwen Carr and an afterword by Elizabeth McLagan.

A Peculiar Paradise: Florida Photographs by Nathan Benn focuses on the year 1981, a time when South Florida became notorious as the gateway for narcotics and a destination for Caribbean immigrants, while in other parts of the state, life went on without interruption or conflict. Benn shows us a state that is vibrant and marvelously quirky during a time of gaudy prosperity for some while other Floridians merely sought continuity or struggled desperately for their survival. Often charged with political and social commentary, the photographs take full advantage of Kodachrome film's distinctive color palette. Photographs and narrative are organized into segments covering manifestations of extreme wealth, Little Havana, illegal Caribbean immigration, elderly citizens, quirky flora and fauna, high and low nightlife, Dundee's 5th Street Gym, and the deadly narcotics war. Benn, born and reared in Miami, reveals in his first-person commentary the circumstances surrounding the development of his career and an insider's look at working for National Geographic Magazine during a period of that publication's internal management conflict. A Peculiar Paradise offers an entertaining and subjective volume that reflects Benn's affection for his hometown and celebrates the economic and social re-invention of Florida that eliminated most of what was familiar from his boyhood.

In his bestselling work of “comic sociology,” David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today’s upper class—those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation. Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.

The prolific journey of African Americans in Portland is rooted in the courageous determination of black pioneers to begin anew in an unfamiliar and often hostile territory. By 1890, the majority of Oregon's black population resided in Multnomah County, and Portland became the center of a thriving black middle-class community.

"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.” —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh. This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.

An astonishing story of the mysteries, truths, and deceptions that follow the odyssey of Ahn Gil­mo, a young math savant, as he escapes from the most isolated country in the world and searches for the only family he has left An unidentified body is discovered in New York City, with numbers and symbols are written in blood near the corpse. Gil­mo, a North Korean national who interprets the world through numbers, formulas, and mathematical theories, is arrested on the spot. Angela, a CIA operative, is assigned to gain his trust and access his unique thought-process. The enigmatic Gil­mo used to have a quiet life back in Pyongyang. But when his father, a preeminent doctor is discovered to be a secret Christian, he is subsequently incarcerated along with Gilmo, in a political prison overseen by a harsh, cruel warden. There, Gilmo meets the spirited Yeong-ae, who becomes his only friend. When Yeong-­ae manages to escape, Gil­mo flees to track her down. He uses his peculiar gifts to navigate betrayal and the criminal underworld of east Asia—a world wholly alien to everything he's ever known. In The Boy Who Escaped Paradise, celebrated author J. M. Lee delves into a hidden world filled with vivid characters trapped by ideology, greed, and despair. Gil­mo's saga forces the reader to question the line between good and evil, truth and falsehood, captivity and freedom.