Sometimes being the middle girl in a big family is a tight squeeze--just ask Lucy Camden. It can be tough when the older sister is a popular basketball star and the younger sister has a knack for getting her way.

“As Kwai Chang moved through the arid desert of the American West, I would move through the equally desolate ghettos of Brooklyn, and we would each search: he for his family and I for my father. . . .” The middle of three sisters, Pamela is a quiet, thoughtful girl with a huge hole in her life–the space her father used to fill before her mother kicked him out. Occasionally, Pamela conjures up Kwai Chang, David Carradine’s character, from the Western action series Kung Fu, to give her spiritual guidance and advice she would normally turn to her parents for. But with her father gone, her mother has fallen into a pit of confusion and mental disarray. So it is up to Pamela and her sisters, Nona and Theresa, to run the household. When their money runs out, the family must leave their beloved East New York house and move to the projects. It is a change that will alter their lives forever–and even wise Kwai Chang cannot alter their destiny. But as Pamela discovers, “Everyone searches. The real challenge is in the finding and the keeping.” In this powerful literary debut, vividly set in the 1970s, Bonnie Glover has written a marvelous story about a young black woman struggling to define her identity–and make her family whole.

What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist?Astra Taylor, hailed as a “New Civil Rights Leader” by the Los Angeles Times, provides surprising answers. There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, and yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of plutocrats in the White House to gerrymandering and dark-money compaign contributions, it is clear that the principle of government by and for the people is not living up to its promise. The problems lie deeper than any one election cycle. As Astra Taylor demonstrates, real democracy—fully inclusive and completely egalitarian—has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and interviews with such leading thinkers as Cornel West and Wendy Brown, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term. Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if those outcomes, whatever they may be—peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry—can be achieved by non-democratic means? In what areas of life should democratic principles apply? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people? Democracy's inherent paradoxes often go unnamed and unrecognized. Exploring such questions, Democracy May Not Exist offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, why democracy is so hard to realize, and why it is worth striving for.

My name is Grace, not "Kyle's little sister!" Having a good-looking, friendly, outgoing older brother sucks—especially when you're the total opposite, someone who likes staying home and playing video games. Your parents like him better (even if they deny it!), and everyone calls you "Kyle's little sister" while looking disappointed that you're not more like him. I was really hoping I'd get to go to a different middle school, but no such luck. At least I have my friends...until he finds a way to ruin that, too...! Argh! What do I have to do to get out of his shadow?!

"A sexy, emotional, and pitch-perfect romance." —NPR on Lush Money Opposites attract in this rivals-to-lovers romance from Lush Money author Angelina M. Lopez Guapo pobrecito her grandmother calls him. The “poor handsome man.” Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex” Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too. Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the best interest of her family, their community, or the bar’s legacy in mind. To protect all three, he’ll stand up to the tough and tattooed bartender with whom he now shares a bedroom wall—and resist the insta-lust they both feel. But when an old enemy threatens Loretta’s and the surrounding neighborhood, Alex and Jeremiah must combine forces. It will take her might and his mind to save the home they both desperately need. "Sparks fly and tempers flare in this passionate, un-put-downable rivals-to-lovers romance that launches a sizzling new series...Lopez seamlessly blends high-heat romance with discussions of Alex’s heritage and the fascinating history of 19th-century Mexican immigrants to the Kansas plains. This is a treasure." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

You can scramble to the top of most Oregon mountain peaks and this guidebook will show you how