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.

Story of the conflicting feelings of love and jealousy that exist between a high school senior and her two popular and beautiful sisters.

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.

‘I was captivated... What a stunning story of sisterhood, sacrifice and forgiveness!’ Lana Kortchik, USA Today bestselling author of Sisters of War

A NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Jane fans rejoice! . . . Exceptional storytelling and a true delight." —Helen Simonson, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before the War Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own. What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice? What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters? This is the plot of Janice Hadlow's The Other Bennet Sister, a debut novel with exactly the affection and authority to satisfy Jane Austen fans. Ultimately, Mary’s journey is like that taken by every Austen heroine. She learns that she can only expect joy when she has accepted who she really is. She must throw off the false expectations and wrong ideas that have combined to obscure her true nature and prevented her from what makes her happy. Only when she undergoes this evolution does she have a chance at finding fulfillment; only then does she have the clarity to recognize her partner when he presents himself—and only at that moment is she genuinely worthy of love. Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters. It does not involve broad acres or landed gentry. But it does include a man; and, as in all Austen novels, Mary must decide whether he is the truly the one for her. In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary is a fully rounded character—complex, conflicted, and often uncertain; but also vulnerable, supremely sympathetic, and ultimately the protagonist of an uncommonly satisfying debut novel.