"A rediscovered treasure." — Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post From Betty Smith, author of the beloved classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, comes a poignant story of love, marriage, poverty, and hope set in 1920s Brooklyn. Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life. Her goals are simple—to find a husband, have children, and live in a nice home—one where her children will never know the terror of want or the need to hide from quarreling parents. When she meets Frankie Malone, she thinks her dreams might be fulfilled, but a devastating loss rattles her to her core and challenges her life-long optimism. As she struggles to come to terms with the unexpected path her life has taken, Margy must decide whether to accept things as they are or move firmly in the direction of what she truly wants. Rich with the flavor of its Brooklyn background, and filled with the joys and heartbreak of family life, Tomorrow Will Be Better is told with a simplicity, tenderness, and warmhearted humor that only Betty Smith could write.

“A brave, powerful memoir” (People) that will change the way we look at identity and equality in this country, from the activist elected as the first openly transgender state senator in U.S. history “The energy and vigor Sarah has brought to the fight for equality is ever present in this book.”—Vice President Kamala Harris “If you’re living your own internal struggle, this book can help you find a way to live authentically, fully, and freely. . . . Let it show that we are all created equal and entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”—President Joe Biden, from the foreword Before she became the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention in 2016 at the age of twenty-six, Sarah McBride struggled with the decision to come out—not just to her family but to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president. She’d known she was a girl from her earliest memories, but it wasn’t until the Facebook post announcing her truth went viral that she realized just how much impact her story could have on the country. Four years later, McBride was one of the nation’s most prominent transgender activists, walking the halls of the White House, advocating inclusive legislation, and addressing the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. She had also found her first love and future husband, Andy, a trans man and fellow activist, who complemented her in every way . . . until cancer tragically intervened. Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds. As McBride urges: “We must never be a country that says there’s only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live.” The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun.

Experience the poverty of backstreet Bombay(now Mumbai) and the strong family bonds that make a young boy's life bearable. Learn about arranged marriages and Eastern religion, and how a father's words can inspire great achievement. See America through the wide-eyed wonder of a young man experiencing, for the first time, things most westerners take for granted, such as a spring mattress, a hot shower, and fast food restaurants. The simple, engaging prose of this memoir puts the reader in the middle of each vibrant scene, feeling, touching, and hoping as the characters face life's challenges.

How does a young German who has been a perfunctory member of the Hitler Youth & has competed in Nazi-organized athletic competitions become, in the space of two years, an eighty-pound, tuberculosis-stricken concentration camp escapee? In this larger-than-life memoir, Walter Meyer leads readers from one harrowing moment to the next as he recounts his experiences during & after Hitler's reign. After a brief membership in the Hitler Youth, Meyer rebelled by joining a relatively harmless subversive group that focused its efforts on pranks against the local SS. During World War II, he was thrown in jail for stealing shoes, receiving a sentence of one to three years. The sixteen-year-old Meyer's refusal to conform to prison regulations resulted in his spending a good deal of time in solitary confinement for foiled escape attempts. Unbeknownst to his family, Meyer's fiery spirit eventually landed him in a Nazi work camp. Transported to Ravensbruck, he was forced to work under grueling conditions in a quarry. He developed tuberculosis. Against the advice of others, he revealed his illness to the camp doctor. Knowing he would soon deteriorate & die in the camp, he again plotted his escape. This time he succeeded. Upon returning home to Dusseldorf, Meyer lamented the pallor that had spread throughout the town & the country itself. After recovering his health, he regained his youthful lust for adventure. Meyer began a whirlwind odyssey, ducking into train cars & stowing away on ships, occasionally landing in jail for traveling without a passort-from France to Spain, Belgium to Holland, & finally to South America-in pursuit of something other than the aftermath of war. Meyer's memoir gives insight into the climate in Germany during World War II & in the defeated nation after the war. His experience as a non-Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps provides an enlightening & varied perspective to the Holocaust dialogue.

If you've ever wondered whether it's you or the world that has gone mad, then this book will confirm your suspicions. And, no, it's not you!

A true story of love and one family's triumph over the horrors of WW II.

In this magically evocative novel, William Maxwell explores the enigmatic gravity of the past, which compels us to keep explaining it even as it makes liars out of us every time we try. On a winter morning in the 1920s, a shot rings out on a farm in rural Illinois. A man named Lloyd Wilson has been killed. And the tenuous friendship between two lonely teenagers—one privileged yet neglected, the other a troubled farm boy—has been shattered. Fifty years later, one of those boys—now a grown man—tries to reconstruct the events that led up to the murder. In doing so, he is inevitably drawn back to his lost friend Cletus, who has the misfortune of being the son of Wilson's killer and who in the months before witnessed things that Maxwell's narrator can only guess at. Out of memory and imagination, the surmises of children and the destructive passions of their parents, Maxwell creates a luminous American classic of youth and loss.