The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.

A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees, offering “extensive insight into the ways in which humans and trees are interconnected” (BookPage), revealing the challenges facing our planet and how scientists are working urgently to save our forests and our future. The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history—from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world’s most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats. Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. When a once-common tree goes extinct in the wild but survives in a botanical garden, what happens next? How can scientists reconstruct lost genomes and habitats? How does a tree store thousands of gallons of water, or offer up perfectly preserved insects from millions of years ago, or root itself in muddy swamps and remain standing? How does a 5,000-year-old tree manage to live, and what can we learn from it? And how can science account for the survival of one species at the expense of others? Twelve Trees “brims with wonder, appreciation, and even some small hope” (Booklist) and is an awe-inspiring story of our world, its past, and its future. Note—species include: * The Lost Tree of Easter Island (Sophora toromiro) * The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) * Hymenaea protera [a fossil tree] * The Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) * East Indian sandalwood (Santanum album) * The Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) * West African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) * The Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) * Olive tree (Olea europaea) * Baobab (Adansonia digitata) * the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) * The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Ex-racetrack journalist Priam Harvey, occupant of the prized "corner stool" at McCull's Tavern, marks the first anniversary of his firing from Sport of Kings magazine and the coincident departure of his girlfriend, Barbara, by doing what he does best: drinking and gambling. Events conspire, however, and when Harvey is pulled off his stool - literally and metaphorically - he is forced to make an important decision about his involvement in the lives of those around him, and, for that matter, in his own life.

When Holly White’s fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime—exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society Margaret Fenwick is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly’s family tree farm. When the murder weapon is revealed as one of the wooden stakes used to identify trees on the farm, Sheriff Evan Grey turns to Holly’s father, Bud, and the Reindeer Games staff. And it doesn’t help that Bud and the reindeer keeper were each seen arguing with Margaret just before her death. But Holly knows her father, and is determined to exonerate him.The jingle bells are ringing, the clock is ticking, and if Holly doesn't watch out, she'll end up on Santa's naughty list in Twelve Slays of Christmas, Jacqueline Frost’s jolly series debut.

Helen Twelvetrees, Perfect Ingenue Rediscovering a 1930s Movie Star and Her 32 Films At her peak, Helen Twelvetrees was leading lady to legends like John Barrymore and Spencer Tracy. Other early co-stars who were billed below her included Joan Blondell, John Wayne, and Clark Gable. Twelvetrees broke out in Her Man (1930) and affirmed her stardom in Millie (1931). Her ten-year Hollywood career is highlighted by a run of starring roles in pre-Code era melodramas, but Helen Twelvetrees kept working long after movie audiences had forgotten her. She lost momentum for a variety of reasons. External factors such as typecasting, studio anarchy, and Production Code enforcement, combined with an independent attitude that spurred inconvenient headlines and whispers of temperament are among those that kept her career from progressing. At her peak she chose to follow natural impulses and start a family, but in terms of her career, her pregnancy couldn't have come at a worse time. When she returned to the screen it was with a new studio, and the types of films she was known for were not as popular as they had been before her maternity leave. Afterward, time itself may have been Helen Twelvetrees' greatest enemy: one can only remain an ingenue for so long. Helen Twelvetrees, Perfect Ingenue is one-half biography, one-half film retrospective. Presented here are the life, loves, and career of an unexpectedly modern woman. An extensive collection of notes supports corrections and new findings about Twelvetrees, including her accurate birth-date and a previously unreported marriage, while also supplying additional background about each of her thirty-two movies: the good, the bad, and the lost. Foreword by Dan Van Neste, author of The Whistler: Stepping Into the Shadows. Illustrated with still photographs from the author's personal collection.

“The Bean Trees is the work of a visionary. . . . It leaves you open-mouthed and smiling.” — Los Angeles Times A bestseller that has come to be regarded as an American classic, The Bean Trees is the novel that launched Barbara Kingsolver’s remarkable literary career. It is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a three-year-old Native American girl named Turtle along the way, and together, from Oklahoma to Arizona, half-Cherokee Taylor and her charge search for a new life in the West. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in seemingly empty places. This edition includes a P.S. section with additional insights from the author, background material, suggestions for further reading, and more.