Cher: The Memoir, Part One

After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her true story in intimate detail, in a two-part memoir.

Her remarkable career is unique and unparalleled. The only woman to top Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades, she is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, and an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who has been lauded by the Kennedy Center.

From Under the Truck: A Memoir by Josh Brolin

From Josh Brolin, a unique and decidedly un-celebrity memoir, by turns affecting, funny, uncanny, and unforgettable.

Weaving a latticework of different strands, moving back and forth through time, Josh Brolin captures a life marked by curiosity, pain, devotion, kindness, humor. He recounts an unconventional childhood far from Hollywood. Raised on a ranch in Paso Robles, California, he was surrounded as a child by the wolves, cougars, and other wild animals gathered by his fearless and explosive mother, Jane Agee Brolin. Her tragic, early death haunts this book, and the force of her unforgettable personality is felt throughout. Brolin also brings to life his career in the film industry—from his breakout role in The Goonies to the set of No Country for Old Men—and the professional and personal ups and downs in between and since. With unflinching honesty but also great humor, he shares insights into relationships, addiction, love, and fatherhood, while letting the white space in between words speak for itself. Grappling with the mysteries of life and death in a way that will catch readers by surprise, From Under the Truck is an audacious and riveting memoir from a born writer.

Growing Up Urkel by Jaleel White

At the tender age of twelve, Jaleel White auditioned for the role of Steve Urkel, the socially inept genius, who was in love with his next-door neighbor, Laura.

Though Steve Urkel was intended to be in only one episode, Jaleel’s indelible performance catapulted Urkel into the pantheon of American pop culture. But success can cost as much as it pays. After nine years on the popular sitcom Family Matters, Jaleel is twenty-one, a UCLA undergrad, and adjusting to a world and industry that sees him as the nasally nerd in high water pants, suspenders, and coke bottle glasses.

In this wise and witty memoir, Growing Up Urkel takes you on a memorable journey through the peaks, valleys, and plateaus of fame and fortune.

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi

Christmas is just around the corner, and Ronja and Melissa’s dreamer of a father is out of work again. When ten-year-old Ronja hears about a job at a Christmas tree stand near where the family lives in central Oslo, she thinks it might be the stroke of luck they all need. Soon, the fridge fills with food, and their father returns home with money in his pocket and a smile on his face. But one evening he disappears into the night under the pretense of buying Christmas gifts—and the daughters know he has gone to his favorite local pub, Stargate, and they come to terms with the fact that he may lose his wonderful new job.

Melissa decides to take his place at the Christmas tree stand, working before and after school in the December afternoon dark, and brings along Ronja, who quickly charms all the middle-class customers. On rare breaks the sisters dream of a brighter place of kindness and plenty, and find help from some of those around them—but both understand that their family structure is a precarious one, and that they are going to need luck and strength to transcend their circumstances.

Dead Air: The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America by William Hazelgrove

On a warm Halloween Eve, October 30, 1938, during a broadcast of H G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, a twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles held his hands up for radio silence in the CBS studio in New York City while millions of people ran out into the night screaming, grabbed shotguns, drove off in cars, and hid in basements, attics, or anywhere they could find to get away from Martians intent on exterminating the human race. As Welles held up his hands to his fellow actors, musicians, and sound technicians, he turned six seconds of radio silence—dead air—into absolute horror, changing the way the world would view media forever, and making himself one of the most famous men in America.

In Dead Air, Willliam Elliot Hazelgrove illustrates for the first time how Orson Welles’ broadcast caused massive panic in the United States, convincing listeners across the nation that the end of the World had arrived and even leading military and government officials to become involved. Using newspaper accounts of the broadcast, Hazelgrove shows the true, staggering effect that Welles’ opera of panic had on the nation. Beginning with Welles’ incredible rise from a young man who lost his parents early to a child prodigy of the stage, Dead Air introduces a Welles who threw his Hail Mary with War of the Worlds, knowing full well that obscurity and fame are two sides of the same coin. Hazelgrove demonstrates that Welles’ knew he had one shot to grab the limelight before it forever passed him by—and he made it count.

Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka

In Bullet Train, underworld operative Ladybug was tasked by his handler Maria with retrieving a suitcase from a high-speed train in Japan. The job did not go according to plan, to the delight of millions of readers and movie fans around the world.

Will the unluckiest assassin in the world find things easier this time around? All he has to do is deliver a painting to a hotel guest, a portrait made by his daughter. Easy enough, except when Ladybug makes the delivery, he realizes that the guest is clearly not the guy in the painting. Then he attacks Ladybug, they fight, and the guest ends up dead. How can such simple jobs always go wrong?

Is She Really Going Out with Him? by Sophie Cousens

Columnist Anna Appleby has left her love life behind after a painful divorce. Who needs a man when she has two kids, a cat, and uncontested control of the TV remote? Besides, she’d rather be single than subject herself to the hell of online dating. But her office rival is vying for her column, and no column means no stable source of income. In a desperate attempt to keep her job, Anna finds herself pitching a unique angle: seven dates, all found offline, chosen by her children.

From awkward encounters to unexpected connections, Anna gamely begins to put herself out there, asking out waiters, the mailman, and even her celebrity crush. But when a romantic connection appears where she least expected it, will she be brave enough to take another chance on love?

Murder in the Ranks by Kristi Jones

Algiers, North Africa, 1943. After her abusive German husband left her for dead and took their daughter with him behind enemy lines, Dottie Lincoln learned that it’s better to be a trained soldier rather than a victim. As a newly minted squad leader in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, she spends her days moving men and materials to the front and her nights attending mandatory dances to boost the morale of the men. Despite the grueling nature of her job, she has found a sanctuary amongst the women in the Army. When Ruth, a member of her squad, is murdered, she’s devastated and determined to get to the bottom of the murder.

Dottie’s company is the first group of American women assigned to a combat theater, and with Ruth’s death, the entire operation is being questioned. Determined to do everything she can to help win the war, bring justice to her friend, and hopefully reunite with her daughter, Dottie must rise to the occasion before the killer strikes again.

Red Sonja: Consumed by Gail Simone

The gutsy, wild, tortured free spirit, forged in pain yet unafraid of life or death, Red Sonja, the famous, fiery She-Devil and barbarian of Hyrkania has never concerned herself with the consequences of her actions. She’s taken what she wanted, from treasure to drink to the companionship of bedfellows. She’s fought who deserved it (and sometimes those who didn’t). And she’s never looked back.

But when rumors start bubbling up from her homeland—rumors of unknown horrors emerging from the ground and pulling their unsuspecting victims to their deaths—and a strange voice begins whispering to her in her sleep, she realizes she may have to return to the country that abandoned her. And finally do the only thing that has ever scared her: confront her past.

Running Out of Air by Lilli Sutton

Evelyn and Sophie, sisters and best friends, were known as one of the climbing world’s strongest teams—but that was before Evelyn had an affair with Sophie’s husband. Now they can’t even be in the same room together. That is, until they’re both offered a mountaineer’s dream: a chance to summit the eight-thousand-meter peak Yama Parvat.

Sophie has been aimless since Evelyn’s betrayal. She hasn’t summited a Himalayan mountain in nearly two years, all the joy drained from the sport for her, and this trek offers a chance to reestablish herself as a top climber before her sponsors withdraw their funding. Evelyn has been happy with Miles since he left Sophie, but guilt continues to shadow her, clouding her judgment and the ability to move forward. Now she’s willing to gamble everything for the chance to be part of the first team to summit this as-yet unclimbed mountain and prove herself a capable leader.

Stranded during a devastating storm on top of the world, Evelyn and Sophie are forced to climb together. Whether or not they make it off the mountain alive hinges on their trust in one another—something lost years ago—as they face down the question of how much they’re willing to sacrifice to get it all back.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

The long-awaited new novel from Haruki Murakami, his first in six years, revisits a Town his readers will remember, a place where a Dream Reader reviews dreams and where our shadows become untethered from our selves. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for these strange post-pandemic times, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

The Collaborators by Michael Idov

Crisscrossing the globe on the way to this shocking revelation are disaffected millennial CIA officer Ari Falk, thrown into a moral and professional crisis by the death of his best asset, and brash, troubled LA heiress Maya Chou, spiraling after the disappearance of her Russian American billionaire father. The duo’s adventures take us to both classic and surprising locales—from Berlin and Tangier to Latvia, Belarus, and an abandoned technopark outside Moscow.

The Half King by Melissa Landers

The Great Betrayal changed everything for the Allied Realm. Long ago, the kingdom’s noble houses rose up against the goddess… and for their treachery, the firstborn of each noble family was cursed. One with perilous beauty. One with destructive knowledge. One with insatiable bloodlust.

But the royal house Mortara received the worst affliction of all. For while the king exists during the day, he fades into nothingness at night…until his twenty-first birthday, when he will be lost to the shadows forever.

Now an acolyte has arrived at court. Like all the second-born children of the Allied Realm, she’s destined to serve the goddess and become a Seer…only Cerise Solon has no gift of foretelling. In fact, she has no magical gift at all.

The Jewel of the Blues by Monica Chenault-Kilgore

Lucille Arnetta Love has always lived on the run. In her family’s traveling band, Lucille was billed as The Little Girl with the Big Voice, belting out gospel hymns and never staying in once place too long–all to keep attention off the real reason the Loves had to flee across America. Unaware of the danger, Lucille dreamed of breaking out of the backwoods and being big enough for Broadway. Nearly eleven years after setting out on the road with her parents, Lucille is finally discovered by Marcus Williams, a young talent manager who whisks her away to chase her dreams.

The big cities aren’t kind to Lucille; no matter how big her voice is, there’s always another act to be compared to. So Marcus rebrands The Little Girl with the Big Voice and sets Lucille up with a band. Once Miss Lucille’s Black Troubadours are formed, no one can hold a candle to them. Together with Big Bobby, Lincoln, and Sweet Mitchell, Miss Lucille and her band become rising stars, moving up the bill and delivering knockout performances at every club and theatre on the circuit.

But as opportunities grow stagnant and the band turns restless, personal demons haunt the Troubadours. Between drinking, gambling, and love affairs, Lucille’s family secret is revealed, and it’s a shock even to her: a decades-old robbery that ended in a suspicious death–and all signs seem to point to her own father as the culprit. Now the thieves from years’ past have caught up with Lucille and are back for revenge…and to collect the money that was never recovered with the body.

The Liberty Scarf: A Story of Three Women, One War, and a Scarf That Binds Them Together by Aimie K. Runyan, J’nell Ciesielski & Rachel McMillan

London: As an ambitious scarf maker, Iris Braxton spends her days surrounded by color and luxury not often seen during the dark days of war that promised to be over by Christmas. That promise has come and gone for three years with still no end in sight and her days continue in a monotony of rations and threads while she spins a dream of becoming Liberty’s first female pattern designer. She hasn’t the time or interest in rakish soldiers, but the temporarily-on-leave Captain Rex Conrad is persistent–and before long his charm wins her over. But war is cruel and all too soon Conrad leaves once more for the Front, but not before vowing to meet again in Strasbourg, France, the most magical of Christmas cities. Iris begins stitching small messages into each of the scarves she makes in hopes that one will find a way into Rex’s hands to let him know she’s thinking of him. And when she receives word that he’s wounded in Strasbourg, she rushes to his side. Along the way, she passes a woman wearing one of her scarves . . .

Maine: Geneviève Tremblay, a French-Canadian immigrant, is a telephone operator living in Lewiston, Maine. Her beau is a member of a prominent family who has helped to Americanize her in a community often unfriendly to Canadians. As part of this effort, she enlists in the US Army Signal Corps to serve as a bi-lingual operator. Along the way, she meets a French officer who makes her question whether losing her identity is too heavy a price for acceptance.

Belgium: Clara Janssens, a Flemish Nurse, and Roman Allaire, an Alsatian violinist, connect in a Brussels palace-turned-hospital far beyond their routine provincial and countryside lives—and the expectations in those towns. Their love of music creates a spark between them, but the destruction of battle and the transient nature of their relationship threatens the bond they have built. Still, the appearance of a kind stranger and the unexpected gift of a treasured scarf bind them long beyond their stolen moments and offer them a future brighter than they could have even hoped.

The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past by Nate DiMeo

Space capsules filled with fruit flies and future senators. A socialite scientist who gives up her glamorous life to follow love and the elusive prairie chicken. A boy genius on a path to change the world who gets lost in the theoretical possibilities of streetcar transfers. An enslaved man who steals a boat and charts a course that leads him to freedom, war, and Congress. A farmer’s wife who puts down her butter churn, picks up the butter, and becomes an international art star. An amusement park glowing at the water’s edge when electric lights are a brand-new thing. This cabinet of curiosities teems with wonder.

For fifteen years, Nate DiMeo has turned to the past to make sense of the way we live today, finding beauty and meaning in history’s dustier corners, holding things up to the light and weaving facts, keen insight, wit, and poignant observation into unforgettable tales. With new stories and treasured favorites from the beloved podcast assembled alongside dynamic illustrations and archival photographs for the first time, enchantment awaits you.

The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War by Jeff Forret

In 1831, the American ship Comet, carrying 165 enslaved men, women, and children, crashed onto a coral reef near the shore of the Bahamas, then part of the British Empire. Shortly afterward, the Vice Admiralty Court in Nassau, over the outraged objections of the ship’s owners, set the rescued captives free. American slave owners and the companies who insured the liberated human cargo would spend years lobbying for reparations from Great Britain, not for the emancipated slaves, of course, but for the masters deprived of their human property.

In a work of profoundly relevant research and storytelling, historian and Frederick Douglass Prize–winner Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet incident—as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the next decade—resulted in the British Crown making reparations payments to a U.S. government that strenuously represented slaveholder interests. Through a story that has never been fully explored, The Price They Paid shows how, unlike their former owners and insurers, neither the survivors of the Comet and other vessels, nor their descendants, have ever received reparations for the price they paid in their lives, labor, and suffering during slavery.

The Serpent and the Wolf by Rebecca Robinson

All her life, Vaasa Kozár has been sharpened into a blade.

After losing her mother—her only remaining parent—to a mysterious dark magic that has since awakened within her, Vaasa is certain death looms. So is her merciless brother, who aims to eliminate Vaasa as a threat to his crown. In one last political scheme, he marries her off to Reid of Mireh, a ruthless foreign ruler, in hopes that he can use her death as a rallying cry to finally invade Reid’s nation. All Vaasa has to do is die.

But she is desperate to live. Vaasa enters her new marriage with every intent to escape it, wielding the hard-won political prowess and combat abilities her late father instilled in her. But to her surprise, Reid offers her a deal: help him win the votes to rise in power, and she can walk free. In exchange, he will share his knowledge about the dark magic running through her veins—and help keep it at bay.

This proposal may be too good to refuse, yet Vaasa and Reid’s undeniable attraction threatens to break the rules of their arrangement. As her brother’s lethal machinations take form, everything is at stake: Vaasa must learn to trust her new husband, but how can she, especially when their perfect political marriage begins to feel like the real thing?

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

The Trunk by Kim Ryeo-ryeong

Meet Noh Inji: almost thirty years old, with five wedding rings and counting, she’s never once been in love.

When Inji first accepted a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service that’s taken Korea by a storm, she never imagined her role would be with NM, their secret marriage division that rents out “husbands” and “wives” to their wealthiest clientele. Just like a real marriage, Inji’s assignments involve a wedding, some sex and a bit of housework, all tailored exactly to the client’s desires and length of time before they go their separate ways – no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage.

After several marriages, Inji has become an old hand. She certainly isn’t interested in finding real love, despite everyone trying to convince her otherwise (her brazen neighbor Granny, her flirtatious best friend Shi-jeong, and her failed blind date, Tae-seong, who won’t take no for an answer).

Then one of Inji’s old husbands, a mysterious high profile music producer, requests her back for another year. Over the course of their marriage, the secrets of Inji’s past begin to unravel – as well as the dark, sinister underbelly of NM’s management team, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation… and their clients…

Time of the Child by Niall Williams

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father’s shadow, and remains there, having missed one chance at love – and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man.

But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy’s lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter’s lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.

Variation by Rebecca Yarros

Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.

As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.

When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever.

Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation by Jim O’Heir

For seven seasons, Leslie Knope and the Parks and Recreation gang charmed millions of viewers with their quirky antics and unwavering positivity. The sitcom continues to be a fan-favorite for streaming services today, nearly a decade after its finale. Now for the first time, Jim O’Heir, who played the lovable Jerry (or, well, Garry/Larry/Terry/Barry, depending on the episode), invites readers back to Pawnee for an exclusive look behind the scenes.

Joined by some of his Parks and Rec pals, including Chris Pratt, Retta, Rob Lowe, and showrunners Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, O’Heir reveals how this “little show that could” came to be, thanks to the tireless dedication and comedic genius of Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, and the rest of the gang. As the show found its footing, the cast quickly bonded into a tight-knit family. Here O’Heir shares all his favorite unforgettable memories both on and off camera, from hilarious unscripted moments and epic dance-offs in the hair and makeup trailers, to iconic birthday parties at Rashida Jones’s house and quiet bonfires in Nick Offerman’s backyard.