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Katabasis (Standard Edition)

Dante's Inferno meets Susanna Clarke's Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor's soul--perhaps at the cost of their own.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:

The story of a hero's descent to the underworld

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams....

Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.

With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don't even like.

But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn't always the answer, and there's something in Alice and Peter's past that could forge them into the perfect allies...or lead to their doom.

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Wichita Blues

In conversations on regional blues, the traditions of the Mississippi Delta, the Carolina Piedmont, Chicago, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, and Los Angeles are frequently lauded. But until now, little attention has been paid to the Midwest, despite the presence and popularity of blues in these heartland communities. Wichita Blues: Music in the African American Community seeks to address this gap in music history by exploring the lively Wichita blues tradition. In interviews with nineteen African American Wichita blues performers, author Patrick Joseph O'Connor reveals the evolution of the blues from the 1930s to the 1960s and beyond.

Utilizing twenty-five years of fieldwork, Wichita Blues details the history of performance and camaraderie among the musicians of this often-neglected regional sound. The personal interviews offer unique insight into topics that shape Wichita's sound, including how migration from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas brought varied artists to the area and the ways musical traditions cross racial divides and generations. The artists articulate the poetics of the blues and the diverse regional influences that can be detected in their music. In exploring the Wichita blues tradition, O'Connor traces African American history in Kansas, ranging from the Exoduster movement in the late nineteenth century and minstrel shows across the state to Black cowboys and growing urban African American communities in Topeka and Wichita.

Including a foreword by renowned music scholar David Evans, Wichita Blues allows seasoned blues musicians to tell their own stories and paints a picture of the vibrant Black music scene in the city.

From Our Book Clubs

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The Book of Charlie

One of our nation’s most prominent writers discovers the truth about how to live a long and happy life from the centenarian next door in this “original and highly readable account of a splendid American life” (The Wall Street Journal).

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.

David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a “genuinely original, formula-shattering” (Bob Woodward) gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.

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Tangled Up in You

A witty and deeply romantic modern reimagining of Disney's Tangled, by the New York Times bestselling author duo Christina Lauren, part of the acclaimed and bestselling Meant to Be collection.

"I dare you to not fall wildly in love with Ren and Fitz! Christina Lauren as a writing duo is a national treasure." -- Jesse Q. Sutanto, National Bestselling author of DIAL A FOR AUNTIES and VERA WONG'S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS

She has a dream. He has a plan. Together they'll take a leap of faith.

Ren has never held an iPhone, googled the answer to a question, or followed a crush on social media. What she has done: Read a book or two, or three (okay, hundreds). Taught herself to paint. Built a working wind power system from scratch. But for all the books she's read, Ren has never found one that's taught a woman raised on a homestead and off the grid for most of her twenty-two years how to live in the real world. So when she finally achieves her lifelong dream of attending Corona College, it feels like her life is finally beginning.

Fitz has the rest of his life mapped out: Graduate from Corona at the top of his class, get his criminal record wiped clean, and pass himself off as the rich, handsome player everyone thinks he is. He's a few short months from checking off step one of his plans when Ren Gylden, with her cascading blonde hair and encyclopedic brain, crashes into his life, and for the first time Fitz's plan is in jeopardy.

But a simple assignment in their immunology seminar changes the course of both their lives, and suddenly they're thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire on a road trip that will lead them in the most unexpected directions. Out on the open road, the world somehow shifts, and the unlikely pair realize that, maybe, the key to the dreams they've both been chasing have been sitting next to them the whole time.

image for "Ten Hammers" by Liz Archer

Ten Hammers

I’m on a TV show with my ten best friends.
This is our last season, and we’re going out with a bang.
But which one of the ripped, hunky Hammer brothers will I end up with?
Spoiler alert: maybe all ten of them…

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been best friends with my ten neighbors - the Hammer brothers. But when I pitched the idea for a TV show with them to a network, I never expected it to take off like this… now, after years of traveling and fixing up houses together, we’ve reached our final season.

It’s going to be dang hard to say goodbye to the show, and I definitely don’t want to lose my best friends… all of whom I’ve been crushing on since childhood. But maybe this final hurrah means my fantasies will come true?

When we all go back to my childhood home, I quickly become overwhelmed - and overheated - by the Hammer brothers. I mean, nobody could last as long as I have, watching these men’s rock hard bodies, glistening with sweat as they drill… and hammer… and nail.

Our show may be ending, but things are about to get really spicy on set. Because it seems like I’m not the only one crushing. And it’s not just one of the brothers who wants me… not two, four, or six…

But all ten of these gorgeous, hunky, muscular dreamboats seem to want me - a plus size girl who’s been following them around like a puppy for years.

I have to pretend things are cooling down for the cameras, and meanwhile, my life is sizzling hot with tension.

I bet nobody sees the plot twist coming their way…