We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Short Nights Of The Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis

“A vivid exploration of one man’s lifelong obsession with an idea . . . Egan’s spirited biography might just bring [Curtis] the recognition that eluded him in life.” ​— ​The Washington Post

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous portrait photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. But when he was thirty-two years old, in 1900, he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.

Curtis spent the next three decades documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty North American tribes. It took tremendous perseverance  ​— ​ ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him to observe their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Curtis would amass more than 40,000 photographs and 10,000 audio recordings that would redefine the history of photography, and he is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian.

How did one man with a grade-school education create the most definitive archive of a people?

  • A Man of Contradictions: Discover Edward Curtis, the famed society photographer and friend to presidents who sacrificed his career to spend three decades living among more than eighty tribes.
  • American West History: Go inside the monumental effort to create a 20-volume, 40,000-photograph, and 10,000-audio-recording masterpiece of American Indian life.
  • An Advocate’s Journey: Witness the profound transformation of a detached observer into an outraged advocate for the people he set out to document.
  • Perilous Fieldwork: From persuading the Hopi to allow him to witness their secret Snake Dance ceremony to navigating unforgiving landscapes, follow a story of tremendous perseverance.

More Adult, YA Books

  • "In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."--The New Yorker

  • In Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond explores the paradox of poverty in one of the wealthiest nations, revealing how affluent Americans contribute to the plight of the poor while benefiting from systemic inequalities. Through a blend of historical analysis and original reporting, Desmond argues for a collective effort to address poverty and envisions a future where shared prosperity and true freedom are attainable for all.

    Read More about "Poverty, by America"...

  • A stunning visual homage to Black bookstores, featuring a selection of shops around the country alongside essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces embody, with an original foreword by Nikki Giovanni. Black literature is perhaps the most powerful, polarizing force in the modern American zeitgeist. Today—as Black novels draw authoritarian ire, as Black memoirs shape public debates, as Black polemics inspire protest petitions—it’s more important than ever to highlight the places that center these stories: Black bookstores. Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People explores a these spaces, chronicling these Black bookstore’s past and [...]

  • Velma Wallis shares the love, loss, and struggle that mark her coming of age in a two-room cabin at Fort Yukon, Alaska, where she is born in 1960.