29 Best books for 21 year olds

Expert motivator, a fitness virtuoso and a self-empowerment guru Stacey Griffith, SoulCycle Senior Master Instructor, shows you how to take your health and fitness to new levels while using that same energy to boost your emotional and spiritual wellbeing in all aspects of your life.

In Two Turns From Zero, Stacey Griffith, one of the iconic faces of the wildly popular SoulCycle, has helped thousands reshape their bodies, while also becoming their best selves–physically, mentally, and emotionally. Stacey firmly believes that every one of us can be an athlete. Focusing on four key concepts–Eat, Love, Train, and Repeat–this is her life handbook that provides a blueprint for feeling healthy, happy, and empowered. Stacey offers conditioning advice, nutrition counseling, visualizations for achieving your goals, and moving meditations for staying centered. Most important, she shows you how to locate your greatest sense of purpose that will take you to the highest levels of performance–and sustain you to weather life’s inevitable challenges.

Two Turns from Zero is also Stacey’s personal story–a chronicle of endurance that is as motivating as her workout routine. At one time, Stacey was directionless and, by her own account, an overall unsuccessful human being. But she finally realized she wanted more from life–she needed to find meaning. Giving up alcohol, drugs, and partying, she dedicated her life to fitness–a journey of discovery she uses in her book to motivate others to make the most of their own lives.

This gifted instructor is beloved for her ability to inspire and push her students to achieve their ultimate center. In Two Turns from Zero, she shows how we can all achieve our personal peak.

In this fascinating audiobook, an expert on terrorism and an expert on counterterrorism answer the two questions everyone is asking about the rise of terrorism today: why is this happening, and when will it end?

Since the death of bin Laden in 2011, ISIS has risen, al-Qaeda has expanded its reach, and right-wing extremists have surged in the United States for the same simple reason: terrorism works. It’s not caused by psychosis or irrationality, as the media often suggests. Instead, it’s terrifyingly logical. Violent acts produce political results.

To show why, Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall explore the history, rationales and precepts of terrorism, from the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, through the terror campaigns by Irish and Indian nationalists, and to the Nazis and Italian Fascists.

To explain why terror is on the rise again, they show how the American invasion of Iraq created the conditions for the emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, part of which metastasized into ISIS, while Russia’s increasing intervention in Syria allowed both of the organizations to evolve.

The Future of Terrorism brings reason to a topic usually ruled by fear. Laqueur and Wall show the structural features behind contemporary terrorism: how bad governance abets terror; the link between poverty and terrorism; why religious terrorism is more dangerous than secular; and the nature of supposed “lone wolf” terrorists.

Fear alone provides no tools to combat the future of terrorism. This audiobook does.

A New York Times Bestseller

The world’s leading intellectual offers a probing examination of the waning American Century, the nature of U.S. policies post-9/11, and the perils of valuing power above democracy and human rights

In an incisive, thorough analysis of the current international situation, Noam Chomsky argues that the United States, through its military-first policies and its unstinting devotion to maintaining a world-spanning empire, is both risking catastrophe and wrecking the global commons. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the expanding drone assassination program to the threat of nuclear warfare, as well as the flashpoints of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine, he offers unexpected and nuanced insights into the workings of imperial power on our increasingly chaotic planet.

In the process, Chomsky provides a brilliant anatomy of just how U.S. elites have grown ever more insulated from any democratic constraints on their power. While the broader population is lulled into apathy–diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable–the corporations and the rich have increasingly been allowed to do as they please.

Fierce, unsparing, and meticulously documented, Who Rules the World? delivers the indispensable understanding of the central conflicts and dangers of our time that we have come to expect from Chomsky.

Life is cheap on the poor side of town. For more than two decades, young black kids have been disappearing from Richmond’s East End. No bodies have ever been found, and the missing boys haven’t received much attention from police or the media. When the uncle of the latest missing kid takes matters into his own hands and holds the daily newspaper’s publisher hostage in the paper’s lobby, Willie Black gets involved, and things start to change.

The world’s oldest night cops reporter knows something about the inequities of race and income. When Sam McNish, a crusader for social justice who grew up in the same hardscrabble Oregon Hill neighborhood as Willie, is arrested shortly after a child’s body is discovered, the police start making the case that McNish has been the demonic force behind all the boys’ disappearances.

Willie, after working the traps he’s developed from his too-many years as a reporter, isn’t so sure.

As Willie teases out the real story, he manages to antagonize his publisher and the city’s power structure as well as police chief L.D. Jones, but experience has taught him that the more people he angers, the closer he probably is to the truth. Along the way, he forms a strange alliance with Big Boy Sunday, a dangerous man who exhibits a strong interest in seeing that Willie finds the truth–although Willie will learn that Big Boy wants parts of that truth to remain hidden.

“Better and more comprehensive than any prior account. . . . Those of us who lived through those days will find the book cathartic; those rising generations who were too young to remember 9/11, or who weren’t yet born, will find it revelatory.” –John Farmer, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission and author of The Ground Truth

“With his rigorous research and moral clarity, Mitchell Zuckoff has provided us with an invaluable service. He has deepened our understanding of what happened on 9/11 and recorded the voices of the victims and the survivors. What’s more, he has ensured that we never forget.” –David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon

Years in the making, this spellbinding, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting narrative is an unforgettable portrait of 9/11

This is a 9/11 book like no other. Masterfully weaving together multiple strands of the events in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Fall and Rise is a mesmerizing, minute-by-minute account of that terrible day.

In the days and months after 9/11, Mitchell Zuckoff, then a reporter for the Boston Globe, wrote about the attacks, the victims, and their families. After further years of meticulous reporting, Zuckoff has filled Fall and Rise with voices of the lost and the saved. The result is an utterly gripping book, filled with intimate stories of people most affected by the events of that sunny Tuesday in September: an out-of-work actor stuck in an elevator in the North Tower of the World Trade Center; the heroes aboard Flight 93 deciding to take action; a veteran trapped in the inferno in the Pentagon; the fire chief among the first on the scene in sleepy Shanksville; a team of firefighters racing to save an injured woman and themselves; and the men, women, and children flying across country to see loved ones or for work who suddenly faced terrorists bent on murder.

Fall and Rise will open new avenues of understanding for everyone who thinks they know the story of 9/11, bringing to life–and in some cases, bringing back to life–the extraordinary ordinary people who experienced the worst day in modern American history.

Destined to be a classic, Fall and Rise will move, shock, inspire, and fill hearts with love and admiration for the human spirit as it triumphs in the face of horrifying events.

“[Narrator Robert Petkoff] is a steady performer whose measured pacing allows each subject’s story to unfold naturally against the background of Leland’s personal inquiry. A particular highlight comes at the very end, when listeners get a chance to hear the actual voices of some of the men and women who have shared the lessons of their lives.” – AudioFile Magazine

This program includes original recordings of interviews from the New York Times series

Based on the popular New York Times series, life-changing wisdom from an unexpected source: America’s oldest old

In 2015, the award-winning New York Times journalist John Leland set out to meet some of the city’s oldest inhabitants for a series on America’s fastest-growing age group: those over eighty-five. Leland was at a crossroads in his own life. His marriage had fallen apart, and at fifty-five, he was alone for the first time. He was also caring for his elderly mother, whose main desire was to die. He understood aging, like many of us do, as nothing more than the relentless deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. He wondered: Is there a threshold at which life is no longer worth living?

But the six elders Leland interviewed took him in a different direction. Beyond illuminating what it’s like to be old, physically and materially, they provided a life-changing education in resilience and joy. They had lived long enough to master the art of living, and they shared their wisdom generously. Leland did not anticipate all that he would learn, nor did he anticipate the popularity of the series: Its following grew to nearly half a million online views for the finale, plus print readers.

Happiness Is a Choice You Make, based on the series, is a rare, intimate glimpse into the end of life, and the insight that can enhance the years preceding. What he finds is deeply heartening: Even as our faculties decline, we still wield extraordinary influence over the quality of our lives. Happiness is a choice we make.

Learn how to live from those who have mastered the art

Improve your memory, sharpen your mind, and change your life–at any age!

As we age, our memories become unreliable; we misplace things and forget details. In Ultimate Memory Magic, memory expert Jim Karol shows that these side effects of aging are not inevitable. His memory-boosting system, called “Cogmental Intelligence,” goes beyond preserving mental acuity and actually enhances memory and mental function through lifestyle changes and mental exercises. Concentration, alertness, and focus can all be strengthened–by anyone, at any age. Karol’s cutting-edge program will show readers how to:

– Sharpen their thinking and regain their mental edge
– Live healthier, mentally and physically
– Clear away negativity and stress
– Become more creative and innovative

A former steel worker who suffered from ill health, Karol used this method to transform his own life. Now he is physically healthy and renowned for his unparalleled memory. His incredible feats of memory and mentalism have been featured on The Tonight Show, The Ellen Show, Today, and more. Karol has used his Cogmental Intelligence method with clients from professional athletes to business leaders and speaks at venues around the world, from MIT to the Pentagon.

With a foreword written and read by bestselling author and physician Daniel G. Amen, Ultimate Memory Magic will allow listeners of any age to hone their minds, strengthen their memories, and transform their lives.

In the companion to her acclaimed So Done, Paula Chase follows best friends Simp and Rollie as their friendship is threatened by the pressures of basketball, upcoming auditions, middle school, and their growing involvement in the local drug ring.

Dough Boys is a memorably vivid story about the complex friendship between two African American boys whose lives are heading down very different paths. For fans of Jason Reynolds’s Ghost and Rebecca Stead’s Goodbye Stranger.

Deontae “Simp” Wright has big plans for his future. Plans that involve basketball, his best friend, Rollie, and making enough money to get his mom and four younger brothers out of the Cove, their low-income housing project.

Long term, this means the NBA. Short term, it means being a dough boy–getting paid to play lookout and eventually moving up the rungs of the neighborhood drug operation with Rollie as his partner.

Roland “Rollie” Matthews used to love playing basketball. He loved the rhythm of the game, how he came up with his best drumbeats after running up and down the court. But playing with the elite team comes with extra, illegal responsibilities, and Rollie isn’t sure he’s down for that life. The new talented-and-gifted program, where Rollie has a chance to audition for a real-life go-go band, seems like the perfect excuse to stop being a dough boy. But how can he abandon his best friend?

Paula Chase explores universal themes of friendship and budding romance, while also exploring complex issues that affect many young teens. Full of basketball, friendship, and daily life in a housing project, this universal story is perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds’s Track series, Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ghost Boys, and Chris Crutcher.

SEARCHING FOR EMMA SPA

En busca de Emma is the moving story of two fathers that overcame all obstacles to bring their daughter into this world. A personal story of the building of a 21st century family. A universal story of love. This is the first book from the Editor-in-Chief of People en Espanol.

As the Editor-in-Chief of People en Espanol, the highest circulated Spanish-language magazine in the USA, Armando Correa knows a thing or two about glitz, celebrity, and glamour. Yet, missing from his life was the family he so yearned to create; the family that thanks to science, patience, and the most supportive community possible, he was finally able to bring into existence in his beautiful daughter Emma.

Using the trying, and costly, method of finding a surrogate to give birth to his daughter, readers come to know just how difficult a process it is for anyone wanting to become a parent. Blessed with a long-term partner, we see Armando’s hopes dashed time and again when the pregnancy fails to take. Until finally, the pregnancy does take, and their lives become filled with the expectations all parents feel (layered with nervousness, fear, absolute love) when their unborn baby is on the way.

The book is at once a beautiful and timely story told from the perspective of a man who always wanted to become a father, and whose understanding that his family may not be considered traditional in some circles, is in part the fuel that drives him.

#1 New York Times bestselling author!

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.

That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.

Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here–it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story – but far, far more monsters.

It’s the week before Christmas, and Eric is already bored with his vacation. His parents have to work, his friends are out of town, and the city is snowed under. Then he opens his apartment door for an exterminator, and is dragged into the adventure of his life. Anje Gabrail carries a crossbow and lives for his work. When he discovers a rat in the basement of Eric’s apartment building, he asks the boy to help him kill it. At first Eric agrees, after all, he doesn’t have anything better to do. But as the week progresses, Eric finds himself in a fight to save not only the rat but himself as well. Avi delivers an unusual story full of the magic of Christmas. Narrator Jeff Woodman’s stirring rendition perfectly captures both Eric’s confusion and his growing sense of purpose as he confronts an angel in a most unlikely form.

A director and screenwriter, Jessie Nelson and writing partner Karen Leigh Hopkins have created a sparkling tale that will touch young listeners’ hearts and tickle their funny bones. Zach has been hoping and hoping for a new dog, but when he finally gets one, Larry isn’t exactly the kind of canine Zach had in mind. Larry is a mutt! And a strange-looking mutt at that! But there’s something about Larry that Zach doesn’t know. When Larry wags his tail, magic happens.

Author Kathleen Van Cleve delivers a promising debut with this magical novel. Eleven-year-old Polly Peabody lives on a farm like no other. It rains every Monday at 1:00 p.m., the crops taste like chocolate, the bugs can communicate, and Polly’s best friend is a rhubarb plant named Harry. But when the weekly downpours stop, and Polly’s brother grows ill, she must figure out how to make it rain again-or her family’s future could be destroyed. “Cleve’s debut is emotionally subtle and action packed with a highly memorable setting.”-Publishers Weekly

Corey Mead’s The Lost Pilots is the saga of two star crossed pilots who soar to the greatest heights of fame, tailspin into scandal and crime, and go the ultimate lengths for a chance at redemption.

During the height of the roaring twenties, Jessie Miller longs for adventure. Fleeing a passionless marriage in the backwaters of Australia, twenty-three-year-old Jessie arrives in London and promptly falls in with the Bright Young Things, those gin-soaked boho-chic intellectuals draped in suits, flapper dresses, and pearls. At a party Jessie meets Captain William Lancaster, married himself and fresh from the Royal Air Force, with a scheme in his head to become as famous as Charles Lindbergh, who has just crossed the Atlantic. Lancaster will do Lindy one better: fly from London to Melbourne, and in Jessie Miller he’s found the perfect co-pilot.

Within months the two embark on a half-year journey across the globe, hopping from one colonial outpost to the next. But like world records, marriage vows can be broken, and upon their landing in Melbourne Jessie and William are not only international celebrities, but also deeply in love.

Yet the crash of 1929 catches up to even the fastest aviator, and the couple finds themselves in dire straits at their rented house on the outskirts of Miami – the bright glare of the limelight fading quickly.To make ends meet Jessie agrees to write a memoir, and picks the dashing Haden Clarke to be her ghostwriter. It’s not long before this toxic mix of bootleg booze and a handsome interloper leads to a shocking crime, a trial that rivets and scandalizes the world, and a reckless act of abandon to win back former glory.

The Lost Pilots is an extraordinary true story, brought to vivid life by Corey Mead. Based on years of research, and full of adventure, forbidden passion, crime, scandal and tragedy, it is a masterwork of narrative nonfiction that firmly restores one of aviation’s leading female pioneers to her rightful place in history.

Praise for The Lost Pilots:

“The tale of two intrepid aviators who got caught in a sordid scandal… How the pair ended up in a Miami courtroom is the subject of Mead’s colorful, fast-paced narrative, a tale of ambition, betrayal, lust, and devotion…A brisk, entertaining history of daring and passion.” — Kirkus

Children around the world have long enjoyed the adventures of Cam Jansen, the pint-sized sleuth with the photographic memory. In this amusing addition to the series, Cam and her friends are holding a talent show to entertain the residents of the senior center. Everyone is having a blast with the jokes, tricks, juggling, and especially the treats from Ken’s Bake Shop. But then a wedding cake disappears from Ken’s truck-and the ceremony is only a few hours away! It will take Cam’s remarkable memory to solve this sweet case.

Are you ready for some of the most exciting, death-defying escape stories ever told? The fourth installment in the Great Escapes series is here–perfect for fans of the I Survived series!

December 13, 1920. It was a typical Monday morning when three US Navy officials boarded a hot air balloon for an easy, routine training flight. But as evening came, heavy rain and wind knocked Lieutenants Louis Kloor, Stephen Farrell, and Walter Hinton off course, eventually forcing a crash landing deep within the snowy Canadian wilderness.

As the men searched for salvation, they were overcome by freezing temperatures, starvation, and fatigue. To survive this harrowing experience, the brave military officers would have to go up against their greatest enemies yet–desperation and despair.

From reluctant reader to total bookworm, each book in this page-turning series–featuring fascinating bonus content and captivating illustrations–will leave you excited for the next adventure!

“Narrator Andrea Burns is amazing! Her performance of NEW YORK TIMES editor Jacobs’s charming, well-researched look at the life of actor Elaine Stritch (19252014) is at once intelligent, amusing, and illuminating…Wonderfully entertaining listening.” — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

The ebullient, troubled life of a Broadway legend who became a heroine to a younger generation

Still Here is the first full telling of Elaine Stritch’s life. Rollicking but intimate, it tracks one of Broadway’s great personalities from her upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to her fateful move to New York City, where she studied alongside Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur, and Harry Belafonte. We accompany Elaine through her jagged rise to fame, to Hollywood and London, and across her later years, when she enjoyed a stunning renaissance, punctuated by a turn on the popular television show 30 Rock. We explore the influential–and often fraught–collaborations she developed with Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, and above all Stephen Sondheim, as well as her courageous yet flawed attempts to control a serious drinking problem. And we see the entertainer triumphing over personal turmoil with the development of her Tony Award-winning one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which established her as an emblem of spiky independence and Manhattan life for an entirely new generation of admirers.

In Still Here, Alexandra Jacobs conveys the full force of Stritch’s sardonic wit and brassy charm while acknowledging her many dark complexities. Following years of meticulous research and interviews, this is a portrait of a powerful, vulnerable, honest, and humorous figure who continues to reverberate in the public consciousness.

A heartbreaking novel that offers no easy answers, Give a Boy a Gun addresses the growing problem of school violence. Although it is a work of fiction, it could tragically be the leading nightly news story in any community. After a high school shooting at her alma mater, a college journalism student returns home to interview students, teachers, parents, and friends of the suspects. Intermingled with her interviews are journal entries written by the two troubled boys responsible for the shooting. Their journals chronicle years of systematic abuse at the hands of their classmates and follow the boys’ frustration and pain as they turn to rage. Give a Boy a Gun explores every angle and raises tough questions about peer bullying, gun control and accountability. A full cast of narrators’ voices add a dramatic reality to this provocative work.

Blown helplessly off course by a sudden gale, 14-year-old Andy Galloway is washed ashore on Admiralty Island, an immense wilderness known as the “Fortress of the Bears.” As he struggles to survive, Andy discovers an unlikely ally in a large dog running with a pack of wolves. The dog leads Andy to food-but also to the strange cave of a mysterious, and almost certainly dangerous, hermit. The award-winning author of Far North captures all the beauty and danger of Alaska in this exciting story of survival and discovery.

This program includes a prologue and epilogue read by the author.

From New York Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, comes the definitive audiobook biography of Robin Williams – a compelling portrait of one of America’s most beloved and misunderstood entertainers.

From his rapid-fire stand-up comedy riffs to his breakout role in Mork & Mindy and his Academy Award-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture and politics while mixing in personal revelations – all with mercurial, tongue-twisting intensity as he inhabited and shed one character after another with lightning speed.

But as Dave Itzkoff shows in this revelatory biography, Williams’s comic brilliance masked a deep well of conflicting emotions and self-doubt, which he drew upon in his comedy and in celebrated films like Dead Poets Society; Good Morning, Vietnam; The Fisher King; Aladdin; and Mrs. Doubtfire, where he showcased his limitless gift for improvisation to bring to life a wide range of characters. And in Good Will Hunting he gave an intense and controlled performance that revealed the true range of his talent.

Itzkoff also shows how Williams struggled mightily with addiction and depression – topics he discussed openly while performing and during interviews – and with a debilitating condition at the end of his life that affected him in ways his fans never knew. Drawing on more than a hundred original interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as extensive archival research, Robin is a fresh and original look at a man whose work touched so many lives.

Meet Max Crumbly in this series from #1 New York Times bestselling Dork Diaries author Rachel Rene e Russell!

Max Crumbly is about to face the scariest place he’s ever been: South Ridge Middle School.

There’s a lot that’s great about his new school, but there’s also one big problem–Doug, the school bully whose hobby is stuffing Max in his locker. If only Max could be like the hero in his favorite comics. Unfortunately, Max’s uncanny, almost superhuman ability to smell pizza from a block away won’t exactly save any lives or foil bad guys.

But that doesn’t mean Max won’t do his best to be the hero his school needs!

From the creator of the bestselling series The Last Kids on Earth, this hilarious middle grade adventure follows a young boy thrust into the world of selling hot dogs in space!

Over the course of one very strange night, Cosmoe went from being an adventure-seeking, thirteen-year-old Earthling orphan to a hot-dog-slinging space traveler. He has all the adventure he once craved and more aboard the Neon Wiener–part spaceship, part food truck–selling their trademark “Galactic Hot Dogs.”

Cosmoe and the rest of the crew journey to food competitions across the universe serving up the wildly popular wieners…until they gain a troublesome stowaway. The half-evil, half-awesome Princess Dagger doesn’t plan on going anywhere, and her presence on the ship means her all-evil mother is gunning for the Neon Wiener.

Cosmoe rallies his friends to fight space jerks in all their many forms and vows to protect the princess. But can a group of hot dog enthusiasts face down an evil space queen?

Brothers from different mothers, bromancing history to save us from Trump.

These are the continuing adventures of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, time traveling superheroes in search of a brighter future for America.

Moments after the inauguration of our 45th President, best friends Barack Obama and Joe Biden were escorted to a secret lab run by the world’s greatest scientists. They were asked to take off all their clothes and hold very still in a fetal position until they felt a painful tingling sensation. Then they vanished. They would awake to find themselves apart, and inside their younger bodies–driven to find each other and change history for the better. Their faithful guide on this journey is Samuel L. Jackson, a brilliant actor from the present who appears in the form of an augmented reality that only they can see and hear. And thus, they find themselves leaping through time, striving to right injustice wherever they find it, looking for a world which they can proudly call home.

This audiobook is a love letter to cheesy science fiction and the two men who can still be counted on to inspire us–an adventure that will melt your snowflake brain and give you hope for humanity at the same time.

A. D. Jameson celebrates the triumph of geekdom in I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing, an insightful and irreverent journey through the science fiction, fantasy, and superhero pop-culture cinematic icons whose legions of fans have put them at the top of the box office over and over.

Star Wars, Marvel superheroes, The Lord of the Rings–properties that were once supposedly the domain of socially maladroit youth have become mainstream entertainment, enjoyed by enormous audiences and by more than a few film critics too. But there are those commentators who have decried the way in which serious adult cinema has seemingly vanished, with Hollywood dominated by mindless kiddie fare such as tent-pole-event movies, franchises, and endless remakes and reboots.

As a lifelong geek, A. D. Jameson blasts through the cliches that have always surrounded pop-culture phenomena: that fans are mindless followers who will embrace all things Spider-Man, regardless of quality; or that the popularity and financial success of nerd cinema represents the death of ambitious film-making. Instead, he makes a case for why genre films are worthy of serious critical attention–and shares his thoughts on where their true flaws lie.

Shining a new light on beloved classics, and exploding misconceptions as to their historical and intellectual value, I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing explores how the geek inherited the earth.

From New York Times bestselling author Molly Knox Ostertag and critically acclaimed illustrator Xanthe Bouma comes an all-new Dungeons & Dragons graphic novel series!

Middle school is a dungeon… At least, that’s how Jess sees it.

Luckily, she and her best friend Olivia know how to escape into the sprawling worlds of their own imaginations. The two friends have always loved making up stories, first with little kid games of make-believe, and more recently with the fantasy roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. When they play, Olivia runs the game as Dungeon Master and Jess is the solo party member, playing a take-no-prisoners, lone-wolf fighter of her own design named Sir Corius.

But when Olivia wants to add new players to their group, Jess finds herself struggling to share their game–and her best friend. Will their epic campaign withstand all this change, or has their adventure–and their friendship–finally come to an end?

Inspired by the groundbreaking A History of the World in 100 Objects, this book draws on the unique collections of The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, to chronicle the evolution of video games, from Pong to first-person shooters, told through the stories of dozens of objects essential to the field’s creation and development.

Drawing on the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s unmatched collection of video game artifacts, this fascinating history offers an expansive look at the development of one of the most popular and influential activities of the modern world: video gaming.

Sixty-four unique objects tell the story of the video game from inception to today. Pithy, in-depth essays examine each object’s significance to video game play–what it has contributed to the history of gaming–as well as the greater culture.

A History of Video Games in 64 Objects explains how the video game has transformed over time. Inside, you’ll find a wide range of intriguing topics, including:

• The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons–the ancestor of computer role-playing games
• The Oregon Trail and the development of educational gaming
• The Atari 2600 and the beginning of the console revolution
• A World of Warcraft server blade and massively multiplayer online games
• Minecraft–the backlash against the studio system
• The rise of women in gaming represented by pioneering American video game designers Carol Shaw and Roberta Williams’ game development materials
• The prototype Skylanders Portal of Power that spawned the Toys-to-Life video game phenomenon and shook up the marketplace
• And so much more!

A panorama of unforgettable anecdotes and factoids, A History of Video Games in 64 Objects is a treasure trove for gamers and pop culture fans. Let the gaming begin!

From New York Times bestseller Rory Feek, one half of the singing duo Joey+Rory, comes The Cow Said Neigh!, a fun and humorous tale of farm animals who wish they were like the other animals . . . which leads to a farm-full of confusion! Children will laugh out loud when the cow wants to run free like a horse, the sheep wants a snout like a pig, and the dog wants to be inside like the cat.

The Cow Said Neigh! will teach children:

• Animal sounds with clever rhymes
• How to celebrate the unique strengths in each of us

This delightful audiobook is perfect for:

• Playing out loud at home or in classrooms
• Ages 4-8