Winter Releases for Mavericks

Defy the status quo this winter

With 2024 coming to a close and 2025 starting soon, Mavericks understand that it's time to shake things up. A new year brings new opportunities to challenge the way things have been done in the past and analyze society. For you trailblazers we put together this list of upcoming books that will inspire you to think differently. These new winter releases are sure to resonate with your strong sense of independence. Get ready to confidently stride into the new year with these titles at your side!

february books

After the North Pole: A Story of Survival, Mythmaking, and Melting Ice

by Erling Kagge - Kari Dickson

The Norwegian explorer, philosopher and acclaimed writer tells of his historic 58-day journey to the North Pole on skis in this provocative memoir that is a profound meditation on nature and the history of explorers' obsession.

The North Pole looms large in our collective psyche--the ultimate Otherland in a world mapped and traversed. It is the center of our planet's rotation, one of the places that is most vulnerable in an epoch of global climate change. Its sub-zero temperatures and strange year of one sunset and one sunrise make it an eerie, utterly disorienting place that challenges human endurance and understanding.

We the Pizza: Slangin' Pies and Savin' Lives

by Muhammad Abdul-Hadi - Michael Carter - David Joachim

Knock-out recipes for award-winning, Philadelphia-style pizzas, wings, shakes, and more, from Down North, the pizzeria owned and operated exclusively by formerly incarcerated people, featuring poignant stories from its employees.

Created and launched by Philly born-and-bred entrepreneur Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, the mission of Down North Pizza is to reduce recidivism rates in North Philly and serve up the most insanely delicious food while doing it.

We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North's signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle.

More Than Words: How to Think about Writing in the Age of AI

by John Warner

A veteran writing teacher makes a "moving" (Rick Wormeli) argument that writing is a form of thinking and feeling and shows why it can't be replaced by AI

In the age of artificial intelligence, drafting an essay is as simple as typing a prompt and pressing enter. What does this mean for the art of writing? According to longtime writing teacher John Warner: not very much.

Vatican Spies: From the Second World War to Pope Francis

by Yvonnick Denoël

"Officially" the Vatican has no espionage service; but does no one carry out intelligence operations on its behalf? During the Second World War and Cold War, Rome was teeming with spies. A band of undercover monsignors and priests hunted for Vatican "moles", led clandestine diplomacy, investigated assassinations of priests and other scandals threatening the Church, and conducted high-risk missions behind the Iron Curtain.

How the World Eats: A Global Food Philosophy

by Julian Baggini

A Next Big Idea Club must-read selection

From the bestselling author of How the World Thinks, an exploration of how we grow, make, buy and eat our food around the world--and a proposal for a global philosophy of food.

How we live is shaped by how we eat. You can see this in the vastly different approaches to growing, preparing and eating food around the world, such as the hunter-gatherer Hadza in Tanzania whose sustainable lifestyle is under threat in a crowded planet, or Western societies whose food is farmed or bred in vast intensive enterprises. And most of us now rely on a complex global food web of production, distribution, consumption and disposal, which is now contending with unprecedented challenges.

The need for a better understanding of how we feed ourselves has never been more urgent. In this wide-ranging and definitive book, philosopher Julian Baggini expertly delves into the best and worst food practises in a huge array of different societies, past and present.

The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family, and Second Chances

by Kevin Fagan

In the tradition of Stephanie Land and Matthew Desmond, a powerful and deeply reported narrative of homelessness, despair, and hope.

Kevin Fagan's The Lost and the Found, set in San Francisco--one of the wealthiest cities in America--takes an empathic, character-driven approach to exploring the human side of what's behind the homelessness epidemic.

An award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee who has covered homelessness for decades and spent extensive time on the streets for his reporting, Fagan experienced it himself as a young man and brings a deep understanding to the crisis.

january books

Dirtbag Queen

by Andy Corren

In this "utterly unhinged, hilarious" memoir, a son pays tribute to his larger than life 'zaftig good time gal' mother and his unusual childhood (Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author).

"Because she was my mother, the death of zaftig good-time gal Renay Corren is newsworthy to me, and I treat it with the same respect and reverence she had for, well, nothing. A more disrespectful, trash talking woman was not to be found."

So began Andy Corren's unforgettable obituary for his mother, Renay Mandel Corren, a tribute that went on to touch the hearts of millions around the globe. In his brief telling of the life and legend that was Renay, a "loud, filthy-minded (and filthy-mouthed) Jewish lady redneck who birthed six kids," Andy captured only a slice of his loving and fabulously unconventional mother.

The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

by Shari Franke

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke's childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface--Ruby's wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

by Liz Pelly

An unsparing investigation into Spotify's origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today's highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.

Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all.

The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood

by Kristen Martin

The real history of being an orphan in America is nothing like the myth, and nothing like the American dream.

The orphan story has been mythologized: Step one: While a child is still too young to form distinct memories of them, their parents die in an untimely fashion. Step two: Orphan acquires caretakers who amplify the world's cruelty. Step three: Orphan escapes and goes on an adventure, encountering the world's vast possibilities.

The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow upends this. Pairing powerful critiques of popular orphan narratives, from Annie to the Boxcar Children to Party of Five, journalist Kristen Martin explores the real history of orphanhood in the United States, from the 1800s to the present.

Written in the Waters: A Memoir of History, Home, and Belonging

by Tara Roberts

For fans of Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Jesmyn Ward's Men We Reaped, this searing memoir by a National Geographic explorer recounts one woman's epic journey to trace the global slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean--and find her place in the world.

"Tara Roberts is a pioneer and an inspiration. Her work does not so much 'unearth' the past as pull it respectfully out of the depths of the sea. I am deeply moved by this book, and by her journey."--Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love

When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History depicting the scuba and underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them--and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.

Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was)

by Colette Shade

Perfect for fans of Jia Tolentino and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a delightfully nostalgic and bitingly told exploration about how the early 2000s forever changed us and the world we live in.

THE EARLY 2000s conjures images of inflatable furniture, flip phones, and low-rise jeans. It was a new millennium and the future looked bright, promising prosperity for all. The internet had arrived, and technology was shiny and fun. For many, it felt like the end of history: no more wars, racism, or sexism. But then history kept happening. Twenty-five years after the ball dropped on December 31st, 1999, we are still living in the shadows of the Y2K Era.

In Y2K, one of our most brilliant young critics Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation on everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period. By close reading Y2K artifacts like the Hummer H2, Smash Mouth's "All Star," body glitter, AOL chatrooms, Total Request Live, and early internet porn, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of a decade that started with a boom and ended with a crash.

december new release books

The Sustainability Class: How to Take Back Our Future from Lifestyle Environmentalists

by Vijay Kolinjivadi - Aaron Vansintjan

An original argument that environmental sustainability has been co-opted by the urban elite, along with examples from around the world of ways we can save our planet

"Caring for the environment means reclaiming ecology for everyone." --from the introduction

A sustainability apartheid is emerging. More than ever, urban residents want to be green, yet to cater to their interests, a green-tech service economy has sprung up, co-opting well-intentioned concerns over sustainability to sell a resource-heavy and exclusive "lifestyle environmentalism." This has made cities more unsustainable and inaccessible to the working class.

Neverland: The Pleasures and Perils of Fando

by Vanessa Kisuule

The debut work of non-fiction by award-winning slam poet Vanessa Kisuule, this is a love letter to the musicians we adore and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship

Why do famous musicians mean so much to us? How does the pop culture industry both mirror and magnify the worst aspects of human nature? Why is it so hard to accept that the people we love, famous or not, can be capable of doing terrible things?

Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

by Mark Lilla

"Mark Lilla is always a challenging, fascinating mind - alert to all the power, paradox, and dangers of ignorance." --Rory Stewart, author of Politics On the Edge and co-host of The Rest Is Politics

A dazzling exploration of our wish to remain innocent and ignorant--and its consequences.

Aristotle claimed that "all human beings want to know." Our own experience proves that all human beings also want not to know. Today, centuries after the Enlightenment, mesmerized crowds still follow preposterous prophets, irrational rumors trigger fanatical acts, and magical thinking crowds out common sense and expertise. Why is this? Where does this will to ignorance come from, and how does it continue to shape our lives?

Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive

by Eliot Stein

A vivid look at 10 astonishing people who are maintaining some of the world's oldest and rarest cultural traditions.

Eliot Stein has traveled the globe in search of remarkable people who are preserving some of our most extraordinary cultural rites. In Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive, Stein introduces readers to a man saving the secret ingredient in Japan's 700-year-old original soy sauce recipe. In Italy, he learns how to make the world's rarest pasta from one of the only women alive who knows how to make it. And in India, he discovers a family rumored to make a mysterious metal mirror believed to reveal your truest self. From shadowing Scandinavia's last night watchman to meeting a 27th-generation West African griot to tracking down Cuba's last official cigar factory "readers" more than a century after they spearheaded the fight for Cuban independence, Stein uncovers an almost lost world.

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