MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Brenda Wineapple on How the Scopes Trial Speaks to the America of Today

Contributed by Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation, which relates how the dramatic story of the 1925 Scopes trial exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today—divisions over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, censorship, and civil liberties in a democracy.  Trials are inherently

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MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Prachi Gupta on Breaking Free from the “Model Minority” Myth

Contributed by Prachi Gupta, author of They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us, in which she articulates the dissonance, shame, and isolation of being upheld as an American success story while privately navigating traumas invisible to the outside world.  By chronicling the specific experiences of my Indian American family, They Called Us

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Penguin Random House Supports Young Math Minds at National American Regions Mathematics League Competition

Penguin Random House proudly contributed to the American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) this year by donating book prizes to outstanding student participants. Students from Canada, China and South Korea competed in the 2025 ARML competition, which celebrated the league’s 50th year. The books donated are: Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else by Jordan Ellenberg, How

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Alan Weisman’s Hope Dies Last

The bestselling author of The World Without Us returns with a book ten years in the making: a study of what it means to be a human on the front lines of our planet’s existential crisis. Hope Dies Last fills a crucial gap in the global conversation: Having reached a point of no return in

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Anna Funder, author of WIFEDOM, discusses the marriage behind some of the most famous literary works of the 20th century

At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue. “I’ve always loved Orwell,” Funder writes, “his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Kyra Davis Lurie’s The Great Mann

In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.   Chapter 1 “Wake up, I said it’s the end of the line.” My eyes fly open, my hand automatically reaching for my weapon. But instead of

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