International Women’s Day

Today we are celebrating International Women’s Day by talking about books that center the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.   Becoming In her memoir, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her time spent at the

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Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, which recognizes the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields. Beginning as “Women’s History Week,” a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California in 1978, the movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year.

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A Monthly Update from Penguin Classics

Because what you read matters.   Subscribe to the Penguin Classics Newsletter here.   Meet February’s winter chill with the warmth of reading new Classics this month. Discover our first Penguin Classic with the world-leading cultural institution, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, to celebrate Black History Month; our new one-volume translation of China’s

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Career and Technical Education Month

February is Career and Technical Education Month, described as a time to “celebrate the value of Career and Technical Education and the achievements and accomplishments of CTE programs across the country.” Find a history of career and technical education here.   We’d like to highlight a few books that can help your students navigate their

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Black History Month 2021

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Find more on the

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Remembering William Melvin Kelley, author of A DIFFERENT DRUMMER

Associate Professor of English at Vanderbilt University Anthony Reed remembers William Melvin Kelley.   William Melvin Kelley is often described as a “lost” or “forgotten” author. Those who needed to know about him have always had a way of finding him. As a young writer, interested in fiction and poetry, I knew a lot about

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Neal Gabler on Teaching the Next Generation About Their Political Heritage

Contributed by Neal Gabler, author of Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, 1932-1975 What happened to America?  What happened to bring us to this moment of deep and perhaps unbridgeable polarization, of disorder and chaos, of skepticism about science, institutions, even the very idea of fact itself, of rising white supremacy, of

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A Note to Teachers From Pity the Reader Author Suzanne McConnell

By: Suzanne McConnell As a teacher of fiction writing at Hunter College, I was always on the look-out for a book to use in classes that was instructive but not academic.  I wanted a non-textbook text that was compelling, entertaining, encouraging, and practical – one that delivered helpful news about writing in such a way

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Martin J. Sherwin gives a reinterpretation of the Cuban Missile Crisis

By Martin J. Sherwin The Cuban Missile Crisis ended peacefully because neither President John Kennedy nor Premier Nikita Khrushchev wanted a war. It ended peacefully because Fidel Castro frightened Khrushchev into believing that the United States was about to start a war. It ended without a war because America’s ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai

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