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The Second Half explores how the second half of life is experienced by women from many different cultures. From a French actress to a British novelist, from an Algerian nomad to a Saudi Arabian doctor, and an American politician, Ellen Warner traveled all over the world to interview women about their lives. She asked them what they learned in the first half that was helpful in the second, and what advice they would give to younger women. Their revealing and inspiring stories are enlightening for all listeners.

The neighborhood of Oleander Court is the poster child for suburban bliss. The residents compare lawns beautified by hired help. They monitor home values. They toss perfect furniture because they wanted tapioca, not beige. But when a string of murders rips through the neighborhood, suspicions abound as new secrets come to light. And as more and more bodies are taken away, it becomes clear that the killer is strategically selecting each and every victim, picking off the shallowest, most wasteful of the lot in spectacular fashion and leaving everyone in the neighborhood to wonder Who’s next?

From Vancouver-based writer Chelene Knight, Dear Current Occupant is a creative non-fiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Using a variety of forms, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother.

“As far as I know, you can only die once…” But when Aetna Simmons disappears from her lonely Bermuda cottage, she leaves behind not one but ten suicide notes. Ten different suicide notes. And no other trace to speak of, not even a corpse, as if she’d never existed. Drafts of a Suicide Note is the darkly enigmatic love letter of Kenji Okada-Caines, a petty criminal who once exposited on English literary classics and now, marooned on his native isle, nurtures an obsession with Aetna’s writing.

Dismissed not only explains what so many people feel so profoundly—that the system is working against them. It also reveals what health-care practitioners, patients, and society in general can do to make it right.

From a vivid portrait of her childhood in 1960s Detroit to her leadership of one of the world’s largest philanthropic institutions, La June shares her full-circle, American story—a coming-of-age journey where she gains a firsthand understanding of how systemic racism prevents our children and communities from thriving and learns about the transformative role healing can play in helping all of us transcend the legacy of racial inequity.

A plumber cuts into a wall at an old house searching for the source of a leak. Instead, he uncovers a gruesome sight—a woman’s mummified body tied onto a chair. How long has she been there? Months? Years? Decades? Who is she? Will Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong be able to interpret the strange symbols surrounding the body to find the woman’s killer? Is this baffling case tied to one out of Sarah’s past, unfinished business that still haunts her nightmares?

"And should you die, take pride that you were fortunate enough to die for the Division." With that cheery bit of encouragement, newly promoted Agent Katrina Foster is tossed onto a plane and sent halfway around the world on her first assignment. Her directive: uncover who killed the country's top agent. When Katrina links the murder to a decade-old political assassination, a murderous mastermind, and a shadowy organization set on global disruption, she becomes a target.

Langston Keith has been my brother's best friend for years, and he's always seen me as the competition. We're both race horse owners, and there's no way I'm letting Langston get that trophy. When my parents threaten to set me up in an arranged marriage with a guy in India, I beg Langston to fake date me to get them off my back. He agrees, and all goes well until the romance starts to feel real.

From rising sci-fi author Don Vodka comes the tale of an alien war that began 20,000 years ago and now stretches across the galaxy to Earth in the year 2068. Featuring 16-year-old Misty Remington, daughter of meta-human Dazzle Shelton. Misty and Rikkie, trained by Dazzle since they could walk, are an integral part of Earth’s defense force. Amid the chaos, and with their world turned upside down, the two girls must navigate uncharted territory while the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.

The linked stories in Mama Said are set in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with a rich history steeped in tobacco, bourbon, and gambling, indulgences that can quickly become gripping and destructive vices. Set amid the tail end of the crack epidemic and the rise of the opioid crisis, Mama Said evokes Black family life in all its complexity, following JayLynn, along with her cousins Zaria and Angel, as they come of age struggling against their mothers' drug addictions.