July’s Most Anticipated Nonfiction
This July, we’re spotlighting stories and voices that cross borders—literal and personal. From globe-trotting travel guides to powerful accounts of women on the soccer field, from sharp explorations of colorism to a behind-the-scenes look at the billionaire family behind Hobby Lobby, these books dig into how place, power, and identity shape our lives.
From Michelle Akers to Megan Rapinoe, bold and inspiring profiles of the pioneers, champions and future heroines of women’s soccer around the world.
Women’s soccer has come a long way—from its origins as a matchmaking custom in the Scottish Highlands through countrywide bans, cast-off men’s uniforms, and practices in parking lots, to a global sport attracting hundreds of millions of viewers.
This is the history of the game told through the players themselves, the world-famous—like Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, and Brazil’s Marta—as well as the long-forgotten, unsung talents, and rising stars. These women are not just first-rate athletes, they are fighters who have battled everything from inequality and discrimination to racism and homophobia. Their determination has propelled the women’s game through decades of disdainful treatment to help shape the political landscape far beyond their sport.
Based on original interviews with dozens of current and former players and coaches, this book celebrates these remarkable women and their pioneering achievements.
Racism is easy to spot these days; we know its script, its favorite media tropes, its legislative tactics, and how it makes us feel. But there is another societal ill hiding in racism’s shadow: colorism. Colorism is a social hierarchy that favors people with lighter skin tones and stigmatizes people with darker skin tones. More than a debate on social media about who’s most attractive, colorism frays the fabric of our homes and communities and jeopardizes the lives and livelihoods of individuals most impacted. Dr. Sarah L. Webb’s Colorism arrives as a fresh perspective on how we move toward a world free from harmful stigma and discord—a more liberated, more loving world.
In Colorism, Dr. Sarah shows us how colorism goes unrecognized by most even as it contours our every day lives. She leads us through cultural myths, client testimonies and her own personal stories to demonstrate colorism’s global stronghold on communities of color and white communities alike. She dissects how dating and pop culture can be hotbeds of discrimination. And she lifts the veil on how colorism can determine our access to education, work, social services, and politics. Soulfully told and richly informational, Colorism rounds out with revisions we can all make to show up for one another. After all, bias may be based on what’s on the outside, but true healing starts from within.
“A bracing, essential corrective to startup mythology.” —Tom Eisenmann, professor of entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School
Rob Snyder followed all the traditional advice for launching a startup—he did his research, ran experiments, raised millions in venture capital—but his company struggled to get off the ground. It wasn’t until he left the standard playbooks behind that he was able to quickly scale to millions of dollars in revenue. Now he’s a successful serial entrepreneur whose advice has helped hundreds of founders get unstuck and start scaling.
In The Power of Pull, Snyder strips entrepreneurship down to one counterintuitive principle: Customer demand is all that matters. When entrepreneurs find real demand, they stop pushing their product onto an indifferent market, and instead customers pull the product out of the entrepreneur’s hands. Yet most founders misunderstand what demand is and how it works. With examples from early-stage founders, this book shows how to find real demand and create a fast-growing business. If you’re beginning a startup journey, The Power of Pull is the guide you need.
Ben Barnes started out as a whistleblower. He was only nineteen when he uncovered corruption in the Health Department in Austin, Texas, and testified against the culprits. He felt empowered—a guy like him could make a difference. Now at eighty-seven, despite his impressive career, he is trying to go more places and solve more problems than any other time in his life. Barnes is ready to share his decades of political experience and remind readers that there is a way to keep going and keep fighting, even in the golden years. The golden years are a fine time to get things done.
In Get It Done, Ben Barnes details never-before-heard stories of the most consequential politicians of the past several decades, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, John Connally, Hubert Humphrey, Ross Perot, Barbara Jordan, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump. He sheds new light on pivotal political events, including the Kennedy assassination, the Anwar Sadat assassination, the Vietnam War, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Further, Barnes offers actionable lessons to successfully face, combat, and thwart the consequences of the second Trump term.
“The best rock book of the year.” — The Telegraph (five stars)
From the authors of the critically acclaimed oral history of Eddie Van Halen, Eruption, a revealing narrative biography of legendary British guitarist Jeff Beck featuring brand new interviews with the icon himself as well as his famous colleagues, collaborators, and loved ones
With his shag haircut and white Stratocaster guitar, Jeff Beck was an icon known and loved by millions. Yet somehow, he maintained the ineffable low profile cool of a cult hero as he glided through six decades of musical trends with nary a lapse in taste. Not to say he ever played it safe. What other guitarist can lay claim to performing with opera star Luciano Pavarotti, mainstream television personality Kelly Clarkson, and professional degenerates like Guns N’ Roses with equal grace and wit? Or as Beck himself once quipped, “I’m an awkward son of a bitch when it comes to doing the expected.”
In Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story, Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill return to chart the unexplored life of rock’s greatest and perhaps most enigmatic instrumentalist. Culled from approximately 30 hours of interviews with the late guitarist himself, numerous conversations with those closest to him, and extensive research, the book sheds new light on the genius that Jimmy Page once said, “shifted the whole sound and face of electric guitar music.”
A revelatory account of how the family behind Hobby Lobby rose to political prominence and used their influence—and fortune—to push a radical religious agenda
“Eye-opening . . . Blanding is at the height of his arts and crafts in telling exactly how Hobby Lobby’s adventurers went so far astray in their effort to raid so many lost and phony arks.” —The New York Times
Hobby Lobby is a multibillion-dollar craft store chain with more than a thousand US locations, founded and owned by the Greens—an evangelical Christian family committed to establishing the Bible as the ultimate authority behind our laws and society.
In The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby, Michael Blanding reveals how the Greens have quietly yet effectively used their vast wealth to spread their beliefs throughout the US and beyond. They have run expensive, wide-reaching ad campaigns to inculcate biblical values and have propped up evangelical education through donations of money and land. They successfully fought a Supreme Court case to deny their employees insurance coverage for contraception and funneled millions of dollars to organizations working to overturn Roe v. Wade and to undermine LGBTQ rights. And, for their multimillion-dollar Museum of the Bible just blocks from the US Capitol building, they’ve acquired looted, stolen, and forged biblical antiquities from the Middle East. In a riveting exposé, Blanding traces the Greens’ efforts to sell their evangelical mission.
Captivating and disturbing, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby exposes the pivotal role the Green family has played in funding and empowering America’s dangerous, ascendant Christian nationalist movement.
The last self-help book you’ll ever need—learn how to accelerate personal growth and mental well-being with the collective wisdom of self-help: the 12 Levers.
“A powerful toolkit that you can use for whatever challenges life has thrown at you.” —Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and Quit
After years of research—analyzing 106 self-help books and 23 therapies—psychology experts Spencer Greenberg and Jeremy Stevenson discovered that, from a bird’s-eye view, all self-help techniques collapse into just 12 broad strategies. Knowing these 12 Levers can prepare you for so many of the challenges that life will throw at you. You’ll learn how to…
- Clarify your intrinsic values to give your life direction
- Overcome fear by using the most scientifically validated anxiety approach in the world
- Alleviate insomnia and out-of-sync sleep routines with techniques largely known only to sleep therapists
- Enrich your downtime by doing more glad-you-did-it activities
- Get more done by understanding the three factors of The Productivity Equation
- Interrupt spirals of self-consciousness using the Attention Training Technique
…and much more.
Together, the 12 Levers form the complete psychological toolkit for improving your life.
- Fully updated, comprehensive coverage for planning a multi-week trip to Spain
- Rick’s strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites
- Top sights and hidden gems, from El Escorial and the great mosque of Córdoba to medieval bars serving house-made madroño liqueur
- How to connect with local culture: Enjoy a flamenco show in Sevilla, chat with fans about the latest fútbol match, or meander down winding streets in search of the best tapas
- Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick’s candid, humorous insight
- The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a glass of sangria
- Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums
- Vital trip-planning tools, like how to link destinations, build your itinerary, and get from place to place
- Detailed maps, plus a fold-out map for exploring on the go
- Over 1,000 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down
- Coverage of Barcelona, Basque Country, San Sebastián, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, León, Salamanca, Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba, Andalucía, Cádiz, the South Coast, Gibraltar, Morocco, and more
Planning a one-week trip? Check out Rick Steves Best of Spain.
- Fully updated, comprehensive coverage for planning a multi-week trip through Ireland
- Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites
- Top sights and hidden gems, from the Rock of Cashel and the Ring of Kerry to distilleries making whiskey with hundred-year-old recipes
- How to connect with local culture: Hoist a pint at the corner pub, enjoy traditional fiddle music, and jump into conversations buzzing with brogue
- Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight
- The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a Guinness
- Self-guided walking tours of atmospheric neighborhoods and awe-inspiring sights
- Trip-planning tools, like how to link destinations, build your itinerary, and get from place to place
- Detailed maps, including a fold-out map for exploring on the go
- Complete, up-to-date coverage of Dublin, Kilkenny, Waterford, County Wexford, Kinsale, Cobh, Kenmare, The Ring of Kerry, Dingle Peninsula, County Clare, the Burren, Galway, the Aran Islands, Connemara, County Mayo, Belfast, Portrush, the Antrim Coast, Derry, County Donegal, and much more
Planning a shorter trip? Check out Rick Steves Best of Ireland.
2026 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist for Nonfiction | Winner of the 2026 Lawrence W. Levine Award | 2026 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Longlist | 2026 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award Longlist | Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2025
A crucial telling of U.S. history centering the Black women whose magic gave rise to the rich tapestry of American culture, wellness, and spirituality that we see today—from Vicks VapoRub and Aunt Jemima’s pancake mix, to the magic of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023), and the all-American blue jean.
Emerging first on plantations in the American South, enslaved conjure women used their magic to treat illnesses. These women combined their ancestral spiritual beliefs from West Africa with local herbal rituals and therapeutic remedies to create conjure, forging a secret well of health and power hidden to their oppressors and many of the modern-day staples we still enjoy.
In The Conjuring of America, Black feminist philosopher Lindsey Stewart exposes this vital contour of American history. In the face of slavery, Negro Mammies fashioned a legacy of magic that begat herbal experts, fearsome water bearers, and powerful mojos—roles and traditions that for centuries have been passed down to respond to Black struggles in real time. And when Jim Crow was born, Granny Midwives and textile weavers leveled their techniques to protect our civil and reproductive rights, while Candy Ladies fed a generation of freedom crusaders.
Sourcing firsthand accounts the of enslaved, dispatches from the lore of Oshun, and the wisdom of beloved Black women writers, Stewart proves indisputably that conjure informs our lives in ways remarkable and ordinary. Above all, The Conjuring of America is a love letter to the magic Black women used to sow messages of rebellion, freedom, and hope.
The style of the Associated Press is the gold standard for news writing. With the AP Stylebook in hand, you can learn how to write and edit with the clarity and professionalism for which their writers and editors are known.
The AP Stylebook will help you master the AP’s rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation and word and numeral usage. It also guides you through complex issues of thoughtful reporting, writing and storytelling. To make navigating this extensive guidance even easier, the Stylebook provides a comprehensive index. This edition also includes new guidance on language regarding artificial intelligence, immigration, gender and more.
Fully updated with over 200 new or revised entries to keep pace with world events and evolving language, the AP Stylebook is the one reference that all writers, editors and students cannot afford to be without.
What makes a good love story endure? Is it the courtship? The obstacles along the way? The happy endings (or in some cases, heartbreaking conclusions)? Author Kristen Lopez explores 40 beloved screen adaptations of the book world's great romances to reveal what makes these works resonate across decades.
From Pride and Prejudice to Twilight, Lopez presents how these classics depict both budding fiery love and unrequited desire on the page and screen, and why each makes for a swoon-worthy adaptation. The essays also unpack how these works serve as time capsules of their respective eras, charting the evolution of gender roles and femininity in adaptations such Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Waiting to Exhale. Hearts may break and lovers may part, but these works show how romance carries on forever.
Other featured adaptations include:
Anna Karenina · Atonement · The Bishop’s Wife · The Bridges of Madison County · Bridget Jones’s Diary · Chocolat · Doctor Zhivago · The Ghost and Mrs. Muir · Jane Eyre · Laura · Like Water for Chocolate · Love Story · The Notebook · A Room With a View · The Sheik