Books published by Random House Publishing Group

#1NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL,ANDBOSTON GLOBEBESTSELLER*;NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYTHE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW*;ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR*; BILL GATES'S HOLIDAY READING LIST*; FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S AWARD IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY *; FINALIST FORTHENATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK*; FINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD*; FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES BOOK PRIZENAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE *; NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post *; O: The Oprah Magazine *; Time *; NPR *; Good Morning America *; San Francisco Chronicle *; The Guardian *; The Economist *; Financial Times *; Newsday *; New York Post *; theSkimm *; Refinery29 *; Bloomberg *; Self *; Real Simple *; Town & Country *; Bustle *; Paste *; Publishers Weekly *; Library Journal *; LibraryReads *; BookRiot *; Pamela Paul, KQED *; New York Public LibraryAn unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge UniversityBorn to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.';Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Tara Westover's] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?'Vogue';Westover has somehow managed not only to capture her unsurpassably exceptional upbringing, but to make her current situation seem not so exceptional at all, and resonant for many others.'The New York Times Book Review

THE BOOK BEHIND THE THIRD SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES,AN ORIGINAL SERIES NOW ON HBO.Here is the third volume in George R. R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.A STORM OF SWORDSOf the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King's Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. . . .But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others--a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords. . . .

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local ';powhitetrash.' At eight years old and back at her mother's side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her ageand has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (';I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare') will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. ';I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings liberates the reader into life simply because Maya Angelou confronts her own life with such a moving wonder, such a luminous dignity.'James Baldwin

THE BOOK BEHIND THE SECOND SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES,AN ORIGINAL SERIES NOW ON HBO. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE: BOOK TWO In this thrilling sequel to A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination. A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare unlike any we have ever experienced. A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel . . . and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.

#1 NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER *; A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the tender relationship between mother and daughter in this extraordinary novel by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys.Soon to be a Broadway play starring Laura Linney produced by Manhattan Theatre Club and London Theatre Company *;LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE *;NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post *; The New York Times Book Review *; NPR *; BookPage *; LibraryReads *; Minneapolis Star Tribune *; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.Praise for My Name Is Lucy Barton ';A quiet, sublimely merciful contemporary novel about love, yearning, and resilience in a family damaged beyond words.'The Boston Globe';It is Lucy's gentle honesty, complex relationship with her husband, and nuanced response to her mother's shortcomings that make this novel so subtly powerful.'San Francisco Chronicle';A short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters, but also simpler, more sudden bonds . . . It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one.'Newsday';Spectacular . . . Smart and cagey in every way. It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. . . . [Strout] is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times.'Lily King,The Washington Post ';An aching, illuminating look at mother-daughter devotion.'People

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *; OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK *; Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout continues the life of her beloved Olive Kitteridge, a character who has captured the imaginations of millions.';Strout managed to make me love this strange woman I'd never met, who I knew nothing about. What a terrific writer she is.'Zadie Smith,The Guardian';Just as wonderful as the original . . .Olive, Againpoignantly reminds us that empathy, a requirement for love, helps make life ';not unhappy.''NPRNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PEOPLE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time *; Vogue *; NPR *;The Washington Post*; Chicago Tribune*; Vanity Fair *;Entertainment Weekly*; BuzzFeed*;Esquire *; Real Simple *;Good Housekeeping *; The New York Public Library *; The Guardian*; Evening Standard*;Kirkus Reviews *; Publishers Weekly *; BookPagePrickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is ';a compelling life force' (San Francisco Chronicle).TheNew Yorkerhas said that Elizabeth Strout ';animates the ordinary with an astonishing force,' and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspireusin Strout's words';to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.'Praise for Olive, Again';Olive is a brilliant creation not only because of her eternal cantankerousness but because she's as brutally candid with herself about her shortcomings as she is with others. Her honesty makes people strangely willing to confide in her, and the raw power of Ms. Strout's writing comes from these unvarnished exchanges, in which characters reveal themselves in all of their sadness and badness and confusion. . . . The great, terrible mess of living is spilled out across the pages of this moving book. Ms. Strout may not have any answers for it, but she isn't afraid of it either.'The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *;Theauthor of The Aviator's Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York's ';Swans' of the 1950sand the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.People's Book of the Week *;USA Today's #1 ';New and Noteworthy' Book *;Entertainment Weekly's Must List *; LibraryReads Top Ten Pick Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friendsthe alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate womana woman desperately longing for true love and connection. Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entree into the enviable lives of Manhattan's elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe's powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls ';True Heart,' Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storytellereven when the stories aren't his to tell. Truman's fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he'll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America's most sumptuous eras.Praise for The Swans of Fifth Avenue';Exceptional storytelling . . . teeming with scandal, gossip and excitement.'Harper's Bazaar ';This moving fictionalization brings the whole cast of characters back to vivid life. Gossipy and fun, it's also a nuanced look at the beauty and cruelty of a rarefied, bygone world.'People';The era and the sordid details come back to life in this jewel of a novel.'O: The Oprah Magazine

"For more than a decade, Nate DiMeo has brought the big and small of American history to life in The Memory Palace, a podcast of crystalline short stories that are all completely true. In this beautifully designed collection, where DiMeo takes advantage of the visual form of a book by creating striking juxtapositions between images and text, he gathers the best of the show and adds brand-new stories exclusive to the book, which especially take their inspiration from photographs and the emergence of photography. The collection adds up to a unique take on the past that asks what gets to count as history in the first place, draws deep meaning from forgotten lives, and often dives into past crazes and the sometimes humorous and sometimes devastating fact that what or who is popular in one moment can become a barely remembered curiosity in the next. He resurrects stories that deserve to be memorialized, like that of the Surfmen of the Outer Banks who saved countless sailors' lives and the workers who risked theirs daily to dig the base of the Brooklyn Bridge"--

"At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents--a remote icon--or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This ... portrait gives us a very human Lincoln--an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford's Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end"--

"Cam Walker goes head-to-head with the villains who have been after Futureland from the start."--

"When four strangers rent bargain-basement rooms in an old hotel near the beach, they embark on the summer of their lives. First there's Ariel Spencer, who has big dreams of becoming a writer and is looking for inspiration in Nantucket's high society. Her new friend Sheila Murphy is a good Catholic girl from Ohio whose desire for adventure is often shadowed by her apprehension. Then there's small-town Missourian Wyatt Smith-who's immediately taken with Ariel. The last of the four, Nick Volkov, is looking to make a name for himself and have a blast along the way. Despite their differences, the four bond over Wednesday night dinners, trips to the beach, and all that Nantucket has to offer. But venturing out on their own for the first time, with all its adventure and risks, could change the course of their future ... Twenty-six years after that amazing summer, Ariel, Sheila, Wyatt, and Nick come together again at the hotel where they first met. Now it's called The Lighthouse and Nick owns the entire operation with his wife and daughter. Ariel and Wyatt, married for decades, arrive with their son, and Sheila's back too, with her daughter by her side. Life hasn't exactly worked out the way they had all hoped. Ariel's dreams have since faded and been pushed aside, but she's determined to rediscover the passion she once had. Nick has the money and reputation of a successful businessman, but is it everything he had hoped for? And Sheila has never been able to shake the secret she's kept since that summer. Being back together again at last will mean confronting the past and finding themselves again. Meanwhile, the next generation discovers Nantucket, exploring the island together, experiencing love and heartbreak, and forging lifelong bonds just as their parents did all those years ago. It's sure to be one unforgettable reunion."--Page 4 of cover.

A savvy former street child working at a law office in Mumbai fights for redemption and a chance to live life on her own terms in this “smart, haunting, and compulsively readable” (Amy Jones, author of We’re All in This Together) debut novel about fortune and survival.  “A heartbreaking yet hopeful story about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of insurmountable odds.”—Etaf Rum, New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No ManWith a sharp wit and sharper tongue, twenty-three-year old Rakhi Kumar is nobody’s fool. Sure, she lives alone in a slum and works as a lowly office assistant for the renowned lawyer, Gauri Verma, who gave her a fresh start. But she’s come a long way from her childhood on the streets of Mumbai. Most important, she’s busy enough to distract herself from the nightmares of a grisly childhood incident that led to the disappearance of her best friend. Fiercely intelligent, Rakhi could be doing so much more than making chai, but she allows herself to be underestimated by her colleagues at Justice For All, Gauri’s cash-strapped rights law office. These days, it’s becoming harder for Rakhi to keep her head down as Gauri desperately tries to save her organization by recruiting former Bollywood actress and infamous nineties “thong girl,” Rubina Mansoor, to be their celebrity ambassador. But not all money is good money. Convincing Gauri to make increasingly brash moves, Rubina demands an internship for a young family friend, Harvard-bound graduate student, Alex Lalwani-Diamond. An ambitious, naïve rich kid with a savior complex, Alex persuades Rakhi to show him “the real India.” In exchange, he’ll do something to further Rakhi’s dreams, in a transaction that seems harmless, at first. As old guilt and new aspirations collide, everything Rakhi once knew to be true is set ablaze. And as the stakes mount, she will come face-to-face with the difficult choices and moral compromises one must make in pursuit of self-preservation, and ultimately, survival. Such Big Dreams is a moving, smart, and arrestingly clever look at the cost of reclaiming one’s story.

"Abby Hanlon’s Dory Fantasmagory series is some of the best children’s literature in years." —New York MagazineThe wildly popular, ever hilarious Dory Fantasmagory series is back for a sixth adventure, with Dory turning separation anxiety into a ghostly, goofy escapade.When Dory loses track of her mom in the hardware store, it leads to a touch of separation anxiety. Dory suspects her mom will soon sail off on a ship across the world to eat cake and play kickball and never return. These are big feelings, and Dory knows what to do: She throws a sheet over her head and haunts her family everywhere they go so they can't leave her, much to the annoyance of her brother and sister. Then Dory’s longtime nemesis Mrs. Gobble Gracker reappears, wearing a wedding dress, and Dory’s mom makes an announcement that leaves not just Dory reeling but her siblings too. Maybe a haunting is exactly what's needed to get this family back to normal.In her sixth book, Dory delivers hoots and oopses on every page, entangling her friends—real and imaginary—in fabulous plots that sometimes take even Dory herself by delightful surprise.

"A story of pain, injustice, love, resistance, and hope, this glorious book will lodge inside you and make you feel everything.” —Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to FloatNow in paperback, a queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society bent on relentless conformity, and the struggle of one girl to save herself and those she loves from a life of lies.Everyone hopes for a letter—to attend the Estuary, the Glades, the Meadows. These are the special places where only the best and brightest go to burn even brighter. When Eleanor is accepted at the Meadows, it means escape from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster. But despite its luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, the Meadows keeps dark secrets: its purpose is to reform students, to condition them against their attractions, to show them that one way of life is the only way to survive. And maybe Eleanor would believe them, except then she meets Rose.Five years later, Eleanor and her friends seem free of the Meadows, changed but not as they’d hoped. Eleanor is an adjudicator, her job to ensure her former classmates don’t stray from the lives they’ve been trained to live. But Eleanor can’t escape her past . . . or thoughts of the girl she once loved. As secrets unfurl, Eleanor must wage a dangerous battle for her own identity and the truth of what happened to the girl she lost, knowing, if she’s not careful, Rose’s fate could be her own.A raw and timely masterwork of speculative fiction, The Meadows will sink its roots into you. This is a novel for our times and for always—not to be missed.

Handsome, kind, and unassuming, Mr. Gray seemed the answer to Deborah Weyman's prayers. For once she accepted the position he offered, she would finally be safe from the notorious Lord Kendal, a man she had good reason to believe had murdered her former employer -- and was now after her. But there were certain things about Mr. Gray that Deborah should have noticed: the breadth of his shoulders, the steel in his voice, the gleam in his uncommonly blue eyes -- things that might have warned her that Mr. Gray was no savior, but a very dangerous man....Too tempting to resist...Though she posed as a dowdy schoolteacher, Lord Kendal saw right through her disguise to the treacherous beauty beneath. Now, convinced that she alone can tell him the truth about Lord Barrington's murder -- and the whereabouts of Barrington's young son -- he coolly masquerades as the innocuous Mr. Gray. And only when it's too late for Deborah to run will she learn what it means to be at his mercy -- and powerless to resist his seduction....