The Little, Brown Annotated Book Sweepstakes

Mischling by Affinity Konar

It’s 1944 when twin sisters Pearl and Stasha arrive at Auschwitz. As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele’s Zoo, Pearl and Stasha experience privileges and horrors unknown to others—but they find refuge with each other until Pearl disappears. That winter, when Stasha is released, she still clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. Together with her companion Feliks—a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin—Stasha travels through a devastated Poland, and as the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

What would happen if women suddenly possessed a fierce new power? In The Power, the world is a recognizable place, but when a vital new force takes root and flourishes, there are devastating effects. Teenage girls now have immense physical power—they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets. Naomi Alderman writes speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.

The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews

June 1939. Francis Dempsey and his shell-shocked brother, Michael, are on an ocean liner from Ireland bound for their brother Martin’s home in New York City, having stolen a small fortune from the IRA. During the week that follows, the lives of these three brothers collide spectacularly with big-band jazz musicians, a talented but fragile heiress, a Jewish street photographer facing a return to Nazi-occupied Prague, a vengeful mob boss, and the ghosts of their own family’s revolutionary past.

The Witches by Stacy Schiff

The Salem Witch Trials began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister’s daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff’s account of this fantastical story—the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.

The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck by Sarah Knight

 
Are you stressed out, overbooked, and underwhelmed by life? Fed up with pleasing everyone else before you please yourself? It’s time to stop giving a f*ck. Sarah Knight's brilliant, hilarious, and practical parody of Marie Kondo’s bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up explains how to rid yourself of unwanted obligations, shame, and guilt—and choose to give your f*cks to people and things that actually make you happy.

Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight

Ever find yourself stuck at the office—or even just glued to the couch—when you really want to get out (for once), get to the gym (at last), and get started on that “someday” project you’re always putting off? It’s time to get your sh*t together. In The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck, “anti-guru” Sarah Knight introduced readers to the joys of mental decluttering. Get Your Sh*t Together takes you one step further—organizing the f*cks you want and need to give, and cutting through the bullsh*t cycle of self-sabotage to get happy and stay that way.

Spaceman of Bohemia  by Jaroslav Kalfar

In this intergalactic odyssey of love, ambition, and self-discovery, Jakub Procházka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country’s first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him the chance at heroism he’s dreamt of, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown. Alone in Deep Space, Jakub discovers a possibly imaginary giant alien spider with whom he forms an intense and emotional bond. But will it be enough to see Jakub through his space travels so he can repair his relationships back on Earth?

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

An atmospheric, transporting tale of adventure, love, and survival from the bestselling author of The Snow Child, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In the winter of 1885, decorated war hero Colonel Allen Forrester leaves behind his newly pregnant wife, Sophie, to lead a small band of men on an expedition that has been deemed impossible: to venture up the Wolverine River and pierce the vast, untamed Alaska Territory. While the men knew they would face starvation and danger, they cannot escape the sense that some greater, mysterious force threatens their lives.

Meanwhile, on her own at Vancouver Barracks, Sophie chafes under the social restrictions and yearns to travel alongside her husband. She does not know that the winter will require as much of her as it does her husband and that both her courage and faith will be tested to the breaking point.

Truevine by Beth Macy

In 1899, on a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia, the lives of two little boys born to a sharecropper family changed forever. On one fateful day, George and Willie Muse were captured by a white man and forced into a globe-trotting circus. As they performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined at Madison Square Garden, the Muse Brothers became global superstars. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume.

Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question in their story: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.

Unmentionable by Therese ONeill

 
Ladies, welcome to the 19th century, where there’s arsenic in your face cream, a pot of cold pee sits under your bed, and all of your underwear is crotchless. (Why? Shush, dear. A lady doesn’t question.) Irresistibly charming, laugh-out-loud funny, and featuring nearly 200 images from Victorian publications, Unmentionable is your hilarious, scandalously honest (yet never crass) guide to the secrets of Victorian womanhood.