Scribe Publications

Following her ‘dazzling’ (The Guardian) debut, The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker tells the sweeping story of one Southern family’s rise and fall throughout the 1980s, a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the promise and limitations of the American Dream. Baker-Taylor’s is a family business. Fran (née Baker) and Fred Taylor run a successful chain of discount retail stores in Kentucky and they’re cautiously expanding: Ataris and Hot Wheels, new branches and new management. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the American dream: rags to riches, a family dynasty built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each family member is struggling to keep up. Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes to which he will go to fit in with the high society crowd are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Oldest son Josiah wants nothing to do with the family business, Sam is seeing things that might not really be there, and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers did. Meanwhile, Fran, her family’s stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker- Taylor’s, risking everything along the way. While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran discover that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone — no returns, no exchanges.

Philippa Laakso was many things to many people. Caring and selfish. Kind to some, cruel to others. And now, she was dead. When seventeen-year-old Philippa’s body is found in the yard outside her home, the police launch an investigation. Everyone close to her is questioned: The elderly neighbour who discovered her body, who kept confusing Philippa with his late wife. The best friend, who hoards a secret stash of objects she’d stolen from Philippa over the years. The ex-boyfriend, still reeling from their sudden break-up months before. The woman who features, enraged, in some of the strange videos Philippa filmed on her beloved PEN Olympus camera. The older men she’d been meeting via a dating app. Each tells a different story: she was a confidant, a fantasy, a temptation, a problem, a mystery, a mirror. But did any of them truly know he? nchantment is a spellbinding literary mystery that explores the uneasy terrain of girlhood, where one is always being watched, shaped, and judged by others. In it, Riikka Pulkkinen weaves a complex story of power, identity, and the fragile boundary between truth and fiction.

The definitive, all-access biography of one of the world’s most beloved literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted. To know the name Judy Blume is to know and love literature. Her influential novels turned classics — including Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; Deenie; and Summer Sisters — touched the lives of tens of millions of readers. For more than fifty-five years her work has done something revolutionary: it rewired the world’s expectations of what literature for young people can be — frank, candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. But little has been written about the real woman behind the iconic persona and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension, until now. In Judy Blume, journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume’s beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume’s middle-class 1940s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. He pulls back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory — a true gift for anyone who grew up reading and loving these extraordinary books.

‘Reading this book is like sitting at a dinner table with your smartest, funniest friend. Elizabeth Preston’s writing shimmers with wit, charisma, and infectious delight, as she shows how the act of caretaking connects us to the rest of the animal kingdom.’ Ed YongWhat unites us with frogs ferrying tadpoles on their backs, beetles regurgitating food into the mouths of their larvae, or a shorebird luring a predator away from her nest by pretending her wing is broken? Creatures around the world have strategies to keep their offspring alive that are varied and surprising — and often familiar. In this compelling and entertaining study, science journalist Elizabeth Preston explores the biology, brain circuitry, and behaviours we share with species across the animal kingdom that care for young. In the field and in the lab, readers will also meet scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding these animals, often while juggling families of their own. Alongside animal parents that range from lonely octopuses to warfare-waging mongooses, we’ll encounter our own species in a new way. Elizabeth Preston argues that Homo sapiens’ history of caring for children cooperatively has left a legacy in all of us, parents and non-parents alike, and is the basis for our caring human society.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTTHE NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025THE NEW YORK TIMES “The Best Historical Fiction Novels to Read Right Now”PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 2025 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR‘A novel of epic scope that resonates powerfully while wars of tragic loss continue to be fought on multiple fronts, including in Europe. Daanje exhibits brilliant powers of reconstitution in her descriptions of the war’s aftermath and the blighted landscapes that it left behind.’ Tobias Grey in The Financial TimesAn extraordinary love story and a captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination. Flanders 1922. After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Countless women, responding to a newspaper ad, visit him there in the hope of finding their spouse who vanished in battle. One day a woman, Julienne, appears and recognises Noon as her husband, the photographer Amand Coppens, and takes him home against medical advice. But their miraculous reunion doesn’t turn out the way that Julienne wants her envious friends to believe. Only gradually do the two grow close, and Amand’s biography is pieced together on the basis of Julienne’s stories about him. But how can he be certain that she’s telling the trut? n The Remembered Soldier, Anjet Daanje immerses us in the psyche of a war-traumatised man who has lost his identity. When Amand comes to doubt Julienne’s word, the reader is caught up in a riveting spiral of confusion that only the greatest works of literature can achieve.

True love or easy money — which would you choos? resh from graduating with her master’s in philosophy, Anna is shocked when a career counsellor tells her she has ‘no special skills’. Desperate for work and financial independence, she accepts a thankless job at a TV talk show. She might be making minimum wage, but at least she has her boyfriend Lulu, the love of her life, to come home to at night. But one day Lulu starts throwing up cash — thousands of euros in just a few days — hurtling the twenty-something couple into unforeseen wealth. Having spent their lives proudly rejecting consumer society, they suddenly find themselves rich, and Anna is loving every minute of it: she gets a designer bag, they vacation in Tahiti, they throw wild parties in their fancy new apartment. As Anna grows accustomed to a life of luxury, Lulu’s health suffers, and she wonders: what would be worse, losing him or losing the mone? n Self-Worth newcomer Emma Tholozan delivers a raw, brutally funny portrait of a generation without ideals.

For anyone who is overwhelmed, stressed, or lonely in today’s world, or who simply senses they have an untapped potential to lead a more fulfilling life, here are ways to flourish. The human species is experiencing a massive mental health crisis. Depression is now the leading cause of morbidity globally. Loneliness is more dangerous to our health than smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Suicide rates in different groups in some parts of the world are skyrocketing and cut across social class and income. Distractibility and impairments of concentration are at an all-time high, and teens are spending more time on social media than they do sleeping. Now, based on decades of neuroscientific research, Dr Richard J. Davidson, a pioneering neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author, and Dr Cortland Dahl, one of the world’s foremost experts on the science and practice of meditation, share their groundbreaking scientific model — the Healthy Minds Framework — that highlights the four core skills of human flourishing to counteract such problems. Each skill — awareness, insight, connection, and purpose — translates into practices that all of us can do in simple ways, every day, with enormous positive results. When we cultivate these skills, we can navigate life’s ups and downs with far more resilience and calmness, on a path to a life that feels balanced, rich, and rewarding.

A feminist utopia crumbles with one impossible birth. On an isolated mountaintop, a small feminist community is fracturing under the weight of ideological divides and dwindling numbers. Mila struggles to hold the women together, while deeper in the bush her aunt Frank — an ailing recluse — lives with only her dog, Chicken Midnight, for company. Nearby, an orchid endling approaches its own death, and the extinction of its entire species. As Frank grows increasingly unwell and secretive about her condition, the community women begin mysteriously falling pregnant. When Mila gives birth to the only boy, their hardline separatist ideals face an impossible test. Vividly expressed, wildly funny, and wholly original, The Endling examines the volatile intersection of community and politics, exploring what happens when the borders we construct between species, between sexes, between self and world prove more porous than we imagine.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA thought-provoking, principled, clear-eyed chronicle of the culture, politics, and economic choices that have landed America where it is today — with irresponsible economic bullies and corporations with immense wealth and lobbying power on top, demagogues on the rise, and increasing inequality fuelling anger and hatred across the country. Nine months after World War II, Robert Reich was born into a united America with a bright future — which went unrealised for so many as big money took over. His encounter with school bullies on account of his height — just under five foot — set him on a determined path to spend his life fighting American bullies of every sort. He recounts the death of a friend in the civil rights movement; his political coming of age witnessing the Berkeley free speech movement; working for Bobby Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy; experiencing a country torn apart by the Vietnam War; meeting Hillary Rodham in college, Bill Clinton at Oxford, and Clarence Thomas at Yale Law. He details his friendship with John Kenneth Galbraith during his time teaching at Harvard, and subsequent friendships with Bernie Sanders and Ted Kennedy; and his efforts as labour secretary for Clinton and economic advisor to Barack Obama. Ultimately, Reich asks: What did his generation accomplish? Did they make America better, more inclusive, more tolerant? Did they strengthen democracy? Or did they come up short? With characteristic spirit and humour, he lays out how progressives can reclaim a sense of community and salvage a democratic capitalism based on American ideals.

A powerful eyewitness account of the genocide in Gaza by an extraordinary young writer and general physician. Five days before 7 October 2023, a young Palestinian doctor returns to Gaza, having completed his medical studies abroad. His family gathers to celebrate his achievements and to welcome him home. On 11 October, forty-two members of his extended family are killed in an airstrike, and thus begins his incredible story of survival and service to his people. For more than eight months, Dr Ezzideen Shehab volunteers at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, witnessing at first hand catastrophic injuries and deaths, and working under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Constantly targeted by the Israeli Defence Forces, the Indonesian hospital is ultimately destroyed. In December 2024, Dr Shehab co-founds the Al-Rahma Medical Clinic to provide free medical care in northern Gaza, where no functioning hospitals remain. The clinic is damaged multiple times, and in July 2025 is forced to close. Dr Shehab and his family are displaced for the fifth time, with no hope of ever returning to their demolished home in the north of Gaza. In his testimony of these months, Dr Shehab’s clarity and humanity shine through. He describes the people he treats, the devastation of his homeland, and his incomprehension at the world’s silence in the face of the unfolding genocide. Diary of a Young Doctor is a deeply moving and unforgettable work that bears witness to one of the most shameful periods in recent history.

A surreal thriller that blurs the lines between lies and truth, between the selves we conceal and the faces we show the world. As winter descends and the city fills with the scent of woodsmoke, a young transcriber follows the same routine each day. She collects tapes from a ghostwriter’s office, stops for an espresso and croissant, and returns home to type out the voices of strangers — stories that will become someone else’s novels. Her solitary life is predictable, unremarkable … until the day she hears something different on the tapes: a message meant only for her. Across the city, two women, Laura and Naomi, accidentally swap coats at a department store cafe. This brief encounter sparks something electric and strange, and soon, Laura has moved in with Naomi. As the days pass, she begins to mirror her more and more closely — her gestures, her habits, her very essence. Slowly, deliberately, Laura starts to take over Naomi’s life. Meanwhile, the transcriber makes a disturbing discovery: she is beginning to disappear …

We know that we must change ourselves and the world if we want to survive. So why do we cling to old habits and false certainties instead of embracing change no? n New Beginnings, Stefan Klein delves into the most pressing problems facing our world — from the climate crisis to the rapid development of artificial intelligence — and investigates why individuals and societies often resist necessary changes, despite knowing the risks of inaction. Blending scientific insights with vivid storytelling, Klein unpacks the psychological and social forces that keep us stuck, and identifies what he calls the ‘seven illusions about progress’ that hinder our ability to adapt. Central to his analysis is the idea that transformation is not only necessary but also achievable, provided we understand the mechanisms of change and embrace a mindset that values adaptability. New Beginnings stands out for its ability to make complex global challenges comprehensible and relatable. With his trademark clarity and optimism, Klein inspires belief that necessary change is not only possible but accessible for a sustainable future.

Simón López Trujillo’s ‘mind-blowing’ (Gabriela Cabezón Cámara) debut takes readers into a dry and degraded, fire-prone landscape where humanity has encroached a step too far into the natural world, and a deadly fungus mounts its own resistance. In the disorienting, devastatingly tense world of López Trujillo, a eucalyptus farm worker named Pedro starts coughing. Several of his coworkers die of a strange fungal disease, which has jumped to humans for the first time, but Pedro, miraculously, awakes. His survival fascinates a foreign mycologist, as well as a local priest, who dubs his mysterious mutterings to be the words of a prophet. Meanwhile Pedro’s kids are left to fend for themselves: the young Cata, whose creepy art projects are getting harder and harder to decipher, and Patricio, who wasn’t ready to be thrust into the role of father. Their competing efforts to reckon with Pedro’s condition eventually meet in a horrifying climax that readers will never forget. For readers of Jeff VanderMeer and Samanta Schweblin, López Trujillo is a next-generation Bolano with a fresh, speculative edge and a mind that’s always one step ahead of us.

A revelatory, jaw-dropping portrait of Tucker Carlson’s career and his history of reinvention, and a story of how the right-wing media lost its mind. New York Times Magazine writer Jason Zengerle’s eye-opening narrative follows Tucker Carlson’s infamous journey from gifted young reporter at The Weekly Standard to a noxious talking head on Fox News, and then to his dethroning and defenestration. In the tradition of Our Man and The Loudest Voice in the Room, Zengerle examines how Tucker Carlson’s Zelig-like career offers a unique lens into the confusing, myopic, and utterly shameless evolution of American conservatism, its media presence and punditry, from the 1990s to the present.

Gravity doesn’t just pull apples from trees — it shapes our bodies, minds, and even our emotions. Dr Brennan Spiegel reveals how this invisible force influences everything from digestion to depression — and how building gravity resilience can help us find balance, stand stronger, and live longer. Pull presents a groundbreaking exploration of how gravity influences conditions of body and mind that have puzzled medical professionals for centuries. Why do people with depression literally feel like they’re being dragged to the ground? Why do you get that butterfly feeling in your stomach when going down a roller coaster? Why do you get it when you are ‘falling’ in love? What can we learn from astronauts with heartburn and swollen faces to inform our lives back on Earth? How do gut microbes help us fight gravity? And most importantly, how can we change our connection to gravity for the better? To get there, Spiegel proposes the concept of ‘gravity resilience’, a fresh perspective on traditional interventions such as weight loss, exercise, diet, and meditation. Rooted in hard science, buttressed by compelling storytelling, and punctuated with actionable strategies to boost your own gravity resilience, Pull is an eye-opening, life-changing book.

A thrillingly weird novel about art, obsession, and the feral nature of female creativity. Sabine is a conceptual artist whose latest show, Fuck You, Help Me, is about to launch, when her world begins to unravel. Stalked by a mysterious figure whose approaches grow increasingly threatening, she spirals deeper into her neuroses as exhibition day approaches and her fear transforms into something primal and untamed. Accompanied by her strange alter egos — from hyper-realistic baby puppets to the ghost of performance artist Caroline Schneemann — Sabine hurtles toward a surreal climax that forces a reckoning with what it means to create, to be seen, and to survive as a woman artist in a voyeuristic world. Ella Baxter delivers a blazing work that dissects creativity and obsession with visceral humour and unflinching intensity. Part psychological thriller, part artistic manifesto, Woo Woo is a strange and haunting feast that pulses with rage and crackles with dark energy — a literary firestorm unlike anything else.