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Created by bestselling author Sharon McMahon
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Books this season

From Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a glimpse of her journey to the Court and an account of her approach to the Constitution.

Since her confirmation hearing, Americans have peppered Justice Amy Coney Barrett with questions. How has she adjusted to the Court? What is it like to be a Supreme Court justice with school-age children? Do the justices get along? What does her normal day look like? How does the Court get its cases? How does it decide them? How does she decide?

In Listening to the Law, Justice Barrett answers these questions and more. She lays out her role (and daily life) as a justice, touching on everything from her deliberation process to dealing with media scrutiny. With the warmth and clarity that made her a popular law professor, she brings to life the making of the Constitution and explains her approach to interpreting its text. Whether sharing stories of clerking for Justice Scalia or walking readers through prominent cases, she invites readers to wrestle with originalism and to embrace the rich heritage of our Constitution.

Between Two Kingdoms

By:Suleika Jaouad

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the founder of The Isolation Journals and a subject of the Netflix documentary American Symphony.

In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.

Meet the authors

Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Limited-Time Bonus: A signed bookplate from Justice Barrett with your purchase of Listening to the Law.

ACB bookplate

Please be sure to retain your purchase receipt to receive the bookplate.

Suleika Jaouad

Suleika Jaouad is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, which has been translated into over 20 languages, and The Book of Alchemy, a meditation on the central questions of life and how a creative practice can help us transform difficult passages into something useful, even beautiful.

At age 22, Jaouad documented her experience of cancer in young adulthood in the Emmy Award-winning New York Times column and video series “Life, Interrupted." She is the creator of the Isolation Journals, a weekly newsletter that was founded at the beginning of the pandemic to help people transform life’s interruptions into creative grist and community; it has over 200,000 subscribers from around the world and is one of the most popular publications on Substack.

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  • 📚 Live workshops with fascinating history you didn’t learn in school
  • 🎤 Exclusive conversations with Amy Coney Barrett and Suleika Jaouad
  • 💬 Private Zoom Q&As where I answer your questions in real time
  • 📱 Daily behind-the-scenes content in our members-only Instagram
  • 📽️ A Special event with legendary filmmaker Ken Burns

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The American Revolution cover art

SPECIAL EVENT: The American Revolution with Ken Burns

Join us for watch parties of Ken Burns' brand-new PBS series, and an insightful conversation with the filmmaker this fall!

This season's workshops

Headshot for Amber O’Neal Johnston

Books as Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

with Amber O’Neal Johnston

About the workshop

Share the transformative power of children’s literature to shape identity, honor diversity, and deepen understanding. Drawing from the richness of Black American culture, you’ll leave with inspiration and tools to choose inclusive stories, facilitate engaging discussions, and build a bookshelf that celebrates both individuality and our shared humanity.

About the host

Amber O’Neal Johnston is an author and speaker who champions the use of books and lessons that reflect the lived experiences of children and introduce them to lives and cultures beyond their own. She is the author of A Place to Belong and Soul School.

Headshot for Dr. Casey Burgat

How to Do Something When Nothing Can Be Done

with Dr. Casey Burgat

About the workshop

Get off your phone and end the cycle of doomscrolling with practical advice on how to make a difference for democracy in your communities.

About the host

Dr. Casey Burgat is a former congressional staffer turned political science professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. Respected across the aisle, Casey is an expert on federal politics, particularly the workings of Congress. Casey is also the author of the recently published book We Hold These Truths.

Headshot for Jermaine Fowler

Democracy's Defense: How Nations Build Immunity to Authoritarian Infection

with Jermaine Fowler

About the workshop

Pathogens like misinformation and authoritarian creep can be combatted with the immune cells of the free press, civic literacy, and more. Using powerful storytelling and real world examples, you’ll leave this workshop better understanding how to inoculate yourself against an erosion of democracy.

About the host

Jermaine Fowler is a public historian, bestselling author, and keynote speaker who shares the untold stories of history, challenges dominant perspectives, and ventures beyond the textbooks to find stories that are recognizably human.

Headshot for Kevin Sack

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church

with Kevin Sack

About the workshop

Few people knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston — Mother Emanuel — before the night of June 17, 2015, when a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist walked into Bible study and slaughtered nine people. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuel — the first A.M.E. church in the South — to agitate racial strife, he did not anticipate the aftermath: an outpouring of forgiveness from the victims’ families and a reckoning with the divisions of caste that have afflicted Charleston and the South since the earliest days of European settlement.

About the host

Kevin Sack is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who spent 30 years on the staff of The New York Times, where he was known for producing long-form narrative and investigative projects on topics as varied as kidney transplantation, police militarization, refugee assimilation, and climate change. He also served as bureau chief in Atlanta and Albany, covered health care for the national desk, and reported extensively on race and domestic and presidential politics.

Headshot for Dr. Jemar Tisby and Sharon McMahon

White Christian Nationalism: How Religious Ideology Shapes Our Politics

with Dr. Jemar Tisby and Sharon McMahon

About the workshop

White Christian nationalism isn’t new, but its impact on US politics has grown more visible and more urgent to understand. In this workshop, we’ll unpack what it is, how it developed, and the ways it’s influencing everything from voting rights to public education. Together, we’ll explore how this ideology challenges the ideals of a pluralistic democracy and why it matters.

About the hosts

Dr. Jemar Tisby is a public historian, bestselling author of The Color of Compromise, podcast host, and public speaker. He received his PhD in History at the University of Mississippi studying race, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century, and his writing has been featured in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, among others.

Sharon McMahon is the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Small and the Mighty, the editor-in-chief of The Preamble, a top podcast host, viral social media star, philanthropist, and longtime government and law teacher.

Sharon wearing a smile against a teal wall

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