W. W. Norton & Company

06/27/2025

"Art can let us know what's going on."

Check out Peter Kuper's career-spanning interview with The Comics Journal.

06/27/2025

Reeling in the face of collapsing systems, of politics, identity, and the banalities and distortions of modern living, Nick Laird confronts age-old anxieties, questions of aloneness, friendship, the push and pull of daily life. These poems transport us from a clifftop in Ireland’s County Cork to a bench in New York’s Washington Square, from a face-off between Freud and Michelangelo’s Moses to one between the poet and a squirrel in a London garden.

At the book’s heart lies the Forward Prize–winning title sequence, a profound meditation on a father’s dying at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The reverberations of this knockout poem echo through the volume in its interrogations of inheritance and legacy, illness and justice, accounts of what is lost and what, if anything, can be retained. Amid rage, grief, and the conflagration of reality, Laird finds tenderness in the moments of connection that grow between the cracks and offers glimpses into the unadulterated world of childhood, where everything is still at stake and infinite.

Astonishing in its emotional range and intellect, UP LATE is a powerful volume from an “exceptionally gifted poet” (Paul Muldoon, Times Literary Supplement).

Available now in paperback.
https://wwnorton.com/books/up-late

06/26/2025

In the American Revolution, Virginians were the most eloquent spokesmen for freedom and equality. George Washington led Americans in battle against British oppression. Thomas Jefferson led them in declaring independence. Virginians drafted the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. And they were slave owners. Through the lens of colonial Virginia, AMERICAN SLAVERY, AMERICAN FREEDOM is the classic examination of the tragic contradiction at the core of America.

In her illuminating new contribution to this 50th-anniversary edition, National Book Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Annette Gordon-Reed (The Hemingses of Monticello; On Juneteenth) introduces a new generation of readers to Edmund S. Morgan’s classic text, reminding us that without a full reckoning of the connection between freedom and slavery, America will stall on the road to racial justice.

Available now.
https://wwnorton.com/books/american-slavery-american-freedom

Jacket design by Sarah Bibel

06/25/2025

How to stay fit (and injury-free): the midlife guide from Henry Abbot, author of BALLISTIC.

Henry Abbott’s new book draws on research with thousands of athletes. He tells Anna Maxted what can cause pain ­and how to prevent it

06/25/2025

Enter for a chance to win a prize package featuring some of Norton's LGBTQ+ books and authors, including a tote bag, stickers, and more!

One winner will receive:
one copy of WHAT IS Q***R FOOD? by John Birdsall
a WHAT IS Q***R FOOD? tote bag
a WHAT IS Q***R FOOD? sticker set
a WHAT IS Q***R FOOD? poster
a signed copy of AMERICAN BULK by Emily Mester
three AMERICAN BULK stickers
one copy of BETA VULGARIS by Margie Sarsfield
a BETA VULGARIS beet seed packet
one copy of STILL LIFE by Kathryn Packet Burke
a STILL LIFE matchbox
one copy of STORIES ARE WEAPONS by Annalee Newitz
one STORIES ARE WEAPONS patch
one copy of HOW TO FALL IN LOVE IN A TIME OF UNNAMEABLE DISASTER by Muriel Leung
four HOW TO FALL IN LOVE IN A TIME OF UNNAMEABLE DISASTER coasters
one copy of THE EINSTEIN OF S*X by Daniel Brook
one copy of THE INTERMEDIARIES by Brandy Schillace
one copy of THE MANY PASSIONS OF MICHAEL HARDWICK by Martin Padgett
one copy of THE ORIGINAL by Nell Stevens

No purchase necessary to enter or win. Must be a U.S. resident, 18+ years of age at time of entry. Other restrictions apply, see complete details and Official sweepstakes rules at http://bit.ly/4lqYkwM.

To enter: fill out and submit the form at http://bit.ly/43JWQGA before 12:00 AM Eastern Time on July 2, 2025.

06/24/2025

Congratulations to Kimiko Hahn on becoming the New York State Poet Laureate! Read her most recent collection, THE GHOST FOREST, now.
https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/post/nys-writers-institute-announces-new-york-state-author-and-new-york-state-poet
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324086062

06/20/2025

In her seventh collection, Dorianne Laux once again offers poems that move us, include us, and appreciate us fully as the flawed humans we are. LIFE ON EARTH is a book of praise for our planet and ourselves, delivered with Laux’s trademark vitality, frank observation, and earthy wisdom.

With odes to the unlikely and elemental—salt, snow, crows, cups, Bisquick, a shovel and rake, the ubiquitous can of WD-40, “the way / it releases the caught cogs / of the world”—LIFE ON EARTH urges us all to find extraordinary magic in the mess of ordinary life. “One of our most daring contemporary poets” (Diana Whitney, San Francisco Chronicle), Laux balances wonder at the night sky and the taste of a ripe peach with recognition of the sharp knife of mortality. The volume includes powerful homages to the poet’s mother and her carpenter’s spirit, reflections on loss and aging, and encounters with the fleeting beauty of the natural world.

Transcending life’s inevitable moments of pain and uncertainty, LIFE ON EARTH instructs us in our own endless possibilities and the astonishing riches of the world around us.

Available now in paperback.
https://wwnorton.com/books/life-on-earth

Jacket design by Sarah Bibel

06/19/2025

Happy Juneteenth! To celebrate such a vital and historic holiday, pick up and read these compelling and striking works of literature.

☑️ INSURRECTION by Hawa Allan

Elegant and profound, deeply researched and intensely felt, INSURRECTION is necessary reading in our reckoning with structural racism, government power, and protest in the United States.

☑️ IMAGINATION by Ruha Benjamin

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.

☑️ THE HEMINGSES OF MONTECELLO by Annette Gordon-Reed

This epic work—named a best book of the year by the Washington Post, Time, the Los Angeles Times, Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and a notable book by the New York Times—tells the story of the Hemingses, whose close blood ties to our third president had been systematically expunged from American history until very recently. Now, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700s to the family’s dispersal after Jefferson’s death in 1826.

Read now.
https://wwnorton.com/reader

06/18/2025

Campbell Flynn, art historian, professor, and fêted fixture of the literati, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public—yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much.

He’s never taken other people half as seriously as they take themselves, which is the first of his mistakes. The second is a new project: opportunistic and precisely calibrated to rake in a fortune. Riding on the high of a best-selling biography of Vermeer and fielding more inquiries and requests than he has the time or patience to pursue, Campbell has nevertheless still not managed to shake the question of money. The fact of his quiet loan from a school friend now embroiled in scandal makes the ever-present worry feel even more pressing. His unflappable agent, Atticus; his steadfast wife, Elizabeth; his sister, Moira, crusading parliamentarian for the poor; his well-adjusted, well-off adult children, Angus and Kenzie; and all the outward trappings of success can’t conceal that something in his life is off.

As Campbell becomes increasingly entangled with a brilliant student, convention-smashing and working class, like he used to be, he feels he’s been given a second chance to embrace the change that frightens him, even as he sees trouble brewing for his family and friends. Campbell’s personal quest takes him down darker roads than he could have imagined, and all his worlds—the art scene and academia, fashion and the English aristocracy, journalism and the internet—collide in spectacular fashion, culminating in one shocking night on Caledonian Road.

Available now in paperback.
https://wwnorton.com/books/caledonian-road

Jacket design by Jaya Miceli

06/17/2025

Robert Finch arrived in Newfoundland in the summer of 1995 heartsick, directionless, his old life on Cape Cod in tatters. Burnside, located in Newfoundland’s rugged northeast, seemed like a good place to heal. The coastal village was home to just fifty year-round residents, and accessible only by a hundred-mile ferry crossing. Finch was drawn in by the landscape of low ridges and archipelagos of rocky islands, but he returned to Burnside for its strong sense of community, and the possibility that it might provide a new pattern for his ow life.

Eventually Finch became a summer resident, buying a house, playing organ for the church, and fishing the area’s waters. Offering a portrait of the Newfoundland character and culture, SUMMERS IN SQUID TICKLE explores how three generations of the village have grappled with the changes of the past century—from the rise and collapse of commercial cod fishing, and the migration of young people away from the outport, to the distant hope for tourism and new industries to sustain a disappearing way of life. With characteristically elegant prose and deep sensitivity, Finch introduces us to Squid Tickle’s inhabitants—a collection of hardy fishermen, vigorous retirees, and close neighbors, as well as the woman who would become his wife.

Even as the fish in Squid Tickle’s waters vanish, Finch sketches the enduring relationship of a village with the sea—for food, work, leisure, and a rich community life—in the midst of an unforgiving but stunning landscape. SUMMERS IN SQUID TICKLE speaks to the desire we all have in our era to seek quiet, and to reevaluate our connection to each other and the natural world.

Available now.
https://wwnorton.com/books/summers-in-squid-tickle

Jacket design by Ingsu Liu

06/13/2025

The Next Big Idea Club chose INFLATION as a book of the day this week! In this myth-busting guide to the ins and outs of inflation, economists Mark Blyth and Nicolò Fraccaroli explain how inflation doesn’t hurt everyone equally.

Inflation hits harder when you don’t know how it really works. Here’s a guide to understanding who wins, who loses, and how to stop getting squeezed.

06/13/2025

By early morning of June 30, 1860, a large crowd began to congregate in front of Oxford University’s brand-new Museum of Natural History. The occasion was the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the subject of discussion was Charles Darwin’s new treatise: fact or fiction?

Darwin, a simultaneously reclusive and intellectually audacious squire from Kent, claimed to have solved “that mystery of mysteries,” introducing a logical explanation of the origin of species—how they adapted, even transmogrified, through natural selection. At stake, on that summer’s day of spirited debate, was the very foundation of modern biology, not to mention the future of the church. Without fear of exaggeration, Darwin’s thesis would forever change our understanding of the life sciences and the natural world. And yet the author himself was nowhere to be found in the debate hall—instead, he was miles away, seeking respite from a spate of illnesses that had plagued him for much of his adult life.

In ORIGIN STORY, medical historian Howard Markel recounts the two-year period (1858 to 1860) of Darwin’s writing of On the Origin of Species through its spectacular success and controversy. Simultaneously, Markel delves into the mysterious health symptoms Darwin developed, combing the literature to emerge with a cogent diagnosis of a case that has long fascinated medical historians. The result is a colorful portrait of the man, his friends and enemies, and his seminal work, which resonates to this day.

Available now in paperback.
https://wwnorton.com/books/origin-story

Jacket design by Zoe Norvell