In a literary reversal as deadly serious as it is wickedly satiric, this novel by the acclaimed French-speaking African writer Abdourahman A. Waberi turns the fortunes of the world upside down. On th
“Over the years I have developed a distaste for the spectacle of joie de vivre, the knack of knowing how to live,” begins the title essay by Phillip Lopate. This rejoinder to the cult of hedonism and
It is to me that we owe our immortality, and this is the story that proves it beyond all doubt.” With this sentence René Belletto begins a novel that compresses every genre he has wo
Houses of Study is an eloquent memoir of a Jewish woman’s life and her efforts to reconcile the traditions of her faith with her belief in women’s equality and the pull of modern American living. Ilan
Epic Wanderer, the first full-length biography of mapmaker David Thompson (1770–1857), is set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries against the broad canvas of dramatic rivalries betwe
Imagine a Hollywood encounter between Helen Keller and Frida Kahlo, “two female icons of disability.” Or the story of “Moby Dick, or, The Leg,” told from Ahab’s perspect
For the characters we meet in Toni Jensen’s stories, the past is very much the present. Theirs are American Indian lives off the reservation, lives lived beyond the usual boundaries set for Ame
Over the course of his varied career, Gene A. Budig has served as a professor, the president of the American League of Major League Baseball, the head of three major universities, a major general in t
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (1794–1876) is one of the most famous, and infamous, figures in Mexican history. Six times the country’s president, he is consistently depicted as a traitor, a turncoat, an
It was a time of bold new technology, historic moments, and international jousting on the final frontier. But it was also a time of human drama, of moments less public but no less dramatic in the live
First published in 1934, this collection of tales was recorded and edited by Thelma Adamson (1901–83), a student of Franz Boas and one of the first women to conduct ethnographic fieldwork in the Pacif
Many Jewish foods are beloved in American culture. Everyone eats bagels, and the delicatessen is a ubiquitous institution from Manhattan to Los Angeles. Jewish American Food Culture offers readers an
Though George Norris was born and grew up in Ohio, he headed west after earning his law degree and set up practice in Nebraska, eventually settling in McCook. Elected to the House of Representatives i
For four years during the Civil War, Generals Grant and Lee clashed as bitter enemies in a war that bloodied and scorched the American landscape. Yet in an earlier time, they had worn the same unifor
Fort Leavenworth, where Roger J. Spiller taught the army’s finest for twenty-five years, is indeed a “school of war.” There, among military professionals who had experienced war fir
Pete Newell is considered one of the finest basketball minds in the sport’s history. His death in 2008 spawned tributes from around the country, including legendary UCLA coach John Wooden and B
Sure, there’s no place like home—but what if you can’t really pinpoint where home is? By the time she was nine, Tracy Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses. Her father’s dreams
"From conspiracy to controversy, this is a unique look at famous and not-so-famous incidents from world soccer, There's something here for all who love the game."---JP Dellacamera, World Cup and Olymp
After Buster Hogue is shot at the annual town picnic, plenty of motives appear, but no clues point to the sniper. A lot of people had reason to dislike Hogue or even to wish him dead because of person
