It's not every day that a writer, almost unheard of in his lifetime, emerges twenty years after his death as a voice of his generation. But then again, there aren't many writers with such irrepressibl
Surrounded by misfits, rednecks, and counterculture burnouts, John Gibson -- the reluctant heir of an alcoholic grandmother -- and Sarah McKay -- a commune-reared "hippie-by-association" -- search for
There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over t
This bold, wide-ranging collection -- his sixth book of poems -- demonstrates the unmistakable lyricism, fierce observation, and force of feeling that have made Mark Doty's poems special to readers on
In this illuminating examination of our national welfare policy, award-winning veteran reporter and writer LynNell Hancock offers portraits of three women and their families as they struggle to find
The Catholic Church may be the most controversial institution in the world. Whether the question is the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the relationship of Catholicism to other religious communities, the
From Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette comes the captivating story of Pick Cantrell, a successful newspaper cartoonist whose career has hit the skids. In the grip of a midlife meltdown, Pick retur
In a wildly careening plot that can only be described as crack noir, two pipeheads accidentally steal a photo of George W. Bush's presidential package and decide to blackmail the Republican Party. Bef
On Friday, October 16, 1846, only one operation was scheduled at Massachusetts General Hospital.... That day in Boston, the operation was the routine removal of a growth from a man's neck. But one thi
Hailed by readers and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came s
Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hi
November 1944. The British government finally agrees to send a brigade of 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine to Europe to fight the German army. But when the war ends and the soldiers witness fir
In the mode of her bestseller A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman celebrates the sensory pleasures of her garden through the seasons. Whether she is deadheading flowers or glorying in the
The less-than-innocents abroad in these daring short novels are Americans in Europe, involved in what turn out to be pleasure tours of hell: shocking, bewildering trips that change forever their idea
Paradise of the Blind is an exquisite portrait of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where subservience to men is expected and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through
0n May 24, 1869, a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. No one had ever explored the fable
This profound and accessible book details how science is studying nature's best ideas to solve our toughest 21st–century problems. If chaos theory transformed our view of the universe, biomimi
What is the next trend -- the next "killer app"? This question is very much on the mind of Ursula Van Urden, a burned-out art student who, after her supermodel sister Ivy's widely publicized suicide a
A daring memoir of love, magic, adventure, and miracles, Victor Villasenor's Thirteen Senses continues the exhilarating family saga that began in the widely acclaimed bestseller Rain of Gold, deliveri
A riveting collection of literary journalism by the bestselling author of The Perfect Storm, capped off brilliantly by a new Afterword and a timely essay about war-torn Afghanistan -- a superb eyewitn
A brilliantly observed memoir of an unprecedented and remarkable spiritual journey. While religion has fuelled the often violent conflict plaguing the Holy Land, Yossi Klein Halevi wondered whether it
Set in the vast and unforgiving prairie of eastern Montana from 1916 to 1946, In Open Spaces is the story of the Arbuckle brothers: George, a rising baseball star who mysteriously drowns in the river
From Freud to Babbitt, from Animal Farm to Sartre to the Great Society, from the Theory of Relativity to counterculture to Kosovo, The Modern Mind is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists,
Isabelle, a woman in her thirties without any of the trappings of a grown-up life, has just been fired from her job at a San Francisco phone company. Returning to the midwestern suburb of her childho
In an absorbing mixture of poignant biography and wonderfully entertaining social history, Daughters of Britannia offers the story of diplomatic life as it has never been told before. Lady Mary Wortle
Based on previously unused French and German sources, this challenging and controversial new analysis of the war on the Western front from 1914 to 1918 reveals how and why the Germans won the major ba
In Sherman, Lee Kennett offers a brilliant new interpretation of the general's life and career, one that probes his erratic, contradictory nature. Here we see the making of a true soldier, beginning
Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his p
A sweeping narrative of the wartime experience, A People's History of the American Revolution is the first book to view the revolution through the eyes of common folk. Their stories have long been ove
For the sake of salt, Rome created a system of remuneration (from which we get the word salary), nomads domesticated the camel, the Low Countries revolted against their Spanish oppressors, and Gandhi
In this collection of twenty-one unforgettable stories, Joyce Carol Oates explores the mysterious private lives of men and women with vivid, unsparing precision and sympathy. By turns interlocutor and
A Rolls Royce Silver Cloud drove him to airports; the British film industry kowtowed to his power; the great Hollywood studios fawned at his feet.Sir Alexander Korda, one of the world's most flamboya
With his inimitable sense of humor and storytelling talent, New York Times bestselling author Michael Korda brings us this charming, hilarious, self-deprecating memoir of a city couple's new life in t
In Why We Run, biologist, award-winning nature writer, and ultramarathoner Bernd Heinrich explores a new perspective on human evolution by examining the phenomenon of ultraendurance and makes surprisi
The most critically acclaimed, and first, of Denis Johnson's novels, Angels puts Jamie Mays -- a runaway wife toting along two kids -- and Bill Houston -- ex-Navy man, ex-husband, ex-con -- on a Greyh
The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, takingmillion lives. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The detai
Robert Bly's new collection of poetry is made of forty-eight poems written in the intricate form called the ghazal, which is the central poetic form in Islam. The influence of Hafez and Rumi is clear,
In this vivid and deeply felt collection of essays, Ron Hansen talks about his novels, childhood, family, and mentors such as John Gardner. He explores prayer, stigmata, twentieth-century martyrs, and
The story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to try to save her.True, she had stopped coming down for breakfast. Stayed up in her room, ran out the d
In this luminous and authoritative new collection, Jane Hirshfield presents an ever-deepening and altering comprehension of human existence in poems utterly unique, as William Matthews once wrote of h
