Alaa Al Aswany has won resounding critical acclaim for his deft and moving portrayals of the lives of contemporary Egyptians who constantly examine their relationship with Egypt's history, religion, c
The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearan
One of China's most controversial figures, Empress Wu was its first and only female emperor, emerging in the seventh century during the great Tang Dynasty to usher in a golden age. Throughout history,
In the year 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate an unexplained disappearance
After the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls
In his eighth book of poems, John Koethe offers readers the reflections of a poet in midlife, an "aging child of sixty-two," passionately engaged with the world yet drawn to meditate on memory, time,
On November 5, 1688, William of Orange, Protestant ruler of the Dutch Republic, landed at Torbay in Devon with a force of twenty thousand men. Five months later, William and his wife, Mary, were joint
Anne Roiphe was not quite seventy years old when her husband of nearly forty years unexpectedly passed away. But it was not until her daughters placed a personal ad in a literary journal that Roiphe b
First published in 1934, Border Town brings to life the story of Cuicui, a young country girl coming of age during a time of national turmoil. Like any teenager, Cuicui dreams of romance and finding t
During a routine drug bust, on a narrow bridge over white-water falls in the center of town, Spokane detective Caroline Mabry finds herself face-to-face with a brutal murderer. Within hours, the body
Beautiful and charismatic, nineteen-year-old Checker Secretti is the most gifted and original drummer that the club-goers of Astoria, Queens, have ever heard. When he plays, conundrums seem to solve t
Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible—and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great
The first biography in any language of one of the most celebrated Italian writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1912 to an unconventional family of modest means, Elsa Morante grew up with an ind
In a summer cottage on the coast of Maine, an unlikely love was nurtured, a marriage endured, and a family survived. Now it is time for the children of that marriage to make peace with the wounds and
This collection of important primary sources pertaining to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century has had an amazingly persistent history. Originally published some 40 years ago, it still
Chartres Cathedral, south of Paris, is revered as one of the most beautiful and profound works of art in the Western canon. But what did it mean to those who constructed it in the twelfth and thirte
The epic story of the complex, sensual, tragic, and remarkable life of a legendary Puerto Rican madam Born into poverty and then abandoned by her mother, Isabel "La Negra" Luberza blossoms into a s
Winner of the Friends of American Writers Award for Fiction As seamstresses, the young sisters EmIlia and Luzia dos Santos know how to cut, mend, and conceal—useful skills in the lawless backcountr
With this first book of fiction, a gifted young writer brings together eight superbly crafted stories that peer deeply into the human heart, exploring lives derailed by the loss of a vital connection
"Dear Thrumpton, how I miss you tonight." When twenty-one-year-old George Seymour wrote these words in 1944, the object of his affection was not a young woman but the beautiful country house in Nottin
Caleb Watson is not like the other children at his Washington, D.C., private school. Having skipped a grade - and being younger and smaller than the rest of the boys - he finds that his Southern acce
Alex Burrett shares stories of the most darkly ironic sort, including a field report from a human abattoir, a chronicle of dating Death, and, of course, the tale of the goat that ate its own legs. Th
Edward M. Kennedy is one of the most influential senators in Congress. For the last 35 years, he's played a major role in events ranging from the Vietnam War to Supreme Court confirmations. He's also
From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes an astonishing investigation of how America lost its way and the nation's daily struggle to reclaim the moral authority
In 1903 Mary Boulton flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At nineteen, she has just become a widowand her husband's killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic ra
Neena's mother, Freeda, disappeared on a cold February morning in 1984, leaving the fifteen-year-old Neena and her younger sister, Tish, in the care of Nan, their stern grandmother. Two decades late
Golda Meir was the first female head of state in the Western world and one of the most influential women in modern history. A blend of Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King Jr. in the guise of a cookie-
After seeing a new translation of Jorge Luis Borges's mini-essay "Borges and I" (included here), Halpern asked numerous writers to muse briefly on "the fictional persona 'behind the scenes,'" the alte
In the summer of 1976, during their annual retreat on Cape Cod, the McKotch family came apart. Now, twenty years after daughter Gwen was diagnosed with Turner's syndrome—a rare genetic conditi
After fifteen years of living like a vagabond on her reporter's schedule, Julia Reed got married and bought a house in the historic Garden District. Four weeks after she moved in, Hurricane Katrina st
Bonnie Angelo, a veteran reporter and writer for "Time, has captured the daily lives, thoughts, and feelings of the remarkable women who played such a large role in developing the characters of the mo
Herein is the unexpurgated first-person narrative of nineteen-year-old Skyler Rampike, the only surviving child of an "infamous" American family destroyed a decade ago by the murder of Skylers
The cruel fate of the Princes in the Tower is one of the most fascinating—and most troubling—of all England's historical murder mysteries. But what was the truth behind the deaths of the
The popular cult author of God, Jr. and the George Miles Cycle series presents a wry and satirical work that explores taboo themes in the arenas of pornography, violence, and mutilation. 30,000 first
What would you do if your eighty-year-old father dragged you into his hell-bent hunt for new love? A few months after the death of his wife, Joe Morris, an affable, eccentric octogenarian, needs a
Justin Catanoso, born and raised in New Jersey, knew little of his family beyond the Garden State. That changed in 2001 when he discovered that his grandfather's cousin, Padre Gaetano Catanoso, aaaa
At the height of the Vietnam War protests, twenty-eight-year-old Judith Nies and her husband lived a seemingly idyllic life. Both were building their respective careers in Washington—Nies as the speec
As riveting as a World War II thriller, The Forger's Spell is the true story of three men and an extraordinary deception: the revered artist Johannes Vermeer; the small-time Dutch painter who dared to
Her name was Rosamond Pinchot: hailed as "The Loveliest Woman in America," she was a niece of Pennsylvania governor Gifford Pinchot; cousin to Edie Sedgwick; half sister of Mary Pinchot Meyer, JFK's l
They insist they are just a group of friends, yet they funnel millions of dollars through tax-free corporations. They claim to disdain politics, but congressmen of both parties describe them as the mo
