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books tagged “21st century”
books tagged “21st century”
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1001 Books You Must Read Before You Dieby Ackroyd, Peter (AFT), Peter BoxallISBN 0789313707 (0-7893-1370-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die'Book summary:For discerning bibliophiles and readers who enjoy unforgettable classic literature, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is a trove of reviews covering a century of memorable writing. Each work of literature featured here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word.The featured works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others.Addictive, browsable, knowledgeable1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die will be a boon companion for anyone who loves good writing and an inspiration for anyone who is just beginning to discover a love of books. Each entry is accompanied by an authoritative yet opinionated critical essay describing the importance and influence of the work in question. Also included are publishing history and career details about the authors, as well as reproductions of period dust jackets and book designs. [via]
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Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Booksby Wendy WerrisISBN 078671817X (0-7867-1817-X)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alphabetical Life: Living It Up in the World of Books'Book summary:Little did Wendy Werris imagine that when she began a temp job at a Hollywood bookstore in 1970 at age nineteen, she had embarked on a thirty-five year career that would stretch into a journey of self-discovery and literary enlightenment. In An Alphabetical Life, Werris reflects upon how she came to embrace the book culture as her singular way of being in the world. Her career began when the book business was conducted amid an atmosphere of civility and wry humor, and her memoir captures the essence of this time and the people she met along the way. The challenges she faced, in what was then a male-dominated industry, are also discussed - particularly in 1976 when she was one of only two women repping books in the entire country. In describing the hilarious, eccentric characters that were her colleagues, lovers, and partners in crime, the essence of retail bookselling comes alive. Among the figures she profiles are Henry Robbins, editor of The World According to Garp; Alan Kahn, then of Pickwick Bookshop in Los Angeles, now President of Barnes and Noble Publishing; and many great and memorable retail bookbuyers and authors. [via]
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Anansi Boys: Library Editionby Neil GaimanISBN 0786285109 (0-7862-8510-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anansi Boys: Library Edition'Book summary:God is dead. Meet the kids.
When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life.
Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie.
Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself.
Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
Performed by Lenny Henry
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Angelica's Grottoby Russell HobanISBN 0786708786 (0-7867-0878-6)
Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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The Arctic IncidentISBN 0786817089 (0-7868-1708-9)
Softcover, Miramax
Find This BookBook summary:Eoin Colfer's bestselling antihero is back in Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident--the superb sequel to the hyper-hyped Artemis Fowl, shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year. The Arctic Incident sees the slightly older, perhaps slightly more mellow arch-criminal Artemis recovered from his last adventure, richer now that he has his half of a hoard of fairy gold, and happier since the Clarice Starlingesque superfairy Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon returned his mother's ailing mind to full health.
But there is still much unfinished business: Artemis Fowl Sr. disappeared when a daring escapade designed to free his family from their criminal--not to mention deeply lucrative--past and move the family's assets into legitimate enterprises went horribly wrong. Held captive by the Mafiya (the Russian organized crime syndicate) for over two years, he has been declared officially dead, but Artemis Jr. knows in his heart (yes, he does have one) that his beloved father is still alive, and he is determined to find him. Meanwhile Captain Short is temporarily on assignment to Customs and Excise as punishment for letting Fowl separate her and her People from their gold and is finding her stakeout duties a little dull. It soon becomes obvious that the pair have need of each other's considerable skills, and before long they are on track for an adventure that will ultimately have far-reaching consequences for both of them.
If you enjoyed the first book, you won't be disappointed by the second. Initially the pace is a little slower, and the slightly more mellow Artemis is certainly a tad unnerving at first (particularly as one of the things that made him such an unusual character was the fact that there was something distinctly unlikable about him), but once the sparks between Holly and Artemis begin to fly, and the adventure that tests their endurance to their emotional, physical, and intellectual limits begins, the pages just keep on turning.
The high-tech hocus pocus, the complex underworld, and the James Bond-style storyline will keep even the most reluctant reader enthralled. Add to the mix a fair dollop of humor, the occasional sprinkling of right-on commentary about the state of the planet, and enough hooks in the story to ensure you will be clamoring for the next book. This chilling, thrilling adventure is a seriously cool (in more ways than one!) must-read for anyone age 9 and older. --Susan Harrison [via]
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The Art of Skiing: Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Winter Sportby Jenny De GexISBN 0789315157 (0-7893-1515-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Skiing: Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Winter Sport'Book summary:This book is a must-have gift for anyone interested in skiing or in the art of the poster. Organized by country, it features the world's foremost winter sport by drawing on an unparalleled collection of 800 vintage posters and paintings. Amassed by Mason Beekley over a lifetime dedicated to the celebration of all things skiing, the collection is now housed at the Mammoth Ski Museum in California and open to the public. In the 1910s and 1920s, skiing became the "in" thing among the young and the fashionable, who made such glamorous resorts like St. Moritz, Chamonix, and Garmisch famous. Like car racing, skiing was one of the sports that defined the twentieth-century's notion of the modern. It combined fast-paced action with the need to appear in stylish, sporty yet appropriate attire. Since it took place away from everyday urban life in remote and breathtaking mountain locations, it also combined the romance of travel with the stylishness of après-ski social life and ski chalet rusticity. Even in the steamship era, skiing quickly jumped the Atlantic and spawned such now famous ski resorts such as Vermont's Stowe, Colorado's Aspen, and Canada's Banff and Whistler (all featured here in their pre-war glamour). The book is rounded out by chapters on the contemporary skiing scene and on skiing fashion. [via]
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At Riskby Patricia Daniels CornwellISBN 0786285605 (0-7862-8560-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Between A Rock And A Hard Placeby Aron RalstonISBN 0786271957 (0-7862-7195-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Between A Rock And A Hard Place'Book summary:A New York Times Bestseller
Here is one of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told: Aron Ralston's searing account of six days spent with his right hand and wrist pinned by a boulder in one of the most remote spots in America, and the inspired act of bravery that brought him out. This brilliantly written, funny, honest, inspiring, and downright astonishing report from the line where death meets life will surely take its place in the annals of classic adventures. [via]
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Bitter Fruitby Achmat DangorISBN 0795700970 (0-7957-0097-0)
Softcover, Macmillan Co of Australia
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The Bookwoman's Last Fling: A Cliff Janeway Novelby John DunningISBN 0786287934 (0-7862-8793-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bookwoman's Last Fling: A Cliff Janeway Novel'Book summary:In another enthralling bestseller by "master yarn spinner" (Chicago Sun-Times) John Dunning, rare book dealer and relentless private eye Cliff Janeway unravels a deadly plot marked by stolen classics and stable secrets.
When wealthy horse trainer H. R. Geiger dies, Denver bookman Cliff Janeway encounters the legacy of the man's wife, Candice, a true bookwoman who left behind an assortment of rare first-edition children's books. Sent to assess the collection, Janeway soon finds that several titles are missing, replaced by cheap reprints -- while other hugely expensive pieces remain. Why would a thief take one priceless book and leave an equally valuable volume on the shelf? Suspecting foul play, Janeway follows the trail of Candice's shadowy past to California's Golden Gate and Santa Anita racetracks, where he signs on as a racehorse hot walker. Eavesdropping on the chatter among the hands, he doesn't like what he hears. And when he goes to the house where Candice died to look for answers, Janeway finds much more than he bargained for. [via]
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Buddha Daby Anne DonovanISBN 0786713364 (0-7867-1336-4)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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Cellby Stephen KingISBN 0786285680 (0-7862-8568-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cell'Book summary:Witness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced. Casting aside his love of elaborate character and town histories and penchant for delayed gratification, King yanks readers off their feet within the first few pages; dragging them into the fray and offering no chance catch their breath until the very last page.
In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution.
Fans that have followed King from the beginning will recognize and appreciate Cell as a departure--King's writing has not been so pure of heart and free of hang-ups in years (wrapping up his phenomenal Dark Tower series and receiving a medal from the National Book Foundation doesn't hurt either). "Retirement" clearly suits King, and lucky for us, having nothing left to prove frees him up to write frenzied, juiced-up horror-thrillers like Cell. --Daphne Durham [via]
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Chalktownby Melinda HaynesISBN 078686656X (0-7868-6656-X)
Hardcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chalktown'Book summary:The lifeline of Melinda Haynes's novel Chalktown is a rutted, meandering dirt road that winds its way past the murky waterways and through the one-shop towns and backwoods of George County, Mississippi. It's also a red flag to anyone looking for a good dose of surreal Southern gothic. Here is the isolated shack of a disintegrating white-trash family, there the village dwellers who communicate solely by writing notes on the chalkboards in their front yards. One character is grotesquely scarred by an adult bout with chicken pox, while others are eaten up by less identifiable diseases and appetites. Dreams are pursued, discarded, and eerily enacted, always in the sort of luscious, graphic prose you would expect from the author of Mother of Pearl.
Perhaps the term family is a misnomer for the Sheehands, a bunch of misfits drawn together by impulse and wrenched apart by hope, desire, and murder. Fairy, the philandering father camped out in an old school bus, can't extricate himself from the burden of "women and their sticky flaws." His wife, Susan-Blair, is slowly burying herself beneath other people's possessions in her makeshift consignment store, even as she neglects her children and chats it up with the ever-present Christ of her Pentecostal upbringing. No wonder 16-year-old Hezekiah sets off down the road to Chalktown in the opening pages of the novel, carrying his disabled brother in a backpack. His encounters along the way make for a Robert Altman-like series of takes on the bizarre nature of reality in George County.
The literary landscape of the Deep South is, of course, teeming with eccentric characters. Yet Haynes's are so fleshed-out that the reader is left feeling almost crowded, like (to quote Susan-Blair) a "durn closet full a somebody else's coats. Coats put there by people who went on to someplace else, some other thing." The author is no less gifted at conveying a sense of place. She uses the colorful brushstrokes of a painter--which she also happens to be--to imbue this story with a dark, sultry, and unmistakably Southern feel. The result is a captivating, consuming read. --S. Ketchum [via]
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Chronicles: A Bob Dylan Seriesby Bob DylanISBN 0786273410 (0-7862-7341-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chronicles: A Bob Dylan Series'Book summary:One would not anticipate a conventional memoir from Bob Dylan--indeed, one would not have foreseen an autobiography at all from the pen of the notoriously private legend. What Chronicles: Volume 1 delivers is an odd but ultimately illuminating memoir that is as impulsive, eccentric, and inspired as Dylan's greatest music.
Eschewing chronology and skipping over most of the "highlights" that his many biographers have assigned him, Dylan drifts and rambles through his tale, amplifying a series of major and minor epiphanies. If you're interested in a behind-the-scenes look at his encounters with the Beatles, look elsewhere. Dylan describes the sensation of hearing the group's "Do You Want to Know a Secret" on the radio, but devotes far more ink to a Louisiana shopkeeper named Sun Pie, who tells him, "I think all the good in the world might already been done" and sells him a World's Greatest Grandpa bumper sticker. Dylan certainly sticks to his own agenda--a newspaper article about journeymen heavyweights Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Ellis and soul singer Joe Tex's appearance on The Tonight Show inspire heartfelt musings, and yet the 1963 assassination of John Kennedy prompts nary a word from the era's greatest protest singer.
For all the small revelations (it turns out he's been a big fan of Barry Goldwater, Mickey Rourke, and Ice-T), there are eye-opening disclosures, including his confession that a large portion of his recorded output was designed to alienate his audience and free him from the burden of being a "the voice of a generation."
Off the beaten path as it is, Chronicles is nevertheless an astonishing achievement. As revelatory in its own way as Blonde on Blonde or Highway 61 Revisited, it provides ephemeral insights into the mind one of the most significant artistic voices of the 20th century while creating a completely new set of mysteries. --Steven Stolder [via]
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Death of a River Guideby Richard FlanaganISBN 0802138632 (0-8021-3863-2)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death of a River Guide'Book summary:In this brilliant, labyrinthine second novel, a drowning man named Aljaz Cosini is granted visions of his family history stretching into the distant past--even as he revisits his final days along the remote and treacherous Franklin River. Richard Flanagan's protagonist has been away from Tasmania for the last decade. Sick, lonely, and financially strapped, he returns to his hometown and soon runs into an old colleague known as Pig's Breath, who offers him a low-paying stint as a river guide:
I can see that Pig's Breath knows Aljaz well enough to see that Aljaz desperately wants to visit the Franklin River country, that there is a need in him, which Pig's Breath does not have, to go back there, and that this is his only way of doing it. And while Aljaz sits there trying to look as if he is chewing over numbers, Pig's Breath can tell that what he is in fact doing is smelling the river, hearing it run, watching the rain mists rise from its valleys, drinking its tea-coloured waters from his cupped hands.
Flanagan (The Sound of One Hand Clapping) has been compared to Faulkner for his loving attention to place, but his narrative talents are more akin to those of Günter Grass. There are echoes of The Tin Drum in the picaresque tale of Aljaz's emergence from the womb, wrapped in the caul that suggests second sight. Throughout, a series of similarly magical occurrences lends sparkle, if little illumination, to these hardscrabble lives in the Tasmanian wilderness. All of which goes to explain why Death of a River Guide is an unusually rich novel, and one of Australia's most distinguished literary exports in recent years. --Regina Marler [via]More editions of Death of a River Guide:
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Deception Pointby Dan BrownISBN 0786282290 (0-7862-8229-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Deception Point'Book summary:Penzler Pick, December 2001: In the world of page-turning thrillers, Dan Brown holds a special place in the hearts of many of us. After his first book, Digital Fortress, almost passed me by, he wrote Angels and Demons, which was probably one of the half-dozen most exciting thrillers of last year. It is a pleasure to report that his new book lives up to his reputation as a writer whose research and talent make his stories exciting, believable, and just plain unputdownable.
The time is now and President Zachary Herney is facing a very tough reelection. His opponent, Senator Sedgwick Sexton, is a powerful man with powerful friends and a mission: to reduce NASA's spending and move space exploration into the private sector. He has numerous supporters, including many beyond the businesses who will profit from this because of the embarrassment of 1996, when the Clinton administration was informed by NASA that proof existed of life on other planets. That information turned out to be premature, if not incorrect. (This story is true; I repeat, Dan Brown's research is very, very good.) The embattled president is assured that a rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice will prove to have far-reaching implications on America's space program. The find, however, needs to be verified.
Enter Rachel Sexton, a gister for the National Reconnaissance Office. Gisters reduce complex reports into single-page briefs, and in this case the president needs that confirmation before he broadcasts to the nation, probably ensuring his reelection. It's tricky because Rachel is the daughter of his opponent. Rachel is thrilled to be on the team traveling to the Arctic circle. She is a realist about her father's politics and has little respect for his stand on NASA, but Senator Sexton cannot help but have a problem with her involvement.
Adventure, romance, murder, skullduggery, and nail-biting tension ensue. By the end of Deception Point, the reader will be much better informed about how our space program works and how our politicians react to new information. Bring on the next Dan Brown thriller! --Otto Penzler [via]
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DK Eyewitness Travel Guides Franceby Dk Travel WritersISBN 078949387X (0-7894-9387-X)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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DK Eyewitness Travel Guides St. PetersburgISBN 0789435306 (0-7894-3530-6)
Softcover, Dk Pub
Find This BookBook summary:Truly the guides that show you what others only tell you, this book features stunning 3D and cutaway views of museums, cathedrals, and other must-see sights; detailed street maps; a handy phrase section; advice on the best places to eat, drink, shop, sleep, and be entertained; and a Survival Guide to help the traveler sort out essential information such as currency, transportation, and communications. As world traveler and TV personality Michael Palin says, "the Eyewitness Travel Guides are irresistibly seductive.... They also deliver where it matters most -- uncluttered and accurate information."
More than 750 color photographs capture the palaces and other visual pleasures in DK's Eyewitness Travel Guide: St. Petersburg. Dividing the city into five districts (Vasilevskiy Island, Petrogradskaya, Palace Embankment, Gostiny Dvor, and Sennaya Ploschad), precise street-by-street maps and 3-D aerial overviews guide you to all of St. Petersburg's most magnificent attractions. Visit the splendid Winter Palace, a superb example of Russian Baroque architecture, with a stunning illustration surrounded by photos of its key highlights. The glorious treasures of the Hermitage are vividly depicted in an eight-page section featuring illustrations, photos, complete floor plans, and collection highlights by Gauguin, Matisse, Rembrandt, and da Vinci. Additional special features showcase such sights as St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Russian Museum. Two guided walks are outlined--one along St. Petersburg's waterways, detailing the route's grand architecture, and another covering the Kamennyy and Yelagin Islands. The guide also goes beyond St. Petersburg, especially Peterof, Peter the Great's Palace, and Tsarskoe Selo, both depicted in stunning four-page sections complete with aerial overviews and photos of their highlights. The city's absorbing history, colorful royal personages, cultural centers, and flavorful cuisine are among the numerous subjects covered throughout this outstanding guide. If St. Petersburg is on your itinerary, be sure you pick up this invaluable guide before you go. [via]
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DK Eyewitness Travel Guides St. Petersburgby Melanie Rice, Christopher RiceISBN 0789497271 (0-7894-9727-1)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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The Eternity Codeby Eoin ColferISBN 0786814934 (0-7868-1493-4)
Softcover, Hyperion
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Eternity Code'Book summary:The third instalment of high-tech, criminal whiz-kid adventures set in the fairy-magic-filled world of Master Artemis Fowl may be reassuringly familiar but it is also bulging with author Eoin Colfer's trademark wit and thrilling seat-of-the-dwarf-pants adventure. Following on from Artemis's opening encounter with the fairy underworld in Artemis Fowl and its thumping sequel Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Encounter, The Eternity Code takes the books' eponymous young anti-hero, who with each successive adventure turns out to be a little less bad after all, on his most dangerous mission yet.
Artemis and his bodyguard Butler have set up a meeting in Chicago with dangerous international businessman Jon Spiro. In his latest eager attempt to make money, using a priceless futuristic cube of purloined Fairy gadgetry that can do just about anything, Artemis has underestimated Spiro and arrived at the rendezvous under-prepared. Big mistake. It is an ambush, and though Artemis escapes with his life, Butler is mortally wounded.
The cube may be lost but Artemis refuses to accept his friend's demise and quickly deep freezes Butler in the restaurant kitchen. He calls on the only people he knows who might be able to get him back--Holly Short of the subterranean Fairy police and her race's super-advanced technology. Holly and Artemis must find a way to bring Butler back from the dead and retrieve the lost Eternity Cube that could change the balance of power between humans and fairies forever. It is a Herculean task and the price exacted upon Artemis for such assistance is very high indeed.
What Colfer's latest plot may lack in depth or sophistication is more than made up for by the sheer verve and energy of his settings, characters and action. These books are very entertaining indeed and hugely readable, and once you're a Fowl fan you'll be hooked until Artemis decides to go straight. Recommended for ages nine and above. --John McLay [via]
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Fair Warningby Robert Olen ButlerISBN 0802139566 (0-8021-3956-6)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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The Flight of the Maidensby Jane GardamISBN 0786708794 (0-7867-0879-4)
Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Flight of the Maidens'Book summary:Deliciously, with keen perception and touching humanity, this new novel from one of England's most gifted writers follows three young Yorkshire women, all of them scholarship girls, through the weeks preceding their departures for university in Cambridge and London. If they face the future with innocence and uncertainty, their parents and guardians belong in spirit to an England now past, even as they gaze upon a world that has been utterly altered by six long years of war. It is the summer of 1946. In this time of clothing coupons and social readjustment, Hetty Fallowes struggles intellectually to become independent of her possessive and tactless but loving mother, while her best friend, Una Vane, asserts her nascent womanhood with a sexually interesting fellow from the wrong side of the Yorkshire tracks. And Liselotte Klein, a Jewish refugee who arrived fat, solitary, and clever from Hamburg in 1939, comes through painful trials in London and California to surprising possibilties. By summer's end, all three have begun to learn they know neither everything nor nothing.[via]More editions of The Flight of the Maidens:
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The Floating Brothelby Sian ReesISBN 0786867876 (0-7868-6787-6)
Hardcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Floating Brothel'Book summary:A seafaring story with a twist -- the incredible voyage of a shipload of "disorderly girls" and the men who transported them, fell for them, and sold them.
This riveting work of rediscovered history tells for the first time the plight of the female convicts aboard the Lady Julian, which set sail from England in 1789 and arrived in Australia's Botany Bay a year later. The women, most of them petty criminals, were destined for New South Wales to provide its hordes of lonely men with sexual favors as well as progeny. But the story of their voyage is even more incredible, and here it is expertly told by a historian with roots in the boatbuilding business and a true love of the sea.
SiGn Rees delved into court documents and firsthand accounts to extract the stories of these women's experiences on board a ship that both held them prisoner and offered them refuge from their oppressive existence in London. At the heart of the story is the passionate relationship between Sarah Whitelam, a convict, and the ship's steward, John Nicol, whose personal journals provided much of the material for this book. Along the way, Rees brings the vibrant, bawdy world of London -- and the sights, smells, and sounds of an eighteenth-century ship -- vividly to life. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, this is a winning combination of dramatic high seas adventure and untold history. [via]
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The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and its Cargo of Female Convictsby Sian ReesISBN 0786886749 (0-7868-8674-9)
Softcover, Hyperion Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and its Cargo of Female Convicts'Book summary:Now in paperback, the incredible true story of a shipload of "disorderly girls" and the men who transported them, fell for them, and sold them.
This riveting work of rediscovered history tells for the first time the plight of the female convicts aboard the Lady Julian, which set sail from England in 1789 and arrived in Australia's Sydney Cove a year later. The women, most of them petty criminals, were destined for New South Wales to provide its hordes of lonely men with both sexual favors and progeny. But the story of their voyage is even more incredible, and here it is expertly told by a historian with roots in the boatbuilding business and a true love of the sea.
Sian Rees delved into court documents and firsthand accounts to extract the stories of these women's experiences on board a ship that both held them prisoner and offered them refuge from their oppressive existence in London. At the heart of the story is the passionate relationship between Sarah Whitelam, a convict, and the ship's steward, John Nicol, whose personal journals provided much of the material for this book. Along the way, Rees brings the vibrant, bawdy world of London -- and the sights, smells, and sounds of an eighteenth-century ship -- vividly to life. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, this is a winning combination of dramatic high seas adventure and untold history. [via]
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Going To Schoolby Anne Civardi, Stephen CartwrightISBN 0794510086 (0-7945-1008-6)
Softcover, Edc Pub
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Goodbye Tsugumiby Banana Yoshimoto, Michael EmmerichISBN 0802139914 (0-8021-3991-4)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Goodbye Tsugumi'Book summary:Banana Yoshimoto's novels have made her an international sensation, and her most recent, Asleep, was a triumphant performance, delighting her many fans. Now she returns with a magical, offbeat story of a deep and complicated friendship between two young female cousins that ranks among her best work. Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid who is charismatic, spoiled, and occasionally cruel. When Maria's father is finally able to bring Maria and her mother to Tokyo, it ushers Maria into a world of university enrollment, impending adulthood, and a "normal" family. Then Tsugumi invites Maria to spend a last summer by the sea, and a restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth, as Tsugumi finds love and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront both Tsugumi's inner strength and the real possibility of losing her. Goodbye Tsugumi is a beguiling, resonant novel from one of the world's finest young writers. "Banana Yoshimoto is always alert to the marvelous." -- Elle [via]
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The Grand Complicationby Allen KurzweilISBN 0786885181 (0-7868-8518-1)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Grand Complication'Book summary:Penzler Pick, August 2001: Most avid readers love everything about books--not only the words, but also the paper, the edition, the age, the texture of the binding, all of which become part of the fascination for the printed word that makes a true bibliophile. So it is no wonder that the bibliophile mystery has achieved such popularity. The Grand Complication, well-written and well-researched, is the latest in a long line of such mysteries.
Alexander Short is a reference librarian who spends his days dealing with the minutiae of his work world. At night he goes home to his French wife who is also a book person. She makes pop-up books and other three-dimensional volumes, including a "girdle" that Alexander wears in the manner of medieval monks, tied around his middle and used for his "girdling" or taking notes--something Alexander does obsessively, to the detriment of his job. Two such people seem made for each other, but their obsessions make for a rocky marriage.
So Alexander is fascinated when he meets Henry James Jesson III, an elderly man with equally obsessive interests. He would like Alexander to help him after hours. In Jesson's Manhattan mansion there is a cabinet of curiosities that tell the life of an 18th-century inventor. But one of the compartments is empty. Jesson, and soon Alexander, are agog with curiosity about what was in that compartment. Finding out is half the fun of reading this book.
The other half, if you care (and somehow I think you do), is the design of the book itself. Kurzweil is the son of an engineer, and he designed the small icon, a gear, that appears on many of the book's pages. Over the course of the novel, which runs 360 pages, that gear turns 360 degrees. And then there are the endpapers.... --Otto Penzler [via]
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A Great And Terrible Beautyby Libba BrayISBN 0786280824 (0-7862-8082-4)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Great And Terrible Beauty'Book summary:A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy--jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel.
Gemma, 16, has had an unconventional upbringing in India, until the day she foresees her mothers death in a black, swirling vision that turns out to be true. Sent back to England, she is enrolled at Spence, a girls academy with a mysterious burned-out East Wing. There Gemma is snubbed by powerful Felicity, beautiful Pippa, and even her own dumpy roommate Ann, until she blackmails herself and Ann into the treacherous clique. Gemma is distressed to find that she has been followed from India by Kartik, a beautiful young man who warns her to fight off the visions. Nevertheless, they continue, and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical Order. The clique soon finds a way to accompany Gemma to the other-world realms of her visions "for a bit of fun" and to taste the power they will never have as Victorian wives, but they discover that the delights of the realms are overwhelmed by a menace they cannot control. Gemma is left wi! th the knowledge that her role as the link between worlds leaves her with a mission to seek out the "others" and rebuild the Order. A Great and Terrible Beauty is an impressive first book in what should prove to be a fascinating trilogy. (Ages 12 up) Patty Campbell [via]
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Half of Paradiseby James Lee BurkeISBN 0786889462 (0-7868-8946-2)
Softcover, Hyperion
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The Hostageby W. E. B. GriffinISBN 0786282355 (0-7862-8235-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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I Am Charlotte Simmonsby Tom WolfeISBN 0786272910 (0-7862-7291-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I Am Charlotte Simmons'Book summary:Amazon.com Exclusive Content
Product Description: Dupont University--the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition... Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the uppercrust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives. With his signature eye for detail, Tom Wolfe draws on extensive observation of campuses across the country to immortalize college life in the '00s. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the much-anticipated triumph of America's master chronicler.
Tom Wolfe Talks About I Am Charlotte Simmons
In I Am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe masterfully chronicles college sports, fraternities, keggers, coeds, and sex--all through the eyes of the titular Simmons, a bright and beautiful freshman at the fictional Dupont University. Listen to an Amazon.com exclusive audio clip of Wolfe talking about his new novel.- Listen to Tom Wolfe Talk About I Am Charlotte Simmons
Tom Wolfe Timeline 1931: Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr. born in Richmond, VA, on March 2. Wolfe later attends Washington and Lee University (BA, English, 1951), and Yale University (Ph.D., American Studies, 1957).
1956: Wolfe begins working as a reporter in Springfield, MA, Washington, D.C., then finally New York City, writing feature articles for major newspapers, as well as New York and Esquire magazines. Not satisfied with the conventions of newspaper reporting at the time, Wolfe experiments with using the techniques of fiction writing in his news articles. Wolfe's newspaper career spans a decade.
1963: After being sent by Esquire to research a story about the custom car world in Southern California, Wolfe returns to New York with ideas, but no article. Upon telling his editor he cannot write it, the editor suggests he send his notes and someone else will. Wolfe stays up all night, types 49 pages, and turns it in the next morning. Later that day, the editor calls to tell Wolfe they are cutting the salutation off the top of the memorandum, printing the rest as-is. Thus, New Journalism was arguably born, whereby writing and storytelling techniques previously utilized only in fiction were radically applied to nonfiction. Straight reporting pieces now were free to include: the author's perceptions and experience, shifting perspectives, the use of jargon and slang, the reconstruction of events and conversations.
1965: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux publish Wolfe's first collection of nonfiction stories displaying his newfound reporting techniques: The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. The book cements Wolfe's place as a prominent stylist of the New Journalism movement.
1968: The Pump House Gang and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (No. 91 on National Review's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century) publish on the same day, and together provide an up-close portrait and exploration of the hippie culture of the 1960s (by following the novelist Ken Kesey and his entourage of LSD enthusiasts), and the cultural change occurring at a seminal point in U.S. social history.
1970: Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is published. This collection underscores racial divide in America, including an am using story about the socialites of New York City seeking out black liberation groups as guests, focusing on the conductor Leonard Bernstein's party with the Black Panthers in attendance at his Park Avenue duplex. (No. 35 on National Review's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century .)
1976: Wolfe labels the 1970s "The Me Decade" in his collection of essays, Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine. Wolfe illustrates the bookthroughout.
1979: The Right Stuff is published. Depicting the status, structure, exploits, and ethics of daredevil pilots at the forefront of rocket and aircraft technology, as well as the beginnings of the space program and the pioneering NASA astronauts who were the first Americans to land on the moon, the book receives the National Book Award in 1980. An Academy Award-winning film is made from the book in 1983.
1987: With publication of his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities--serialized in Rolling Stone magazine--Wolfe pens one of the bestselling and definitive novels of the 1980s, continuing his social criticism and ability to capture the lives and preoccupations of Americans, one generation at a time. Wolfe receives a record $5 million for movie rights to the novel and, despite the success of the book, the film fails at the box office.
1998: A Man in Full, Wolfe's second novel, is published to mixed criticism, yet garners favor as a 1998 National Book Award Finalist. Here, Wolfe aims his sights on the Atlanta, GA, elite, trophy wives, and real estate developers, continuing to comment on racial issues and the chasm in socioeconomic status in America.
2000: Hooking Up, a collection of essays, reviews, profiles, and the novella, Ambush at Fort Bragg, is published.
2004: On November 9, Wolfe's third novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, set at the fictional Dupont University, is published. [via]
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Ice Creamby Helen DunmoreISBN 0802117333 (0-8021-1733-3)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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Lipstick Jungleby Candace BushnellISBN 0786887079 (0-7868-8707-9)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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Lost Nationby Jeffrey LentISBN 080213985X (0-8021-3985-X)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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Male Nude Nowby David LeddickISBN 0789306352 (0-7893-0635-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Male Nude Now'Book summary:As images of men's bodies have proliferated in pop culture and advertising during the past decade, many artists and photographers have taken up the male nude as a primary subject. Recent work has sparked controversy as well as praise for its shocking frankness, and the line between art and pornography has become increasingly difficult to define. New digital technologies have brought about new ways of representing the body, and we are now faced with a multiplicity of eroticisms, previously unexplored channels of desire, and more inclusive and varied body ideals.
Male Nudes Now offers an essential guide through this new territory with more than 240 fresh and provocative images. Featuring contemporary work, mostly unpublished, this important sourcebook showcases a dynamic mix of visionaries, from established masters to breakthrough newcomers.
Feature Artists Include
Lyle Ashton Harris
Marc Baptiste
Clive Barker
Cecily Brown
Chuck Close
John Dugdale
Todd Eberle
Eric Fischl
Nan Goldin
Greg Gorman
David Hockney
Patrick McMullan
Duane Michals
Pierre et Gilles
Jack Pierson
Rankin
Terry Richardson
Michael Roberts
Stewart Shining
Wolfgang Tillmans
George Tooker
Ellen von Unwerth
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Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepalby Jonathan GregsonISBN 0786868783 (0-7868-6878-3)
Hardcover, Miramax
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The Mays of Ventadornby W.S. MerwinISBN 0792265386 (0-7922-6538-6)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Cultureby Thurston MooreISBN 0789311992 (0-7893-1199-2)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Motorcycle: Evolution, Design, Passionby Mick WalkerISBN 0801885302 (0-8018-8530-2)
Hardcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
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My Freshman Year: What A Professor Learned By Becoming A Studentby REBEKAH NATHANISBN 0801443970 (0-8014-4397-0)
Hardcover, Cornell Univ Pr
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The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of It's Enemies Since 9/11by Ron SuskindISBN 0786290935 (0-7862-9093-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dogby Mo WillemsISBN 0786818697 (0-7868-1869-7)
Hardcover, Hyperion
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog'Book summary:The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! [Hardcover] by Willems, Mo [via]
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Pigs in Heavenby Barbara KingsolverISBN 0788160575 (0-7881-6057-5)
Hardcover, Diane Pub Co
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Places to Look for a Motherby Nicole StansburyISBN 0786711779 (0-7867-1177-9)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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Predatorby Patricia CornwellISBN 0786281634 (0-7862-8163-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Predator'Book summary:A New York Times Bestselling Author
Dr. Kay Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, takes charge of a case that stretches from steamy Florida to snow-bound Boston. The psychological clues lead Scarpetta and her team to suspect that they are hunting someone with a cunning and malevolent mind whose secrets have kept them in the shadows, until now.
Simultaneous Publication with G. P. Putnam's Standard Print edition. [via]
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Rare Fleshby David Armstrong, Clive BarkerISBN 0789308452 (0-7893-0845-2)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Ravenby Edgar Allan Poe, Alexius ReedISBN 0802117562 (0-8021-1756-2)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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Rebel Angelsby Libba BrayISBN 0786280875 (0-7862-8087-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rebel Angels'Book summary:In this sequel to the Victorian fantasy A Great and Terrible Beauty, Gemma continues to pursue her role as the one destined to bind the magic of the Realms and restore it to the Order--a mysterious group who have been overthrown by a rebellion. Gemma, Felicity and Ann, (her girlfriends at Spence Academy for Young Ladies), use magical power to transport themselves on visits from their corseted world to the visionary country of the Realms, with its strange beauty and menace. There they search for the lost Temple, the key to Gemma's mission, and comfort Pippa, their friend who has been left behind in the Realms. After these visits they bring back magical power for a short time to use in their own world. Meanwhile, Gemma is torn between her attraction to the exotic Kartik, the messenger from the opposing forces of the Rakshana, and the handsome but clueless Simon, a young man of good family who is courting her. The complicated plot thickens when Gemma discovers a woman in Bedlam madhouse who knows where to find the Temple; Ann shows signs of being enamored of Gemma's loutish brother Tom, and their father's addiction to laudanum lands him in an opium den. A large part of the enjoyment of this unusual fantasy comes from the Victorian milieu and its restrictive rules about the behavior of proper young ladies, as contrasted with the unimaginable possibilities of the Realms, where Gemma has power to confront gorgons and ghosts and the responsibility to save a world. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell [via]
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Ruby Riverby Lynn PruettISBN 0802140394 (0-8021-4039-4)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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Saving Francescaby Melina MarchettaISBN 0786273097 (0-7862-7309-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Saving Francesca'Book summary:"This morning, my mother didn't get out of bed." So begins the saga of Francesca Spinelli, the hilarious and achingly real creation of Aussie author Melina Marchetta. Francesca used to think her biggest problem was transferring to St. Sebastian's--a school only recently turned coed: "What a dream come true, right? Seven hundred and fifty boys and thirty girls? But the reality is that it's either like living in a fish bowl or like you don't exist." But now there's this matter of her usually vibrant and annoyingly optimistic mother Mia refusing to get up in the morning. Her taciturn father doesn't have much to say on the subject, her beloved little brother Luca is anxiously looking to her for answers, and her so-called friends from her old neighborhood seem to have abandoned her. So, Francesca keeps it all inside--her frustration with school (there aren't enough girl's bathrooms and no girl's sports teams); her fear making new friends (with the few girls who do go to St. Sebastian's); and her overwhelming hatred of the smug Will Trombal, who despite being completely infuriating, is also incredibly cute. Keeping this to herself when all she wants to do is spill it to her mother is killing Francesca, but with Mia trying to make herself well again, Francesca will have to figure out how to save herself.
What makes Saving Francesca an exceptional standout in a vast field of mediocre teen chick lit is Frankie's painfully nuanced characterization. It has been ten years since high school teacher Marchetta's break out hit, Looking for Alibrandi, came out in her native Australia, and the care and precision she took in getting Francesca's voice just right is evident. As a result, there isn't a girl alive that wouldn't feel right at home in Francesca's skin. Her frank observations about boys, with their hygienically-challenged habits and their ineptitude in dealing with the opposite sex, are dead-on and riotously funny. Marchetta deftly balances Francesca's humor with a sympathetic depiction of Mia's struggle with clinical depression, creating a well-rounded novel that will prompt both laughter and tears. Fans can only hope that they won't have to wait another decade for Marchetta to gift them with another of honest and moving story. --Jennifer Hubert [via]
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The Siegeby Helen DunmoreISBN 0802139582 (0-8021-3958-2)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Siege'Book summary:The Siege is one of those novels that is as redemptive as it is shattering, and they don't come much more shattering than this. The year is 1941, and the good people of Leningrad are squeezed between fear of Stalin's secret police and rumors that the Germans, despite the incredulity of military experts, are rapidly advancing on their great city. When the inevitable happens, 22-year-old Anna, an artist and the sole support for her young brother, invalid father, and the latter's former mistress, learns to survive the devastation and mass starvation that the siege brings. In the worst days of winter, Anna falls in love with a doctor, Andrei, who returns her passion, creating an oasis of emotional privacy within the hell of war. The Siege is expertly anchored in sometimes unbearable details of the assault on Leningrad; the book's sense of place and the author's great skill at pumping immediacy into the cold facts is something to behold. But this is, finally, a novel about extremes of experience, from rampant cruelty to the redemptive power of one person's love. --Tom Keogh [via]
The Slutsby Dennis CooperISBN 0786716746 (0-7867-1674-6)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Centuryby Francis FukuyamaISBN 0801442923 (0-8014-4292-3)
Hardcover, Cornell Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century'Book summary:Francis Fukuyama famously predicted "the end of history" with the ascendancy of liberal democracy and global capitalism. The topic of his latest book is, therefore, surprising: the building of new nation-states. The end of history was never an automatic procedure, Fukuyama argues, and the well-governed polity was always its necessary precondition. "Weak or failed states are the source of many of the world's most serious problems," he believes. He traces what we know-and more often don't know-about how to transfer functioning public institutions to developing countries in ways that will leave something of permanent benefit to the citizens of the countries concerned. These are important lessons, especially as the United States wrestles with its responsibilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. Fukuyama begins State-Building with an account of the broad importance of "stateness." He rejects the notion that there can be a science of public administration, and discusses the causes of contemporary state weakness. He ends the book with a discussion of the consequences of weak states for international order, and the grounds on which the international community may legitimately intervene to prop them up. [via]
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The Story of Tibet: Conversations With the Dalai Lamaby Thomas LairdISBN 0802118275 (0-8021-1827-5)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Story of Tibet: Conversations With the Dalai Lama'Book summary:The Story of Tibet is a work of monumental importance, a fascinating journey through the land and history of Tibet, with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama as guide. Over the course of three years, journalist Thomas Laird spent more than sixty hours with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in candid, one-on-one interviews that covered His Holinesss beliefs on history, science, reincarnation, and his lifelong study of Buddhism. Traveling across great distances to offer vivid descriptions of Tibets greatest monasteries, Laird brings his meetings with His Holiness to life in a rich and vibrant historical narrative that outlines the essence of thousands of years of civilization, myth, and spirituality. His Holiness introduces us to Tibets greatest yogis and meditation masters, and explains how the institution of the Dalai Lama was founded. Embedded throughout this journey is His Holinesss lessons on the larger roles religion and spirituality have played in Tibets story, reflecting the Dalai Lamas belief that history should be examined not only conventionally but holistically. The Story of Tibet is His Holinesss personal look at his countrys past as well as a summation of his lifes work as both spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people.[via]More editions of The Story of Tibet: Conversations With the Dalai Lama:
That's Not My Dragonby Fiona Watt, Rachel WellsISBN 0794512852 (0-7945-1285-2)
Hardcover, Edc Pub
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That's Not My Robotby Fiona Watt, Rachel WellsISBN 0794511694 (0-7945-1169-4)
Hardcover, Edc Pub
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To Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper LeeISBN 0791093085 (0-7910-9308-5)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To Kill a Mockingbird'Book summary:Harold Bloom's introduction questions whether Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that will endure or has had popularity merely as a time. Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the author, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters. [via]
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The Top 10 of Everythingby Russell AshISBN 0789401967 (0-7894-0196-7)
Hardcover, Dk Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Top 10 of Everything'Book summary:What is so appealing about a list? It's tidy, it's pithy, it's easy on the eyes and noggin. In this over-saturated age of information inundation, the list presents preorganised data in a format that doesn't require a lot of concentration or drain vast stores of brain wattage. Even the weariest intellect can enjoy a list of 10 data points. Ten most suicidal countries? Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary get top billing. The best-selling postcard in the Tate Gallery is of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, whereas the top postcard in London's National Gallery shows Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers. And the list of top 10 countries with the most video rental outlets starts with the US, Pakistan,and China, and South Korea and Romania don't trail far behind.
Russell Ash provides lists on the universe and the earth, animals and vegetation, births, deaths and political achievements. There are city lists and country lists, building lists and park lists, as well as lists pertaining to music, books, movies, theatre, transportation, sports and the commercial world, plus a special section of millennium-milestone lists to prepare us for the next century.
The top 10 reasons to get The Top Ten of Everything? It is:
1.Entertaining
2.Educational
3.Fine Bathroom Reading
4.An Excellent Statistical Resource
5.Fun to Read Aloud to Anyone Who'll Listen
6.Doesn't Require a V-Chip
7.Portable
8.Great Classroom Reference
9.Keeps the Back Seat Quiet During Family Trips
10.It Has Only One Adverse Side-Effect: Know-It-All-ism.--Stephanie Gold [via]
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The Top 10 of Everything 1997by Russell AshISBN 0789412640 (0-7894-1264-0)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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The Top 10 of Everything 1998by Russell AshISBN 0789420821 (0-7894-2082-1)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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The Top 10 of Everything 1999by Russell AshISBN 0789435233 (0-7894-3523-3)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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Top 10 of Everything 2000by Russell AshISBN 0789446324 (0-7894-4632-4)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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The Top 10 of Everything 2001by Russell AshISBN 0789461323 (0-7894-6132-3)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Top 10 of Everything 2001'Book summary:What's so appealing about a list? It's tidy, it's pithy, it's easy on the eyes and noggin. In this oversaturated age of information inundation, the list presents preorganized data in a format that doesn't require a lot of concentration or drain vast stores of brain wattage. Even the weariest intellect can enjoy a list of 10 data points. Ten most suicidal countries? Lithuania, Estonia, and Hungary get top billing. The bestselling postcard in the Tate Gallery is of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, whereas the top postcard in London's National Gallery shows Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers. And the list of top 10 countries with the most video rental outlets starts with the U.S., Pakistan, and China, and South Korea and Romania don't trail far behind.
Russell Ash provides lists on the universe and the earth, animals and vegetation, births, deaths, and political achievements. There are city lists and country lists, building lists and park lists, as well as lists pertaining to music, books, movies, theater, transportation, sports, and the commercial world, plus a special section of millennium-milestone lists to prepare us for the next century.
The top 10 reasons to get The Top Ten of Everything? It is:
- Entertaining
- Educational
- Fine Bathroom Reading
- An Excellent Statistical Resource
- Fun to Read Aloud to Anyone Who'll Listen
- Doesn't Require a V-Chip
- Portable
- Great Classroom Reference
- Keeps the Back Seat Quiet During Family Trips
- It Has Only One Adverse Side-Effect: Know-It-All-ism.
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- Entertaining
The Top 10 of Everything 2002by Russell AshISBN 0789480433 (0-7894-8043-3)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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Top 10 of Everything 2003by Russell AshISBN 078948918X (0-7894-8918-X)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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Top 10 of Everything 2004by Russell AshISBN 0789496593 (0-7894-9659-3)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Top 10 of Everything 2004'Book summary:Bursting with thought-provoking and often hilarious facts -- from the world's richest people to the world's deadliest spiders -- The Top 10 of Everything 2004 is the latest annual edition or DK's perennially popular compendium of knowledge. Fully updated, the book contains more than 1,000 Top 10 lists and is sure to educate and entertain. [via]
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Top Ten of Everything 1996by Russell AshISBN 0789403382 (0-7894-0338-2)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Top Ten of Everything 1996'Book summary:What is so appealing about a list? It's tidy, it's pithy, it's easy on the eyes and noggin. In this over-saturated age of information inundation, the list presents preorganised data in a format that doesn't require a lot of concentration or drain vast stores of brain wattage. Even the weariest intellect can enjoy a list of 10 data points. Ten most suicidal countries? Lithuania, Estonia and Hungary get top billing. The best-selling postcard in the Tate Gallery is of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, whereas the top postcard in London's National Gallery shows Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers. And the list of top 10 countries with the most video rental outlets starts with the US, Pakistan,and China, and South Korea and Romania don't trail far behind.
Russell Ash provides lists on the universe and the earth, animals and vegetation, births, deaths and political achievements. There are city lists and country lists, building lists and park lists, as well as lists pertaining to music, books, movies, theatre, transportation, sports and the commercial world, plus a special section of millennium-milestone lists to prepare us for the next century.
The top 10 reasons to get The Top Ten of Everything? It is:
1.Entertaining
2.Educational
3.Fine Bathroom Reading
4.An Excellent Statistical Resource
5.Fun to Read Aloud to Anyone Who'll Listen
6.Doesn't Require a V-Chip
7.Portable
8.Great Classroom Reference
9.Keeps the Back Seat Quiet During Family Trips
10.It Has Only One Adverse Side-Effect: Know-It-All-ism.--Stephanie Gold [via]
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The Toughest Indian in the Worldby Sherman AlexieISBN 0802138004 (0-8021-3800-4)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Toughest Indian in the World'Book summary:Call Sherman Alexie any number of things--novelist, poet, filmmaker, thorn in the side of white liberalism--just don't call him "universal." Aside from his well-documented distaste for the word, its fuzziness misses the point. The Toughest Indian in the World, Alexie's second collection, succeeds as brilliantly as it does because of its particularity. These aren't stories about the Indian Condition; they're stories about Indians--urban and reservation, street fighters and yuppies, husbands and wives. "She understood that white people were eccentric and complicated and she only wanted to be understood as eccentric and complicated as well," thinks the Coeur d'Alene narrator of "Assimilation," who's married (unhappily) to a white man. And yet the issue of race has taken up permanent residence inside her house: the marriage survives, but it's love that's the most thorough assimilation of all.
Like The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, much of The Toughest Indian in the World combines deft psychological realism with the kind of narrative logic more commonly found in dreams. In "South by Southwest," a white drifter finds love on a "nonviolent killing spree" with an overweight Indian he calls Salmon Boy; in "Dear John Wayne," the cowboy actor falls in love with a young Spokane woman and proves himself a charmingly feminist hero. ("Oh, sons, you're just engaging in some harmless gender play," he tells his boys when he finds them trying on lipstick.) But for every bear hibernating on top of the Catholic church, there's also a GAP-wearing, Toyota-driving urban Indian on a quest for his roots. In both realist and surrealist modes, Alexie writes incantatory prose--as well as the kind of dialogue that makes even secondary characters leap into sudden focus: "'What?' asked Wonder Horse, as simple a question as could possibly be tendered, though he made it sound as if he'd asked Where's the tumor?"
Alexie is sometimes guilty of painting his white characters with too broad a brush. (Is any anthropologist truly as obtuse as the one in "Dear John Wayne"? Could any reader really want Mary Lynn, the narrator of "Assimilation," to stay with her boorish white husband?) Yet his kind of firebrand politics still has the power to shock. A harrowing fable about whites kidnapping Indians for the medical properties of their blood, "The Sin Eaters" could be dismissed as paranoid if it weren't so hauntingly written:
On that morning, the sun rose and bloomed like blood in a glass syringe. The entire Spokane Indian Reservation and all of its people and places were clean and scrubbed. The Spokane River rose up from its bed like a man who had been healed and joyously wept all the way down to its confluence with the Columbia River. There was water everywhere: a thousand streams interrupted by makeshift waterfalls; small ponds hidden beneath a mask of thick fronds and anonymous blossoms; blankets of dew draped over the shoulders of isolated knolls. An entire civilization of insects lived in the mud puddle formed by one truck tire and a recent rain storm. The blades of grass, the narrow pine needles, and the stalks of roadside wheat were as sharp and bright as surgical tools.
It's a hard story to read, and that's only right. The Toughest Indian in the World offers so many pleasures, who could deny it the power to disturb us as well? Funny, dreamlike, heartbreaking, angry--these are stories that could have been written by no one but Sherman Alexie. --Mary Park [via]More editions of The Toughest Indian in the World:
Trading Upby Candace BushnellISBN 0786887060 (0-7868-8706-0)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Trading Up'Book summary:Janey Wilcox is an M.A.W. (that's Model/Actress/Whatever to the uninitiated). The problem with Janey, the protagonist of Candace Bushnell's first novel, Trading Up, is not the M or the A part. It's the W. Here is a rare alphabetical anomaly: In Janey's case, W stands for "prostitute." Oh, Janey never crosses the line into actual hookerdom, but she does sleep with extremely wealthy men in the hopes they'll improve her status, her financial situation, or her lifestyle. When we first met Janey in Bushnell's novella collection 4 Blondes, she was up to her usual tricks (so to speak)--scamming a guy for a Hamptons vacation rental. At the opening of Trading Up, her fortunes have improved. She's now the star of a Victoria's Secret ad campaign, and as such she's found access to undreamed-of echelons of New York society. She makes friends with Mimi Kilroy, a senator's daughter "at the very top of the social heap in New York." She gets invited to all the best parties. And she finally finds a wealthy man who will actually marry her: Seldon Rose, a powerful entertainment industry executive. Of course, Janey's social ambitions are not stoppered by her marriage to Seldon, and the clash between her expectations (more parties!) and his (normal life) send Janey into a tailspin that leads to heartbreak. Bushnell is clearly trying to channel Edith Wharton (The Custom of the Country is even invoked by Janey as a screenplay idea), but ends up sounding a lot more like a cross between Tama Janowitz and Judith Krantz. This is a novel about shopping and sex, and while it's fizzy enough, it's not Cristal. --Claire Dederer [via]
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True Northby Jim HarrisonISBN 0802117732 (0-8021-1773-2)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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Urchin Of The Riding Starsby M. I. MCALLISTER, Omar RayyanISBN 0786854863 (0-7868-5486-3)
Hardcover, Disney Pr
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Urchin of the Riding Starsby Omar Rayyan, M. I. McAllisterISBN 0786854871 (0-7868-5487-1)
Softcover, Talk Miramax Books
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Usborne The Children's Book of Art: Internet Linkedby Rosie Dickins, Carrie Armstrong, Uwe MayerISBN 0794512232 (0-7945-1223-2)
Hardcover, Edc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Usborne The Children's Book of Art: Internet Linked'Book summary:Over thirty of the world's best-known, best-loved pictures have been chosen for this fascinating introduction to art for children. There are lots of facts about the artists and their lives, and how they created their work, to help beginners understand what art is and why people think it is important. There are also Internet links to recommended websites where you can view lots more pictures, play art games and create your own art online. [via]
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Voyageby Tom StoppardISBN 0802140041 (0-8021-4004-1)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Voyage'Book summary:Voyage is the first part of The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard's long-awaited and monumental trilogy that explores a group of friends who came of age under the Tsarist autocracy of Nicholas I, and for whom the term intelligentsia was coined. Among them are the anarchist Michael Bakunin, who was to challenge Marx for the soul of the masses; Ivan Turgenev, author of some of the most enduring works in Russian literature; the brilliant, erratic young critic Vissarion Belinsky; and Alexander Herzen, a nobleman's son and the first self-proclaimed socialist in Russia, who becomes the main focus of this drama of politics, love, loss, and betrayal. In The Coast of Utopia, Stoppard presents an inspired examination of the struggle between romantic anarchy, utopian idealism, and practical reformation.[via]More editions of Voyage:
War Law: Understanding International Law And Armed Conflictby Michael ByersISBN 0802118097 (0-8021-1809-7)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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Warrener's Beastieby William R. TrotterISBN 0786713283 (0-7867-1328-3)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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What Are You Like?by Anne EnrightISBN 0802138896 (0-8021-3889-6)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What Are You Like?'Book summary:Some novels you nibble away at, half unthinking. Anne Enright's prose bites back. The Irish author of The Portable Virgin and The Wig My Father Wore has produced a third book as unexpected and lively as a miracle child--or is it twins? She tells the story of a Dubliner whose mother died in childbirth. Maria is now 20, living in New York, cleaning houses, taking drugs, sleeping with strangers, and generally being in a funk. In a lover's bag, she finds an old photo of a girl who looks just exactly like herself, dressed in clothes she's never owned, posing with people she's never met. But this isn't some gooey, alternate-reality identity fantasy. Maria has, in fact, a twin sister. Though each is unknown to the other, we learn both their lives inside out as they head toward a giddily inevitable meeting.
This twinning tale suits Enright's style right down to the ground: Her mandate is to bump us into awareness, and if it takes double heroines, so be it. Her language does the rest of the work. On the very first page, for instance, she freshens the simple act of holding a baby into a joke: "And they handed her on from arm to arm, with the dip that people make when they give away a baby--letting her body go and guiding her head, as though it might not be attached. Nothing worse than being left holding the baby, they seemed to say, except being left with the baby's head." In fact, Enright is transfixed by the weirdness of the body, as when Maria visits a dairy farm: "She is too old to dip her fingers in the milk and let the calves suck. Though when she does, a feeling she has never had before goes straight up her arm and into her right nipple. Hello, farming." Enright writes fiction meant to surprise. But her message is surprisingly traditional: biology matters. --Claire Dederer [via]
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Yonder Stands Your Orphanby Barry HannahISBN 0802138934 (0-8021-3893-4)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Yonder Stands Your Orphan'Book summary:Barry Hannah has long been considered one of the country's best living writers, whose singular voice and wicked genius for storytelling have earned him legions of diehard fans. His first novel in ten years, Yonder Stands Your Orphan opens with the establishment of an orphans' camp and the discovery of an abandoned car with two skeletons in the trunk. Man Mortimer, a pimp and casino pretty boy who resembles dead country singer Conway Twitty, has just been betrayed, and his revenge becomes a madness that will ravage the Mississippi community of Eagle Lake and give vent to his lifelong fascination with knives. The pompous young sheriff is useless at solving the crimes, so Mortimer's only challengers are three eccentric Christians -- a disgraced doctor and two ex-bikers, all prey to their addictions -- and an African-American Vietnam veteran whose wife is ill with cancer. Mortimer has a hold on each one of them -- a long-standing debt, a forgotten crime, or responsibilities they cannot yet desert. Yonder Stands Your Orphan paints a searing picture of the American South and establishes Barry Hannah once again as one of the most important writers in America.[via]More editions of Yonder Stands Your Orphan:
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