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books tagged “Non-Fiction” (non-fiction / non fiction)
books tagged “Non-Fiction”
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13th Gen : Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?by William Strauss, Neil Howe, Ian Williams, R. J. MatsonISBN 0679743650 (0-679-74365-0)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: '13th Gen : Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?'Book summary:In commentary and quotations, computer dumps and cartoons, 13TH GEN is a multimedia anthem to the American post-boomer generation,our country's thirteenth generation since the founding fathers. [via]
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The 20th Century Art BookISBN 0714835420 (0-7148-3542-0)
Hardcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
Find This BookBook summary:One of the most complete representations of this century's art to hit the shelves in years, The 20th-Century Art Book offers 500 full-page reproductions, each by a different artist. No matter how famous, each artist has but one page, accompanied by a concise, informative block of text. Presented in alphabetical order, each artist, regardless of stature, is treated in exactly the same manner as the other 499 others in the book. Some images are delightfully complimented, others deeply agitated by the work that, by chance of the alphabet, happens to lie on the facing page. [via]
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The 20th Century Art Box: Selection 1 25 Different Greeting Cards With EnvelopesISBN 0714839434 (0-7148-3943-4)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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The 20Th-Century Art Bookby Phaidon PressISBN 0714838500 (0-7148-3850-0)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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All about Love: New Visionsby bell hooksISBN 0688168442 (0-688-16844-2)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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American Indian Myths and Legendsby Richard ErdoesISBN 0712673687 (0-7126-7368-7)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Indian Myths and Legends'Book summary:Gathering 160 tales from 80 tribal groups, this collection offers a panorama of Native American mythic heritage. There are tales of creation and love, of heroes and war, of animals, and the end of the world. The authors have added a selection of contemporary voices to 19th-century tales. [via]
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American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made Itby Richard HofstadterISBN 0679723153 (0-679-72315-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It'Book summary:A revised edition of the clasic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR. [via]
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Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essaysby Northrop FryeISBN 0691069999 (0-691-06999-9)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays'Book summary:Northrop Frye was one of the most influential 20th-century literary scholars, and Anatomy of Criticism is his most influential book. In this rigorous and readable work of scholarship, Frye feistily champions literary criticism's legitimacy and independence--both by differentiating criticism from other academic disciplines, and by banishing any conception of the critic as "parasite or jackal" (this latter view, Frye notes, is still quite popular, "especially among artists"). The book began as something quite different, and took nearly a decade to write. Frye published his first major work--Fearful Symmetry, on the Romantic poet William Blake--in 1947 and had set out to produce a second tome on Edmund Spencer. But the critical insights accumulating in his fertile mind were too insistent, so the book on Spencer became Anatomy of Criticism.
Anatomy of Criticism remains provocative and enlightening in no small part because of its ambitious breadth. Frye's comprehension of literary history is breathtaking, as is the complexity but also the clarity of his thought. Four chapters treat historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhetorical modes of criticism, bracketed by a "Polemical Introduction" and a "Tentative Conclusion." Frye's ultimate aim is to confirm for the reader that literary criticism is a science in its own right: "Criticism," he says, "is to art what history is to action and philosophy is to wisdom.... And just as there is nothing which the philosopher cannot consider philosophically, and nothing which the historian cannot consider historically, so the critic should be able to construct and dwell in a conceptual universe of his own." Rather than promote any particular critical approach over another, he tries to construct a theoretical structure sturdy and expansive enough to accommodate and inter-relate a broad range of critical approaches. --Russell Prather [via]
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Artists of the Renaissance: An Illustrated Selectionby Giorgio Vasari, George Anthony BullISBN 0713910658 (0-7139-1065-8)
Hardcover, A. Lane
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The Autobiography of Benvenuto Celliniby Benvenuto Cellini, Charles Hope, John Addington Symonds, Alessandro NovaISBN 0714822973 (0-7148-2297-3)
Hardcover, Phaidon
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Babyhoodby Paul ReiserISBN 0688149790 (0-688-14979-0)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Babyhood'Book summary:Fans of television's Mad About You and its star, Paul Reiser, will be delighted with his second foray into the self-deprecating self-help genre. Couplehood, his first book, leads logically to this next phase--Babyhood. In a chatty voice Reiser takes us from the "Maybe someday we'll have kids" step into the deep-sea dive of commitment.
Babyhood begins on an airplane, with Paul and wife blissfully unencumbered by children. They are seated across from the young parents (graying before his eyes) of a terrorizing 2-year-old and a screeching infant. This sobering reality manages magically to pale in a transcendent moment of the baby's bliss, uncomplicated by drool or colic, and the two decide: "Now."
Well, more or less now. First they try to get pregnant, making expeditions to the bookstore to case out the shelves of baby books; then there are the bouncy reflections on who is, after all, cut out to parent ("I don't know if, for example, Mozart actually had kids, but certainly there is no record of him ever leaving the office early to coach Peewee Soccer League"). Later comes the account of sibling rivalry between the newborn and the family dog, and why women make better moms than men. Babyhood manages to provoke thought about the important questions of when and why to have children, many of which are answered in the book's endearing details. [via]
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Barcelonaby Robert HughesISBN 0679743839 (0-679-74383-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Timeby Jonathan WeinerISBN 067973337X (0-679-73337-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time'Book summary:Winner of the Pulitzer Prize On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In this dramatic story of groundbreaking scientific research, Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself. The Beak of the Finch is an elegantly written and compelling masterpiece of theory and explication in the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould. [via]
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The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Lifeby Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles MurrayISBN 0684824299 (0-684-82429-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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The Best and the Brightestby David Halberstam, John McCainISBN 0679640991 (0-679-64099-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best and the Brightest'Book summary:David Halberstams masterpiece, the defining history of the making of the Vietnam tragedy, with a new Foreword by Senator John McCain.
Using portraits of Americas flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our countrys recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam, and why did we lose? As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded. It is an American classic. [via]More editions of The Best and the Brightest:
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Big Secretsby William PoundstoneISBN 0688048307 (0-688-04830-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Big Secrets'Book summary:The Book That Gives the Inside Story on Hundreds of Secrets of American Life --Big Secrets.
Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out.
What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here's the whole story, including -- yes! -- the electric carpet.
Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken's eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody's shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis.
Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney's body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth.
Don't bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. "Big Secrets" has complete explanations and diagrams, nothing left to the imagination.
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A Bridge Too Farby Cornelius RyanISBN 0684803305 (0-684-80330-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Bridge Too Far'Book summary:THE CLASSIC ACCOUNT OF ONE OF THE MOST DRAMATIC BATTLES OF WORLD WAR II
A Bridge Too Far is Cornelius Ryan's masterly chronicle of the Battle of Arnhem, which marshalled the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled and cost the Allies nearly twice as many casualties as D-Day.
In this compelling work of history, Ryan narrates the Allied effort to end the war in Europe in 1944 by dropping the combined airborne forces of the American and British armies behind German lines to capture the crucial bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem. Focusing on a vast cast of characters -- from Dutch civilians to British and American strategists to common soldiers and commanders -- Ryan brings to life one of the most daring and ill-fated operations of the war. A Bridge Too Far superbly recreates the terror and suspense, the heroism and tragedy of this epic operation, which ended in bitter defeat for the Allies.
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The Civil War: An Illustrated Historyby Geoffrey C. WardISBN 0679742778 (0-679-74277-8)
Softcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Civil War: An Illustrated History'Book summary:This magnificent pictorial history portrays the Civil War as never before, from the events leading to the firing of the first shot at Fort Sumter, through the battles at Shiloh and Gettysburg, the siege of Vicksburg, Sherman's march to the sea, and Lee's surrender at Appomattox. 500 photos. [via]
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Civilization of the Renaissance in Italyby Jacob Burckhardt, Ludwig Goldscheider, S.G.C. MiddlemoreISBN 0714833630 (0-7148-3363-0)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy'Book summary:Published in 1860, Burckhardts great work redefined our sense of the European past, wholly reinterpreting what has since been known simply as the Italian Renaissance. With unsurpassed erudition, Burckhardt illuminates a world of artistic and cultural ferment, innovation, and discovery; of revived humanism; of fierce tensions between church and empire; and of the birth of both the modern state and the modern individual. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy remains the single most important and influential account of this crucial moment in the history of the West.
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy:
- Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: ISBN 0714821403 (0-7148-2140-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: ISBN 0679601694 (0-679-60169-4)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: ISBN 0714833630 (0-7148-3363-0)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
- Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: ISBN 0714821403 (0-7148-2140-3)
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The Coming of Age in Samoaby Margaret MeadISBN 0688309747 (0-688-30974-7)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Coming of Age in Samoa'Book summary:"Coming of Age in Samoa, " Margaret Mead's psychological study of youth in a primitive society, is today recognized as a scientific classic. However, when first published, as Dr. Mead points out in her preface to this Morrow Quill edition, it was "the first piece of work by a serious professional anthropologist written for the educated layman in which all the paraphernalia of scholarship designed to convince one's professional colleages and confuse the laity was deliberately laid aside." [via]
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Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisationby Margaret MeadISBN 0688050336 (0-688-05033-6)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation'Book summary:Rarely do science and literature come together in the same book. When they do -- as in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, for example -- they become classics, quoted and studied by scholars and the general public alike.
Margaret Mead accomplished this remarkable feat not once but several times, beginning with Coming of Age in Samoa. It details her historic journey to American Samoa, taken where she was just twenty-three, where she did her first fieldwork. Here, for the first time, she presented to the public the idea that the individual experience of developmental stages could be shaped by cultural demands and expectations. Adolescence, she wrote, might be more or less stormy, and sexual development more or less problematic in different cultures. The "civilized" world, she taught us had much to learn from the "primitive." Now this groundbreaking, beautifully written work as been reissued for the centennial of her birth, featuring introductions by Mary Pipher and by Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson.
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The Common Readerby Virginia Woolf, Andrew McNeillieISBN 0701219076 (0-7012-1907-6)
Softcover, Hogarth Press
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The Cost of Discipleshipby Dietrich BonhoefferISBN 0684815001 (0-684-81500-1)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cost of Discipleship'Book summary:"When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." With these words, in The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave powerful voice to the millions of Christians who believe personal sacrifice is an essential component of faith. Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian, was an exemplar of sacrificial faith: he opposed the Nazis from the first and was eventually imprisoned in Buchenwald and hung by the Gestapo in 1945. The Cost of Discipleship, first published in German in 1937, was Bonhoeffer's answer to the questions, "What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us to-day?" Bonhoeffer's answers are rooted in Lutheran grace and derived from Christian scripture (almost a third of the book consists of an extended meditation on the Sermon on the Mount). The book builds to a stunning conclusion: its closing chapter, "The Image of Christ," describes the believer's spiritual life as participation in Christ's incarnation, with a rare and epigrammatic confidence: "Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord," Bonhoeffer writes, "we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequence of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race." --Michael Joseph Gross [via]
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Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge-And Why We Mustby Kalle LasnISBN 0688178057 (0-688-17805-7)
Softcover, Quill
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge-And Why We Must'Book summary:America is no longer a country but a multimillion-dollar brand, says Kalle Lasn and his fellow "culture jammers". The founder of Adbusters magazine, Lasn aims to stop the branding of America by changing the way information flows; the way institutions wield power; the way television stations are run; and the way the food, fashion, automobile, sports, music, and culture industries set agendas. With a courageous and compelling voice, Lasn deconstructs the advertising culture and our fixation on icons and brand names. And he shows how to organize resistance against the power trust that manages the brands by "uncooling" consumer items, by "dermarketing" fashions and celebrities, and by breaking the "media trance" of our TV-addicted age.
A powerful manifesto by a leading media activist, Culture Jam lays the foundations for the most significant social movement of the early twenty-first century -- a movement that can change the world and the way we think and live.
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Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madnessby William StyronISBN 0679736395 (0-679-73639-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness'Book summary:In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and almost suicidal depression, the same illness that took the lives of Randall Jarrell, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf. That Styron survived his descent into madness is something of a miracle. That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes Darkness Visible a rare feat of literature, a book that will arouse a shock of recognition even in those readers who have been spared the suffering it describes. [via]
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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empireby Edward Gibbon, J. B. Bury, Daniel J. Boorstin, Gian Battista PiranesiISBN 0679601481 (0-679-60148-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'Book summary:"It was Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind," recorded Edward Gibbon with characteristic exactitude. Over a period of some twenty years, the luminous eighteenth-century historian--a precise, dapper, idiosyncratic little gentleman famous for rapping his snuff-box--devoted his considerable genius to writing an epic chronicle of the entire Roman Empire's decline. His single flash of inspiration produced what is arguably the greatest historical work in any language--and surely the most magnificent narrative history ever written in English. "Gibbon is one of those few who hold as high a place in the history of literature as in the roll of great historians," noted Professor J.B. Bury, his most celebrated editor.
This three-volume Modern Library edition of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire--with Gibbon's notes--is edited with a general introduction and index by Bury, along with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin. The volumes are illustrated with reproductions of etchings by Gian Battista Piranesi.
The first volume contains chapters one through twenty-six of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. [via]More editions of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
Diary of Virginia Woolfby Virginia WoolfISBN 0701204249 (0-7012-0424-9)
Hardcover, Hogarth Press
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Dogs Never Lie about Love : Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogsby Jeffrey Moussaieff MassonISBN 0679774459 (0-679-77445-9)
Softcover, Random House Large Print
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Don't Know Much About Geography: Everything You Need to Know About the World but Never Learnedby Kenneth C. DavisISBN 0688103324 (0-688-10332-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Fiftiesby David HalberstamISBN 0679747257 (0-679-74725-7)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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The First Five Pages: A Writers Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pileby Noah LukemanISBN 068485743X (0-684-85743-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Five Pages: A Writers Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile'Book summary:The difference between The First Five Pages and most books on writing is that the others are written by teachers and writers. This one comes from a literary agent--one whose clients include Pulitzer Prize nominees, New York Times bestselling authors, Pushcart Prize recipients, and American Book Award winners. Noah Lukeman is not trying to impart the finer points of writing well. He wants to teach you "how to identify and avoid bad writing," so that your manuscript doesn't come boomeranging back to you in that self-addressed, stamped envelope. Surprise: Agents and editors don't read manuscripts for fun; they are looking for reasons to reject them. Lukeman has arranged his book "in the order of what I look for when trying to dismiss a manuscript," starting with presentation and concluding with pacing and progression. Each chapter addresses a pitfall of poor writing--overabundance of adjectives and adverbs, tedious or unrealistic dialogue, and lack of subtlety to name just a few--by identifying the problem, presenting solutions, giving examples (one wishes these weren't quite so obvious), and offering writing exercises. It's a little bizarre to think about approaching your work as would an agent, but if you are serious about getting published, you may as well get used to it. Plus, Lukeman has plenty of solid advice worth listening to. Particularly fine are his exercises for removing and spicing up modifiers and his remedies for all kinds of faulty dialogue. --Jane Steinberg [via]
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Forgotten Englishby Jeffrey KacirkISBN 0688166369 (0-688-16636-9)
Softcover, Quill
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Forgotten English'Book summary:Some think that the obsolescing of words from the English language is a sorry indication of its constant decline. Not so, argues Jeffrey Kacirk, the author of this charming collection of quirky antiquated words and the stories behind them. "In fact," he writes in his introduction, "the richness and maturity of a language may be gauged by the volume and quality of words it can afford to lose." The wonderful sounds these forgotten words make--nimgimmer, tup-running, mocteroof, frubbish, grog-blossom, wayzgoose, galligaskin, sockdolager--are half the fun. Their fabulous meanings, particularly those that seem inevitable once you learn them, make up the rest. And as the history of the words unfolds, so does history itself. Among the many strange and outmoded folk Kacirk introduces are the bird-swindler, a 19th-century "purveyor of expensive, exotic-looking birds that, upon closer inspection, were found to be one of several common varieties of local birds that had been trimmed and dyed"; the eye-servant, "a devious domestic or other employee ... who was too lazy to efficiently perform duties except when 'within eyeshot' of his or her master"; the prickmedainty, a 16th-century "man-about-town who coifed himself in an overly careful manner, frequently seeking the services of his barber"; and the dog-flogger, "a minor church official ... whose duty it was to supervise and discipline the unruly canines that traditionally accompanied their owners to English church services." [via]
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Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Usby Kate BornsteinISBN 0679757015 (0-679-75701-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret Warby Judith Miller, William J. Broad, Stephen EngelbergISBN 0684871599 (0-684-87159-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War'Book summary:Deadly germs sprayed in shopping malls, bomb-lets spewing anthrax spores over battlefields, tiny vials of plague scattered in Times Square -- these are the poor man's hydrogen bombs, hideous weapons of mass destruction that can be made in a simple laboratory. In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad of "The New York Times" uncover the truth about biological weapons and show why bio-warfare and bio-terrorism are fast becoming our worst national nightmare. Among the startling revelations in "Germs: " How the CIA secretly built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb, alarming some officials who felt the work pushed to the limits of what is permitted by the global treaty banning germ arms. How the Pentagon embarked on a secret effort to make a superbug. Details about the Soviet Union's massive hidden program to produce biological weapons, including new charges that germs were tested on humans. How Moscow's scientists made an untraceable germ that instructs the body to destroy itself. The Pentagon's chaotic efforts to improvise defenses against Iraq's biological weapons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. How a religious cult in Oregon in the 1980s sickened hundreds of Americans in a bio-terrorism attack that the government played down to avoid panic and copycat strikes. Plans by the U.S. military in the 1960s to attack Cuba with germ weapons. "Germs" also shows how a small group of scientists and senior officials persuaded President Bill Clinton to launch a controversial multibillion-dollar program to detect a germ attack on U.S. soil and to aid its victims -- a program that, so far, isstruggling to provide real protection. [via]
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Guests of the Sheikby Elizabeth Warnock FerneaISBN 0709102313 (0-7091-0231-3)
Hardcover, Hale
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High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Placesby David Breashears, Jon KrakauerISBN 0684865459 (0-684-86545-9)
Softcover, Touchstone Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Unforgiving Places'Book summary:David Breashears has climbed Mt. Everest four times. For this, he is known as a world-class mountaineer. A lengthy career in documentary filmmaking--including the Imax film, Everest--has earned him wide acclaim and four Emmy awards. For this, he is known as one of the elite cinematographers in his field. But his new autobiography, High Exposure: An Enduring Passion for Everest and Other High Places, proves he is more than a climber and a filmmaker; he is also an able writer.
Breashears has no lack of good material. We follow him through the stunning backdrops of Yosemite, Europe, Nepal, and Tibet, brushing up against triumphs and tragedies along the way. And while the nuts and bolts of his adventures are entertainment enough, his knack for building suspense and employing understated drama makes his autobiography read like a novel: "The morning was sunny and calm, and Rob looked as though he'd lain down on his side and fallen asleep. Around him the undisturbed snow sparkled in the sun. I stared at his bare left hand ... I wondered what a mountaineer with Rob's experience was doing without a glove."
Breashears also likes to remind his audience of humble beginnings surmounted: his early climbing days when he was known as "the kid," and a winter he spent sleeping under a sheet of plywood during the Wyoming oil boom when he was called "the worm." But mostly he documents his filmmaking career and climbing passion, both of which he approaches with an obsessive fervor. Readers interested in either pursuit will find High Exposure a fascinating traverse across the spine of the world. --Ben Tiffany [via]
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The Historical Figure of Jesusby E. P. SandersISBN 0713990597 (0-7139-9059-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empireby Edward Gibbon, David WomersleyISBN 0713991240 (0-7139-9124-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'Book summary:This edition of Gibbon's classic history returns to manuscript and original sources. [via]
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The House Plant Expertby David HessayonISBN 0684171635 (0-684-17163-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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How to Stay Alive in the Woods: A Complete Guide to Food, Shelter, and Self-Preservation-- Anywhereby Bradford Angier, Vena AngierISBN 0684831015 (0-684-83101-5)
Softcover, Fireside
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In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequencesby Truman CapoteISBN 0679745580 (0-679-74558-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences'Book summary:"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks. [via]
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It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Usby Hillary Rodham ClintonISBN 0684818434 (0-684-81843-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Us'Book summary:The First Lady, a longtime child advocate, expresses her concerns for the children of today's world and offers her ideas for developing our society into one that values children's unique contributions. [via]
More editions of It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Us:
- It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Us: ISBN 0684825457 (0-684-82545-7)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us: ISBN 0684826615 (0-684-82661-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Us: ISBN 0684818434 (0-684-81843-4)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- It Takes a Village : And Other Lessons Children Teach Us: ISBN 0684825457 (0-684-82545-7)
Jane Austen: The World of Her Novelsby Deirdre Le FayeISBN 0711222789 (0-7112-2278-9)
Softcover, Antique Collectors Club Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels'Book summary:This volume sets out to illustrate in both words and pictures the physical world of the late-18th and early-19th centuries, as alluded to by Austen, so that readers can enjoy her novels with greater understanding and insight. Deidre Le Faye goes beyond the Hollywood fiction to explore the real physical and social environment that formed the backdrop to Austen's classics. Assisted by contemporary archive material, the author revisits the places familiar to Jane Austen in her lifetime, from the grand country houses to humble villager's cottages, from detailed information on the furnishings to the arrangements for the servants. [via]
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Jazz: A History of America's Musicby Geoffrey C. WardISBN 0679765395 (0-679-76539-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jazz: A History of America's Music'Book summary:First off, let's get the kudos down: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. (See our Ken Burns Jazz Store for the lowdown on the series.) Jazz: An Illustrated History follows the film episode by episode, and it's filled with rich historical detail in the early chapters. Like the series, however, the book trails off after a certain point in chronicling jazz's history. It gives background aplenty on early New Orleans music, the migration of jazz up the Mississippi to major urban centers, and the developments of swing and bebop. After bebop, the history gets a bit perfunctory. Dozens of major figures get mere sidebar coverage. Little is said of substance on Latin or Brazilian jazz, European contributions to the music, fusion, or umpteen smaller deviations from the mainstream. There are wonderful essays that highlight elements of jazz culture, particularly Gerald Early's consideration of race and white musicians in jazz and Gary Giddins's five-page essay on avant jazz. And there are fine sidebars as well. But developments during and after the 1960s are dealt with primarily in impressionistic guest essays rather than detail-oriented historical narrative. It is, of course, difficult to capture all jazz history in any single volume. So perhaps this ought to have been called Jazz: A Historical Appreciation, since the hundreds of images certainly create an intense sense of the music's milieu. --Andrew Bartlett [via]
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Letters and Papers from Prisonby Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eberhard BethgeISBN 0684838273 (0-684-83827-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters and Papers from Prison'Book summary:Letters and Papers from Prison is a collection of notes and correspondence covering the period from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in 1943 to his execution by the Gestapo in 1945. The book is probably most famous, and most important, for its idea of "religionless Christianity"--an idea Bonhoeffer did not live long enough fully to develop, but whose timeliness only increases as the lines between secular and ecclesial life blur. Bonhoeffer's first mention of "religionless Christianity" came in a letter in 1944:
What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience--and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as "religious" do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by "religious."
The pleasures of Letters and Papers from Prison, however are not all so profound. Occasionally, Bonhoeffer's letters burst into song--sometimes with actual musical notations, other times with unforgettable phrases. Looking forward to seeing his best friend, Bonhoeffer writes, "To meet again is a God." --Michael Joseph Gross [via]More editions of Letters and Papers from Prison:
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Letters from Londonby Julian BarnesISBN 0679761616 (0-679-76161-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from London'Book summary:With brilliant wit, idiosyncratic intelligence, and a bold grasp of intricate political realities, the celebrated author of Flaubert's Parrot turns his satiric glance homeward to England, in a sparkling collection of essays that illustrates the infinite variety of contemporary London life. [via]
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The Life of Benvenuto Celliniby Benvenuto CelliniISBN 0714833649 (0-7148-3364-9)
Softcover, Phaidon Inc Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life of Benvenuto Cellini'Book summary:This work is the only known autobiography of a Renaissance artist. It describes not only the artist's life at the Papal Court in Rome and at the Royal Court of France but makes very vivid historical writing, including, as it does, an eye-witness acount of the Sack of Rome in 1527. Cellini also gives us details of his career as a sculptor and goldsmith who restored Etruscan sculptures in Florence, made jewellery for the Popes and beautiful trinkets and ornaments for the French Court, such as the salt-cellar for Francis I. Many of his contemporaries such as Michelangelo are described by him in an intimate manner. The illustrations, which include all Cellini's works that have been preserved, as well as scenes from Renaissance life, were chosen by Sir John Pope-Hennessy, who died in 1994. [via]
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The Life of Mammalsby David AttenboroughISBN 0691113246 (0-691-11324-6)
Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life of Mammals'Book summary:There are over four and a half thousand different kinds of mammals alive today. How many can you name? Many will not be entirely clear about what it is that makes a mammal rather than a reptile or bird, apart from egg laying. But then what about egg-laying mammals such as the platypus and echidna? The Life of Mammals describes and illustrates the remarkable diversity of mammals from the giant blue whale to the miniscule pigmy shrew. The cachet of David Attenborough's name and distinctive voice comes through clearly from the text and there's a stunning selection of photographs, by the best wildlife photographers in the world. The Life of Mammals is worth getting even if you just like wildlife pictures, for there are many here that you will not have seen before--the Brazilian tapir, the hairy rhino of Sumatra, the Pyrenean desman and more.
Attenborough certainly has the knack of making good stories for the general reader out of what, in other hands, can be rather dry science. He manages to weave in a great deal about the evolutionary story behind the success of the mammals over the last 65 million years since the dinosaurs bit the dust. Also, because of all the careful research behind the TV programmes, he is pretty well up to speed on many of the scientific developments in our understanding of our biologically nearest if not necessarily dearest relatives. This is especially true when the story gets around to our closest primate cousins--the apes. All the recent discoveries about tool use and culture are included.
The Life of Mammals will make a perfect gift for anyone from the age of about 10 upwards and hopefully a whole new generation will know what a kinkajou, cacomistle or a uakiri are. The only quibble is there's no further-reading list to fuel new enthusiasms lit up by this excellent book. --Douglas Palmer. [via]
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The Lifetime Reading Planby Clifton FadimanISBN 0690014996 (0-690-01499-6)
Hardcover, Crowell
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Making a HomeISBN 0696214563 (0-696-21456-3)
Hardcover, Meredith Books
Find This BookBook summary:First portion of the book teaches how to maintain a home and its contents, the second portion offers advice on improving home life through better organization, etiquette, and time management.
Up-to-date, reliable information collected from universities, trade associations, federal agencies, and acknowledged experts on everything from pets, and home office equipment to home legal issues and environmental safety. [via]
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Making a Home: Housekeeping for Real Lifeby Better Homes and GardensISBN 069621203X (0-696-21203-X)
Hardcover, Meredith Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Making a Home: Housekeeping for Real Life'Book summary:First portion of the book teaches how to maintain a home and its contents, the second portion offers advice on improving home life through better organization, etiquette, and time management.
Up-to-date, reliable information collected from universities, trade associations, federal agencies, and acknowledged experts on everything from pets, and home office equipment to home legal issues and environmental safety. [via]
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Me: Stories of My Lifeby Katharine HepburnISBN 067974245X (0-679-74245-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Me: Stories of My Life'Book summary:Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years, four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an American classic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.
A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the Year
A Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection
From the Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Me: Stories of My Life:
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The Mechanical Turk: The True Story of the Chess-Playing Machine That Fooled the Worldby Tom StandageISBN 0713995254 (0-7139-9525-4)
Hardcover, Allen Lane
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Memories, Dreams, Reflectionsby Aniela Jaffe, Carl Gustav JungISBN 0679723951 (0-679-72395-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'Book summary:In the spring of 1957, when he was eighty-one years old, C. G. Jung undertook the telling of his life story. At regular intervals he had conversations with his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffé, and collaborated with her in the preparation of the text based on these talks. On occasion, he was moved to write entire chapters of the book in his own hand, and he continued to work on the final stages of the manuscript until shortly before his death on June 6, 1961.
This edition of Memories, Dreams, Reflections includes Jung's VII Sermones ad Mortuos. It is a fully corrected edition. [via]More editions of Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
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Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Yearsby Felipe Fernandez-ArmestoISBN 0684803615 (0-684-80361-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years'Book summary:An engaging work by a prize-winning historian traces the progress and regress of the world's civilizations over the past thousand years and shows how the capacity of one people to influence another has shifted geographically. 35,000 first printing. [via]
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Millenniumby Fernandez Armesto, Felipe Fernandez-ArmestoISBN 0684825368 (0-684-82536-8)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Millennium'Book summary:There is simply no other book like it--an Oxford scholar presents a genuine global history, spanning ten centuries and examining and weaving together events and movements in every part of the world. 400 photos and illustrations. [via]
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Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviorby Judith MartinISBN 0689112475 (0-689-11247-5)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior'Book summary:Miss Manners Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.Copy First Edition 1982 with 745 pages by Judith Martin. [via]
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The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Wayby Bill BrysonISBN 0688078958 (0-688-07895-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way'Book summary:Who would have thought that a book about English would be so entertaining? Certainly not this grammar-allergic reviewer, but The Mother Tongue pulls it off admirably. Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. Who else could rhapsodize about "the colorless murmur of the schwa" with a straight face? It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.
Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. As well as tossing off gems of fractured English (from a Japanese eraser: "This product will self-destruct in Mother Earth."), Bryson frequently takes time to compare the idiosyncratic tongue with other languages. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English. [via]
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Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonderby Lawrence WeschlerISBN 0679764895 (0-679-76489-5)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder'Book summary:In the non-Aristotelian, non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian space between the walls of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles exist bats that can fly through lead barriers, spore-ingesting pronged ants, elaborate theories of memory, and a host of other off-kilter scientific oddities that challenge the traditional notions of truth and fiction. Lawrence Weschler's book, expanded from an article for Harper's, is, at turns, a tour of the museum, a profile of its founder and curator, David Wilson, and a meditation on the role of imagination and authority in all museums, in science and in life. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder is an exquisite piece of "magic realist nonfiction" that will prove utterly captivating. [via]
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The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Womenby The Boston Women's Health Book CollectiveISBN 0684823527 (0-684-82352-7)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women'Book summary:Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century is the first major revision of this classic since 1984 and reflects the major changes that have occurred in every area of women's health. It is still the definitive consumer health reference of all women. This new focus encompasses such controversial issues as: -- Managing "managed care" and the insurance industry -- Questioning breast cancer treatment options -- Recent scientific developments in contraception and reproductive technology, including drug-induced abortions -- Violence as a women's public health issue -- Preventing and living with HIV/AIDS -- The impact of racism on sexuality -- Chiropractic, herbal, and other alternative/complementary therapies, including natural approaches to menopause -- Poverty and racism as major determinants of women's health. [via]
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On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homoby R. J. Hollingdale, Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Friedrich NietzscheISBN 0679724621 (0-679-72462-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo'Book summary:The great philosopher's major work on ethics, along with ECCE HOMO, Nietzche's remarkable review of his life and works. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. [via]
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen KingISBN 0684853523 (0-684-85352-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft'Book summary:Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo [via]
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One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screwby Witold RybczynskiISBN 0684867303 (0-684-86730-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw'Book summary:In 1999, an editor of the New York Times Magazine approached Witold Rybczynski, the well-known student of architecture and urban design, and asked him to write a short essay on the best and most useful common tool of the past millennium. Rybczynski took the assignment, but when he began to look into the history of the items in his workshop--hammers and saws, levels and planes--he found that almost all of them had pedigrees that extended well into antiquity. Nearly ready to admit defeat, he asked his wife for ideas. Her answer was inspired: "You always need a screwdriver for something."
True enough. And, Rybczynski discovered, the screwdriver is a relative newcomer in humankind's arsenal of gadgetry, an invention of the late European Middle Ages and the only major mechanical device that the Chinese did not independently invent. Leonardo da Vinci got to it early on, of course, as he did so many other things, designing a number of screw-cutting machines with interchangeable gears. Still, it took generations for the screw (and with it the screwdriver and lathe) to come into general use, and it was not until the modern era that such improvements as slotted and socket screws came into being.
Rybczynski's explorations into that lineage, here expanded to book length, are highly entertaining, and sure to engage readers interested in the origins of everyday things. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century : A Book by and for Womenby Boston Women's Health Collective StaffISBN 0684842319 (0-684-84231-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century : A Book by and for Women'Book summary:In a major update of the book that helped to launch the women's health movement, Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century updates the classic with chapters on such issues as online health resources, AIDS, and managed care. At the same time, it expands its appeal by addressing the concerns of an increasingly diverse readership, from lesbians to women of color, from women with disabilities to women of all age groups.
Yet the book, by the nonprofit Boston Women's Health Book Collective, remains true to the spirit of those empowering discussions women were first having in the 1960s and 1970s about their bodies: "As the millennium approaches, our original goals for this book remain as important as ever: to fit as much information about women's health between the covers of this book as we can, providing women with tools to enable all of us to take charge of our health and lives; to support women and men who work for progressive change; and to work to create a just society in which good health is not a luxury or a privilege but a human right."
By updating and continuing to tackle such topics as body image, sexuality, contraception, childbearing, breast cancer, and the politics of women's health, this edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves keeps giving women the power and the knowledge to take charge of their own health. It remains a valuable resource for women of all ages and backgrounds. [via]
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Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imaginationby Toni MorrisonISBN 0679745424 (0-679-74542-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination'Book summary:The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Beloved and Jazz now gives us a learned, stylish, and immensely persuasive work of literary criticism that promises to change the way we read American literature even as it opens a new chapter in the American dialogue on race.
Toni Morrison's brilliant discussions of the "Africanist" presence in the fiction of Poe, Melville, Cather, and Hemingway leads to a dramatic reappraisal of the essential characteristics of our literary tradition. She shows how much the themes of freedom and individualism, manhood and innocence, depended on the existence of a black population that was manifestly unfree--and that came to serve white authors as embodiments of their own fears and desires.
Written with the artistic vision that has earned Toni Morrison a pre-eminent place in modern letters, Playing in the Dark will be avidly read by Morrison admirers as well as by students, critics, and scholars of American literature.
"By going for the American literary jugular...she places her arguments...at the very heart of contemporary public conversation about what it is to be authentically and originally American. [She] boldly...reimagines and remaps the possibility of America."
--Chicago Tribune
"Toni Morrison is the closest thing the country has to a national writer."
The New York Times Book Review [via]More editions of Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination:
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Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtueby Wendy ShalitISBN 0684863170 (0-684-86317-0)
Softcover, Free Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue'Book summary:Where once a young woman had to be ashamed of her sexual experience, today she is ashamed of her sexual inexperience. Where not long ago an unmarried woman was ashamed to give public evidence of sexual desire by living with someone, today she must be ashamed to give evidence of romantic desire. From sex education in grade school to coed bathrooms in college, today's young woman is being pressured relentlessly to overcome her embarrassment, her "hang-ups," and especially her romantic hopes.
Meanwhile, the problems young women struggle with grow steadily more extreme: from sexual harassment, stalking, and date rape to anorexia and self-mutilation. Both men and women endlessly lament the loss of privacy and of real intimacy. What is it all about?
Beholden neither to conservatives who discount as exaggeration the dangers facing young women, nor to feminists who steadfastly affix blame on the patriarchy, Wendy Shalit proposes that, in fact, we have lost our respect for an important classical virtue -- that of sexual modesty. "A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration. From seventeenth-century manners guides to Antonio Canova's sculpture, "Venus Italico," to Frank Loesser's 1948 tune, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "A Return to Modesty unfolds like a detective's search for a lost idea as Shalit uncovers opinions about this lost virtue's importance, from Balzac to Simone de Beauvoir, that have not been aired for decades. Then she knocks down the accompanying myths one by one. Female modesty is not about a "sexual double standard," as is often thought, but is related to male virtue and honor. Modesty is not a social construct,but a natural response. And modesty is not prudery, but a way to preserve a sense of the erotic in our lives.
With humor and piercing insight, Shalit invites us to look beyond the blush and consider the new power to be found in an old ideal. She maintains that the sex education curriculum forced on those of her generation from an early age is fundamentally flawed, centered as it is on overcoming reticence -- what we today call "hang-ups." Shalit surprisingly and persuasively argues that without these misnamed hang-ups there can be no true surrender, no richness and depth to relations between the sexes. The natural inclination toward modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct that, if rediscovered and given the right social support, has the power to transform society. [via]
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Science, a History, 1543-2001by John R. GribbinISBN 0713995033 (0-7139-9503-3)
Hardcover, Allen Lane
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The Sonnetsby William ShakespeareISBN 0708945163 (0-7089-4516-3)
Softcover, Ulverscroft Large Print Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sonnets'Book summary:Together with A Lover's Complaint' and little-known alternative versions of four of the sonnets. Edited with an introduction by Stanley Wells. ...the most beautifully printed text available.' The Times . [via]
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Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing With Your Wonder Full Selfby SarkISBN 068483376X (0-684-83376-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing With Your Wonder Full Self'Book summary:This book is my glowing invitation to you -- to live a rich, succulent life! I explore love, sexuality, romance, money, fat, fear and creativity. It's a little bit like reading my diary -- with permission. Succulence is powerFull! and so are we as women. [via]
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Sun Tzu: The New Translationby Sun-Tzu, J. H. HuangISBN 0688124003 (0-688-12400-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sun Tzu: The New Translation'Book summary:Sun-Tzu is a landmark translation of the Chinese classic that is without a doubt one of the most important books of all time. Popularly known as The Art of War, Sun-Tzu is one of the leading books on strategic thinking ever written. While other books on strategy, wisdom, and philosophy come and go, both leaders and gentle contemplators alike have embraced the writings of Sun-tzu.
Sun-Tzu is not simply another of many translations already available, but an entirely new text, based on manuscripts recently discovered in Linyi, China, that predates all previous texts by as much as one thousand years. In translating the text, researcher and interpreter J. H. Huang traced the roots of the language to before 221 B.C. to get to the original intent; Besides offering a wonderfully clear translation, Huang adds an introduction to the history behind Sun-Tzu and his own comments on the meaning of the text. In addition, Sun-Tzu includes six appendices, five of which were uncovered at Linyi and are not found in other editions.
The writings of Sun-tzu have stood the test of time, and J. H. Huang's Sun-Tzu is the edition for the next millennium and beyond. [via]More editions of Sun Tzu: The New Translation:
The Testimony of the Shroud: Deductions from the Photographic and Written Evidence of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christby Rodney HoareISBN 0704332140 (0-7043-3214-0)
Hardcover, Quartet Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Testimony of the Shroud: Deductions from the Photographic and Written Evidence of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ'More editions of The Testimony of the Shroud: Deductions from the Photographic and Written Evidence of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ:
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Theatre and Its Doubleby Antonin Artaud, Victor CortiISBN 0714542342 (0-7145-4234-2)
Softcover, Calder Publications Limited
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To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Designby Henry PetroskiISBN 0679734163 (0-679-73416-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design'Book summary:The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended. [via]
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Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the Westby John Ralston SaulISBN 0679748199 (0-679-74819-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West'Book summary:Argues that the rationalist political and social experiments of the Enlightenment have degenerated into societies dominated by technology and a crude code of managerial efficiency. These are societies enslaved by manufactured fashions and artificial heroes, divorced from natural human instinct. [via]
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The War of the World: History's Age of Hatredby Niall FergusonISBN 0713997087 (0-7139-9708-7)
Hardcover, Allen Lane
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred'Book summary:The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? "The War of the World" comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece. [via]
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The Way to Eternity: Egyptian Mythby Fergus Fleming, Alan Lothian, Duncan Baird Publishers, Time-Life BooksISBN 0705435032 (0-7054-3503-2)
Hardcover, Grand Central Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Way to Eternity: Egyptian Myth'Book summary:Very Good [via]
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What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Womanby Danielle CrittendenISBN 0684859599 (0-684-85959-9)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman'Book summary:Talk to women under forty today, and you will hear that something has gone terribly wrong with their lives. They have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of. Yet women feel more confused and more insecure than ever. Now one of the leading female commentators of her generation exposes the ideas that prevent modern women from finding happiness and points the way to a better future.
What has gone wrong? What can be done to set it right? These are the questions Danielle Crittenden answers in "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us." Crittenden is the founder and editor of "The Women's Quarterly" magazine. In only four years, Crittenden's "Quarterly" has made itself the center of a new national debate about women. Her views and writings have been cited, reprinted, argued, lauded, and criticized across the country. Mary Matalin describes the "Quarterly" as "one of my most favorite magazines on the planet." George Will calls it "a bright light," and even Betty Friedan, with whom Crittenden has sparred, concedes that her views are on "the cutting edge."
In "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us," Crittenden looks at the big topics in women's lives: sex, marriage, motherhood, work, aging, and politics. She argues that a generation of women has been misled: taught to blame men and pursue independence at all costs. Happiness is obtainable, Crittenden says, but only if women will free their minds from outdated feminist slogans and habits of behavior:
"There are a great many women unhappy because they acted upon the wisdom passed along to them by the people they most trusted. These women thought they did everything right only to have it turn out all wrong. That thewisdom they received was faulty, that it was based on false assumptions, is a hard lesson for anyone to learn. But it is a lesson every woman growing up today will have to learn as I, and thousands upon thousands of women of my generation, had to learn, often painfully."
By drawing on her own experience and the decade she has spent researching and analyzing modern female life, Crittenden passionately and engagingly tackles the myths that keep women from realizing the happiness they deserve. And she introduces a new way of thinking about women's problems that may, finally, help women achieve the lives they desire. "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" is sure to ignite debate not only across the country but, more compellingly, within the reader herself. [via]
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The Whole Shebang: A State-Of-The-Universes Reportby Timothy FerrisISBN 0684838613 (0-684-83861-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Whole Shebang: A State-Of-The-Universes Report'Book summary:From the world-acclaimed author of "Coming of Age in the Milky Way" comes this delightfully engrossing, comprehensive, and comprehensible report on how science today envisions the universe as a whole.
Timothy Ferris begins "The Whole Shebang" with a succinct account of how we have come to know what we know about the universe. Then he explains the meaning behind the exciting new developments that have put cosmology in the headlines -- including the discovery of planets orbiting stars other than our sun, glimpses through the Hubble Space Telescope of how the universe looked when it was only a fraction of its present age, and the detection of structure in relic radiation from the big bang that may hint at the mechanisms of genesis.
Ferris provides a lucid, nontechnical overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. A master analogist, he presents accessible explanations of relativity and quantum physics, "inflationary" models indicating that the universe is much larger than had been thought, and "string" theories that portray all matter as made of space.
The centerpiece of "The Whole Shebang" is a visionary account of near-future science, in which light is shed on the possibility that our universe is one among many universes, each with different physical laws and differing prospects for the emergence of life.
"The Whole Shebang" explores questions that have occurred to even casual readers who are curious about nature on the largest scales: What does it mean to say that the universe is "expanding," or that space is "curved"? How could there have been an "origin" of the universe; what happened "before"? Why isquantum uncertainty so puzzling to many scientists, and why do some regard it as one of the
Written with the literary flair that earned Ferris the accolade "the greatest science writer in the world," "The Whole Shebang" interweaves probing scientific explication, lyrical descriptions, and finely honed profiles of the lives and personalities of the scientists and philosophers who have contributed to human understanding of the cosmos. Above all, it demonstrates that for all its abstractions, cosmology -- the scientific study of the universe as a whole -- is a very human activity whose theories and observations must ultimately answer to the human mind. [via]
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenanceby Robert M. PirsigISBN 0688032079 (0-688-03207-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'Book summary:In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.
Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.
In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Valuesby Robert M. PirsigISBN 0688002307 (0-688-00230-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values'Book summary:In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.
Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.
In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. --Brian Bruya [via]
More editions of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values:
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values: ISBN 0688052304 (0-688-05230-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values: ISBN 0688171664 (0-688-17166-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values: ISBN 0688002307 (0-688-00230-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values: ISBN 0688052304 (0-688-05230-4)
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