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books tagged “us”
books tagged “us”
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American Journeys: Weekends across the U.S.by John M. ThompsonISBN 0792241770 (0-7922-4177-0)
Hardcover, National Geographic
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American Legacy: Our National Forestsby Kenneth BrowlerISBN 0792236505 (0-7922-3650-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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American Theocracy: The Peril And Politics of Radical Religion, Oil And Borrowed Money in the 21st Centuryby Kevin P. PhillipsISBN 0786286938 (0-7862-8693-8)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blundersby Jim Carlton, Guy KawasakiISBN 0788190687 (0-7881-9068-7)
Hardcover, Diane Pub Co
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Atomic Narratives and American Youth: Coming of Age With the Atom, 1945-1955by Michael ScheibachISBN 0786415665 (0-7864-1566-5)
Softcover, McFarland & Co Inc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Atomic Narratives and American Youth: Coming of Age With the Atom, 1945-1955'Book summary:Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, numerous "atomic narratives"books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, movies, and television programsaddressed the implications of the bomb. PostWorld War II youth encountered atomic narratives in their daily lives at school, at home and in their communities, and were profoundly affected by what they read and saw.
This multidisciplinary study examines the exposure of American youth to atomic narratives during the ten years following World War II. In addition, it examines the broader "social narrative of the atom," which included educational, social, cultural, and political activities that surrounded and involved American youth. The activities ranged from school and community programs to movies and television shows to government-sponsored traveling exhibits on atomic energy. The book also presents numerous examples of writings by postwar adolescents, who clearly expressed their conflicted feelings about growing up in such a tumultuous time, and shows how many of the issues commonly associated with the sixties generation, such as peace, fellowship, free expression, and environmental concern, can be traced to this earlier generation. [via]
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Bee Seasonby Myla GoldbergISBN 0786225440 (0-7862-2544-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bee Season'Book summary:In Myla Goldberg's outstanding first novel, a family is shaken apart by a small but unexpected shift in the prospects of one of its members. When 9-year-old Eliza Naumann, an otherwise indifferent student, takes first prize in her school spelling bee, it is as if rays of light have begun to emanate from her head. Teachers regard her with a new fondness; the studious girls begin to save a place for her at lunch. Even Eliza can sense herself changing. She had "often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see."
Eliza's father, Saul, a scholar and cantor, had long since given up expecting sparks of brilliance on her part. While her brother, Aaron, had taken pride in reciting his Bar Mitzvah prayers from memory, she had typically preferred television reruns to homework or reading. This belated evidence of a miraculous talent encourages Saul to reassess his daughter. And after she wins the statewide bee, he begins tutoring her for the national competition, devoting to Eliza the hours he once spent with Aaron. His daughter flowers under his care, eventually coming to look at life "in alphabetical terms." "Consonants are the camels of language," she realizes, "proudly carrying their lingual loads."
Vowels, however, are a different species, the fish that flash and glisten in the watery depths. Vowels are elastic and inconstant, fickle and unfaithful.... Before the bee, Eliza had been a consonant, slow and unsurprising. With her bee success, she has entered vowelhood.
When Saul sees the state of transcendence that she effortlessly achieves in competition, he encourages his daughter to explore the mystical states that have eluded him--the influx of God-knowledge (shefa) described by the Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia. Although Saul has little idea what he has set in motion, "even the sound of Abulafia's name sets off music in her head. A-bu-la-fi-a. It's magic, the open sesame that unblocked the path to her father and then to language itself."Meanwhile, stunned by his father's defection, Aaron begins a troubling religious quest. Eliza's brainy, compulsive mother is also unmoored by her success. The spelling champion's newfound gift for concentration reminds Miriam of herself as a girl, and she feels a pang for not having seen her daughter more clearly before. But Eliza's clumsy response to Miriam's overtures convinces her mother that she has no real ties to her daughter. This final disappointment precipitates her departure into a stunning secret life. The reader is left wondering what would have happened if the Naumanns' spiritual thirsts had not been set in restless motion. A poignant and exceptionally well crafted tale, Bee Season has a slow beginning but a tour-de-force conclusion. --Regina Marler [via]
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Lifeby Walter IsaacsonISBN 0786260033 (0-7862-6003-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Benjamin Franklin: An American Life'Book summary:Benjamin Franklin, writes journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson, was that rare Founding Father who would sooner wink at a passer-by than sit still for a formal portrait. What's more, Isaacson relates in this fluent and entertaining biography, the revolutionary leader represents a political tradition that has been all but forgotten today, one that prizes pragmatism over moralism, religious tolerance over fundamentalist rigidity, and social mobility over class privilege. That broadly democratic sensibility allowed Franklin his contradictions, as Isaacson shows. Though a man of lofty principles, Franklin wasn't shy of using sex to sell the newspapers he edited and published; though far from frivolous, he liked his toys and his mortal pleasures; and though he sometimes gave off a simpleton image, he was a shrewd and even crafty politician. Isaacson doesn't shy from enumerating Franklins occasional peccadilloes and shortcomings, in keeping with the iconoclastic nature of our time--none of which, however, stops him from considering Benjamin Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age," and one of the most admirable of any era. And heres one bit of proof: as a young man, Ben Franklin regularly went without food in order to buy books. His example, as always, is a good one--and this is just the book to buy with the proceeds from the grocery budget. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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Big Fishby Daniel WallaceISBN 0786230436 (0-7862-3043-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Big Fish'Book summary:In Big Fish, Daniel Wallace angles in search of a father and hooks instead a fictional debut as winning as any this year. From his son's standpoint, Edward Bloom leaves much to be desired. He was never around when William was growing up; he eludes serious questions with a string of tall tales and jokes. This is subject matter as old as the hills, but Wallace's take is nothing if not original. Desperate to know his father before he dies, William recreates his father's life as the stuff of legend itself. In chapters titled "In Which He Speaks to Animals," "How He Tamed the Giant," "His Immortality," and the like, Edward Bloom walks miles through a blizzard, charms the socks off a giant, even runs so fast that "he could arrive in a place before setting out to get there." In between these heroic episodes, Bloom dies not once but four times, working subtle variations on a single scene in which he counters his son's questions with stories--some of which are actually very witty, indeed. After all, he admits, "...if I shared my doubts with you, about God and love and life and death, that's all you'd have: a bunch of doubts. But now, see, you've got all these great jokes." The structure is a clever conceit, and the end product is both funny and wise. At the heart of both legends and death scenes live the same age-old questions: Who are you? What matters to you? Was I a good father? Was I a good son? In mapping the territory where myth meets everyday life, Wallace plunges straight through to fatherhood's archaic and mysterious heart. --Mary Park [via]
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The Bonesetter's Daughterby Amy TanISBN 0786229519 (0-7862-2951-9)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Bonesetter's Daughter'Book summary:At the beginning of Amy Tan's fourth novel, two packets of papers written in Chinese calligraphy fall into the hands of Ruth Young. One bundle is titled Things I Know Are True and the other, Things I Must Not Forget. The author? That would be the protagonist's mother, LuLing, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In these documents the elderly matriarch, born in China in 1916, has set down a record of her birth and family history, determined to keep the facts from vanishing as her mind deteriorates.
A San Francisco career woman who makes her living by ghostwriting self-help books, Ruth has little idea of her mother's past or true identity. What's more, their relationship has tended to be an angry one. Still, Ruth recognizes the onset of LuLing's decline--along with her own remorse over past rancor--and hires a translator to decipher the packets. She also resolves to "ask her mother to tell her about her life. For once, she would ask. She would listen. She would sit down and not be in a hurry or have anything else to do."
Framed at either end by Ruth's chapters, the central portion of The Bonesetter's Daughter takes place in China in the remote, mountainous region where anthropologists discovered Peking Man in the 1920s. Here superstition and tradition rule over a succession of tiny villages. And here LuLing grows up under the watchful eye of her hideously scarred nursemaid, Precious Auntie. As she makes clear, it's not an enviable setting:
I noticed the ripe stench of a pig pasture, the pockmarked land dug up by dragon-bone dream-seekers, the holes in the walls, the mud by the wells, the dustiness of the unpaved roads. I saw how all the women we passed, young and old, had the same bland face, sleepy eyes that were mirrors of their sleepy minds.
Nor is rural isolation the worst of it. LuLing's family, a clan of ink makers, believes itself cursed by its connection to a local doctor, who cooks up his potions and remedies from human bones. And indeed, a great deal of bad luck befalls the narrator and her sister GaoLing before they can finally engineer their escape from China. Along the way, familial squabbles erupt around every corner, particularly among mothers, daughters, and sisters. And as she did in her earlier The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan uses these conflicts to explore the intricate dynamic that exists between first-generation Americans and their immigrant elders. --Victoria Jenkins [via]More editions of The Bonesetter's Daughter:
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Caddie Woodlawnby Carol Ryrie BrinkISBN 0786258853 (0-7862-5885-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Caddie Woodlawn'Book summary:At age 11, Caddie Woodlawn is the despair of her mother and the pride of her father: a clock-fixing tomboy running wild in the woods of Wisconsin. In 1864, this is a bit much for her Boston-bred mother to bear, but Caddie and her brothers are happy with the status quo. Written in 1935 about Carol Ryrie Brink's grandmother's childhood, the adventures of Caddie and her brothers are still exciting over 60 years later. With each chapter comes another ever-more exciting adventure: a midnight gallop on her horse across a frozen river to warn her American Indian friends of the white men's plan to attack; a prairie fire approaching the school house; and a letter from England that may change the family's life forever. This Newbery Medal-winning book bursts at the seams with Caddie's irrepressible spirit. In spite of her mother's misgivings, Caddie is a perfect role model for any girl--or boy, for that matter. She's big-hearted, she's brave, and she's mechanically inclined! (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
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Capote: A Biographyby Gerald ClarkeISBN 0786716614 (0-7867-1661-4)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Capote: A Biography'Book summary:Based on interviews with the author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's and with nearly everyone who knew him, this absorbing, definitive, and generously illustrated biography follows Truman Capote from his eccentric childhood in Alabama to the heights of New York society. Candidly, too, it recounts a gifted and celebrated writer's descent into the life of alcohol and drugs that would ultimately consume his bulldog spirit and staggering talent. [via]
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The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop Itby Chris Mitchell, John Miller, Michael StoneISBN 0786887826 (0-7868-8782-6)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It'Book summary:In The Cell, John Miller, an award-winning journalist and coanchor of ABC's 20/20, along with veteran reporter Michael Stone and Chris Mitchell, takes readers back more than 10 years to the birth of the terrorist cell that later metastasized into al Qaeda's New York operation. This remarkable book offers a firsthand account of what it is to be a police officer, an FBI agent or a reporter obsessed with a case few people will take seriously. It contains a first-person account of Miller's face-to-face meeting with bin Laden and privides the first full-length treatment to piece together what led up to the events of 9/11, ultimately delivering the disturbing answer to the question: Why, with all the information the intelligence community had, was no one able to stop the 9/11 attacks? [via]
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Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in Historyby George CrileISBN 0786259701 (0-7862-5970-1)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History'Book summary:A Blackstone Audie® Award Winner
Charlie Wilson's War is the untold story of the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the Agency's history.
In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson's attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight the Soviet invaders despite overwhelming odds, the congressman became passionate about their cause and procured hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen.
Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson's War is a detailed and brilliantly reported account of the inside workings of the CIA. [via]
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Chesapeake: Exploring the Water Trail of Captain John Smithby John Page WilliamsISBN 0792255569 (0-7922-5556-9)
Hardcover, National Geographic
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Childe Hassam: Impressionistby William H. Gerdts, Jay E. Cantor, Warren AdelsonISBN 0789205874 (0-7892-0587-4)
Hardcover, Perseus Distribution Services
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Childe Hassam: Impressionist'Book summary:Celebrates Hassam's imposing career as one of America's foremost impressionists. Adelson (president of Adelson Galleries), Cantor (teacher, writer and lecturer on American art) and Gerdts (author and professor emeritus, Graduate Center of the City U. of New York) approach the artist from several angles (an international context, his little-understood late work, and predominant themes) to reveal his many facets and uncover previously unknown aspects of his life and work. Illustrated with color reproductions that represent all of Hassam's styles, the volume concludes with an illustrated chronology and an annotated bibliography. [via]
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Compulsionby Meyer LevinISBN 0786703199 (0-7867-0319-9)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: An Unauthorized Autobiographyby Chuck BarrisISBN 0786888083 (0-7868-8808-3)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedarsby Harold BloomISBN 0791078779 (0-7910-7877-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars'Book summary:David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Bloom's Guides collection, presents concise critical excerpts from Snow Falling on Cedars to provide a scholarly overview of the work. This comprehensive study guide also features "The Story Behind the Story," which details the conditions under which Snow Falling on Cedars was written. This title also includes a short biography on Guterson and a descriptive list of characters. [via]
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Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archivesby Thomas Mallon, Brian WilliamsISBN 0792241851 (0-7922-4185-1)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives'Book summary:This carefully selected collection of letters, spanning from the earliest days of the Republic to the present, were pulled from the extensive holdings of the National Archives. Archivists searched through hundreds of letters held throughout their network, which includes all of the Presidential libraries. Dear Mr. President reproduces 75 letters from everyday citizens and some quite famous people: John Glenn, Elvis Presley, Walt Disney, Ho Chi Minh, Nikita Kruschev, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Robert Kennedy, and many more.
An introduction by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and essays by Dwight Young illuminate and expand the tenor of the times in which the letters were written. Full-size facsimiles of the letters are reproduced with transcripts of the text for easy reading, and letters are grouped thematically: Civil rights, the cold war, physical fitness, joblessness, World War II, the space race, western expansion, among many other topics.
Dear Mr. President is a charming walk through American history through the eyes of ordinary and extraordinary people writing to their President. [via]More editions of Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives:
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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 New YorkISBN 0789449765 (0-7894-4976-5)
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."
Now everyone can enjoy the luxury of first class travel with this stylish and practical deluxe edition of the practical and informative DK Travel Guide to New York. This deluxe edition, bound in beautiful fine-grained black leather, also includes a separate fold-out city map, information cards with theatre maps, menu decoders, wine vintage charts, emergency telephone numbers, and more [via]
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The Emperor's Childrenby Claire MessudISBN 0786292660 (0-7862-9266-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Emperor's Children'Book summary:Danielle, a junior television producer, is on the hunt for the documentary idea that will make her reputation; Marina, the beautiful daughter of a famous and wealthy liberal journalist and intellectual, is desperate to prove her worth - while unsure exactly of how this is to be achieved; Julius, a freelance writer of devastating book reviews, is determined to live a fabulous Manhattan lifestyle on a budget of nothing at all. "The Emperor's Children" follows these three friends - and their overlapping social and family circles - through their day-to-day lives, their perceived struggles and successes and their constant search for meaning and authenticity. Sweeping in scope, minutely perceptive about the nuances of Manhattan life, with richly drawn characters and vivid prose, "The Emperor's Children" is a finely textured portrait of a particular place at a particular moment - and a haunting illustration how the events of a single day can change everything, for ever. It reveals Claire Messud as a novelist in bloom, writing at the height of her powers. [via]
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Empire Fallsby Richard RussoISBN 0786236515 (0-7862-3651-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Empire Falls'Book summary:Like most of Richard Russo's earlier novels, Empire Falls is a tale of blue-collar life, which itself increasingly resembles a kind of high-wire act performed without the benefit of any middle-class safety nets. This time, though, the author has widened his scope, producing a comic and compelling ensemble piece. There is, to be sure, a protagonist: fortysomething Miles Roby, proprietor of the local greasy spoon and the recently divorced father of a teenage daughter. But Russo sets in motion a large cast of secondary characters, drawn from every social stratum of his depressed New England mill town. We meet his ex-wife Janine, his father Max (another of Russo's cantankerous layabouts), and a host of Empire Grill regulars. We're also introduced to Francine Whiting, a manipulative widow who owns half the town--and who takes a perverse pleasure in pointing out Miles's psychological defects.
Miles does indeed have a tendency to take it on the chin. (At one point he alludes to his own "natural propensity for shit-eating.") And his role as Mr. Nice Guy thrusts him into all sorts of clashes with his not-so-nice contemporaries, even as the reader patiently waits for him to blow his top. It would be impossible to summarize Russo's multiple plot lines here. Suffice it to say that he touches on love and marriage, lust and loss and small-town economics, with more than a soupçon of class resentment stirred into the broth. This is, in a sense, an epic of small and large frustrations: "After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble." Yet Russo's comedic timing keeps the novel from collapsing into an orgy of breast-beating, and his dialogue alone--snappy and natural and efficiently poignant--is sufficient cause to put Empire Falls on the map. --Bob Brandeis [via]
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Enduring Americaby Douglas H. ChadwickISBN 0792227336 (0-7922-2733-6)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Epic Of New York City: A Narrative Historyby Edward R EllisISBN 0786714360 (0-7867-1436-0)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Epic Of New York City: A Narrative History'Book summary:In swift, witty chapters that flawlessly capture the pace and character of New York City, acclaimed diarist Edward Robb Ellis presents his masterpiece: a thorough, and thoroughly readable, history of America's largest metropolis. Ellis narrates some of the most significant events of the past three hundred years and morethe Revolutionary and Civil Wars, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's fatal duel, the formation of the League of Nations, the Great Depressionfrom the perspective of the city that experienced, and influenced, them all. Throughout, he infuses his account with the strange and delightful anecdotes that a less charming tour guide might omit, from the story of the city's first, block-long subway to that of the blizzard of 1888 that turned Macy's into one big slumber party. Playful yet authoritative, comprehensive yet intimate, The Epic of New York City confirms the words of its own epigraph, spoken by Oswald Spengler: "World history is city history," particularly when that city is the Big Apple.[via]More editions of The Epic Of New York City: A Narrative History:
Erasureby Percival EverettISBN 0786888156 (0-7868-8815-6)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colonyby George Francis DowISBN 0788421255 (0-7884-2125-5)
Softcover, Heritage Books
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Flight: My Life in Mission Controlby Christopher C. KraftISBN 0786234261 (0-7862-3426-1)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America's Heroic Aviation Pioneerby Bryan B. Sterling, Frances N. SterlingISBN 0786708948 (0-7867-0894-8)
Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Forgotten Eagle: Wiley Post, America's Heroic Aviation Pioneer'Book summary:Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, as the world remembers, and Amelia Earhart, who never completed her round-the-world flight with navigator Frederick Noonan in their twin-engine Lockheed, became a legend. Yet the contemporary of these two pioneers in early aviation, Wiley Post--the pilot who circled the earth alone in a single-engine plane, who flew at sub-stratospheric altitudes and discovered the jet stream, and who designed the prototypes for astronauts' space suits--has been largely, and perhaps officially, ignored in history and American folklore. Until now. Based on thirty years of research, this biography by Bryan and Frances Sterling reconstructs the adventurous life of Wiley Post from his poverty-stricken boyhood on a farm in Texas to a certificate from the Sweeney Auto School in Kansas City, Missouri, to a brief career in armed robbery that sent him to prison in 1921. It was in the oil fields of Oklahoma that ex-con Post lost his left eye, a handicap that he did not allow to impede his career as a parachute jumper, stunt pilot, barnstormer, and record-setting ace aviator. Post's incredible career ended in 1935, with a fatal crash in Barrow, Alaska, that also killed his passenger, the great American humorist Will Rogers. As in their comprehensive account of the enigmatic Wiley Post's life, the Sterlings leave no official record or government file unturned in their thoroughgoing investigation of the mystery that has long surrounded this maverick aviator's death. [via]
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![[???]: From There to Here: The Immigrant Experience](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0789151545.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "[???]: From There to Here: The Immigrant Experience")
From There to Here: The Immigrant ExperienceISBN 0789151545 (0-7891-5154-5)
Softcover, Perfection Learning
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The Good Lifeby Jay McInerneyISBN 0786285443 (0-7862-8544-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Life'Book summary:Amazon.com Exclusive: James Frey Reviews The Good Life
Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City was initially released in 1984. Twenty years later it is still an important book, and it has been an influence on a generation of writers, including me. McInerney's career since has been one of highs (Brightness Falls, The Last of the Savages) and lows (Ransom, The Story of my Life). He became a wine columnist, married and divorced, became a father to a pair of twins. In New York, he has remained a highly visible public figure, regularly seen at book parties and on the gossip page. Outside of New York, many people seem to have forgotten him. Often, when I bring up his later works, people respond with something along the lines of--I didn't know he wrote anything after Bright Lights.The writer whose career McInernery's most resembles is that of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both achieved huge, almost overwhelming early success. Both struggled to work their way out of the glare and expectations of that success. Both became known as much for their lifestyles as much as their books. While Fitzgerald wrote a masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, that McInerney, or almost anyone for that matter, has yet to match, McInernery has done something that may, over time, prove to be more interesting: he's lived through the downs of his life, continues to work, and is producing the kind of books we might have expected from Fitzgerald had he lived past the age of 44.
His latest book, The Good Life, is, in my opinion, his best book since Bright Lights, Big City. It tells the story of two Manhattan couples around the days of the events of September 11th. Luke and Sasha, wealthy Upper-East side socialites, and Russell and Corrine, a downtown literary editor and his wife, who were the subject of the earlier book Brightness Falls, are sleepwalking through their lives. They have parties and go to parties, live with spouses they're no longer sure they love, struggle with the correct way to raise their children. Luke is a banker who left his multi-million dollar job in search of something more fulfilling, while his wife is cheating on him with a former rival. Corrine is a stay-at-home mother whose husband is more concerned with work and other women than his family. Neither Luke nor Corrine see any way out of their marriages. Both end up working at a soup-kitchen near Ground Zero in the days immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Centers. They fall in love. They plan a future together. It's a simple story, a basic love story, and in the hands of a lesser writer, The Good Life could be awful. Instead, it's a very subtle, incredibly insightful, heartbreaking story about life in the New York, about marriage, about children and the choices they force us to make, about love and longing, about the search for meaning in our lives. It's a book about hope and how we find it, sustain and lose it, and it's a book about loss and how we deal with it.
It's also a deeply personal book, McInerney's most personal since Bright Lights, and it feels to me like I'm reading about variations of McInerney's own life. He, like Fitzgerald, is at his best when he's putting his own experiences into the lives of his characters, and I've never felt more of McInerney, or felt more vulnerability, which to me is a sign of strength in a writer, Unfortunately, Fitzgerald's life was unsustainable. He died drunk, penniless, alone, forgotten. McInernery could have followed his path, and it sometimes seemed like he would. Thankfully he didn't. People wondered what kind of writer Fitzgerald might have been had he lived. McInerney, his closest succesor, is starting to show us. --James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard [via]
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fireby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786229276 (0-7862-2927-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Princeby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786277459 (0-7862-7745-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince'Book summary:The deluxe edition includes a 32-page insert featuring near scale reproductions of Mary GrandPré's interior art, as well as never-before-seen full-color frontispiece art on special paper. The custom-designed slipcase is foil-stamped and inside is a full cloth case book, blind-stamped on front and back cover, foil stamped on spine. The book includes full-color endpapers with jacket art from the Trade edition and a wraparound jacket featuring exclusive, suitable-for-framing art from Mary GrandPré.
Potter News You Can Use
J.K. Rowling has revealed three chapter titles from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be:
- Chapter Two: "Spinners End"
- Chapter Six: "Draco's Detour"
- Chapter Fourteen: "Felix Felicis"
A Few Words from J.K. Rowling
"I am an extraordinarily lucky person, doing what I love best in the world. Im sure that I will always be a writer. It was wonderful enough just to be published. The greatest reward is the enthusiasm of the readers." --J.K. Rowling. Find out more about Harry's creator in our exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling.
Why We Love Harry
Favorite Moments from the Series
There are plenty of reasons to love Rowling's wildly popular series--no doubt you have several dozen of your own. Our list features favorite moments, characters, and artifacts from all five books. Keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive (what we love about Harry could fill five books!) and does not include any of the spectacular revelatory moments that would spoil the books for those (few) who have not read them. Enjoy.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- Harry's first trip to the zoo with the Dursleys, when a boa constrictor winks at him.
- When the Dursleys' house is suddenly besieged by letters for Harry from Hogwarts. Readers learn how much the Dursleys have been keeping from Harry. Rowling does a wonderful job in displaying the lengths to which Uncle Vernon will go to deny that magic exists.
- Harry's first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. Full of curiosities and rich with magic and marvel, Harry's first trip includes a trip to Gringotts and Ollivanders, where Harry gets his wand (holly and phoenix feather) and discovers yet another connection to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This moment is the reader's first full introduction to Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizards.
- Harry's experience with the Sorting Hat.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- The de-gnoming of the Weasleys' garden. Harry discovers that even wizards have chores--gnomes must be grabbed (ignoring angry protests "Gerroff me! Gerroff me!"), swung about (to make them too dizzy to come back), and tossed out of the garden--this delightful scene highlights Rowling's clever and witty genius.
- Harry's first experience with a Howler, sent to Ron by his mother.
- The Dueling Club battle between Harry and Malfoy. Gilderoy Lockhart starts the Dueling Club to help students practice spells on each other, but he is not prepared for the intensity of the animosity between Harry and Draco. Since they are still young, their minibattle is innocent enough, including tickling and dancing charms.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Ron's attempt to use a telephone to call Harry at the Dursleys'.
- Harry's first encounter with a Dementor on the train (and just about any other encounter with Dementors). Harry's brush with the Dementors is terrifying and prepares Potter fans for a darker, scarier book.
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione's behavior in Professor Trelawney's Divination class. Some of the best moments in Rowling's books occur when she reminds us that the wizards-in-training at Hogwarts are, after all, just children. Clearly, even at a school of witchcraft and wizardry, classes can be boring and seem pointless to children.
- The Boggart lesson in Professor Lupin's classroom.
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione's knock-down confrontation with Snape.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Hermione's disgust at the reception for the veela (Bulgarian National Team Mascots) at the Quidditch World Cup. Rowling's fourth book addresses issues about growing up--the dynamic between the boys and girls at Hogwarts starts to change. Nowhere is this more plain than the hilarious scene in which magical cheerleaders nearly convince Harry and Ron to jump from the stands to impress them.
- Viktor Krum's crush on Hermione--and Ron's objection to it.
- Malfoy's "Potter Stinks" badge.
- Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., the intolerant bigotry of the Death Eaters, and the danger of the Triwizard Tournament. Add in the changing dynamics between girls and boys at Hogwarts, and suddenly Rowling's fourth book has a weight and seriousness not as present in early books in the series. Candy and tickle spells are left behind as the students tackle darker, more serious issues and take on larger responsibilities, including the knowledge of illegal curses.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry's outburst to his friends at No. 12 Grimmauld Place. A combination of frustration over being kept in the dark and fear that he will be expelled fuels much of Harry's anger, and it all comes out at once, directly aimed at Ron and Hermione. Rowling perfectly portrays Harry's frustration at being too old to shirk responsibility, but too young to be accepted as part of the fight that he knows is coming.
- Harry's detention with Professor Umbridge. Rowling shows her darker side, leading readers to believe that Hogwarts is no longer a safe haven for young wizards. Dolores represents a bureaucratic tyrant capable of real evil, and Harry is forced to endure their private battle of wills alone.
- Harry and Cho's painfully awkward interactions. Rowling clearly remembers what it was like to be a teenager.
- Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape.
- Dumbledore's confession to Harry.
Begin at the Beginning
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Hardcover
PaperbackIf You Like J.K. Rowling, You'll Love These Authors&
- Cornelia Funke
- Eoin Colfer
- Garth Nix
New Novels to Keep You Busy
Cry of the Icemark
The Dark Hills Divide
Singer of All Songs
The Game of Sunken Places
Children of the Lamp
Dragon RiderAuthors Younger Potter Fans Should Try&
- Geronimo Stilton
- Andy Griffiths
- Dav Pilkey
While You Wait
Hot New Series for Potter Fans
Charlie Bone
Guardians of Ga'hoole
Keys to the Kingdom
Underland Chronicles
Dragons of DeltoraA Few Words from Mary GrandPré
"When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision." Check out more Harry Potter art from illustrator Mary GrandPré.Did You Know?
[via]
The Little White Horse was J.K. Rowling's favorite book as a child. 
Jane Austen is Rowling's favorite author. 
Roddy Doyle is Rowling's favorite living writer. More editions of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince:
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786257784 (0-7862-5778-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Book Description--Special Features of the Deluxe Edition
This cloth-covered deluxe edition features full-color printed endpapers and a foil-stamped title on the spine, and comes complete with a full-color slipcase with matte lamination and foil-stamping. Best of all, the removable, suitable-for-framing book jacket is emblazoned with exclusive, original artwork (that's different than the regular edition) by illustrator Mary GrandPré--a one-of-a-kind keepsake that you won't find anywhere else.
About the Artist: Mary GrandPré
Award-winning artist, conceptual illustrator, animated film scenery developer, ad designer, and, oh yes, illustrator for a worldwide children's book phenomenon, Mary GrandPré somehow manages to juggle all her hats quite well, to mix a metaphor. It seems appropriate to mix metaphors when you're talking about someone who has mixed her media--and her genres--so gracefully ever since she was a child.
As a 5-year-old, GrandPré began drawing. Five or six years later she was experimenting with Salvador Dali-style oil painting. Next she moved on to copying black-and-white photos out of the encyclopedia. Later still she decided to go to art school (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where she learned that being an artist and being an illustrator were not mutually exclusive.
A couple of decades later, after working in corporate advertising, film (GrandPré created the environment and scenery art for the animated film Antz), and book publishing, this multitalented artist received a call asking if she might like to work on a book cover and some black-and-white illustrations for a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter. The rest--dare we say it?--is history.
Exclusive Amazon Interview:
The Painter of PotterConsidering she may be the best-known illustrator on the planet right now, Mary GrandPré is remarkably mild, modest, and down-to-earth. In a conversation with Amazon.com's Emilie Coulter, the Harry Potter illustrator talks about her dog and her dad, Walt Disney's magic, and, of course, Book Five. Amazon.com:
You've read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--what do you think? Mary GrandPré: I think it's wonderful. It's unique, it's different from the rest. I think it's a really exciting part of the Harry Potter series. Amazon.com: Which Harry Potter book have you liked the best? GrandPré: I think they all stand alone, so I appreciate them separately, but when you tie them all together into the story you can't really have one without the other. I don't have a favorite. They're all great. Amazon.com: What was your original artistic inspiration for the first Harry Potter book? How did Harry end up looking like Harry? GrandPré: 
When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision. Amazon.com: How closely do you work with J.K. Rowling? GrandPré: I've only met her once, a couple years ago. The publisher shows her sketches and gets feedback, but she and I don't communicate. This is pretty typical for illustrator/author relationships: they keep our visions and voices separate. Amazon.com: How are you handling Harry growing up? GrandPré:
It's exciting. I kind of feel like his mom--or maybe his step-mom. J.K. Rowling is his mom. But I feel like it's a tricky thing to create a character and then age him. You have to take careful note of how that happens because any little tiny difference in a face can make the whole person look very different. Over the years Harry has become pretty solid in my mind. I just do a lot of experimenting on the drawing board, playing with how I would technically change this or that part of his face. What's really exciting is how Harry's personality changes from book to book, his level of confidence, things you see in normal kids. It's really fun to bring that into the drawings.
What's really exciting is how Harry's personality changes from book to book, his level of confidence, things you see in normal kids. It's really fun to bring that into the drawings.
Amazon.com: You've called your artistic style "soft geometry." What do you mean by that? GrandPré: I don't know if that happens so much in Harry Potter covers; in my other work you see it more--it's stylized, abstract. It's just a simplification of subject matter, an abstraction, but not enough to not be approachable. I'm inspired by people like [Edward] Hopper and Henry Moore, who is one of my favorite artists. Amazon.com: And who is your favorite children's book illustrator? GrandPré:
I'd say Maurice Sendak is one of them. As a kid I was really, really inspired by early Walt Disney. That sense of magic is something I want to bring into my work in my own way. It's hard to say who's my favorite--it changes. It's more about favorite pieces of art. I do like a variety of artwork. I don't feel fresh doing the same thing over and over, so I like to view a lot of art and be inspired by it according to subject or story, more so than just by illustrators or authors. Amazon.com: What do you think of the artwork in the international editions? GrandPré: I've only seen a couple of these editions. Everybody has their own vision of the story and what it should look like. To be honest, I really just focus on what I need to do with the books. That's even true for the movie and Harry Potter as a product, I try to stay focused on what's happening in my studio with Harry. Amazon.com: It must have been amazing to see the characters you worked with come to life in the movies. GrandPré:
It was pretty cool. I thought they were really good. It was so much fun to see the magic on the screen. Once in a while I would catch a glimpse of something that might have been inspired by something they saw in one of the books that I had drawn and that was great. I don't know if it was in there or not, but I'd like to think so! Amazon.com: Do you have a favorite character in all the books? GrandPré: Besides Harry, who's my favorite, obviously, I would say Hagrid because he's like my favorite people in my life. He's a lot like my dad: protective and loyal and big and sweet; and he's a lot like my dog, who's part St. Bernard and has the same qualities. I kind of have a personal connection with Hagrid. Amazon.com: Any advice for a budding illustrator? GrandPré:
Yes, I would just say keep working hard and don't give up. Illustration, like any form of art, is up for criticism, but it has to come from the heart or it's not good. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, keep trying new things because your best work will come from work you enjoy. Constantly try to listen to your inner voice about who you are as an artist and what you do and what you know. I don't know about magic but I know that I'm moved by it--I have been since I was a little kid--and it tends to come into my work even when I'm not illustrating things of magic. Just continue to try and be relaxed and natural about how you draw. Try to bring yourself out in your work. Amazon.com: If you could choose to live your life exactly the way you wanted to, no holds barred, what would change? GrandPré: I'd have a lot more time to do personal work. No holds barred, I would probably paint for myself, just go nuts, experiment, be my own art director, be my own critic, experience total freedom in my artwork. I try to do that in my work now, but it's hard to do when you are problem solving and illustrating other people's visions. I'm starting to write my own picture books now, so part of that dream is coming into view for me.
Mary GrandPré's Art: See more of Mary GrandPré's art from previous Harry Potter books
Illustrations by Mary GrandPré © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 Warner Bros. [via]More editions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786222743 (0-7862-2274-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'Book summary:For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.
As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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I know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Blooms Guides)by Harold BloomISBN 0791077683 (0-7910-7768-3)
Softcover, Facts on File
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Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink: Offbeat Travels Through America's Southwestby Tom MillerISBN 0792263642 (0-7922-6364-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Journals of Lewis and Clarkby William Clark, Meriwether Lewis, Anthony BrandtISBN 0792269217 (0-7922-6921-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Journals of Lewis and Clark'Book summary:At the dawn of the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on an unprecedented journey from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back again. Their assignment was to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and record the geography, flora, fauna, and people they encountered along the way. The tale of their incredible journey, meticulously recorded in their journals, has become an American classic.
This single-volume, landmark edition of the famous journals is the first abridgement to be published in at least a decade. [via]More editions of The Journals of Lewis and Clark:
Journals of Lewis and Clark SPEC HCby Thomas SchmidtISBN 079226620X (0-7922-6620-X)
Hardcover, National Geographic Society
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Journals of Lewis and Clark SPEC HC'Book summary:At the dawn of the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on an unprecedented journey from St. Louis, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean and back again. Their assignment was to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and record the geography, flora, fauna, and people they encountered along the way. The tale of their incredible journey, meticulously recorded in their journals, has become an American classic.
This single-volume, landmark edition of the famous journals is the first abridgement to be published in at least a decade. [via]More editions of Journals of Lewis and Clark SPEC HC:
Keep Watching the Skies!: American Science Fiction Movies of the 50'S 1950-1957by Bill WarrenISBN 0786404795 (0-7864-0479-5)
Softcover, McFarland & Co Inc Pub
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The Lady And the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animalby Vicki CrokeISBN 0786281693 (0-7862-8169-3)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Leading the Cheersby Justin CartwrightISBN 0786706589 (0-7867-0658-9)
Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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A Little Princessby Frances Hodgson BurnettISBN 078625842X (0-7862-5842-X)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Little Princess'Book summary:This retelling of the well-known classic is both charming and accessible to younger readers. "I do sometimes pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like a proper one." When wealthy Sara Crewe first arrives at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, she is treated like a princess. But when Sara descends into poverty and is forced to work as a lowly servant, she needs all her courage and imagination to remain a princess at heart. This Young Classics edition explores the real world behind A Little Princess. Photography sets the scene without intruding on the story, and brings A Little Princess to life for a new generation of children. [via]
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Loveby Pablo NerudaISBN 0786881488 (0-7868-8148-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Mammoth Book of the Westby Jon E. LewisISBN 0786708646 (0-7867-0864-6)
Softcover, Running Press Book Publishers
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The Master Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novelby Jennifer ChiaveriniISBN 0786261625 (0-7862-6162-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Master Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel'Book summary:The Master Quilter opens with the sound of wedding bells ringing in the ears of the Elm Creek Quilters. The close-knit group can hardly believe that their own Sylvia Compson planned her holiday wedding to sweetheart Andrew in complete secrecy, without the help of even one of her friends. Eager to honor the newlyweds, the Elm Creek Quilters hasten to stitch a bridal quilt for their favorite Master Quilter. Until the time comes to unveil the surprise gift, they reason, Sylvia will be the one in the dark.
Such little white lies seem harmless enough, especially in the service of future happiness. Yet Elm Creek Manor, and the quilting retreat established there by the Elm Creek Quilters, thrives on the strength of women sharing their creativity, their challenges, and their dreams. Somehow, in the race to commemorate in Sylvia's bridal quilt all that they hold dear about her wisdom, skill, and devotion, they forget to give honesty its pride of place.
As the quilt blocks accumulate, the Elm Creek Quilters celebrate the joy of new beginnings and the ongoing success of their business -- until forces conspire to threaten their happiness and prosperity. Two among them falter in their personal relationships, yet they are too proud to share their pain. The financial problems of another leave the quilt project vulnerable to a malicious act that may prevent its completion. And as two others weigh the comfort of the present against dreams of a future far from Elm Creek Manor, closely guarded secrets strain the bonds of friendship with those who may be left behind.
The Dallas Morning News has praised the Elm Creek Quilts series as "classics of their kind," and The Master Quilter is Chiaverini's latest gift to readers. [via]
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Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsby Harold BloomISBN 0791036669 (0-7910-3666-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'Book summary:Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings accomplishes a controlled poignance in representing a portrait of the young artist as a black woman. Her novel is the focus of this edition of Bloom's Notes. 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 Member of the Weddingby Harold BloomISBN 0791081729 (0-7910-8172-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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Mickey's Gourmet Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes from Walt Disney World and Disneylandby Victoria StasioISBN 0786880163 (0-7868-8016-3)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mickey's Gourmet Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes from Walt Disney World and Disneyland'Book summary:Available for the first time in bookstores, here is the cookbook selling over 300,000 copies inside the world's most popular theme parks. This book makes it easier than ever for anyone who's a fan of cooking and Disney alike to whip up the mouth-watering cuisine that has won numerous awards. Over 350 of the most-requested recipes. [via]
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The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Militaryby Martin L. CookISBN 0791462420 (0-7914-6242-0)
Softcover, State Univ of New York Pr
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Mouthing the Wordsby Camilla GibbISBN 0786709669 (0-7867-0966-9)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mouthing the Words'Book summary:By turns harrowing and hilarious, this adroitly narrated winner of the Toronto Book Award re-creates the world in the imagination of Thelma. It's a world in which she can escape some of her more painful childhood realities, like those games her father likes to make her play, where he's the boss and she the naughty secretary. And her mother so fiercely favors her younger brother, the cherubic Willy, that Thelma finds herself perpetually in emotional exile. No wonder Thelma asks practically every adult she meets to adopt her. Along Thelma's bumpy way from a rural English village to Canada to a law degree at Oxford, she meets many potential parents and even makes some friends, but it is with the companions of her fertile imaginationwith the scaredy-baby Janawee, moody and timid Ginniger, and big, strong, stoic Herointhat Thelma finds comfort. With them, too, she loses an already tenuous connection to reality, though ultimately Thelma's spirit and humor prove to be as indomitable as her wit. "Moving and comic at once.... Hallucinatory, hilarious, and haunting."Boston Globe "Prickly, unsentimental...a portrait of terrible comic humanity."New York Times Book Review "Mesmerizing.... Lush, visceral prose ... rings with an authority rarely found in first novels."Washington Post Book World "A novel of astonishing power .... An instantaneous classic."Baltimore Sun "Elegant ... sings with an almost Victorian delicacy and sophistication."San Francisco Chronicle[via]
Naples '44: A World War II Diary Of Occupied Italyby Norman LewisISBN 0786714387 (0-7867-1438-7)
Softcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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National Geographic Traveler Arizonaby Bill WeirISBN 0792238885 (0-7922-3888-5)
Softcover, Natl Geographic Society
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Natural Americaby T. H. WatkinsISBN 0792270606 (0-7922-7060-6)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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An Ocean in Iowaby Peter HedgesISBN 0786864044 (0-7868-6404-4)
Hardcover, Hyperion Books
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The Pleasure of My Companyby Steve MartinISBN 0786888016 (0-7868-8801-6)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pleasure of My Company'Book summary:Readers expecting something zany, something crudely humorous from Steve Martin's second novel, The Pleasure of My Company, will discover much greater riches. While the book has a sense of humor, Martin moves everywhere with a gentler, lighter touch in this elegant little fiction that verges on the profound and poetic.
Daniel Pecan Cambridge is the narrator and central consciousness of the novel (actually a novella). Daniel, an ex-Hewlett-Packard communiqué encoder, is a savant whose closely proscribed world is bounded on every side by neuroses and obsessions. He cannot cross the street except at driveways symmetrically opposed to each, and he cannot sleep unless the wattage of the active light bulbs in his apartment sums to 1,125. Daniel's starved social life is punctuated by twice-weekly visits from a young therapist in training, Clarissa; by his prescription pick-ups from a Rite Aid pharmacist, Zandy; and by his "casual" meetings with the bleach-blond real estate agent, Elizabeth, who is struggling to sell apartments across the street. But Daniel's dysfunctional routines are shattered one day when he becomes entangled in the chaos of Clarissa's life as a single mother. Taking care of Clarissa's tiny son, Teddy, Daniel begins to emerge from the safety of logic, magic squares, and obsessive counting.
Martin's craftsmanship is remarkable. The tightly packed novella paints rich portraits with restraint and balance, including nothing extraneous to Daniel's world. The book does not try for pyrotechnics but is contented with a Zen-like simplicity in both prose and plot. Avoiding the crushing bleakness of much contemporary fiction, Martin insists through Daniel--a man haunted by horrors of his own making--that there is possibility for compassion, that broken lives can actually be healed. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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The Politics Of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir Inside The Lies That Put The White House On Trial and Betrayed My Wife's Cia Identityby Joseph WilsonISBN 0786715510 (0-7867-1551-0)
Softcover, Public Affairs
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Politics Of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir Inside The Lies That Put The White House On Trial and Betrayed My Wife's Cia Identity'Book summary:While many former Bush administration officials published books airing their gripes and concerns in advance of the 2004 election, few were in a situation as personal as Joseph Wilson's. A career diplomat, he found himself working for an administration that apparently leaked information revealing his wife, Valerie Plame, to be a CIA operative soon after Wilson cast doubt on Bush's claims of Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger. When columnist Robert Novak named Plame, there was widespread speculation about who leaked the information. In The Politics of Truth, Wilson points a finger at Dick Cheneys chief-of-staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby and national security aide Eliot Abrams although Wilson never really presents smoking gun evidence against them. There is little here that breaks new ground in terms of hard facts being revealed, nonetheless, Wilson's account, personal and well written, maps out the human impact of the situation in ways that major newspapers never could. Wilson's animus toward the administration is made stronger by his support of the president in the 2000 election and he held out hope that a centrist conservative approach would help America's position in the world. That scenario withered, in Wilson's mind, when the plan to invade Iraq became increasingly inevitable and, like many traditional conservatives, Wilson mourns the rise of the ideological "neo-conservatives" who shaped foreign policy. But while a true-life secret identity/betrayal story is inherently fascinating, and Wilson's indignation and scorn is powerfully delivered, there is more to recommend his book. Wilson tells of being stationed in the Persian Gulf in the days leading up to the first Gulf War, a haunting encounter with Saddam Hussein, and years of efforts to establish democracy in Africa. The Politics of Truth provides a glimpse inside the high stakes world of international intelligence and, Joseph Wilson says, that world can be vicious. --John Moe [via]
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The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Exposed My Wife's CIA Identityby Joseph WilsonISBN 078671378X (0-7867-1378-X)
Hardcover, Carroll & Graf Pub
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The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neilby Ron SuskindISBN 0786265329 (0-7862-6532-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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The Quilter's Legacyby Jennifer ChiaveriniISBN 0786255684 (0-7862-5568-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Quilter's Legacy'Book summary:A New York Times Bestseller
When precious heirloom quilts hand-stitched by her mother turn up missing from the attic of Elm Creek Manor, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson resolves to find them. She pieces together clues, then queries quilting friends from around the world. As Sylvia recovers some of the missing quilts and accepts others as lost forever, she reflects on the woman her mother was, and mourns the woman she never knew. [via]
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Ragged War: The Story of Unconventional & Counter-Revolutionary Warfareby Leroy ThompsonISBN 0788161377 (0-7881-6137-7)
Softcover, Diane Pub Co
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Roadsby Larry McMurtryISBN 0786229691 (0-7862-2969-1)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Roads'Book summary:You couldn't find a blunter or more accurate title for Larry McMurtry's third work of nonfiction. Roads is indeed an automotive odyssey, in which the author traverses America on one highway after another. As such, the book has a long and honorable pedigree, stretching back to Tocqueville by way of Kerouac, and many readers will compare it to William Least Heat-Moon's bucolic ramble, Blue Highways. That, however, would be a mistake. The last thing McMurtry has in mind is a leisurely tour of small-town America--he's interested in the interstates themselves, "the great roads, the major migration routes that carry Americans long distances quickly." No wonder the speedometer seldom dips below 65 mph throughout the entire narrative. McMurtry is a man on the move, and even his meditative moments fly by in the linguistic equivalent of fourth gear.
Actually, there may be another reason the author is reluctant to apply the brakes: his distaste for various towns, villages, counties, and entire states. Planning a trip to the Texas hill country? McMurtry notes that "the soil is too stoney to farm or ranch, the hills are just sort of forested speed bumps, and the people, mostly of stern Teutonic stock, are suspicious, tightfisted, unfriendly, and mean." Missouri is "a place to get through as rapidly as possible," Ohio and Georgia "really aren't pleasant," and woe to the traveler who lingers in the one-horse towns of the West, "where it's not even wise to roll down one's windows--if you avoid getting murdered you might still breathe in some deadly desert germ."
This crankiness does have an undeniable comic appeal. Yet Roads turns out to be a sentimental journey after all, in the course of which McMurtry hopes to resurrect some of the élan vital he lost in the wake of his 1991 heart surgery. Driving, like reading itself, just may prompt some remembrance of things past:
As I prepared to drive those same overfamiliar roads again it occurred to me that my effort was obliquely Proustian, a retracing of my past that is analogous to the many rereadings I've done in the last few years, always of books I read before the surgery. In these rereadings and redrivings I'm searching, not for lost time, but for lost feelings, for the elements of my old personality that are still unaccounted for. I'm not anguished about these absentees, just curious and somewhat wistful.
Indeed, anguish is largely absent from McMurtry's account, and he doesn't dwell often on this scenario of loss and recovery. Still, it comes through particularly strongly at the end, when he compares his own, transient experience of place to his father's. These final chapters cast a sadder and more substantial light on the preceding ones--and make this circuitous, sometimes tetchy book a trip worth taking. --James Marcus [via]More editions of Roads:
The Runaway Quiltby Jennifer ChiaveriniISBN 0786244720 (0-7862-4472-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Runaway Quilt'Book summary:After learning of her familys ties to the slaveholding South, Sylvia Compson scours her attic for clues and discovers a window into the world of her ancestors: the memoir of her great-grandfathers spinster sister,
Gerda Bergstrom. Gerdas memoir chronicles the founding of Elm Creek Manor and the tumultuous years when Hans, Anneke, and Gerda Bergstrom sheltered fugitive slaves within its walls, using quilts as a signal of sanctuary. But little did the staunchly abolitionist Gerda know that a traitor was among them, placing the Bergstroms in grave danger and leading to family discord, betrayal, and a secret held for generations.
With the help of the Elm Creek Quilters and clues hidden within antique quilts discovered in the manors attic, Sylvia stitches together the pieces of her past and decodes the true nature of the Bergstrom legacy. [via]
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Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observationsby Al FrankenISBN 0788161857 (0-7881-6185-7)
Hardcover, Diane Pub Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations'Book summary:Rush Limbaugh claims his talent is on loan. With this book, Franken demonstrates that he owns. The frankly Democratic author's shtick reminds us how much of a free ride conservatives have gotten in the mainstream media. For instance, he really drives home the weirdness of the conservatives' preachiness about "family values" in light of Newt Gingrich's and Bob Dole's first marriages, and Rush Limbaugh's first, second and third marriages. And he has great fun with Rush's and Newt's miraculous draft deferments in a chapter where he imagines all of the great conservative "chicken-hawks" out on a Vietnam war patrol under the leadership of Ollie North. [via]
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Saga of Lewis & Clark: Into the Uncharted Westby Jeremy Schmidt, Thomas SchmidtISBN 0789446383 (0-7894-4638-3)
Hardcover, Dk Pub
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The Saga of Lewis and Clark: Into the Uncharted Westby Thomas Schmidt, Jeremy Schmidt, Wayne Mumford, Dorling Kindersley Publishing StaffISBN 078948076X (0-7894-8076-X)
Softcover, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Incorporated
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Smokin' Rockets: The Romance of Technology in American Film, Radio and Television, 1945-1 962by Patrick Lucanio, Gary CovilleISBN 078641233X (0-7864-1233-X)
Softcover, McFarland & Co Inc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Smokin' Rockets: The Romance of Technology in American Film, Radio and Television, 1945-1 962'Book summary:Science and technology had a significant influence on American culture and thought in the years immediately following World War II. The new wonders of science and the threat of the Soviet Union as a powerful new enemy made science fiction a popular genre in radio, television, and film. Mutant creatures spawned by radioactive energy and intergalactic dictators unleashing horrific weapons upon Earth were characteristic of science fiction at the time and served as warnings to the very real dangers posed by the atomic age.
This work examines science and science fiction in American culture beginning in the year World War II ended and going to 1962, the year of John Glenns orbital flight and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The radio work of Arch Oboler and the significance of his "Rocket from Manhattan," which aired only one month after the dropping of the first atomic bomb and asked serious questions about the use of atomic energy, are examined. Other topics are the conflict between the free world and the Communist world in the context of science fiction plot lines, the dangers of science as shown in films like Godzilla, Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and radio and television programs, the flying saucer phenomenon and the treatment of such stories in the media (with special attention given to the 1956 documentary UFO), the changing and more positive depictions of scientists, television programs like Flash Gordon and Space Patrol, the shift in the balance of world power due to the successful launching of Sputnik I by the Russians in 1957, the "end of the world" theme in science fiction, and the American journey into space. [via]
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Sophie's Choiceby William StyronISBN 0791071707 (0-7910-7170-7)
Softcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sophie's Choice'Book summary:Set in Brooklyn in 1947, this is the story of Sophie, a Polish Catholic immigrant who is haunted by her memories of the concentration camp in wartime Europe, and the terrible choice she was forced to make. [via]
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Sophocles' Oedipus Trilogy: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, & Antigoneby Harold BloomISBN 0791040992 (0-7910-4099-2)
Softcover, Facts on File
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Stories of the People: Native American Voicesby Holly StewartISBN 0789300842 (0-7893-0084-2)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, And a Spool of Threadby Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil EringISBN 0786265787 (0-7862-6578-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, And a Spool of Thread'Book summary:Kate DiCamillo, author of the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn-Dixie, spins a tidy tale of mice and men where she explores the "powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous" nature of love, hope, and forgiveness. Her old-fashioned, somewhat dark story, narrated "Dear Reader"-style, begins "within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse." Despereaux Tilling, the new baby mouse, is different from all other mice. Sadly, the romantic, unmouselike spirit that leads the unusually tiny, large-eared mouse to the foot of the human king and the beautiful Princess Pea ultimately causes him to be banished by his own father to the foul, rat-filled dungeon.
The first book of four tells Despereaux's sad story, where he falls deeply in love with Princess Pea and meets his cruel fate. The second book introduces another creature who differs from his peers--Chiaroscuro, a rat who instead of loving the darkness of his home in the dungeon, loves the light so much he ends up in the castle in the queen's soup. The third book describes young Miggery Sow, a girl who has been "clouted" so many times that she has cauliflower ears. Still, all the slow-witted, hard-of-hearing Mig dreams of is wearing the crown of Princess Pea. The fourth book returns to the dungeon-bound Despereaux and connects the lives of mouse, rat, girl, and princess in a dramatic denouement.
Children whose hopes and dreams burn secretly within their hearts will relate to this cast of outsiders who desire what is said to be out of their reach and dare to break "never-to-be-broken rules of conduct." Timothy Basil Ering's pencil illustrations are stunning, reflecting DiCamillo's extensive light and darkness imagery as well as the sweet, fragile nature of the tiny mouse hero who lives happily ever after. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carriedby Harold BloomISBN 0791081710 (0-7910-8171-0)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried'Book summary:"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to."
A finalist for both the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Things They Carried marks a subtle but definitive line of demarcation between Tim O'Brien's earlier works about Vietnam, the memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone and the fictional Going After Cacciato, and this sly, almost hallucinatory book that is neither memoir nor novel nor collection of short stories but rather an artful combination of all three. Vietnam is still O'Brien's theme, but in this book he seems less interested in the war itself than in the myriad different perspectives from which he depicts it. Whereas Going After Cacciato played with reality, The Things They Carried plays with truth. The narrator of most of these stories is "Tim"; yet O'Brien freely admits that many of the events he chronicles in this collection never really happened. He never killed a man as "Tim" does in "The Man I Killed," and unlike Tim in "Ambush," he has no daughter named Kathleen. But just because a thing never happened doesn't make it any less true. In "On the Rainy River," the character Tim O'Brien responds to his draft notice by driving north, to the Canadian border where he spends six days in a deserted lodge in the company of an old man named Elroy while he wrestles with the choice between dodging the draft or going to war. The real Tim O'Brien never drove north, never found himself in a fishing boat 20 yards off the Canadian shore with a decision to make. The real Tim O'Brien quietly boarded the bus to Sioux Falls and was inducted into the United States Army. But the truth of "On the Rainy River" lies not in facts but in the genuineness of the experience it depicts: both Tims went to a war they didn't believe in; both considered themselves cowards for doing so. Every story in The Things They Carried speaks another truth that Tim O'Brien learned in Vietnam; it is this blurred line between truth and reality, fact and fiction, that makes his book unforgettable. --Alix Wilber [via]
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To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidentsby Society of American Historians, James M. McPherson, David RubelISBN 0789481561 (0-7894-8156-1)
Softcover, Dk Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents'Book summary:From the beginning, Americans have loved and hated their presidents, and memorialized them both for their achievements and their foibles. In this collection of essays, written by members of the prestigious Society of American Historians, we're gifted with a lively interpretive history of the 41 presidents to date with an emphasis on their dominant themes and achievements as influenced by their personalities and ideologies.
With the focus on presidential style, Joseph J. Ellis examines the ironies in Thomas Jefferson's ideals and actions, as well as his inveterate shyness (imagine a modern-day president who only spoke at his inauguration and presented all legislative proposals in writing). Robert Dallek discusses Lyndon B. Johnson's contradictions as evidenced in his significant domestic achievements and the terrible failure of the Vietnam War. And in the pieces on also-rans like Grant and Coolidge and the disgraced such as Nixon, these historians often use the benefit of hindsight and scholarship to focus on the more redeeming features of each man. The most recent president covered does not get off so lightly, however, as Evan Thomas devotes an inordinate amount of space to Bill Clinton's philandering and slams him with such adjectives as "calculating, shrewd and slovenly."
The book is packed with photographs, illustrations, inaugural addresses, and memorable quotes ("When Theodore attends a wedding, he wants to be the bride, and when he attends a funeral, he wants to be the corpse"). A light sense of humor is even displayed, as in a photograph of William Howard Taft's mammoth bathtub, specially built after the 355-pound man got stuck in an ordinary tub, and the story of the Kennedy-Nixon campaign captured in two campaign photos--one of a sexy, bare-chested JFK in his PT-109 and the other of a stiff Nixon in his Navy dress blues. It's also a treasure trove of presidential trivia--which presidents proposed to their wives on the first date? Who were the only three vice presidents to be successfully promoted by election? This is a terrific reference book--an informative, revealing, and fun way to learn about America's chosen few. --Lesley Reed [via]
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Triangle: The Fire That Changed Americaby David Von DrehleISBN 0786261382 (0-7862-6138-2)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Triangle: The Fire That Changed America'Book summary:A New York Times Bestseller
On March 25, 1911, at quitting time, a fire broke out in the Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes the building's upper three stories were consumed. Firemen's ladders weren't tall enough to rescue those trapped inside. In the worst workplace disaster in the city's history, 146 died - 123 of them women. This harrowing yet compulsively readable chronicle of that tragedy is also a vibrant portrait of an entire age. [via]
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The Truth with Jokesby Al FrankenISBN 0786284536 (0-7862-8453-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Uncommon Carriersby John McPheeISBN 0786290927 (0-7862-9092-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Unlessby Carol ShieldsISBN 0786245999 (0-7862-4599-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Unless'Book summary:"A life is full of isolated events," writes Carol Shields near the end of Unless, "but these events, if they are to form a coherent narrative, require odd pieces of language to link them together, little chips of grammar (mostly adverbs or prepositions) that are hard to define... words like therefore, else, other, also, thereof, therefore, instead, otherwise, despite, already, and not yet." Shield's explanation for her novel's title lends meaning to this multilayered narrative in which a mother's grief over a daughter's break with the family revises her feminist outlook and pushes her craft as a writer in a new direction.
The oldest daughter of 44-year-old Reta Winters suddenly, inexplicably, drops out of college and ends up on a Toronto street corner panhandling, with a cardboard sign around her neck that reads "goodness." The quiet comforts of Reta's small-town life and the constancy of her feminist perspective sustain her hope that her daughter will snap out of this, whatever "this" is. Threaded into her family's crisis is her ongoing internal elegy on the exclusion of women from the literary canon, which she transposes to mean her daughter's exclusion from humanity. Reta wonders if her daughter has discovered, as she herself did years before, that the world is "an endless series of obstacles, an alignment of locked doors," and has chosen to pursue the one thing that doesn't require power or a voice: goodness.
In her own writing, Reta reaffirms her own sense of self, as well as her sense of humor. As her theoretical reflections on modern womanhood play counterpoint to her unwavering sense of creating a home and keeping her family together, Reta's smarts and fears form a wonderfully coherent narrative--a life worth reading about. With Unless, the inaugural title in HarperCollins's Fourth Estate imprint, Shields (author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Stone Diaries) once again asserts her place in the canon. --Emily Russin [via]
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Visions of a Wild America: Pioneers of Preservationby Kim HeacoxISBN 0792229444 (0-7922-2944-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generalsby David HalberstamISBN 0786239190 (0-7862-3919-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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West: The Making of the American Westby Jon E. LewisISBN 0788168614 (0-7881-6861-4)
Softcover, Diane Pub Co
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Whitman's Men : Walt Whitman's Famous Poems Celebrated by Contemporary Photographersby David Groff, Richard BermanISBN 0789300222 (0-7893-0022-2)
Hardcover, Universe Publishing
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The Whore's Child and Other Storiesby Richard RussoISBN 0786248904 (0-7862-4890-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Whore's Child and Other Stories'Book summary:In The Whore's Child, Richard Russo's first collection of short fiction, the 2002 Pulitzer Prize-wining author of Empire Falls explores difficult emotional territory while retaining the assured wisdom and humour of his best work. Infidelity, self-reflection, and the fallibility of memory come into consideration in this entertaining and perceptive collection. The book's titular story sets the tone for the whole: an elderly nun crashes a college writing workshop and composes her own life story, sharing the details of her childhood growing up in a convent as the abandoned daughter of a prostitute. As her troubling story unfolds, the class realizes the fictions she has unknowingly imposed upon it. Other stories examine familial relationships and responsibility: the bittersweet "Joyride" follows the desperate road trip of a mother and son, each running from troubles they won't admit to. The collection's best and most lighthearted story, "The Mysteries of Linwood Hart," explores the daydreaming, curious mind of 10-year-old Linwood as he ponders the self-defeating behaviour of his family, the desires of inanimate objects, and his perceived place at the center of the universe. Russo surveys these subjects with skilled ease and accuracy, communicating a quiet understanding of his characters and their personal yet universal concerns. Russo, like Flannery O'Connor, has a gift for conveying the absurdity and severity of everyday life with brutal honesty, humor, and compassion:
It was an awful place, but Lin understood it was as perfectly real as every place else in the world, which was large beyond imagining, containing every single place he himself had ever been or never would see in his entire life.
Uncommon in its natural insight, The Whore's Child recognizes the often unwelcome realities of experience and is all the more exceptional for it. --Ross Doll [via]More editions of The Whore's Child and Other Stories:
Wildlands of the Upper Southby John M. ThompsonISBN 0792268938 (0-7922-6893-8)
Hardcover, National Geographic
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The Wings of the Doveby Henry JamesISBN 0786882514 (0-7868-8251-4)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wings of the Dove'Book summary:The Wings of the Dove is a classic example of Henry James's morality tales that play off the naiveté of an American protagonist abroad. In early-20th-century London, Kate Croy and Merton Densher are engaged in a passionate, clandestine love affair. Croy is desperately in love with Densher, who has all the qualities of a potentially excellent husband: he's handsome, witty, and idealistic--the one thing he lacks is money, which ultimately renders him unsuitable as a mate. By chance, Croy befriends a young American heiress, Milly Theale. When Croy discovers that Theale suffers from a mysterious and fatal malady, she hatches a plan that can give all three characters something that they want--at a price. Croy and Densher plan to accompany the young woman to Venice where Densher, according to Croy's design, will seduce the ailing heiress. The two hope that Theale will find love and happiness in her last days and--when she dies--will leave her fortune to Densher, so that he and Croy can live happily ever after. The scheme that at first develops as planned begins to founder when Theale discovers the pair's true motives shortly before her death. Densher struggles with unanticipated feelings of love for his new paramour, and his guilt may obstruct his ability to avail himself of Theale's gift. James deftly navigates the complexities and irony of such moral treachery in this stirring novel. [via]
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A Wrinkle in Time: Library Editionby Madeleine L'EngleISBN 0786273356 (0-7862-7335-6)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Wrinkle in Time: Library Edition'Book summary:Everyone in town thinks Meg is volatile and dull-witted and that her younger brother Charles Wallace is dumb. People are also saying that their father has run off and left their brilliant scientist mother. Spurred on by these rumors, Meg and Charles Wallace, along with their new friend Calvin, embark on a perilous quest through space to find their father. In doing so they must travel behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos, one planet at a time.
Young people who have trouble finding their place in the world will connect with the "misfit" characters in this provocative story. This is no superhero tale, nor is it science fiction, although it shares elements of both. The travelers must rely on their individual and collective strengths, delving deep into their characters to find answers.
A classic since 1962, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is sophisticated in concept yet warm in tone, with mystery and love coursing through its pages. Meg's shattering yet ultimately freeing discovery that her father is not omnipotent provides a satisfying coming-of-age element. Readers will feel a sense of power as they travel with these three children, challenging concepts of time, space, and the power of good over evil. (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
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