-Titulo Original : Intimations Six Essays-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “[Smith’s] slim collection of essays captures this peculiar moment with startling clarity. . . . The personal and political intermingle for a powerful indictment of America’s social systems.” -TIME, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020“While quarantined amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith penned six dazzling, trenchant essays burrowing deep into our contemporary culture of disease and upheaval and reflecting on what was ‘once necessary’ that now ‘appears inessential . . .’” -O, The Oprah Magazine, Best Books of 2020“Smith does more than illuminate what were going through right now. She offers a model of how to think ourselves through a fraught historical moment without getting hysterical or sanctimonious, without losing our compassion or our appreciation for whats good in other people. She teaches us how to be better at being human.” -John Powers, Fresh AirDeeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of reflective essays by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time.Written during the early months of lockdown, Intimations explores ideas and questions prompted by an unprecedented situation. What does it mean to submit to a new reality--or to resist it? How do we compare relative sufferings? What is the relationship between time and work? In our isolation, what do other people mean to us? How do we think about them? What is the ratio of contempt to compassion in a crisis? When an unfamiliar world arrives, what does it reveal about the world that came before it?Suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these extraordinary times, Intimations is a slim, suggestive volume with a wide scope, in which Zadie Smith clears a generous space for thought, open enough for each reader to reflect on what has happened--and what should come next.The author will donate her royalties from the sale of Intimations to charity. Review “Lean and powerful-the collection is less than 100 pages-like pencil sketches that capture a scene or a figure in a few brief masterly strokes. When we do look back on this period, these are among the essays we will turn to . . . These essays explore, wonder, argue and prod. The pleasure of reading them lies not in receiving experience in a finished mold, but in joining Ms. Smith as she takes our shared bewilderment and begins to pour.” -Wall Street Journal “[Smith’s] slim collection of essays captures this peculiar moment with startling clarity. . . . The personal and political intermingle for a powerful indictment of America’s social systems.” -TIME, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020“While quarantined amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith penned six dazzling, trenchant essays burrowing deep into our contemporary culture of disease and upheaval and reflecting on what was ‘once necessary’ that now ‘appears inessential’-as well as on banana bread, pedicures, and tulips.” -O, The Oprah Magazine, Best Books of 2020 “There are six essays in [Smith’s] new collection, which capture the pandemic moment we’ve been living in with a clarity that only Zadie Smith could unearth in the middle of a pandemic. Even when she’s pushing you to see your own complicity, it’s comforting to have her voice helping you make sense of the world.” -GOOP“Zadie Smith has always been at least as phenomenal an essayist as she is a novelist. This slim, flash-published volume of reflections on life under quarantine rides the waves of dread, loneliness, community, loss and self-refection we all went through-and still are.” -Los Angeles Times “Smith’s slim volume is a balm during an anxious year. We have learned the meaning of essential, and Smith’s prose is correspondingly stripped down. Clear. Precise. Orderly . . . An indispensable snapshot of a time when we were all scrambling to put our thoughts in order. I for one, am thankful to Smith for offering us hers.” -Tracey Baptiste, Washington Post “A slender and moving compendium . . . [W]hat unites these quietly ce...

-Titulo Original : Callings The Purpose And Passion Of Work (a Storycorps Book)-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Callings will inspires readers at every stage of their careers to view work with a new appreciation for the possibilities it holds beyond the mundane.” -BooklistStories of passion, courage, and commitment, following individuals as they pursue the work they were born to do, from StoryCorps founder Dave IsayIn Callings, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay presents unforgettable stories from people doing what they love. Some found their paths at a very young age, others later in life; some overcame great odds or upturned their lives in order to pursue what matters to them. Many of their stories have never been broadcast or published by StoryCorps until now.We meet a man from the barrios of Texas whose harrowing experiences in a family of migrant farmers inspired him to become a public defender. We meet a longtime waitress who takes pride in making regulars and newcomers alike feel at home in her Nashville diner. We meet a young man on the South Side of Chicago who became a teacher in order to help at-risk teenagers like the ones who killed his father get on the right track. We meet a woman from Little Rock who helps former inmates gain the skills and confidence they need to rejoin the workforce. Together they demonstrate how work can be about much more than just making a living, that chasing dreams and finding inspiration in unexpected places can transform a vocation into a calling. Their shared sense of passion, honor, and commitment brings deeper meaning and satisfaction to every aspect of their lives. An essential contribution to the beloved StoryCorps collection, Callings is an inspiring tribute to rewarding work and the American pursuit of happiness. Review “StoryCorps founder Isay culls and collects wise words and powerful stories about searching for meaning in work from the more than 65,000 stories recorded in StoryCorps booths across America over the past 12 years. Every one of the stories in this inspiring collection reveals the deep love that motivates the storytellers as they discover and embrace their vocations . . . These wonderful stories reveal that work becomes meaningful to those who choose-or are in some cases chosen by-the calling that motivates, energizes, and inspires them.” -Publisher’s Weekly“Callings will inspires readers at every stage of their careers to view work with a new appreciation for the possibilities it holds beyond the mundane.” -Booklist “Thoughtfully organized and edited, each story is a reminder of the essential role work plays in the pursuit of human happiness. Inspiring, insightful, and thoroughly readable.” -Kirkus About the Author Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and the recipient of numerous broadcasting honors, including six Peabody awards, a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, and the 2015 TED Prize. He is the author/editor of numerous books that grew out of his public radio documentary work, including four StoryCorps books: Listening Is an Act of Love (2007), Mom: A Celebration of Mothers from StoryCorps (2010), All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps (2012), and Ties That Bind: Stories of Love and Gratitude from the First Ten Years of StoryCorps (2013)...

-Titulo Original : The Basketball Diaries The Classic About Growing Up Hip On New Yorks Mean Streets-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The urban classic coming-of-age story about sex, drugs, and basketball Jim Carroll grew up to become a renowned poet and punk rocker. But in this memoir of the mid-1960s, set during his coming-of-age from 12 to 15, he was a rebellious teenager making a place and a name for himself on the unforgiving streets of New York City. During these years, he chronicled his experiences, and the result is a diary of unparalleled candor that conveys his alternately hilarious and terrifying teenage existence. Here is Carroll prowling New York City--playing basketball, hustling, stealing, getting high, getting hooked, and searching for something pure. The Basketball Diaries was the basis for the film of the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio.I met him in 1970, and already he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation. . . . The work was sophisticated and elegant. He had beauty. -- Patti Smith Review “Filled with a kind of vitality. . . a remarkable account of New York City’s lower depths.” -New York TimesHis terse wit, with its archly contrived naivete, transforms The Basketball Diaries, a tale of teenage rebellion, into a contemporary classic.- -Newsweek “A generational hit.” -Esquire About the Author Jim Carroll’s bestselling memoir The Basketball Diaries was first released in 1978 and adapted as a film in 1995. Carroll’s work includes several collections of poetry as well as a asecond memoir, Forces Entries: The Downtown Diaries 1971-1973. As the leader of The Jim Carroll Band he released three albums as well as several spoken word recordings. He died in New York City on September 11, 2009...

-Titulo Original : Churchill Walking With Destiny-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of The Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Books of 2018One of The Economist’s Best Books of 2018One of The New York Times’s Notable Books of 2018“Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill . . . A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain’s savior.” -Wall Street JournalIn this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood--by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Last King of America.When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In Churchill, Andrew Roberts gives readers the full and definitive Winston Churchill, from birth to lasting legacy, as personally revealing as it is compulsively readable.Roberts gained exclusive access to extensive new material: transcripts of War Cabinet meetings, diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs from Churchills contemporaries. The Royal Family permitted Roberts--in a first for a Churchill biographer--to read the detailed notes taken by King George VI in his diary after his weekly meetings with Churchill during World War II. This treasure trove of access allows Roberts to understand the man in revelatory new ways, and to identify the hidden forces fueling Churchills legendary drive.We think of Churchill as a hero who saved civilization from the evils of Nazism and warned of the grave crimes of Soviet communism, but Robertss masterwork reveals that he has as much to teach us about the challenges leaders face today--and the fundamental values of courage, tenacity, leadership and moral conviction. Review A USA Today Book You Wont Want to MissA Washington PostBook to Read in NovemberA Christian Science Monitor Best Book of NovemberA Mental Floss Best Book of 2018An Octavian Report Essential Read for 2019A New York Post Book That Should Be On Everyones Holiday Gift List A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018A Lit Hub Best Book of 2018Shortlisted for the 2019 Plutarch AwardThe best single-volume biography of Churchill yet written. . . . Roberts tells this story with great authority and not a little panache. He writes elegantly, with enjoyable flashes of tartness, and is in complete command both of his sources and the vast historiography.-Richard Aldous, The New York Times Terrific . . . By drawing on many previously untapped sources, Mr. Roberts has produced a more complete picture of his subject than any previous biography.-The EconomistEven if you’ve read every other book about the former prime minister and seen all the movies, expect revelations. For example: The royal family permitted the author to read King George VI’s diary notes about his wartime meetings with Churchill. That’s a first.-The Washington Post Brilliant, breathtaking, unputdownable . . . the definitive picture of our greatest political leader. All Robertss past life has been but a preparation for this hour and this work, and this brilliant book is a fitting crown to his own career.-London Evening StandardRoberts’ new biography ( out of four) stands tall, re-illuminating the well-etched contours of Churchill’s monumental life with scrupulous scholarship and a flair for unearthing the telling detail; looking twice where most biographers have been content to glance once.-USA Today In this season of giving, get (and give) Andrew Roberts’s brilliant new biography. . . . A review last month in The Times called it the best single-volume bio...

-Titulo Original : The House Of Rothschild-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the TowerIn his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the familys phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the familys vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, The House of Rothschild is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life. Review Founded in the late 18th century by expatriate German Jews, the London-based House of Rothschild was within decades the largest banking enterprise in the world. Its principals controlled a vast portion of the industrial worlds wealth--more so, Oxford historian Niall Ferguson writes, than any family has since--and as a result enjoyed tremendous political influence in the major capitals of Europe, counting as allies such important figures as Metternich and Wellington. That influence would provoke countless anti-Semitic tracts fulminating against Jewish usury and against the power of Eastern potentates in the empires of England and France. Although the Rothschilds were well aware of their power and not reluctant to use it, they operated fairly, Ferguson notes. For example, whereas lending rates in the textile industry, in which the Rothschilds got their start, were often 20 percent, the fledgling house charged 5 to 9 percent. Through shrewd, complex negotiations they helped promote peace and the beginnings of economic union throughout Europe. Fergusons sprawling history covers much ground and involves a cast of hundreds of players. At the outset he notes that his book was commissioned by the modern descendants of the House of Rothschild; even so, he approaches his task with careful balance and a critical eye, pointing out the Rothschilds failings as well as successes. The result is a fine, solid contribution to economic history, one that, unlike so many books in the field, is eminently readable. --Gregory McNamee Review A stupendous achievement, a triumph of historical research and imagination.-Robert Skidelsky, The New York Review of BooksNiall Fergusons brilliant and altogether enthralling two-volume family saga proves that academic historians can still tell great stories that the rest of us want to read.-The New York Times Book ReviewSuperb ... An impressive ... account of the Rothschilds and their role in history.-Boston Globe About the Author Niall Ferguson is one of the worlds most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013). Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Charlottes Dream(1849-1858)I went to sleep at 5 and woke against 6; I had dreamt that a huge vampire was greedily sucking my blood... Apparently, when the result of the vote was declared, a loud, enthusiastic roar of approval resounded ... throughout the House [of Lords]. Surely we do not deserve so mu...

-Titulo Original : The Cost Of These Dreams Sports Stories And Other Serious Business-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The instant New York Times bestseller!From one of Americas most beloved sportswriters and the bestselling author of Pappyland, a collection of true stories about the dream of greatness and its cost in the world of sports.Wright Thompsons stories are so full of rich characters, bad actors, heroes, drama, suffering, courage, conflict, and vivid detail that I sometimes thinks hes working my side of the street - the world of fiction. - John GrishamThere is only one Wright Thompson. He is, as they say, famous if you know who he is: his work includes the most read articles in the history of ESPN (and its not even close) and has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series ten times, and he counts John Grisham and Richard Ford among his ardent admirers (see back of book). But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurtrys Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive. Wright Thompson figures people out. He jimmies the lock to the furnaces inside the people he profiles and does an analysis of the fuel that fires their ambition. Whether it be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Pat Riley or Urban Meyer, he strips the away the self-serving myths and fantasies to reveal his characters in full. There are fascinating common denominators: it may not be the case that every single great performer or coach had a complex relationship with his father, but it can sure seem that way. And there is much marvelous local knowledge: about specific sports, and times and places, and people. Ludicrously entertaining and often powerfully moving, The Cost of These Dreams is an ode to the reporters art, and a celebration of true greatness and the high price that it exacts. Review Thompson has written some of the most important pieces of contemporary sports journalism . . . demonstrating unparalleled insight into the lives of the most compelling figures in sport. . . . This volume elevates reporting and writing that was already operating above the rim.” -The New York TimesKnockout sportswriting from Wright Thompson . . . Mr. Thompson is an investigator of men’s souls, though his writing is as much about the search for clues as it is about what he finds. . . . None of these pieces are strictly sports stories, but all exemplify the high purpose to which so much sports writing aspires today. -Wall Street JournalWright is a supremely gifted writer who cuts through the mythology with a scalpel.” -The National Book Review “[Thompson] demonstrates his storytelling talents by probing the personalities of some of the biggest names in sports, both past and present, including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Ted Williams, and Bear Bryant.” -Christian Science Monitor“Mississippi native Wright Thompson is not only the best active sportswriter in America but also one of the best writers, period. This collection compiles his greatest pieces.” -Men’s Journal “Thompson demonstrates his talent, deftly portraying a diverse cast of athletes and coaches. . . . [He] also brilliantly reprises the riots and other events surrounding James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss in 1962 and the school’s outstanding football team during that tumultuous year.” -Booklist“Thompson’s abundant strengths as a long-form journalist are evident on nearly every page…. Richly researched and textured writing that reveals the humanity of the author’s subjects.” -Kirkus Reviews About the Author Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN and the bestselling author of Pappyland. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family...

-Titulo Original : Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Courageous and thought-provoking.” -David Brooks, The New York Times“Breathtakingly personal . . . [Chua’s] tale is as compelling as a good thriller.” -The Financial Times[F]ascinating. . . . the most stimulating book on the subject of child rearing since Dr. Spock. -Seattle Post-Intelligencer“Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is a quick, easy read. It’s smart, funny, honest and a little heartbreaking . . .” -Chicago Sun-Times At once provocative and laugh-out-loud funny, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother ignited a global parenting debate with its story of one mother’s journey in strict parenting. Amy Chua argues that Western parenting tries to respect and nurture children’s individuality, while Chinese parents typically believe that arming children with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence prepares them best for the future. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother chronicles Chua’s iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, the Chinese way - and the remarkable, sometimes heartbreaking results her choice inspires. Achingly honest and profoundly challenging, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is one of the most talked-about books of our times. Review “Few have the guts to parent in public. Amy [Chua]s memoir is brutally honest, and her willingness to share her struggles is a gift. Whether or not you agree with her priorities and approach, she should be applauded for raising these issues with a thoughtful, humorous and authentic voice.” -TIME“Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is entertaining, bracingly honest and, yes, thought-provoking.” -The New York Times Book Review“[A] riveting read . . . Far from being strident, the books tone is slightly rueful, frequently self-deprecating and entirely aware of its authors enormities . . . Chuas story is far more complicated and interesting than what youve heard to date-and well worth picking up . . . I guarantee that if you read the book, therell undoubtedly be places where youll cringe in recognition, and others where youll tear up in empathy.” -San Francisco Chronicle“Courageous and thought-provoking.” -David Brooks, The New York Times“Breathtakingly personal . . . [Chua’s] tale is as compelling as a good thriller.” -The Financial Times[F]ascinating. . . . the most stimulating book on the subject of child rearing since Dr. Spock. -Seattle Post-Intelligencer“Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is a quick, easy read. It’s smart, funny, honest and a little heartbreaking . . .” -Chicago Sun-Times“Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother hit the parenting hot button, but also a lot more, including peoples complicated feelings about ambition, intellectualism, high culture, the Ivy League, strong women and Americas standing in a world where China is ascendant. Chuas conviction that hard work leads to inner confidence is a resonant one.”-Chicago Tribune“Readers will alternately gasp at and empathize with Chuas struggles and aspirations, all the while enjoying her writing, which, like her kid-rearing philosophy, is brisk, lively and no-holds-barred. This memoir raises intriguing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about love, pride, ambition, achievement and self-worth that will resonate among success-obsessed parents . . . Readers of all stripes will respond to [Battle Hymn of the] Tiger Mother.”-The Washington Post About the Author Amy Chua is the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her most recent book is Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. She is also the author of The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (co-authored with Jed Rubenfeld). Chuas first book, World on Fire, was a New York Times bestseller and selected by The Economist as one of the best books of 2003; while her second book, Day of Empire, was a critically acclaimed Foreign Affairs bestseller. Chua lives with her husband, two daughter...

-Titulo Original : Above The Line Lessons In Leadership And Life From A Championship Program-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The instant New York Times bestsellerRemarkable lessons in leadership and team building from one of the greatest football coaches of our time.Urban Meyer has established himself as one of the elite in the annals of his sport, having lead his players to three national championships. In Above the Line, he offers readers his unparalleled insights into leadership, team building, and the keys to empowering people to achieve things they might never have thought possible. Meyer shares his groundbreaking game plan-the game plan followed every day in the Ohio State Buckeyes’ championship season-for creating a culture of success built on trust and a commitment to a common purpose. Packed with real life examples from Meyer’s storied career, Above the Line delivers wisdom and inspiration for taking control and turning setbacks into victories for a team, a family, or a Fortune 500 company. About the Author Urban Meyer was the head football coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes from 2012 to 2018. In 2014, he led the Buckeyes to their first Big Ten Conference title under his tenure as well as the programs eighth national championship. Meyer served as the head coach of the Bowling Green Falcons from 2001 to 2002, the Utah Utes from 2003 to 2004, and the Florida Gators from 2005 to 2010. He is one of only two coaches to win a National Championship at two different schools. Wayne Coffey, an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Daily News, is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including The Closer (with Mariano Rivera) and Wherever I Wind Up (with R. A. Dickey)...

-Titulo Original : Blood Aces The Wild Ride Of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A rip-roaring saga of murder, money, and the making of Las VegasThey say in Vegas you can’t understand the town unless you understand Benny Binion-mob boss, casino owner, and creator of the World Series of Poker. Beginning as a Texas horse trader, Binion built a gambling empire in Depression-era Dallas. When the law chased him out of town, he loaded up suitcases with cash and headed for Vegas. The place would never be the same. Dramatic as any gangster movie, Blood Aces draws readers into the colorful world of notorious mobsters like Clyde Barrow and Bugsy Siegel. Given access to previously classified government documents, biographer Doug J. Swanson provides the definitive account of a great American antihero, a man whose rise from thugdom to prominence and power is unmatched in the history of American criminal justice. Review “Technically, a biography, but it reads like the best kind of crime drama-where you find yourself rooting for the bad guy.”-The Daily Beast “[A] slam-bang thrill ride of a biography.... Mr. Swanson, an ace investigative reporter who writes with a pulp-fiction swagger just right for his story’s cuttroat anti-hero, is above all a historian who fixes Benny Binion in the context of his times.... The World Series of Poker now takes place not at the Horseshoe but in the impersonal and cavernous convention halls of the Rio Hotel.... It is somehow reassuring to know ‘Blood Aces’ will keep alive the story of how the great spectacle came to be, and of the violent man who dreamed it up.”-Peter Alson, The Wall Street Journal “If Binion had shuffled the deck himself, the beneficent, sometimes brutal gangster with the cocky grin and country twang couldn’t have been dealt a more winning hand than born storyteller Swanson as biographer.... Swanson, who got interested in Binion while covering the gambler’s World Series of Poker, presents an especially well-crafted, fastidiously vetted and fun-to-read account complete with Benny-isms.... For a book with a high body count, it’s full of history, humor and little-known facts.”-Austin American-Statesman “A hard-edged history lesson about a Las Vegas casino man and his family in the days before our corporate media marketing when into overdrive.”-Las Vegas Review Journal “A book that’s practically crying out to become a feature film. Binion would be quite memorable in it as a cowboy-hat-wearing version of Don Vito Corleone or Tony ‘Scarface’ Montana.”-Fort Worth Star Telegram“Laugh-out-loud funny-odd, since it’s about a semi-illiterate gangster who left a trail of dead bodies from Dallas to Las Vegas. But Benny Binion was in many ways a true visionary, even if his methods and materials were far from ethical.... [Swanson] does a bang-up job with this book.... Names of famous people who knew and liked Benny Binion pop up like weeds on the pages of this highly readable biography. He wasn’t a nice guy at all, but he remains a legend.”-Fort Worth Weekly “Fascinating, not only as a biography of a Las Vegas business icon but as a look at how the city operated in its golden era of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s... Blood Aces has a true-crime feel, but to describe it as such gives it short shrift. It’s deeper than that.... In a way, it’s like Binion himself. The small-town Texan spoke and acted like a hick, with rumpled shirts and too-short ties. But the persona hid a complex, intelligent and, yes, infamous man.”-Las Vegas Sun Review“Binion’s name has floated around the edge of the history of Texas, Las Vegas and organized crime for decades, but Swanson is the first to put all the pieces together.... A cracking good biography, courtesy of a writer who writes the way Binion lived: fast and on the money.”-Allan Barra, The Dallas Morning News“Swanson captures his subject in all his antiheroical glory, uncovering sordid tales of fast living, corruption, and even murder.”-Charleston City Paper “If the late Benny Binion’s life was ever to be made into a movie, ...

-Titulo Original : A Field Guide To Getting Lost-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown from the author of Orwells RosesWritten as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnits life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. Solnit is interested in the stories we use to navigate our way through the world, and the places we traverse, from wilderness to cities, in finding ourselves, or losing ourselves. While deeply personal, her own stories link up to larger stories, from captivity narratives of early Americans to the use of the color blue in Renaissance painting, not to mention encounters with tortoises, monks, punk rockers, mountains, deserts, and the movie Vertigo. The result is a distinctive, stimulating voyage of discovery. Review An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, nature lore, cultural history, and art criticism.--Los Angeles TimesAn altogether sublime collection. . . she sees in the act of embracing the unknown a gateway to self-transcendence.--Maria Popova, Brainpickings.orgThis indespensable California writers most personal book yet, alive as ever to the subtle nuances of the natural world, but newly responsive to the promptings of her own heart and history.--San Fransisco Chronicle This meditation on the pleasures and terrors of getting lost is . . . a series of peregrinations, leading the reader to unexpected vistas.--The New YorkerAn ode to losing yourself and finding out whats on the other side of familiarity. For Ms. Solnit . . . getting lost is more than a matter of merely physical circumstances. Its a state of mind to be embraced and explored, a gateway to discovering more about yourself in relation to the rest of the world.--The Dallas Morning News From the Back Cover A meditation on the pleasures and terrors of getting lost The New Yorker This indispensable California writer s most personal book yet. San Francisco Chronicle An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism . . . a book to set you wandering down strangely fruitful trails of thought. Los Angeles Times About the Author Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of seventeen books about environment, landscape, community, art, politics, hope, and feminism, including three atlases, of San Francisco in 2010, New Orleans in 2013, and New York in 2016; Men Explain Things to Me; The Faraway Nearby; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, The National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). She is a columnist at Harpers and a regular contributor to The Guardian. She lives in San Francisco...

-Titulo Original : The Pigeon Tunnel Stories From My Life-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Recounted with the storytelling elan of a master raconteur - by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesThe New York Times bestselling memoir from John le Carre, the legendary author of A Legacy of Spies. From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carre has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carre is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether hes writing about the parrot at a Beirut hotel that could perfectly mimic machine gun fire or the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth; visiting Rwanda’s museums of the unburied dead in the aftermath of the genocide; celebrating New Year’s Eve 1982 with Yasser Arafat and his high command; interviewing a German woman terrorist in her desert prison in the Negev; listening to the wisdoms of the great physicist, dissident, and Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov; meeting with two former heads of the KGB; watching Alec Guinness prepare for his role as George Smiley in the legendary BBC TV adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People; or describing the female aid worker who inspired the main character in The Constant Gardener, le Carre endows each happening with vividness and humor, now making us laugh out loud, now inviting us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood. Best of all, le Carre gives us a glimpse of a writer’s journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters. Review One of the NP99: National Post’s best books of 2016“Recounted with the storytelling elan of a master raconteur - by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times“An illuminating, self-effacing and pleasurable inquiry into le Carre’s creative process, offering globe-spanning thrills of a different, but no less captivating kind than those associated with the novels.” -USA Today “[Le Carre] is a polished raconteur, with an actor’s protean self-presentation, gifts of pace and timing, aptitude for entrances and exits.” -Wall Street Journal“This incisive and witty memoir, by the man who long ago set the gold standard for modern espionage novelists, is a glittering treasure chest of great stories.” -The Seattle Times, The Best Books of 2016“The Pigeon Tunnel is the literary equivalent of a long night spent in the company of a grand storyteller, who has saved up a lifetime of his best tales to share with you over several rounds of fine scotch. The collection leaves the impression of a man who has gone to impossible lengths for his words, bringing the farthest reaches of the globe, some of its cruelest inhabitants, and a small handful of genuine heroes back home for all of us.”-Entertainment Weekly“The name ‘John le Carre’ attracts the audience, but it’s David Cornwell confiding in us here, as if over dinner, then chatting long into the evening over snifters of brandy, or, as he unspools memories of Russia, glasses of vodka.” -Associated Press “The Pigeon Tunnel contains what le Carre calls tiny bits of history caught in flagrante, all of them borrowed from the lived experience of a novelist whose career has more closely resembled that of a war correspondent than a literary celebrity....Spies are le Carre’s preferred subject, but through them he grapples with larger human truths that transcend the cloak-and-dagger underworld.” -The American ScholarLooking back on a life rich enough to spawn multiple globe-spanning novels...le Carre showcases his grand, cinematic sense of place and...the ineffable quality that defines a professional r...

-Titulo Original : Clementine The Life Of Mrs. Winston Churchill-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Review Really one of the great stories of all time...I loved it so much that I wanted to make a movie about it -CherAn astute, pacey account of a woman who hardly ever emerged from the shadows. It is a sharp analysis of what it meant to be a politicians wife. . . that shows how much we can learn about Winston Churchill from his wife and marriage.-The Wall Street Journal “An acute and sympathetic biography which brings Clementine Churchill out of the shade into which her illustrious and domineering husband has cast her and shows how key she was to his success. Sonia Purnell makes us ask how Clementine endured life with Winston, and provides the answers.” -Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919 and The War that Ended Peace “Thorough and engaging. . . Purnell’s extensive and insightful biography offers a much welcome portrait of Clementine Churchill, a woman whose remarkable life has long been overshadowed by her famous husband.” -Washington Post “Fascinating… [Purnells] book may leave you thinking Clementine is one of the most underrated, complex women in British history.” -The Daily Beast “A fascinating and well-written account of a woman who played a key role in many pivotal moments of early-20th-century British and world politics.” -Minneapolis Star-Tribune “The extensive research shines a deserved spotlight on Britain’s first lady through wartime and beyond. -Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Sonia Purnell has restored Clementine Churchill to her rightful place in history. Behind every great man there is a great woman-and this was especially true of Winston Churchill.Clementine is a fascinating portrait of a highly complex woman who only ever showed a brave and elegant face to the world. At last, thanks to Sonia Purnell’s excellent book, we see her true nature.” -Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire Until this biography, Clementine’s influence had been completely overlooked and undervalued by Winstons biographers. Clementine was a complicated, mercurial figure, and Purnell does a wonderful job painting a full picture of a woman who was an excellent wife, a mediocre at best mother, and privy to some of the most profound moments of the modern era.-Jessica Grose, Lenny Letter “At last Sonia Purnell has given us the first political biography of Clementine Churchill, a woman of power and progressive vision. Although she was her husbands best guide and most astute advisor during the worst of times, her essential role is generally unacknowledged. Boldly written and illuminating, this is a generative restoration of a fascinating woman who transcended family grief and marital agonies to lead her husband and the nation with grace, commitment and persistence.” -Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt In this wonderful book Sonia Purnell has at long last given Clementine Churchill the biography she deserves. Sensitive yet clear-eyed, Clementine tells the fascinating story of a complex woman struggling to maintain her own identity while serving as the conscience and principal adviser to one of the most important figures in history. Purnell succeeds brilliantly at an almost impossible task: providing fresh and thought-provoking insights into Winston Churchill in the course of examining his complicated marriage. I was enthralled all the way through.-Lynne Olson, bestselling author of Citizens of London “An excellent book…Both scrupulous and fair-minded, Sonia Purnell has done her subject proud in this eye-opening and engrossing account of the strong-willed and ambitious woman without whom Winston Churchill’s political career would have been a washout.” -Miranda Seymour, The Telegraph “It seems extraordinary that no one has given this remarkable woman proper biographical treatment before. . . She sacrificed her children and her health in the greater service of her husband, but she also kept him buoyant. This book is a salutary reminder that the Churchills were always a team.” -The Times (UK) “Compell...

-Titulo Original : Zero The Biography Of A Dangerous Idea-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Popular math at its most entertaining and enlightening. Zero is really something-Washington PostA New York Times Notable Book.The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinitys twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers-from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to todays astrophysicists-who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time: the quest for a theory of everything. Review “Mathematicians, contrary to popular misconception, are often the most lucid of writers (Bertrand Russell won a Nobel Prize not in mathematics but in literature), and Seife is a welcome example. He writes with an understated charm that takes account of human fear, the mistakes of geniuses and the mind’s grandest ambitions.”-Atlanta Journal Constitution“Zero emerges as a daunting intellectual riddle in this fascinating chronicle. With remarkable economy, Seife urges his readers to peer through the zero down into the abyss of absolute emptiness and out into the infinite expanse of space. . . . Deftly and surely, Seife recounts the historical debates, then swiftly rolls the zero right up to the present day, where he plunges through its perilous opening down into the voracious maw of a black hole, and then out into the deep freeze of an ever cooling cosmos. A must read for every armchair physicist.”-Booklist (starred review)“His narrative . . . shifts smoothly from history and philosophy to science and technology, and his prose displays a gift for making complex ideas clear.”-The Dallas Morning News“Seife keeps the tone as light as his subject matter is deep. By book’s end, no reader will dispute Seife’s claim that zero is among the most fertile-and therefore most dangerous-ideas that humanity has devised. . . . Seife’s prose provides readers who struggled through math and science courses a clear window for seeing both the powerful techniques of calculus and the conundrums of modern physics. . . . In doing so . . . this entertaining and enlightening book reveals one of the roots of humanity’s deepest uncertainties and greatest insights.”-Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Even innumerates . . . can appreciate the intricate web of conceptual connections Seife illuminates.”-Boston Globe“The greater part of this book tells a fascinating human story with skill and wit . . . we come to appreciate the surprising depth and richness of ‘simple’ concepts such as zero and infinity-and their remarkable links to the religion and culture of earlier civilizations and to present-day science.”-The Philadelphia Inquirer“Seife . . . recounts his story as an accomplished science journalist, standing on the outside to bring clarity to complex ideas. . . . the crisp explanations are refreshing . . . straightforward and bright.”-The New York Times“Seife has a talent for making the most ball-busting of modern theories . . . seem fairly lucid and common sensical.”-Salon About the Author Charles Seife is the author of five previous books, including Proofiness and Virtual Unreality. He has written for a wide variety of publi...

-Titulo Original : Garlic And Sapphires The Secret Life Of A Critic In Disguise-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Author of Save Me the Plums Ruth Reichl’s iconic, bestselling memoir of her time as an undercover restaurant critic for The New York TimesExpansive and funny. -Entertainment WeeklyRuth Reichl, world-renowned food critic and former editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, knows a thing or two about food. She also knows that as the most important food critic in the country, you need to be anonymous when reviewing some of the most high-profile establishments in the biggest restaurant town in the world-a charge she took very seriously, taking on the guise of a series of eccentric personalities. In Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl reveals the comic absurdity, artifice, and excellence to be found in the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world and gives us-along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews-her remarkable reflections on how one’s outer appearance can influence one’s inner character, expectations, and appetites, not to mention the quality of service one receives. “[A] wonderful book, which is funny-at times laugh-out-loud funny-and smart and wise.” -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Review This wonderful book is funny-at times laugh-out-loud funny-and smart and wise. -The Washington PostReichl is so gifted . . . the reader remains hungry for more. -USA TodayExpansive and funny. -Entertainment Weekly From the Back Cover This wonderful book is funny at times laugh-out-loud funny and smart and wise. The Washington Post Reichl is so gifted . . . the reader remains hungry for more. USA Today Expansive and funny. Entertainment Weekly About the Author Ruth Reichl is the bestselling author of the memoirs Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, and For You, Mom, Finally; the novel Delicious!; and, most recently, the cookbook My Kitchen Year. She was editor in chief of Gourmet magazine for ten years. Previously she was the restaurant critic for The New York Times and served as the food editor and restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. She has been honored with six James Beard Awards for her journalism, magazine feature writing, and criticism. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two cats. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. “I’m a restaurant critic,” I told the woman in the wig shop, “and I need a disguise that will keep me from being recognized.”“That’s a new one on me,” she said. “Do you have a special restaurant you’re working on at the moment?”“Yes,” I said, remembering the fragrant aroma of the soup I had eaten on my last visit to Lespinasse. When I dipped my spoon into the broth shimeji mushrooms went sliding sensuously across my tongue with the lush texture of custard. I tasted lemongrass, kaffir lime, mushroom and something else, something that hovered at the edge of my mind, familiar but elusive. I took another taste and it was there again, that sweetness, hiding just behind the citrus. It came whirling into my consciousness and then slid maddeningly away before I could identify it.“The food was wonderful,” I told her, “but I think they made me. Everything’s been just a little too perfect. So I want a foolproof disguise.”“Try this,” she said, opening a drawer and pulling out a cascade of hair the color of Dom Perignon. As the wig caught the light the color changed from pearl to buttercup.The hair fell across my face as gently as silk. I squeezed my eyes tight, not wanting to look until it was seated right. I could feel it settle into place, feel the soft strands graze my shoulders just below my ears.“Wait!” she cried as my eyes started to open, and she leaned forward and tugged at the wig, adjusting it. “Okay,” she said at last, “you can open your eyes now.”The champagne blonde in the mirror did not seem to be wearing a wig. The hair looked real, as if it were growing out of the scalp. Even the dark eyebrows looked right, as if this woman had so much confidence ...

-Titulo Original : The Midwife A Memoir Of Birth, Joy, And Hard Times (the Midwife Trilogy)-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: An unforgettable true story, The Midwife is the basis for the hit PBS drama Call the MidwifeAt the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war Londons East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London-from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who cant speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the citys seedier side-illuminate a fascinating time in history. Beautifully written and utterly moving, The Midwife will touch the hearts of anyone who is, and everyone who has, a mother. From Publishers Weekly Worth gained her midwife training in the 1950s among an Anglican order of nuns dedicated to ensuring safer childbirth for the poor living amid the Docklands slums on the East End of London. Her engaging memoir retraces those early years caring for the indigent and unfortunate during the pinched postwar era in London, when health care was nearly nonexistent, antibiotics brand-new, sanitary facilities rare, contraception unreliable and families with 13 or more children the norm. Working alongside the trained nurses and midwives of St. Raymund Nonnatus (a pseudonym shes given the place), Worth made frequent visits to the tenements that housed the dock workers and their families, often in the dead of night on her bicycle. Her well-polished anecdotes are teeming with character detail of some of the more memorable nurses she worked with, such as the six-foot-two Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne, called Chummy, who renounced her genteel upbringing to become a nurse, or the dotty old Sister Monica Joan, who fancied cakes immoderately. Patients included Molly, only 19 and already trapped in poverty and degradation with several children and an abusive husband; Mrs. Conchita Warren, who was delivering her 24th baby; or the birdlike vagrant, Mrs. Jenkins, whose children were taken away from her when she entered the workhouse. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Emulating James Herriot-except with fewer cows and more cockneys- Worth sketches a warm, amiable portrait of hands-on medical practice. The author became a midwife at age 22, learning her trade in the 1950s from the nun midwives at the convent of St. Raymund Nonnatus and working among impoverished women in the slums of the London Docklands. Her frank, sometimes graphic memoir describes scores of births, from near-catastrophes to Christmas miracles, and details her burgeoning understanding of the world and the people in it. Its stocked with charming characters: loopy sister Monica Joan, the convents near-mystic cake-gobbler and mischief-maker; Father Joseph Williamson, focused on delivering prostitutes rather than babies; handyman/poultry salesman/drain cleaner/toffee-apple pusher Frank; and posh Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne (Chummy), an outrageously warm-hearted debutante who devoted her life to midwifery and missionary work. Worth depicts the rich variety of life in the slums, where loving, doting mothers of nine rubbed elbows with neglectful, broken young women turning tricks to support their husbands night life. She draws back the veil usually placed over the process of birth, described here as both tribulation and triumph. In birth after birth, as women and midwives labored to bring babies into the world through hours of pain and occasional danger, Worth marveled at the mothers almost- uniform embrace of their babies. There must be an inbuilt system of total forgetfulness in a woman, she writes. Some chemical or hormone that immediately enters the memory part of the brain after delivery, so that there is absolutely no recall of the agony that has gone before. If this were not so, no woman would ever have a second baby. A charming tale of deliveries and deliverance.-Kirkus Revi...

-Titulo Original : The Wild Silence A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER“Heartfelt and heartening … a full-throated paean to the fundamental importance of nature in all its glory, fury and impermanence. -Wall Street JournalThe incredible follow-up to the international bestseller The Salt Path, a story of finding your way back home.Nature holds the answers for Raynor and her husband Moth. After walking 630 homeless miles along The Salt Path, living on the windswept and wild English coastline; the cliffs, the sky and the chalky earth now feel like their home. Moth has a terminal diagnosis, but together on the wild coastal path, with their feet firmly rooted outdoors, they discover that anything is possible.Now, life beyond The Salt Path awaits and they come back to four walls, but the sense of home is illusive and returning to normality is proving difficult - until an incredible gesture by someone who reads their story changes everything. A chance to breathe life back into a beautiful farmhouse nestled deep in the Cornish hills; rewilding the land and returning nature to its hedgerows becomes their saving grace and their new path to follow. The Wild Silence is a story of hope triumphing over despair, of lifelong love prevailing over everything. It is a luminous account of the human spirits connection to nature, and how vital it is for us all. Review Moving and beautifully written. Read this lovely book. -Minneapolis Star TribuneReaders will delight in Winns account here of falling in love with Moth. A must-read for lovers of [The Salt Path]; fans of nature writing should also check this out. -BooklistWinn’s writing beautifully evokes the natural world, whether she is describing a doe rummaging in an orchard or her innermost conflicted feelings. This is a perfect what happened next memoir that gives closure to readers of the first book, and which both fans and new readers will enjoy. -Library JournalA moving follow-up to the author’s 2018 memoir, The Salt Path...Winn has developed a reputation for powerful writing on the natural world. Her descriptions are highly visual, often poetic. There are passages so perfectly apt, melancholy, or achingly lovely that you want to stop and live inside the text...Winn’s talent is undeniable, as is her capacity to locate the profound amid the din of modern life. -KirkusA beautiful, luminous and magical piece of writing. -Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold FryA thrill to read. The nature writing is beautiful . . . heartening and comforting. You feel the world is a better place. -The Times (UK)Extraordinary: wise, unflinching, exquisite. Profound. -Observer About the Author Since travelling the South West Coastal Path, Raynor Winn has become a regular long-distance walker and writes about nature, homelessness and wild camping. Her first book, The Salt Path, was a Sunday Times bestseller, NPR Concierge Best Book of 2019, and shortlisted for the 2018 Costa Award. She lives in Cornwall with her husband Moth. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Part OneAlways the Land The shell must break before the bird can fly. The Promise of May, Alfred, Lord Tennyson I can hear the voice, but I dont know what its saying. Somewhere deep in my brain, a noise between the rush of blood and electrical charges, a sound, or is it a feeling? Its dark and low, a voice like a hum of words rising from a hundred throats, or the beat of a drum in tune to feet on hard earth, or one bird call long and low at dusk as the light dips below a ridgeline and the land becomes blue. 1. Gone to Earth I shoul...

-Titulo Original : The Journey Of Crazy Horse A Lakota History-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Drawing on vivid oral histories, Joseph M. Marshall’s intimate biography introduces a never-before-seen portrait of Crazy Horse and his Lakota communityMost of the world remembers Crazy Horse as a peerless warrior who brought the U.S. Army to its knees at the Battle of Little Bighorn. But to his fellow Lakota Indians, he was a dutiful son and humble fighting man who-with valor, spirit, respect, and unparalleled leadership-fought for his people’s land, livelihood, and honor. In this fascinating biography, Joseph M. Marshall, himself a Lakota Indian, creates a vibrant portrait of the man, his times, and his legacy.Thanks to firsthand research and his culture’s rich oral tradition (rarely shared outside the Native American community), Marshall reveals many aspects of Crazy Horse’s life, including details of the powerful vision that convinced him of his duty to help preserve the Lakota homeland-a vision that changed the course of Crazy Horse’s life and spurred him confidently into battle time and time again. The Journey of Crazy Horse is the true story of how one man’s fight for his people’s survival roused his true genius as a strategist, commander, and trusted leader. And it is an unforgettable portrayal of a revered human being and a profound celebration of a culture, a community, and an enduring way of life.Those wishing to understand Crazy Horse as the Lakota know him wont find a better accout than Marshalls. -San Francisco Chronicle Review Those wishing to understand Crazy Horse as the Lakota know him wont find a better accout than Marshalls. -San Francisco ChronicleMarshalls gloriously poetic and sweeping chronicle ushers in a new genre of American history . . . a tour de force. -Peter Nabokov, author of Native American TestimonyA remarkable portrait of a remarkable man. -Colin G. Calloway, professor of history and Samson Occom Professor of Native American Studies, Dartmouth College About the Author Joseph M. Marshall III, historian, educator, and storyteller, is the author of many books, including The Journey of Crazy Horse and The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for the Living, which was a finalist for the PEN Center USA West Award in 2002. He was raised on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation and his first language is Lakota. Marshall is a recipient of the Wyoming Humanities Award, and he has been a technical advistor and actor in television movies, including Return to Lonesome Dove. He makes his home on the Northern Plains...

-Titulo Original : Bicycle Diaries-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Review ...an engaging book: part diary, part manifesto. The Guardian Entertaining . . . newcomers will enjoy these off-the-cuff sketches from an unpretentious cultural polymath; acolytes will cherish a closer look at Byrnes weird, wonderful brain chemistry. --Time Out New York Whether you are a cyclist or not, Byrnes insights into everything from outside art to aboriginal folklore are wry, witty, and more often than not, wise as well. --The Philadelphia Inquirer Reading Bicycle Diaries makes cosmic indifference a lot easier to deal with. --The Seattle Times Mr. Byrne’s music has every year grown more receptive to other cultures, and his diaries reflect the same ecumenicism. -- The New York Times ...an engaging book: part diary, part manifesto. The Guardian A round-the-world bicycle tour with one of the most original artists of our day. Urban bicycling has become more popular than ever as recession-strapped, climate-conscious city dwellers reinvent basic transportation. In this wide-ranging memoir, artist/musician and co-founder of Talking Heads David Byrne--who has relied on a bike to get around New York City since the early 1980s--relates his adventures as he pedals through and engages with some of the worlds major cities. From Buenos Aires to Berlin, he meets a range of people both famous and ordinary, shares his thoughts on art, fashion, music, globalization, and the ways that many places are becoming more bike-friendly. Bicycle Diaries is an adventure on two wheels conveyed with humor, curiosity, and humanity. About the Author A cofounder of the musical group Talking Heads, David Byrne has also released several solo albums in addition to collaborating with such noted artists as Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, and Brian Eno. His art includes photography and installation works and has been published in five books. He lives in New York and he recently added some new bike racks of his own design around town, thanks to the Department of Transportation. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I’ve been riding a bicycle as my principal means of transportation in New York since the early 1980s. I tentatively first gave it a try, and it felt good even here in New York. I felt energized and liberated. I had an old three-speed leftover from my childhood in the Baltimore suburbs, and for New York City that’s pretty much all you need. My life at that time was more or less restricted to downtown Manhattan-the East Village and SoHo-and it soon became apparent to me that biking was an easy way to run errands in the daytime or efficiently hit a few clubs, art openings, or nightspots in the evening without searching for a cab or the nearest subway. I know, one doesn’t usually think of nightclubbing and bike riding as being soul mates, but there is so much to see and hear in New York, and I discovered that zipping from one place to another by bike was amazingly fast and efficient. So I stuck with it, despite the aura of uncoolness and the danger, as there weren’t many people riding in the city back then. Car drivers at that time weren’t expecting to share the road with cyclists, so they would cut you off or squeeze you into parked cars even more than they do now. As I got a little older I also may have felt that cycling was a convenient way of getting some exercise, but at first I wasn’t thinking of that. It just felt good to cruise down the dirty potholed streets. It was exhilarating.By the late ’80s I’d discovered folding bikes, and as my work and curiosity took me to various parts of the world, I usually took one along. That same sense of liberation I experienced in New York recurred as I pedaled around many of the world’s principal cities. I felt more connected to the life on the streets than I would have inside a car or in some form of public transport: I could stop whenever I wanted to; it was often (very often) faster than a car or taxi for getting f...

-Titulo Original : Feel Free Essays-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Notable BookFrom Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the worlds preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and itself--really about? Its a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore. Why do we love libraries? Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay. What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that wed just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat.Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, Joy, and, Find Your Beach, Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smiths own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.Zadie Smiths new book, Grand Union, is on sale 10/8/2019. Review “It is exquisitely pleasurable to observe Smith thinking on the page, not least because we have no idea where she’s headed…At times she reminds me of a musician jamming, or one of those enviable cooks who can take five random ingredients lying around the kitchen and whip up a meal. Her loose, roving essays cohere because they are rooted in her sensibility, in what Elizabeth Hardwick called ‘the soloist’s personal signature flowing through the text.’” -The New York Times Book Review “What binds the collection is Smith’s voice: frank, urgent, self-ironic. Dipping into these pieces (in any order) is like setting out on a walk with a vibrant, curious, gracefully articulate friend.” -San Francisco Chronicle “There are few better places to go for a stroll than inside Zadie Smith’s mind…In everything to do with books, language and family experiences, she’s funny, intuitive, spry and sharp…The book is filled with lines that seem destined for the next edition of Bartlett’s…Other passages may transform the way you watch someone mosey down the street.”-Seattle Times “Brilliant…[Smith’s] new book is lively, intelligent and frequently hilarious, and proves that she’s one of the brightest minds in English literature today…She considers Brexit and Key & Peele, J.G. Ballard and Jay-Z, Billie Holiday and Justin Bieber. Refreshingly, she does it all without the kind of knowing wink that some cultural observers can’t resist; if she believes there’s a clear-cut dichotomy between so-called ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, she doesn’t let on…Reading Feel Free is a lot like hanging out with a friend who’s just as at home in a museum as she is binge-watching a sitcom. She engages artists on their own terms; she’s ...

-Titulo Original : Cult Of Glory The Bold And Brutal History Of The Texas Rangers-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” -The New York Times Book ReviewA twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruptionThe Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight.Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made. Review Praise for Cult of Glory: “Scorches the reputations of such legendary Rangers as Ben McCulloch and William `Bigfoot’ Wallace for massacring Native Americans and Mexican-Americans willy-nilly . . . Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” -The New York Times Book Review“Swanson punctures the myth of the Texas Rangers as `quiet, deliberate, gentle’ men, describing them instead as `the violent instruments of repression’ . . . Cult of Glory will thus surely discomfit some of those who pick it up, even as it confirms for others their sense that the Rangers frequently served as anything but impartial arbiters of justice.” -The Wall Street Journal “[Cult of Glory] rigorously chronicles two centuries of Ranger misadventures and atrocities, as well as commendable operations undertaken by the Rangers in recent decades . . . [and] strives to be as panoramic as possible, telling a big story on a big canvas . . . it also strives to supplant the Ranger narratives of yore by synthesizing decades of others’ research as well as Swanson’s own findings.” -John Phillip Santos, Texas Monthly“Magisterial . . . lays bare [the Rangers’] long record of savagery, lawlessness, and racism.” -The Chicago Tribune“For any student of Texas history, [Cult of Glory] is a treasure, on several levels . . . A fascinating historical narrative, packed with colorful episodes and outsize characters . . . In setting the record straight about the Texas Rangers, Swanson clarifies and enriches the remarkable story of Texas for everyone.” -Houston Chronicle“A harrowing deep dive into the Rangers’ darkest moments . . . What Swanson found in his thousands of documents is that the history of the Rangers is hardly a pretty picture when it comes to documenting their treatment of people of color.” -The Dallas Morning News “In an era in which some desire a retur...

-Titulo Original : Public Enemies Americas Greatest Crime Wave And The Birth Of The Fbi, 1933-34-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: In Public Enemies, bestselling author Bryan Burrough strips away the thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to tell the full story-for the first time-of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and the assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers. In an epic feat of storytelling and drawing on a remarkable amount of newly available material on all the major figures involved, Burrough reveals a web of interconnections within the vast American underworld and demonstrates how Hoover’s G-men overcame their early fumbles to secure the FBI’s rise to power. Review Brims with vivid portraiture ... Excellent true crime. -The New York Times Book ReviewAn amazingly detailed true-life thriller... -Entertainment WeeklyIt is hard to imagine a more careful, complete and entrancing book on the subject, and on this era. -The Washington Post[A] riveting true-crime tale... Fascinating... The real story, it turns out, is much better than the Hollywood version. -The Wall Street JournalSpellbinding... A model of narrative journalism and [a] gripping read. -BusinessWeek About the Author Bryan Burrough is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of three previous books. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he is a three-time winner of the John Hancock Award for excellence in financial journalism. Burrough lives in Summit, New Jersey, with his wife and their two sons. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Torremolinos, SpainAugust 26, 1979In a tourist town on the white-sun Spanish coast an old man was passing his last years, an American grandfather with a snowy white crew cut and a glint in his turquoise eyes. At seventy he was still lean and alert, with high-slanting cheekbones, a sharp chin, and those clear-framed eyeglasses that made him look like a minor-league academic. He spent much of his time holed up in his cluttered garage apartment, watching BBC footage of the Iranian hostage crisis on a flickering black-and-white television, surrounded by bottles of Jack Daniel’s and pills and memories. If you met him down on the beach, he came across as a gentle soul with a soft laugh. Almost certainly he was the most pleasant murderer you’d ever want to meet. It was sad, but only a little. He’d had his fun. When he’d first come to Spain ten years before, he still knew how to have a good time. There was that frowsy old divorcee from Chicago he used to see. They would go tooling around the coast in her sports car and chug tequila and down their pills and get into these awful screaming fights. She was gone now. So were the writers, and the documentary makers, the ones who came to hear about the old days; that crew from Canada was the worst, posing him in front of roadsters and surrounding him with actors in fedoras holding fake Tommy guns. He’d done it for the money and for his ego, which had always been considerable. Now, well, now he drank. Out in the cafes, after a few beers, when the sun began to sink down the coast, he would tell stories. The names he dropped meant little to the Spaniards. The Brits and the odd American thought he was nuts, an old lush mumbling in his beer. When he said he’d been a gangster, they smiled. Sure you were, pops. When he said he’d been Public Enemy Number One-right after John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and his old protege Baby Face Nelson-people turned away and rolled their eyes. When he said he and his confederates had single-handedly “created” J. Edgar Hoover and the modern FBI, well, then he would get bitter and people would get up and move to another table. He was obviously unstable. How could you believe anyone who claimed he was the only man in history to have met Charles Manson, Al Capone, and Bonnie and Clyde?Few in Torremolinos ...

-Titulo Original : Three Cups Of Tea One Mans Mission To Promote Peace - One School At A Time-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools-especially for girls-that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit. Review From Viking Press In regards to the 60 Minutes episode that aired April 17, 2011: Greg Mortenson’s work as a humanitarian in Afghanistan and Pakistan has provided tens of thousands of children with an education. 60 Minutes is a serious news organization and in the wake of their report, Viking plans to carefully review the materials with the author. From Bookmarks Magazine While critics agree that Three Cups of Tea should be read for its inspirational value rather than for its literary merit, the books central theme, derived from a Baltistan proverb, rings loud and clear. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger, a villager tells Greg Mortenson. The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family. An inspirational story of one mans efforts to address poverty, educate girls, and overcome cultural divides, Three Cups, which won the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for nonfiction,reveals the enormous obstacles inherent in becoming such family. Despite the important message, critics quibbled over the awkward prose and some melodrama. After all, a story as dramatic and satisfying as this should tell itself.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Review Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest . . . is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.-Tom BrokawAn inspiring chronicle . . . this is one protagonist who clearly deserves to be called a hero.-PeopleMortenson’s mission is admirable, his conviction unassailable, his territory exotic.-The Washington Post About the Author Greg Mortenson is the director of the Central Asia Institute. A resident of Montana, he spends several months of the year in Pakistan and Afghanistan.David Oliver Relin is a contributing editor for Parade magazine and Skiing magazine. He has won more than forty national awards for his work as a writer and editor...

-Titulo Original : Buddha (penguin Lives Biographies)-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: With such bestsellers as A History of God and Islam, Karen Armstrong has consistently delivered penetrating, readable, and prescient (The New York Times) works that have lucidly engaged a wide range of religions and religious issues. In Buddha she turns to a figure whose thought is still reverberating throughout the world 2,500 years after his death.Many know the Buddha only from seeing countless serene, iconic images. But what of the man himself and the world he lived in? What did he actually do in his roughly eighty years on earth that spawned one of the greatest religions in world history? Armstrong tackles these questions and more by examining the life and times of the Buddha in this engrossing philosophical biography. Against the tumultuous cultural background of his world, she blends history, philosophy, mythology, and biography to create a compelling and illuminating portrait of a man whose awakening continues to inspire millions. Review [Armstrong] offers a frequently inspiring look at this exemplary life... Invaluable. (Los Angeles Times) About the Author Karen Armstrongs books include The Battle for God, A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths; and In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis. A former Roman Catholic nun, she teaches at Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism and received the 1999 Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Renunciation (Chapter 1)One night toward the end of the sixth century B.C.E., a young man called Siddhatta Gotama walked out of his comfortable home in Kapilavatthu in the foothills of the Himalayas and took to the road.1 We are told that he was twenty-nine years old. His father was one of the leading men of Kapilavatthu and had surrounded Gotama with every pleasure he could desire; he had a wife and a son who was only a few days old, but Gotama had felt no pleasure when the child was born. He had called the little boy Rahula, or fetter: the baby, he believed, would shackle him to a way of life that had become abhorrent.2 He had a yearning for an existence that was wide open and as complete and pure as a polished shell, but even though his fathers house was elegant and refined, Gotama found it constricting, crowded and dusty. A miasma of petty tasks and pointless duties sullied everything. Increasingly he had found himself longing for a lifestyle that had nothing to do with domesticity, and which the ascetics of India called homelessness.3 The thick luxuriant forests that fringed the fertile plain of the Ganges river had become the haunt of thousands of men and even a few women who had all shunned their families in order to seek what they called the holy life (brahmacariya), and Gotama had made up his mind to join them.It was a romantic decision, but it caused great pain to the people he loved. Gotamas parents, he recalled later, wept as they watched their cherished son put on the yellow robe that had become the uniform of the ascetics and shave his head and beard.4 But we are also told that before he left, Sidhatta stole upstairs, took one last look at his sleeping wife and son, and crept away without saying goodbye.5 It is almost as though he did not trust himself to hold true to his resolve should his wife beg him to stay. And this was the nub of the problem, since, like many of the forest-monks, he was convinced that it was his attachment to things and people which bound him to an existence that seemed mired in pain and sorrow. Some of the monks used to compare this kind of passion and craving for perishable things to a dust which weighed the soul down and prevented it from soaring to the pinnacle of the universe. This may have been what Siddhatta meant when he described his home as dusty. His fathers house was not dirty, but it was filled with people who pulled at hi...

-Titulo Original : Malcolm X A Life Of Reinvention-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History and a New York Times bestseller, the definitive biography of Malcolm XHailed as a masterpiece (San Francisco Chronicle), Manning Marables acclaimed biography of Malcolm X finally does justice to one of the most influential and controversial figures of twentieth-century American history. Filled with startling new information and shocking revelations, Malcolm X unfolds a sweeping story of race and class in America. Reaching into Malcolms troubled youth, it traces a path from his parents activism as followers of Marcus Garvey through his own work with the Nation of Islam and rise in the world of black nationalism, and culminates in the never-before-told true story of his assassination. Malcolm X is a stunning achievement, the definitive work on one of our greatest advocates for social change. Review “Malcolm X is etched in the American imagination-and the American psyche-in the particular and unyielding terms of radical and militant… Marable brings a lifetime of study to this biography, which is the crowning achievement of a magnificent career.”--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University“Manning Marable is the exemplary black scholar of radical democracy and black freedom in our time. His long-awaited magisterial book on Malcolm X is the definitive treatment of the greatest black radical voice and figure of the mid-twentieth century. Glory Hallelujah!”--Cornel West, Princeton University“Manning Marable’s Malcolm X is his magnum opus, a work of extraordinary rigor and intellectual beauty … This majestic and eloquent tour de force will stand for some time as the definitive work on as enigmatic and electrifying a leader as has ever sprung from American soil.” --Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University, author of April 4, 1968A superbly written and carefully researched biography of the civil rights icon...I can’t recommend it highly enough.--Laila Lalami, The New York Times“It will be difficult for anyone to better this book... It is a work of art, a feast that combines genres skillfully: biography, true-crime, political commentary. It gives us Malcolm X in full gallop, a man who died for his belief in freedom.”--The Washington Post“In his revealing and prodigiously researched new biography. . . Mr. Marable artfully strips away the layers and layers of myth that have been lacquered onto his subject’s life - first by Malcolm himself in that famous memoir, and later by both supporters and opponents after his assassination.”--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times“Unlike Bruce Perry’s 1991 biography, Malcolm, which entertained the most outlandish stories in an attempt to present a comprehensive portrait, Marable’s biography judiciously sifts fact from myth.”--The Atlantic“Magisterial…Marable’s biography is an exceedingly brave as well as a major intellectual accomplishment.”--Boston Globe“Marable has crafted an extraordinary portrait of a man and his time…A masterpiece.”--San Francisco Chronicle“This book is a must read.”--Ebony“Thankfully, we have Manning Marables new biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention - which is, simply put, a stunning achievement - to help us better understand Malcolm’s complex life.”--The Philadelphia Tribune“The book also has much to recommend it for its history of orthodox Islam, the perspective it offers on the black political movements of the 1950s and 1960s that changed America, and its insights into the development and inner workings of the Nation of Islam.”--The Financial Times“Manning Marable’s scholarship was as provocative and profound as it was prodigious.”--Newsday“[Marable] devoted his magnificent career-more than most scholars do-to living what he wrote and what he thought. His commitment not only to equality of opportunity but also to the exposure of falsehood and hypocrisy was a hallmark of his pathbreaking work.”--The Chronicle of Higher Education“Marable accomplishes the difficult task of showing the bad b...