-Titulo Original : The Principles Of Uncertainty-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Sublime . . . Kalman’s elegantly witty and at times melancholy narrative runs arm in arm with her unmistakable paintings on a serendipitous romp through the history of the world.” -Vanity Fair “Wildly original . . . there’s nothing else even remotely like it . . . This hilarious, wise, and deeply moving volume [is] the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” -O Magazine Maira Kalman paints her highly personal worldview in this inimitable combination of image and text An irresistible invitation to experience life through a beloved artists psyche, The Principles of Uncertainty is a compilation of Maira Kalmans New York Times columns. Part personal narrative, part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman, these brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images - which initially appear random - ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue. Review “Sublime . . . Kalman’s elegantly witty and at times melancholy narrative runs arm in arm with her unmistakable paintings on a serendipitous romp through the history of the world.” -Vanity Fair “Wildly original . . . there’s nothing else even remotely like it . . . This hilarious, wise, and deeply moving volume [is] the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” -O Magazine “An odd treasure.” - Ariel Levy, The New York Times Book Review “Within this work, as much literary as artistic, one finds the assurance (the certainty!) that the human condition is inescapable but not insurmountable.” - The New York Observer “In her distinctive, muscularly whimsical paintings with sad-funny handwritten annotations, Kalman encounters, well, everything . . . More personal than much of her previous work, the book is simultaneously idiosyncratic and universal. And utterly lovable.” - Culture Travel “This is a unique, warmly intelligent book for the enjoyment of artists, writers and anyone who delights in works of genuine imagination.” - L.K. Hanson, Minnesota Star Tribune “My absolute favorite book of recent memory: an exquisite and delightful and peculiarly illustrated memoir about . . . well, the search for the meaning of life. I will be giving this book to everyone I know.” - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love About the Author Maira Kalman is an illustrator, an author, and a designer. She is the author of And the Pursuit of Happiness, The Principles of Uncertainty, Beloved Dog, and Cake. She is the illustrator of Michael Pollans Food Rules and the bestselling edition of William Strunk and E. B. Whites The Elements of Style. Kalmans work is shown at the Julie Saul Gallery in Manhattan...

-Titulo Original : The Sanatorium: A Novel-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: REESES BOOK CLUB PICK | A New York Times bestseller! “An eerie, atmospheric novel that had me completely on the edge of my seat.” —Reese Witherspoon “This spine-tingling, atmospheric thriller has it all… and twists you’ll never see coming.” —Richard Osman, New York Times bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club Sarah Pearses next book, The Retreat, is forthcoming. You wont want to leave. . . until you cant. Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel. An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elins taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge--theres something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic. Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And shes the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. . ...

-Titulo Original : No Walls And The Recurring Dream A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A memoir by the celebrated singer-songwriter and social activist Ani DiFrancoIn her memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, Ani DiFranco recounts her early life from a place of hard-won wisdom, combining personal expression, the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and much more into an inspiring whole. In these frank, honest, passionate, and often funny pages is the tale of one womans eventful and radical journey to the age of thirty. Anis coming of age story is defined by her ethos of fierce independence--from being an emancipated minor sleeping in a Buffalo bus station, to unwaveringly building a career through appearances at small clubs and festivals, to releasing her first album at the age of 18, to consciously rejecting the mainstream recording industry and creating her own label, Righteous Babe Records. In these pages, as in life, she never hesitates to question established rules and expectations, maintaining a level of artistic integrity that has inspired and challenged more than a few. Ani continues to be a major touring and recording artist as well as a celebrated activist and feminist, standing as living proof that you can overcome all personal and societal obstacles to be who you are and to follow your dreams. Review One of Amazons Best Books of the Year So Far “Ani DiFranco has written a memoir as fierce, freewheeling, and passionate as her music. Like Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, No Walls and the Recurring Dream charts the evolution of an artist whose voice couldn’t be suppressed by poverty, by misogyny, by record executives-and we hear it, loud and true.” -O, the Oprah Magazine“After reading this funny, honest account of [Ani DiFranco’s] life up to age 30, it’s clear that though her choices may not be for everyone, they’re part and parcel of her integrity and creative path.” -The Washington Post “Ani DiFranco has spent decades challenging the status quo, standing up for what she believes and creating honest, raw music. Her memoir is an extension of these passions. . . . No Walls and the Recurring Dream is unapologetic, steadfast, and vulnerable. It’s as if DiFranco has invited you into the living room of her New Orleans home to have a long discussion about how she got to where she is.” -Associated Press“[DiFranco] manages to shed new light on how a young, talented woman created enough momentum to slingshot herself beyond her town’s suffocating gravitational pull and create an entirely new solar system, populated with an orbit of planets and moons of her own devising.” -Rolling StoneDiFrancos memoir undoubtedly bubbles up from the same creative well as her music. . . . Pages that read like a diarys confessional. . . . This is a story with a soul.-Sarah Hass, Los Angeles Review of Books“Ani DiFranco’s memoir plays by similar rules to which she’s lived her life and worked her career: there are no conventions; nothing is sacred; she will tell the tale however she pleases. . . . Fascinating. . . . This is a worthy read for those interested in folk music, social activism, DIY recording, and general badassery.” -Paste, “The 25 Best Memoirs of the 2010s” “Part feminist and social-justice manifesto, part bracing road story. . . . A deep and thoughtful current runs throughout DiFranco’s memoir. She’s a longtime activist, and her book highlights the value and power of speaking up.” -The Philadelphia Inquirer [Ani] DiFranco chronicles her rise to fame with engaging candor. Fending for herself by age 15, she survived each unusual day with ingenuity and perseverance. . . . DiFranco is a natural storyteller, infusing these pages-with their frequent offbeat anecdotes, unusual characters, and significant episodes-with wit, humor, and perspective. She also intersperses the narrative with some of her most notable poetry. DiFranco has defied convention yet remained true to herself. A must for her f...

-Titulo Original : The Virginia Dynasty Four Presidents And The Creation Of The American Nation-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “The narrative offers informed, exacting characterizations of the uncertain political alliances, strained interactions and ideological growing pains that elites of the post-revolutionary decades put the country through.”-Andrew Burstein, The Washington Post A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents-George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe-from the bestselling historian and author of James Madison.From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nations first five presidents-a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a sixty-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States Constitution, and building a working republic. Acting together, they doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day. In this elegantly conceived and insightful new book from bestselling author Lynne Cheney, the four Virginians are not marble icons but vital figures deeply intent on building a nation where citizens could be free.Focusing on the intersecting roles these men played as warriors, intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us back to an exhilarating time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. But even as the Virginians advanced liberty, equality, and human possibility, they held people in slavery and were slaveholders when they died. Lives built on slavery were incompatible with a free and just society; their actions contradicted the very ideals they espoused. They managed nonetheless to pass down those ideals, and they became powerful weapons for ending slavery. They inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and today undergird the freest nation on earth. Taking full measure of strengths and failures in the personal as well as the political lives of the men at the center of this book, Cheney offers a concise and original exploration of how the United States came to be. Review “The narrative offers informed, exacting characterizations of the uncertain political alliances, strained interactions and ideological growing pains that elites of the post-revolutionary decades put the country through. As a work of history, the book is a disciplined, agreeably constructed synthesis. As a human interest story it is no less agreeable.” -Andrew Burstein, The Washington Post“Bringing these men together as a group draws attention to how their thought and action unfolded in response to new challenges and dispels any illusion that they were a monolithic bloc. Cheney is an adept writer who makes no wrong steps.”-Library JournalAn accessible group portrait of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe . . . Cheney selects anecdotes wisely and writes gracefully. The result is an informative introduction to four of America’s most important founding fathers.-Publishers WeeklyDebates over power and justice are as old-even older, really-than the Republic, and Lynne Cheney has given us a thoughtful and illuminating account of how a group of distinctive Americans, all Virginians, confronted essential questions at the beginning of our common journey.”-Jon Meacham, author of The Soul of America “From a plantation-rich cluster in colonial Virginia, four men were cultured who would shape the birth of our nation. This wonderfully readable narrative explores their complex relations with each other and the way they wrestled imperfectly with reconciling their ideal of liberty with their lives as slaveholders. The values and flaws they ingrained in our nation are with us still today.”-Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin and Ste...

-Titulo Original : Victoria A Life-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “[A] shimmering and rather wonderful biography.” -The Guardian (London)When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was the mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous, and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources to show us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before. Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria’s coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death, and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain’s history-and the world’s.Born at the very moment of the expansion of British political and commercial power across the globe, Victoria went on to chart a unique course for her country even as she became the matriarch of nearly every great dynasty of Europe. Her destiny was thus interwoven with those of millions of people-not just in Europe but in the ever-expanding empire that Britain was becoming throughout the nineteenth century. The famed queen had a face that adorned postage stamps, banners, statues, and busts all over the known world.Wilson’s Victoria is a towering achievement, a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.*Read the book, then watch the PBS series Victoria, starring Jenna Coleman (Dr. Who), Rufus Sewell (Pillars of the Earth), Dame Diana Rigg (Game of Thrones), and Tom Hughes (About Time).* Review The Washington Post: “Wilson’s [biography of Queen Victoria] may be the best I have read…This volume is surely the capstone of his career so far as that particular subject is concerned, not merely a persuasive, unsentimental but admiring and engaging portrait of the great woman herself, but a vivid account of the world in which she lived and to which she contributed so much.” The Wall Street Journal: “[An] engaging biography…Mr. Wilson takes on the long journey of the queen’s life with an assured, affectionate portrait written in accessible prose. His Victoria is a vivid personality, kindly, combative and impetuous by turns, deeply conscious of the dignity of her office and, for all her faults, ‘loveable.Seattle Times: “Masterful…Wilson has crafted a thoughtful… often deliciously entertaining tale of a unique monarch and a woman of unexpected quirk and charm…Wilson, one of those rare biographers who knows something of wit…smoothly takes us through Victoria’s long journey: her love match with her beloved Prince Albert, her ‘operatic’ mourning after his early death, her up-and-down relationships with a caravan of prime ministers, her transformation in her later years into a figure whose influence was felt far beyond Britain, her complex feelings toward her children, her ultimate embrace by her subjects.”Financial Times:“What to call [A. N. Wilson] now? Eminent Victorianist seems appropriate. Lytton Strachey, the acerbic author of Eminent Victorians as well as a biography of Victoria far less good than this, is never far away when Wilson writes about a period that, in several books, he has made very much his own... Wilson is an excellent history teacher. He orders and narrates the hugely complex socio-political events and party infighting of the 19th century with a rare clarity... Wilson sums up his feelings about Victoria in a single word: Awe. His own achievement, sustained by a lifetime’s scholarly fascinat...

-Titulo Original : Dorothy Parker What Fresh Hell Is This?-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Marion Meades engrossing and comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth centurys most captivating womenIn this lively, absorbing biography, Marion Meade illuminates both the charm and the dark side of Dorothy Parker, exploring her days of wicked wittiness at the Algonquin Round Table with the likes of Robert Benchley, George Kaufman, and Harold Ross, and in Hollywood with S. J. Perelman, William Faulkner, and Lillian Hellman. At the dazzling center of it all, Meade gives us the flamboyant, self-destructive, and brilliant Dorothy Parker.This edition features a new afterword by Marion Meade. From Publishers Weekly Meades lively biography recounts the unhappy life of the wise-cracking versifier, short story writer and critic, reported PW. So detailed is Meades book that this, one imagines, is the last time a biographer will need to explain why so talented a writer could at the same time be so nasty a human being. Photos. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Marion Meade is the author of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? and Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties. She has also written biographies of Woody Allen, Buster Keaton, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Victoria Woodhull, and Madame Blavatsky, as well as two novels about medieval France...

-Titulo Original : Midnight In Peking How The Murder Of A Young Englishwoman Haunted The Last Days Of Old China-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Review “This is a good murder story, well told, with all the additional pleasures that a knowledgeable tour guide to old China can provide. Grateful readers could scarcely ask for more.” - Joseph Kanon, author of Istanbul Passage, in The Washington Post“Never less than fascinating… one of the best portraits of between-the-wars China that has yet been written.” - The Wall Street Journal“Midnight in Peking is both a detective story and a social history, and therefore - as it should - always keeps the hunt for Pamela’s killers somewhere near the center of the narrative. [Paul French] is a wonderfully dexterous guide” - Jonathan Spence in The New York Review of Books“A crime story set among sweeping events is reminiscent of Graham Greene, particularly The Third Man, while Frenchs terse, tightly-focussed style has rightly been compared to Chandler. Midnight in Peking deserves a place alongside both these masters.” - The Independent“A page-turning and fascinating true crime book. This is a genre-breaker that captures the atmosphere of 1930s Peking.” - The Bookseller [selected as One to Watch]“…the most talked-about read in town this year.” - The New Yorker’s Page-Turner Blog“Midnight in Peking is true-crime writing at its best, full of vivid characters, an exotic locale, secrets galore, and a truly bewildering mystery.” - The Christian Science Monitor“…A compulsively readable true crime work in the tradition of Devil in the White City.” - The Atlantic “Not only does Mr. French succeed in solving the crime, he resurrects a period that was filled with glitter as well as evil, but was never, as readers will appreciate, known for being dull.” - The Economist“An engrossing read” - Oprah “In today’s Beijing, French’s portrait feels surprisingly germane.” - The Los Angeles Times“Part historical docudrama, part tragic opera… [French] tells this sorry tale with the skill of an Agatha Christie.” - The Financial Times Winner of the both the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime and the CWA Non-Fiction Dagger from the author of City of DevilsChronicling an incredible unsolved murder, Midnight in Peking captures the aftermath of the brutal killing of a British schoolgirl in January 1937. The mutilated body of Pamela Werner was found at the base of the Fox Tower, which, according to local superstition, is home to the maliciously seductive fox spirits. As British detective Dennis and Chinese detective Han investigate, the mystery only deepens and, in a city on the verge of invasion, rumor and superstition run rampant. Based on seven years of research by historian and China expert Paul French, this true-crime thriller presents readers with a rare and unique portrait of the last days of colonial Peking. About the Author Paul French lives in Shanghai, where he is a business advisor and analyst He frequently comments on China for the English-speaking press around the world. French studied history, economics, and Mandarin at university and has an M.Phil in economics from the University of Glasgow. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The eastern section of old Peking has been dominated since the fifteenth century by a looming watchtower, built as part of the Tartar Wall to protect the city from invaders. Known as the Fox Tower, it was believed to be haunted by fox spirits, a superstition that meant the place was deserted at night.After dark the area became the preserve of thousands of bats, which lived in the eaves of the Fox Tower and flitted across the moonlight like giant shadows. The only other living presence was the wild dogs, whose howling kept the locals awake. On winter mornings the wind stung exposed hands and eyes, carrying dust from the nearby Gobi Desert. Few people ventured out early at this time of year, opting instead for the warmth of their beds.But just before dawn on 8 January 1937, rickshaw pullers passing along the top of the Tartar Wall, which was wide e...

-Titulo Original : Socrates A Man For Our Times-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Spectacular . . . A delight to read.”-The Wall Street Journal From bestselling biographer and historian Paul Johnson, a brilliant portrait of Socrates, the founding father of philosophyIn his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of Socrates, who is often hailed as the most important thinker of all time. Johnson provides a compelling picture of Athens in the fifth century BCE, and of the people Socrates reciprocally delighted in, as well as many enlightening and intimate analyses of specific aspects of his personality. Enchantingly portraying the sheer power of Socratess mind, and its unique combination of steel, subtlety, and frivolity, Paul Johnson captures the vast and intriguing life of a man who did nothing less than supply the basic apparatus of the human mind. Review Praise for Socrates by Paul Johnson:“An admirably concise view of a remarkable life whose influence remains central to the foundations of Western thought.”-Publishers Weekly“[Johnson’s] genuine love of the demos makes him an all-too-rare figure in today’s chattering classes.”-First Things“Johnson writes more concisely than most scholars and brings to his prose a wealth of anecdote and asides unknown to most academics. His Socrates comes alive not through arguments over Platonic dating or Pythagorean influence, but by wit and allusion to Jane Austen novels, Samuel Johnson, John Maynard Keynes, firsthand remembrances of Winston Churchills speeches and Richard Dawkins. A valuable overview.”-Washington Times“Robust.”-The New Republic“With effortless erudition, Paul Johnson brings to life the world of the great philosopher.”-Womens Wear Daily“A succinct, useful exploration of life in ancient Athens and of the great philosopher’s essential beliefs.”-Kirkus Reviews“A wonderfully readable account of life in Athens, its political quarrels, and its failures. As good as a murder mystery, Johnson’s narrative is exciting.”-Library Journal“Enlightening.... Johnson disentangles centuries of scarce and questionable sources to offer a riveting account of a homely but charismatic middle-class man whose ideas still shape the way we decide how to act, and how we fathom the notion of body and soul.”-History Book Club“Johnson is an accomplished historian and writer with a fluid, unpretentious style and an honest voice. These gifts, which have made his 12 previous books enjoyable and popular, are no less evident in Socrates.”-The Washington Independent Review of Books“This snappy biography goes down easy while offering a full portrait of Socrates-the man, the thinker, the celebrity-and the world he lived in.”-Zocalo Public Square“Spectacular...a delight to read.”-The Wall Street Journal About the Author Paul Johnsons many books, including A History of Christianity, A History of the Jews, Modern Times, Churchill, and Napoleon: A Penguin Life, have been hailed as masterpieces of historical analysis. He is a regular columnist for Forbes and The Spectator, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many others publications. He lives in London...

-Titulo Original : Life Among The Savages-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: In a hilariously charming domestic memoir, America’s celebrated master of terror turns to a different kind of fright: raising children. In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family’s life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful contrast to her quietly terrifying fiction. With a novelist’s gift for character, an unfailing maternal instinct, and her signature humor, Jackson turns everyday family experiences into brilliant adventures. Review “Read today, [Shirley Jackson’s] pieces feel surprisingly modern-mainly because Jackson refuses to sentimentalize or idealize motherhood…. [Jackson’s] household stories take advantage of the same techniques she developed as a fiction writer: the gradual buildup of carefully chosen detail, the ironic understatement, the repetition of key phrases and the unerring instinct for just where to begin and end a story.” -Ruth Franklin, New York Times Book Review Charming…you’ll see every parenting stance you’ve ever adopted, every parent-story trope you’ve ever told or heard, expressed more perfectly than you ever could have…Reading Shirley Jackson, one of the great memoirists of family life, makes sharp those feelings once more-while reminding us that, yes, thank god and curse time, we too will one day look back on them across a gulf of years.”-Dan Kois, Slate Many who profess an admiration for Shirley Jackson, often described as a writers writer do not usually include her thinly veiled memoirs of motherhood. But it is precisely these hilariously eviscerating, keenly observed, and genersou books that I and many other writers who happen to be mothers, adore.-Ayelet Waldman As warm as it is hilarious and believable...Never has the state of domestic chaos been so perfectly illuminated. -New York Times Book ReviewWhen it comes to just sheer honest, wry, frustrated, finding-ways-to-appreciate-it writing about family life, we all sit at Shirley Jackson’s feet-New York Times MotherlodeVery funny… Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons are each a good place to begin for those who have never read any Shirley Jackson.”-The New Republic Jackson artfully loves and portrays her children. She writes of their fast growth into formidable personalities with dismayed narration and lovely direct quotes, all charmingly subjective. Her view of their sayings and doings is certainly sophisticated but far from cynical or objective. -Saturday Review A housewife-mother’s frustrations are transformed by a deft twist of the wrist into, not a grim account of disintegration and madness, still less the poisoning of her family, but light-hearted comedy. -Joyce Carol Oates Jackson isn’t all eerie uncertainties and lonely housewives. Those who know her work only from The Lottery or Hill House may be surprised to discover that she could also be very funny...Jackson’s two lighthearted memoirs, are filled with droll observations and amusing mishaps. -William Brennan, Slate About the Author Shirley Jackson (1919-1965), a celebrated writer of horror, wrote many stories as well as six novels and two works of nonfiction. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. OneOur house is old, and noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books; we also own assorted beds and tables and chairs and rocking horses and lamps and doll dresses and ship models and paint brushes and literally thousands of socks. This is the way of life my husband and I have fallen into, inadvertently, as though we had fallen into a well and decided that since there was no way out we m...

-Titulo Original : An Ordinary Man An Autobiography-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. For former hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, words are the most powerful weapon in the human arsenal. For good and for evil, as was the case in the spring of 1994 in Rwanda. Over 100 days, some 800,000 people were slaughtered, most hacked to death by machete. Rusesabaginaa inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwandaa used his facility with words and persuasion to save 1,268 of his fellow countrymen, turning the Belgian luxury hotel under his charge into a sanctuary from madness. Through negotiation, favor, flattery and deception, Rusesabagina managed to keep his guests alive another day despite the homicidal gangs just beyond the fence and the worlds failure to act. Narrator Hoffman delivers those words in a stirring audio performance. With a crisp African accent, Hoffman renders each sentence with heartfelt conviction and flat-out becomes Rusesabagina. The humble hotel manager not only illuminates the machinery behind the genocide but delves into Rwandas complex and colorful cultural history as well as his own childhood, the son of a Hutu father and Tutsi mother. Hoffman successfully draws out the understated elegance of Rusesabaginas simple and straightforward prose, lending the story added vividness. This tale of good, evil and moral responsibility winds down with Rusesabagina visiting a church outside Kigali where thousands were massacred and where a multilingual sign-cloth now pledges, Never Again. He once more stops to consider words, the ones he worries lack true convictiona like those at the churcha as well as the ones with the power to heal. For the listener, the words of Paul Rusesabagina wont soon be forgotten. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The remarkable autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina, the globally-recognized human rights champion whose heroism inspired the film Hotel Rwanda “Fascinating…your book is called An Ordinary Man, yet you took on an extraordinary feat with courage, determination, and diplomacy.” - Oprah, O, The Oprah MagazineAs Rwanda was thrown into chaos during the 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, turned the luxurious Hotel Milles Collines into a refuge for more than 1,200 Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, while fending off their would-be killers with a combination of diplomacy and deception. In An Ordinary Man, he tells the story of his childhood, retraces his accidental path to heroism, revisits the 100 days in which he was the only thing standing between his “guests” and a hideous death, and recounts his subsequent life as a refugee and activist. Review Rusesabagina . . . weaves his country’s history with his personal history into a rich narrative that attempts to explain the unexplainable. . . . The book’s emotional power comes from his understatement and humility. (The Boston Globe)An extraordinary cautionary tale. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)Rusesabagina’s story of survival amid manic slaughter is as awful as it is gripping. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)Read this book. It will humble and inspire you. (Sunday Telegraph, London)Extraordinary-horrific and tragic, but also inspiring, because Rusesabagina refuses to give up his belief in the basic decency of humanity. (The Times, London) About the Author Paul Rusesabagina has received many awards and honors, including the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Rescuer of Humanity Award and the The Lantos Human Rights Prize. He formed the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation to provide voice to victims of genocide and support peace efforts in Rwanda and throughout the world.Tom Zoellner is the author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire: The Revolt that Ended Slavery in the British Empire, and works as a professor at Chapman University and Dartmouth College. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights re...

-Titulo Original : Embattled Rebel Jefferson Davis And The Confederate Civil War-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom, a powerful new reckoning with Jefferson Davis as military commander of the Confederacy“The best concise book we have on the subject… McPherson is… our most distinguished scholar of the Civil War era.” -The New York Times Book Review History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. Many Americans of his own time and in later generations considered him an incompetent leader, not to mention a traitor. Not so, argues James M. McPherson. In Embattled Rebel, McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, but that it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause’s failure. Gravely ill throughout much of the Civil War, Davis nevertheless shaped and articulated the principal policy of the Confederacy-the quest for independent nationhood-with clarity and force. He exercised a tenacious hands-on influence in the shaping of military strategy, and his close relationship with Robert E. Lee was one of the most effective military-civilian partnerships in history.Lucid and concise, Embattled Rebel presents a fresh perspective on the Civil War as seen from the desk of the South’s commander in chief. Review Steven Hahn, The New York Times Book Review: “The best concise book we have on the subject… McPherson is… our most distinguished scholar of the Civil War era.”The Wall Street Journal:“Mr. McPherson…mounts a defense of Davis is provocative; the book in which he argues it is quietly persuasive…. Mr. McPherson covers a great deal of ground. And there is an economical grace to his prose that makes the book a lightning-quick but lingering read that will appeal not only to Civil War buffs but also to those curious about the Southern presidency and government.”The Washington Post:“[A] fine study of Davis’s military leadership….To this day it is difficult for many Americans to view Davis with dispassion, but McPherson has made a noble attempt to do so….Davis himself does not make that easy.”Christian Science Monitor:“Open minds are in short supply today, so it is refreshing that Civil War scholar and Pulitzer-winning author James M. McPherson has taken a fresh look at a subject with which is he eminently familiar: the life and times of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. With more than a dozen books about America’s greatest crucible to his credit, the 78-year-old author is still challenging past postulations.”North South Magazine:“Superb... McPherson succeeds admirably in recreating the world of 1861-1865 as seen through the eyes of a Southern nationalist and ardent defender of the established social order, and provides readers with a more balanced view of Davis than that handed down by many of his contemporaries.History Book Club:“The first work to discretely consider Davis as head of his armies and navy... Crisply written, thoughtfully considered, and ultimately persuasive, Embattled Rebel is McPherson and biography at their best.” About the Author James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. He is the bestselling author of numerous books on the Civil War, including Battle Cry of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as Tried by War and For Cause and Comrades, both of which won the Lincoln Prize. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. History has not been kind to Jefferson Davis. As president of the Confederate States of America, he led a cause that went down to a disastrous defeat and left the South in poverty for generations. If that cause had succeeded, it would have broken the United States in two and preserved slavery in the South for untold years. Many Americans of his own time and in later generations considered him a traitor. Some of his Confederate compatriots turned against Davis and blamed him for sins of ineptitude that lost the war. Several of Davis’s adversaries on the Union side agreed with this a...

-Titulo Original : Leaving Before The Rains Come-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERLooking to rebuild after a painful divorce, Alexandra Fuller turns to her African past for clues to living a life fully and without fear A child of the Rhodesian wars and of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller’s own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she confronts tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. Fuller soon realizes that what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father. “Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode”-familiar to readers from Alexandra Fuller’s New York Times-bestselling memoir Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight-was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most men could bear. Leaving Before the Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how-after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her-she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves. An unforgettable book, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a story of sorrow grounded in the tragic grandeur and rueful joy only to be found in Fuller’s Africa. “One of the gutsiest memoirs Ive ever read. And the writing-oh my god the writing.” -Entertainment WeeklyAlexandra Fuller is the author of several memoirs: Travel Light, Move Fast, Leaving Before the Rains Come, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, and Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight Review Praise for LEAVING BEFORE THE RAINS COMEMichiko Kakutani, New York Times: “Ms. Fuller writes with ferocity and precision, and she turns the story of her marriage and its disintegration into a resonant parable about a couple’s mismatched views of the world.” Entertainment Weekly (Grade: A): Ive loved Alexandra Fullers other books, particularly Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, a rich, marvelous memoir brimming with details of her romantic Rhodesian upbringing, and Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, which traced her mothers history. But Leaving Before the Rains Come, the story of her crumbling marriage, is even better than those two books, one of the gutsiest memoirs Ive ever read. And the writing-oh my God, the writing. Its more than a little daunting to review a book so gorgeously wrought that you stop, time and again, just to marvel at the language.People Magazine: “After writing unforgettable memoirs about her charmingly eccentric African upbringing, Fuller chronicles the doomed marriage that turned her into a quasi-American. This gorgeously written march toward divorce is a doozy; She sought a tame, stable life and then fought it off like a caged (and crazed) lioness.” New York Times Book Review: “Fuller is far from depleted: This book perhaps marks the beginning of her journey toward an unassailable possession of mind, and toward a new kind of freedom.” Seattle PI: “The rawness and beauty of Africa, a country most only come close to in the news, comes to life in the pages of Fullers words.” Washington Post: “Fuller unravels her feelings in an exquisite meditation on what it means to be alone - on the courage it can inspire, as well as the sometimes undeniable sense of sorrow. Here the fear arises again, but this time she takes it in her hand and smartly wraps it in nothing - no pretty paper, no apologies.” Dallas Morning News: “Often wildly funny, Leaving Before the Rains Come tells the bittersweet story of Bobo and Charlie’s marriage…She is a vivid storyteller, trained in the art by her colorful mother and laconic father…. [Fuller] excels at re-creating her African background and bringing her family back to life in an endlessly entertaining way.” Economist: “On ...

-Titulo Original : Tried By War Abraham Lincoln As Commander In Chief-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: James M. McPherson’s Tried by War is a perfect primer . . . for anyone who wishes to under­stand the evolution of the president’s role as commander in chief. Few histo­rians write as well as McPherson, and none evoke the sound of battle with greater clarity. -The New York Times Book ReviewThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author reveals how Lincoln won the Civil War and invented the role of commander in chief as we know it As we celebrate the bicentennial of Lincolns birth, this study by preeminent, bestselling Civil War historian James M. McPherson provides a rare, fresh take on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. Tried by War offers a revelatory (and timely) portrait of leadership during the greatest crisis our nation has ever endured. Suspenseful and inspiring, this is the story of how Lincoln, with almost no previous military experience before entering the White House, assumed the powers associated with the role of commander in chief, and through his strategic insight and will to fight changed the course of the war and saved the Union. Review James M. McPherson’s Tried by War is a perfect primer . . . for anyone who wishes to under­stand the evolution of the president’s role as commander in chief. Few histo­rians write as well as McPherson, and none evoke the sound of battle with greater clarity. There is scarcely anyone writing today who mines original ­sources more diligently. In Tried by War, McPherson draws on almost 50 years of research to present a cogent and concise narrative of how Lincoln, working against enormous odds, saved the United States of America. -The New York Times Book Review About the Author James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis 86 Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. He is the bestselling author of numerous books on the Civil War, including Battle Cry of Freedom, which won the Pulitzer Prize, For Cause and Comrades, which won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, and Crossroads of Freedom. He lives in Princeton, NJ. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. On July 27, 1848, a tall, rawboned Whig congressman from Illinois rose in the House of Representatives to challenge the Mexican War policies of President James K. Polk. An opponent of what he considered an unjust war, Abraham Lincoln mocked his own meager record as a militia captain who saw no action in the Black Hawk War of 1832. “By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero?” said Lincoln. “Yes, sir . . . I fought, bled, and came away” after “charges upon the wild onions” and “a good many struggles with the musketoes.” Lincoln might not have indulged his famous sense of humor in this fashion if he had known that thirteen years later he would be- come commander in chief of the U.S. Army in a war that turned out to be forty-seven times more lethal for American soldiers than the Mexican War. On his way to Washington in February 1861 as president- elect of a broken nation, Lincoln spoke in a far more serious manner. He looked back on another war, which had given birth to the nation that now seemed in danger of perishing from the earth. In a speech to the New Jersey legislature in Trenton, Lincoln recalled the story of George Washington and his tiny army, which crossed the ice-choked Delaware River in a driving sleet storm on Christmas night in 1776 to attack the Hessian garrison in Trenton. “There must have been some- thing more than common that those men struggled for,” said the president-elect. “Something even more than National Indepen- dence . . . something that held out a great promise to all the people of the world for all time to come. I am exceedingly anxious that the Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be per- petuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made.” Lincoln faced a steep learning curve as commander in chief in the war that began less than two months afte...

-Titulo Original : Even Silence Has An End My Six Years Of Captivity In The Colombian Jungle-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: About the Author Ingrid Betancourt was born on December 25, 1961, in Bogota, Colombia. As a politican and presidential candidate, she was celebrated for her determination to combat widespread corruption in Colombia. She now lives in New York City and Paris, France. Betancourts riveting account...is an unforgettable epic of moral courage and human endurance. -Los Angeles TimesIn the midst of her campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, Ingrid Betancourt traveled into a military-controlled region, where she was abducted by the FARC, a brutal terrorist guerrilla organization in conflict with the government. She would spend the next six and a half years captive in the depths of the Colombian jungle. Even Silence Has an End is her deeply moving and personal account of that time. The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourts indomitable spirit that drives this very special narrative-an intensely intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate reflection on what it really means to be human...

-Titulo Original : Midnight In Mexico A Reporters Journey Through A Countrys Descent Into Darkness-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: One of Time Magazine’s Sixteen Best True Crime Books of All Time A crusading Mexican-American journalist searches for justice and hope in an increasingly violent MexicoIn the last decade, more than 100,000 people have been killed or disappeared in the Mexican drug war, and drug trafficking there is a multibillion-dollar business. In a country where the powerful are rarely scrutinized, noted Mexican-American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. One night, Corchado received a tip that he could be the next target of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary group-and that he had twenty-four hours to find out if the threat was true. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man’s quest to report the truth of his country-as he races to save his own life. Review Praise for Alfredo Corchado’s Midnight in Mexico: Electrifying… the portrait that Corcahdo paints is all the more heartrending for Mexicos extraordinary promise... Security and the drug war that are Mexicos biggest worries… watching Corchado struggle in the crucible, trying to do the right thing by his two homelands, one cant help being reminded… the dawn that will follow this midnight in Mexico will come only if we take some of the responsibility. The health of this neighbor is integral to our own.-Washington Post Corchado looks at Mexicos darkest hour. And doesnt blink.-Alan Cheuse, Dallas Morning News A riveting account that features many of the places and personalities that have been central to Mexicos recent nightmare…Corchado is a dogged and savvy journalist who manages to be everywhere a good reported should be… A unique binational perspective on the two countries he calls home, expressing admiration for the determination of U.S. and Mexican officials to fight a shared problem by taking on shared responsibility.-San Francisco Chronicle [Corchados] solid research and detailed understanding of the forces at work there make the book an important one for anyone who cares about Mexico, and his personal struggle with his homeland make it a raw, compelling read.-Miami Herald The secret revealed at [Midnight in Mexicos] conclusion is more compelling than Citizen Kane’s Rosebud… I won’t spoil the ending here, but you will shiver when you get there, and you may even weep. Either way, you will understand Corchado’s need to stay in Mexico and his need to bring us stories that we need to read.-Texas Observer An excellent, first-hand description of what a journalist must endure to report critically on Mexico.-El Paso Times Having lived and reported through four presidencies… His own story is emblematic… People are willing to do anything about Latin America other than read about it, or so its been said. This is one book about Latin America that merits attention.-Kirkus This book is about the blood-drenched borderlands that divide Alfredo Corchados two countries, Mexico and the United States, which still dominate his own life. Told against the backdrop of the horrifically violent drug wars that have turned much of Mexico into a charnel land, Corchado shares his own story and that of his family with a moving degree of honesty and acuity. Corchados love for his immigrant family and pride in what they have achieved is palpable, yet weighted down by a sense of what they, and Mexico, may have lost forever in the exchange. In many ways, Midnight in Mexico stands as a raw, real-life parable for the paradoxes of the Mexican-American experience, and it is both a riveting and gut-wrenching read.-Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life and The Fall of Baghdad Midnight in Mexico is the story of a journalists dangerous and notable efforts to report on Mexicos horrible drug wars. The book brings a special clarity, the clarity of the personal and particular, to a very important and confusing subject, and it ...

-Titulo Original : Betsey A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A memoir by the internationally famous fashion designer and style iconMention the name Betsey Johnson and almost every woman from the age of 15 to 75 can rapturously recall a favorite dress or outfit; whether worn for a prom, a wedding, or just to stand out from the crowd in a colorful way. They may also know her as a renegade single mom who palled around with Edie Sedgwick, Twiggy, and The Velvet Underground, or even as a celebrity contestant on Dancing with the Stars. Betsey is also famous for her iconic pink stores (she had 65 shops across the US) and for her habit of doing cartwheels and splits down the runway at the close of her fashion shows. Throughout her decades-long career, shes taken pride in producing fun but rule-breaking clothing at an accessible price point. What they might not know is that she built an empire from scratch, and brought stretch clothing to the masses in the 80s and 90s. Betsey will take the reader behind the tutu and delve deeply into what it took to go from a white picket fence childhood in Connecticut to becoming an internationally known force in a tough, competitive business. The book will feature Betseys candid memories of the fashion and downtown scene in the 60s and how she started her own business from the ground up after designing successfully for multiple other companies. She will discuss that businesss ups and downs and reinventions (including bankruptcy), and her thoughts on body image, love, divorce, men, motherhood, and her bout with breast cancer. Betsey will be richly illustrated with many of her landmark clothes, fashion sketches, and personal photos--making the book the perfect memento and gift for every girl (of any age) for whom Betsey is, as a recent New York Times profile noted, a role model still. Review Betsey chronicles Johnson’s heyday in a peppy, dishy voice laced with bravado.-The New YorkerFor many women, it’s hard to remember a time before Betsey Johnson. . . . Nearly every It Girl-real and aspiring-has a Betsey Johnson story, either about wearing one of her dresses (trouble typically would ensue) or desperately wanting one. . . . Johnson is sharing her own story for the first time in a memoir due out next spring. . . . The stories revealed . . . will surprise and delight.-Vogue“The queen of out-there style bares all in this memoir, recalling everything from her experience as a single mother to the runway acrobatics at her legendary fashion shows.”-Vogue (41 Books We Cant Wait to Read in 2020)Deliciously gossipy.-The Daily Mail (London)Radiates whimsy and fun. . . . Johnson is a magnificent example of what can happen when your passion is fueled with hard work. -New York Daily News Her memoir will make you smile just as much as her designs do.-Hello GigglesIn this celebration of female entrepreneurship, Johnson writes about creating one’s own opportunities and blazing forward despite the odds . . . Filled with nostalgic photos, this upbeat memoir captures the spirit and irreverence of Johnson’s colorful personality and clothing.-Publishers Weekly “This candid book by a pioneering female entrepreneur and American original, illustrated with photos and quirky doodles, also offers details about motherhood, marriages to drug addicts and control freaks, and the obstacles one faces when battling breast cancer. Entertaining reading for fashionistas and Johnson fans alike.” -Kirkus ReviewsIconic fashion designer Johnson recalls a tumultuous life in this gossipy, spirited, and amply illustrated memoir. . . . In addition to providing provocative insight into the ups and downs of life in the fashion industry, Johnson cheerfully details a complicated private life. . . . Anyone fascinated by New York in the sixties and seventies or by fashion in general will relish this one.-BooklistUnabashed. . . . Chatty and unapologetic rather than reflective or inspirational . . . Johnson shrugs, smiles, and dashes off to her next adve...

-Titulo Original : Secret Daughter A Mixed-race Daughter And The Mother Who Gave Her Away-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: June Cross was born in 1954 to Norma Booth, a glamorous, aspiring white actress, and James “Stump” Cross, a well-known black comedian. Sent by her mother to be raised by black friends when she was four years old and could no longer pass as white, June was plunged into the pain and confusion of a family divided by race. Secret Daughter tells her story of survival. It traces June’s astonishing discoveries about her mother and about her own fierce determination to thrive. This is an inspiring testimony to the endurance of love between mother and daughter, a child and her adoptive parents, and the power of community. Review A painful, richly detailed account . . . [that reveals] astonishing truths. (Newsweek)Searing, revelatory a mind-boggling in its rich and complex interplay of personalities [and] social and racial pressures. (Elle) About the Author June Cross is assistant professor of journalism at Columbia University. She has been a television producer for Frontline and the CBS Evening News and was a reporter, producer, and correspondent for PBSs MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1I search for my mothers face in the mirror and see a stranger. Her face is toffee-colored and round; her eyes, the eyes of a foreigner, slanted and brown. They are not my mothers eyes: irises of brilliant green, set obliquely in almond-shaped sockets above high cheekbones.They said I looked exotic, she classic. Together-a bamboo-colored redhead carrying her olive-sinned, curly-haired toddler-together, we seemed alien. Skin fractured our kinship.When I was young, riding in the supermarket carts basket, strangers looked from me to her and back again.Shes so cute! Is she yours? theyd ask.Yes, shes mine, Mommie would answer before turning the basket in another direction. Looking behind her, sometimes I saw their faces turn sour. I learned to recognize the expression well before I knew what it meant.At night, before she put me to bed, Mommie and I would find our likenesses. She would ask, Whos got a perfect little forehead?Id point above my brows.You do! Shed say with a nod. Whos got a perfect little nose?I do! Id say, and she would agree again.Whos got perfect little hands?We do!We laughed over this, our shared proportions: our hands shaped alike-the pinkie exactly half the length of the ring finger, the index and ring fingers each a half inch shorter than the second digit, our nails shaped the same. Even the arches of our feet arced in the same curve, and our toes, too, had a similar square outline.My mother was an aspiring actress. We lived in the orbit of show business and its backstage shenanigans, where races mixed out of sight of the public. She had separated from my father, a well-known song-and-dance man, shortly after I was born, in January 1954, six months before the Supreme Courts Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregated the countrys schools.By the time I was three, Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama, had forced the city to integrate its city buses. In Manhattan the buses were already integrated, but an immutable social line nevertheless divided the races, even in the Upper West Side building where Mommie and I lived. African Americans worked there as elevator men but could not rent apartments. The civil-rights movement had not made a dent in our social sphere.She looks Chinese, acquaintances guessed, considering the fold of my eyes, the pale olive cast of my skin, my full lips. Oriental-looking, said the middle-aged woman who took care of me much of the time, whom I would come to call Aunt Peggy.Aunt Peggy was trying to soothe my feelings-Oriental-looking Negro women were considered pretty back then-but I knew I wasnt Oriental. Wrapped in a bright yellow towel after my bath, I contemplated the women in the framed Gauguin prints on our walls: their seal-slick black manes, their knowing smiles...

-Titulo Original : Astral Weeks A Secret History Of 1968-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A mind-expanding dive into a lost chapter of 1968, featuring the famous and forgotten: Van Morrison, folkie-turned-cult-leader Mel Lyman, Timothy Leary, James Brown, and many more Van Morrisons Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the albums fascinating backstory--along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968.On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, Walshs book follows a criss-crossing cast of musicians and visionaries, artists and hippie entrepreneurs, from a young Tufts English professor who walks into a job as a host for TVs wildest show (one episode required two sets, each tuned to a different channel) to the mystically inclined owner of radio station WBCN, who believed he was the reincarnation of a scientist from Atlantis. Most penetratingly powerful of all is Mel Lyman, the folk-music star who decided he was God, then controlled the lives of his many followers via acid, astrology, and an underground newspaper called Avatar.A mesmerizing group of boldface names pops to life in Astral Weeks: James Brown quells tensions the night after Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated; the real-life crimes of the Boston Strangler come to the movie screen via Tony Curtis; Howard Zinn testifies for Avatar in the courtroom. From life-changing concerts and chilling crimes, to acid experiments and film shoots, Astral Weeks is the secret, wild history of a unique time and place.One of LitHubs 15 Books You Should Read This March Review “One of the finest books written about Boston. . . . Walsh weaves the stories of luminaries who had crucial experiences in Boston-Morrison, Lou Reed, Timothy Leary, James Brown-around the forgotten and often astonishing history of the city when it was old, weird, and grimy.”-Boston Magazine “Astral Weeks unearths the time and place behind the music. . . . A book full of discoveries. . . . A fantastic chronicle.”-Rolling Stone“Many a writer has aimed to unlock the mystery of Van Morrison’s abstract, early masterpiece, Astral Weeks. But no one before Ryan Walsh thought to center the investigation in the time and place of the album’s inspiration: Boston’s teeming music scene in 1968. . . . The result must be read to be believed.”-Billboard“Ryan H. Walsh’s new book, Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, takes up Morrison’s sui-generis masterpiece and unearths the largely forgotten context from which it emerged. . . . In documenting the milieu out of which the album came, Walsh also argues for Boston as an underappreciated hub of late-sixties radicalism, artistic invention, and social experimentation. The result is a complex, inquisitive, and satisfying book that illuminates and explicates the origins of Astral Weeks without diminishing the album’s otherworldly aura.”-Jon Michaud, NewYorker “Wonderfully oddball.”-Janet Maslin, The New York Times Book Review “Astral Weeks is a brilliant, beautiful tribute to a long-lost era of free-form radio, communal living, underground newspapers, burgeoning musical scenes in their pristine form before being captured by the ‘star making machinery,’ and the birth of a visionary album by a 22-year-old Irish singer/songwriter that remains terrifying in its untouched beauty. . . . This book is a masterful end result of research, patience, and love for a time and sensibility sorely missing today.”-PopMatters“Walsh describes Boston as ‘the true birthplace of American hallucinogenic culture.’ By the end of his colorful, highly illuminating history of the citys late-60s freak scene, it’s hard to argue. . . . Astral Weeks is a book worthy of the name.”-Uncut“A ‘secret history’ of a proud old city caught in the throes of cultural hysteria. . . . Walsh’s book recreates a time and place...

-Titulo Original : Our Lady Of Perpetual Hunger A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Named a Favorite Book for Southerners in 2020 by Garden & Gun Donovan is such a vivid writer-smart, raunchy, vulnerable and funny- that if her vaunted caramel cakes and sugar pies are half as good as her prose, well, Id be open to even giving that signature buttermilk whipped cream she tops her desserts with a try.”-Maureen Corrigan, NPRNoted chef and James Beard Award-winning essayist Lisa Donovan helped establish some of the Souths most important kitchens, and her pastry work is at the forefront of a resurgence in traditional desserts. Yet Donovan struggled to make a living in an industry where male chefs built successful careers on the stories, recipes, and culinary heritage passed down from generations of female cooks and cooks of color. At one of her career peaks, she made the perfect dessert at a celebration for food-world goddess Diana Kennedy. When Kennedy asked why she had not heard of her, Donovan said she did not know. I do, Kennedy said, Stop letting men tell your story. OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is Donovans searing, beautiful, and searching chronicle of reclaiming her own story and the narrative of the women who came before her. Her familys matriarchs found strength and passion through food, and they inspired Donovans accomplished career. Donovans love language is hospitality, and she wants to welcome everyone to the table of good food and fairness. Donovan herself had been told at every juncture that she wasnt enough: she came from a struggling southern family that felt ashamed of its own mixed race heritage and whose elders diminished their women. She survived abuse and assault as a young mother. But Donovans salvations were food, self-reliance, and the network of women in food who stood by her. In the school of the late John Egerton, OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HUNGER is an unforgettable Southern journey of class, gender, and race as told at table. Review “With anger, honesty, wit and passion...an impeccable blend of deadpan humor, candor and righteousness, Donovan critiques not only the rampant sexism in haute cuisine, but also the misogyny prevalent in our culture at large, not shying away from depicting her experiences of domestic partner abuse, rape and gender-based pay disparity...Assertive and empowering”-Kathleen Rooney, Star Tribune “Donovan documents her struggles in a male-dominated field, her mixed-race heritage, her own experience with abuse and assault and how she put her life back together through the salvation of food.-Zibby Owens, Good Morning America “Donovan’s story is that of a pastry chef working her way up in an often inhospitable industry, but it’s also about a woman creating her own narrative and grappling with the ways that the choices of the women who came before her-both personally and professionally-affect her life. -Eater Donovan . . . reveals the struggles and hard-fought lessons that have made her the courageous woman that she is today. . . . [W]ritten in a fierce and visceral style. . . . In a world that all too often credits male chefs for the culinary contributions of women and people of color, [Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger] is a valuable addition to the culinary memoir canon. -BooklistDonovan… chronicles her career as a chef and her unrelenting passion for the culinary arts, but she also digs into her family history, offering keen reflections on the intersections of race and gender and spirited discussions of work, class, and opportunity. . . . [Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger] is not just a lively story of a talented pastry chef at the top of her game; it’s also a profoundly relatable memoir of the pervasive push back against female success. A fresh voice with a recipe for empowerment.- Kirkus[A] fiesty confessional. . . . Donovan’s candid, passionate memoir will resonate with anyone who has worked in professional kitchens, and particularly women.- Publishers WeeklyLisa Donovan’s writing has such intensity and assertiven...

-Titulo Original : Genghis Khan And The Quest For God How The Worlds Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A landmark biography by the New York Times bestselling author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World that reveals how Genghis harnessed the power of religion to rule the largest empire the world has ever known. Throughout history the worlds greatest conquerors have made their mark not just on the battlefield, but in the societies they have transformed. Genghis Khan conquered by arms and bravery, but he ruled by commerce and religion. He created the worlds greatest trading network and drastically lowered taxes for merchants, but he knew that if his empire was going to last, he would need something stronger and more binding than trade. He needed religion. And so, unlike the Christian, Taoist and Muslim conquerors who came before him, he gave his subjects freedom of religion. Genghis lived in the 13th century, but he struggled with many of the same problems we face today: How should one balance religious freedom with the need to reign in fanatics? Can one compel rival religions - driven by deep seated hatred--to live together in peace? A celebrated anthropologist whose bestselling Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World radically transformed our understanding of the Mongols and their legacy, Jack Weatherford has spent eighteen years exploring areas of Mongolia closed until the fall of the Soviet Union and researching The Secret History of the Mongols, an astonishing document written in code that was only recently discovered. He pored through archives and found groundbreaking evidence of Genghiss influence on the founding fathers and his essential impact on Thomas Jefferson. Genghis Khan and the Quest for God is a masterpiece of erudition and insight, his most personal and resonant work. Review The conquests of the Mongols were arguably the most important event of the last millennium in Eurasia. Yet Genghis Khan has remained an opaque and enigmatic figure, a symbol of cruelty and little else. Jack Weatherford has peeled back the curtain and revealed a complex man and thinker in this path-breaking work of rousing history and scholarship. - Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography and Eastward to Tartary “Revisionist history on a grand scale, but one as scrupulously well researched as such an intellectual overhaul needs to be…What is most remarkable about this fine and fascinating book is Weatherford’s central claim that the Great Khan’s ecumenism has as its legacy the very same rigid separation of church and state that underpins no less than the American idea itself. The United States Constitution’s First Amendment is, at its root, an originally Mongol notion…. Weatherford argues his case very well, and in doing so offers further amplification of the notion that so many of the West’s claimed achievements in fact have their true origins in the East.” - Simon Winchester, New York Times Book Review “Genghis Khan, the Mongol warrior who conquered swaths of Central and Eastern Asia in the early thirteenth century, is not commonly considered a paragon of tolerance. But this account of the laws and customs of his court presents a figure who not only believed in freedom of religion but pioneered its implementation. Faced with unifying an empire that encompassed numerous warring religions, the Mongols crafted policies that, Weatherford argues, influenced the architects of the U.S. Constitution…Analysis of Khan’s thought bolsters the claim, and adds a welcome dimension to a misunderstood figure.” - The New Yorker “Its an unexpected connection, that of Genghis Khan - one of the bloodiest, most ruthless imperialists the world has ever seen - and the concept that people, including and perhaps especially conquered populations, should be allowed to practice the religion of their choice. This idea, born of the wily Mongols shrewd perception that the gift of religious liberty could extend the life of his empire far longer than enforced conversion, in turn influenced genera...

-Titulo Original : Vacationland True Stories From Painful Beaches-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size.” -Jon StewartAlthough his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are. Review Winner of the New England Book AwardFinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size . . . can a fella get a 16 point Helvetica up in this thing.”-Jon Stewart“Subtle and profound . . . A strange and very funny book-one that makes comedy out of the anxieties and indignities of middle age.”-The Atlantic“Achingly funny . . . Sharp, silly, and sensitive, Vacationland is a literary selfie of a concerned citizen storyteller-one in which the oldest slice of the United States does a little inelegant photobombing.”-NPR“Very funny . . . Setting it down, you’re left with the sense that you’ve just finished a long, pleasant trip into the author’s mind. As far as travel destinations go, it’s a welcome one, a warm harbor against cold winds.”-The AV Club“Laugh-out-loud funny.” -Buzzfeed“An ambitious departure from Hodgman’s previous authorial endeavors. It’s funny, but it’s no joke. The book is a cleverly composed meditation on one privileged American’s life-and, glancingly, on America-at a crucial moment for both.”-Chicago Tribune“Wholly profound . . . Deeply poignant . . . Vacationland presents a world worth sinking into.”-Entertainment Weekly“Reading the book is a particular pleasure . . . Hodgman has a gift for capturing the modes and mores of New England in a way that is wry and true.”-Los Angeles Times “Brilliant . . . the funniest book we’ve read since David Sedaris’s Theft by Finding: Diaries. You’re gonna love it.” -Hello Giggles“Equal parts funny and sincere . . . A thoughtful and insightful glimpse inside the mind of one of the funniest writers today.”-Bustle“It’s just as funny as his previous books; it’s better than all of them.” -Portland Mercury“A treasure . . . [Vacationland] isn’t just funny . . . it’s also sneaky as hell.” -Boing Boing“Outside of these pages, you will not find a more tender irony, a gentler wickedness, a more perfect tone, a regard more unflinching and forgiving. At some point, long after I gave up resisting the near-constant impulse to laugh out loud, I came to the realization that with Vacationland, Hodgman has established himself as a memoirist and, unquestionably, a master prose stylist, of rare power and restraint.” -Michael Chabon“‘West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight,’ H.P. Lovecraft wrote. He was talking about western Massachusetts. And we all know about ...

-Titulo Original : The Last Pass Cousy, Russell, The Celtics, And What Matters In The End-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The New York Times BestsellerOut of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, an intimate story of race, mortality, and regretAbout to turn ninety, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell, now 84. These teammates were basketballs Ruth and Gehrig, and Cooz, as everyone calls him, was famously ahead of his time as an NBA player in terms of race and civil rights. But as the decades passed, Cousy blamed himself for not having done enough, for not having understood the depth of prejudice Russell faced as an African-American star in a city with a fraught history regarding race. Cousy wishes he had defended Russell publicly, and that he had told him privately that he had his back. At this late hour, he confided to acclaimed historian Gary Pomerantz over the course of many interviews, he would like to make amends.At the heart of the story THE LAST PASS tells is the relationship between these two iconic athletes. The book is also in a way Bob Cousys last testament on his complex and fascinating life. As a sports story alone it has few parallels: An poor kid whose immigrant French parents suffered a dysfunctional marriage, the young Cousy escaped to the New York City playgrounds, where he became an urban legend known as the Houdini of the Hardwood. The legend exploded nationally in 1950, his first year as a Celtic: he would be an all-star all 13 of his NBA seasons. But even as Cousys on-court imagination and daring brought new attention to the pro game, the Celtics struggled until Coach Red Auerbach landed Russell in 1956. Cooz and Russ fit beautifully together on the court, and the Celtics dynasty was born. To Bostons white sportswriters it was Cousys team, not Russells, and as the civil rights movement took flight, and Russell became more publicly involved in it, there were some ugly repercussions in the community, more hurtful to Russell than Cousy feels he understood at the time.THE LAST PASS situates the Celtics dynasty against the full dramatic canvas of American life in the 50s and 60s. It is an enthralling portrait of the heart of this legendary team that throws open a window onto the wider world at a time of wrenching social change. Ultimately it is a book about the legacy of a life: what matters to us in the end, long after the arena lights have been turned off and we are alone with our memories.On August 22, 2019, Bob Cousy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Review One of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of The Year“The first Gary Pomerantz book I read was his biography of Wilt Chamberlain, which I thought was magnificent. Then I read Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, which I havent stopped thinking about. Now Ive lost myself in The Last Pass. The danger with reading Gary Pomerantz is that youll become an addict.” -Malcolm Gladwell “A master class. Students of NBA history are in awe these days, marveling at the depth of Gary Pomerantz’s new book. . . . [Pomerantz] is a master of exquisite detail. He has produced two of the finest sports books ever written, on Wilt Chamberlain (Wilt, 1962) and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ dynasty (Their Life’s Work). For fans of the Warriors, trying to become the first team since those Celtics to reach five straight Finals, there is invaluable perspective on how a great team sustains its brilliance.” -San Francisco Chronicle “The Last Pass surely stands as one of the most intriguing sports books in recent memory, and maybe of all time.” -Christian Science Monitor“Professional sports has been a powerful lens for viewing the complexity and challenges created by our nations history of racial inequality. This fascinating r...

-Titulo Original : The Family A Journey Into The Heart Of The Twentieth Century-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The author of the The Children’s Blizzard delivers an epic work of twentieth century history through the riveting story of one extraordinary Jewish familyIn tracing the roots of this family-his own family-Laskin captures the epic sweep of the twentieth century. A modern-day scribe, Laskin honors the traditions, the lives, and the choices of his ancestors: revolutionaries and entrepreneurs, scholars and farmers, tycoons and truck drivers. The Family is a deeply personal, dramatic, and emotional account of people caught in a cataclysmic time in world history.A century and a half ago, a Torah scribe and his wife raised six children in a yeshivatown at the western fringe of the Russian empire. Bound by their customs and ancient faith, the pious couple expected their sons and daughter to carry family traditions into future generations. But the social and political crises of our time decreed otherwise.The torrent of history took the scribe’s family down three very different roads. One branch immigrated to America and founded the fabulously successful Maidenform Bra Company; another went to Palestine as pioneers and participated in the contentious birth of the state of Israel; the third branch remained in Europe and suffered the onslaught of the Nazi occupation.With cinematic power and beauty, bestselling author David Laskin brings to life the upheavals of the twentieth century through the story of one family, three continents, two world wars, and the rise and fall of nations. Review Praise for The Family “The Family is as rich and poignant as any novel, only all true and impeccably researched.” -Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of In the Garden of the Beasts “A true triumph of historical storytelling… David Laskin is a magical searcher into the past….His generations of Cohens could be your Johansens, Smiths, Lopezes, Schmidts, O’Houlihans, even my Scottish peasant forebears… The Family will touch you, heart and soul.” -Ivan Doig, National Book Award finalist for This House of Sky “I read The Family without stopping, except sometimes to weep (and occasionally to chuckle). Through the stories of members of David Laskin’s large, dispersing family, history sharpens into individual lives and deaths and losses and becomes personal and vivid and tragic.” -Edith Pearlman, National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist for Binocular Vision “David Laskin’s The Family is a vivid, utterly compelling exploration of the forces that have shaped modern history. We often view these forces- capitalism, fascism, mass migration, assimilation, and the like-only from a distance, as vast, impersonal abstractions. But in Laskins magnificent book we see them in the intimate details of actual lives, deftly followed through a tangle of triumph, accommodation, and often unbearable suffering. An extraordinary achievement.” -Stephen Greenblatt, New York Times bestselling author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern “I was utterly entranced by David Laskin’s The Family. Tracing three strands of his fascinating ancestry, Laskin takes us on an epic journey deep into the heart and soul of the twentieth century. The story is haunting, heartfelt, and deeply moving. And in the end-as Laskin eloquently points out in a beautiful, almost mystical, epilogue-his telling of it weaves another bright silver thread into the fabric that binds all of us together.” -Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat “‘Fate and chance and character make and break every generation,’” David Laskin tells us in this personal, highly moving history of his family. At once heartbreaking and gloriously triumphant, it’s finally a story of love. Yes, a big unyielding, often rollicking and humorous history of one generation’s prevailing love for the next. A wonderful achievement. -Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Failure David Laskins The Family is an elegantly evocative medit...

-Titulo Original : Medallion Status True Stories From Secret Rooms-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “[An] affecting and hilarious meditation on fame and prestige as seen through the lens of an airline loyalty program.” -The AV ClubA hilarious and honest new book in which John Hodgman, New York Times bestselling author of Vacationland, leaves vacation behind and gets back to work as a still somewhat famous person . . . and then loses his job. An uproarious read.After spending most of his twenties pursuing a career as a literary agent, John Hodgman decided to try his own hand at writing. Following an appearance to promote one of his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor. This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera that has lasted to this very day, or at least until 2016.In these pages, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he enjoyed it. Through these stories you will learn many things that only John Hodgman knows, such as how to prepare for a nude scene with an oboe, or what it feels like to go to a Hollywood party and realize that you are not nearly as famous as the Property Brothers, or, for that matter, those two famous corgis from . And there are stories about how, when your television gig is canceled, you can console yourself with the fact that all of that travel that made your young son so sad at least left you with a prize: platinum medallion status with your airline.Both unflinchingly funny and deeply heartfelt, Medallion Status is a thoughtful examination of status, fame, and identity--and about the way we all deal with those moments when we realize we arent platinum status anymore and will have to get comfortable in that middle seat again. Review An AV Club “5 Books to Read in October”“Conversational, funny . . . the focus is on the bizarre state of being liminally famous in a culture that so desperately celebrates fame. . . . Hodgman has dozens of funny stories to tell, ranging from recollections of early jobs to the time Benedict Cumberbatch messed with his mind.” -The AV Club“Very, very funny . . . Hodgmans Medallion Status is the opposite of narcissism: its an honest and terribly funny peek into a world that very few of us will get to see, one that is frank enough to admit that the only thing the people in that world enjoy about it is that were not allowed in it.” -Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing“This funny, sometimes delightfully absurd book offers sharp meditations on status, relevance, and age, and fame-or at least being fame-adjacent.” -Publishers Weekly“Humorous and surprisingly poignant.” -Kirkus Reviews“Hodgman offers thoughtful musings about human nature and our drive for status. An entertaining and endearing entry from the author of Vacationland.” -Booklist About the Author John Hodgman is a writer, comedian, and actor. He is the author of The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, That Is All, and Vacationland. He is the host of the popular Judge John Hodgman podcast and also contributes a weekly column under the same name for The New York Times Magazine. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter OneObligatory Maine ContentIf you read my previous book you know that I spend part of the year with my family in an unnamed coastal town in Maine. Of course the town has a name. I just kept it secret. But some of you figured it out anyway. Some of you sent me some very nice letters and postcards at my post office box there (PO Box 117, Unnamed Coastal Town, Maine, Zip Code Redacted). But none of you sent me creepy things, like boxes of moths, and none of you came to invade my home. So I cant write that book, unfortunately: the true story of you invading my home. That one would have been a huge bestseller. Now I have to write this one instead.However, one young pair of John Hodgman fans did come to town. A nice young man and woman, plus their baby. They said they we...