-Titulo Original : Autumn Light Season Of Fire And Farewells-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: In this “exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life (Los Angeles Times), an acclaimed author returns to his longtime home in Japan after his father-in-law’s sudden death and picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites, reminding us to take nothing for granted.In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, Pico Iyer comes to reflect on changelessness in ways that anyone can relate to: parents age, children scatter, and Iyer and his wife turn to whatever can sustain them as everything falls away. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat begins to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before, where the transparent and the mysterious are held in a delicate balance. Review “[An] exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life.” -Los Angeles Times“What holds everything together, besides Iyer’s elegantly smooth prose style and gift for detailed observation, is a circling around the theme of autumn in Japan and this autumnal period in his life.” -The New York Times Book Review“A sensory feast alive with blaze-red maples, ‘yuzu-colored’ light, haunting temple bells, smoke from fires lighting the paths of the spirit world and the firefly-like winking of lantern-lit graveyards.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune “Exquisite. . . . Replete with a quiet assuredness.” -The New Yorker“[An] excellent book. . . . Iyer is an admirable example of a citizen of the world-an erudite, open-minded cosmopolitan.” -New Statesman “Profound . . . Iyer’s writing is both simple and lyrical.” -New York Journal of Books “A strange emotional fragility arises after sinking into the book, a heightened sense of awareness of what is usually neglected. As I was reading, I often found myself staring out the window in reverie; catching sight of a falling leaf would inexplicably cause me to cry . . . It’s not only a joy to read, it’s helpful.” - Randy Rosenthal, Los Angeles Review of Books “Luminous. . . . An homage to the Japanese culture of delicate manners, self-restraint, and acceptance that sadness lasts much longer than mere pleasure. The result is an engrossing narrative, a moving meditation on loss, and an evocative, lyrical portrait of Japanese society.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A tender meditation on both Japanese culture and the impermanence of life.” -National Geographic Traveller “When essayist and novelist Pico Iyer’s father-in-law dies, he must return to Japan, where he lives part-time. . . . Iyer dives into the year that follows, when he is forced to come to terms with his loss. . . . [He] describes more than just his mourning process, also illuminating Japanese culture and history as he begins to understand the value of embracing impermanence.” -Time “[A] wistful and conscious memoir filled with musings about home, culture, family, and death. . . . With his trademark blend of amiability, lighthearted humor, and profound observations, Iyer celebrates emotional connection and personal expression, and he upholds death as an affirmation of life and all its seasons.” -Booklist (starred review) “A lucid writer with endless curiosity, and a secularist with a searcher’s heart. . . . A tremendously wise book on the late fires of marriage, how moving toward old age, if you’re lucky, as [Iyer] is, a burst of warmth emerges to push you forward into the final step, the journey no one’s been able to write about.” -LitHub About the Author PICO IYER is the author of more than a dozen books, translated into twenty-three languages. In recent years, he has given four talks for TED, and they have received more than nine million views so far. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Autumn LightNow, as we head out into the sunshine-the northern hills of Kyoto are a blaze of russet, burnt umber, orange, under late-autumn skies of depthless b...

-Titulo Original : Elsewhere A Memoir-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: About the Author Richard Russo is the author of eight novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries. A Washington Post Notable Work of NonfictionAn NPR Best Book of 2012Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo turns to memoir in this hilarious and bittersweet account of his lifelong bond with his high-strung, spirited mother-and the small town she spent her life trying to escape. Anyone familiar with Russo’s novels will recognize Gloversville-once famous for producing nine out of ten dress gloves in the United States. By the time Rick was born, ladies had stopped wearing gloves and Gloversville was on its way out. Jean Russo instilled in her son her dream of a better life elsewhere, a dream that prompted her to follow him across the country when he went to college. Their adventures and tribulations on that road trip were a preview of the hold his mother would continue to have on him as she kept trying desperately to change her life. Recounted with a clear-eyed mix of regret, nostalgia, and love, Elsewhere is a stirring tribute to the tenacious grip of the past. Review “An intimate and powerful family story . . . impeccably told.” -Chicago Tribune“Moving and darkly funny. . . . Russo mines grace from his gritty hometown.” -The Wall Street Journal“One of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years. . . . Russo’s intellectual and emotional honesty are remarkable.” -NPR Books “Russo conjures the incredible bond between single mother and only child in a way that makes his story particularly powerful.” -The Daily Beast“Redemption is always the prize in a Russo story. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in Elsewhere, a brave little book in which a writer spins deprivation into advantage, suffering into wisdom, and a broken mother into a muse.” -The Washington Post“Vivid . . . devastating. . . . Russo brings the remarkable compassion he’s known for in his fiction to this account.” -The Christian Science Monitor“Russo is the Bruce Springsteen of novelists. . . . In a paragraph or even a phrase, he can summon up a whole world.” -Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air“Funny and winning. . . . This stirring book belongs to Jean and Rick.” -The New York Times Book Review“Filled with insights, by turn tender and tough, about human fidelity, frailty, forbearance, and fortitude.” -The Philadelphia Inquirer“A quietly riveting portrait. . . . Elsewhere depicts the tenacious grip that Gloversville exerted on mother and son alike.” -The New York Observer“Exquisite. . . . Elsewhere is a memoir and a bravura essay, a meditation on negotiating flaws.” -The Miami Herald“Richard Russo has mined his childhood with enormous energy, humor and craftsmanship. . . . Readers discovering Russo through this memoir and then returning to his first few titles are embarking on a delightful voyage with a gifted writer about whom they now know a great deal.” -The Seattle Times“Affecting. . . . Russo’s parallel themes of people and place come together elegantly.” -San Francisco Chronicle“A real-life mystery about his mother’s demons. . . . Russo writes without bitterness, but with the kind of clear-eyed compassion he bestows on his fictional characters.” -USA Today“Rich and layered. . . . Russo’s memoir is an honest book about a universal subject: those familial bonds that only get trickier with time.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune“Outstanding.” -Chicago Sun-Times Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. PrologueA few years ago, passing the sign on the New York State Thruway for the Central Leatherstocking Region, a friend of mine misread it as saying laughingstock and thought, That must be where Russo’s from. She was right. I’m from Gloversville, just a few miles north in the foothills of the Adirondacks, a place that’s easy to joke abo...

-Titulo Original : Catastrophe 1914 Europe Goes To War-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Review A New York Times Notable Book of 2013A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year“Colossal. . . . The first five months of [WWI] have never been told with quite this much drama, sensitivity and poignant detail. . . . A worthy addition to the literature of [WWI]. . . . At a breathtaking pace, the reader is transported to battles in Belgium, France, Serbia, Poland and Prussia. . . . Hastings’s book is the perfect example of what a good journalist can add to the study of war. . . . We need authors like Hastings to remind us of how the best of human spirit can be squandered by the worst of human motive.”-The Washington Post “Catastrophe 1914 brilliantly shows how, within its first few months, World War I came to assume the dispiriting and bloody form it would hold for the next four years.”-The New York Times Book Review “Hastings is in top form. . . . A lively and opinionated account. . . . [Hastings’s] vivid rendering of the first months of a cataclysm that grows more distant with each passing year makes the book a worthy addition to the canon.”-The Christian Science Monitor “Absorbing and compulsively readable. . . . Superb. . . . Like an eagle soaring over this vast terrain, Hastings swoops in and out, spying broad features and telling details alike.”-The Cleveland Plain Dealer“[Hastings is] an outstanding historian . . . a victorious foray. . . . Tuchman has been supplanted.”-The New York Times“Hastings over the past two decades has become the contemporary premier historian of 20th-century war. . . . The real strength of this story is how Mr. Hastings portrays the principal characters, not as stereotyped tyrants, greedy empire builders or mindless militarists, but rather as very real human beings with as many flaws as virtues.”-Washington Times“Highly readable. . . . What makes this book really stand out is Mr. Hastings’ deliberate efforts to puncture what he labels the many myths and legends of the events of 1914. . . . His deep research, insightful analysis, and wonderful prose make this an excellent addition to his long library of titles.”-New York Journal of Books“Hastings argues persuasively that the war’s opening phase had a unique character that merits closer study. . . . Hastings ends his deft narrative and analysis by observing that the price of German victory would have been European democracy itself. Those who died to prevent that victory-despite the catastrophic decisions of 1914-did not die in vain.”-The Wall Street Journal“Significant. . . . Hastings doesn’t mince words, and one of the chief pleasures of his very readable and engaging account is his mordant humor, and the precision with which he skewers his history’s many fools and mountebanks. . . . He is able to persuasively assess blame and responsibility.”-The Dallas Morning News“Does the world need another book on that dismal year? Absolutely, if it’s by Hastings. . . . Splendid . . . Readers accustomed to Hastings’ vivid battle descriptions, incisive anecdotes from all participants, and shrewd, often unsettling opinions will not be disappointed.Among the plethora of brilliant accounts of this period, this is one of the best.”-Kirkus Reviews, starred review“Hastings makes a very complicated story understandable in a way that few serious history books manage. An ideal entry into World War I history.”-Library Journal“Invites consideration as the best in his distinguished career, combining a perceptive analysis of the Great War’s beginnings with a vivid account of the period from August to September of the titular year.”-Publishers Weekly“Magnificent. . . . Hastings writes with an enviable grasp of pace and balance, as well as an acute eye for human detail. . . . Moving, provocative and utterly engrossing.”-The Sunday Times (UK)“[Hastings’s] position as Britain’s leading military historian is now unassailable . . . enormously impressive. . . . Magisterial. . . . This is a magnificent and deeply moving book, and with Max Hastings as our gu...

-Titulo Original : Samuel Pepys The Unequalled Self-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language.Against the backdrop of plague, civil war, and regicide, with John Milton composing diplomatic correspondence for Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Wren drawing up plans to rebuild London, and Isaac Newton advancing the empirical study of the world around us, Tomalin weaves a breathtaking account of a figure who has passed on to us much of what we know about seventeenth-century London. We witness Pepys’s early life and education, see him advising King Charles II before running to watch the great fire consume London, learn about the great events of the day as well as the most intimate personal details that Pepys encrypted in the Diary, follow him through his later years as a powerful naval administrator, and come to appreciate how Pepys’s singular literary enterprise would in many ways prefigure our modern selves. With exquisite insight and compassion, Samuel Pepys captures the uniquely fascinating figure whose legacy lives on more than three hundred years after his death. Review “A magnificent triumph. . . . Absolutely stunning.” -The Atlantic Monthly“Invaluable. . . . [Tomalin] not only brings [Pepys] back to vibrant life, but makes a powerful case that he’s more central, more ‘relevant,’ than we ever imagined.” -The New York Times Book Review“A magisterial book [written] with an elegance and concision that few historians could match. . . . You have to love Samuel Pepys. He is us.” -San Francisco Chronicle“Exceptional. . . . Nuanced, moving. . . . A book teeming, like the diary, with clarity, momentum and great pleasure.” -Chicago Tribune“Exemplary. . . . The perfect bookend to [Pepys’s] own rollicking self-portrait.” -The New York Times“Fine and engrossing. . . . Tomalin possesses a particularly graceful and pleasing diction, a proper sense of measure, and a piquant willingness to express her own views.” -The Washington Post Book World“Excellent. . . . Remarkable and sympathetic. . . . One is not likely to think of Pepys in the same way again.” -St. Louis Post-Dispatch“A superb biography by a writer at the height of her powers.” -Whitbread Award Judges’ Citation From the Inside Flap For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language.Against the backdrop of plague, civil war, and regicide, with John Milton composing diplomatic correspondence for Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Wren drawing up plans to rebuild London, and Isaac Newton advancing the empirical study of the world around us, Tomalin weaves a breathtaking account of a figure who has passed on to us much of what we know about seventeenth-century London. We witness Pepys?s early life and education, see him advising King Charles II before running to watch the great fire consume London, learn about the great events of the day as well as the most intimate personal details that Pepys encrypted in the Diary, follow him through his later years as a powerful naval administrator, and come to appreciate how Pepys?s singular literary enterprise would in many ways prefigure our modern selves. With exquisite insight and compassion, Samuel Pepys captures the uniquely fascinating figure whose legacy lives on more than three hundred years after his death. From the Back Cover For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil ...

-Titulo Original : The Shadow Of The Sun-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Review “A highly detailed, heartfelt, but unsentimental introduction to Africa’s afflictions and a quiet love song to its profound appeal.” -The Wall Street Journal, Ryszard Kapuscinski (Author of The Emperor)The penetrating intelligence of Mr. Kapuscinskis vision and his knack for a kind of crystallized descriptive writing have never been on better display. . . . A marvel of humane, sorrowful and lucid observation. -The New York Times“[Kapuscinski] has explored that sliver of high, thinly populated ground on which journalism and literature are occasionally joined. . . . A wise, engaging close-up filled with faces, landscapes, rutted roads, and the daily perils of African life. -BusinessWeek“[Kapuscinskis] great strengths are his style--candid, understated and slightly absurdist, veering into abrupt flights of lyricism on unexpected subjects--and his gift for picking out stories, that condense volumes of information into a single perfectly crafted passage. -The Washington Post In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Polands state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinskis trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century. From the Inside Flap In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Polands state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinskis trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century. From the Back Cover In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Polands state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa--not as a group of nations or geographic locations--but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and...

-Titulo Original : The Prince Of Frogtown-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: About the Author Rick Bragg is the author of two best-selling books, Avas Man and All Over but the Shoutin. He lives in Alabama. In the final volume of the Pulitzer Prize-winners bestselling and beloved American saga that began with All Over but the Shoutin’ and continued with Ava’s Man,this evocative family memoir” (Boston Globe)delivers an unforgettable rumination about fathers and sons.Bragg documents a mesmerizing journey back in time to the lush Alabama landscape of his youth, to Jacksonvilles one-hundred-year-old mill and to his father, the troubled, charismatic hustler coming of age in its shadow.Inspired by Rick Braggs love for his stepson, The Prince of Frogtown also chronicles his own journey into fatherhood, as he learns to avoid the pitfalls of his forebearers. With candor, insight, and tremendous humor, Bragg seamlessly weaves these luminous narrative threads together. Review “Nothing less than a triumph.” -The Tennessean“Powerful.... [Bragg is] a storyteller on a par with Pat Conroy.” -Denver Post“Rick Bragg has made of the dark shadow in his life a figure of flesh and blood, passion and tragedy, and a father, at last, whose memory he can live with. And that is no small thing for any man to do.” -The New York Times Book Review“Bragg writes in that sumptuous, multilayered, image-rich Southern yarn-spinning manner that seduces as fast as you can read it. It unwinds beautifully.” -The Providence Journal“With The Prince of Frogtown, Bragg finds a heartening truth: He is not doomed to take up the defects of his forebears but learns instead to use them as a compass.... Readers will relish the journey.” -Rocky Mountain News“Vivid.... An evocative family memoir.” -Boston Globe“By turns gut-wrenching, hilarious and heartbreaking.... A way of looking hard at the past in order to break free of it.” -St. Petersburg Times“Bragg crafts flowing sentences that vividly describe the southern Appalachian landscape and ways of life both old and new. . . . His father’s story walks the line between humorous and heartbreaking . . . This book, much like his previous two memoirs, is lush with narratives about manhood, fathers and sons, families and the changing face of the rural South.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Smooth and rich as bourbon.” -Kirkus“Bragg continues in the vein of his legendary storytelling, breathing life into a father he barely knew while learning to love a son.” -Library Journal Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The ditch cleaved frogtown into two realms, and two powerful spirits heldsway,one on each side. One was old, old as the Cross, and the other had aged only a few days in a gallon can. Both had the power to change men’s lives. On one side of the ditch, a packed-in, pleading faithful fell hard to their knees and called the Holy Ghost into their jerking bodies in unknown tongues. On the other side, two boys, too much alike to be anything but brothers, flung open the doors of a black Chevrolet and lurched into the yard of 117 D Street, hallelujahs falling dead around them in the weeds. In the house, a sad-eyed little woman looked out, afraid it might be the law. When your boys are gone you’re always afraid it might be the law. But it was just her two oldest sons, Roy and Troy, floating home inside the bubble of her prayer, still in crumpled, cattin’-around clothes from Saturday night, still a little drunk on Sunday morning. They were fine boys, though, beautiful boys. They were just steps away now, a few steps. She would fry eggs by the platterful and pour black coffee, and be glad they were not in a smoking hulk wrapped around a tree, or at the mercy of the police. She thought sometimes of walking over to the church to see it all, to hear the lovely music, but that would leave her boys and man unsupervised for too long. Her third son was eleven or so then. He could hear the piano ring across the ditch, even hear people sho...

-Titulo Original : Stray A Memoir-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: From the bestselling author of Sweetbitter, a memoir of growing up in a family shattered by lies and addiction, and of one womans attempts to find a life beyond the limits of her past. After selling her first novel--a dream shed worked long and hard for--Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past shed left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery. After years in New York City shes pulled home to Southern California by forces she doesnt totally understand, haunted by questions of legacy and trauma. Here, she works toward answers, uncovering hard truths about her parents and herself as she explores whether its possible to change the course of her history.Stray is a moving, sometimes devastating, brilliantly written and ultimately inspiring exploration of the landscapes of damage and survival. Review [Stray is] fearless, insightful, devastating, and beautiful. It broke my heart, and it twisted up my insides. The stories are still sitting in my gut . . . Danler writes (beautifully, achingly) about the family she comes from and the one shes created for herself. -Laura Marie Meyers, POPSUGAR Danler explores the ugly areas of her past, sorting through troublesome memories to make room for positive change . . . [Stray] is written in gripping and refreshingly plain terms . . . [Danler] asks what it means to lose someone who is still very much alive, and how to rebuild broken bonds. -Annabel Gutterman, TIME Stray invites us to look closely at our own life: our family dynamics, our loss, our trauma, and the moments of happiness that still exist within that fragile frame . . . Stunning prose . . . Danler tells her story candidly . . . The honesty she brings to her reader allows us to think about our own story, the parts that make up a whole without trying to fit our identity into a preordained box. -Frances Yackel, Electric Lit [Danler’s] fiction is as composed and bountiful as one of Jan Davidsz de Heem’s still life . . . Memoir - I say this with reverence - is a selfish act. It asserts the priority of one version of events over all others, that of the individual lucky enough to wield the pen. Danler knows this and openly owns the fact that she can only tell this story with the particular varieties of truth that she can muster . . . It’s such a thrill to watch a writer open up her greediest thoughts, to slice open little pockets of her skin and root around underneath her flesh. -Hillary Kelly, New York Times Book Review Novelist Danler (Sweetbitter) returns to her hometown of Los Angeles and comes to a reckoning in this forceful, eviscerating memoir . . . Danler, writing in precise, elegant prose, outlines her family’s disintegration . . . The result is a penetrating and unforgettable tale of family dysfunction. -Publishers Weekly (Starred)Like most compelling memoirs, the trauma and pure un-fair-ness of her life story will hit readers instantaneously. -Seija Rankin, Entertainment Weekly A raw, often lyrical portrait of pain, loss, and learning to let go. -Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly In Stray, Danler remembers and relives what it was like growing up the child of addicts and returning home to California after almost a decade away to confront her family’s past. She evaluates how it has weighed on her own life, from the decisions she’s made to the men she’s loved. -Rachel King, Fortune (5 new books to read in May)Stray pokes so closely at the wounds of addiction, heartbreak, and parental failures that it may come as a shock. -Kathryn Lindsay, Refinery29A new book that offers more insight into [Danlers] life . . . Danler writes about returning to Southern California and working to discover truths about her parents and herself. -Lexy Perez, Ho...

-Titulo Original : Black Is The Body Stories From My Grandmothers Time, My Mothers Time, And Mine-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: “Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.” In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up black in the south with a family name inherited from a white man, surviving a random stabbing at a New Haven coffee shop, marrying a white man from the North and bringing him home to her family, adopting two children from Ethiopia, and living and teaching in a primarily white New England college town. Each of these essays sets out to discover a new way of talking about race and of telling the truth as the author has lived it. Black Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs Ive ever read. Its about race, its about womanhood, its about friendship, its about a life of the mind, and also a life of the body. But more than anything, its about love. I cant praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages. --Elizabeth GilbertWINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PROSENAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWSONE OF MAUREEN CORRIGANS 10 UNPUTDOWNABLE READS OF THE YEAR Review “Emily Bernard is a master storyteller. She writes with an honesty and vulnerability that is uncommon. These stories are about what it means to be human-to love, to hurt, to heal. They will make you think, re-think, feel, and grow.” -Nana-Ama Danquah, author of Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey through DepressionBlack Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs Ive ever read. Its about race, its about womanhood, its about friendship, its about a life of the mind, and also a life of the body. But more than anything, its about love. I cant praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages.--Elizabeth Gilbert“My very favorite book that I have read so far this year…It’s really life changing. If you get no other book this year, get Black Is the Body by Emily Bernard.” --Ann Patchett Of the 12 essays here, theres not one that even comes close to being forgettable. Bernards language is fresh, poetically compact, and often witty ... Bernard proves herself to be a revelatory storyteller of race in America who can hold her own with some of those great writers she teaches.--Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air“Familiar and comforting like your bed on a sleep-in morning, yet somber like the toll of a mourning bell, these essays are the voice of professional-class blackness lived adjacent to white people and within white structures, in which continually thinking through what it means to live in a black body and present and defend blackness is inevitable and essential for survival. Thoughtfully examines our obligation to our ancestors and our children, to friends and colleagues, to those who ought to know better and those who don’t, while remaining ever vigilant in the act of caring for our own self. I couldn’t put it down.”-Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of Real American: A MemoirBlack Is the Body brings lucidity, honesty, and insight to the topics of race and interracial relationships ... quietly compelling ... [Bernards] stories get under your skin.--Carlo Wolff, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBernards lyrical book details traumas and pain from decades past to interrogate the nuances of her own life: growing up black in the South, marrying a white man from the North, and surviving a violent attack which unleashed the storyteller in her.--Entertainment WeeklyEchoes of Joan Didion--terse yet beautiful writing, a bracing honesty--in the graceful new essay collection by Emily Bernard ... Black Is the Body marks the debut of an essayist in command of her gifts, a book that belongs beside the best of contemporary autobiography.--H...

-Titulo Original : Always Home A Daughters Recipes & Stories Foreword By Alice Waters-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: A cookbook and culinary memoir about growing up as the daughter of revered chef/restaurateur Alice Waters: a story of food, family, and the need for beauty in all aspects of life.In this extraordinarily intimate portrait of her mother--and herself--Fanny Singer, daughter of food icon and activist Alice Waters, chronicles a unique world of food, wine, and travel; a world filled with colorful characters, mouth-watering traditions, and sumptuous feasts. Across dozens of vignettes with accompanying recipes, she shares the story of her own culinary coming of age and reveals a side of her legendary mother that has never been seen before. A charming, smart translation of Alice Waterss ideals and attitudes about food for a new generation, Always Home is a loving, often funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely written look at a life defined in so many ways by food, as well as the bond between mother and daughter. Review “You will probably pick up this book because you’re curious about how it feels to grow up with Alice Waters as your mother. But you will inevitably be captivated by Fanny Singer’s sensuous voice and sensible soul. The writing’s lovely, but more than that, Fanny has struck a kind of brutal honesty that is extremely rare and completely beautiful. Her writing makes you want to taste every flavor she describes, and soon you’ll be dashing into the kitchen to make watercress soup, wild fennel cakes, and breakfast pudding. But the really important thing is that I’m pretty sure everyone who reads it will come away with the same feeling that I have: Why don’t I live my life like this? How can I do better? I love this book.” -RUTH REICHL, author of Save Me the Plums“A charming and unique almost-love story, almost-memoir, with predictably fabulous recipes.”-MARK BITTMAN, author of How to Cook Everything“To read Fanny Singer’s intimate and honest memoir is like having a mouthful of jewels. After fourteen years of cooking with her and her mother, Alice Waters, I got to know her even better through her perfect book. Singer’s writing reminds me about everything important to me in life, the four f ’s: friends, food, family, and fun.”-CLAIRE PTAK, owner of Violet Bakery in London and author of The Violet Bakery Cookbook“Fanny Singer’s joyful, witty, and loving encounter with American genius inside the home and in the world heralds the arrival of a new voice, one that understands the pleasure to be found in discovery, and the ever evolving mystery embedded in the known. A book like no other, an instant classic.”-HILTON ALS, staff writer, The New Yorker“Singer’s memoir, Always Home: A Daughter’s Recipes & Stories, is a tender portrait of the woman better known to the world as the mother of the farm-to-table movement.” -CHLOE MALLE, Vogue, “The 5 Best Books of 2020 (So Far)”“In this wondrous memoir-cookbook hybrid . . . Singer’s language is read-out-loud luscious, and her culinary coming-of-age story savory and sweet.” -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “This heartwarming, feel-good, highly recommended memoir will appeal to fans of cooking, culinary travels, and family ties.” -Library Journal “Singer’s charming narrative, interwoven with Lacombe’s painterly black-and-white photographs, bursts with sensuous descriptions of tastes, fragrances, and textures as she recounts her “very rich and full and just a little bit unconventional” young life . . . . An intimate homage to an iconic restaurateur.” -Kirkus Reviews“Singer tells her own tale and that of her influential mother, tying the two together with their love of food and knack for powerful storytelling.” -Town & Country (“6 Best Books to Read This March”)Fanny Singer’s book about growing up with celeb chef and food activist Alice Waters-her mom-is a refreshing reprieve from sad tales of famous family life. It’s an intimate look at how a woman at the top of her culinary game has kept a close, collaborative relationship with her daughter.-Chatelaine (“11...

-Titulo Original : The Pleasures And Sorrows Of Work (Vintage International)-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: We spend most of our waking lives at work-in occupations most often chosen by our inexperienced younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our jobs mean to us. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully exploring what other people wake up to do each day-and night-to make our frenzied world function. With a philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around an eclectic range of occupations, from rocket scientist to biscuit manufacturer, from accountant to artist-in search of what makes jobs either soul-destroying or fulfilling. Review “Exquisitely written. . . . A perceptive philosophical meditation on work, with its extraordinary claim to provide, along with love, the principal source of meaning in our lives.” -Boston Globe“In the place of easy answers, De Botton offers an array of potent and portable insights about the delight and despair we find, daily, in our working lives.” -Los Angeles Times“Like a combination of Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace and pop philosopher Thomas Moore, De Bottons dense, pensive prose expresses a palpable preoccupation with finding better ways of living in our bewilderingly estranged age.” -Salon With de Bottons humor, boundless erudition and capable turns of phrase, its the best work yet (and certainly the best-timed) from a pre-eminent genre-bender, one certain to find a welcome home in the hands of anyone making a living.” -The Portland Oregonian “Alain de Bottons new philosophical treatise, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, feels like an intellectual acid trip without the stimulants. He focuses your gaze where you have never even considered looking and turns upside down your notions of beauty and love and work and what really is involved in crafting a meaningful life. The book is groundbreaking in approach, style and imagination.” -The San Francisco Chronicle “The Pleasures and Sorrows treats readers to a cast of eccentrics as it examines the thing we spend most of our lives doing.” -Business Week “The workplace as subject matter brings out the best in [de Botton’s] writing. . . . His wit and his powers of ironic observation are on display throughout what is a stylish and original book.” -The Sunday Times (London) “Wonderfully readable stuff. . . . What de Botton is showing us, in his de Botton-esque way, is that, in our world of niched desire and economic efficiency, our working practices might be driving us nuts. . . . A timely book.” -The Spectator “Pleasurably intelligent. . . . The author has plenty of thought-provoking things to say.” -The Economist “This artful creation reports from planet Earth in the manner of a bookish Martian sending a postcard home. . . . This is a terribly funny book, intentionally so, and its ostensible subject is one that touches all of us.” -The Daily Mail “Features passages of imaginative prose as powerful as anything by Charles Dickens or George Orwell and explores the notion that people rarely feel connected to what they do for a living.” -Word Magazine “His questions are as important as they are unsettling.” -The Financial Times “Teems with sharp portraits, interesting details, and shrewd commentary. . . . De Botton is always fun to watch.” -The Guardian About the Author ALAIN DE BOTTON is the author of three works of fiction and six works of nonfiction, including How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, and The Art of Travel. He lives in London, where he founded The School of Life. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1.Imagine a journey across one of the great cities of the modern world. Take London on a particularly grey Monday at the end of October. Fly over its distribution centres, reservoirs, parks and mortuaries. Consider its criminals and South Korean tourists. See the sandwich- mak...

-Titulo Original : Spice The History Of A Temptation-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era-from ancient times through the Renaissance-when what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globe-and even to savagery.Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire.Includes eight pages of color photographs.One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle From The New Yorker Turner arranges his history of spices thematically, in a series of lively essays on their role in different aspects of human endeavor, such as exploration (Columbus was looking for cinnamon when he discovered America) and love (a fifteenth-century tract prescribes an ointment of honey and ginger for Increasing the Dimension of Small Members and Making Them Splendid). Turners sedulous research is manifest on every page, as he follows spices across cultures and eras, with allusions that range from St. Augustine to the Spice Girls. The books unlikely hero is the peppercorn, which has linked East and West since the time of the Romans and which typifies the way that spices, although no longer the luxury items they once were, have become quietly ubiquitous. Cinnamon and nutmeg are rumored to be the key to capitalisms most closely guarded secret, the formula for Coca-Cola. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Review “Spiceis an erudite and engaging account of how foodstuffs can change the flow of history.” - New York Times Book Review Jack Turner handles his subject with discernment and confidence, his style appropriately brisk and animated. . . . Impressive and reassuring is his combination of sympathetic understanding and tough-minded rationalism. Although he never condescends to the past, neither does he ever blur the line that separates fascinating lore from the objective truths of science. - Los Angeles Times “A nifty grab bag of a book. Entertaining and informative.” -San Jose Mercury News “A hugely enjoyable book, written with erudition, style and wit.”-New Scientist“Spice is deliciously rich in odors, savors, and stories. Jack Turner quickens history with almost bardic magic, pouring his personality into his narrative without sacrifice of scholarship.” -Felipe Fernandez-ArmestoBased on research that is broad and deep, Turner succeeds remarkably well in capturing the evanescent attractions of spice. -Orlando Sentinel “Stimulating. . . . Spice is stuffed with memorable details. . . .Turner writes with pace and intelligence.” -New Statesman“Jack Turner possesses the two ingredients most essential for the great historian-scholarly detachment allied to a passionate obsession with his subject. He also writes uncommonly well. A splendid book.” -Philip Ziegler“Turner’s banquet É is, as he admits, a ramble, but it is a fascinating one - urbane, anecdotal and easily digestible.” -Scotsman“Sumptuous...Turner quotes well and widely from literature, and has a flair for anecdote.”-The Guardian“Turner brings serious scholarship to bear on his subject, quoting from all manner of obscure texts in ancient languages. But his gentle, ironic wit makes him a light-hearted companion. . . . The book shimmers with life, with real people springing from every page, some of them millennia old. . . . Turner’s enthusiasm carries it all forward with terrific momentum.” -The Tablet...

-Titulo Original : Catastrophic Care Why Everything We Think We Know About Health Care Is Wrong-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction How American Health Care Killed My Father Becky is a twenty--six--year--old who’s worked in my company’s marketing department for three years. It’s her first job out of school, and she’s done very well. She’s smart, ambitious, and poised, and her future is promising.Becky describes herself as a “bit hypochondriacal,” so she sees two primary care physicians a year. But she’s generally healthy and has no major health care needs. With the insurance plan she’s chosen, she can see any doctor she wants, but the annual deductible doubles, from $250 to $500, when she goes out of network. Most of the treatments she uses count as preventive care, which now has no cost sharing. So with her share of the company’s insurance premiums and her out--of--pocket expenses, health care will cost Becky just about $2,500 a year. That may be a bit more than she would like, but all things considered, it’s not terrible for someone just starting out, right?Wrong.Becky will actually contribute over $10,000 to America’s health care system this year--most of it through payments she’s not aware of. That’s right: health care will consume just under a quarter of Becky’s true compensation, not the 7 percent she believes. I’ll be providing a detailed breakdown of these additional--I call them deliberately disguised--costs in chapter 2. For now, what you urgently need to understand is that beginning on the first day of her working career, the cost of health care will be the major constraint on Becky’s standard of living matching--much less, surpassing-that of her parents.And it will only get worse for Becky as she settles down and starts a family. Because, as I’ll show you, even if we somehow eliminate the explosive growth in health care costs--literally reduce growth to zero--our current system already ensures that Becky will pay well more than $1.2 million into it over her lifetime. If Becky’s hoping the new Affordable Care Act will somehow reduce her cost, then she’s unaware that the administration’s own projections show per capita health costs rising by 5 percent per year over the next ten years (which would mean her lifetime contribution to the system will be $1.8 million, even assuming that after those ten years health costs don’t grow at all). All this assumes she never has a major illness, in which case she will almost certainly pay much more.None of this is on Becky’s radar screen today. Although she’s probably spending more this year on health care than on anything else (except maybe big--city apartment rent), and while she describes herself as a “true bargain shopper,” Becky has no awareness at all of what health care is really costing her. She thinks about her health care benefits, not about her health care costs.Becky hopes to be successful, perhaps someday earning “several hundred thousand” a year. That would put her in the top 1 percent of earners in America. When I ask her how much she would need over her lifetime to pay for health care, she mentions the possibility of dealing with cancer or other major issues and says “millions.” There is “no way” she could afford to pay for her care on her own. But then I ask her how a society can afford health care for anyone if even people in the top 1 percent don’t have the resources to cover their care. Where would the money come from? She’s a bit embarrassed: “I’m sorry, that doesn’t make any sense. I haven’t really given this any thought.” I assure her there’s no reason to be embarrassed: almost no one seems to have given this much thought.I started thinking about health care because of a personal tragedy: almost five years ago, my father died from a hospital--borne infection he acquired in the intensive care unit of a well--regarded New York hospital. Dad had just turned eighty--three and had a variety of the ailments common to men of his age. But he was still working the day he walked into the hospital with pneumonia. Within thi...

-Titulo Original : Nonzero The Logic Of Human Destiny-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history-and discerning where history will lead us next.In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wrights narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance-a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technologys ongoing transformation of the world. Review Exciting and intellectually stimulating?well-written, witty, and quite timely as we consider the challenges of our global, interconnected future.?The Philadelphia Inquirer From the Inside Flap In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history?and discerning where history will lead us next.In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wrights narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance?a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technologys ongoing transformation of the world. From the Back Cover In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history-and discerning where history will lead us next. In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wrights narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance-a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technologys ongoing transformation of the world. About the Author Robert Wright is the author of Three Scientists and Their Gods and The Moral Animal, which was named by the New York Times Book Review as one of the twelve best books of the year and has been p...

-Titulo Original : Boeing Versus Airbus The Inside Story Of The Greatest International Competition In Business-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Review “A must-read for anyone looking for a glimpse into the white-knuckled world of the commercial airplane business.”-BusinessWeek“One of the great business stories of our times.”-The Chicago Tribune“An epic narrative. . . . There is nothing quite like it . . . [and there’s] no better commentator on this sporting struggle than John Newhouse.” -The Economist“Mr. Newhouse gives us a tutorial on a number of important issues that affect all participants in the global marketplace.” -The Washington Times The commercial airline industry is one of the most volatile, dog-eat-dog enterprises in the world, and in the late 1990s, Europe’s Airbus overtook America’s Boeing as the preeminent aircraft manufacturer. However, Airbus quickly succumbed to the same complacency it once challenged, and Boeing regained its precarious place on top. Now, after years of heated battle and mismanagement, both companies face the challenge of serving burgeoning Asian markets and stiff competition from China and Japan. Combining insider knowledge with vivid prose and insight, John Newhouse delivers a riveting story of these two titans of the sky and their struggles to stay in the air. About the Author John Newhouse has written seven books and for many years was the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker. He lives in Washington, D.C...

-Titulo Original : Act Of Congress How Americas Essential Institution Works, And How It Doesnt-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Review “An exceptionally informative, candid, evenhanded description of the congressional process.” -Choice“Mr Kaiser depicts the gruesome business of legislating in the wickedly honest fashion only a journalistic veteran, liberated from the restraints imposed on daily reporters, could get away with…[he] names names and spares no one.”-The Wall Street Journal“Like [Robert] Caro, Kaiser has a gift for writing a legislative page-turner…This should be a book on every informed voter’s reading list.”-New York Journal of Books“If you want to know how Washington really works, read this book. It’s the ultimate inside story of a major piece of legislation that will affect the way the country does business for decades to come. Robert G. Kaiser, who knows the terrain like few others, was given unique access to the key players as they pasted this complicated package together. Kaiser shows us the personalities, the politics, and the process.” -Cokie Roberts, political commentator, NPR and ABC News “It’s wonderful to read a story about how Congress can actually get something done. This is an exclusive behind-the-scenes tale of how an important bill became law. It’s a book we really need now.” -Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs “Kaiser writes with the clarity of a world-class journalist, the depth of a scholar, and the evocative style of a novelist. His latest book about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and financial reform is a master class in understanding the modern Congress.” -David Maraniss, author of Barack Obama: The Story“Robert Kaiser knows so much about how Congress works, and writes so well about it, it makes me-as a former legislator-both uneasy and grateful. He spots our limitations but leaves every reader with a much better understanding of ‘America’s least understood important institution.’” -Lee H. Hamilton, former member of the House of Representatives“Robert G. Kaiser’s Act of Congress is the most detailed, fascinating and sophisticated case study of congressional law making to appear in years. It shows how thoroughly polarized partisanship has reshaped the entire process, but also how exceptionally skillful politicking can nonetheless still occasionally produce landmark legislation. It will be ideal for courses on Congress (I’m adding it to my own syllabus) and the policy making process, but it will also enlighten anyone who wants a better understanding of how present-day national institutions work-or fail to do so. Its a great read.” -Dr. Gary C. Jacobson, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego“Act of Congress captures the story of the historic assertion of federal power known as Dodd-Frank in all its complexity, with its lasting implications for the balance of power between Washington and Wall Street. Robert Kaiser’s triumph is to make this complex subject an intimately human tale. Thanks to reporting and insight, the story of Dodd-Frank is revealed not simply as a collision of public and private interests on Wall Street, but as a kind of case study in the anthropology of modern Washington. A great story by a journalist singularly well-equipped to tell it.”-John Harris, editor in chief of Politico“We have been waiting for this. Robert G. Kaiser, one of our most skilled and thoughtful journalists, has written the inside story of one of the most important legislative measures of the last decade. Kaiser weaves a compelling story of institutions, parties, personalities, and strategy. This book is essential reading for students of Congress and national policy making, for everyone interested in the policy response to the Great Recession, and for citizens who care about the dysfunction of American national government.”-Steven S. Smith, professor of political science at Washington University“Act of Congress is easily the best book on Congress I have read in decades. It is a stupendous achievement-richly informative, a pleasure to read, wise in its assessments of why Dodd-Frank was able to...

-Titulo Original : Beyond Outrage Expanded Edition What Has Gone Wrong With Our Economy And Our Democracy, And How To Fix It-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: About the Author Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, and he served as an adviser to President-elect Barack Obama. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations (which has been translated into twenty-two languages), Supercapitalism, and the best sellers The Next American Frontier, The Future of Success, Locked in the Cabinet, and, most recently, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.He is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His bi-weekly commentaries on public radio’s Marketplace are heard by nearly five million people. In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2008, Time magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century, and The Wall Street Journal named him one of the nation’s ten most influential business thought-leaders. America’s economy and democracy are working for the benefit of an ever-fewer privileged and powerful people. But rather than just complain about it or give up on the system, we must join together and make it work for all of us. In this timely book, Robert B. Reich argues that nothing good happens in Washington unless citizens are energized and organized to make sure Washington acts in the public good. The first step is to see the big picture. Beyond Outrage connects the dots, showing why the increasing share of income and wealth going to the top has hobbled jobs and growth for everyone else, undermining our democracy; caused Americans to become increasingly cynical about public life; and turned many Americans against one another. He also explains why the proposals of the “regressive right” are dead wrong and provides a clear roadmap of what must be done instead. Here’s a plan for action for everyone who cares about the future of America. From Booklist The problem with our economy is that it currently works for the few-corporate and Wall Street elites-at the expense of the rest of us, former labor secretary Reich argues. Elites not only receive higher compensation but enjoy greater job security. “Regressives”-politicians who have been co-opted by big money-have turned the question of American morality upside down. These regressive forces push a divide-and-conquer strategy, primarily by raising alarms over deficit spending and asserting a need to cut public programs that benefit the middle class and the poor. Reich notes the blame heaped on public employees for state budget crises in comparison to that accorded either Wall Street practices that led to the recession or the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that removed limitations on corporate contributions to political campaigns. Reich recommends that politicians and the public get out of their ideological bubbles and face the need to raise tax rates on the wealthy, reduce military spending, and restrict the size of banks to reduce the risk to taxpayers in case of failure. --Vernon Ford Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. IntroductionI’ve written this book to give you the big picture of why and how our economy and our democracy are becoming rigged against average working people, what must be done, and what you can do about it. I’ve called it Beyond Outrage for a very specific reason. Your outrage is understandable. Moral outrage is the prerequisite of social change. But you also need to move beyond outrage and take action. The regressive forces seeking to move our nation backward must not be allo...

-Titulo Original : The Passion Economy The New Rules For Thriving In The Twenty-first Century-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: The brilliant creator of NPRs Planet Money podcast and award-winning New Yorker staff writer explains our current economy: laying out its internal logic and revealing the transformative hope it offers for millions of people to thrive as they never have before.Contrary to what you may have heard, the middle class is not dying and robots are not stealing our jobs. In fact, writes Adam Davidson-one of our leading public voices on economic issues-the twenty-first-century economic paradigm offers new ways of making money, fresh paths toward professional fulfillment, and unprecedented opportunities for curious, ambitious individuals to combine the things they love with their careers. Drawing on the stories of average people doing exactly this-an accountant overturning his industry, a sweatshop owners daughter fighting for better working conditions, an Amish craftsman meeting the technological needs of Amish farmers-as well as the latest academic research, Davidson shows us how the twentieth-century economy of scale has given way in this century to an economy of passion. He makes clear, too, that though the adjustment has brought measures of dislocation, confusion, and even panic, these are most often the result of a lack of understanding. The Passion Economy delineates the ground rules of the new economy, and armed with these, we begin to see how we can succeed in it according to its own terms-intimacy, insight, attention, automation, and, of course, passion. An indispensable road map and a refreshingly optimistic take on our economic future. Review “Adam Davidson is a master storyteller. . . An engaging mix of Michael Lewis-style reporting and a Shark Tank-like focus on how to succeed in business, [The Passion Economy is] an upbeat spin on whats ahead for us in the new, gig-and-hustle environment.”-Deanna Isaacs, Chicago Reader“Exuberant. . . With his distinctive voice Davidson winningly blends case studies of fervent, enthusiastic believers - creators of amazing ice cream, expensive pencils, menswear - with a set of counterintuitive rules so that work lives and our deepest passions can merge to make people better off financially, and personally.”-National Book Review Davidsons case studies are excellent, but the heart of the book is a set of rules worthy of committing to memory. . . Fine inspiration for entrepreneurs that should be required reading in any business school curriculum.”-Kirkus (starred review)“[Davidson’s] anecdotes are captivating with shrewd lessons on management, marketing, and strategy. . . Readers with a start-up yen will find useful and inspiring insights here.”-Publishers Weekly“The Passion Economy is exactly what everyone needs today: examples of how to thrive in an economy that can seem overwhelming, and crystal-clear explanations of how to succeed. The book is an enormously fun, exciting adventure story that takes us from the wineries of Napa to the laboratories of Google to far-off chocolate makers. This is the book about how to live (and work) a more passionate life.”-Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better Adam Davidson is one of America’s most accomplished business journalists - and this book reminds us why. With a reporter’s eye and a storyteller’s grace, he has traveled the country to find regular people who have cracked the code of the modern economy. Reading their stories will reveal the secrets of successful careers. It might even restore your faith in the American Dream.-Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive “Move over Malcolm Gladwell. In The Passion Economy Adam Davidson upends the conventional thinking about how to succeed in our topsy-turvy, seemingly unforgiving post-industrial economy by sharing the stories of regular people who followed their dreams. You wont soon forget the wisdom Davidson conveys in these pages.”-William D. Cohan, author of House of Cards“I love Adam Davidson’s book. This is th...

-Titulo Original : Confucius Lives Next Door What Living In The East Teaches Us About Living In The West-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Fascinating...clearly stated, interesting and provoking.... A plainspoken account of living in Asia. --San Francisco ChronicleAnyone who has heard his weekly commentary on NPR knows that T. R. Reid is trenchant, funny, and deeply knowledgeable reporter and now he brings this erudition and humor to the five years he spent in Japan--where he served as The Washington Posts Tokyo bureau chief. He provides unique insights into the country and its 2,500-year-old Confucian tradition, a powerful ethical system that has played an integral role in the continents postwar miracle.Whether describing his neighbor calmly asserting that his sons loud bass playing brings disrepute on the neighborhood, or the Japanese custom of having students clean the schools, Reid inspires us to consider the many benefits of the Asian Way--as well as its drawbacks--and to use this to come to a greater understanding of both Japanese culture and America. Review A provocative and entertaining portrayal...unfolds with insight, wry amusement, and unforgettable portraits that do indeed teach us as much about ourselves as about those living in the East. --The Washington Post Book WorldEngaging...a fascinating read...he is amusing, droll and extremely knowledgeable. --Detroit Free Press From the Inside Flap Fascinating...clearly stated, interesting and provoking.... A plainspoken account of living in Asia. --San Francisco Chronicle Anyone who has heard his weekly commentary on NPR knows that T. R. Reid is trenchant, funny, and deeply knowledgeable reporter and now he brings this erudition and humor to the five years he spent in Japan--where he served as The Washington Posts Tokyo bureau chief. He provides unique insights into the country and its 2,500-year-old Confucian tradition, a powerful ethical system that has played an integral role in the continents postwar miracle. Whether describing his neighbor calmly asserting that his sons loud bass playing brings disrepute on the neighborhood, or the Japanese custom of having students clean the schools, Reid inspires us to consider the many benefits of the Asian Way--as well as its drawbacks--and to use this to come to a greater understanding of both Japanese culture and America. From the Back Cover Anyone who has heard his weekly commentary on NPR knows that T. R. Reid is trenchant, funny, and deeply knowledgeable, and now he brings this erudition and humor to the five years he spent in Japan, where he served as The Washington Posts Tokyo bureau chief. He provides unique perspective on the country and its 2,500-year-old Confucian tradition, a powerful ethical system that has played an integral role in the countrys postwar miracle.Reid explores the Confucian ideals of respect, responsibility, and group unity and the way they color every aspect of Asian life. Whether describing his neighbor calmly asserting that his sons loud bass playing brings disrepute on the neighborhood, or the Japanese custom of having students clean the schools, Reid inspires us to consider the many benefits of the Asian Way -- as well as its drawbacks -- and to use this to come to a greater understanding of both Japanese culture and America. About the Author T.R. Reid is currently the Washington Post London bureau chief. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. We took a jet plane to the next century.When our thoroughly American family of five moved from the wide-open spaces of Castle Rock, Colorado (population 7,600), tothe noise, rush, and crush of teeming Tokyo (population 27,600,000), we knew that we were in for a long journey, in more ways than one. The trip itself seemed endless--it took two taxis, four buses, two airplanes, one train, one subway, and more of those assembly-line meals on little plastic trays than I care to remember. Our flight to Tokyo took off in July and didnt land until August. While this was actually ...

-Titulo Original : Rebooting Ai Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Two leaders in the field offer a compelling analysis of the current state of the art and reveal the steps we must take to achieve a truly robust artificial intelligence.Despite the hype surrounding AI, creating an intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels is far more complicated than we have been led to believe. Professors Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis have spent their careers at the forefront of AI research and have witnessed some of the greatest milestones in the field, but they argue that a computer beating a human in Jeopardy! does not signal that we are on the doorstep of fully autonomous cars or superintelligent machines. The achievements in the field thus far have occurred in closed systems with fixed sets of rules, and these approaches are too narrow to achieve genuine intelligence. The real world, in contrast, is wildly complex and open-ended. How can we bridge this gap? What will the consequences be when we do? Taking inspiration from the human mind, Marcus and Davis explain what we need to advance AI to the next level, and suggest that if we are wise along the way, we wont need to worry about a future of machine overlords. If we focus on endowing machines with common sense and deep understanding, rather than simply focusing on statistical analysis and gatherine ever larger collections of data, we will be able to create an AI we can trust-in our homes, our cars, and our doctors offices. Rebooting AI provides a lucid, clear-eyed assessment of the current science and offers an inspiring vision of how a new generation of AI can make our lives better. Review “Artificial intelligence is among the most consequential issues facing humanity, yet much of today’s commentary has been less than intelligent: awe-struck, credulous, apocalyptic, uncomprehending. Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis, experts in human and machine intelligence, lucidly explain what today’s AI can and cannot do, and point the way to systems that are less A and more I.” -Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought “Finally, a book that tells us what AI is, what AI is not, and what AI could become if only we are ambitious and creative enough. No matter how smart and useful our intelligent machines are today, they don’t know what really matters. Rebooting AI dares to imagine machine minds that goes far beyond the closed systems of games and movie recommendations to become real partners in every aspect of our lives.” -Garry Kasparov, Former World Chess Champion and author of Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins “Finally, a book that says aloud what so many AI experts are really thinking. Every CEO should read it, and everyone else at the company, too. Then they’ll be able to separate the AI wheat from the chaff, and know where we are, how far we have to go, and how to get there.” -Pedro Domingos, Professor of computer science at the University of Washington and author of The Master Algorithm “A welcome antidote to the hype that has engulfed AI over the past decade and a realistic look at how far AI and robotics still have to go.” -Rodney Brooks, former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory “AI is achieving superhuman performance in many narrow applications, but the reality is that we are still very far from artificial general intelligence that truly understands the world. Marcus and Davis explain the pitfalls of current approaches with humor and insight, and provide a compelling path toward the kind of robust AI that can earn our trust.” -Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor at MIT and co-author of The Second Machine Age and Machine | Platform | Crowd “Rebooting AI is a blast to read. Its erudite, its witty, and it neatly unpacks why todays AI has such trouble doing truly smart tasks-and what itll take to reach that goal.” -Clive Thompson, Wired magazin...

-Titulo Original : Aftershock(inequality For All--movie Tie-in Edition) The Next Economy And Americas Future-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Updated and With a New IntroductionWhen the nation’s economy foundered in 2008, blame was directed almost universally at Wall Street bankers. But Robert B. Reich, one of our most experienced and trusted voices on public policy, suggests another reason for the meltdown. Our real problem, he argues, lies in the increasing concentration of income at the top, robbing the vast middle class of the purchasing power it needs to keep the economy going. This thoughtful and detailed account of the American economy-and how we can fix it-is a practical, humane, and much-needed blueprint for rebuilding our society. Review Praise for Robert B. Reichs Inequality for All“Important and well executed. . . . Reich is fluent, fearless, even amusing.” -The New York Times Book Review “Reich provides a thoughtful dialogue about the structural problems that led to the recent recession. . . . His ideas are worth exploring.” -The Washington Post “[Reich] suggests a number of innovative ways to reverse the trend toward greater inequality and usher in another, more hopeful phase in American history.” -The Charlotte Observer “One of the clearest explanations to date of . . . how the United States went from . . . ‘the Great Prosperity’ of 1947 to 1975 to the Great Recession.” -Bob Herbert, The New York Times “All Americans will benefit from reading this insightful, timely book.” -Bill Bradley“Lucid and cogent.”-Kirkus Reviews “Well argued and frighteningly plausible: without a return to the basic bargain (that workers are also consumers), the aftershock of the Great Recession includes a long-term high unemployment and a political backlash-a crisis, he notes with a sort of grim optimism, that just might be painful enough to encourage necessary structural reforms.”-Publishers Weekly About the Author Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, and he served as an adviser to President-elect Barack Obama. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations (which has been translated into twenty-two languages), Supercapitalism, and the best sellers The Next American Frontier, The Future of Success, Locked in the Cabinet, and, most recently, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.He is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. His bi-weekly commentaries on public radio’s Marketplace are heard by nearly five million people. In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2008, Time magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century, and The Wall Street Journal named him one of the nation’s ten most influential business thought-leaders. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1Eccles’s InsightThe Federal Reserve Board, arguably the most powerful group of economic decision-makers in the world, is housed in the Eccles Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. A long, white, mausoleum-like structure, the building is named after Marriner Eccles, who chaired the Board from November 1934 until April 1948. These were crucial years in the history of the American economy, and the world’s.While Eccles is largely forgotten today, he offered critical insight into the great pendulum of American capitalism. His analysis of the underlying economic stresses of the Great Depression is extraordinarily, even eerily, relevant to the Crash of 2008. It also offers if not a blueprint for the future, at least a suggestion of what to expect in the com...

-Titulo Original : The News A Users Manual (vintage International)-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Review “A thought-provoking look at the impact of news on culture and individuals.” -Booklist“De Botton’s utopian project . . . is to challenge our pessimistic assumptions about what news is and imagine how it could be.” -The Guardian“Elegantly argued. . . . Moves briskly across the vast landscape of contemporary news.” -San Francisco Chronicle“Broaches the problems of twenty-first century media outlets with de Botton’s signature flourish.” -The New Republic The News: A User’s Manual is an insightful analysis of the impact of the incessant news machine on us and our culture. The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds? We are never taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face daily, which has a huge influence on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives. Alain de Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories-including an airplane crash, a murder, a celebrity interview, and a political scandal-and submits them to intense analysis. Why are disaster stories often so uplifting? Why do we enjoy watching politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far-off lands often so boring? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? De Botton has written the ultimate guide for our frenzied era, designed to bring calm, understanding, and a measure of sanity to a news-obsessed age. About the Author Alain de Botton is the author of nonfiction works on subjects ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His best-selling books include How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel and The Architecture of Happiness. He lives in London, where he founded The School of Life ( theschooloflife ) and Living Architecture ( living-architecture.co.uk). Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Preface 1. IT DOESN’T COME with any instructions, because it’s meant to be the most normal, easy, obvious and unremarkable activity in the world, like breathing or blinking. After an interval, usually no longer than a night (and often far less; if we’re feeling particularly restless, we might only manage ten or fifteen minutes), we interrupt whatever we are doing in order to check the news. We put our lives on hold in the expectation of receiving yet another dose of critical information about all the most significant achievements, catastrophes, crimes, epidemics and romantic complications to have befallen mankind anywhere around the planet since we last had a look. What follows is an exercise in trying to make this ubiquitous and familiar habit seem a lot weirder and rather more hazardous than it does at present. 2. THE NEWS IS committed to laying before us whatever is supposed to be most unusual and important in the world: a snowfall in the tropics; a love child for the president; a set of conjoined twins. Yet for all its determined pursuit of the anomalous, the one thing the news skilfully avoids training its eye on is itself, and the predominant position it has achieved in our lives. ‘Half of Humanity Daily Spellbound by the News’ is a headline we are never likely to see from organizations otherwise devoted to the remarkable and the note-worthy, the corrupt and the shocking. Societies become modern, the philosopher Hegel suggested, when news replaces religion as our central source of guidance and our touchstone of authority. In the developed economies, the news now occupies a position of power at least equal to that formerly enjoyed by the faiths. Dispatches track the canonical hours with uncanny precision: matins have been transubstantiated into the breakfast bulletin, vespers into the evening report. But the news doesn’t just follow a quasi-religious timetable. It also demands that we approach it with some of the same deferential expectations we would once have harboured of the faiths. Here, too, we hope to receive revelations...

-Titulo Original : The Language Police How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: If you’re an actress or a coed just trying to do a man-size job, a yes-man who turns a deaf ear to some sob sister, an heiress aboard her yacht, or a bookworm enjoying a boy’s night out, Diane Ravitch’s internationally acclaimed The Language Police has bad news for you: Erase those words from your vocabulary! Textbook publishers and state education agencies have sought to root out racist, sexist, and elitist language in classroom and library materials. But according to Diane Ravitch, a leading historian of education, what began with the best of intentions has veered toward bizarre extremes. At a time when we celebrate and encourage diversity, young readers are fed bowdlerized texts, devoid of the references that give these works their meaning and vitality. With forceful arguments and sensible solutions for rescuing American education from the pressure groups that have made classrooms bland and uninspiring, The Language Police offers a powerful corrective to a cultural scandal. Review “It’s difficult to exaggerate the importance of this book. [It could] turn out to be one of those rare books that actually influence the way we live.” - The Washington Post“A book of Olympian importance. . . . This book may be the most important document about the future of the American mind in a generation or more.” - The Baltimore Sun“Impassioned. . . . Fiercely argued. . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating.” - The New York Times“Lucid, forceful, written with insight, passion, compassion and conviction, The Language Police is not only hair-raisingly readable but deeply reasonable. It should be required reading.” - Los Angeles Times“Provocative. . . . [It] has broad consequences for one’s thinking about all education, and I recommend it to anyone interested in the molding of public discourse in America.” -David Bromwich, The New Republic“Ravitch [is] the country’s soberest, most history-minded education expert-and, in this case, a whistle-blower extraordinaire.” - The Wall Street Journal“Revealing and important. . . . Ravitch richly illustrates her case [and] provides telling assessments of historical texts. . . . [Her] compilation of evidence and argument is overwhelming.” - The New York Times Book Review“Stunning. . . . Should send a shiver down the backs of parents with school children.” - The Washington Times“Penetrating. . . . Fascinating and often infuriating. . . . The Language Police is the first step toward ending the absurdities of educational censorship. It should be required reading in the education of every parent.” - Mother Jones“Her criticism is devastating.” - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Compelling. . . . Convincing. . . . A smart, savage expose of the absurdities wrought by both sides of the culture wars. . . . [Ravitch’s] demand for an educational environment that pushes students to confront, rather than avoid, the larger world is one we ignore at our own peril.” - The New Leader“Spirited. . . . A plea for substance, intelligence, and reason.” - The New York Sun“[ The Language Police] could do for the failures of education in the United States what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin did for slavery. It is a brilliant revelation of an insidious national disease of public policy. . . . It should be obligatory reading for every citizen concerned with the intellectual, moral, and imaginative life of U.S. children and society as a whole. It should be mandatory for everyone even peripherally involved in education. . . . Read it. Get the five most thoughtful people you know to buy it, read it and pass it on.” - The Baltimore Sun“Meticulously researched and forcefully argued. . . . Ravitch’s qualifications . . . are impeccable and unassailable. . . . She has no political axes to grind and no ideological agenda to pursue. She is a lucid writer and an absolutely clear thinker.” - The Washington Post“Ravitch writes with enormous authority and common sense. She shows how p...

-Titulo Original : Supercapitalism The Transformation Of Business, Democracy, And Everyday Life-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: From one of Americas foremost economic and political thinkers comes a vital analysis of our new hypercompetitive and turbo-charged global economy and the effect it is having on American democracy. With his customary wit and insight, Reich shows how widening inequality of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and corporate corruption are merely the logical results of a system in which politicians are more beholden to the influence of business lobbyists than to the voters who elected them. Powerful and thought-provoking, Supercapitalism argues that a clear separation of politics and capitalism will foster an enviroment in which both business and government thrive, by putting capitalism in the service of democracy, and not the other way around. Review Reich documents in lurid detail the explosive growth of coporate lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions since the 1970s. . . . Supercapitalism is a grand debunking of the conventional wisdom in the style of John Kenneth Galbraith. - The New York TimesReich turns the standard liberal critique of corporations on its head.- ForbesA thoughtful and heartfelt critique of the ruthless, hell-bent-for-profit brand of capitalism that has been in vogue under Democrats and Republicans alike since roughly the end of the cold war.- Portfolio Supercapitalism describes important and sweeping economic changes. . . . Reich has a talent for making economics accessible and sometimes even fun.- The Los Angeles Times About the Author Robert B. Reich is professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He last served in government as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He contributes weekly commentaries to Marketplace on public radio, appears regularly on television, and is a cofounding editor of The American Prospect. In 2003 Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. He lives in Berkeley, California. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One: The Not Quite Golden Age Roughly between 1945 and 1975, America struck a remarkable accommodation between capitalism and democracy. It combined a hugely productive economic system with a broadly responsive and widely admired political system. America in those years achieved its highest degree of income equality (since measurements have been available). It generated a larger proportion of good-paying jobs than before or since, and more economic security than ever for more of its people. Perhaps not coincidentally, in those years Americans also expressed high confidence in democracy and trust in government, both of which sharply declined in subsequent years.[1] That singular success and that powerful promise extended the moral authority of the American system throughout the world. In contrast to Soviet communism, America became an exemplar of both political freedom and suburban middle-class affluence. The economy was based on mass production. Mass production was profitable because a large middle class had enough money to purchase what could be mass-produced. The middle class had the money because the profits from mass production were divided up between the giant corporations and their suppliers, retailers, and employees. The bargaining power of these latter groups was enhanced and enforced by government action. Almost a third of the workforce belonged to a labor union. Economic benefits were also spread across the nation-to farmers, veterans, smaller towns, and small businesses-through regulation (of railroads, telephones, utilities, and energy supplies) and subsidy (price supports, highways, federal loans). Thus did democracy offset the economic power of large-scale pro...

-Titulo Original : Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (vintage Classics)-Fabricante : Vintage-Descripcion Original: Robert Louis Stevenson’s thrilling tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and his evil double, Mr. Hyde, is one of the most famous horror stories in English literature. It is also a profound and fascinating fable of the divided self that continues to seize readers’ imaginations. This story of a misguided genius who brings his doppelganger to life brilliantly dramatizes inner conflict and the capacity for violence and evil in every soul. An instant sensation on its first publication in 1886, Stevenson’s spine-chilling novella has given rise to countless adaptations on stage and screen over the past century, but none can match the power and dark complexity of the original. From the Inside Flap Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde as a chilling shocker. He then burned the draft and, upon his wifes advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character through the strange case of Dr. Jekyll, a kindly scientist who by night takes on his stunted evil self, Mr. Hyde. Anticipating modern psychology, Jekyll And Hyde is a brilliantly original study of mans dual nature -- as well as an immortal tale of suspense and terror. Published in 1866, Jekyll And Hyde was an instant success and brought Stevenson his first taste of fame. Though sometimes dismissed as a mere mystery story, the book has evoked much literary admirations. Vladimir Nabokov likened it to Madame Bovary and Dead Souls as a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction. From the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover A good man takes a potion that turns him into a freak of pure evil. A reasonable scientist is transformed - through the agency of science itself - into the living embodiment of unreason. Like the vampire and the werewolf, the sundered personae of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have worked their way into our collective unconscious, expressing both our ambivalence with science and our deepest questions about what is knowable in human nature. About the Author ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer who spent the last part of his life in the Samoan islands. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Story of the Door MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. I incline to Cains heresy, he used to say quaintly: I let my brother go to the devil in his own way. In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour. No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circl...