- Table View
- List View
Farther Away: Essays
by Jonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen's Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the twenty-first century. In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it "a masterpiece of American fiction" and lauded its illumination, "through the steady radiance of its author's profound moral intelligence, [of] the world we thought we knew." In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes, both human and literary, that have long preoccupied him. Whether recounting his violent encounter with bird poachers in Cyprus, examining his mixed feelings about the suicide of his friend and rival David Foster Wallace, or offering a moving and witty take on the ways that technology has changed how people express their love, these pieces deliver on Franzen's implicit promise to conceal nothing. On a trip to China to see first-hand the environmental devastation there, he doesn't omit mention of his excitement and awe at the pace of China's economic development; the trip becomes a journey out of his own prejudice and moral condemnation. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day. Farther Away is remarkable, provocative, and necessary.
The Draft: A Novel
by Wil MaraIt's draft time in the National Football League. For high-ranking team executives, this means long days and sleepless nights, endless negotiations, and determining which young men deserve to become millionaires and which do not. Careers will be made with the stroke of a pen, but mistakes are costly.Baltimore Ravens General Manager Jon Sabino has turned a weary, ragtag organization into a gridiron dynamo, culminating in two consecutive Super Bowl victories, and now they're poised to make NFL history with a third consecutive championship. New talent is the last thing on Sabino's mind, so this year's draft will be little more than a formality.Or will it?With less than two weeks until draft day, Sabino receives crushing news---Michael Bell, the team's starting quarterback, has been involved in a season-ending auto accident. Baltimore's two backups cannot possibly fill Bell's cleats, no other available free agents reach Bell's skill level, and the Ravens' volatile owner insists that he wants the third Lombardi Trophy above all else—even if it costs the team down the road. So Sabino is forced to pursue Christian McKinley, the best quarterback prospect to come along in a generation, who will assuredly be taken with the first pick. But that's a task easier said than done, especially when the other general managers will stop at nothing to keep him from winning yet another Super Bowl ring. The San Diego Chargers, who own that pick, are not interested in McKinley but are willing to offer it to the highest bidder. Other teams want it; need it. Now Jon Sabino has to jump into the fray, which the media has dubbed the "McKinley Sweepstakes," and he may find the competition tougher than even he can imagine. It could very well be the make-or-break moment of his career, the fork in the road that leads him and his team either into the history books or back to the tepid hell of mediocrity. And then there's a young man in the Philadelphia projects whose arm is just as good as McKinley's--except that he wants nothing to do with the NFL. He'll have to face an old family secret and bitter legacies if he ever goes pro. But he just might be the salvation Sabino needs.NFL fans will delight in this insider's entry into the general manager's head office, sweat through draft negotiations, strategic alliances, and gamesmanship, and revel in pure NFL glory. The Draft is sports fiction at its best, combining solid insider information and an unmistakable passion for the game with the awesome power of storytelling; a potent mixture that will keep football fans riveted to every page.
Retreat from Moscow: A New History of Germany's Winter Campaign, 1941–1942
by David StahelA gripping and authoritative revisionist account of the German Winter Campaign of 1941–1942Germany’s winter campaign of 1941–1942 is commonly seen as its first defeat. In Retreat from Moscow, a bold, gripping account of one of the seminal moments of World War II, David Stahel argues that instead it was its first strategic success in the East. The Soviet counteroffensive was in fact a Pyrrhic victory. Despite being pushed back from Moscow, the Wehrmacht lost far fewer men, frustrated its enemy’s strategy, and emerged in the spring unbroken and poised to recapture the initiative.Hitler’s strategic plan called for holding important Russian industrial cities, and the German army succeeded. The Soviets as of January 1942 aimed for nothing less than the destruction of Army Group Center, yet not a single German unit was ever destroyed. Lacking the professionalism, training, and experience of the Wehrmacht, the Red Army’s offensive attempting to break German lines in countless head-on assaults led to far more tactical defeats than victories.Using accounts from journals, memoirs, and wartime correspondence, Stahel takes us directly into the Wolf’s Lair to reveal a German command at war with itself as generals on the ground fought to maintain order and save their troops in the face of Hitler’s capricious, increasingly irrational directives. Excerpts from soldiers’ diaries and letters home paint a rich portrait of life and death on the front, where the men of the Ostheer battled frostbite nearly as deadly as Soviet artillery. With this latest installment of his pathbreaking series on the Eastern Front, David Stahel completes a military history of the highest order.
Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate New York's Bravest
by Ginger Adams OtisIn 1919, when Wesley Williams became a New York City firefighter, he stepped into a world that was 100% white and predominantly Irish. As far as this city knew, black men in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) tended horses.Nearly a century later, many things in the FDNY had changed—but not the scarcity of blacks. New York had about 300 black firefighters—roughly 3 percent of the 11,000 New York firefighters in a city of two million African Americans. That made the FDNY a true aberration compared to all the other uniformed departments, like the NYPD. Decades earlier, women and blacks had sued over its hiring practices and won. But the FDNY never took permanent steps to eradicate the inequities, which led to a courtroom show-down between New York City's billionaire Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, and a determined group of black activist firefighters. It was not until 2014 that the city settled the $98 million lawsuit.At the center of this book are stories of courage—about firefighters risking their lives in the line of duty but also risking their livelihood by battling an unjust system. Among them: FDNY Captain Paul Washington, a second generation black firefighter, who spent his multi-decade career fighting to get minorities on the job. He faced an insular culture made up of relatives who never saw their own inclusion as favoritism.Based on author Ginger Adams Otis' years of on the ground reporting, Firefight is an exciting blend of the high-octane energy of firefighting and critical Civil Rights history.
ConZentrate: Get Focused and Pay Attention—When Life Is Filled with Pressures, Distractions, and Multiple Priorities
by Sam HornIf you ever feel: cluttered, scattered, distracted, unfocused, disorganized, preoccupied, overwhelmed, out of control, out of your mind... you can change your life! ConZentrate shows you how to master the art of paying attention, in thirty-five clear, practical, simple ways. Whether it's how to focus on a tedious task when the office is buzzing around you, or how to stop procrastinating, or how to keep your home from being a place of overwhelming clutter-- or ever how to tackle the challenges of A.D.D.-- Sam Horn's user-friendly book will inspire you to learn how to conzentrate, and discover the key to peak performance.
Never Doubt I Love: A Novel Of Georgian England (The\tales Of The Jewelled Men Ser. #5)
by Patricia VeryanOverview"A writer of incomparable magic."-Romantic TimesSHE WAS A SIMPLE COUNTRY MISS-CAUGHT UP IN A WORLD OF DANGER AND ROMANCE!Zoe Grainger arrived in London for a Season under the auspices of her dreadfully vain and disagreeable sponsor, Lady Clara Buttershaw. But even the awful Lady Buttershaw could not spoil Zoe's chances for love, especially when a chance encounter threw her in the way of Lieutenant Peregrine Cranford.And as love embraced Zoe, so did danger. For when Zoe discovered that her brother had become the target of the nefarious League of Jewelled Men, she courageously endeavored to protect him-and the man who had come to claim her heart. . . .Patricia Veryan is a winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times
A Family Reunion: A Novel
by Brenda JacksonEVERY FAMILY HAS ITS SECRETS. SOME ARE JUST TOO HARD TO TELL---BUT TOO HOT TO KEEP. . .It's been fifteen years since the Bennetts were all in one place, at one time, and now at a total blowout of a reunion four special cousins' hidden desires and long-kept secrets will challenge their bond, test their courage, and change their hearts forever. . .Taye is a hair stylist with big ambitions. She's trusted the wrong men in the past and now she determined to land the right one, no matter who stands in her way.Michael is a widowed airline pilot struggling to manage his teenage daughter, but turbulence comes when a new passion enters his life.Alexia was the chubby little girl who has turned into a sexy superstar who seems to have it all. . .except the one thing she's always wanted to make her life complete: a child. Now she has the perfect man in mind to be the father of her child. . .without his knowledge.Rae'jean is the pretty young doctor engaged to be married, but happiness still eludes her because her past is shrouded in mystery. And before she can say "I do" she must come home to finally learn the truth.
Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America
by John J. FialkaSisters is the first major history of the pivotal role played by nuns in the building of American society. Nuns were the first feminists, argues Fialka. They became the nation's first cadre of independent, professional women. Some nursed, some taught, and many created and managed new charitable organizations, including large hospitals and colleges. In the 1800s nuns moved west with the frontier, often starting the first hospitals and schools in immigrant communities. They provided aid and service in the Chicago fire, cared for orphans and prostitutes in the California Gold Rush and brought professional nursing skills to field hospitals run by both armies in the Civil War. Their work was often done in the face of intimidation from such groups as the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan.In the 1900s they built the nation's largest private school and hospital systems and brought the Catholic Church into the civil rights movement. As their numbers began to decline in the 1970s, many sisters were forced to take professional jobs as lawyers, probation workers, managers and hospital executives because their salaries were needed to support older nuns, many of whom lacked a pension system. Currently there are about 75,000 sisters in America, down from 204,000 in 1968. Their median age is sixty-nine. In Sisters, Fialka reveals the strength of the spiritual capital and the unprecedented reach of the caring institutions that religious women created in America.
A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women
by Phyllis CheslerA powerful and revealing memoir about the pioneers of modern-day feminismPhyllis Chesler was a pioneer of Second Wave Feminism. Chesler and the women who came out swinging between 1972-1975 integrated the want ads, brought class action lawsuits on behalf of economic discrimination, opened rape crisis lines and shelters for battered women, held marches and sit-ins for abortion and equal rights, famously took over offices and buildings, and pioneered high profile Speak-outs. They began the first-ever national and international public conversations about birth control and abortion, sexual harassment, violence against women, female orgasm, and a woman’s right to kill in self-defense. Now, Chesler has juicy stories to tell. The feminist movement has changed over the years, but Chesler knew some of its first pioneers, including Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Flo Kennedy, and Andrea Dworkin. These women were fierce forces of nature, smoldering figures of sin and soul, rock stars and action heroes in real life. Some had been viewed as whores, witches, and madwomen, but were changing the world and becoming major players in history. In A Politically Incorrect Feminist, Chesler gets chatty while introducing the reader to some of feminism's major players and world-changers.
Lockdown on Rikers: Shocking Stories of Abuse and Injustice at New York's Notorious Jail
by Mary E. BuserMary Buser began her career at Rikers Island as a social work intern, brimming with ideas and eager to help incarcerated women find a better path. Her reassignment to a men's jail coincided with the dawn of the city's "stop-and-frisk" policy, a flood of unprecedented arrests, and the biggest jailhouse build-up in New York City history.Committed to the possibility of growth for the scarred and tattooed masses who filed into her session booth, Buser was suddenly faced with black eyes, punched-out teeth, and frantic whispers of beatings by officers. Recognizing the greater danger of pointing a finger at one's captors, Buser attempted to help them, while also keeping them as well as herself, safe. Following her promotion to assistant chief, she was transferred to different jails, working in the Mental Health Center, and finally, at Rikers's notorious "jail within jail," the dreaded solitary confinement unit, where she saw horrors she'd never imagined. Finally, it became too much to bear, forcing Buser to flee Rikers and never look back - until now.Lockdown on Rikers shines a light into the deepest and most horrific recesses of the criminal justice system, and shows how far it has really drifted from the ideals we espouse.
Caucasus: Mountain Men and Holy Wars
by Nicholas GriffinWhen the Russians bombed the capital of Muslim Chechnya in 2000, a city with almost a half million people was left with barely a single building intact. Rarely since Dresden and Stalingrad has the world witnessed such destruction.The Caucasus is a jagged land. With Turkey to the west, Iran to the south, and Russia to the north, the Caucasus is trapped between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. If it didn't already possess the highest mountain range in Europe, the political pressure exerted from all sides would have forced the land to crack and rise. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Peter the Great, Hitler, and Stalin all claimed to have conquered the region, leaving it a rich, but bloody history. A borderland between Christian and Muslim worlds, the Caucasus is the front line of a fascinating and formidable clash of cultures: Russia versus the predominantly Muslim mountains. Award-winning writer Nicholas Griffin travels to the mountains of the Caucasus to find the root of today's conflict. Mapping the rise of Islam through myth, history, and politics, this travelogue centers on the story of Imam Shamil, the greatest Muslim warrior of the nineteenth century, who led a forty-year campaign against the invading Russians. Griffin follows Imam's legacy into the war-torn present and finds his namesake, the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, continuing his struggle. Enthralling and fiercely beautiful, Caucasus lifts the lid on a little known but crucially important area of world. With approximately 100 billion barrels of crude oil in the Caspian Sea combined with an Islamic religious interest, it is an unfortunate guarantee that the tragedies that have haunted these jagged mountains in the past will show no sign of abating in the near future.
Shaq Talks Back
by Shaquille O'NealFunny, insightful, opinionated, and unexpectedly moving, Shaq Talks Back presents the true voice of one of the NBA's greatest players, as he looks back on life during his first championship with the Los Angles Lakers.It's rare to discover a candid sports autobiography--even rare when the author is one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. But in Shaq Talks Back, Shaquille O'Neal for the first time talks frankly about his childhood, his life, his rivalries, and his career, culminating in a dramatic, behind-the-scenes account of the Los Angeles Lakers' drive to the NBA Championship.At seven feet one inch tall and 330 pounds, Shaq has always faced outsized expectations, even as a child when he towered over other kids. Shaq Talks Back is the story of how potential became reality--how someone expected to be a champion finally learned to become one. Beginning with his memory of crying on the court after the Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers, Shaq takes us back to his younger days in Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey, then to Georgia and finally to Germany, where he began to harness some of his height and strength.From there, he recounts the remarkable progress of his basketball career, changing from a big but inexperienced teenager to a dominant college and professional player. Shaq talks about:* Playing at Louisiana State University for the unpredictable coach Dale Brown* Signing the biggest rookie contract ever with the Orlando Magic-- and going to the NBA Finals for the first time* What happened next: dissention, disappointment, and his decision to leave for Los Angeles* The dysfunctional Lakers who were never able to win the big games* Dealing with egos as he finds the right chemistry with Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson, and new additions to the team* Rivalries with Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and others* The trouble with free throws...* Inside the Lakers' comeback from the brink against Portland and the drive to the 2000 NBA championship
Muck: A Novel
by Dror Burstein“Those who lament that the novel has lost its prophecy should pay heed and cover-price: Muck is the future, both of Jerusalem and of literature. God is showing some rare good taste, by choosing to speak to us through Dror Burstein.” —Joshua Cohen, author of Moving Kings and Book of NumbersIn a Jerusalem both ancient and modern, where the First Temple squats over the populace like a Trump casino, where the streets are literally crawling with prophets and heathen helicopters buzz over Old Testament sovereigns, two young poets are about to have their lives turned upside down. Struggling Jeremiah is worried that he might be wasting his time trying to be a writer; the great critic Broch just beat him over the head with his own computer keyboard. Mattaniah, on the other hand, is a real up-and-comer—but he has a secret he wouldn’t want anyone in the literary world to know: his late father was king of Judah.Jeremiah begins to despair, and in that despair has a vision: that Jerusalem is doomed, and that Mattaniah will not only be forced to ascend to the throne but will thereafter witness his people slaughtered and exiled. But what does it mean to tell a friend and rival that his future is bleak? What sort of grudges and biases turn true vision into false prophecy? Can the very act of speaking a prediction aloud make it come true? And, if so, does that make you a seer, or just a schmuck?Dramatizing the eternal dispute between poetry and power, between faith and practicality, between haves and have-nots, Dror Burstein’s Muck is a brilliant and subversive modern-dress retelling of the book of Jeremiah: a comedy with apocalyptic stakes by a star of Israeli fiction.
Ghosts: A Natural History: 500 Years of Seaching for Proof
by Roger ClarkeA New York Times Book Review Editor's ChoiceA comprehensive, authoritative and readable history of the evolution of the ghost in the west, examining the behavior of the subject in its preferred environment: the stories we tell each other."Roger Clarke tells this [the story that inspired Henry James' The Turn of the Screw] and many other gloriously weird stories with real verve, and also a kind of narrative authority that tends to constrain the skeptical voice within... [An] erudite and richly entertaining book." —New York Times Book ReviewNo matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James's classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.
So As I Was Saying . . .: My Somewhat Eventful Life
by Frank Mankiewicz Joel Swerdlow“I first met Robert Kennedy because I spoke Spanish. I spoke Spanish because the U.S. Army taught me that before sending me to France, Belgium, and Germany to fight Hitler’s Army. This makes complete sense if you are familiar with military bureaucracy.”Such is the trademark wit of Frank Mankiewicz. With his dry sense of humor and self-deprecating humility—despite his many accomplishments—Frank’s voice speaks from the pages of So as I was Saying... in a way that is both conversational and profound. Before he died in 2014 Frank’s fascinating life took him from Beverly Hills to the battlefields of Europe; from the halls of power in Washington D.C. to the far corners of the world. A lifelong student of humanity and mentor to many, including presidents, Frank was a loving father, husband, and friend, and his legacy is will endure for generations.Born into Hollywood royalty but determined to make his own way, Frank served in World War Two, wrote speeches for Robert Kennedy, ran a presidential campaign, carried messages to Fidel Castro, served as president of National Public Radio (helping create Morning Edition), and as regional director for the Peace Corps. Naturally such a long and interesting life gave rise to a myriad of opinions, and Frank was not afraid to share them. In this intriguing, insightful, and often humorous memoir, Frank recalls his favorite memories while sharing his opinions on everything from Zionism to smartphones. Imbued with the personality of one of the twentieth century’s most gifted raconteurs, So As I Was Saying... invokes nostalgia for the past even as it gives hope for the future.
Gamelife: A Memoir
by Michael W. CluneIn telling the story of his youth through seven computer games, critically acclaimed author Michael W. Clune (White Out) captures the part of childhood we live alone. You have been awakened.Floppy disk inserted, computer turned on, a whirring, and then this sentence, followed by a blinking cursor. So begins Suspended, the first computer game to obsess seven-year-old Michael, to worm into his head and change his sense of reality. Thirty years later he will write: "Computer games have taught me the things you can't learn from people."Gamelife is the memoir of a childhood transformed by technology. Afternoons spent gazing at pixelated maps and mazes train Michael's eyes for the uncanny side of 1980s suburban Illinois. A game about pirates yields clues to the drama of cafeteria politics and locker-room hazing. And in the year of his parents' divorce, a spaceflight simulator opens a hole in reality.
Make Him Look Good: A Novel
by Alisa Valdes-RodriguezThe "him" in Make Him Look Good is Ricky Biscayne, sexy Latin singing sensation who has taken the pop world by storm. But it takes more than swiveling hips and dreamy eyes to get to the top of the charts. The women who orbit Ricky are: -- Milan, Ricky's new publicist, and her sister Geneva whose Club G promises to have Miami's hottest opening ever -- Jill Sanchez, a media-manic Latina star who has crossed over from CDs to perfume, clothes and movies -- Jasminka, Ricky's gorgeous Croatian model wife -- Irene, a firefighter whose high school romance with Ricky was the last love in her life, eking out an existence for herself and her daughter Sophia, who is beginning to suspect that she and Ricky Biscayne look a little too much alikeWith several satisfying romances set against Miami's music, club and modeling scenes, Make Him Look Goodis irresistible fiction from one of America's most original voices.
The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (Library Of America Edmund Wilson Edition Ser.)
by Edmund WilsonThe Wound and the Bow contains seven essays by "The greatest literary critic of the twentieth century.” -New York magazine.Combining biographical and critical sketches, Edmund Wilson writes brilliantly on a wide-range of authors including Dickens, Kipling, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce, Jacques Casanova, and Sophocles. "In the best tradition of literary criticism… combines exact information with shrewd and searching penetration into the personal life of the artist."-The New York Times
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson
by Brian Doyle"An affectionate homage...a loving reconstruction of an era of storytelling now lost." —The New York Times"[A] triumph...If a writer is going to put on Stevenson’s voice, he’d better, as the poets say, 'bring it.' Reader, Doyle has brought it...Adventures is a tonic for our bitter times." —Washington PostThe young Robert Louis Stevenson, living in a boarding house in San Francisco in the 19th century while waiting for his beloved’s divorce from her feckless husband, dreamed of writing a soaring novel about his landlady’s adventurous and globe-trotting husband—but he never got around to it. And very soon thereafter he was married, headed home to Scotland, and on his way to becoming the most famous novelist in the world, after writing such classics as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped.But now Brian Doyle brings Stevenson’s untold tale to life, braiding the adventures of seaman John Carson with those of a young Stevenson, wandering the streets of San Francisco, gathering material for his fiction, and yearning for his beloved across the bay. An adventure tale, an elegy to one of the greatest writers of our language, a time-traveling plunge into The City by the Bay during its own energetic youth, The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World is entertaining, poignant, and sensual.
The Wind Off the Sea: A Novel of the Women Who Prevailed After World War II
by Charlotte BinghamIt is 1947, the worst winter in England since records began, and even the sea is frozen. For the women living in the little fishing port of Bexham, the chronic lack of everything from fuel to food has left them reeling. When Waldo Astley, a handsome young American, drives through thick Sussex snow into the village in his large Buick, he finds Bexham filled not only with grumbling residents, but with frustrated wives and mothers, forced back behind their stoves after celebrating the victory for which they fought so hard on the home front.But Waldo is no ordinary character, and while he has come to Bexham on a personal mission, his effect on all the residents is truly electrifying. For Judy, whose marriage to Walter has been badly affected by long years of separation; for Rusty, whose miscarriage has been mind-shattering; for Mathilda, whose single motherhood has put her eligibility in jeopardy; and for Meggie, still not recovered from her ordeal as a secret agent. For all these women, Waldo Astley is not just a breath of fresh air--but the wind off the sea.
Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal
by Ben Sasse* AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *From the New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing American Adult, an intimate and urgent assessment of the existential crisis facing our nation.Something is wrong. We all know it.American life expectancy is declining for a third straight year. Birth rates are dropping. Nearly half of us think the other political party isn’t just wrong; they’re evil. We’re the richest country in history, but we’ve never been more pessimistic. What’s causing the despair?In Them, bestselling author and U.S. senator Ben Sasse argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, our crisis isn’t really about politics. It’s that we’re so lonely we can’t see straight—and it bubbles out as anger. Local communities are collapsing. Across the nation, little leagues are disappearing, Rotary clubs are dwindling, and in all likelihood, we don’t know the neighbor two doors down. Work isn’t what we’d hoped: less certainty, few lifelong coworkers, shallow purpose. Stable families and enduring friendships—life’s fundamental pillars—are in statistical freefall. As traditional tribes of place evaporate, we rally against common enemies so we can feel part of a team. No institutions command widespread public trust, enabling foreign intelligence agencies to use technology to pick the scabs on our toxic divisions. We’re in danger of half of us believing different facts than the other half, and the digital revolution throws gas on the fire. There’s a path forward—but reversing our decline requires something radical: a rediscovery of real places and human-to-human relationships. Even as technology nudges us to become rootless, Sasse shows how only a recovery of rootedness can heal our lonely souls. America wants you to be happy, but more urgently, America needs you to love your neighbor and connect with your community. Fixing what's wrong with the country depends on it.
Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11
by David FriendThe terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the most universally observed news event in human history. That the event was so visual is owing to the people who, facing disaster, took photographs of it: imperiled office workers, horrified tourists, professional photographers risking their lives. Conceived by Osama bin Laden as the toppling of an image of America right before the world's eyes, the tragedy swiftly came to be defined by photography, as families posted snapshots of their loved ones, police sought terrorists' faces on security-camera videotapes, and officials recorded the devastation and identified the dead.In Watching the World Change, David Friend tells the stories behind fifty of the images that altered our sense of our world forever—from the happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the first tower was struck to the scene of three firemen raising the Stars and Stripes at the site. He tells unforgettable stories of photographers and rescuers, victims and survivors. He shows how advances in television, digital photography, and the Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion people saw the terrible events as they happened. He explores the controversy about whether images of 9/11 are redemptive or exploitative; and he shows how photographs help us to witness, to grieve, and finally to understand the unimaginable.
Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy
by Colin MacCabeAn intimate portrait of the turmoil that spawned the New Wave in French Cinema, and the story of its greatest director, Jean-Luc Godard. Godard's early films revolutionized the language of cinema. Hugely prolific in his first decade--Breathless, Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Made in USA are just a handful of the seminal works he directed--Godard introduced filmgoers to the generation of stars associated with the trumpeted sexuality of postwar movies and culture: Brigitte Bardot, Jean Seberg, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Anna Karina. As the sixties wore on, however, Godard's life was transformed. The Hollywood he had idolized began to disgust him, and in the midst of the socialist ferment in France his second wife introduced him to the activist student left. From 1968 to 1972, Europe's greatest director worked in the service of Maoist politics, and continued thereafter to experiment on the far peripheries of the medium he had transformed. His extraordinary later works are little seen or appreciated, yet he remains one of Europe's most influential artists.Drawing on his own working experience with Godard and his coterie, Colin MacCabe, in this first biography of the director, has written a thrilling account of the French cinema's transformation in the hands of Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol--critics who toppled the old aesthetics by becoming, legendarily, directors themselves--and Godard's determination to make cinema the greatest of the arts.
Border Crossing: A Novel
by Pat BarkerSet in the north of England, Pat Barker's Border Crossing, the basis for the major motion picture The Drowning, portrays a child psychiatrist who rescues a man from drowning one day while walking on a beach in Northumberland. Out walking with his wife, Lauren, beside the river Tyne, Tom Seymour instinctively risks his life to save a young man who they happen to notice just before he jumps into the icy current. Tom's spontaneous act saves the life of someone whose past, as well as his future, he feels a sense of responsibility towards.Recently released from prison, and living under an assumed name, Danny Miller was tried for murder as a ten-year-old on the basis of Tom's testimony, and assessment of him as a psychologist and an expert witness. When Danny asks Tom to help him sort out his life—beginning with his past—Tom is drawn into a lonely, soul-searching reinvestigation of the child murderer's case.
Little Boy Blue: A Novel
by Edward BunkerRaised within the confines of a system that has done nothing but provide him with pain, Alex Hamilton's frustration and anger are completely natural--and inherently dangerous.Since his parents split up, Alex has been constantly running from foster homes and institutions, yearning to be with his father, a broken man who cannot give his son the home he desperately needs. The only constant in Alex's life is no-good, criminally-minded peers, who are all too ready to plant illegal ideas in an intelligent mind. Bunker writes, "His unique potential would develop into unique destructiveness."