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The Courage Consort
by Michel FaberThree novellas filled with &“gallows humor and a sense of real peril,&” by the acclaimed author of The Book of Strange New Things (The New York Times). The bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White &“draws his characters with assured comic efficiency&” (The Guardian), using &“evocative language&” to offer up &“intriguing glimpses of unfamiliar worlds&” (Los Angeles Times), in these acclaimed novellas. In &“The Courage Consort,&” an a cappella vocal ensemble is sequestered in a Belgian château to rehearse a monstrously complicated new piece, but competing artistic temperaments and sexual needs create as much discordance as the avant-garde music. In &“The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps,&” a lonely woman joins an archaeological dig at Whitby Abbey and unearths a mystery involving a long-hidden murder. And in &“The Fahrenheit Twins,&” strange children, identical in all but gender, are left alone at the icy zenith of the world by their anthropologist parents to create their own ritual civilization. From a wildly inventive author whose novel The Book of Strange New Things was named one of 2014&’s best reads by everyone from the New Yorker to io9, The Courage Consort is an eclectic collection of well-told tales, in which Michel Faber &“marches on, establishing himself as one of the most versatile fiction writers working today&” (Kirkus Reviews). &“Readers will again be immersed in the intense worlds he creates.&” —Publishers Weekly
Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy (Great Episodes)
by Seymour ReitSeymour Reit, the creator of Casper the friendly ghost, blends fact with fiction in this captivating tale about one woman who dared to go behind enemy lines as a spy for the Union Army. Canadian-born Emma Edmonds loved the thrill of adventure and chasing freedom, so in 1861 when the Civil War began, she enlisted in the Union Army. With cropped hair and men&’s clothing, Emma transformed herself into a peddler, slave, bookkeeper and more, seamlessly gathering information and safely escaping each time. This fictionalized biography about the daring exploits of a cunning master of disguise, risking discovery and death for the sake of freedom, will inspire readers for generations to come.
Baudolino: A Novel (Booket/columna Ser. #Vol. 28)
by Umberto EcoA self-confessed liar spins a fascinating tale of his life in this &“comic and brilliantly baffling&” historical novel by the author of The Name of the Rose (The Guardian, UK). Constantinople, 1204. The Byzantine capital is under siege by the knights of the Fourth Crusade. Amid the carnage and confusion, one Baudolino saves a historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors—and proceeds to regale him with the fantastical story of his life. Born a simple peasant in northern Italy, Baudolino has two major gifts: a talent for learning languages and a skill in telling lies. As a boy he meets a foreign commander who adopts Baudolino and sends him to the university in Paris, where he makes a number of adventurous friends. Spurred on by myths and their own reveries, they decide to go in search of the legendary priest-king Prester John who is said to rule over a vast kingdom in the East. The kingdom they seek is a phantasmagorical land of strange creatures with eyes on their shoulders and mouths on their stomachs; of eunuchs, unicorns, and lovely maidens. With dazzling digressions, outrageous tricks, extraordinary feeling, and vicarious reflections on our postmodern age, Baudolino is Eco the storyteller at his brilliant best.
The Underground Railroad
by Raymond BialBy ones, twos, and threes, in the years before the Civil War thousands of enslaved people slipped through the night on their way to freedom, riding the Underground Railroad. Hidden and hunted, the escape of southern slaves to the North remains a compelling event in American history. Within the pages of this book are documented, in prose and elegantly articulate photographs, examples of "stations" on the Railroad, along with images of the routes, lives, and hardships of both the "passengers" and "conductors."
The Hidden Folk: Stories of Fairies, Dwarves, Selkies, and Other Secret Beings
by Lise Lunge-LarsenSelkies, fairies, gnomes, hill folk, river sprites—do you believe in them? Perhaps among the flowers, beside a mountain, or near deep waters you’ve caught a glimpse, once or twice, of what you thought might be the silvery shadow of a dwarf, or a hint of a fairy’s wing, or the tail of the water horse. Or was it just the odd light of dusk or dawn playing tricks? As Lise Lunge-Larsen’s magical, timeless stories reveal and Beth Krommes’s enchanting scratchboard illustrations capture, the hidden folk are there, all right: you just have to know where—and how—to look.
Prairie Spring: A Journey Into the Heart of a Season
by Pete DunneA grasslands nature trek that &“weaves together spiritual insight, plant biology, geology lessons and American history—and a plethora of bird sightings&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). A nature writer and avid birder offers a portrait of a season in the heartland of North America as he and his wife travel through the country and share stories of all that they encounter: people putting their lives back in place after a tornado, volunteers giving their time to conservation efforts, and the drive of all species to move their genes to the next generation, which manifests itself so abundantly in spring. &“Their journey begins in New Jersey and continues to Nebraska, their arrival timed to witness the annual migration of half a million northbound sandhill cranes. Next come Colorado and a primer on how homesteading sodbusters transformed an ocean of vibrant prairie grasses into a devastating dustbowl; New Mexico and the Sixth Annual High Plains Lesser Prairie-Chicken Festival; back through Colorado and the Pawnee National Grasslands for a glimpse of the threatened prairie dog, once (along with bison) among the environmental engineers of the 19th century Western plains; and into South Dakota, home to between 800 and 1,400 free-ranging bison. Dunne&’s melodic prose and rhapsodic connection with the natural world brilliantly entice an estranged audience to explore a . . . now alien environment.&” —Publishers Weekly, starred review &“Although a theme of humanity&’s effects on the prairie runs as an undercurrent throughout the narrative, it never overwhelms the sense of awe and wonder at the natural beauty of the grasslands and their inhabitants.&” —Booklist
The Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica
by David G. CampbellThe acclaimed author and biologist shares “a superb personal account [of Antarctica] . . . a remarkable evocation of a land at the bottom of the world” (Boston Globe).During the 1980s, biologist David Campbell spent three summers in Antarctica, researching its surprisingly plentiful wildlife. In The Crystal Desert, he combines travelogue, nature writing and science history to tell the story of life's tenacity on the coldest of Earth's continents. Between scuba expeditions in Admiralty Bay, Campbell remembers the explorers who discovered Antarctica, the whalers and sealers who despoiled it, and the scientists who laid the groundwork to decipher its mysteries. Chronicling the desperately short summers in beautiful, lucid prose, he presents a fascinating portrait of the evolution of life in Antarctica and of the continent itself.Winner of the John Burroughs Medal for Natural History Writing and a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship
My First Summer in the Sierra (Mint Editions (the Natural World) Ser.)
by John MuirFrom the photographer who brought Thoreau's Walden and Cape Cod to life comes a new work combining classic literature with brand-new photography. This time, Scot Miller takes on the seminal work of John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra. The book details Muir's first extended trip to the Sierra Nevada in what is now Yosemite National Park, a landscape that entranced him immediately and had a profound effect on his life. The towering waterfalls, natural rock formations, and abundant plant and animal life helped Muir develop his views of the natural world, views that would eventually lead him to push for the creation of the national parks. My First Summer in the Sierra is illustrated with Miller's stunning photographs, showcasing the dramatic landscape of the High Sierra plus John Muir's illustrations from the original edition and several previously unpublished illustrations from his 1911 manuscript. The publication of My First Summer in the Sierra inspired many to journey there, and this newly illustrated edition will surely inspire many more. This book is being published in collaboration with Yosemite Conservancy and, for each copy sold, Scot Miller is making a donation to Yosemite Conservancy. My First Summer in the Sierra won the National Outdoor Book Award.
Friendship: An Expose
by Joseph EpsteinThe amusing and erudite anatomy of modern friendship, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Snobbery. Is it possible to have too many friends? Is your spouse supposed to be your best friend? How far should you go to help a friend in need? And how do you end a friendship that has run its course? In a &“smart, delightfully literate, and sophisticated&” anatomy of friendship in all its contemporary guises, Joseph Epstein uncovers the rich and surprising truths about our favored companions (Los Angeles Times). Friendship illuminates those complex, wonderful relationships without which we&’d all be lost. &“Reading [Epstein] is like spending an evening being flatteringly entertained by the most interesting guy at the party.&” —The Seattle Times &“A brilliant and outspoken commentator . . . Epstein&’s graceful style and irrepressible wit provide unalloyed pleasure.&” —Chicago Tribune &“Brisk and delightful.&” —The Wall Street Journal
Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West
by Deanne Stillman“A fascinating narrative with all the grace and power embodied in the wild horses that once populated the Western range . . . [A] magnificently told saga.” —Albuquerque JournalA Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction Book of the YearMustang is the sweeping story of the wild horse in the culture, history, and popular imagination of the American West. It follows the wild horse across time, from its evolutionary origins on this continent to its return with the conquistadors, its bloody battles on the old frontier, its iconic status in Buffalo Bill shows and early westerns, and its plight today as it makes its last stand on the vanishing range. With the Bureau of Land Management proposing to euthanize thousands of horses and ever-encroaching development threatening the land, the mustang’s position has never been more perilous. But as Stillman reveals, the horses are still running wild despite all the obstacles, with spirit unbroken.Hailed by critics nationwide, Mustang is “brisk, smart, thorough, and surprising” (Atlantic Monthly).“Like the best nonfiction writers of our time (Jon Krakauer and Bruce Chatwin come to mind), Stillman’s prose is inviting, her voice authoritative and her vision imaginative and impressively broad.” —Los Angeles Times“Powerful . . . Stillman’s talent as a writer makes this impossible [to stop reading], to the mustang’s benefit.” —Orion“A circumspect writer passionate about her purpose can produce a significant gift for readers. Stillman’s wonderful chronicle of America’s mustangs is an excellent example.” —The Seattle Times
Wifeshopping: Stories
by Steven WingateWifeshopping centers on the ultimate human quest: the search for companionship, love, and understanding. These captivating stories feature American men, love-starved and striving, who try and often fail to connect with the women they imagine could be their wives. Some of the women are fiancées, some are new girlfriends, some are strangers who cross the men’s paths for only a few hours or moments. In “Beaching It,” an artist traveling on the summer circuit begins an affair with a rich, married local. In “Me and Paul,” a lonely traveler adopts an alter ego to help him impress a single mother. In “Bill,” a trip to a flea market highlights the essential differences between a man and his fiancée. Throughout this thoroughly entertaining read, Wingate’s sympathetic characterizations reveal both the hopefulness and the heartache behind our earnest but sometimes misguided attempts at intimacy.
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
by Richard Dawkins Yan WongThe renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work in this revised edition that offers a comprehensive look at evolution.Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more. The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.
The Cheater's Guide To Baseball
by Derek ZumstegEver see Mike Piazza block the plate? Or Derek Jeter slide hard into second? Illegal. But it happens every game. Baseball&’s rules, it seems, were made to be broken. And they are, by the players, the front office, and even sometimes the fans. Like it or not, cheating has been an integral part of America&’s favorite pastime since its inception. The Cheater&’s Guide to Baseball will show you how cheating is really done. In this lively tour through baseball&’s underhanded history, readers will learn how to cork a bat, steal signs, hurl a spitball, throw a World Series, and win at any cost! They&’ll also see the dirty little secrets of the game&’s greatest manipulators: John McGraw and Ty Cobb; Billy Martin and Gaylord Perry; Graig Nettles and Sammy Sosa; and, yes, even Barry Bonds. They&’ll find out how the Cleveland Indians doctored their basepaths to give new meaning to the term home field advantage. They&’ll delight in a hilarious examination of the Black Sox scandal, baseball&’s original sin. And, in the end, they&’ll come to understand that cheating is as much a part of baseball as pine tar and pinch hitters. And it&’s here to stay.
The Wind Done Gone: A Novel
by Alice RandallIn this daring and provocative literary parody which has captured the interest and imagination of a nation, Alice Randall explodes the world created in GONE WITH THE WIND, a work that more than any other has defined our image of the antebellum South. Taking sharp aim at the romanticized, whitewashed mythology perpetrated by this southern classic, Randall has ingeniously conceived a multilayered, emotionally complex tale of her own - that of Cynara, the mulatto half-sister, who, beautiful and brown and born into slavery, manages to break away from the damaging world of the Old South to emerge into full life as a daughter, a lover, a mother, a victor. THE WIND DONE GONE is a passionate love story, a wrenching portrait of a tangled mother-daughter relationship, and a book that "celebrates a people's emancipation not only from bondage but also from history and myth, custom and stereotype" (San Antonio Express-News).
River-Horse: A Voyage Across America (Core Ser.)
by William Least Heat-MoonNew York Times bestseller: &“A coast-to-coast journey by way of great rivers, conducted by a contemporary master of travel writing&” (Kirkus Reviews). In this memoir brimming with history, humor, and wisdom, the author of Blue Highways and PrairyErth &“voyages across the country, from Atlantic to Pacific, almost entirely by its rivers, lakes and canals in a small outboard-powered boat&” (San Francisco Chronicle). Setting off from New York Harbor aboard the boat he named Nikawa (&“river horse&” in Osage), in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon, William Least Heat-Moon and his companion, Pilotis, struggle to cover some five thousand watery miles—more than any other cross-country river traveler has ever managed—often following in the wakes of our most famous explorers, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark. En route, the voyagers confront massive floods, submerged rocks, dangerous weather, and their own doubts about whether they can complete the trip. But the hard days yield incomparable pleasures: strangers generous with help and eccentric tales, landscapes unchanged since Sacagawea saw them, riverscapes flowing with a lively past, and the growing belief that efforts to protect our lands and waters are beginning to pay off. &“Fizzes with intelligence and high spirits.&” —Outside &“Propels the reader with historical vignettes, ecological and geological detail, and often hilarious encounters with local eccentrics.&” —Time
World's End (Dormia)
by Jake Halpern Peter KujawinskiEver since returning from Dormia, Alfonso has enjoyed sleeping in a bed like anormal person. No more waking up at the top of a tree or the edge of a cliff. In fact,no sleepwalking at all. But then, while visiting France on a class trip, Alfonso feels that strange andfamiliar pull of sleep. Upon waking, he finds himself in the belly of a ship headedto Egypt. In his backpack are a few old books and a vial of medicine he stole whileasleep. Something is calling Alfonso back to Dormia. Perhaps it’s the Founding Tree? Orperhaps it's the man he sees in his dreams—the one who looks just like his deceasedfather? Whatever it is, Alfonso is powerless to resist.Storytellers Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski take Alfonso on another fantasticalquest to Dormia—and beyond—to a vast underground world that holds the answerto a terrifying message: Let me tell you of a dark shadow tree and the world's end.
A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta: A Novel
by Paul TherouxA travel writer is drawn into a strange criminal case, and an even stranger romantic affair, in a novel that brings India &“brilliantly, blazingly to life&” (The Washington Post). When Jerry Delfont, an aimless, blocked travel writer, receives a letter from an American philanthropist, Mrs. Merrill Unger, he is intrigued. She informs him about a scandal, involving an Indian friend of her son&’s. Who is the dead boy, found on the floor of a cheap hotel room? How and why did he die? And what is Jerry to make of a patch of carpet, and a package containing a human hand? Jerry is swiftly captivated by the beautiful, mysterious Mrs. Unger—and revived by her tantric massages—but the circumstances surrounding the dead boy cause him increasingly to doubt the woman&’s motives and the exact nature of her philanthropy. Without much to go on, Jerry pursues answers from the teeming streets of Calcutta to Uttar Pradesh. It is a dark and twisted trail of obsession and need. From the author of The Great Railway Bazaar, A Dead Hand is offers &“an abundance of richly drawn characters . . . Theroux has used his travel writer&’s eye and ear and his novelist&’s imagination to craft a tense, disturbing, funny and horrifying book around all of them&” (San Francisco Chronicle). &“The real pleasure is Theroux&’s talent for rendering place and his irreverent comments on everything from the British royals to pop culture, aging, and yes, the venerable Mother Teresa.&” —Publishers Weekly
My Abandonment: A Novel
by Peter RockNOW A MAJOR FILM, LEAVE NO TRACE. Inspired by a true story, a riveting and unsettling novel about a girl and her father who live off the grid, in the shadows at the edge of civilization.Thirteen-year-old Caroline and her father live in Forest Park, an enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. They inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, wash in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water’s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts. Once a week they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a backcountry jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight. Told through the startlingly sincere voice of its young narrator, My Abandonment is a riveting journey into life at the margins and a mesmerizing tale of survival and hope.
Paper Daughter
by Jeanette IngoldMaggie Chen's journalist father has fired her imagination with the thrill of the newsroom, and when her father is killed, she is determined to keep his dreams alive by interning at the newspaper.While assisting on her first story, Maggie learns that her father is suspected of illegal activity, and knows she must clear his name. Drawn to Seattle&’s Chinatown, she discovers things that are far from what she expected: secrets, lies, and a connection to the Chinese Exclusion Era. Using all of her newspaper instincts and resources, Maggie is forced to confront her ethnicity—and a family she never knew.
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side
by Beth FantaskeyThe undead can really screw up your senior year . . . Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction
Bayshore Summer: Finding Eden in a Most Unlikely Place
by Pete DunneBypassed by time and &“Joisey&” Shore–bound vacationers, the marshes and forests of the Bayshore constitute one of North America&’s last great undiscovered wild places. Sixty million people live within a tank of gas of this environmentally rich and diverse place, yet most miss out on the region&’s amazing spectacles. Bayshore Summer is a bridge that links the rest of the world to this timeless land. Pete Dunne acts as ambassador and tour guide, following Bayshore residents as they haul crab traps, bale salt hay, stake out deer poachers, and pick tomatoes. He examines and appreciates this fertile land, how we live off it and how all of us connect with it. From the shorebirds that converge by the thousands to gorge themselves on crab eggs to the delicious fresh produce that earned the Garden State its nickname, from the line-dropping expectancy of party boat fishing to the waterman who lives on a first-name basis with the birds around his boat, Bayshore Summer is at once an expansive and intimate portrait of a special place, a secret Eden, and a glimpse into a world as rich as summer and enduring as a whispered promise.
The Italian Slow Cooker: 125 Easy Recipes for the Electric Slow Cooker
by Michele ScicoloneIn The Italian Slow Cooker, America's favorite cooking method, the slow cooker, is applied to America's most popular cuisine, by an award-winning authority on Italy.Finally a book that combines the fresh, exuberant flavors of great Italian food with the ease and comfort of a slow cooker. Michele Scicolone, a bestselling author and an authority on Italian cooking, shows how good ingredients and simple techniques can lift the usual “crockpot” fare into the dimension of fine food. Pasta with Meat and Mushroom Ragu, Osso Buco with Red Wine, Chicken with Peppers and Mushrooms: These are dishes that even the most discriminating cook can proudly serve to company, yet all are so carefree that anyone with just five or ten minutes of prep time can make them on a weekday and return to perfection.Simmered in the slow cooker, soups, stews, beans, grains, pasta sauces, and fish are as healthy as they are delicious. Polenta and risotto, “stir-crazy” dishes that ordinarily need careful timing, are effortless. Meat loaves come out perfectly moist, tough cuts of meat turn succulent, and cheesecakes emerge flawless.
The Common Man: Poems
by Maurice ManningThe Common Man, Maurice Manning’s fourth collection, is a series of ballad-like narratives, set down in loose, unrhymed iambic tetrameter, that honors the strange beauty of the Kentucky mountain country he knew as a child, as well as the idiosyncratic adventures and personalities of the oldtimers who were his neighbors, friends, and family. Playing off the book’s title, Manning demonstrates that no one is common or simple. Instead, he creates a detailed, complex, and poignant portrait—by turns serious and hilarious, philosophical and speculative, but ultimately tragic—of a fast-disappearing aspect of American culture. The Common Man’s accessibility and its enthusiastic and sincere charms make it the perfect antidote to the glib ironies that characterize much contemporary American verse. It will also help to strengthen Manning’s reputation as one of his generation’s most important and original voices.
Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light
by Jane BroxThis &“superb history&” of artificial light traces the evolution of society—&“invariably fascinating and often original . . . [it] amply lives up to its title&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In Brilliant, Jane Brox explores humankind&’s ever-changing relationship to artificial light, from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. More than a survey of technological development, this sweeping history reveals how artificial light changed our world, and how those social and cultural changes in turn led to the pursuit of more ways of spreading, maintaining, and controlling light. Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn&’t—through the centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She identifies the pursuit of whale oil as the first time the need for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world&’s ecosystems. Edison&’s bulbs produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox&’s informative portrait of our current grid system shows, the cost is ever with us. Brilliant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light
What Is Left The Daughter: A Novel
by Howard NormanHoward Norman, widely regarded as one of this country’s finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story. Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda. Setting in motion the novel’s chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat’s sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman’s uncannily layered story. Wyatt’s account of the astonishing—not least to him— events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It’s a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one. An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.