Nonfiction
#iBetOnMe: The Power of Discipline is a seasonal devotional that presents five "seasons" (not chapters) of unknown motivational quotes and passages that define our thoughts, actions and reactions to actively climbing yet another mountain of success. These quotes inspire the reader, as the passages stimulate their mind and interests, transitioning from hoarding thoughts to putting pen to paper. Discipline is an interactive book that expresses the importance of organization, actively engaging with what the reader is reading and giving ample space to define why remaining disciplined is so important to achieving our definition of success. This book was written to trigger our thoughts, ask ourselves questions and most importantly, answer those very questions, because we are in control of our ascend. The power of Discipline means a lot to me, it's the noun I leaned on heavily when not only climbing my first mountain, but it was my sanity to climb down, search out another mountain and climb again. Now at the top of yet another success this interactive body of work is part two that can serve as a journal or inspiration to creative our very own book, I did, why can't you?
Author: I'm Coach Donte' Davis, college head men's basketball coach who created a brand predicated towards self-motivation. My drive and motivation to achieve a manifestation transformed into a lifestyle and career. My #iBetOnMe brand slowly metastasized from a simple thought to my full-fledged confidence, taking over my mentality and reactions towards my definition of success. The game of basketball has always been in my life, after successfully playing college basketball I knew coaching the game was my calling. I didn't play at the highest level, yet I knew I was capable of coaching at the division one level. My goal of accomplishing that manifestation became an obsession, that's when #iBetOnMe was created. I decided to combine the aspects of my successful college playing career along with what it took to graduate college to fuel the direction of achieving the goal at hand. Coaching at the highest level would require more in-depth motivation, thought process and strategic discipline. Hence the titles of my books; (The Power of Self-Motivation & The Power of Discipline). After achieving that goal, I knew there was more to accomplish, being the head coach of a college program was now on my radar. Sitting at the top of that mountain of success, I have one more mountain to climb. These books are a microcosm of what it takes to not only achieve our definition of success, but what it takes to learn on the way up, with our sights set on exceeding all expectations.
The word "manifest" is the underlying purpose of not just my book, but my blog, website, and my personal journey. What I manifested drove me to sacrifice more than I'd ever thought. It forced me to work harder than I knew and it tightened my focus. It developed into an obsession. Its why we are talking today. So "Hello" to everyone who is taking the time to read my thoughts, navigate through my journey, all while sharing every inch of your own progress with me. This book is entirely interactive. #iBetOnMe is for everyone who's ever second-guessed their ability to reach their definition of success. Every quote identifies a stage of progression. Every passage defines my thoughts, ideas, struggles, and successes. The empty lines labeled "thoughts" are for you. As you read, jot down your thoughts and past failures ... and where you're heading. This will help you to successfully navigate through your journey. Welcome to the beginning of your progression! Take advantage of your thoughts. Question the path you're taking and enjoy every moment of having the control of reaching a goal you've manifested.
"If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: 'What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?'"--BookPage (top pick)
London: Hanover Gallery, 1971. Accordion-bound paperback artist's book; gouache drawings by William Scott reproduced as part of the 1970-1970 series A Girl Surveyed exhibited at the Hanover Gallery, March-April 1971; fifty copies were numbered and signed - this copy is not numbered or signed. Light smudges on covers; spine creased; interior clean and bright. G
A hate crime strikes the house of Max, Brian, and their newly adopted son Donte. Clinging to his idealism, Max helps his family navigate this difficult time with grit, faith, and acceptance. This novel was written by Malcolm Varner of Grove City, Ohio who is a social worker and mental health advocate. He received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin and his MSSA from Case Western Reserve University.
Born in rural Kentucky, Mickey Hess grew up listening to the militant rap of Public Enemy while living in a place where the state song still included the word "darkies." Listening to hip-hop made Hess think about what it meant to be white, while the environment in small-town Kentucky encouraged him to avoid or even mock such self-examination.
With America's history of cultural appropriation, we've come to mistrust white people who participate deeply in black culture, but backing away from black culture is too easy a solution. As a white professor with a longstanding commitment to teaching hip-hop music and culture, Hess argues that white people have a responsibility to educate themselves by listening to black voices and then teach other whites to face the ways they benefit from racial injustices.
In our fraught moment, A Guest in the House of Hip Hop offers a point of entry for readers committed to racial justice, but uncertain about white people's role in relation to black culture.
An inspiring, up-close portrait of tending to a honeybee hive--a year of living dangerously--watching and capturing the wondrous, complex universe of honeybees and learning an altogether different way of being in the world.
As strange, beautiful, and unexpected, as precise and exquisite in its movings as bees in a hive. I loved it.--Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings begins as the author is entering her thirties and feeling disconnected in her life. Uneasy about her future and struggling to settle into her new house in Oxford with its own small garden, she is brought back to a time of accompanying a friend in London--a beekeeper--on his hive visits. And as a gesture of good fortune for her new life, she is given a colony of honeybees. According to folklore, a colony, freely given, brings good luck, and Helen Jules embarks on a rewarding, perilous journey of becoming a beekeeper. Jukes writes about what it means to "keep" wild creatures; on how to live alongside beings whose laws and logic are so different from our own . . . She delves into the history of beekeeping and writes about discovering the ancient, haunting, sometimes disturbing relationship between keeper and bee, human and wild thing.A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings is a book of observation, of the irrepressible wildness of these fascinating creatures, of the ways they seem to evade our categories each time we attempt to define them. Are they wild or domestic? Individual or collective? Is honey an animal product or is it plant-based? As the author's colony grows, the questions that have, at first compelled her interest to fade away, and the inbetweenness, the unsettledness of honeybees call for a different kind of questioning, of consideration. A subtle yet urgent mediation on uncertainty and hope, on solitude and friendship, on feelings of restlessness and on home; on how we might better know ourselves. A book that shows us how to be alert to the large and small creatures that flit between and among us and that urge us to learn from this vital force so necessary to be continuation of life on planet Earth.
- Dwight Garner, The New York Times Washington Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners, provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump's unique presidency with shocking new reporting and insight into its implications. "I alone can fix it." So went Donald J. Trump's march to the presidency on July 21, 2016, when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland, promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet over the subsequent years, as he has undertaken the actual work of the commander in chief, it has been hard to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal, investigation, and constant bluster. It would be all too easy to mistake Trump's first term for one of pure and uninhibited chaos, but there were patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the Trump administration is loyalty - not to the country, but to the president himself - and Trump's North Star has been the perpetuation of his own power, even when it meant imperiling our shaky and mistrustful democracy. Leonnig and Rucker, with deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., tell of rages and frenzies but also moments of courage and perseverance. Relying on scores of exclusive new interviews with some of the most senior members of the Trump administration and other firsthand witnesses, the authors reveal the forty-fifth president up close, taking readers inside Robert Mueller's Russia investigation as well as the president's own haphazard but ultimately successful legal defense. Here for the first time certain officials who have felt honor-bound not to publicly criticize a sitting president or to divulge what they witnessed in a position of trust tell the truth for the benefit of history. This peerless and gripping narrative reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished and exposes how decision making in his administration has been driven by a reflexive logic of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement - but a logic nonetheless. This is the story of how an unparalleled president has scrambled to survive and tested the strength of America's democracy and its common heart as a nation.
Bascom Books, NY, 1973. Signed by author. VG/VG
Why does race seem to color almost every feature of our moral and political universe? Why does a perpetual cycle of slavery--in all its political, intellectual, and cultural forms--continue to define the Black experience? And why is anti-Black violence such a predominant feature not only in the United States but around the world? These are just some of the compelling questions that animate Afropessimism, Frank B. Wilderson III's seminal work on the philosophy of Blackness.
Combining precise philosophy with a torrent of memories, Wilderson presents the tenets of an increasingly prominent intellectual movement that sees Blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Drawing on works of philosophy, literature, film, and critical theory, he shows that the social construct of slavery, as seen through pervasive anti-Black subjugation and violence, is hardly a relic of the past but the very engine that powers our civilization, and that without this master-slave dynamic, the calculus bolstering world civilization would collapse. Unlike any other disenfranchised group, Wilderson argues, Blacks alone will remain essentially slaves in the larger Human world, where they can never be truly regarded as Human beings, where, "at every scale of abstraction, violence saturates Black life."
And while Afropessimism delivers a formidable philosophical account of being Black, it is also interwoven with dramatic set pieces, autobiographical stories that juxtapose Wilderson's seemingly idyllic upbringing in mid-century Minneapolis with the abject racism he later encounters--whether in late 1960s Berkeley or in apartheid South Africa, where he joins forces with the African National Congress. Afropessimism provides no restorative solution to the hatred that abounds; rather, Wilderson believes that acknowledging these historical and social conditions will result in personal enlightenment about the reality of our inherently racialized existence.
Radical in conception, remarkably poignant, and with soaring flights of lyrical prose, Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit. It positions Wilderson as a paradigmatic thinker and as a twenty-first-century inheritor of many of the African American literary traditions established in centuries past.
Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) was the Tibetan mountaineer who led Sir Edmund Hilary to the top of Mount Everest in 1953. The two men became the first people to set foot on the summit of the world's highest peak. After Everest is Norgay's autobiography, as told to Malcom Barnes.
Vikas Publishing, New Delhi, India, 1977 first printing. Dust jacket in protective cover; head of spine torn and missing; bottom of spine chipped; top edges and corners creased and chipped; dark green cloth with yellow lettering on spine; area of fading at head of spine and top front cover; endpapers tanned; autographed signed letter laid in; inscribed on half-title; binding good; text clean. G+/G-
1st edition, published by the Bird Research Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, 1943. Illustrated w/paintings by Major Allan Brooks & Edward R. Kalmbach, photos by Frank Dufresne, Olaus J. Murie, & author, pen sketches by C.G. Mitchell, J.R. Moodey, & L.B. Towle. Scientific and anecdotal results of the Hooper Bay Expedition to study "the richest breeding ground of noncolonial Arctic birds that has ever been discovered...This expedition appears to be the largest party of bird students to penetrate the Arctic. There were five ornithologists, who were assisted by 50 families of bird-minded Eskimos. Data were secured on more than 1500 noncolony nests, and the home habits of 60 different boreal birds..." (flap). 40 plates.
Dust jacket in protective mylar cover; price clipped; very little shelf wear to top edges & corners; brown boards stamped w/gilt decoration & lettering on cover & spine; front endpapers illustrated w/photo; rear endpapers w/map of expedition; binding tight; text clean & bright. VG+/VG+
The classic multimillion copy bestseller
Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients. For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye. In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth. James Herriot's memoirs have sold 80 million copies worldwide, and continue to delight and entertain readers of all ages.
The second volume in the multimillion copy bestselling series
Millions of readers have delighted in the wonderful storytelling and everyday miracles of James Herriot in the over thirty years since his delightful animal stories were first introduced to the world. Now in a new edition for the first time in a decade, All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants---both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine out as we laugh, cry, and delight in his portraits of his many, varied animal patients and their equally varied owners.
Open a cold one and get cooking! Showcasing the diverse ways that beer can be used to enhance a meal, either as an ingredient or by pairing, John Holl's collection of 155 tasty recipes are designed for the beer-loving foodie. From twists on traditional favorites like American Wheat Bear Steamed Clams to unexpected surprises like Chocolate Jefferson Stout Cupcakes, you'll soon be amazing your friends with the culinary versatility of your favorite beverage.
On a clear morning in July 1804, Alexander Hamilton stepped onto a boat at the edge of the Hudson River. He was bound for a New Jersey dueling ground to settle his bitter dispute with Aaron Burr. Hamilton took just two men with him: his "second" for the duel, and Dr. David Hosack.
As historian Victoria Johnson reveals in her groundbreaking biography, Hosack was one of the few points the duelists did agree on. Summoned that morning because of his role as the beloved Hamilton family doctor, he was also a close friend of Burr. A brilliant surgeon and a world-class botanist, Hosack--who until now has been lost in the fog of history--was a pioneering thinker who shaped a young nation.
Born in New York City, he was educated in Europe and returned to America inspired by his newfound knowledge. He assembled a plant collection so spectacular and diverse that it amazes botanists today, conducted some of the first pharmaceutical research in the United States, and introduced new surgeries to America. His tireless work championing public health and science earned him national fame and praise from the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Marquis de Lafayette.
One goal drove Hosack above all others: to build the Republic's first botanical garden. Despite innumerable obstacles and near-constant resistance, Hosack triumphed when, by 1810, his Elgin Botanic Garden at last crowned twenty acres of Manhattan farmland. "Where others saw real estate and power, Hosack saw the landscape as a pharmacopoeia able to bring medicine into the modern age" (Eric W. Sanderson, author of Mannahatta). Today what remains of America's first botanical garden lies in the heart of midtown, buried beneath Rockefeller Center.
Whether collecting specimens along the banks of the Hudson River, lecturing before a class of rapt medical students, or breaking the fever of a young Philip Hamilton, David Hosack was an American visionary who has been too long forgotten. Alongside other towering figures of the post-Revolutionary generation, he took the reins of a nation. In unearthing the dramatic story of his life, Johnson offers a lush depiction of the man who gave a new voice to the powers and perils of nature.
In this travel memoir, the acclaimed novelist Jamaica Kincaid chronicles a three-week trek through Nepal, the spectacular and exotic Himalayan land, where she and her companions are gathering seeds for planting at home. The natural world and, in particular, plants and gardening are central to Kincaid's work; in addition to such novels as Annie John and Lucy, Kincaid is the author of My Garden (Book): a collection of essays about her love of cultivating plants and gardens throughout her life. Among Flowers intertwines meditations on nature and stunning descriptions of the Himalayan landscape with observations on the ironies, difficulties, and dangers of this magnificent journey.
For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise, a place where a single day's hike can traverse climate zones, from subtropical to alpine, encompassing flora suitable for growing at their homes, from Wales to Vermont. Yet as she makes clear, there is far more to this foreign world than rhododendrons that grow thirty feet high. Danger, too, is a constant companion--and the leeches are the least of the worries. Unpredictable Maoist guerillas live in these perilous mountains, and when they do appear--as they do more than once--their enigmatic presence lingers long after they have melted back into the landscape. And Kincaid, who writes of the looming, lasting effects of colonialism in her works, necessarily explores the irony of her status as memsahib with Sherpas and bearers. A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a vivid, engrossing, and characteristically frank memoir from one of our most striking voices.
A collection of answers to the philosophical questions on people's minds--from the big to the personal to the ones you didn't know you needed answered.
Based on real-life questions from his Ask a Philosopher series, Ian Olasov offers his answers to questions such as:
- Is it okay to have a pet fish?
- Is it okay to have kids?
- Is color subjective?
- If humans colonize Mars, who will own the land?
- Is ketchup a smoothie?
- Is there life after death?
- Should I give money to homeless people? Ask a Philosopher shows that there's a way of making philosophy work for each of us, and that philosophy can be both perfectly continuous with everyday life, and also utterly transporting. From questions that we all wrestle with in private to questions that you never thought to ask, Ask a Philosopher will get you thinking.
The chant of "Azadi!"--Urdu for "Freedom!"--is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism.
Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom--a chasm or a bridge?--the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could.
In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.
The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times.
The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.
Publishers Weekly Favorite Reads of 2018
Autostraddle 20 Best LGBTQ Graphic Novels of 2018
A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Time, Esquire, Fortune, Marie Claire, GQ, Mental Floss, Science Friday, Bloomberg, Popular Mechanics, BookRiot, The Seattle Times, The Oregonian, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the next Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with its breakthrough device, which performed the whole range of laboratory tests from a single drop of blood. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.5 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work. Erroneous results put patients in danger, leading to misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatments. All the while, Holmes and her partner, Sunny Balwani, worked to silence anyone who voiced misgivings--from journalists to their own employees. Rigorously reported and fearlessly written, Bad Blood is a gripping story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron--a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.
In 1937, the Great Depression was still lingering, but at baseball parks across the country there was a sense of optimism. Major League attendance was on a sharp rise. Tickets to an Indians game at League Park on Lexington and East 66th were $1.60 for box seats, $1.35 for reserve seats, and $.55 for the bleachers. Cleveland fans were particularly upbeat--Bob Feller, the teenage phenomenon, was a farm boy with a blistering fast ball. Night games were an exciting development. Better days were ahead.
But there were mounting issues facing the Indians. For one thing, it was rumored that the team had illegally signed Feller. Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was looking into that matter and one other. Issues with an alcoholic catcher, dugout fights, bats thrown into stands, injuries, and a player revolt kept things lively.
In Bad Boys, Bad Times: The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Prewar Years, 1937-1941--the follow-up to his No Money, No Beer, No Pennants: The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Great Depression--baseball historian Scott H. Longert writes about an exciting period for the team, with details and anecdotes that will please fans all over.
From the author of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, the New York Times Bestseller, Best Book of the Year at NPR, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, and many more, and instant classic
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.
"Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink--all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue."
In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.
Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics.
Cleveland's story intersected with with some of the most important African American figures of the time. Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X both came to Cleveland, shaping the debate over how to address systemic racism. Should it be with nonviolence or armed self-defense? Malcolm X first delivered his iconic "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech in Cleveland. Three years later, in 1967, Carl Stokes, with King's help, became the first black mayor of a major US city. The ballot seemed to have triumphed over the bullet--and then Dr. King was assassinated. In the spring of 1968, while Mayor Stokes kept peace in Cleveland and Bobby Kennedy came to deliver his "Mindless Menace of Violence" speech, nationalists used an antipoverty program Stokes created in King's honor to buy rifles and ammunition.
Ballots and Bullets examines the revolutionary calls for addressing racism through guerrilla warfare in America's streets. It also puts into perspective the political aftermath, as racial violence and rebellions in most American cities led to white backlash and provided lift to the counterrevolution that brought Richard Nixon to power, effectively marking an end to President Johnson's "War on Poverty."
Fifty years later, many politicians still call for "law and order" to combat urban unrest. The Black Lives Matter movement and continued instances of police misconduct and brutality show that the cycle of race-based violence continues. The root causes--racism and poverty--remain largely unaddressed.
It's an appealing puzzle-book format that's perfect for on-the-go play--to be pulled out of a purse, messenger bag, or knapsack. And just like crosswords, Sudoku, and word searches, Bananagrams! are the kind of puzzles best for when commuting or in the waiting room, or to play before bed--whenever there are a few minutes to challenge and stretch the brain.
On-the-Go offers a total of 575 original puzzles in three levels of difficulty and sixteen lively and varied puzzle types, including two created exclusively for this book. Plus there are Weords (weird words that are fun to play), lists of common two- and three-letter words to improve your game, fun facts about bananas and monkeys, and (of course!) an answer key.
A personal, intimate photographic celebration of President Barack Obama, featuring over 200 rare and never-before seen images from the years prior to his presidency, from photographer, friend, and former aide David Katz
In 2004, David Katz worked alongside then Senate-hopeful Barack Obama as a photographer and personal aide. He spent approximately six days a week alongside the future president as Obama campaigned across downstate Illinois, and the two developed a close, professional, and personal relationship. What began as a long-shot Senate run culminated with the election of America's first African American president in 2008, which Katz also photographed.
During this time, David was never without his camera, capturing quotidian scenes from the life of a man who would soon become known the world over: a dad playing with his small daughters; a young unknown politician walking the streets of New York by himself with no one noticing; a devoted husband lovingly making faces at his wife in an elevator. In 2004, after seeing the unique and touching photographs David had amassed, Annie Leibovitz gave him some advice: "Don't release these photos of Obama for at least fifteen years. They need time to age."
Now, fifteen years later, Barack Before Obama is the treasury of these photographs. Pulled from an archive of more than ninety thousand images, every photograph in this volume is like nothing that has been seen before: the ease in which David captures the spirit and essence of one of our most beloved first families is unparalleled, and it is in this affectionate familiarity that his photographs sing. Warm, engaging captions tell the stories behind the photos--the surprise meeting with Nelson Mandela, the back room conversation before the rally, the emotion after sending one of the Obamas' daughters off to school--bringing readers closer than ever to the spirit and motivation behind the extraordinary man who became our forty-fourth president.
Barack Before Obama is a unique collection of images illustrating the making of an American icon. A moving document of an historic moment, it's the perfect gift for all those who want to remember it.
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past: memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on interviews featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
Edited and with an introduction by Deborah G. Plant, and with a foreward from the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award-winning author Alice Walker, the publication of Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon is a literary event for students, academics, and every reader.
Freshman Common Read: Howard University
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past: memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on interviews featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
Edited and with an introduction by Deborah G. Plant, and with a foreward from the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award-winning author Alice Walker, the publication of Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon is a literary event for students, academics, and every reader.
Freshman Common Read: Howard University
The devastation of war is tearing the Bharata family apart. The new king must unravel a mystery: how can he live with himself in the face of the devastation and massacres that he has caused?
An immense canvas in miniature, this central section of the ancient text is timeless and contemporary, asking how we can find inner peace in a world riven with conflict.
From the time they lived on the island of Corfu, Gerald Durrell's family hoped he'd outgrow his love of animals. Instead he became a zoologist and worldwide conservation hero.
In 1945, young zoologist, Gerald Durrell, finally came to work at his first actual zoo; Whipsnade Zoo--then a new concept in open-range animal exhibits--where Durrell joined in as a student keeper with Albert the lion, Babs the polar bear, and a baby deer among his first charges. In this entertaining history, he recaptures all the passion that permeated those early years, while conveying his insight into and affection for four-footed creatures. The book is full of larger-than-life animal characters: the bear who sang operatic arias with one paw clasped to his breast, his bosom friend Billy the goat, playful zebras, and a host of equally endearing and memorable critters. This is Durrell at his best. Fans of the PBS Masterpiece series, The Durrells in Corfu, know Gerald Durrell as a young boy with endless curiosity about animals. This is where that interest led. Durrell's great life work, the Wildlife Preservation Trust International, was still ahead in his future. Beasts in My Belfry is a wonderfully entertaining memoir for anyone who loves animals and a life lived with great purpose.
In The Beautiful Journey, Andrea takes you on an emotional rollercoaster as she chronicles her journey through cancer. You'll laugh (yes, laugh), cry, and cheer her on as she battles to become victorious over this disease. Andrea shares her raw, honest experiences as she is forced to make heavy, life-saving decisions.
However, The Beautiful Journey is more than a story about cancer. Andrea includes many valuable lessons she learns as a result of facing this adversity, including:
- How to overcome fear
- How blessings can be found in adversity
- The difference between living a successful life vs. one of significance
- The importance of living...on purpose
- Finding the beauty in all things
- The importance of listening to your body
As you follow Andrea's story of how she claims victory over cancer, you'll be able to go on your own "beautiful journey" of self-discovery and awareness.
We live, according to Eddie S. Glaude Jr., in a moment when the struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race. From Charlottesville to the policies of child separation at the border, his administration turned its back on the promise of Obama's presidency and refused to embrace a vision of the country shorn of the insidious belief that white people matter more than others. We have been here before: For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In these years, spanning from the publication of The Fire Next Time in 1963 to that of No Name in the Street in 1972, Baldwin transformed into a more overtly political writer, a change that came at great professional and personal cost. But from that journey, Baldwin emerged with a sense of renewed purpose about the necessity of pushing forward in the face of disillusionment and despair. In the story of Baldwin's crucible, Glaude suggests, we can find hope and guidance through our own after times, this Trumpian era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Mixing biography--drawn partially from newly uncovered interviews--with history, memoir, and trenchant analysis of our current moment, Begin Again is Glaude's endeavor, following Baldwin, to bear witness to the difficult truth of race in America today. It is at once a searing exploration that lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma, and memory, and a powerful interrogation of what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.
David Sedaris's best stories and essays, spanning his remarkable career--as selected by the author himself, and including a new essay
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A CNN and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Month
For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.
Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler's lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say "give it to me" in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.
But if all you expect to find in Sedaris's work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms--at long last--with the other.
Taken together, the stories in TheBest of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected--it's often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder--but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful.
Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called "the funniest man alive" (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing--quite often at himself--and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.
Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone)
NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN - NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE - NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - O: The Oprah Magazine - The Washington Post - People - Entertainment Weekly - Vogue - Los Angeles Times - San Francisco Chronicle - Chicago Tribune - New York - Newsday - Library Journal - Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Some 900 species of birds are known from North America, an avifauna made up primarily of native year-round residents and seasonal migrants, modestly enhanced by introduced exotics and neighboring vagrants. Bird is the Word is an unequaled compilation of the names of almost 800 of those birds and the record of how, when, where, and by whom those names were created and drawn into the history and science of the continent's avifauna.
Bird is the Word is a rich and readily accessible collection of information about finding and naming the birds of North America. It is much more than a reference book; it is a journey of discovery that will enrich the reader s birding experience.
Written on the brink of World War II, Rebecca West's classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon probes the troubled history of the Balkans and the uneasy relationships among its ethnic groups. The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country's history as well as its daily life. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Many are asking, what is wrong with teaching, learning, schooling, and education, and what can be done? You will get the answers (panacea) from the letters of a mad public school teacher: intrepid, irascible, cantankerous, provocative, passionate, thought-provoking, iconoclastic, and enhanced with vitriolic demagoguery.
As a grad student / colleague said, Thanks for an enjoyable class on education issues in society. I also enjoyed your letters to the editor. I've been told that I say what other people think. Well, you write and publish what we're all thinking.
A beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the color blue throughout the ages
Blue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, but most Americans and Europeans now cite it as their favorite color. In this fascinating history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastoureau traces the changing meanings of blue from its rare appearance in prehistoric art to its international ubiquity today.
Any history of color is, above all, a social history. Pastoureau investigates how the ever-changing role of blue in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, heraldry, clothing, paintings, and popular culture. Beginning with the almost total absence of blue from ancient Western art and language, the story moves to medieval Europe. As people began to associate blue with the Virgin Mary, the color became a powerful element in church decoration and symbolism. Blue gained new favor as a royal color in the twelfth century and became a formidable political and military force during the French Revolution. As blue triumphed in the modern era, new shades were created and blue became the color of romance and the blues. Finally, Pastoureau follows blue into contemporary times, when military clothing gave way to the everyday uniform of blue jeans and blue became the universal and unifying color of the Earth as seen from space.
Beautifully illustrated, Blue tells the intriguing story of our favorite color and the cultures that have hated it, loved it, and made it essential to some of our greatest works of art.
-- "Choice"
The only official companion book to the Tony Award winner for Best Musical from the creators of South Park and the co-creator of Avenue Q. Features the complete script and song lyrics, with 4-color spot illustrations throughout, an original introduction by the creators, and a foreword by Mark Harris.
The Book of Mormon, which follows a pair of mismatched Mormon boys sent on a mission to a place that's about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get, features book, music, and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.
Parker and Stone are the four-time Emmy Award-winning creators of Comedy Central's landmark animated series South Park. Tony Award-winner Lopez is co-creator of the long-running hit musical comedy Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon is choreographed by three-time Tony Award-nominee Casey Nicholaw (Monty Python's Spamalot, The Drowsy Chaperone) and is directed by Nicholaw and Parker.
The book includes - an original foreword by journalist Mark Harris (author of Pictures at a Revolution) - an original introduction by the authors on the genesis of the show - a production history - the complete book and lyrics, with four-color spot illustrations throughout.
Oliver Wendell "Ollie" Harrington (February 14, 1912 – November 2, 1995) was an American cartoonist and outspoken advocate against racism and for civil rights in the United States. Langston Hughes called him America's greatest African-American cartoonist. He became immersed in the Harlem Renaissance, and in 1935, Harrington created Dark Laughter, a regular single panel cartoon, for the Amsterdam News. The strip was later retitled Bootsie, after its most famous character, an ordinary African American dealing with racism in the U.S. Harrington described him as "a jolly, rather well-fed but soulful character."
This first edition 1958 compilation of a selection of Bootsie cartoons has an introduction by Langston Hughes; dust jacket in protective cover; some tears covered with scotch tape; yellow cloth with green lettering on spine; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/G+
Oliver Wendell "Ollie" Harrington (February 14, 1912 – November 2, 1995) was an American cartoonist and outspoken advocate against racism and for civil rights in the United States. Langston Hughes called him America's greatest African-American cartoonist. He became immersed in the Harlem Renaissance, and in 1935, Harrington created Dark Laughter, a regular single panel cartoon, for the Amsterdam News. The strip was later retitled Bootsie, after its most famous character, an ordinary African American dealing with racism in the U.S. Harrington described him as "a jolly, rather well-fed but soulful character."
1st edition; introduction by Langston Hughes; no dust jacket; yellow cloth with green lettering on spine; spine slightly tanned; former owner's bookplate in bottom left corner of pastedown; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG
A Washington Post Bestseller
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
Named a "Best Essay Collection of the Decade" by Literary Hub
A Book Riot "Favorite Summer Read of 2020"
A Food Tank Fall 2020 Reading Recommendation Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass, reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions, celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages. Beautifully bound with a new cover featuring an engraving by Tony Drehfal, this edition includes a bookmark ribbon, a deckled edge, and five brilliantly colored illustrations by artist Nate Christopherson. In increasingly dark times, we honor the experience that more than 350,000 readers in North America have cherished about the book--gentle, simple, tactile, beautiful, even sacred--and offer an edition that will inspire readers to gift it again and again, spreading the word about scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of plants. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert). Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings--asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass--offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
A New York Times bestseller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions.
A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his groundbreaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. His work has stood the test of time and has become the standard by which all journalists measure themselves.The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed. It's about the influence of big media, the fans and the hype they subsist on, the clash of ethics, the terrible physical demands of modern sports (from drugs to body size), the unreal salaries, the conflicts of race and class, and the consequences of sport converted into mass entertainment and athletes transformed into superstars -- all presented in a way that puts the reader in the room and on the court, and The Breaks of the Game in a league of its own.
1st edition. Signed by author. Dust jacket in protective cover; small creases along top of front cover; one closed tear front spine edge; black cloth over gray paper boards; small area at top of spine and along front edge scuffed; binding tight; text clean and bright. G/G
Chasity Strawder, a Black woman in northern Ohio, recounts her high risk pregnancy and healthcare disparities in this urgent memoir. She also tells stories of kindness, such as when her chiropractor gave her free treatments and herbs to assist with her pain. Her memoir is a powerful call to action for Black women’s maternal health and a universal story of motherhood. Strawder is a well-known advocate for black women's maternal health through Cuyahoga County.
Listen to an interview with Chasity on Lines of Loganberry on Spotify.
In this brilliant book of recollection, one of America's finest writers re-creates people, places, and events spanning some fifty years, bringing to life an entire era through one man's sensibility. Scenes of love and desire, friendship, ambition, life in foreign cities and New York, are unforgettably rendered here in the unique style for which James Salter is widely admired.
Burning the Days captures a singular life, beginning with a Manhattan boyhood and then, satisfying his father's wishes, graduation from West Point, followed by service in the Air Force as a pilot. In some of the most evocative pages ever written about flying, Salter describes the exhilaration and terror of combat as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, scenes that are balanced by haunting pages of love and a young man's passion for women.
After resigning from the Air Force, Salter begins a second life, becoming a writer in the New York of the 1960s. Soon films beckon. There are vivid portraits of actors, directors, and producers—Polanski, Robert Redford, and others. Here also, more important, are writers who were influential, some by their character, like Irwin Shaw, others because of their taste and knowledge.
Ultimately Burning the Days is an illumination of what it is to be a man, and what it means to become a writer.
Signed first edition in near fine condition.
1st edition; inscribed on ffep; dust jacket in protective cover; very slight wear to corners; black cloth with gilt decoration and lettering; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
"Rebecca Solnit is essential feminist reading." --The New Republic
"Solnit's exquisite essays move between the political and the personal, the intellectual and the earthy." --Elle
Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestseller Men Explain Things to Me. Called "the voice of the resistance" by the New York Times, she has emerged as an essential guide to our times, through her incisive commentary on feminism, violence, ecology, hope, and everything in between.
In this powerful and wide-ranging collection, Solnit turns her attention to battles over meaning, place, language, and belonging at the heart of the defining crises of our time. She explores the way emotions shape political life, electoral politics, police shootings and gentrification, the life of an extraordinary man on death row, the pipeline protest at Standing Rock, and the existential threat posed by climate change.
The work of changing the world sometimes requires changing the story, the names, and inventing or popularizing new names and terms and phrases. Calling things by their true names can also cut through the lies that excuse, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness in the face of injustice and violence.
A New York Times #1 Bestseller
An Amazon #1 Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
A Sunday Times Bestseller
Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Winner of the British Academy Medal
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award
"It seems safe to say that Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the magnum opus of the French economist Thomas Piketty, will be the most important economics book of the year--and maybe of the decade."
--Paul Krugman, New York Times
"The book aims to revolutionize the way people think about the economic history of the past two centuries. It may well manage the feat."
--The Economist
"Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an intellectual tour de force, a triumph of economic history over the theoretical, mathematical modeling that has come to dominate the economics profession in recent years."
--Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post
"Piketty has written an extraordinarily important book...In its scale and sweep it brings us back to the founders of political economy."
--Martin Wolf, Financial Times
"A sweeping account of rising inequality...Piketty has written a book that nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore."
--John Cassidy, New Yorker
"Stands a fair chance of becoming the most influential work of economics yet published in our young century. It is the most important study of inequality in over fifty years."
--Timothy Shenk, The Nation
Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) is widely considered the greatest American photographer of the nineteenth century and arguably the most influential artist of his era. He is best known for his pictures of Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. Watkins made his first trip to Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove in 1861 just as the Civil War was beginning. His photographs of Yosemite were exhibited in New York for the first time in 1862, as news of the Union’s disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg was landing in newspapers and while the Matthew Brady Studio’s horrific photographs of Antietam were on view. Watkins’s work tied the West to Northern cultural traditions and played a key role in pledging the once-wavering West to Union.
Motivated by Watkins’s pictures, Congress would pass legislation, later signed by Abraham Lincoln, that preserved Yosemite as the prototypical “national park,” the first such act of landscape preservation in the world. Watkins’s photographs helped shape America’s idea of the West, and helped make the West a full participant in the nation. His pictures of California, Oregon, and Nevada, as well as modern-day Washington, Utah, and Arizona, not only introduced entire landscapes to America but were important to the development of American business, finance, agriculture, government policy, and science.
1st edition; published by Fraenkel Gallery, in association with Bedford Arts, Publishers, San Francisco. Essay by Peter E. Palmquist; dust jacket has very light scuffing; tan buckram with brown lettering on cover and spine; former owner's signature in ink on ffep; binding tight; text clean and bright. VG/VG
NASA astronaut Michael Collins trained as an experimental test pilot before venturing into space as a vital member of the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 missions. In Carrying the Fire, his account of his voyages into space and the years of training that led up to them, Collins reveals the human tensions, the physical realities, and the personal emotions surrounding the early years of the space race.
Collins provides readers with an insider's view of the space program and conveys the excitement and wonder of his journey to the moon. As skilled at writing as he is at piloting a spacecraft, Collins explains the clash of personalities at NASA and technical aspects of flight with clear, engaging prose, withholding nothing in his candid assessments of fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Buzz Aldrin, and officials within NASA.
A fascinating memoir of mankind's greatest journey told in familiar, human terms, Carrying the Fire is by turns thrilling, humorous, and thought-provoking, a unique work by a remarkable man.
1st edition. Inscribed by author. Scarce. Foreword by Charles A. Lindbergh. Dust jacket in protective cover; top edges of flaps tanned; spine edges lightly creased; blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine; top edges slightly faded. VG/VG
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. NAMED THE #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People - The Washington Post - Publishers Weekly AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - O: The Oprah Magazine - NPR - Bloomberg - Christian Science Monitor - New York Post - The New York Public Library - Fortune - Smithsonian Magazine - Marie Claire - Town & Country - Slate - Library Journal - Kirkus Reviews - LibraryReads - PopMatters Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize - National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist - PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist - PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Longlist "As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not." In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • “An instant American classic.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.
Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
A cat charms its way into a curmudgeon's heart one hilarious holiday season in this bestselling Christmas classic, the perfect gift for the animal lover in your life.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987. 1st edition; inscribed by author. Dust jacket has light shelf wear to edges and corners and crease the length of back cover; gutter exposed at bottom between title page and endpaper; text clean and bright. G/G
Someone is murdering the homeless in Detroit's Cass Corridor--by immolation. These horrific crimes wouldn't require an investigation by Charlie Mack and her crack team investigators, except one of the burned bodies is her mother's friend. There's a lot wrong with this case: the police won't admit a serial killer is on the loose, drug trafficking intersects with the deaths, and a rogue cop is involved. The timing also couldn't be worse--Charlie and Mandy are finally moving in together. This case becomes the most difficult of Charlie's career when she transforms herself into a street person, and mixes with the corridor's gangs, do-gooders, and the down-and-out to uncover evidence the police can't continue to ignore.
Cats in Art celebrates the work of Susan Herbert, whose paintings have been delighting cat fans and culture buffs for decades. Her trademark blend of humor and feline enthusiasm makes her art instantly recognizable to cat lovers everywhere. Since her first collection, The Cats Gallery of Art, was published in 1990, her work has appeared in numerous books that feature cats in iconic works of art, scenes from operas, Shakespearean plays, and movies.
In this new compilation of her work, renowned paper engineer Corina Fletcher has transformed six of Herbert's most-loved paintings into three- dimensional works of art, including Herbert's interpretations of classic paintings by Jan van Eyck, Sandro Botticelli, Diego Velázquez, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, John Everett Millais, and Édouard Manet. Each of these clever and charming feline portraits is accompanied by engaging and lively text, which illuminates the drama unfolding on the page.
Charming and fun, this book of pop-ups will delight fans of Susan Herbert as well as those encountering her work for the first time.
Anglers and flytiers have been after Harry Darbee for years to write a book—a book, one of them requested, "full of memories and hopes, stories and trout talk, with some-thing of that hallowed mist that hovers around the Willowemoc and the Beaverkill." Finally, here it is! Not only does Darbee evoke the full cast of characters who earned for his native rivers their reputation as the cradle of American fly fishing, he also reveals the tricks and techniques that have made him and his wife, Elsie, two of the world's greatest flytiers. In Catskill Flytier, we meet Herman Christian, Edward R. Hewitt, and Roy Steenrod, who passed on the teachings of the legendary Theodore Gordon; the other pros who made their livelihood as flytiers in the Catskill style; the millionaire fishing-club members who became Darbee customers; the poachers who came by night—and some in broad daylight—to take the big trout out of the club waters; the conservationists who fought and are fighting to save the fish.
Signed first edition in DJ protector; dj has some chips along top and bottom edges; light soiling; brown cloth over tan boards; front endpapers lightly foxed; text clean; binding tight. VG/G
The bestselling true story of a Texas congressman’s secret role in the Afghan defeat of Russian invaders is “a tour de force of reporting and writing” (Dan Rather).
A New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Charlie Wilson’s penchant for cocktails and beauty-contest winners was well known, but in the early 1980s, the dilettante congressman quietly conducted one of the most successful covert operations in US history. Using his seat on the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to support a ragged band of Afghan “freedom fighters” in their resistance against Soviet invaders.
Weapons were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an outcast CIA operative named Gust Avrakotos, who stretched the agency’s rules to the breaking point. Moving from the back rooms of Washington to secret chambers at Langley, and from arms-dealers’ conventions to the Khyber Pass, Wilson and Avrakotos helped the mujahideen win an unlikely victory against the Russians.
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. 1st edition, signed by author; dust jacket in protective mylar cover. F/F
--We Are the Mighty In the winter of 1941, as Britain faced defeat on all fronts, an RAF reconnaissance pilot photographed an alien-looking object on the French coast near Le Havre. The mysterious device--a "Wurzburg Dish"--appeared to be a new form of radar technology: ultra-compact, highly precise, and pointed directly across the English Channel. Britain's experts found it hard to believe the Germans had mastered such groundbreaking technology. But one young technician thought it not only possible, he convinced Winston Churchill that the dish posed a unique and deadly threat to Allied forces, one that required desperate measures--and drastic action . . . Capturing the radar on film had been an amazing coup. Stealing it away from under the noses of the Nazis would be remarkable. So was launched Operation Biting, a mission like no other. An extraordinary "snatch-and-grab" raid on Germany's secret radar installation, it offered Churchill's elite airborne force, the Special Air Service, a rare opportunity to redeem themselves after a previous failed mission--and to shift the tides of war forever. Led by the legendary Major John Frost, these brave paratroopers would risk all in a daring airborne assault, with only a small stretch of beach menaced by enemy guns as their exit point. With the help of a volunteer radar technician who knew how to dismantle the dish, as well as the courageous men and women of the French Resistance, they succeeded against all odds in their act of brazen robbery. Some would die. Others would be captured. All fought with resolute bravery . . . This is the story of that fateful night of February 27, 1942. A brilliantly told, thrillingly tense account of Churchill's raiders in their finest hour, this is World War II history at its heart-stopping best. "This highly informative book almost reads like a genuine techno-thriller.
--New York Journal of Books
"A little-known behind-the-lines spectacular led by two heroic British officers."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Anyone who wants to learn more about the origins of the British Special Forces should read this book. It intertwines historical research and eyewitness testimony to tell the untold story of heroism, courage, and ingenuity."
--Military Press
"Lewis presents a richly detailed and nail-biting tale."
--Library Journal
* Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry *
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award *
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . .
Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named post-race society.
Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was the author of numerous plays and several volumes of poetry.
Yale University Press, 1920. 1st edition. Translated from the French by John Strong Newberry. Inscribed by translator. No dust jacket. Dark gray cloth over light gray boards; title and author on paper label on spine; covers lightly soiled; corners bumped; endpapers foxed; deckled edges. G-
A modern verse play about the search for meaning, in which a psychiatrist is the catalyst for the action. “An authentic modern masterpiece” (New York Post). “Eliot really does portray real-seeming characters. He cuts down his poetic effects to the minimum, and then finally rewards us with most beautiful poetry” (Stephen Spender).
1st American edition; dust jacket in protective cover; spine faded; covers lightly foxed; black cloth; endpapers tanned and lightly foxed; binding good; text clean. G/G