Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy
Eric G. Wilson
Are Americans addicted to happiness? Are we supposed to always be happy?
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America
Michael Eric Dyson
A review of the impact of the death of the leader whose last speech ended with, “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism
Kevin Phillips
Has the financial sector hijacked the American economy and put the country’s future at risk?
Bastard Tongues: A Trailblazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World’s Lowliest Languages
Derek Bickerton
The firsthand story of the scientific investigation of what language is, how it works, and how it passes from generation to generation.
The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest
Dan Buettner
The author relates nine lessons that can help individuals have a longer life.
Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* (*Chemo Not Included) How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life
Robert Schimmel
A stand-up comedian is confronted with stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour
Andrei Cherny
The saga of the men who made the Berlin Airlift a great military and humanitarian success.
The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage
Alexandra Harney
How can China offer low prices on goods to the rest of the world?
Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob
Bob Delaney
Currently an NBA referee, the author relates his tale as an undercover agent who infiltrated the New Jersey Mob.
Forward from Here: Leaving Middle Age—and Other Unexpected Adventures
Reeve Lindbergh
As the author turns sixty, she reflects on what her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, once described as “the youth of old age.”
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the
World We Live In
Hugh Kennedy
A readable history of the Islamic expansion that created an empire from Spain to China.
Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation
Sheila Weller
Although these three women were the musical representatives of the girls who came of age in the 1960s, each artist is portrayed individually.
Havanas in Camelot: Personal Essays
William Styron
A collection of the late author’s essays including the title essay about the cigar smoking President Kennedy.
Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
Nicholas Baker
A wide-ranging chronological look at the political and social landscape that gave rise to World War II .
In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams
Tahir Shah
Tahir travels across Morocco and collects traditional stories and reveals the layers of culture of which most visitors are unaware.
Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation
Cokie Roberts
The story of early America’s influential women and their public roles and private responsibilities.
Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality
Martha C. Nussbaum
Is the legacy of religious freedom that was a triumph of early American history in danger?
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
Michael Chabon
Essays celebrating the creativity and verve of various authors and literary traditions.
Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope
Don Van Ryn
From a national news case, the story of two families whose daughters were misidentified and one was buried under the wrong name.
Pure Goldwater
John W. Dean and Barry M. Goldwater, Jr.
The writings of the presidential candidate and an early leader of the conservative movement.
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
Tony Judt
Today’s world is so unlike the world of even 20 years ago that we are now part of an “age of forgetting.”
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
Max Hastings
The final year of the Pacific war by a notable author.
Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death
Irvin D. Yalom
An encouraging approach to the universal issue of mortality.
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
George Johnson
Ten of the most fascinating experiments in the history of science are depicted by the New York Times science writer.
Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea and One of the World’s Deadliest Jobs
Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand
Fishing in the Bering Sea is a lucrative, but deadly occupation. Two of the masters of this trade have been the focus of TV’s Deadliest Catch and relate the background story of their life’s work.
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood
Robyn Scott
When the author was 7-years-old, her family decided to move from New Zealand to a converted cowshed in rural Botswana.
Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds
Claire Hope Cummings
The stories behind the rise of industrial agriculture and plant biotechnology are related along with a description of the Arctic Doomsday Vault that houses millions of seeds.
The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square
Ned Sublette
The remarkable tale of the New Orleans’ first century.
