From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin comes a timeless memoir of life, love, and poetry.Maxine Kumin left an unrivaled legacy as a pioneering poet and feminist. The Pawnbroker's Daughter charts her journey from a childhood in a Jewish community in Depression-era Philadelphia, where Kumin's father was a pawnbroker, to Radcliffe College, where she comes into her own as an intellectual and meets the soldier-turned-Los Alamos scientist who would become her husband; to her metamorphosis from a poet of "light verse" to a "poet of witness"; to her farm in rural New England, the subject and setting of much of her later work.Against all odds, Kumin channels her dissatisfaction with the life that is expected of her as a wife and a mother into her work as a feminist and one of the most renowned and remembered twentieth-century American poets.
W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition
|
9780393246339
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Hardcover
Boss Life
By Downs, Paul
When columnist Paul Downs was approached by The New York Times to write for their "You're the Boss" blog, he had been running his custom furniture business for twenty-four years strong. or mostly strong. Now, in his first book, Downs paints an honest portrait of a real business, with a real boss, a real set of employees, and the real challenges they face. Fresh out of college in 1986, Downs opened his first business, a small company that builds custom furniture. In 1987, he hired his first employee. That's when things got complicated. As his enterprise began to grow, he had to learn about management, cash flow, taxes, and so much more. But despite any obstacles, Downs always remained keenly aware that every small business, no matter the product it makes or the service it provides, starts with people.
Blue Rider Press
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9780399172335
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Hardcover
Donna Bell's Bake Shop
By Perrette, Pauley
The heartwarming story of how NCIS star Pauley Perrette and her two best friends created a Southern-style bake shop in Manhattan - a celebration of love and friendship with gorgeous photographs and delicious recipes.Nestled in the heart of midtown New York is a little shop with a big story. An all-natural bake shop that specializes in Southern baked goods, Donna Bell's is owned by Pauley Perrette, the actress who plays Abby Sciuto on CBS's NCIS, and her two best friends, Darren Greenblatt and Matthew Sandusky. It was named in honor of Pauley's late mother, who is the beloved inspiration for everything they bake. It all started in 1993, when Pauley met Darren in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, just blocks away from where the shop is currently located.
Simon & Schuster
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9781476771120
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Hardcover
Pretend I'm Not Here
By Todd, Barbara Feinman
An accomplished former ghostwriter and book researcher who worked with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Hillary Clinton goes behind-the-scenes of the national's capital to tell the story of how she survived the exciting, but self-important and self-promoting world of the Beltway.Barbara Feinman Todd has spent a lifetime helping other people tell their stories. In the early 1980s, she worked for Bob Woodward, first as his research assistant in the paper's investigative unit and, later, as his personal researcher for Veil, his bestselling book about the CIA. Next she helped Carl Bernstein, who was struggling to finish his memoir, Loyalties. She then assisted legendary editor Ben Bradlee on his acclaimed autobiography A Good Life, and she worked with Hillary Clinton on her bestselling It Takes a Village. Feinman Todd's involvement with Mrs. Clinton made headlines when the First Lady neglected to acknowledge her role in the book's creation, and later, when a disclosure to Woodward about the Clinton White House appeared in one of his books. These events haunted Feinman Todd for the next two decades until she confronted her past and discovered something startling.Revealing what it's like to get into the heads and hearts of some of Washington's most compelling and powerful figures, Feinman Todd offers authentic portraits that go beyond the carefully polished public personas that are the standard fare of the Washington publicity factory. At its heart, Pretend I'm Not Here is a funny and forthcoming story of a young woman in a male-dominated world trying to find her own voice while eloquently speaking for others.
William Morrow & Company
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9780062445100
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Print book
Hitler, My Neighbor
By Feuchtwanger, Edgar
An eminent historian recounts the Nazi rise to power from his unique perspective as a young Jewish boy in Munich, living with Adolf Hitler as his neighbor. Edgar Feuchtwanger came from a prominent German-Jewish family--the only son of a respected editor and the nephew of a best-selling author, Lion Feuchtwanger. He was a carefree five-year-old, pampered by his parents and his nanny, when Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, moved into the building opposite theirs in Munich. In 1933 the joy of this untroubled life was shattered. Hitler had been named Chancellor. Edgar's parents, stripped of their rights as citizens, tried to protect him from increasingly degrading realities. In class, his teacher had him draw swastikas, and his schoolmates joined the Hitler Youth. Watching events unfold from his window, Edgar bore witness to the Night of the Long Knives, the Anschluss, and Kristallnacht. Jews were arrested; his father was imprisoned at Dachau. In 1939 Edgar was sent on his own to England, where he would make a new life, a career, have a family, and strive to forget the nightmare of his past--a past that came rushing back when he decided, at the age of eighty-eight, to tell the story of his buried childhood and his infamous neighbor.
Other Press
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9781590518649
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Hardcover
The ordinary spaceman
By Anderson, Clayton C
"A memoir chronicling Clayton Anderson's quest to become an astronaut. From his childhood to working for NASA, and then eventually becoming an astronaut"--"What's it like to travel at more than 850 MPH, riding in a supersonic T-38 twin turbojet engine airplane? What happens when the space station toilet breaks? How do astronauts 'take out the trash' on a spacewalk, tightly encapsulated in a space suit with just a few layers of fabric and Kevlar between them and the unforgiving vacuum of outer space? The Ordinary Spaceman puts you in the flight suit of U.S. astronaut Clayton C. Anderson and takes you on the journey of this small-town boy from Nebraska who spent 167 days living and working on the International Space Station, including more than forty hours of space walks.
University of Nebraska Press
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9780803262829
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Print book
The Cook Up
By Watkins, D.
Reminiscent of the classic Random Family and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, but told by the man who lived it, THE COOK UP is a riveting look inside the Baltimore drug trade portrayed in The Wire and an incredible story of redemption. The smartest kid on his block in East Baltimore, D. was certain he would escape the life of drugs, decadence, and violence that had surrounded him since birth. But when his brother Devin is shot-only days after D. receives notice that he's been accepted into Georgetown University-the plans for his life are exploded, and he takes up the mantel of his brother's crack empire. D. succeeds in cultivating the family business, but when he meets a woman unlike any he's known before, his priorities are once more put into question.
Grand Central Publishing
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9781455588633
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Print book
The Novel of the Century
By Bellos, David
The definitive biography of the world's most popular novelPutting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general readership. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d'tat, and political exile; how he pulled off the deal of the century to get it published; and how he set it on course to become the novel that epitomizes the grand sweep of history in the nineteenth century. This biography of a masterpiece also shows how and why the moral and social messages of Les Misrables are full of meaning for our time.
Farrar
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9780374223236
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Print book
All You Can Ever Know
By Chung, Nicole
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection An Official Junior Library Guild Selection An ABA Indies Introduce Selection "This book moved me to my very core. As in all her writing, Nicole Chung speaks eloquently and honestly about her own personal story, then widens her aperture to illuminate all of us. All You Can Ever Know is full of insights on race, motherhood, and family of all kinds, but what sets it apart is the compassion Chung brings to every facet of her search for identity and every person portrayed in these pages. This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever had, wanted, or found a family -- which is to say, everyone." -- Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere "An urgent, incandescent exploration of what it can mean to love, and of who gets to belong, in an increasingly divided country. Nicole Chung's powerful All You Can Ever Know is necessary reading, a dazzling light to help lead the way during these times." -- R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries What does it mean to lose your roots -- within your culture, within your family -- and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up -- facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn't see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from -- she wondered if the story she'd been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets -- vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
Catapult
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9781936787975
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Hardcover
Filthy Rich
By Patterson, James
A shocking true crime tale of money, power, and sex from the world's most popular thriller writer.Jeffrey Epstein rose from humble origins to the rarefied heights of New York City's financial elite. A college dropout with an instinct for numbers--and for people--Epstein amassed his wealth through a combination of access and skill. But even after he had it all, Epstein wanted more. And that unceasing desire--especially a taste for young girls--resulted in his stunning fall from grace. From Epstein himself, to the girls he employed as masseuses at his home, to the cops investigating the appalling charges against him, FILTHY RICH examines all sides of a case that scandalized one of America's richest communities. An explosive true story, FILTHY RICH is a riveting account of wealth, power and the influence they bring to bear on the American justice system.
Little
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9780316274050
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Print book
What Is It All but Luminous
By Garfunkel, Art
"Poetic musings on a life well-lived - one that is still moving forward, always creating, always luminous. This isnt your typical autobiography. Garfunkels history is told in flowing prose, bounding from present to past, far from a linear rags-to-riches story." - Bookreporter "Its hard to imagine any single word that would accurately describe this book . . . an entertaining volume thats more fun to read than a conventional memoir might have been." - The Wall Street Journal "A charming book of prose and poetry printed in a digitalized version of his handwriting . . . witty, candid, and wildly imaginative . . . A highly intelligent man trying to make sense of his extraordinary life." - Associated Press From the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel, a memoir (of sorts) - moving, lyrical impressions, interspersed throughout a narrative, punctuated by poetry, musings, lists of resonant books loved and admired, revealing a life and the making of a musician, that show us, as well, the evolution of a man, a portrait of a life-long friendship and of a collaboration that became the most successful singing duo in the roiling age that embraced, and was defined by, their pathfinding folk-rock music. In What Is It All but Luminous, Art Garfunkel writes about growing up in the 1940s and 50s (son of a traveling salesman, listening as his father played Enrico Caruso records) , a middle-class Jewish boy, living in a redbrick semi-attached house on Jewel Avenue in Kew Gardens, Queens. He writes of meeting Paul Simon, the kid who made Art laugh (they met at their graduation play, Alice in Wonderland; Paul was the White Rabbit; Art, the Cheshire Cat) . Of their being twelve at the birth of rocknroll ("it was rhythm and blues. It was black. I was captured and so was Paul") , of a demo of their song, Hey Schoolgirl for seven dollars and the actual record (with Pauls father on bass) going to #40 on the charts. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, ruling the pop charts from the age of sixteen, about not being a natural performer but more a thinker, an underground man. He writes of the hit songs; touring; about being an actor working with directors Mike Nichols ("the greatest of them all") , about choosing music over a PhD in mathematics. And he writes about his long-unfolding split with Paul, and how and why it evolved, and after; learning to perform on his own . . . and about being a husband, a father and much more.
Random House Audio
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9780385352475
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Hardcover
The Displaced
By Nguyen, Viet Thanh
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience. Featuring original essays by a collection of writers from around the world, The Displaced is an indictment of closing our doors, and a powerful look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge.
Abrams Press
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9781419729485
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Hardcover
Patient H.M.
By Dittrich, Luke
"Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King"* in this propulsive, haunting journey into the life of the most studied human research subject of all time, the amnesic known as Patient H.M., a man who forever altered our understanding of how memory works - and whose treatment raises deeply unsettling questions about the human cost of scientific progress. For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks comes a story that has much to teach us about our relentless pursuit of knowledge. *Kirkus Reviews (starred review) In 1953, a twenty-seven-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison - who suffered from severe epilepsy - received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry's seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next sixty years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today. Patient H.M. is, at times, a deeply personal journey. Dittrich's grandfather was the brilliant, morally complex surgeon who operated on Molaison - and thousands of other patients. The author's investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history, and to reveal the tragedy that fueled his grandfather's relentless experimentation - experimentation that would revolutionize our understanding of ourselves. Dittrich uses the case of Patient H.M. as a starting point for a kaleidoscopic journey, one that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. He takes readers inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their human experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world. Patient H.M. combines the best of biography, memoir, and science journalism to create a haunting, endlessly fascinating story, one that reveals the wondrous and devastating things that can happen when hubris, ambition, and human imperfection collide.Praise for Patient H.M."Patient H.M. tells one of the most fascinating and disturbing stories in the annals of medicine, weaving in ethics, philosophy, a personal saga, the history of neurosurgery, the mysteries of human memory, and an exploration of human ego." - Sheri Fink, M.D., Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Five Days at Memorial "Dittrich explores the limits of science and the mind. In the process, he rescues an iconic life from oblivion. Dittrich is well aware that while we are the sum of what we may remember, we're also at the mercy of what we can forget. This is classic reporting and myth-making at the same time." - Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin "This book succeeds on every level: as a fresh look at the most famous patient in medical history, as an expos of our dark history of psychiatry and neurosurgery, and, most powerfully, as a deeply personal investigation into the author's past. And yet it's still a page-turner that reads like a thriller." - Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire "It felt as if I read this book in one breath. Patient H.M. is a fascinating, powerful investigation, a matryoshka doll of nested stories about the past and present, remembering and forgetting." - Michael Paterniti, author of The Telling Room
Random House
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9780812992731
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Print book
How America Lost Its Secrets
By Epst, Edward Jay
A groundbreaking expos that convincingly challenges the popular image of Edward Snowden as hacker turned avenging angel, while revealing how vulnerable our national security systems have become--as exciting as any political thriller, and far more important. After details of American government surveillance were published in 2013, Edward Snowden, formerly a subcontracted IT analyst for the NSA, became the center of an international controversy: Was he a hero, traitor, whistle-blower, spy Was his theft legitimized by the nature of the information he exposed When is it necessary for governmental transparency to give way to subterfuge Edward Jay Epstein brings a lifetime of journalistic and investigative acumen to bear on these and other questions, delving into both how our secrets were taken and the man who took them. He makes clear that by outsourcing parts of our security apparatus, the government has made classified information far more vulnerable; how Snowden sought employment precisely where he could most easily gain access to the most sensitive classified material; and how, though he claims to have acted to serve his country, Snowden is treated as a prized intelligence asset in Moscow, his new home.
Alfred A. Knopf
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9780451494566
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Hardcover
A Dog's Gift
By Drury, Bob
A decade ago, former military counterintelligence officer Terry Henry joined his precocious young daughter, Kyria, on a trip to a nursing home in order to allow its residents to play with their family dog, a golden retriever named riley. Terry was astounded by the transformations that unfolded before his eyes. Soon after, Terry and Kyria started their service dog organization, paws4people, with the goal of pairing dogs with human beings in need of healing, including traumatized and wounded war veterans and children living with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities.In A Dog's Gift, award-winning journalist and author Bob Drury movingly captures the story of a year in the life of paws4people and the broken bodies and souls the organization mends. The book follows the journey of pups bred by the organization from their loving, if rigorous, early training to an emotional event that terry and Kyria have christened "the bump," where each individual service dog chooses its new owner through an almost mystical connection that ignites the healing process. incorporating vivid storytelling, insights into canine wisdom, history, science, and moving tales of personal transformation, A Dog's Gift is a story of miracles bound to be embraced by not only the 60 million Americans who own dogs, but by anyone with a full heart and a loving soul.
The Pawnbroker's Daughter
By Kumin, Maxine
From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Maxine Kumin comes a timeless memoir of life, love, and poetry.Maxine Kumin left an unrivaled legacy as a pioneering poet and feminist. The Pawnbroker's Daughter charts her journey from a childhood in a Jewish community in Depression-era Philadelphia, where Kumin's father was a pawnbroker, to Radcliffe College, where she comes into her own as an intellectual and meets the soldier-turned-Los Alamos scientist who would become her husband; to her metamorphosis from a poet of "light verse" to a "poet of witness"; to her farm in rural New England, the subject and setting of much of her later work.Against all odds, Kumin channels her dissatisfaction with the life that is expected of her as a wife and a mother into her work as a feminist and one of the most renowned and remembered twentieth-century American poets.
Boss Life
By Downs, Paul
When columnist Paul Downs was approached by The New York Times to write for their "You're the Boss" blog, he had been running his custom furniture business for twenty-four years strong. or mostly strong. Now, in his first book, Downs paints an honest portrait of a real business, with a real boss, a real set of employees, and the real challenges they face. Fresh out of college in 1986, Downs opened his first business, a small company that builds custom furniture. In 1987, he hired his first employee. That's when things got complicated. As his enterprise began to grow, he had to learn about management, cash flow, taxes, and so much more. But despite any obstacles, Downs always remained keenly aware that every small business, no matter the product it makes or the service it provides, starts with people.
Donna Bell's Bake Shop
By Perrette, Pauley
The heartwarming story of how NCIS star Pauley Perrette and her two best friends created a Southern-style bake shop in Manhattan - a celebration of love and friendship with gorgeous photographs and delicious recipes.Nestled in the heart of midtown New York is a little shop with a big story. An all-natural bake shop that specializes in Southern baked goods, Donna Bell's is owned by Pauley Perrette, the actress who plays Abby Sciuto on CBS's NCIS, and her two best friends, Darren Greenblatt and Matthew Sandusky. It was named in honor of Pauley's late mother, who is the beloved inspiration for everything they bake. It all started in 1993, when Pauley met Darren in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, just blocks away from where the shop is currently located.
Pretend I'm Not Here
By Todd, Barbara Feinman
An accomplished former ghostwriter and book researcher who worked with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, and Hillary Clinton goes behind-the-scenes of the national's capital to tell the story of how she survived the exciting, but self-important and self-promoting world of the Beltway.Barbara Feinman Todd has spent a lifetime helping other people tell their stories. In the early 1980s, she worked for Bob Woodward, first as his research assistant in the paper's investigative unit and, later, as his personal researcher for Veil, his bestselling book about the CIA. Next she helped Carl Bernstein, who was struggling to finish his memoir, Loyalties. She then assisted legendary editor Ben Bradlee on his acclaimed autobiography A Good Life, and she worked with Hillary Clinton on her bestselling It Takes a Village. Feinman Todd's involvement with Mrs. Clinton made headlines when the First Lady neglected to acknowledge her role in the book's creation, and later, when a disclosure to Woodward about the Clinton White House appeared in one of his books. These events haunted Feinman Todd for the next two decades until she confronted her past and discovered something startling.Revealing what it's like to get into the heads and hearts of some of Washington's most compelling and powerful figures, Feinman Todd offers authentic portraits that go beyond the carefully polished public personas that are the standard fare of the Washington publicity factory. At its heart, Pretend I'm Not Here is a funny and forthcoming story of a young woman in a male-dominated world trying to find her own voice while eloquently speaking for others.
Hitler, My Neighbor
By Feuchtwanger, Edgar
An eminent historian recounts the Nazi rise to power from his unique perspective as a young Jewish boy in Munich, living with Adolf Hitler as his neighbor. Edgar Feuchtwanger came from a prominent German-Jewish family--the only son of a respected editor and the nephew of a best-selling author, Lion Feuchtwanger. He was a carefree five-year-old, pampered by his parents and his nanny, when Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, moved into the building opposite theirs in Munich. In 1933 the joy of this untroubled life was shattered. Hitler had been named Chancellor. Edgar's parents, stripped of their rights as citizens, tried to protect him from increasingly degrading realities. In class, his teacher had him draw swastikas, and his schoolmates joined the Hitler Youth. Watching events unfold from his window, Edgar bore witness to the Night of the Long Knives, the Anschluss, and Kristallnacht. Jews were arrested; his father was imprisoned at Dachau. In 1939 Edgar was sent on his own to England, where he would make a new life, a career, have a family, and strive to forget the nightmare of his past--a past that came rushing back when he decided, at the age of eighty-eight, to tell the story of his buried childhood and his infamous neighbor.
The ordinary spaceman
By Anderson, Clayton C
"A memoir chronicling Clayton Anderson's quest to become an astronaut. From his childhood to working for NASA, and then eventually becoming an astronaut"--"What's it like to travel at more than 850 MPH, riding in a supersonic T-38 twin turbojet engine airplane? What happens when the space station toilet breaks? How do astronauts 'take out the trash' on a spacewalk, tightly encapsulated in a space suit with just a few layers of fabric and Kevlar between them and the unforgiving vacuum of outer space? The Ordinary Spaceman puts you in the flight suit of U.S. astronaut Clayton C. Anderson and takes you on the journey of this small-town boy from Nebraska who spent 167 days living and working on the International Space Station, including more than forty hours of space walks.
The Cook Up
By Watkins, D.
Reminiscent of the classic Random Family and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, but told by the man who lived it, THE COOK UP is a riveting look inside the Baltimore drug trade portrayed in The Wire and an incredible story of redemption. The smartest kid on his block in East Baltimore, D. was certain he would escape the life of drugs, decadence, and violence that had surrounded him since birth. But when his brother Devin is shot-only days after D. receives notice that he's been accepted into Georgetown University-the plans for his life are exploded, and he takes up the mantel of his brother's crack empire. D. succeeds in cultivating the family business, but when he meets a woman unlike any he's known before, his priorities are once more put into question.
The Novel of the Century
By Bellos, David
The definitive biography of the world's most popular novelPutting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general readership. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d'tat, and political exile; how he pulled off the deal of the century to get it published; and how he set it on course to become the novel that epitomizes the grand sweep of history in the nineteenth century. This biography of a masterpiece also shows how and why the moral and social messages of Les Misrables are full of meaning for our time.
All You Can Ever Know
By Chung, Nicole
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection An Official Junior Library Guild Selection An ABA Indies Introduce Selection "This book moved me to my very core. As in all her writing, Nicole Chung speaks eloquently and honestly about her own personal story, then widens her aperture to illuminate all of us. All You Can Ever Know is full of insights on race, motherhood, and family of all kinds, but what sets it apart is the compassion Chung brings to every facet of her search for identity and every person portrayed in these pages. This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever had, wanted, or found a family -- which is to say, everyone." -- Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere "An urgent, incandescent exploration of what it can mean to love, and of who gets to belong, in an increasingly divided country. Nicole Chung's powerful All You Can Ever Know is necessary reading, a dazzling light to help lead the way during these times." -- R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries What does it mean to lose your roots -- within your culture, within your family -- and what happens when you find them? Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up -- facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn't see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from -- she wondered if the story she'd been told was the whole truth. With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets -- vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong.
Filthy Rich
By Patterson, James
A shocking true crime tale of money, power, and sex from the world's most popular thriller writer.Jeffrey Epstein rose from humble origins to the rarefied heights of New York City's financial elite. A college dropout with an instinct for numbers--and for people--Epstein amassed his wealth through a combination of access and skill. But even after he had it all, Epstein wanted more. And that unceasing desire--especially a taste for young girls--resulted in his stunning fall from grace. From Epstein himself, to the girls he employed as masseuses at his home, to the cops investigating the appalling charges against him, FILTHY RICH examines all sides of a case that scandalized one of America's richest communities. An explosive true story, FILTHY RICH is a riveting account of wealth, power and the influence they bring to bear on the American justice system.
What Is It All but Luminous
By Garfunkel, Art
"Poetic musings on a life well-lived - one that is still moving forward, always creating, always luminous. This isnt your typical autobiography. Garfunkels history is told in flowing prose, bounding from present to past, far from a linear rags-to-riches story." - Bookreporter "Its hard to imagine any single word that would accurately describe this book . . . an entertaining volume thats more fun to read than a conventional memoir might have been." - The Wall Street Journal "A charming book of prose and poetry printed in a digitalized version of his handwriting . . . witty, candid, and wildly imaginative . . . A highly intelligent man trying to make sense of his extraordinary life." - Associated Press From the golden-haired, curly-headed half of Simon & Garfunkel, a memoir (of sorts) - moving, lyrical impressions, interspersed throughout a narrative, punctuated by poetry, musings, lists of resonant books loved and admired, revealing a life and the making of a musician, that show us, as well, the evolution of a man, a portrait of a life-long friendship and of a collaboration that became the most successful singing duo in the roiling age that embraced, and was defined by, their pathfinding folk-rock music. In What Is It All but Luminous, Art Garfunkel writes about growing up in the 1940s and 50s (son of a traveling salesman, listening as his father played Enrico Caruso records) , a middle-class Jewish boy, living in a redbrick semi-attached house on Jewel Avenue in Kew Gardens, Queens. He writes of meeting Paul Simon, the kid who made Art laugh (they met at their graduation play, Alice in Wonderland; Paul was the White Rabbit; Art, the Cheshire Cat) . Of their being twelve at the birth of rocknroll ("it was rhythm and blues. It was black. I was captured and so was Paul") , of a demo of their song, Hey Schoolgirl for seven dollars and the actual record (with Pauls father on bass) going to #40 on the charts. He writes about their becoming Simon & Garfunkel, ruling the pop charts from the age of sixteen, about not being a natural performer but more a thinker, an underground man. He writes of the hit songs; touring; about being an actor working with directors Mike Nichols ("the greatest of them all") , about choosing music over a PhD in mathematics. And he writes about his long-unfolding split with Paul, and how and why it evolved, and after; learning to perform on his own . . . and about being a husband, a father and much more.
The Displaced
By Nguyen, Viet Thanh
In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience. Featuring original essays by a collection of writers from around the world, The Displaced is an indictment of closing our doors, and a powerful look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge.
Patient H.M.
By Dittrich, Luke
"Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King"* in this propulsive, haunting journey into the life of the most studied human research subject of all time, the amnesic known as Patient H.M., a man who forever altered our understanding of how memory works - and whose treatment raises deeply unsettling questions about the human cost of scientific progress. For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks comes a story that has much to teach us about our relentless pursuit of knowledge. *Kirkus Reviews (starred review) In 1953, a twenty-seven-year-old factory worker named Henry Molaison - who suffered from severe epilepsy - received a radical new version of the then-common lobotomy, targeting the most mysterious structures in the brain. The operation failed to eliminate Henry's seizures, but it did have an unintended effect: Henry was left profoundly amnesic, unable to create long-term memories. Over the next sixty years, Patient H.M., as Henry was known, became the most studied individual in the history of neuroscience, a human guinea pig who would teach us much of what we know about memory today. Patient H.M. is, at times, a deeply personal journey. Dittrich's grandfather was the brilliant, morally complex surgeon who operated on Molaison - and thousands of other patients. The author's investigation into the dark roots of modern memory science ultimately forces him to confront unsettling secrets in his own family history, and to reveal the tragedy that fueled his grandfather's relentless experimentation - experimentation that would revolutionize our understanding of ourselves. Dittrich uses the case of Patient H.M. as a starting point for a kaleidoscopic journey, one that moves from the first recorded brain surgeries in ancient Egypt to the cutting-edge laboratories of MIT. He takes readers inside the old asylums and operating theaters where psychosurgeons, as they called themselves, conducted their human experiments, and behind the scenes of a bitter custody battle over the ownership of the most important brain in the world. Patient H.M. combines the best of biography, memoir, and science journalism to create a haunting, endlessly fascinating story, one that reveals the wondrous and devastating things that can happen when hubris, ambition, and human imperfection collide.Praise for Patient H.M."Patient H.M. tells one of the most fascinating and disturbing stories in the annals of medicine, weaving in ethics, philosophy, a personal saga, the history of neurosurgery, the mysteries of human memory, and an exploration of human ego." - Sheri Fink, M.D., Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Five Days at Memorial "Dittrich explores the limits of science and the mind. In the process, he rescues an iconic life from oblivion. Dittrich is well aware that while we are the sum of what we may remember, we're also at the mercy of what we can forget. This is classic reporting and myth-making at the same time." - Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin "This book succeeds on every level: as a fresh look at the most famous patient in medical history, as an expos of our dark history of psychiatry and neurosurgery, and, most powerfully, as a deeply personal investigation into the author's past. And yet it's still a page-turner that reads like a thriller." - Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire "It felt as if I read this book in one breath. Patient H.M. is a fascinating, powerful investigation, a matryoshka doll of nested stories about the past and present, remembering and forgetting." - Michael Paterniti, author of The Telling Room
How America Lost Its Secrets
By Epst, Edward Jay
A groundbreaking expos that convincingly challenges the popular image of Edward Snowden as hacker turned avenging angel, while revealing how vulnerable our national security systems have become--as exciting as any political thriller, and far more important. After details of American government surveillance were published in 2013, Edward Snowden, formerly a subcontracted IT analyst for the NSA, became the center of an international controversy: Was he a hero, traitor, whistle-blower, spy Was his theft legitimized by the nature of the information he exposed When is it necessary for governmental transparency to give way to subterfuge Edward Jay Epstein brings a lifetime of journalistic and investigative acumen to bear on these and other questions, delving into both how our secrets were taken and the man who took them. He makes clear that by outsourcing parts of our security apparatus, the government has made classified information far more vulnerable; how Snowden sought employment precisely where he could most easily gain access to the most sensitive classified material; and how, though he claims to have acted to serve his country, Snowden is treated as a prized intelligence asset in Moscow, his new home.
A Dog's Gift
By Drury, Bob
A decade ago, former military counterintelligence officer Terry Henry joined his precocious young daughter, Kyria, on a trip to a nursing home in order to allow its residents to play with their family dog, a golden retriever named riley. Terry was astounded by the transformations that unfolded before his eyes. Soon after, Terry and Kyria started their service dog organization, paws4people, with the goal of pairing dogs with human beings in need of healing, including traumatized and wounded war veterans and children living with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities.In A Dog's Gift, award-winning journalist and author Bob Drury movingly captures the story of a year in the life of paws4people and the broken bodies and souls the organization mends. The book follows the journey of pups bred by the organization from their loving, if rigorous, early training to an emotional event that terry and Kyria have christened "the bump," where each individual service dog chooses its new owner through an almost mystical connection that ignites the healing process. incorporating vivid storytelling, insights into canine wisdom, history, science, and moving tales of personal transformation, A Dog's Gift is a story of miracles bound to be embraced by not only the 60 million Americans who own dogs, but by anyone with a full heart and a loving soul.