#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, this inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * People * NPR * The Washington Post * Slate * Harper's Bazaar * Time Out New York * Publishers Weekly * BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational MemoirAt the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a nave medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.
Random House, 2016.
|
9780812988406
|
Hardcover
Sous Chef
By Gibney, Michael
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIMEThe back must slave to feed the belly. . . . In this urgent and unique book, chef Michael Gibney uses twenty-four hours to animate the intricate camaraderie and culinary choreography in an upscale New York restaurant kitchen. Here readers will find all the details, in rapid-fire succession, of what it takes to deliver an exceptional plate of food - the journey to excellence by way of exhaustion. Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider's perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers. In a kitchen where the highest standards are upheld and one misstep can result in disaster, Sous Chef conjures a greater appreciation for the thought, care, and focus that go into creating memorable and delicious fare. With grit, wit, and remarkable prose, Michael Gibney renders a beautiful and raw account of this demanding and sometimes overlooked profession, offering a nuanced perspective on the craft and art of food and service. Praise for Sous Chef "This is excellent writing - excellent! - and it is thrilling to see a debut author who has language and story and craft so well in hand. Though I would never ask my staff to read my own book, I would happily require them to read Michael Gibney's." - Gabrielle Hamilton "[Michael] Gibney has the soul of a poet and the stamina of a stevedore. . . . Tender and profane, his book will leave you with a permanent appreciation for all those people who 'desire to feed, to nourish, to dish out the tasty bits of life.'" - The New York Times Book Review "A terrific nuts-and-bolts account of the real business of cooking as told from the trenches. No nonsense. This is what it takes." - Anthony Bourdain "A wild ride, not unlike a roller coaster, and the reader experiences all the drama, tension, exhilaration, exhaustion and relief that accompany cooking in an upscale Manhattan restaurant." - USA Today "Vibrantly written." - Entertainment Weekly "Sizzling . . . Such culinary experience paired with linguistic panache is a rarity." - The Daily Beast "Reveals the high-adrenaline dance behind your dinner." - NPR
Random House Publishing Group
|
9780804177870
|
Book
Inheritance
By Shapiro, Dani
The acclaimed and beloved author of Hourglass now gives us a new memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets--a real-time exploration of the staggering discovery she recently made about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden story of her own life.What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us? In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history--the life she had lived--crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets--secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in--a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. Timely and unforgettable, Dani Shapiro's memoir is a gripping, gut-wrenching exploration of genealogy, paternity, and love.
Knopf
|
9781524732714
|
Hardcover
L'Appart
By Lebovitz, David
Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes. When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country - under baffling conditions - while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.
Crown
|
9780804188388
|
Hardcover
Last Stop Auschwitz
By Wind, Eliazar De
Auschwitz survivor Eddy de Wind provides a minute-by-minute true account from his journal of fighting for his life at the largest extermination camp in Nazi Germany, with an award-winning translator. "We know that there is only one ending to this, only one liberation from this barbed wire hell: death." --Eddy de WindIn 1943, amidst the start of German occupation, Eddy de Wind worked as a doctor at Westerbork, a Dutch transit camp. His mother had been taken to this camp by Nazis but Eddy was assured by the Jewish Council she would be freed in exchange for his labor. He later found out she'd already been transferred to Auschwitz. While at Westerbork, he fell in love with a woman named Friedel and they married. The young couple was forced to share a room with cardboard walls with another pair until, one year later, they were transported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Friedel and Eddy were separated--Eddy to work as the camp's doctor, and Friedel at the mercy of the Nazis, facing regular experimentation and sexual assault. While they were able to be in contact sporadically, Eddy longed for the day he could be free with Friedel, and by some miracle they both survived among the 1.1 million that didn't make it out alive.In this poignant, moving account of Eddy's life during the Holocaust translated from Dutch, he provides unparalleled access to the atrocities faced in the camp. He doesn't just write about the horrors of the camp, but analyzes, philosophizes, and observes the kind of behavior--both good and evil--people are capable of. Through raw prose and photographs from his childhood, the camp is described in detail like never documented before.
Grand Central Publishing
|
9781538701430
|
Hardcover
Klandestine
By Mcmichael, Pate
At 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a single bullet fired from an elevated and concealed position. Unanswered questions surround the circumstances of his demise, and many still wonder whether justice was served. After all, only one man, an escaped convict from Missouri named James Earl Ray, was punished for the crime. On the surface, Ray did not fit the caricature of a hangdog racist thirsty for blood. Media coverage has often portrayed him as hapless and apolitical, someone who must have been paid by clandestine forces. It's a narrative that Ray himself put in motion upon his June 1968 arrest in London, then continued from jail until his death in 1998. In 1999, Dr.
Chicago Review Press
|
9781613730706
|
Hardcover
John Quincy Adams
By Kaplan, Fred
Fred Kaplan, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Lincoln, returns with John Quincy Adams, an illuminating biography of one of the most overlooked presidents in American history - a leader of sweeping perspective whose progressive values helped shape the course of the nation.In this fresh and lively biography rich in literary analysis and new historical detail, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams - the little known and much misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams - and persuasively demonstrates how Adams's inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.Kaplan draws on a trove of unpublished archival material to trace Adams's evolution from his childhood during the Revolutionary War to his brilliant years as Secretary of State to his time in the White House and beyond.
Harpercollins
|
9780061915413
|
Hardcover
The Case of the Married Woman
By Fraser, Antonia
Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a courageous and compassionate woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity, her intelligence, her poetry, and in her role as an artist's muse. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result - acquittal - Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven.
Pegasus Books
|
9781639361571
|
Hardcover
Abducting a General
By Fermor, Patrick Leigh
One of the most daring feats in Patrick Leigh Fermor's daring life was the kidnapping of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on April 26, 1944.Abducting a General, now published for the first time in the United States, is Leigh Fermor's own account of the kidnapping. Written in his inimitable prose, and introduced by the acclaimed Special Operations Executive historian Roderick Bailey, it is a glorious firsthand account of one of the great adventures of the Second World War. Also included in this book are Leigh Fermor's intelligence reports sent from caves deep within Crete, which bring the immediacy of SOE operations vividly alive, as well as the peril under which the SOE and Resistance were operating, and a guide to the journey that Kreipe took, from the abandonment of his car to the embarkation site, so that the modern visitor to Crete can relive this extraordinary trip.
New York Review Books, 2015.
|
9781590179383
|
Hardcover
The Marriage Test
By Andres, Jill
A crash course in commitment: one couple and forty dates that could make or break their marriage before the wedding. Picking a partner is life's most important decision, but how are we supposed to make it? Being in love is a good start, but the issues that ultimately wreck marriages - money and monogamy, career and kids - are hard to gauge until you're actually hitched. So after a few years of dating, Jill Andres and Brook Silva-Braga built The Marriage Test to confirm their compatibility before saying "I do." Forty revealing challenges simulate the issues that could tank or strengthen their union. For a month, they swap credit cards, for a weekend they borrow a baby. An embarrassing lunch with their exes tests their trust issues. Sexual gymnastics are required to recreate TV love scenes.
When Breath Becomes Air
By Kalanithi, Paul
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, this inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * People * NPR * The Washington Post * Slate * Harper's Bazaar * Time Out New York * Publishers Weekly * BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational MemoirAt the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a nave medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.
Sous Chef
By Gibney, Michael
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIMEThe back must slave to feed the belly. . . . In this urgent and unique book, chef Michael Gibney uses twenty-four hours to animate the intricate camaraderie and culinary choreography in an upscale New York restaurant kitchen. Here readers will find all the details, in rapid-fire succession, of what it takes to deliver an exceptional plate of food - the journey to excellence by way of exhaustion. Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider's perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers. In a kitchen where the highest standards are upheld and one misstep can result in disaster, Sous Chef conjures a greater appreciation for the thought, care, and focus that go into creating memorable and delicious fare. With grit, wit, and remarkable prose, Michael Gibney renders a beautiful and raw account of this demanding and sometimes overlooked profession, offering a nuanced perspective on the craft and art of food and service. Praise for Sous Chef "This is excellent writing - excellent! - and it is thrilling to see a debut author who has language and story and craft so well in hand. Though I would never ask my staff to read my own book, I would happily require them to read Michael Gibney's." - Gabrielle Hamilton "[Michael] Gibney has the soul of a poet and the stamina of a stevedore. . . . Tender and profane, his book will leave you with a permanent appreciation for all those people who 'desire to feed, to nourish, to dish out the tasty bits of life.'" - The New York Times Book Review "A terrific nuts-and-bolts account of the real business of cooking as told from the trenches. No nonsense. This is what it takes." - Anthony Bourdain "A wild ride, not unlike a roller coaster, and the reader experiences all the drama, tension, exhilaration, exhaustion and relief that accompany cooking in an upscale Manhattan restaurant." - USA Today "Vibrantly written." - Entertainment Weekly "Sizzling . . . Such culinary experience paired with linguistic panache is a rarity." - The Daily Beast "Reveals the high-adrenaline dance behind your dinner." - NPR
Inheritance
By Shapiro, Dani
The acclaimed and beloved author of Hourglass now gives us a new memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets--a real-time exploration of the staggering discovery she recently made about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden story of her own life.What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us? In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history--the life she had lived--crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets--secrets within families, kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in--a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. Timely and unforgettable, Dani Shapiro's memoir is a gripping, gut-wrenching exploration of genealogy, paternity, and love.
L'Appart
By Lebovitz, David
Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-Pat life in Paris, using his perplexing experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Includes dozens of new recipes. When David Lebovitz began the project of updating his apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country - under baffling conditions - while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago, and to truly make his home there.
Last Stop Auschwitz
By Wind, Eliazar De
Auschwitz survivor Eddy de Wind provides a minute-by-minute true account from his journal of fighting for his life at the largest extermination camp in Nazi Germany, with an award-winning translator. "We know that there is only one ending to this, only one liberation from this barbed wire hell: death." --Eddy de WindIn 1943, amidst the start of German occupation, Eddy de Wind worked as a doctor at Westerbork, a Dutch transit camp. His mother had been taken to this camp by Nazis but Eddy was assured by the Jewish Council she would be freed in exchange for his labor. He later found out she'd already been transferred to Auschwitz. While at Westerbork, he fell in love with a woman named Friedel and they married. The young couple was forced to share a room with cardboard walls with another pair until, one year later, they were transported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Friedel and Eddy were separated--Eddy to work as the camp's doctor, and Friedel at the mercy of the Nazis, facing regular experimentation and sexual assault. While they were able to be in contact sporadically, Eddy longed for the day he could be free with Friedel, and by some miracle they both survived among the 1.1 million that didn't make it out alive.In this poignant, moving account of Eddy's life during the Holocaust translated from Dutch, he provides unparalleled access to the atrocities faced in the camp. He doesn't just write about the horrors of the camp, but analyzes, philosophizes, and observes the kind of behavior--both good and evil--people are capable of. Through raw prose and photographs from his childhood, the camp is described in detail like never documented before.
Klandestine
By Mcmichael, Pate
At 6:01 pm on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a single bullet fired from an elevated and concealed position. Unanswered questions surround the circumstances of his demise, and many still wonder whether justice was served. After all, only one man, an escaped convict from Missouri named James Earl Ray, was punished for the crime. On the surface, Ray did not fit the caricature of a hangdog racist thirsty for blood. Media coverage has often portrayed him as hapless and apolitical, someone who must have been paid by clandestine forces. It's a narrative that Ray himself put in motion upon his June 1968 arrest in London, then continued from jail until his death in 1998. In 1999, Dr.
John Quincy Adams
By Kaplan, Fred
Fred Kaplan, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Lincoln, returns with John Quincy Adams, an illuminating biography of one of the most overlooked presidents in American history - a leader of sweeping perspective whose progressive values helped shape the course of the nation.In this fresh and lively biography rich in literary analysis and new historical detail, Fred Kaplan brings into focus the dramatic life of John Quincy Adams - the little known and much misunderstood sixth president of the United States and the first son of John and Abigail Adams - and persuasively demonstrates how Adams's inspiring, progressive vision guided his life and helped shape the course of America.Kaplan draws on a trove of unpublished archival material to trace Adams's evolution from his childhood during the Revolutionary War to his brilliant years as Secretary of State to his time in the White House and beyond.
The Case of the Married Woman
By Fraser, Antonia
Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a courageous and compassionate woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity, her intelligence, her poetry, and in her role as an artist's muse. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result - acquittal - Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven.
Abducting a General
By Fermor, Patrick Leigh
One of the most daring feats in Patrick Leigh Fermor's daring life was the kidnapping of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on April 26, 1944.Abducting a General, now published for the first time in the United States, is Leigh Fermor's own account of the kidnapping. Written in his inimitable prose, and introduced by the acclaimed Special Operations Executive historian Roderick Bailey, it is a glorious firsthand account of one of the great adventures of the Second World War. Also included in this book are Leigh Fermor's intelligence reports sent from caves deep within Crete, which bring the immediacy of SOE operations vividly alive, as well as the peril under which the SOE and Resistance were operating, and a guide to the journey that Kreipe took, from the abandonment of his car to the embarkation site, so that the modern visitor to Crete can relive this extraordinary trip.
The Marriage Test
By Andres, Jill
A crash course in commitment: one couple and forty dates that could make or break their marriage before the wedding. Picking a partner is life's most important decision, but how are we supposed to make it? Being in love is a good start, but the issues that ultimately wreck marriages - money and monogamy, career and kids - are hard to gauge until you're actually hitched. So after a few years of dating, Jill Andres and Brook Silva-Braga built The Marriage Test to confirm their compatibility before saying "I do." Forty revealing challenges simulate the issues that could tank or strengthen their union. For a month, they swap credit cards, for a weekend they borrow a baby. An embarrassing lunch with their exes tests their trust issues. Sexual gymnastics are required to recreate TV love scenes.