The American companion to A History of the World in 100 Objects--A fresh, visual perspective on the Civil War

From a soldier’s diary with the pencil still attached to John Brown’s pike, the Emancipation Proclamation, a Confederate Palmetto flag, and the leaves from Abraham Lincoln’s bier, here is a unique and surprisingly intimate look at the Civil War. 

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer sheds new light on the war by examining fifty objects from the New-York Historical Society’s acclaimed collection. A daguerreotype of an elderly, dignified ex-slave, whose unblinking stare still mesmerizes; a soldier’s footlocker still packed with its contents; Grant’s handwritten terms of surrender at Appomattox—the stories these objects tell are rich, poignant, sometimes painful, and always fascinating. They illuminate the conflict from all perspectives—Union and Confederate, military and civilian, black and white, male and female—and give readers a deeply human sense of the war. 

With an introduction from Pulitzer Prize winner Eric Foner and more than eighty photographs, The Civil War in 50 Objects is the perfect companion for readers and history fans to commemorate the 150th anniversaries of both the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Acclaimed biographer Jean Fritz writes the remarkable story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's most influential and fascinating founding fathers, and his untimely death in a duel with Aaron Burr.

Born in the British West Indies, Hamilton arrived in New York as an "outsider." He fought in the Revolution and became Washington's most valuable aide de-camp. He was there with Washington, Madison, and the others writing the Constitution. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury as the country struggled to become unified and independent.

Fritz's talent for bringing historical figures to life is at its best as she shares her fascination with this man of action who was honorable, ambitious, and fiercely loyal to his adopted country.

The first novel to be released in The Foreworld Saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.

But the saga reaches the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.

Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.

A note on this edition: The Mongoliad began as a social media experiment, combining serial story-telling with a unique level of interaction between authors and audience during the creative process. Since its original iteration, The Mongoliad has been restructured, edited, and rewritten under the supervision of its authors to create a more cohesive reading experience and will be published as a trilogy of novels. This edition is the definitive edition and is the authors' preferred text.

This is "the Word" -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the "one man" is Neal Stephenson, "the hacker Hemingway" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.

From Publishers Weekly

After reading this galvanizing essay, first intended as a feature for Wired magazine but never published there, readers are unlikely to look at their laptops in quite the same mutely complacent way. Stephenson, author of the novel Cryptonomicon, delivers a spirited commentary on the aesthetics and cultural import of computer operating systems. It's less an archeology of early machines than a critique of what Stephenson feels is the inherent fuzziness of graphical user interfacesAthe readily intuitable "windows," "desktops" and "browsers" that we use to talk to our computers. Like Disney's distortion of complicated historical events, our operating systems, he argues, lull us into a reductive sense of reality. Instead of the visual metaphors handed to us by Apple and Microsoft, Stephenson advocates the purity of the command line interface, somewhat akin to the DOS prompt from which most people flee in a technophobic panic. Stephenson is an advocate of Linux, the hacker-friendly operating system distributed for free on the Internet, and of BeOS, a less-hyped paradigm for the bits-and-bytes future. Unlike a string of source code, this essay is user-friendlyAoccasionally to a fault. Stephenson's own set of extended metaphors can get a little hokey: Windows is a station wagon, while Macs are sleek Euro-sedans. And Unix is the Gilgamesh epic of the hacker subculture. Nonetheless, by pointing out how computers define who we are, Stephenson makes a strong case for elegance and intellectual freedom in computing. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech by Craig Silverman  and Jeff Jarvis

We regret the error: it’s a phrase that appears in newspapers almost daily, the standard notice that something went terribly wrong in the reporting, editing, or printing of an article. From Craig Silverman, the proprietor of www.RegretTheError.com, one of the Internet’s most popular media-related websites, comes a collection of funny, shocking, and sometimes disturbing journalistic slip-ups and corrections. On display are all types of media inaccuracy—from “fuzzy math” to “obiticide” (printing the obituary of a person very much alive and well) to complete and utter ethical lapses. While some of the errors can be laugh-out-loud funny, the book contains a sobering journey through the history of media mistakes (including the outrageous hoaxes that dominated newspapers during the circulation wars of the 19th-century) and a serious muckraking investigation of contemporary journalism’s lack of accountability to the public. It shines a spotlight on the media’s carelessness and the sometimes tragic and calamitous consequences of weak or non-existent fact checking. 

From Publishers Weekly

Blogger Silverman is a man obsessed with pointing out the mistakes of others, though he dreams of a world in which he didn't have to. If media outlets printed their own corrections more thoroughly, amending online content appropriately, embracing their mistakes wholeheartedly, he argues, he wouldn't have to collect and publicize them with such devotion. Having founded regrettheerror.com to tally inaccuracies and corrections in the press, Silverman has set out to chronicle and categorize these errors in his first book. The result is a winding journey through the most glaring, damaging and humorous typos, misprints, misidentifications, fuzzy numbers and obiticides in the history of journalism, from the accidental to the malicious. These chapters are chock-full of amusing historical anecdotes, including the story behind the incorrect headline Dewey Defeats Truman, the case of mistaken identity that galvanized Nobel to create his prestigious awards, and the oft-presumed dead but still living Abe Vigoda. Silverman injects plenty of humor, but mostly he is deeply concerned about the science of journalism, and at the heart of this romp is an argument for increased public participation in the news cycle.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Self Exposure : Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940 by Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Few features of contemporary American culture are as widely lamented as the public's obsession with celebrity-and the trivializing effect this obsession has on what appears as news. Nevertheless, America's "culture of celebrity" remains misunderstood, particularly when critics discuss its historical roots. In this pathbreaking book, Charles Ponce de Leon provides a new interpretation of the emergence of celebrity. Focusing on the development of human-interest journalism about prominent public figures, he illuminates the ways in which new forms of press coverage gradually undermined the belief that famous people were "great" instead encouraging the public to regard them as complex, interesting, even flawed individuals and offering readers seemingly intimate glimpses of the "real" selves that were presumed to lie behind the calculated, self-promotional fronts that celebrities displayed in public. But human-interest journalism about celebrities did more than simply offer celebrities a new means of gaining publicity or provide readers with the "inside dope" says Ponce de Leon. In chapters devoted to celebrities from the realms of business, politics, entertainment, and sports, he shows how authors of celebrity journalism used their writings to weigh in on subjects as wide-ranging as social class, race relations, gender roles, democracy, political reform, self-expression, material success, competition, and the work ethic, offering the public a new lens through which to view these issues.

A fascinating contribution to one of the most important developments of modern America. One has only to think for a moment about contemporary culture to wish to know where our obsessions with celebrity come from and, more profoundly, what impact celebrating celebrity has had on our civilization.--James B. Gilbert, University of Maryland at College Park

The Bible, as we hold it today, is esteemed by many religious institutions and especially Conservative Christians to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This doctrinal position affirms that the Bible is unlike all other books or collections of works in that it is free of error due to having been given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While no other text can claim this same unique authority, the Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, which played a crucial role in forming the worldview of the authors of the New Testament, who were not only familiar with it but quoted it in the New Testament, Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14 15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8)

The text was also utilized by the community that originally collected and studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. While some churches today include Enoch as part of the biblical canon (for example the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church), other Christian denominations and scholars accept it only as having historical or theological non-canonical interest and frequently use or assigned it as supplemental materials within academic settings to help students and scholars discover or better understand cultural and historical context of the early Christian Church.

The Book of Enoch provides commentators valuable insight into what many ancient Jews and early Christians believed when, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. 1:1). As Dr. Michael S. Heiser in the Introduction to his important book Reversing Hermon so powerfully notes: For those to whom 1 Enoch sounds unfamiliar, this is the ancient apocalyptic literary work known popularly (but imprecisely) as the Book of Enoch.

Most scholars believe that 1 Enoch was originally written in Aramaic perhaps as early as the 3rd century B.C. The oldest fragments of the book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and dated to roughly the second century B.C. This places the book squarely in the middle of what scholars call the Second Temple Period (ca. 500 B.C. 70 A.D.), an era more commonly referred to as the Intertestamental Period. This book will use the more academic designation ( Second Temple Period ) [...] The Watcher story of 1 Enoch, as many readers will recall, is an expansion of the episode described in Genesis 6:1-4, where the sons of God (Hebrew: beney ha- elohim) came in to the daughters of man (Gen 6:4; ESV). Consequently, Watchers is the Enochian term of choice (among others) for the divine sons of God. While the story of this supernatural rebellion occupies scant space in Genesis, it received considerable attention during the Second Temple Period [...] The Enochian version of the events of Gen 6:1-4 preserves and transmits the original Mesopotamian context for the first four verses of the flood account. Every element of Gen 6:1-4 has a Mesopotamian counterpoint a theological target that provides the rationale for why these four verses wound up in the inspired text in the first place. Connections to that backstory can be found in the Old Testament, but they are scattered and unsystematically presented. This is not the case with Second Temple Jewish literature like 1 Enoch. Books like 1 Enoch preserve all of the Mesopotamian touchpoints with Gen 6:1-4 when presenting their expanded retelling of the events of that biblical passage. The Book of Enoch is therefore intended to be an important supplemental resource for assisting serious researchers and students in the study of the Bible.

A collection of Robert E. Howard's best historical fiction, including "Treasures of Tartary," "Son of the White Wolf," "Black Vulmea's Vengeance," "Boot Hill Payoff" and "The Vultures of Whapeton."

When George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion more than a half century ago, no one could have predicted his play would eventually be converted into one of the great musicals of our time -- My Fair Lady -- and an Academy Award³-winning motion picture. Generations of readers and theatergoers have found relevance in Shaw's story of speech therapist Henry Higgins, who successfully transforms Liza Doolittle, a "draggle-tailed guttersnipe," into a darling of high society who momentarily upsets his hard-edged reserve. The extraordinary wit of this master dramatist of the twentieth century cuts away at the artificiality of class distinctions to reveal that human clay can be molded into wondrous shapes.

Washington Square Press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Pygmalion includes the analysis of Eric Bentley from his book Bernard Shaw. Essential biographical and historical background is provided, together with notes, critical excerpts, and suggestions for further reading. A unique visual essay of period illustrations and photographs helps bring the play to life.

Haunted by mysterious images of hooded figures, Magdalen Lorne, chief Terran operative on Darkover, pursues a quest not only to the frozen ends of the physical world but also to the perilous limits of the spiritual world. And there she is tested by the evil sorcery of the Dark Sisterhood.

Marion Zimmer was born in Albany, NY, on June 3, 1930, and married Robert Alden Bradley in 1949. Mrs. Bradley received her B.A. in 1964 from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, then did graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1965-67.

She was a science fiction/fantasy fan from her middle teens, and made her first sale as an adjunct to an amateur fiction contest in Fantastic/Amazing Stories in 1949. She had written as long as she could remember, but wrote only for school magazines and fanzines until 1952, when she sold her first professional short story to Vortex Science Fiction. She wrote everything from science fiction to Gothics, but is probably best known for her Darkover novels.

In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, which she started in 1988. She also edited an annual anthology called Sword and Sorceress for DAW Books.

Over the years she turned more to fantasy; The House Between the Worlds, although a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, was "fantasy undiluted". She wrote a novel of the women in the Arthurian legends -- Morgan Le Fay, the Lady of the Lake, and others -- entitled Mists of Avalon, which made the NY Times best seller list both in hardcover and trade paperback, and she also wrote The Firebrand, a novel about the women of the Trojan War. Her historical fantasy novels, The Forest House,Lady of Avalon, Mists of Avalon are prequels to Priestess of Avalon

She died in Berkeley, California on September 25, 1999, four days after suffering a major heart attack. She was survived by her brother, Leslie Zimmer; her sons, David Bradley and Patrick Breen; her daughter, Moira Stern; and her grandchildren.

Determined to prove himself to his disgraced father's aristocratic family, mercenary Severin Brigante Harnoncourt joins forces with the Duke of Burgundy in securing the great fortress of Mercier, a stronghold vital to the Duke's battle to claim the throne of France for Henry V of England.  But Severin quickly finds a far more difficult challenge in Count de Mercier's beautiful young widow, Alix Ducci Montaldo de Mercier.  For in taking her as his wife, he discovers that he will need all of his skill--and passion--to lay siege to her proud, fiery heart.

Lynn Shepherd’s first acclaimed novel of historical suspense, Murder at Mansfield Park, brilliantly reimagined the time of Jane Austen. Now, in this spellbinding new triumph, she introduces an unforgettable duo of detectives into the gaslit world of Dickens.

 London, 1850. Charles Maddox had been an up-and-coming officer for the Metropolitan police until a charge of insubordination abruptly ended his career. Now he works alone, struggling to eke out a living by tracking down criminals. Whenever he needs it, he has the help of his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary “thief taker,” a detective as brilliant and intuitive as they come.

On Charles’s latest case, he’ll need all the assistance he can get.

To his shock, Charles has been approached by Edward Tulkinghorn, the shadowy and feared attorney, who offers him a handsome price to do some sleuthing for a client. Powerful financier Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and Tulkinghorn wants Charles to—discreetly—find and stop whoever is responsible.

But what starts as a simple, open-and-shut case swiftly escalates into something bigger and much darker. As he cascades toward a collision with an unspeakable truth, Charles can only be aided so far by Maddox. The old man shows signs of forgetfulness and anger, symptoms of an age-related ailment that has yet to be named.

Intricately plotted and intellectually ambitious, The Solitary House is an ingenious novel that does more than spin an enthralling tale: it plumbs the mysteries of the human mind.

Praise for The Solitary House

“A Victorian tour de force . . . a must-read.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 

“Dickens fans will rejoice. . . . [Lynn] Shepherd leaves the reader spellbound.”—Booklist (starred review)

“The star of Lynn Shepherd’s intriguing mystery novel is mid-century Victorian London. . . . Her suspenseful story and winning prose ably serve her literary conceit.”—Associated Press

“Intellectually enthralling, with dark twists at every turn . . . a haunting novel that will have you guessing until the last pages.”—Historical Novels Review

“Lynn Shepherd has a knack for setting literary murder puzzles. . . . This literary magpie-ism is a treat for book lovers, a little nudge-and-a-wink here and there which delights fans of these other works without alienating those who haven’t read them yet. . . . An intelligent, gripping and beautifully written novel.”—The Scotsman

“The reader is plunged into a complex but comprehensible labyrinth of deception.”—Publishers Weekly(starred review)

They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Scores of books have tried and failed to penetrate the royal facade. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind palace walls to provide the first three-dimensional, comprehensive, and evenhanded portrait of the men and women who make up the British Royal family. Kelley spent more than four years investigating the royal family. In addition to meticulous research into documented sources, she conducted hundreds of exclusive interviews with past and present employees of the royal household, royal friends and relations, courtiers, members of Parliament, and other intimate observers, raising the curtain on this most secretive family.

Here are lonely royal children brought up without a proper education in isolated and artificial surroundings, twentieth-century adolescents with nineteenth-century touchstones. Here are the sexual ambiguities, the alcoholism, gambling, and womanizing that were common in the House of Windsor long before Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. No one is spared; here are the scandals of the last decades: the doomed marriages, and the husbands, wives, lovers and children caught in their wake and damaged beyond repair. Illuminating the Windsors' arrogance, naivete , and lusts as well as hard work, dedication, and ability to survive the most humiliating disclosures, The Royals is Kitty Kelley's richest, most iconoclastic, historically significant, and compelling work.

The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad (“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share” —Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia’s most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor. 

From the Back Cover

The bestselling author of The Madonnas of Leningrad returns with a breathtaking novel of love, madness, and devotion set against the extravagant royal court of eighteenth-century St. Petersburg.

Born to a Russian family of lower nobility, Xenia, an eccentric dreamer who cares little for social conventions, falls in love with Andrei, a charismatic soldier and singer in the Empress's Imperial choir. Though husband and wife adore each other, their happiness is overshadowed by the absurd demands of life at the royal court and by Xenia's growing obsession with having a child—a desperate need that is at last fulfilled with the birth of her daughter. But then a tragic vision comes true, and a shattered Xenia descends into grief, undergoing a profound transformation that alters the course of her life. Turning away from family and friends, she begins giving all her money and possessions to the poor. Then, one day, she mysteriously vanishes.

Years later, dressed in the tatters of her husband's military uniform and answering only to his name, Xenia is discovered tending the paupers of St. Petersburg's slums. Revered as a soothsayer and a blessed healer to the downtrodden, she is feared by the royal court and its new Empress, Catherine, who perceives her deeds as a rebuke to their lavish excesses. In this evocative and elegantly written tale, Dean reimagines the intriguing life of Xenia of St. Petersburg, a patron saint of her city and one of Russia's most mysterious and beloved holy figures. This is an exploration of the blessings of loyal friendship, the limits of reason, and the true costs of loving deeply.

From the bestselling author of The Illuminator comes a magnificent tale about the power of love and the perils of faith.

Tudor England is a perilous place for booksellers Kate Gough and her brother John, who sell forbidden translations of the Bible. Caught between warring factions—English Catholics opposed to the Lutheran reformation, and Henry VIII’s growing impatience with the Pope’s refusal to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn—Kate embarks on a daring adventure that will lead her into a dangerous marriage and a web of intrigue that pits her against powerful enemies. From the king’s lavish banquet halls to secret dungeons and the inner sanctums of Thomas More, Brenda Rickman Vantrease’s glorious new novel illuminates the public pageantry and the private passions of men and women of conscience in treacherous times.

Brenda Rickman Vantrease is a former English teacher and librarian from Nashville, Tennessee. Her bestselling debut novel, THE ILLUMINATOR, was published to critical acclaim and translated into fourteen languages. Her life-long passion for English history and love of story make historical fiction a natural habitat for her imagination.

"A very stimulating book ... in a class by itself." — American MathematicalMonthly
Advanced students, mathematicians and number theorists will welcome this stimulating treatment of advanced number theory, which approaches the complex topic of algebraic number theory from a historical standpoint, taking pains to show the reader how concepts, definitions and theories have evolved during the last two centuries. Moreover, the book abounds with numerical examples and more concrete, specific theorems than are found in most contemporary treatments of the subject.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I is concerned with background material — a synopsis of elementary number theory (including quadratic congruences and the Jacobi symbol), characters of residue class groups via the structure theorem for finite abelian groups, first notions of integral domains, modules and lattices, and such basis theorems as Kronecker's Basis Theorem for Abelian Groups.

Part II discusses ideal theory in quadratic fields, with chapters on unique factorization and units, unique factorization into ideals, norms and ideal classes (in particular, Minkowski's theorem), and class structure in quadratic fields. Applications of this material are made in Part III to class number formulas and primes in arithmetic progression, quadratic reciprocity in the rational domain and the relationship between quadratic forms and ideals, including the theory of composition, orders and genera. In a final concluding survey of more recent developments, Dr. Cohn takes up Cyclotomic Fields and Gaussian Sums, Class Fields and Global and Local Viewpoints.

In addition to numerous helpful diagrams and tables throughout the text, appendices, and an annotated bibliography, Advanced Number Theory also includes over 200 problems specially designed to stimulate the spirit of experimentation which has traditionally ruled number theory.

Fledgling private investigator Molly Murphy's latest assignment gives her the opportunity to escape the typhoid epidemic sweeping across New York City in the summer of 1902 for the lush Hudson River Valley. And it comes from an unlikely source-Captain Daniel Sullivan, a New York City police detective and erstwhile beau of Molly's. She has vowed to keep him at arm's length until he can rid himself of his socialite fiancée, but she can't pass up the chance to take advantage of his offer of a real detective job.

Daniel hires Molly to go undercover inside the country household of Senator Barney Flynn, in Peekskill, New York. Flynn's wife, Theresa, has become the latest devotee of a pair of spiritualists known as the Sorensen Sisters. The frail Theresa is desperate to use the sisters' alleged abilities to hold a séance to contact her infant son, who was kidnapped five years ago and never found; the accused kidnapper was killed before he could tell police where the boy was being held. But the police are sure the women are frauds.

When Molly allows herself to be distracted from the Sorensen Sisters and the members of the Flynn household by the unsolved kidnapping, it is a race against time to find out what's really going on before it's too late.

In Like Flynn is the latest captivating installment in a series which has garnered an impressive array of awards and nominations in just three books: Rhys Bowen's Molly Murphy mysteries have won the Agatha Award, the Anthony Award, the Bruce Alexander Historical Award, and the Herodotus Award, and have been shortlisted for the Agatha Award, the Macavity Award, and the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

History is to society what memory is to the individual. Without it, we don't know who we are and we can't make wise decisions about our future. But while the nature of memory is constant, the nature of history has changed radically over the past forty years.

In The Purpose of the Past, historian Gordon S. Wood examines this sea change in his field through consideration of some of its most important historians and their works. Along the way, he offers wonderful insight into what great historians do, how they can stumble, and what strains of thought have dominated the marketplace of ideas in historical scholarship. The result is a history of American history--and an argument for its ongoing necessity.

A commanding assessment of the field by one of its masters, The Purpose of the Past will enlarge every reader's capacity to appreciate history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize--a powerful love story set against the backdrop of the Civil War, from the author of The Secret Chord.

From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story "filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man" (Sue Monk Kidd). With "pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks's place as a renowned author of historical fiction.

"A stunning follow-up to the best-seller Angelology. . . Part historical novel, fantasy, love story, thriller, and mystery. . . It's a must-read."—Booklist (starred review)

A New York Times bestseller and global sensation, Angelology unfurled a brilliant tapestry of myth and biblical lore on our present-day world and plunged two star-crossed heroes into an ancient battle against mankind’s greatest enemy: the fatally attractive angel-human hybrids known as the Nephilim. With Angelopolis, the conflict deepens into an inferno of danger and passion unbound.

A decade has passed since Verlaine saw Evangeline alight from the Brooklyn Bridge, the sight of her new wings a betrayal that haunts him still. Now an elite angel hunter for the Society of Angelology, he pursues his mission with single-minded devotion: to capture, imprison, and eliminate her kind.

But when Evangeline suddenly appears on a twilit Paris street, Verlaine finds her nature to be unlike any of the other creatures he so mercilessly pursues, casting him into a spiral of doubt and confusion that only grows when she is abducted before his eyes by a creature who has topped the society’s most-wanted list for more than a century. The ensuing chase drives Verlaine and his fellow angelologists from the shadows of the Eiffel Tower to the palaces of St. Petersburg and deep into the provinces of Siberia and the Black Sea coast, where the truth of Evangeline’s origins—as well as forces that could restore or annihilate them all—lie in wait.

Conceived against an astonishing fresh tableau of history and science, Angelopolis plumbs Russia’s imperial past, modern genetics, and ancient depictions of that most potent angelic appearance—the Annunciation of Gabriel—in a high-octane tale of abduction, treasure seeking, and divine warfare as the fate of humanity once again hangs in the balance.

The bestselling novel that follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war, from the author of The Secret Chord and of March, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  

Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. Called "a tour de force"by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. When it falls to Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, to conserve this priceless work, the series of tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-only begin to unlock its deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

The Tiger's Cave & Translations of Other Zen Writings

What happens when a young Zen monk makes a terrible mistake at a public ceremony? What sort of reception does a well-known abbot get today when he visits his old teacher? The answers to these questions can be found in this fascinating translation of Japanese Zen texts by Trevor Leggett. From historical incidents to classes Zen commentaries, this is an account of actual Zen life, the life of traditional temple training, and a valuable guide to the meaning of Zen in Japan.

Anne Brontë’s second and last novel was widely and contentiously reviewed upon its 1848 publication, in part because its subject matter domestic violence, alcoholism, women’s rights, and universal salvation was so controversial. The tale unfolds through a series of letters between two friends as one man learns more about Helen Huntingdon and the past that brought this young painter and single mother to Wildfell Hall. Powerfully plotted and unconventionally structured, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is now considered to be a classic of Victorian literature.

This Broadview Edition includes a critical introduction that situates the novel in significant Victorian debates, and provides appendices that make clear Brontë’s intellectual inheritance from important eighteenth-century writers such as Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft. Material on temperance, education, childrearing, and nineteenth-century women artists is also included in the appendices.

“I will always order Lee A. Talley’s Broadview edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which I teach nearly every year. The historical and scholarly contexts are beautifully summarized. This is an eminently useful edition. Well done again, Broadview!” ― Deborah Denenholz Morse, The College of William and Mary

“This Broadview Edition is a rich resource, unrivaled in its range of contextual materials. When you read them, you see where Anne Brontë was coming from and why she felt compelled to ‘tell the truth’ as she saw it. Lee A. Talley’s clear, accessible introduction orients readers to issues that teachers will want to consider and that students and general readers will find eye-opening. The footnotes are useful and easy to access. I will always order this edition in the future.” ― Sue Lonoff, Harvard University Extension School

“Lee A. Talley, in the introduction to her new edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, succinctly argues Anne Brontë’s case for wanting to write and publish her disturbing but powerful story, even as she addresses Anne’s own status as third sister, explains early publishing confusion (including Charlotte’s pervasive influence on Anne’s reputation), and evaluates the novel’s first reviews. To allow readers their own judgments, Talley includes numerous helpful appendices placing Tenant within the legal, educational, and philosophical contexts of Victorian culture, and as with other Broadview texts, provides an extremely useful sampling of contemporary reviews.” ― Andrea Westcott, Capilano University

This manual has been prepared with the three-fold object of giving an elementary knowledge of Architecture and Historic Ornament, of awakening a responsive and sympathetic feeling for the many beautiful and interesting remains of ancient and medieval civilisation, and directing the attention of students and craftsmen to the beauty, suggestiveness and vitality of the industrial arts of the past and their intimate relation to the social and religious life of teh people.

First published in 1899, Richard Glazier's guide to ornament through the ages is an essential source book to this fascinating subject, with 600 decorative examples.

From the best-selling author of The Name of the Rose and The Prague Cemetery, a novel about the murky world of media politics, conspiracy, and murder

A newspaper committed to blackmail and mud slinging, rather than reporting the news.

A paranoid editor, walking through the streets of Milan, reconstructing fifty years of history against the backdrop of a plot involving the cadaver of Mussolini's double.

The murder of Pope John Paul I, the CIA, red terrorists handled by secret services, twenty years of bloodshed, and events that seem outlandish until the BBC proves them true.

A fragile love story between two born losers, a failed ghost writer, and a vulnerable girl, who specializes in celebrity gossip yet cries over the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. And then a dead body that suddenly appears in a back alley in Milan. 

Set in 1992 and foreshadowing the mysteries and follies of the following twenty years, Numero Zero is a scintillating take on our times from the best-selling author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.

New York Times Paperback Row
One of Vulture's "7 Books You Need to Read this November"
Included on the Los Angeles Times's "Holiday Books Roundup"
One of Bloomberg Business's "Eight Books for Your Holiday Reading"
One of The Millions "Most Anticipated" from the Second Half of 2015
One of the Sun Herald's "Ten noteworthy fiction and nonfiction titles on the way"
December 2015 Indie Next Pick

“Witty and wry...slim in pages but plump in satire about modern Italy...it’s hard not to be charmed by the zest of the author.”—Tom Rachman, New York Times Book Review

"Frequently imitated for his amalgamation of intellect, conspiracism, and historical suspense, the author of In the Name of the Rose takes a more contemporary and satirical turn. In 1992, as Italy works to cleanse itself of corruption, a hack journalist is hired to ghostwrite a memoir about a never-to-be-published gossip rag in order to cover up the real rationale for its fakery. Eco’s warped parable is rooted in a very specific time and place, but readers of Elena Ferrante or Rachel Kushner will likely catch the barbs in his clever absurdities."—Vulture (New York), "7 Books You Need to Read this November"

"Colonna, the struggling ghostwriter at the heart of this story, is transfixed by a juicy scoop: that Mussolini was not killed by partisans in 1945, as most believe, but instead survived in hiding. This sly satire, borrowing from outrageous real-life Italian politics, features a larger-than-life leader, conspiracy theories and an almost-corrupt press."—New York Times, Paperback Row

"Numero Zero [is]...a smart puzzle and a delight."—Kirkus Reviews, starred

"Eco combines his delight in suspense with astute political satire in this brainy, funny, neatly lacerating thriller…. Eco’s caustically clever, darkly hilarious, dagger-quick tale of lies, crimes, and collusions condemns the shameless corruption and greed undermining journalism and governments everywhere. A satisfyingly scathing indictment brightened by resolute love." --Booklist

A classic in its field. Why Nations Go to War engages readers in a dialogue about the human truth behind the mechanistic forces of war. Stoessinger examines the characters and personalities of leaders who have taken their countries into battle, showing how misjudgments and misperceptions affected the course of history. The seven case studies provide a solid historical background on twentieth-century warfare, while the compelling narrative keeps the readers involved. The seventh edition has been thoroughly updated and includes a new case study on Bosnia and the war over the remains of Yugoslavia.

About the Author

Dr. John G. Stoessinger is an internationally recognized political analyst and a prize-winning author of ten leading books on world politics. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and has taught at Harvard, M.I.T., Columbia and Princeton. From 1967-1974, he served as acting director of the political affairs division at the United Nations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lectures extensively throughout the world. On the eve of World War II, Dr. Stoessinger fled from Nazi-occupied Austria to Czechoslovakia. Three years later, he fled again via Siberia to China, where he lived for seven years in Shanghai. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Bancroft Prize. He presently serves as Distinguished Professor of Global Diplomacy at the University of San Diego, and has been listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD since 2002 to the present.

When Tamar, the young king of Sundari, loses a dice game, he loses everything--his kingdom, its riches, and even the right to call his life his own. His bondage is symbolized by the iron ring that appears mysteriously on his finger. To Tamar, born to the warrior caste, honor is everything. So he sets out on a journey to make good on his debt--and even to give up his life if necessary. And that journey leads him into a world of magic, where animals can talk, the foolish are surprisingly wise, and danger awaits...

From Publishers Weekly

This semi-mystical epic adventure draws loosely on the great myths and literature of India. "The imaginative scope of the story and its philosophical complexities will make this an exciting journey for the reader," said PW. Ages 10-14.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-9. Alexander's latest epic adventure is rooted in the mythology of ancient India. A losing game of chance with a mysterious stranger seems like a dream to young King Tamar, but the iron ring on his finger is a very real token that his life may be forfeit. A journey to the stranger's distant kingdom seems his only chance to discover the truth. Many adventures and diversions crop up along the way as Tamar gains some surprising companions, including a brave and beautiful milkmaid, a cowardly eagle, and a wiley monkey king who used to be a man. The author's flexible style moves smoothly from comedy to tragedy and back again; from battle scenes to ridiculous situations, Alexander never loses the thread. Set within the action are small gems of poetry and folktales. The concept of dharma, or proper conduct, and the rigid caste system deeply affect Tamar's actions. Plot, characters, and setting all have their parts to play, but it is the tension set up among the lively characters and the cultural conventions binding them that create the structure of the story and lead inevitably to its conclusion. This wise and witty adventure can be enjoyed on many levels.-Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction, by Kate Chopin, is part of the

Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

When it first appeared in 1899, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was greeted with cries of outrage. The novel’s frank portrayal of a woman’s emotional, intellectual, and sexual awakening shocked the sensibilities of the time and destroyed the author’s reputation and career. Many years passed before this short, pioneering work was recognized as a major achievement in American literature.

Set in and around New Orleans, The Awakening tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother who, determined to control her own life, flouts convention by moving out of her husband’s house, having an adulterous affair, and becoming an artist.

Beautifully written, with sensuous imagery and vivid local descriptions, The Awakening has lost none of its power to provoke and inspire. Additionally, this edition includes thirteen of Kate Chopin’s magnificent short stories.

Stories Included in the Volume:
The Awakening
Emancipation: A Life Fable
A Shameful Affair
At the ‘Cadian Ball
Désirée’s Baby
A Gentleman of Bayou Têche
A Respectable Woman
The Story of an Hour
Athénaïse
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Elizabeth Stock’s One Story
The Storm
The Godmother
A Little Country Girl

Rachel Adams teaches nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature at Columbia University.

In Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece, "The Fall of the House of Usher," spellbound readers were introduced to a brother and sister unlike any in literature.  Cursed by a terrible, tainted bloodline, Roderick and Madeline Usher surrendered to their most unnatural passions--passions that lead the tortured man to seal his own sister, alive, in a stone crypt.  Miraculously, Madeline survived the horrifying ordeal, clawing her way out of the tomb...embracing her brother with bloodstained hands...and bringing the doomed House of Usher crumbling to the ground.

What really happened that fateful night?  What was the unspoken secret that cursed the family for generations?  In this brilliant historical novel, Marie Kiraly takes us back in time--to a dark and lonely night when a writer named Edgar Allan Poe receives a mysterious visitor.  Her name is Pamela, and her son has been stolen away by a member of her husband's family.  They are descendants of the infamous Ushers, whose strange history inspired Poe's most chilling tale.  Moved by their mother's loss, Poe agrees to help Pamela. Thus begins his own descent into the maelstrom, where the master storyteller comes face-to-face with the woman he immortalized...and learns that Madeline's secret is as dark and twisted as the House of Usher itself.

Take a trip in a sip, a journey through time and place via the cocktail glass. The libations in this intoxicating collection span some 200 years, from Europe to the Far East, and they're the drinks with the best tales to tell. Because--without a backstory--a cocktail is nothing more than spirits and mixers. But spike that drink with an anecdote about the people, places, and circumstances that influenced its creation, and imbibers are instantly transported. Step into a British officer's club in 1920s Burma to try the Pegu Club, disembark in colonial Bermuda to sample the original Dark & Stormy, or join F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cole Porter at The Ritz Hotel in Paris for a Royal Highball, among the many spirited adventures between these covers.

The book itself is like a classic cocktail, with its iconic, vintage appeal. Mixed media illustrations by award-winning Danish artist Poul Lange feature vintage bottle labels, postcards, and magazine images. The illustrations are matched with simple recipes and deeply researched backstories for a new look at the world's most iconic cocktails. 

More than a sum of its parts, Storied Sips is a book about living the good life, treating oneself to a dash of civilized escapism at the end of a busy day. Truly, there's nothing like a cocktail to strip away the dullness of the mundane, gilding an evening with a heightened glow, or adding cultured flair to a get-together with friends. Organized from light-bodied quenchers to rich, complex warmers, Storied Sips makes it easy to find cocktail inspiration any time of the year.

REVIEWS

FoodRepublic.com says: “Author Erica Duecy chronicles 200 years of tending bar and the resulting book of tales are a must-read for any cocktail aficionado.” 

“Like many other drink books, this one has cocktails along with their stories and recipes. Yet unlike others, this tiny book and its alluring collage-based illustrations is able to transport you to another time, a different era. In just a page or two the writer paints vivid pictures that allow you to hear the music of that moment, smell the smoke in that bar she's speaking of. It's a little magical.” - Maureen Petrosky, www.thekitchn.com

The Village Voice quips: “Other than luxury real estate catalogs that stir-up serious home-envy, I can’t recall reading another book that so made me want to immediately sell my “cozy, charming” apartment and buy a damn house. Why? I need kitchen cabinet space to collect the vintage barware and vessels in which the drinks in this book deserve to be served. Duecy, a first time author and deputy editor of Fodor’s Travel website, recaptures the glamour of classic cocktails by succinctly sharing the exotic, historical origin of each drink, seducing you to immediately take stock of your liquor cabinet and make a grocery list of what’s missing.”

The Bible is a towering literary and cultural achievement, one of the cornerstones upon which our civilization rests. Yet the road to scriptural literacy is often fraught with obstacles. Which are the key books? How does the Old Testament differ from the New Testament? Who are the significant figures? The Bible Companion answers these questions in a series of engaging, vividly written, thematically related chapters, such as the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, and the Gospels, covering every book in the bible from Genesis to Revelation. Accompanying the text are dozens of carefully chosen, beautifully reproduced illustrations by some of the world's greatest artists, a gallery of ageless treasures to grace any coffee table or bookshelf.

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Climb aboard for the swashbuckling adventure of a lifetime. Treasure Island has enthralled (and caused slight seasickness) for decades. The names Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins are destined to remain pieces of folklore for as long as children want to read Robert Louis Stevenson’s most famous book. With its dastardly plot and motley crew of rogues and villains, it seems unlikely that children will ever say no to this timeless classic.

Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

Read with confidence.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a novelist, poet, short-story writer, and essayist. In 1883, while bedridden with tuberculosis, he wrote what would become one of the best known and most beloved collections of children's poetry in the English language, A Child's Garden of Verses. Block City is taken from that collection. Stevenson is also the author of such classics as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.