In Meta Math!, Gregory Chaitin, one of the world’s foremost mathematicians, leads us on a spellbinding journey of scientific discovery and illuminates the process by which he arrived at his groundbreaking theories.

“A startling vision of the future of mathematics. . . . The Chaitinesque intellectual future will be eternally youthful and anarchic.”–American Scientist 

“Math’s dark secret is out. . . . Chaitin explains why omega, a number he discovered thirty years ago, has him convinced that math is based on randomness.”–Time Magazine 

“Captivating. . . . With extraordinary skill and a gentle humor, Chaitin shares his profound insights.” –Paul Davies, author of How to Build a Time Machine 

All of science is based on mathematics, but mathematicians have become painfully aware that math itself has serious limitations. This notion was first revealed in the work of two giants of twentieth-century mathematics: Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Now their successor, Gregory Chaitin, digs even deeper into the foundations of mathematics, demonstrating that mathematics is riddled with randomness, enigmas, and paradoxes.

Chaitin’s revolutionary discovery, the Omega number, is an exquisitely complex representation of unknowability in mathematics. His investigations shed light on what, ultimately, we can know about the universe and the very nature of life. But if unknowability is at the core of Chaitin’s theories, the great gift of his book is its completely engaging knowability. In an infectious and enthusiastic narrative, Chaitin introduces us to his passion for mathematics at its deepest and most philosophical level, and delineates the specific intellectual and intuitive steps he took toward the discovery of Omega. In the final analysis, he shows us that mathematics is as much art as logic, as much experimental science as pure reasoning. And by the end, he has helped us to see and appreciate the art––and the sheer beauty––in the science of math.

In Meta Math!, Gregory Chaitin takes us to the very frontiers of scientific thinking. It is a thrilling ride.

Marking the culmination of this exciting trilogy, the hardcover editions of the #1 New York Times best-selling Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard books, THE SWORD OF SUMMER, THE HAMMER OF THOR, and THE SHIP OF THE DEAD, are now available together in a stunning slipcase.

PRAISE FOR THE SWORD OF SUMMER
"The Sword of Summer is a propulsive, kinetic, witty rebooting of Norse mythology with all the charm of the Percy Jackson novels. Instantly likeable heroes! Insane action! Cool villains! A twisting, turning, always exciting story! Rick Riordan does it again, even better."―New York Times best-selling author Michael Grant

PRAISE FOR THE HAMMER OF THOR

"This latest installment in Riordan's Nordic-themed fantasy series is a fast-paced adventure narrative featuring snappy dialogue and a diverse cast of well-developed characters. The author possesses a singular talent for re-creating contemporary teenspeak. An entertaining sequel that will whet fans' appetites for the next installment."―Kirkus Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE SWORD OF SUMMER

"A whirlwind of myth, action, and wry sarcasm, perfect for readers hungry for a new hit of that Percy Jackson-type magic."―Horn Book

PRAISE FOR THE SWORD OF SUMMER

"With an epic plot, engaging (and diverse) characters, and tons of wisecracking humor, Riordan's latest is a page-turner."―School Library Journal

PRAISE FOR THE HAMMER OF THOR

"There's some crossover with characters from Riordan's other series, and the ending promises more overlap in future installments. A surefire hit."―Booklist

A boxed set (three trade paperbacks) of the internationally celebrated speculative fiction trilogy from one of the most visionary authors of our time, Margaret Atwood.

"Lights a fire from the fears of our age. . . . Miraculously balances humor, outrage, and beauty." —The New York Times Book Review

Across three stunning novels—Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and Maddaddam—the best-selling, Booker Prize-winning novelist projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

"Towering and intrepid. . . . Atwood does Orwell one better." —The New Yorker

In Oryx and Crake, a man struggles to survive in a world where he may be the last human. In search of answers, he embarks on a journey through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. In The Year of the Flood the long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. And in Maddaddam a small group of survivors band together with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth. 

"Enthralling. . . . Memorable characters, a tightly controlled pace and shockingly plausible scenes make it fly—to a mysterious, skin-prickling ending." —San Francisco Chronicle

Set in a darkly plausible future shaped by plagues, floods, and genetic engineering, these three novels take us from the end of the world to a brave new beginning. Thrilling, moving, and a triumph of imagination, the Maddaddam Trilogy confirms the ultimate endurance of humanity, community, and love.

About the Author

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in thirty-five countries, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood; and her most recent, MaddAddam. She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award, and lives in Toronto with the writer Graeme Gibson. 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” goes the ancient saying. This concept is at the root of the computational worldview, which basically says that very complex systems—the world we live in—have their beginnings in simple mathematical equations.

"[Rucker's] stylistic approach is so innovative that even non-techies will find themselves enjoying the ride. LIFEBOX is valuable ..." -- San Francisco Chronicle, November 13, 2005

We’ve lately come to understand that such an algorithm is only the start of a never-ending story — the real action occurs in the unfolding consequences of the rules. The chip-in-a-box computers so popular in our time have acted as a kind of microscope, letting us see into the secret machinery of the world. In Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul,Rucker — known as the father of cyberpunk — uses whimsical drawings, fables, and humor to demonstrate that everything is a computation — that thoughts, computations, and physical processes are all the same. Rucker discusses the linguistic and computational advances that make this kind of "digital philosophy" possible, and explains how, like every great new principle, the computational worldview contains the seeds of a next step.

The Western Land is legendary Beat writer William S. Burrough’s profound, revealing, and often astonishing meditation on morality, loneliness, life, and death -- a Book of the Dead for the nuclear age. 

"Burrough's visionary power, his comic genius, and his unerring ability to crack the codes that make up the life of this century are undimished." -- J.G. Ballard, Washington Post Book World

From Publishers Weekly

"The trilogy that began with Cities of the Red Night and continued with The Place of Dead Roads is completed here, and the result is a divine comedy," wrote PW of this "remarkable achievement," concerning the search for eternal rest that is symbolized by the Western Lands of Egyptian mythology.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, short story writer, satirist, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author who wrote in the paranoid fiction genre, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century". His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays. Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.

He was born into a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence, but did not begin publicizing his writing until his thirties. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. In 1942 Burroughs enlisted in the U.S. Army to serve during World War II, but was turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and Navy, after which he picked up the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of which grew into the Beat Generation, which was later a defining influence on the 1960s counterculture.

Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris and Tangier in Morocco, as well as from his travels in the South American Amazon. Burroughs accidentally killed his second wife, Joan Vollmer, in 1951 in Mexico City, and was consequently convicted of manslaughter. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a highly controversial work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–1964).

In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".

Burroughs had one child, William S. Burroughs, Jr. (1947–1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. William Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

The legendary Norwegian pop artist Pushwagner’s scathing comics masterpiece—lost for decades, and never before published in the U.S.—is an epic vision of a single day in a world gone wrong: a brightly smiling, disturbingly familiar dystopia of towering skyscrapers, omnipresent surveillance, and endless distant war. “CLEAN BOMB THE HAPPY-HAPPY WAY,” blares the morning paper. “Heil Hilton!” barks an overlord on the news. 

"Created by the Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner between 1969 and 1975, then unseen for decades, the astonishing cartoon treatise SOFT CITY has finally arrived in the United States. Its oversize pages depict city life as an identity-annihilating, cookie-cutter horror, observed by a baby named Bingo." – Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Book Review

Welcome to Soft City. Now don’t be late for work.

"This lost work, now published in an oversize hardback edition, comes as an aesthetic revelation...Echoing Ulysses in its one-day structure, and Kafka in its humorous yet cutting condemnation of bureaucratic systems, this book sweeps up the reader in vast yet minimalist panoramas emphasizing the visual monotony of tasks such as going to work and buying one’s daily bread...this book will delight fans of experimental and visually lush graphic novels.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Soft City is Norwegian pop artist Pushwagner’s frenetic, prophetic masterpiece…breathtaking and damning in equal measure.” —Sean Rogers, The Globe and Mail

"Soft City is a compelling storehouse of midcentury anxieties. Even if these anxieties are no longer quite the same—if we now inhabit a world in which the absence of work is more terrifying than its overbearing presence—there is still value to Pushwagner’s vision…Soft City turned an era’s apprehensions into art." —Brad Prager, Los Angeles Review of Books

“The images are simple, but there’s something seething behind them, perhaps the passion of an artist possessed of true vision…fans of indie books and art lovers will embrace this as a masterpiece.” –Tom Batten, Library Journal 

Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings...

In the mid-thirteenth century, in a dusty marketplace in Konya, Turkey, a city where Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist travelers mingled, Jelaluddin Rumi, a popular philosopher and scholar, met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering dervish.  Their meeting forever altered the course of Rumi's life and influenced the mystical evolution of the planet.  The bond they formed was everlasting--a powerful transcendent friendship that would flow through Rumi as some of the world's best-loved ecstatic poetry.

Rumi's passionate, playful poems find and celebrate sacred life in everyday existence.  They speak across all traditions, to all peoples, and today his relevance and popularity continue to grow.  In The Illuminated Rumi, Coleman Barks, widely regarded as the world's premier translator of Rumi's writings, presents some of his most brilliant work, including many new translations.  To complement Rumi's universal vision, Michael Green has worked the ancient art of illumination into a new, visually stunning form that joins typography, original art, old masters, photographs, and prints with sacred images from around the world.

"Rumi has, to the recent amazement of many people in the Western culture as well as the Islamic culture, been able to speak directly to contemporary readers.  One of the greatest pieces of good luck that has happened recently in American poetry is Coleman Barks's agreement to translate poem after poem of Rumi.  Rumi, like Kabir, is able to contain and continue intricate theological arguments and at the same time speak directly from the heart or to the heart.  Coleman's exquisite sensitivity to the flavor and turns of ordinary American speech has produced marvelous lines, full of flavor and Sufi humor, as well as the intimacy that is carried inside American speech at its best."
--Robert Bly

The Illuminated Rumi is a truly groundbreaking collaboration that interweaves word and image: a magnificent meeting of ancient tradition and modern interpretation that uniquely captures the spiritual wealth of Rumi's teachings.  Coleman Barks's wise and witty commentary, together with Michael Green's art, makes this a classic guide to the life of the soul for a whole new generation of seekers.

“[An] action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller… A line from the novel perfectly describes this page-turner: ‘Sex, money, and adventure. Does it get any better than that?’”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

From the legendary #1 New York Times bestselling author of Plum Island and Night Fall, Nelson DeMille’s blistering new novel features an exciting new character—U.S. Army combat veteran Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, now a charter boat captain, who is about to set sail on his most dangerous cruise.

Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—seems to have a pretty good life. At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. Mac served five years in the Army as an infantry officer with two tours in Afghanistan. He returned with the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, scars that don’t tan, and a boat with a big bank loan. Truth be told, Mac’s finances are more than a little shaky.

One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this and turns it down. The price then goes up to two million dollars, and Mac agrees to hear the deal, and meet Carlos’s clients—a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez.

What Mac learns is that there is sixty million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo, and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash—by accident or on purpose. And Mac knows if he accepts this job, he’ll walk away rich…or not at all.

Brilliantly written, with his signature humor, fascinating authenticity from his research trip to Cuba, and heart-pounding pace, Nelson DeMille is a true master of the genre.

PRAISE FOR THE CUBAN AFFAIR BY NELSON DEMILLE:

“DeMille's latest is a timely stay-up-all-night, nail-biting page-turner featuring his iconic tongue-in-cheek, articulate, rhythmic narrative. His affably irreverent protagonist, fantastic believable supporting characters, and tense, realistic Cuba-set scenes including some jaw-dropping revelations make this a must-read for his many fans.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
 
"The opening of The Cuban Affair is dynamite—crisp, funny and dramatic—and the climactic conclusion is masterful action writing, fast, precise and genuinely gripping."
—Newsday

"This is powerful, mythic stuff, like Confederate gold and Nazi treasure...As the true nature of the charter-boat owner’s job becomes clear and the betrayals begin, DeMille mounts a long, magnificent sequence with boat chases, helicopter rescues, and tracer fire. They’re all described in that visceral style the author has mastered."
—Booklist

"This book has that incredible wit that Nelson DeMille has, and nobody writes characters like Nelson does."
—Tampa Bay Times

“Nelson DeMille has outdone himself. I thought that Plum Island was one of my favorite thrillers of all time, but I was wrong—DeMille is always going up a gear and The Cuban Affair is going to be one of the top ten thrillers of the year.”
—Strand Magazine

"DeMille’s known for penning hot thrillers (Plum Island, Night Fall), and this one—his 20th—doesn’t disappoint...DeMille keeps it fast-paced, with fascinating details about contemporary Cuba."
—AARP

“With his latest, The Cuban Affair, DeMille cements his reputation as an author of compelling, finely crafted and at times, humorous standalone thrillers. he Cuban Affair bursts with DeMille’s signature authenticity—a byproduct of DeMille’s passion for research.”
—The Big Thrill

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The undisputed master returns with a riveting new book—his first Smiley novel in more than twenty-five years 

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications.

Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.

"Hilarious, heartfelt and brimming with humanity.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it’s not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed, but her mind—Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, have three gifted children, and become the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing astounding feats across the country. Irene is a human lie detector. Frankie can move objects with his mind. And Buddy, the youngest, can see the future. Then one night tragedy leaves the family shattered.

Decades later, the Telemachuses are not so amazing. Irene is a single mom whose ear for truth makes it hard to hold down a job, much less hold together a relationship. Frankie’s in serious debt to his dad’s old mob associates. Buddy has completely withdrawn into himself and inexplicably begun digging a hole in the backyard. To make matters worse, the CIA has come knocking, looking to see if there’s any magic left in the Telemachus clan. And there is: Irene’s son Matty has just had his first out-of-body experience. But he hasn’t told anyone, even though his newfound talent might just be what his family needs to save themselves—if it doesn’t tear them apart in the process.

Harnessing the imaginative powers that have made him a master storyteller, Daryl Gregory delivers a stunning, laugh-out-loud new novel about a family of gifted dreamers and the invisible forces that bind us all.

“Masterful. . . . gracefully balances the outrageous melodrama of Chicago mobsters and shadowy government agencies with the ordinary mysteries of family dynamics. . . . Readers will emerge from the fray sure they know each Telemachus down to the smudges on their hearts. A skillfully written family drama that employs quirk and magic with grace.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

“This gloriously imaginative novel featuring a family of somewhat reluctant psychics has a nifty trick up its sleeve—as whimsical and eccentric as the Telemachus family is, their hopes and desires perfectly mirror our own. Spoonbenders is hilarious, heartfelt and brimming with humanity.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest
 
“Imagine amazing powers—but do so with uncommon creativity, rigor, and humor. You might, if you're lucky, arrive at the delicious drama of the girl who can smell lies; the all-at-once-ness of the boy who can’t not see the future; the great dilemma of the psychic pressed into service as a spy. Daryl Gregory's novel traces the line where gift balances against curse and by the end, we realize he isn’t only talking about amazing powers after all. Spoonbenders is X-Files meets The Sopranos with a real, roaring heart.” —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“Did you spend a childhood convinced that you were *this close* to developing telekinetic powers? Me too! The supernatural may elude us still, but there is real magic in Daryl Gregory’s gleeful story of the Amazing Telemachus Family. Spoonbenders is also about the power of belief and whether we can ever escape our tangled family legacies—and why we might not want to.” —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World

About the Author

Daryl Gregory is an award-winning writer of genre-mixing novels, stories, and comics. His latest novel, SPOONBENDERS, about a down-on-their-luck family with psychic powers, was published by Knopf in June, 2017, and is being developed for television by Paramount and Anonymous Content.

His recent work includes the young adult novel HARRISON SQUARED (Tor, March 2015), a Locus Award finalist which will be reissued by Tor Teen in 2018, along with two sequels. The novella WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE won the World Fantasy award and the Shirley Jackson award, was a finalist for the Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus awards, and is in development for television by Universal Cable Productions.

His SF novel AFTERPARTY was an NPR and Kirkus Best Fiction book of 2014, and a finalist for the Campbell and the Lambda Literary awards. His first novel, PANDEMONIUM, won the Crawford award and was a finalist for the World Fantasy award. His other novels are THE DEVIL'S ALPHABET (a Philip K. Dick award finalist) and RAISING STONY MAYHALL (a Library Journal best SF book of the year).

Many of his short stories are collected in UNPOSSIBLE AND OTHER STORIES, which was named one of the best books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. He wrote the choose-you-own-adventure -style video game, "Flatline", for 3 Minute Games. His comics work includes the sereies "Legenderry: Green Hornet," "Planet of the Apes," "Dracula: The Company of Monsters" (co-written with Kurt Busiek), and the graphic novel "The Secret Battles of Genghis Khan."

He lives and writes full-time in Oakland, California.

A wild and bittersweet memoir of a classic '70s childhood

It's a story of the 1970s. Of a road trip in a wood-paneled station wagon, with the kids in the way-back, singing along to the Steve Miller Band. Brothers waking up early on Saturday mornings for five consecutive hours of cartoons and advertising jingles that they'll be humming all day. A father-one of 3M's greatest and last eight-track-salesman fathers-traveling across the country on the brand-new Boeing 747, providing for his family but wanting nothing more than to get home.

It's Steve Rushin's story: of growing up within a '70s landscape populated with Bic pens, Mr. Clean and Scrubbing Bubbles, lightsabers and those oh-so-coveted Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. Sting-Ray Afternoons paints an utterly fond, psychedelically vibrant, laugh-out-loud-funny portrait of an exuberant decade. With sidesplitting commentary, Rushin creates a vivid picture of a decade of wild youth, cultural rebirth, and the meaning of parental, brotherly, sisterly, whole lotta love.

Praise for Sting-Ray Afternoons

"If you existed in the 1970s and had any awareness of the world around you, Steve Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is going to hit you like the smell of Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo. Smart as heck, laugh out loud funny and warm, Steve Rushin does for 1970s childhoods what Jean Shepherd did for 1940s Christmas. This book is nothing short of a Nadia Comenici Perfect 10."―Julie Klam, author of The Stars in Our Eyes and the New York Times bestseller You Had Me at Woof

"Steve Rushin's Sting Ray Afternoons is a fun and often hilarious account of growing up in the midwest in the 1970s. Throughout the book I was pleasantly reminded of things from my own past-Rushin revisits the TV shows, the toys, the games of the era while telling his family's own story. Sting Ray Afternoon captures both the freedom of youth and the universal longing for experience in a bigger, more adult world. If you grew up in the 1970s, prepare to have your memory triggered."―Craig Finn, songwriter and guitarist, The Hold Steady

"Charming and heartfelt, hilarious and touching, Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is a pitch-perfect portrait of growing up in middle America during the Brady Bunch era. A gem of a memoir, a tribute to family, and a delectable slice of American history."―Nina Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and The Lowells of Massachusetts 

"[Rushin's] childhood, from the ages of 3 to 13, was perfectly encapsulated in the 1970s, and he celebrates the excesses and excitement of the decade with ardor.... Rushin's everykid upbringing and the touchstones of childhood he recounts make Sting-Ray Afternoon a fun-filled and charming trip."―Booklist

"Rushin may not have been able to compete with his athletic older brothers for glory on the playing field, but he pleased his parents with a talent for puns and other wordplay... The nostalgic sweetness of his memories...provides convincing evidence that life in the '70s wasn't as chaotic as it's often made out to be."―Kirkus

"Rushin uses his family as the book's focal point, capturing the nonstop zaniness of growing up with four siblings.... But it's Rushin's dad, a child of the Depression, who steals the show. Whether quoting his father as he describes his five kids...or retelling stories about him being drunk on what was the then new Boeing 747, it's through his father that Rushin captures the mystery and magic of childhood."―Publishers Weekly

"A wild ride through [Rushin's] '70s boyhood in fast-growing Bloomington, Minnesota.... Fiercely funny memoir about family, sports, music, food and fads."―Priscilla Kipp, BookPage

"In his funny, elegiac memoir Sting-Ray Afternoons, Rushin mines...ineffably familiar terrain with a sense of irony and deep affection, working hard to capture the look and feel of the 1970s...Much of what Rushin writes about - the Sears Christmas Wish Book, leaded gasoline, Johnny Carson's many vacations - will strike a chord with anyone who, like me, grew up in that era. What makes the book more than just late-baby-boomer nostalgia is the writing, which is knowing and funny."―Jim Zarroli, NPR

A "touching nostalgic memoir.... A vivid and comedic approach to [Rushin's] personal touchstones for the era."―CBC Radio's "Day Six"

"Magnificent... You will not read a better book this summer - and maybe well into the fall and winter, too."― New York Post

"Sting-Ray Afternoons is [Rushin's] story of growing up in Bloomington in the 1970s. It's a lighthearted, sentimental look back at a Minnesota childhood with a twist of wryness... Rushin's told-with-a-smile stories of childhood are worth the trip: bundling into a snowmobile suit in winter, piling into the Ford LTD Country Squire for a cross-country summer vacation, making mild mischief with neighborhood friends, and one memorable disaster when nature called and wouldn't be kept waiting. All seen through that gauzy, yellowish filter that blurs memory with Dad's Super 8 movies."―Casey Common, Star Tribune

Steve Rushin has been called “the ultimate tinkerer with language” by the New York Times. As a writer for Sports Illustrated, he has filed stories for the magazine from all seven continents, including Antarctica. He is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award and his work has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Magazine Writing collections. In 2006 he was named the National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.

Rushin’s first book, Road Swing, was named one of the “Best Books of the Year” by Publishers Weekly and one of the “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time” by Sports Illustrated. A collection of his sports and travel writing, The Caddie Was a Reindeer, was a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His first novel, The Pint Man, was published in 2010 and was called “wipe-your-eyes funny” by the Los Angeles Times. His 2013 baseball book, The 34-Ton Bat, “will give even the most knowledgeable fan a new understanding of the game,” said the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, Sting-Ray Afternoons, is a memoir of his 1970s childhood.

A native of Bloomington, Minnesota, Rushin lives with his family in Connecticut.

"Khong is a magician, and we are lucky to fall under her spell at the very beginning of her brilliant writing life." ―Lauren Groff

“This novel sneaks up on you ― just like life . . . and heartbreak. And love.”―Miranda July

Her life at a crossroads, a young woman goes home again in this funny and inescapably moving debut from a wonderfully original new literary voice.

Freshly disengaged from her fiancé and feeling that life has not turned out quite the way she planned, thirty-year-old Ruth quits her job, leaves town and arrives at her parents’ home to find that situation more complicated than she'd realized. Her father, a prominent history professor, is losing his memory and is only erratically lucid. Ruth’s mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic. But as Ruth's father’s condition intensifies, the comedy in her situation takes hold, gently transforming her all her grief.
Told in captivating glimpses and drawn from a deep well of insight, humor, and unexpected tenderness, Goodbye, Vitamin pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing in this life.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War.

In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908– 1987), the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a “hearts and mind” diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America’s giant military bureaucracy, steered by elitist generals and blueblood diplomats who favored troop build-ups and napalm bombs over winning the trust of the people. Through dozens of interviews and access to neverbefore-seen documents―including long-hidden love letters―Boot recasts this cautionary American story, tracing the bold rise and the crashing fall of the roguish “T. E. Lawrence of Asia” from the battle of Dien Bien Phu to the humiliating American evacuation in 1975. Bringing a tragic complexity to this so-called “ugly American,” this “engrossing biography” (Karl Marlantes) rescues Lansdale from historical ignominy and suggests that Vietnam could have been different had we only listened. With reverberations that continue to play out in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Road Not Taken is a biography of profound historical consequence. 54 photographs; 3 maps

“Judicious and absorbing…Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, brings solid credentials to this enterprise…Here he draws on a range of material, official and personal…What emerges is a picture of a man who from an early point possessed an unusual ability to relate to other people, a stereotypically American can-do optimism, an impatience with bureaucracy and a fascination with psychological warfare.”
- Fredrik Logevall, The New York Times Book Review

“The Road Not Taken is an impressive work, an epic and elegant biography based on voluminous archival sources. It belongs to a genre of books that takes a seemingly obscure hero and uses his story as a vehicle to capture a whole era.... Mr. Boot’s full-bodied biography does not ignore Lansdale’s failures and shortcomings―not least his difficult relations with his family―but it properly concentrates on his ideas and his attempts to apply them in Southeast Asia. ... The Road Not Taken gives a vivid portrait of a remarkable man and intelligently challenges the lazy assumption that failed wars are destined to fail or that failure, if it comes, cannot be saved from the worst possible outcome.”
- Robert D. Kaplan, The Wall Street Journal

“Max Boot capably and readably tracks the fascinating but ultimately depressing trajectory of this shadowy figure, who, as a murky undercover operative and a literary and cinematic avatar, looms over or lurks behind some of the crucial moments in U.S. foreign policy in the decades following World War II, culminating in its greatest disaster.”
- James G. Hershberg, Washington Post

“In this fine portrait of Edward Lansdale, Max Boot adds to his well-deserved reputation as being among the most insightful and productive of contemporary historians. This is a superb book. Diligently researched and gracefully written, it builds on a comprehensive analysis of Lansdale’s triumphs in the post–World War II Philippines to provide much new material, and expose old myths, about one of the most fascinating, and in many ways ultimately saddest, members of the supporting cast in the later war in Vietnam.”
- Lewis Sorley, National Review

“Edward Lansdale is probably the greatest cold warrior that most Americans have never heard of. Max Boot has written a fascinating account of how this California college humorist, frat boy and advertising executive evolved into a counterinsurgency expert before the term was even coined…. Max Boot has become one of the master chroniclers of American counterinsurgency efforts, and his biography of Mr. Lansdale is a tribute to a guy who recognized the threat of insurgency in a post-World War II environment where most American leaders saw only brute force as a solution to any political-military problem…. This book should be read in Baghdad and Kabul, not only by Americans, but by local leaders.”
- Gary Anderson, Washington Times

“Boot marshals sharp, devastating anecdotes to show how Lansdale’s ideas were dismissed or misunderstood by his contemporaries. . . . The stories this volume tells about voluntary isolation and lack of knowledge, vision, or respect for anything outside U.S. security culture, in all its violent, self-reinforcing whiteness and maleness, have a terrible timelessness to them . . . . We are in his debt for writing a book about another time that challenges us to raise those questions in ours.”
- Heather Hurlburt, Washington Monthly

“A brilliant biography of the life―and a riveting description of the times―of Edward Lansdale, one of the most significant figures in post-WWII Philippines and then Vietnam. Just as David Halberstam did in The Best and the Brightest, Max Boot uses superb storytelling skills to cast new light on America's agonizing involvement in Vietnam. The Road Not Taken not only tells Edward Lansdale's story with novelistic verve but also situates it wonderfully in the context of his tumultuous experiences―and offers important lessons for the present day.”
- General David Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret.)

“Max Boot, one of the premier military historians writing today, has created a fascinating portrait of Edward Lansdale, a maverick in the mold of T.E. Lawrence. But The Road Not Taken is much more than a biography, begging comparison with monumental narratives like Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie. Boot gives us a compelling look back on the Vietnam tragedy, showing that it was by no means the inevitable result of forces beyond the control of our political and military leaders. ”
- Philip Caputo, author of Rumor of War

“I couldn’t stop reading this engrossing biography of Edward Lansdale, a man who loved his country’s ideals and who secretly fought for them in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Washington, DC. Lansdale’s story is relevant today, because he was a key figure in the debate over how and how not to use military force to achieve American foreign policy aims. Through Lansdale’s efforts we got it right in the Philippines, but no one listened to him in Vietnam. He was forgotten by the time we moved into Afghanistan and Iraq. I fervently hope our policy makers read this book.”
- Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn

“As one of the last few links to Lansdale, who was also one of his closest on-the-ground collaborators, I can attest that this biography of him is the best, most accurate, revealing and complete portrait yet produced. Even with all I knew, I learned a great deal more that was new which broadened my understanding of this extraordinary man. The very human way he helped the Filipino and Vietnamese people defend their inalienable rights is a shining model to be followed by current and future generations of Americans assigned abroad to assist fragile nations.”
- Rufus Phillips, author of Why Vietnam Matters

The third volume in the bestselling physics series cracks open Einstein's special relativity and field theory

"Susskind is meticulous in explaining each step of applying the equations to the physical phenomena he describes, and he excels in explaining why the math works the way it does.... If you're intrepid enough...you'll emerge with a much deeper appreciation for the true meaning of Einstein's relativity, Maxwell's equations and many other aspects of fundamental physics."―Science News

"Thrilling...Susskind's approach is to subject the novice to a historical mathematical boot camp to make the path seem natural, and ultimately easier...At once witty and insightful."―Nature

"Susskind and Friedman follow their collaboration on Quantum Mechanics by probing the mathematical nitty-gritty of field theory and Einstein's theory of special relativity in the third installment of the Theoretical Minimum series...Enthusiastic discussion is seasoned with wry humor...Well paced...Clear and concise."--- Publishers Weekly

"Relativity and field theory are absolutely central to modern physics. Here they are explained masterfully, with insight and wit. This is physics the way it's really done, in all its glory, nothing swept under the rug."--- Sean Carroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

Physicist Leonard Susskind and data engineer Art Friedman are back. This time, they introduce readers to Einstein's special relativity and Maxwell's classical field theory. Using their typical brand of real math, enlightening drawings, and humor, Susskind and Friedman walk us through the complexities of waves, forces, and particles by exploring special relativity and electromagnetism. It's a must-read for both devotees of the series and any armchair physicist who wants to improve their knowledge of physics' deepest truths.

Written entirely in French this 125 page book is a novel full of tenderness, humor and sensitivity which will delight both the young people and seniors as young Felicia finds that she will meet her mother in Paris.

The Prey novels are wildly entertaining with their clever plotting, mordant humor, and smart-ass dialogue.”—Booklist 

Lucas Davenport tracks a prolific serial killer in the newest nail-biter by #1 New York Times-bestselling author John Sandford.

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy--it's his boss they want--but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation.

Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves.

Now Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and--as Davenport will come to find--full of surprises . . .

Praise for John Sandford’s Prey Novels
 
“Relentlessly swift...genuinely suspenseful...excellent.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Sandford is a writer in control of his craft.”—Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Excellent...compelling...everything works.”—USA Today
 
“Grip-you-by-the-throat thrills...a hell of a ride.”—Houston Chronicle
 
“Crackling, page-turning tension...great scary fun.”—The New York Daily News
 
“Enough pulse-pounding, page-turning excitement to keep you up way past bedtime.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“One of the most engaging characters in contemporary fiction.”—Detroit News
 
“Positively chilling.”—St. Petersburg Times
 
“Just right for fans of The Silence of the Lambs.”—Booklist
 
“One of the most horrible villains this side of Hannibal.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
“Ice-pick chills...excruciatingly tense...a double-pumped roundhouse of a thriller.”—Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of twenty-eight Prey novels; four Kidd novels; ten Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three other books.

This magazine subscription comes from our newsstand.  Every other month, we will ship from our book store in Flint, Michigan the freshest copy of MAD Magazine PLUS a MAD bonus item every month.  A year of dreck to your door!

About the Author

MAD is the world's leading magazine of humor and satire (at least according to the staff). For over sixty years, MAD has been a cultural touchstone, publishing twisted comedy from the truly disturbed minds of its many contributors, the "The Usual Gang of Idiots." This ragtag crew of social misfits has traditionally been overworked, underpaid and, thankfully, not internet savvy enough the insults posted about them online!

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

“Brilliant and enthralling.” —The Wall Street Journal

A paradigm-shifting book from an acclaimed Harvard Medical School scientist and one of Time’s most influential people.

It’s a seemingly undeniable truth that aging is inevitable. But what if everything we’ve been taught to believe about aging is wrong? What if we could choose our lifespan?

In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Sinclair, leading world authority on genetics and longevity, reveals a bold new theory for why we age. As he writes: “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.”

This eye-opening and provocative work takes us to the frontlines of research that is pushing the boundaries on our perceived scientific limitations, revealing incredible breakthroughs—many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab at Harvard—that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, aging. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes, the descendants of an ancient genetic survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it. Recent experiments in genetic reprogramming suggest that in the near future we may not just be able to feel younger, but actually become younger.

Through a page-turning narrative, Dr. Sinclair invites you into the process of scientific discovery and reveals the emerging technologies and simple lifestyle changes—such as intermittent fasting, cold exposure, exercising with the right intensity, and eating less meat—that have been shown to help us live younger and healthier for longer. At once a roadmap for taking charge of our own health destiny and a bold new vision for the future of humankind, Lifespan will forever change the way we think about why we age and what we can do about it.

This book is a collection of passages from lectures by the Dalai Lama. The teacher who speaks here is not the Buddhist philosopher, nor the head of state of the Tibetan people, but the spiritual friend, the one with a sharp, compassionate, and humorous understanding of the human condition. The Dalai Lama answers our concerns about the source of our anxieties, our limitations, the problem of death, and the deepest responsibilities of our lives.

Publisher's Weekly says: "Not a book for beginners in Buddhism, this has considerable, complex depth that transcends the implied simplicity of the subtitle's "Living the Four Noble Truths" by addressing suffering and it cessation. This selection will, however, be of good value to advanced practitioners who can never have too much of a good thing. A notable exception for beginners is the seven pages of "Specific Instructions on Meditation," in which the world's foremost practitioner and proponent of Tibetan Buddhism gives the benefit of his measureless experience in clear, useful terms. For all this cerebral material's weight, the Dalai Lama's charming sense of humor at times pokes through."

Addressing deep spiritual concerns by asking key questions such as How can we end our suffering? How can we become truly compassionate? and Does the potential for happiness lie in our own hands?, this collection of meditative dialogues by the Dalai Lama expands and illuminates the Four Noble Truths in his characteristic voice, known for its sharp yet compassionate charm and good humor. Each passage is a skillful transcription of the Dalai Lama’s eight famous addresses at the Institute Karma Ling in Savoie, France in 1997, and includes the question-and-answer exchanges that followed each speech. Speaking to advanced Buddhist practitioners, each address receives the full benefit of the Dalai Lama’s measureless experience in clear, useful terms.

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in Fiction and the 2009 Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: a major literary debut that explores class, culture, power, and desire among the ruling and servant classes of Pakistan.

Passing from the mannered drawing rooms of Pakistan’s cities to the harsh mud villages beyond, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s linked stories describe the interwoven lives of an aging feudal landowner, his servants and managers, and his extended family, industrialists who have lost touch with the land. In the spirit of Joyce’s Dubliners and Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches, these stories comprehensively illuminate a world, describing members of parliament and farm workers, Islamabad society girls and desperate servant women. A hard-driven politician at the height of his powers falls critically ill and seeks to perpetuate his legacy; a girl from a declining Lahori family becomes a wealthy relative’s mistress, thinking there will be no cost; an electrician confronts a violent assailant in order to protect his most valuable possession; a maidservant who advances herself through sexual favors unexpectedly falls in love.

Together the stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders make up a vivid portrait of feudal Pakistan, describing the advantages and constraints of social station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. Refined, sensuous, by turn humorous, elegiac, and tragic, Mueenuddin evokes the complexities of the Pakistani feudal order as it is undermined and transformed.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY 

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times • Newsday • Esquire • NPR • Booklist

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Praise for Born a Crime

“[A] compelling new memoir . . . By turns alarming, sad and funny, [Trevor Noah’s] book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah’s family, at life in South Africa under apartheid. . . . Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“[An] unforgettable memoir.”—Parade

 “What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. . . . What also helped was having a mother like Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. . . . Consider Born a Crime another such gift to her—and an enormous gift to the rest of us.”—USA Today

“[Noah] thrives with the help of his astonishingly fearless mother. . . . Their fierce bond makes this story soar.”—People

“[Noah’s] electrifying memoir sparkles with funny stories . . . and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class.”—Booklist (starred review)

“A gritty memoir . . . studded with insight and provocative social criticism . . . with flashes of brilliant storytelling and acute observations.”—Kirkus Reviews

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The undisputed master returns with a riveting new book—his first Smiley novel in more than twenty-five years 

"A kind of eulogy for the present as well as the past, A Legacy of Spies is haunting."—Chicago Tribune

Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications.

Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.

“[Le Carré's] novels are so brilliant because they’re emotionally and psychologically absolutely true, but of course they’re novels.”—New York Times Book Review

“Le Carré’s prose remains brisk and lapidary. His wit is intact and rolls as if on casters... I might as well say it: to read this simmering novel is to come in from the cold.”—New York Times

“Le Carré is such a gifted storyteller that he interlaces the cards in his deck so they fit not simply with this book, but with the earlier ones as well.”—The Atlantic

A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field

“Every page, every chapter, as I read this book, I asked myself, ‘Michael E. Gerber, how come YOU didn’t think of that?’ Just remarkable! Just absolutely a remarkable book. A pumpkin! Who would have thought? Every one of you—entrepreneurs, business owners—read it! Do it now!”—MICHAEL GERBER, author of The E-Myth and creator of The E-Myth Evolution™

Each year Americans start one million new businesses, nearly 80 percent of which fail within the first five years. Under such pressure to stay alive—let alone grow—it’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in a never-ending cycle of “sell it—do it, sell it—do it” that leaves them exhausted, frustrated, and unable to get ahead no matter how hard they try.

This is the exact situation Mike Michalowicz found himself in when he was trying to grow his first company. Although it was making steady money, there was never very much left over and he was chasing customers left and right, putting in twenty-eight-hour days, eight days a week. The punishing grind never let up. His company was alive but stunted, and he was barely breathing. That’s when he discovered an unlikely source of inspiration—pumpkin farmers.

After reading an article about a local farmer who had dedicated his life to growing giant pump­kins, Michalowicz realized the same process could apply to growing a business. He tested the Pumpkin Plan on his own company and transformed it into a remarkable, multimillion-dollar industry leader. First he did it for himself. Then for others. And now you. So what is the Pumpkin Plan?

• Plant the right seeds: Don’t waste time doing a bunch of different things just to please your customers. Instead, identify the thing you do better than anyone else and focus all of your attention, money, and time on figuring out how to grow your company doing it.
• Weed out the losers: In a pumpkin patch small, rotten pumpkins stunt the growth of the robust, healthy ones. The same is true of customers. Figure out which customers add the most value and provide the best opportunities for sustained growth. Then ditch the worst of the worst.
• Nurture the winners: Once you figure out who your best customers are, blow their minds with care. Discover their unfulfilled needs, innovate to make their wishes come true, and overdeliver on every single promise.

Full of stories of other successful entrepreneurs, The Pumpkin Plan guides you through unconven­tional strategies to help you build a truly profitable blue-ribbon company that is the best in its field.

“Another great read from Mike Michalowicz! Mike’s off-the-cuff sense of humor and business savvy ensure that The Pumpkin Plan is a book that entrepreneurs should read for years to come.”—GUY KAWASAKI, author of Enchantment and The Art of the Start

“Hard-hitting advice aimed directly at the entrepreneur who is stuck being a wandering generality instead of a meaningful specific. Plenty of seeds worth planting.”—SETH GODIN, author of We Are All Weird

“Michalowicz hits it out of the park, yet again. The Pumpkin Plan is chock-full of Mike’s wonderful humor and is an extraordinary step-by-step guide for entrepreneurs whose business growth has plateaued.”—J. J. RAMBERG, host of MSNBC’s Your Business

About the Author

Mike Michalowicz launched and sold two multimillion-dollar companies and currently operates his third, Obsidian Launch, a consulting firm that ignites explosive growth in companies that have plateaued. He is the author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur and is a small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Visit PumpkinPlan.com

A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the political climate on campus - victimology, cancel-culture, no-platforming, and political correctness run-amok - began to bother him. He responded by creating a Twitter handle, @AntiPCNYUProf (now @TheAntiPCProf), and began bashing campus excesses with humor and biting satire. Predictably, he was soon discovered and pushed out of his job.

Rectenwald struck back by publishing Springtime for Snowflakes, a memoir of his experiences in academia, which included criticism and analyses of the leftism now dominating campus culture. He followed that book with Google Archipelago,, which delves into the seeming enigma of why big business embraces far-left politics - hint: self-interest is involved - and the rapid growth of consumer/citizen surveillance. The foundation for a robust leftist totalitarianism is being carefully laid.

With this new volume, Rectenwald returns with his characteristic sharp wit and incisive analysis and continues to fine tune his critique of modern leftism. In Beyond Woke, he brings his unique perspective as an ex-Marxist and civil libertarian to bear on leftist culture, with its abandonment of traditional morality and emphasis on collective social identities - which are ironically increasingly atomized, as overwhelming centrifugal forces break up any previously stable social cohesion.

The revolution is here and it's winning. Find out why, and how to combat it. Get Beyond Woke.

#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham’s newest legal thriller takes you inside a law firm that’s on shaky ground.

Mark, Todd, and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier, for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam.

     But maybe there's a way out. Maybe there’s a way to escape their crushing debt, expose the bank and the scam, and make a few bucks in the process. But to do so, they would first have to quit school. And leaving law school a few short months before graduation would be completely crazy, right?  Well, yes and no . . .

“[A] buoyant, mischievous thriller . . . Grisham writes in such an inventive spirit. . . . A treat.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
 
“Satisfying . . . Grisham [is] at his best when he brings his sardonic sense of humor to the sometimes questionable ethics of law and banking.”—USA Today
 
“[A] smartly told tale . . . gratifying and all-too-real.”—The Washington Post

     Pull up a stool, grab a cold one, and get ready to spend some time at The Rooster Bar.

About the Author

John Grisham is the author of thirty-one novels, one work of nonfiction, a collection of stories, and six novels for young readers.

The bestselling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new near-future thriller—a heist story set on the moon.

“An action-packed techno-thriller of the first order…the perfect vehicle for humans who want to escape, if only for a time, the severe gravity of planet earth. The pages fly by.”—USA Today 

Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich. 

Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she’s owed for a long time.

So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can’t say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions—not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can’t handle, and she figures she’s got the ‘swagger’ part down. 

The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz’s problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself. 

Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she’s in way over her head. She’ll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city. 

Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal. 

That’ll have to do. 

 “Revitalizes the Lunar-colony scenario, with the author’s characteristic blend of engineering know-how and survival suspense...Jazz is a great heroine, tough with a soft core, crooked with inner honesty.”—Wall Street Journal

Propelled by its heroine’s wisecracking voice, set in a city that’s at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem-solving and heist-y fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir.

“Smart and sharp…Weir has done it again [with] a sci-fi crowd pleaser made for the big screen.”—Salon.com 

“Makes cutting-edge science sexy and relevant…Weir has created a realistic and fascinating future society, and every detail feels authentic and scientifically sound.” --Associated Press
 
“Out-of-this-world storytelling.”—Houston Chronicle 
 
“Weir has done the impossible—he’s topped The Martian with a sci-fi-noir-thriller set in a city on the moon. What more do you want from life? Go read it!”– Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter
 
“Everything you could hope for in a follow-up to The Martian: another smart, fun, fast-paced adventure that you won’t be able to put down.” – Ernest Cline, New York Times bestselling author of Ready Player One 

“A superior near-future thriller…with a healthy dose of humor.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“An exciting, whip-smart, funny thrill-ride…one of the best science fiction novels of the year.” —Booklist (starred review)
 
“Narrated by a kick-ass leading lady, this thriller has it all – a smart plot, laugh-out-loud funny moments, and really cool science.” —Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

ANDY WEIR built a career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects such as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, NAMED BY THE TIMES AS ONE OF "6 BOOKS TO HELP UNDERSTAND TRUMP'S WIN" AND SOON TO BE A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD

"You will not read a more important book about America this year."—The Economist

"A riveting book."—The Wall Street Journal

"Essential reading."—David Brooks, New York Times

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.

But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

The Master Algorithm : How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos - Paperback

"Wonderfully erudite, humorous, and easy to read." --KDNuggets

In the world's top research labs and universities, the race is on to invent the ultimate learning algorithm: one capable of discovering any knowledge from data, and doing anything we want, before we even ask. In The Master Algorithm, Pedro Domingos lifts the veil to give us a peek inside the learning machines that power Google, Amazon, and your smartphone. He assembles a blueprint for the future universal learner--the Master Algorithm--and discusses what it will mean for business, science, and society. If data-ism is today's philosophy, this book is its bible.

Review

"Pedro Domingos demystifies machine learning and shows how wondrous and exciting the future will be."―Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and The Innovators

"An impressive and wide-ranging work that covers everything from the history of machine learning to the latest technical advances in the field."―Daily Beast

"Domingos writes with verve and passion."―New Scientist

"Unlike other books that proclaim a bright future, this one actually gves you what you need to understand the changes that are coming."―Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google and coauthor of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

"Domingos is the perfect tour guide from whom you will learn everything you need to know about this exciting field, and a surprising amount about sience and philosophy as well."―Duncan Watts, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, and author of Six Degrees and Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer 

"[The Master Algorithm] does a good job of examining the field's five main techniques.... The subject is meaty and the author...has a knack for introducing concepts at the right moment."―The Economist

"Domingos is a genial and amusing guide, who sneaks us around the backstage areas of the science in order to witness the sometimes personal (and occasionally acrimonious) tenor of research on the subject in recent decades."―Times Higher Education 

"An exhilarating venture into groundbreaking computer science." ―Booklist, starred review

"[An] enthusiastic but not dumbed-down introduction to machine learning...lucid and consistently informative.... With wit, vision, and scholarship, Domingos decribes how these scientists are creating programs that allow a computer to teach itself. Readers...will discover fascinating insights." ―Kirkus Reviews 

"This book is a must have to learn machine learning without equation. It will help you get the big picture of the several learning paradigms. Finally, the provocative idea is not only intriguing, but also very well argued."―Data Mining Research

About the Author

Pedro Domingos is a professor of computer science at the University of Washington. He is a winner of the SIGKDD Innovation Award, the highest honor in data science. A fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, he lives near Seattle.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale

In this final volume of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of the population. Toby is part of a small band of survivors, along with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth.

As Toby explains their origins to the curious Crakers, her tales cohere into a luminous oral history that sets down humanity’s past—and points toward its future. Blending action, humor, romance, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Atwood—a moving and dramatic conclusion to her epic work of speculative fiction.

A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Notable Book
A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail
A GoodReads Reader's Choice

Before performing stand-up comedy on The Tonight Show and writing on the staff of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Mack Dryden survived on goat butt soup in a Moroccan jail, not knowing if he'd ever be released. He lived not only to tell the tale, but--amazingly--to inspire, instruct, and make us laugh out loud about it as well. Dryden currently lives in California with his wife and children.

From Taraji P. Henson, Academy Award nominee, Golden Globe winner, and star of the award-winning film Hidden Figures, comes an inspiring and funny memoir—“a bona fide hit” (Essence)—about family, friends, the hustle required to make it in Hollywood, and the joy of living your own truth.

"Taraji P. Henson, a Golden Globe winner and an Academy and Emmy Award nominee, shares her rocky road to fame in a bona fide hit memoir."—Essence Magazine

With a sensibility that recalls her beloved screen characters, including Katherine, the NASA mathematician, Yvette, Queenie, Shug, and the iconic Cookie from Empire, Taraji P. Henson writes of her family, the one she was born into and the one she created. She shares stories of her father, a Vietnam vet who was bowed but never broken by life’s challenges, and of her mother who survived violence both at home and on DC’s volatile streets. Here, too, she opens up about her experiences as a single mother, a journey some saw as a burden but which she saw as a gift.

Around the Way Girl is also a classic actor’s memoir in which Taraji reflects on the world-class instruction she received at Howard University and how she chipped away, with one small role after another, at Hollywood's resistance to give women, particularly women of color, meaty significant roles. With laugh-out-loud humor and candor, she shares the challenges and disappointments of the actor’s journey and shows us that behind the red carpet moments, she is ever authentic. She is at heart just a girl in pursuit of her dreams in this “inspiring account of overcoming adversity and a quest for self-discovery, written with vitality and enthusiasm” (Shelf Awareness).

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale writes her first graphic novel, a cat-centric all-ages New York Times bestselling adventure.

On a dark night, young genetic engineer Strig Feleedus is accidentally mutated by his own experiment and merges with the DNA of a cat and an owl. What follows is a humorous, action-driven, pulp-inspired superhero adventure-- with a lot of cat puns.

Lauded novelist Margaret Atwood and acclaimed artist Johnnie Christmas collaborate on one of the most highly anticipated comic book and literary events of the year!

Published in over thirty-five countries, Margaret Atwood is one of the most important living writers of our day and is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her work has won the Man Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, Premio Mondello, and more. Angel Catbird is her first graphic novel series.

Atwood's The Blind Assassin was named one of Time magazine's 100 best English-language novels published since 1923 and her recent MaddAddam Trilogy is currently being adapted into an HBO television show by Darren Aronofsky