This funny and tender book combines three of Alice Steinbach’sgreatest passions: learning, traveling, and writing. Afterchronicling her European journey of self-discovery in WithoutReservations , this Pulitzer Prize—winning columnist for theBaltimore Sun quit her job and left home again. This time sheroamed the world, taking lessons and courses in such things asFrench cooking in Paris, Border collie training in Scotland,traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, and architecture and art inHavana. With warmth and wit, Steinbach guides us through thepleasures and perils of discovering how to be a student again. Shealso learns the true value of this second chance at educatingherself: the opportunity to connect with and learn from the peopleshe meets along the way.

Of all our great presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is the only onewhose greatness increased out of office. When he toured Europe in1910 as plain “Colonel Roosevelt,” he was hailed as the most famousman in the world. Crowned heads vied to put him up in theirpalaces. “If I see another king,” he joked, “I think I shall bitehim.” Had TR won his historic “Bull Moose” campaign in1912 (when he outpolled the sitting president, William HowardTaft), he might have averted World War I, so great was hisinternational influence. Had he not died in 1919, at the early ageof sixty, he would unquestionably have been reelected to a thirdterm in the White House and completed the work he began in 1901 ofestablishing the United States as a model democracy, militarilystrong and socially just. This biography by Edmund Morris, the PulitzerPrize and National Book Award–winning author of The Rise ofTheodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, is itself the completion of atrilogy sure to stand as definitive. Packed with m

Michael Jackson: The Making of "Thriller" is an illustratedtribute to the King of Pop and his groundbreaking music video, withnever-before-seen photos of its creation. The book features over200 exclusive, behind-the-scenes photographs of the artist on setduring the 1983 production of the Grammy award winning videodirected by John Landis. Considered to be the most successful project of all time,"Thriller" is beloved the world over, inspiring imitation and acult-like following of millions of fans. Documenting the creationof the most popular and iconic music video of all time, this bookcelebrates the artist and his music at the top of his career. Famed photographer Douglas Kirkland and journalist Nancy Griffinwere the only members of the media allowed on the set of the video.The resulting photos capture Jackson both in high performance modeand relaxing on the set and depict his transformation into thecharacters in the video as well capturing the public and privatefaces of Michael Jackson.

An absorbing biography of the great leaderwho was the bridge between ancient and modern Europe — the firstmajor study in more than twenty-five years. Charlemagne was an extraordinary figure: aningenious military strategist, a wise but ruthless leader, acunning politician, and a devout believer who ensured the survivalof Christianity in the West. He also believed himself above therules of the church, siring bastards across Europe, and coldlyordering the execution of 4,500 prisoners. Derek Wilson shows howthis complicated, fascinating man married the military might of hisarmy to the spiritual force of the Church in Rome, thereby forgingWestern Christendom. This is a remarkable portrait of Charlemagneand of the intricate political, religious, and cultural world hedominated.

“Christopher Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He wasa creature who would prove in many ways to be more human than Iam.” –from The Good Good Pig A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own amongwild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always feltmore comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladlyopened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away fromnourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inklingthat this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not onlysurvive but flourish–and she soon found herself engaged with hersmall-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible.Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler withsomething she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventuallyweighing 750 pounds) to family and home. The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all hisglory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural NewHampshire, where his boundless zest for life a

They called him Neutron Jack. They called him the world'stoughest boss. And then Fortune called him "The Manager of theCentury." In his twenty-year career at the helm of GeneralElectric, Jack Welch defied conventional wisdom and turned an agingbehemoth of a corporation into a lean, mean engine of growth andcorporate innovation. In this remarkable autobiography-a classicbusiness book and runaway New York Times bestseller now updatedwith a new afterword by the author-Jack Welch takes us on therough-and-tumble ride that has been his remarkable life. From hisworking-class childhood to his early days in G.E. Plastics to hislife at the top of the world's most successful company, Welch tellshis intensely personal story with his well-known fire and candor.And although it chronicles billion-dollar deals and high-stakescorporate standoffs, Jack is ultimately a story about people-from aman who based his career on demanding only the best from others andfrom himself.

In this fascinating and meticulously researched book,bestselling historian Arthur Herman sheds new light on two of themost universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century, andreveals how their forty-year rivalry sealed the fate of India andthe British Empire. They were born worlds apart: Winston Churchill to Britain’s mostglamorous aristocratic family, Mohandas Gandhi to a piousmiddle-class household in a provincial town in India. Yet ArthurHerman reveals how their lives and careers became intertwined asthe twentieth century unfolded. Both men would go on to lead theirnations through harrowing trials and two world wars—and becomelocked in a fierce contest of wills that would decide the fates ofcountries, continents, and ultimately an empire. Here is a sweepingepic with a fascinating supporting cast, and a brilliant narrativeparable of two men whose great successes were always haunted bypersonal failure—and whose final moments of triumph wereovershadowed by the loss of what they held

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK In the fall of 1988, Sue Miller found herself caring for herfather, James Nichols, once a truly vital man, as he succumbed toAlzheimer’s disease. Beginning an intensely personal journey, sherecalls the bitter irony of watching this church historian wrestlewith his increasingly befuddled notion of time and meaning. Shedetails the struggles with doctors, her own choices, and theattempt to find a caring response to a disease whose specialcruelty is to diminish the humanity of those it strikes. Inluminous prose, Sue Miller has fashioned a compassionate inventoryof two lives, a memoir destined to offer comfort to all sons anddaughters struggling to make peace with their fathers and withthemselves.

V. S. Naipaul has always faced the challenges of "fitting onecivilization to another." In A Writer's People , he takes usinto this process of creative and intellectual assimilation, whichhas shaped both his writing and his life. Naipaul discussesthe writers to whom he was exposed early on—Derek Walcott, GustaveFlaubert, and his father, among them—and his first encounters withliterary culture. He illuminates the ways in which the writings ofGandhi, Nehru, and other Indian writers both reveal and conceal theauthors themselves and their nation. And he brings the samescrutiny to bear on his own life: his early years in Trinidad; theempty spaces in his family history; his ever-evolving reactions tothe more complicated India he would encounter for the first time atage thirty.

He squared off against Caesar and was friends with youngBrutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botchedtransition from military hero to politician. He lambasted MarkAntony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his witas he was for exposing his opponents? sexual peccadilloes.Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation butalso a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome?s most fearedpolitician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times.Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill allstudied his example. No man has loomed larger in the politicalhistory of mankind. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everittplunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancientRome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through hislegendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection ofunguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to lifein these pages as a witty and cunning political ope

In the first in a new series of brief biographies, bestsellingauthor Peter Ackroyd brilliantly evokes the medieval world ofEngland and provides an incomparable introduction to the greatpoet’s works. Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, lived a surprisingly eventfullife. He served with the Duke of Clarence and with Edward III, andin 1359 was taken prisoner in France and ransomed. Through hiswife, Philippa, he gained the patronage of John of Gaunt, whichhelped him carve out a career at Court. His posts includedController of Customs at the Port of London, Knight of the Shirefor Kent, and King's Forester. He went on numerous adventurousdiplomatic missions to France and Italy. Yet he was also indictedfor rape, sued for debt, and captured in battle. He began to write in the 1360s, and is now known as the father ofEnglish poetry. His Troilus and Criseyde is the firstexample of modern English literature, and his masterpiece, TheCanterbury Tales , the forerunner of the English novel,dominated th

Emily Dickinson, probably the most loved and certainly the greatest of American poets, continues to be seen as the most elusive. One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson s growth a richly contextualized story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production.

IMMEDIATELY ENGROSSING . . . [A] SPLENDID MEMOIR. --The Wall Street Journal "Run, don't walk to the nearest bookstore and treat yourself tothe most heartwarming, nostalgia-producing book you will have readin many a year." --Ann Landers "Entertaining . . . The story of a modest man who succeededextravagantly by remaining mostly himself. . . . His memoir is ashort course on the flow of events in the second half of thiscentury--events the world knows more about because of WalterCronkite's work." --The New York Times Book Review A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF THE MONTH CLUB

“Number One” was a phrase my father—and, for that matter, mymother—repeated time and time again. It was a phrase spoken by myparents’ friends and by their friends’ children. Whenever adultsdiscussed the great Chinese painters and sculptors from the ancientdynasties, there was always a single artist named as Number One.There was the Number One leader of a manufacturing plant, theNumber One worker, the Number One scientist, the Number One carmechanic. In the culture of my childhood, being best waseverything. It was the goal that drove us, the motivation that gavelife meaning. And if, by chance or fate or the blessings of thegenerous universe, you were a child in whom talent was evident,Number One became your mantra. It became mine. I never begged myparents to take off the pressure. I accepted it; I even enjoyed it.It was a game, this contest among aspiring pianists, and although Imay have been shy, I was bold, even at age five, when faced with afield of rivals. Born in China to parents whose mu

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of oneof the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamukwas born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartmentbuilding where his mother first held him in her arms. His portraitof his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory andthe melancholy–or h ü z ü n– that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid theruins of a lost empire. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappyparents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking theBosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to thewriters and painters–both Turkish and foreign–who would shape hisconsciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ BuenosAires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of placeand sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

A Founding Father of the U.S., Franklin was a true Renaissanceman: writer, publisher, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. Duringhis life, he offered advice on attaining wealth, organized publicinstitutions, and negotiated with foreign powers to ensure hiscountry's survival. Collected here are some of his greatest andmost timeless writings.

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and histumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about theman who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Belovedand hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan whofought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to hiswill in the cause of democracy. Jackson’s election in 1828 usheredin a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites,were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made itsstand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and thefears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times athome and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson’s presidency,acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House.Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he detailsthe human drama–the family, the women, and the inner circle ofadvisers–that shaped Jackson’s private world through years of stormand victory. One of our most significant

The definitive story of one of the greatest dynasties inbaseball history, Joe Torre's New York Yankees. When Joe Torre took over as manager of the Yankees in 1996, theyhad not won a World Series title in eighteen years. In that timeseventeen others had tried to take the helm of America’s mostfamous baseball team. Each one was fired by George Steinbrenner.After twelve triumphant seasons—with twelve straight playoffappearances, six pennants, and four World Series titles—Torre leftthe Yankees as the most beloved manager in baseball. But dealingwith players like Jason Giambi, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera,Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson is what managing is all about.Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take readersinside the dugout, the clubhouse, and the front office, showingwhat it took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world.

The Facts is the unconventional autobiography of a writer whohas reshaped our idea of fiction—a work of compelling candor andinventiveness, instructive particularly in its revelation of theinterplay between life and art. Philip Roth concentrates on five episodes from his life: hissecure city childhood in the thirties and forties; his education inAmerican life at a conventional college; his passionateentanglement, as an ambitious young man, with the angriest personhe ever met (the "girl of my dreams" Roth calls her); his clash, asa fledgling writer, with a Jewish establishment outraged byGoodbye, Columbus; and his discovery, in the excesses of thesixties, of an unmined side to his talent that led him to writePortnoy's Complaint. The book concludes surprisingly—in true Rothian fashion—with asustained assault by the novelist against his proficiencies as anautobiographer.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD In this groundbreaking biography, T.J. Stiles tells the dramaticstory of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the combative man andAmerican icon who, through his genius and force of will, did morethan perhaps any other individual to create modern capitalism.Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The First Tycoondescribes an improbable life, from Vanderbilt’s humble birth duringthe presidency of George Washington to his death as one of therichest men in American history. In between we see how theCommodore helped to launch the transportation revolution, propelthe Gold Rush, reshape Manhattan, and invent the moderncorporation. Epic in its scope and success, the life of Vanderbiltis also the story of the rise of America itself.

Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, and important book. THE NEW YORK TIMES If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle,and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man wasMalcolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is the result of a uniquecollaboration between Alex Haley and Malcolm X, whose voice andphilosophy resonate from every page, just as his experience and hisintelligence continue to speak to millions.