On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, rightup the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a youngand striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored onehundred points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers. As historic and revolutionary as the achievement was, it remainsshrouded in myth. The game was not televised; no New Yorksportswriters showed up; and a fourteen-year-old local boy ran ontothe court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook hishand, and then ran off with the basketball. In telling the story ofthis remarkable night, author Gary M. Pomerantz brings to life alost world of American sports. In 1962, the National Basketball Association, stepchild to thecollege game, was searching for its identity. Its teams were mostlywhite, the number of black players limited by an unspoken quota.Games were played in drafty, half-filled arenas, and the playerstraveled on buses and trains, telling tall tales, playing cards,and sometimes read

It all started when Douglas Adams demolished planet Earth inorder to make way for an intergalactic expressway–and then invitedeveryone to thumb a ride on a comical cosmic road trip with thelikes of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the other daft denizens ofdeep space immortalized in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.Adams made the universe a much funnier place to inhabit and foreverchanged the way we think about towels, extraterrestrial poetry, andespecially the number 42. And then, too soon, he was gone. Just who was this impossibly tall Englishman who wedded sciencefiction and absurdist humor to create the multimillion-sellingfive-book “trilogy” that became a cult phenomenon read round theworld? Even if you’ve dined in the Restaurant at the End of theUniverse, you’ve been exposed to only a portion of the offbeat,endearing, and irresistible Adams mystique. Have you met the onlyofficial unofficial member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus? Thevery first person to purchase a Mac

The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See YouTomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as heretraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, takingreaders into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and smallbusinessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how theyimagined the world to come.

Norman O. Brown was a scholar, poet and revolutionary who madea lasting impression on the sixties generation. His distinctivefusion of Marxism, psychoanalysis and classical literature inspiredstudents across the United States and in Europe to participate inthe political upheaval of that time. His books, including Love’sBody and Life Against Death, are still being used in collegeclassrooms throughout the country. This memorial volume has two sections, the first presenting apreviously unpublished autobiographical essay in which Browndetails both his family and intellectual background prior toarriving in the United States at the University of Chicago. The second section contains a number of short meditations on hislife and work by friends, family and colleagues. The pieces arepoetic and insightful, a true testimony to the kind of thinkingBrown inspired. They were presented originally during a memorialgathering at the University of California Santa Cruz, whichincluded, among others, his colle

Albert Einstein's brain floats in a Tupperware bowl in a grayduffel bag in the trunk of a Buick Skylark barreling acrossAmerica. Driving the car is journalist Michael Paterniti. Sittingnext to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named ThomasHarvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955 -- thensimply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for overforty years. On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave NewJersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein'sperplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as theimaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself, an id-drivengenius, the original galactic slacker with his head in the stars.Part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, andpart meditation, Driving Mr. Albert is one of the most unique roadtrips in modern literature.

“Moonshiners put more time, energy, thought, and loveinto their cars than any racer ever will. Lose on the track and yougo home. Lose with a load of whiskey and you go to jail.” —JuniorJohnson, NASCAR legend and one-time whiskey runner Today’s NASCAR is a family sport with 75 million loyal fans,which is growing bigger and more mainstream by the day. PartDisney, part Vegas, part Barnum Bailey, NASCAR is also amultibillion-dollar business and a cultural phenomenon thattranscends geography, class, and gender. But dark secrets lurk inNASCAR’s past. Driving with the Devil uncovers for the first time the truestory behind NASCAR’s distant, moonshine-fueled origins and paintsa rich portrait of the colorful men who created it. Long before thesport of stock-car racing even existed, young men in the rural,Depression-wracked South had figured out that cars and speed weretickets to a better life. With few options beyond the farm orfactory, the best chance of escape was running moonshine.

If you had to give America a voice, it’s been said more thanonce, that voice would be Willie Nelson’s. For more than fiftyyears, he’s taken the stuff of his life—the good and the bad—andmade from it a body of work that has become a permanent part of ourmusical heritage and kept us company through the good and the badof our own lives. So it’s fitting, and cause for celebration, thathe has finally set down in his own words a book that does justiceto his great gifts as a storyteller. In The Facts of Life ,Willie Nelson reflects on what has mattered to him in life and whathasn’t. He also tells some great dirty jokes. The result is a bookas wise and hilarious as its author.

Universally known and admired as a peacemaker, DagHammarskj?ld concealed a remarkable intense inner life which herecorded over several decades in this journal of poems andspiritual meditations, left to be published after his death. Adramatic account of spiritual struggle, Markings has inspiredhundreds of thousands of readers since it was first published in1964. Markings is distinctive, as W.H. Auden remarks in hisforeword, as a record of "the attempt by a professional man ofaction to unite in one life the via activa and the viacontemplativa." It reflects its author's efforts to live his creed,his belief that all men are equally the children of God and thatfaith and love require of him a life of selfless service to others.For Hammarskj?ld, "the road to holiness necessarily passes throughthe world of action." Markings is not only a fascinating glimpse ofthe mind of a great man, but also a moving spiritual classic thathas left its mark on generations of readers.

The bestselling author of Saving Graces shares herinspirational message on the challenges and blessings of copingwith adversity. She’s one of the most beloved political figures in the country,and on the surface, seems to have led a charmed life. In many ways,she has. Beautiful family. Thriving career. Supportive friendship.Loving marriage. But she’s no stranger to adversity. Many know ofthe strength she had shown after her son, Wade, was killed in afreak car accident when he was only sixteen years old. She wouldexhibit this remarkable grace and courage again when the veryprivate matter of her husband's infidelity became public fodder.And her own life has been on the line. Days before the 2004presidential election—when her husband John was running for vicepresident—she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After rounds ofsurgery, chemotherapy, and radiation the cancer went away—only toreoccur in 2007. While on the campaign trail, Elizabeth met many others who havehad to contend with se

McCain, with help from his administrative assistant Salter,picks up where the bestselling Faith of My Fathers left off, afterhis release from a North Vietnamese POW prison. After two decadesin Congress, he has plenty of stories to tell, beginning with hisfirst experiences on Capitol Hill as a navy liaison to the Senate,where he became friends with men like Henry "Scoop" Jackson andJohn Tower. (The latter friendship plays a crucial role in McCain'saccount of the battle over Tower's 1989 nomination for defensesecretary.) He revisits the "Keating Five" affair that nearlywrecked his career in the early '90s, pointedly observing how theinvestigating Senate committee left him dangling for politicalreasons long after he'd been cleared of wrongdoing. There's muchless on his 2000 presidential campaign than one might expect; asingle chapter lingers on a self-lacerating analysis of how he lostthe South Carolina primary. (He admits, "I doubt I shall havereason or opportunity to try again" for the White House, and

Inspired by the fresco cycles that depict the life of St.Francis of Assisi, acclaimed author Valerie Martin tells the lifeof Francesco di Pietro Bernardone in a series of vividly realized“panels” of moments both crucial and ordinary. Drawing from myriadsources and moving in reverse chronological order, she begins inthe dark, final days, with a suffering Francesco on the verge ofdeath, then shows us the unwashed and innocent revolutionary,unafraid to lecture a pope on Christ’s message. We see his mysticalfriendship with Chiara di Offreducci, a nobleman’s daughter whoturns her back on the world to join him, and finally, the frivolousyoung Francesco on the deserted road where his encounter with aleper leads him to an ecstatic embrace of God. Salvation is at oncean illuminating glimpse into the medieval world and an original andintimate portrait of the man whose legend has resonated through thecenturies.