"A true emotional phenomenon...Entertaining...Of particularinterest to fans will be the evolution of Johnson's relationshipwith Bird, his great karmic partner in the game." NEW YORK NEWSDAY He's faced challenges all of his life, butnow Magic Johnson faces the biggest challenge of all, his own bravebattle with HIV. In this dramatic, exciting, and inspirationalautobiography, Magic Johnson allows readers into his life, into histirumphs and tragedies on and off the court. In his own exuberantstyle, he tells readers of the friends and family who've beenconstant supporters and the basketball greats he's worked with.It's all here, the glory and the pain the character, charisma, andcourage of the hero called Magic. AN ALTERNATE SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTHCLUB

Ernest Shackleton led two Antarctic expeditions, and diedshortly after the beginning of the third. His first expedition wasnot a total success (they did not reach the South Pole), and thesecond was, in some senses, a total failure (they never reached theAntarctic mainland at all). Yet it is the second for which he isremembered. His expedition ship Endurance was trapped, then crushedin the ice, before his party could be landed, leaving his men in ahopeless situation. For months Shackleton held his party togetherbefore taking to boats and bringing everyone to safety to ElephantIsland. His open-boat journey to South Georgia, and the eventualrescue of the party left behind, are now legendary. Visitors toShackleton s grave in South Georgia, stepping over the loungingelephant seals that keep the dead company, pay homage to the manwho had the vision, bravery and strength to open up Antarctica forall who followed. Shackleton showed the flame of leadership as fewin the history of exploration have done, and nowhere do

modern-day classic. "Gift from the Sea is like a shell itself inits small and perfect form . . . It tells of light and life andlove and the security that lies at the heart."--New York Times BookReview.

The Outsider is an unsentimental yet profoundly moving look atone family’s experience with mental illness. In 1978, CharlesLachenmeyer was a happily married professor of sociology who livedin the New York suburbs with his wife and nine-year-old son,Nathaniel. But within a few short years, schizophrenia–adevastating mental illness with no known cure–would cost himeverything: his sanity, his career, his family, even the roof overhis head. Upon learning of his father’s death in 1995, Nathanielset out to search for the truth behind his father’s haunted,solitary existence. Rich in imagery and poignant symbolism, TheOutsider is a beautifully written memoir of a father’s struggle tosurvive with dignity, and a son’s struggle to know the father helost to schizophrenia long before he finally lost him todeath. The Outsider is a recipient of the Kenneth Johnson MemorialResearch Library Book Award and is the winner of the 2000 Bell ofHope Award, presented annually by the Mental Health Associatio

Set in the cruel years of Hungary's Nazi occupation and subsequent Communist regime, SWIMMING ACROSS is the stunning childhood memoir of one of the leading thinkers of our time, the legendary Intel chairman. The story of Andris Grof-later to become Andy Grove-begins in the 1930s, on the banks of the Danube. Here, in Budapest, young Andris lives a middle-class existence with his secular Jewish parents. But he and his family will be faced with a host of staggering obstacles. After Andris nearly loses his life to scarlet fever at the age of four, his family is forced to deal with the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Fleeing the Germans, Andris and his mother find refuge with a Christian family in the outskirts of Budapest and then hide in cellars from Russian bombs. After the nightmare of war ends, the family rebuilds its business and its life, only to face a new trial with a succession of repressive Communist governments. In June 1956, the popular Hungarian uprising is put down at gunpoint. Soviet troo

“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

Sir Alex announced his retirement as manager of ManchesterUnited after 27 years in the role. He has gone out in a blaze ofglory, with United winning the Premier League for the 13th time,and he is widely considered to be the greatest manager in thehistory of British football. Over the last quarter of a century there have been seismicchanges at Manchester United. The only constant element has beenthe quality of the manager's league-winning squad and United's runof success, which included winning the Champions League for asecond time in 2008. Sir Alex created a purposeful, but welcoming,and much envied culture at the club which has lasted the test oftime. Sir Alex saw Manchester United change from a conventionalfootball club to what is now a major business enterprise, and henever failed to move with the times. It was directly due to hisvision, energy and ability that he was able to build teams both onand off the pitch. He was a man-manager of phenomenal skill, andincreasingly he had to deal with global stars.

An enduring mystery in Mark Twain’s life concerns the events ofhis last decade, from 1900 to 1910. Despite many Twain biographies, no one has everdetermined exactly what took place during those final years afterthe death of Twain’s wife of thirty-four years and how thoseexperiences affected him, personally and professionally. For nearlya century, it was believed that Twain went to his death a beloved,wisecracking iconoclastic American (“I am not an American,” Twainwrote; “I am the American”), undeterred by life’s sorrows andchallenges. Laura Skandera Trombley, the preeminent Twainscholar at work today, suspected that there had to be more to thestory than the cultivated, carefully constructed version that hadbeen intact for so long. Trombley went in search of the one womanwhom she suspected had played the largest role in Twain’s lifeduring those final years and who possibly held the answers to herquestions about Twain’s life and writings. Now, in Mark Twain’s Other Woman, after