One day in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a beautifuldiamond necklace in a jewelry store window and wondered: Why arepersonal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if weshared what we desired? Several weeks, dozens of phone calls, andone great leap of faith later, Jonell and twelve other women boughtthe necklace together–to be passed along among them all. The dazzling treasure weaves in and out of each woman’s life,reflecting her past, defining her present, making promises for herfuture. Lending sparkle in surprising and unexpected ways, thenecklace comes to mean something dramatically different to each ofthe thirteen women. With vastly dissimilar histories and lives,they transcend their individual personalities and politics to jointogether in an uncommon journey–and what started as a quirky socialexperiment becomes something far richer and deeper.

The pleasure of reading the Education," wrote Alfred Kazin,"is the pleasure of reading a work of literature made up,literally, from historical facts . . . It is the pleasure of seeinghistory come alive, of seeing it move, of seeing behind history tothe actions and actors. It is the pleasure of seeing revealed thehumanity so often concealed in history. His political ideals shaped by two presidentialancestors--great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John QuincyAdams--Henry Adams was one of the most powerful and original mindsto confront the American scene from the Civil War to the FirstWorld War. Privately printed in 1907 and published to wide acclaimshortly after the author's death in 1918, Adams's Education is lessa memoir and more a work of brilliant history which charts thegreat transformation in nineteenth-century American intellectuallife. A work of profound lyricism, enormous humanity, andremarkable prescience, The Education of Henry Adams presents aworld poised between the certainties

In the first thorough account of the complex workingrelationship between Lyndon Baines Johnson and Martin Luther King,Jr., Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Nick Kotz offers anengrossing investigation of a little-known element of the Johnsonpresidency. Tracing both leaders' paths, from Johnson's assumptionof the presidency in 1963 to King's assassination in 1968, Kotzdescribes how they formed a wary alliance that would becomeinstrumental in producing some of the most substantial civil rightslegislation in American history: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 andthe Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on a wealth of newlyavailable sourcesJohnson's taped telephone conversations,voluminous FBI wiretap logs, and secret communications between FBIdirector J. Edgar Hoover and the presidentKotz examines the forcesthat drew the charismatic men together and those that eventuallydrove them apart. Kotz's focused and incisive examinationsignificantly enriches our understanding of both men.

Penis envy? P'shaw.From the bestselling author of How to Make Your Man Behave In 21Days or Less Using the Secrets of Professional Dog Trainers comes (ahem) The Clitourist , a witty and empowering guide tothe hottest spot on a woman's body. For something so important toso many, there is a shocking lack of information available on theclitoris. An intimate biography of a gal's best friend, TheClitourist boldly attempts to fill that void, educating andentertaining the reader on every level, from structure and functionto care and upkeep, not to mention handy dandy arousal methods. Andthough funny, The Clitourist is not afraid to tackle thereally tough questions like, if we can put a man on the moon, whynot on a woman's clitoris during intercourse? As revolutionary insubject matter as The Vagina Monologues , as frank as Sexand the City, The Clitourist is a celebration of the femalebody as well as just a plain hoot that women will delight in buyingfor themselves, their sisters, and their friends (and heck, m

Circle of Greed is the epic story of the rise and fall of BillLerach, once the leading class action lawyer in America and now aconvicted felon. For more than two decades, Lerach threatened,shook down and sued top Fortune 500 companies, including Disney,Apple, Time Warner, and—most famously—Enron. Now, the man whobrought corporate moguls to their knees has fallen prey to the samecorrupt impulses of his enemies, and is paying the price by servingtime in federal prison. If there was ever a modern Greek tragedy about a man and his times,about corporate arrogance and illusions and the scorched-earthtactics to not only counteract corporate America but to beat it atits own game, Bill Lerach's story is it.

This important book by one of our leading experts on disasterpreparedness offers a compelling narrative about our nation’sinability to properly plan for large-scale disasters and proposeschanges that can still be made to assure the safety of itscitizens. Five years after 9/11 and one year after Hurricane Katrina, it ispainfully clear that the government’s emergency response capacityis plagued by incompetence and a paralyzing bureaucracy. IrwinRedlener, who founded and directs the National Center for DisasterPreparedness, brings his years of experience with disasters andhealth care crises, national and international, to an incisiveanalysis of why our health care system, our infrastructure, and ouroverall approach to disaster readiness have left the nationvulnerable, virtually unable to respond effectively to catastrophicevents. He has had frank, and sometimes shocking, conversationsabout the failure of systems during and after disasters with abroad spectrum of people—from hospital workers an