When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked'What is a hero?' I remember the glib response I repeated somany times. My answer was that a hero is someone who commitsa courageous action without considering the consequences--a soldierwho crawls out of a foxhole to drag an injured buddy tosafety. And I also meant individuals who are slightly largerthan life: Houdini and Lindbergh, John Wayne, JFK, and JoeDiMaggio. Now my definition is completely different. Ithink a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength topersevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles: afifteen-year-old boy who landed on his head while wrestling withhis brother, leaving him barely able to swallow or speak; TravisRoy, paralyzed in the first thirty seconds of a hockey game in hisfreshman year at college. These are real heroes, and so arethe families and friends who have stood by them." The whole world held its breath when Christopher Reeve struggledfor life on Memorial Day, 1995. On the

When Anne Rice stopped crafting stories about vampires andbegan writing about Jesus, many of her fans were shocked. Thisautobiographical spiritual memoir provides an account of how theauthor rediscovered and fully embraced her Catholic faith afterdecades as a self-proclaimed atheist. Rice begins with herchildhood in New Orleans, when she seriously considered entering aconvent. As she grows into a young adult she delves into concernsabout faith, God and the Catholic Church that lead her away fromreligion. The author finally reclaims her Catholic faith in thelate 1990s, describing it as a movement toward total surrender toGod. She writes beautifully about how through clouds of doubt andpain she finds clarity, realizing how much she loved God anddesired to surrender her being, including her writing talent, toGod. Covering such a large sequence of time and life events is noteasy, and some of the author's transitions are a bit jarring. Fansof Rice's earlier works will enjoy discovering more about her lifean

The first complete, unvarnished history of Southern rock’slegendary and most popular band, from its members’ hardscrabbleboyhoods in Jacksonville, Florida and their rise to worldwide fameto the tragic plane crash that killed the founder and the band’srise again from the ashes. In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie VanZant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band toplay covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and thecountry and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming theirband after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee SeniorHigh School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiringmusicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties,and bars throughout the South. During the next decade LynyrdSkynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commerciallysuccessful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since theAllman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama”became classics. The

Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insularNew Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by hermother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hidingher before they finally banish her altogether. After giving herbaby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the MiddleEast, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally herblood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life thatencircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one,her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in grittypoverty with an abusive father—in her own father's hometown. Theirreunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall'sparents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offersthem her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in whichloss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion intowisdom.

To illuminate the mysterious greatness of Anton Chekhov'swritings, Janet Malcolm takes on three roles: literary critic,biographer, and journalist. Her close readings of the stories andplays are interwoven with episodes from Chekhov's life and framedby an account of Malcolm's journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, andYalta. She writes of Chekhov's childhood, his relationships, histravels, his early success, and his self-imposed "exile"--alwayswith an eye to connecting them to themes and characters in hiswork. Lovers of Chekhov as well as those new to his work will betransfixed by "Reading Chekhov."

In 1955, Garcia Marquez was working for El Espectador, a newspaper in Bogota, when in February of that year eight crew members of the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were washed overboard and disappeared. Ten days later one of them turned up, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. This book, which originally appeared as a series of newspaper articles, is Garcia Marquez's account of that sailor's ordeal. Translated by Randolf Hogan.

I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For manyyears I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest itvanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinctto share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy andexcitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite aromp. So begins Mildred Kalish’s story of growing upon her grandparents’ Iowa farm during the depths of the GreatDepression. With her father banished from the household formysterious transgressions, five-year-old Mildred and her familycould easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simplytrying to survive. This, however, is not a tale of suffering. Kalish counts herself among the lucky of thatera. She had caring grandparents who possessed—and valiantly triedto impose—all the pioneer virtues of their forebears, teachers whoinspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals readyto be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins fromthe farm across

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

“I can tell you that some force within me rejected death at thelast moment and then guided me, blind and stumbling — quiteliterally a dead man walking — into camp and the shaky start of myreturn to life....” In 1996 Beck Weathers and a climbing team pushed toward the summitof Mount Everest. Then a storm exploded on the mountain, rippingthe team to shreds, forcing brave men to scratch and crawl fortheir lives. Rescuers who reached Weathers saw that he was dying,and left him. Twelve hours later, the inexplicable occurred. Weathers appeared,blinded, gloveless, caked with ice — coming down the mountain as a“dead man walking.” In this powerful memoir, Weather describes not only his escape fromhypothermia and the murderous storm that killed nine climbers; hedescribes another journey, a life’s journey. This is the story of aman’s route to a dangerous sport and a fateful expedition, as wellas the road of recovery he has traveled since. In Left for Dead , we are witness to survival in the face ofce

In this richly detailed biography, Victoria Glendinning bringsalive the great Anglo-Irish novelist whose literary achievementswere equaled only by her unbounded gift for living. Taking us from Elizabeth Bowen's ancestral home in Ireland, Bowen’sCourt, to Oxford where she met Yeats and Eliot, to her service asan air-raid warden in London during World War II, this penetratingbiography lifts the thin veil between Bowen's imaginative world andthe complex emotional life that fired her shimmering novels. We seeher at elegant parties, where such friends as Virginia Woolf,Eudora Welty, and Evelyn Waugh fell under her spell; in post-warVienna with Graham Greene; and in war-torn London, where she fellin love with a younger man who was unprepared for life at the pitchshe lived it. We see her bound through several affairs to acomfortable marriage, living "life with the lid on." The world ofElizabeth Bowen was akin to that of her novels: no one behavedshockingly, yet the passions that stirred within made her a mastero

Jeanne Marie Laskas had a dream of fleeing her otherwise happyurban life for fresh air and open space — a dream she woulddiscover was about something more than that. But she never expectedher fantasy to come true — until a summer afternoon’s drive in thecountry. That’s when she and her boyfriend, Alex — owner of Marley thepoodle — stumble upon the place she thought existed only in herdreams. This pretty-as-a-picture-postcard farm with an Amish barn,a chestnut grove, and breathtaking vistas is real ... and for sale.And it’s where she knows her future begins. But buying a postcard — fifty acres of scenery — and living onit are two entirely different matters. With wit and wisdom, Laskaschronicles the heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of thecolorful two- and four-legged creatures she encounters onSweetwater Farm. Against a backdrop of brambles, a satellite dish, and sheep,she tells a tender, touching, and hilarious tale about life, love,and the unexpected complic

After Out on a Limb , MacLaine now offers more of her familybackground, with reproductions of parental game-playingconversations which must evoke poignant recognitions in children ofconflicting adults. Aided by spirit-guided acupuncture, she hasbeen recovering past-life experiences enabling her to deal withthis pain. Most moving is her meeting with her Higher Self, whichcontinues to guide her. Another colorful love affair in Paris andHollywood provides food for the gossip-column fans. More seriousare her ruminations on creative artistry, first as a dancer, thenas a movie star. Even readers put off by MacLaine's uncritical andwholehearted embrace of reincarnation will have to applaud hercandor and zest for discovering the meaning of her life. Jeanne S.Bagby, Tucson P.L., Ariz. Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information,Inc.

A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, AllSouls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie,the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration ofwhite poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemesand busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewncharacters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing singlemother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children.Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence,MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but movinghonesty.

After losing her entire family to the Nazis at age 13, AliciaAppleman-Jurman went on to save the lives of thousands of Jews,offering them her own courage and hope in a time of upheaval andtragedy. Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has a young voice sovividly expressed the capacity for humanity and heroism in the faceof Nazi brutality. HC: Bantam.

In this extraordinary memoir, one of the best young writers inAmerica today transforms into a work of art the darkest passageimaginable in a young woman's life: an obsessive love affairbetween father and daughter that began when Kathryn Harrison,twenty years old, was reunited with a parent whose absence hadhaunted her youth. Exquisitely and hypnotically written, like a bold and terrifyingdream, The Kiss is breathtaking in its honesty and in the power andbeauty of its creation. A story both of taboo and of familycomplicity in breaking taboo, The Kiss is also about love -- aboutthe most primal of love triangles, the one that ensnares a childbetween mother and father. From the Hardcover edition.

Susan Loomis arrived in Paris twenty years ago with littlemore than a student loan and the contents of a suitcase to sustainher. But what began then as an apprenticeship at La Varenne Ecolede Cuisine evolved into a lifelong immersion in French cuisine andculture, culminating in permanent residency in 1994. "On Rue Tatin"chronicles her journey to an ancient little street in Louviers,one of Normandy's most picturesque towns. With lyrical prose andwry candor, Loomis recalls the miraculous restoration that she andher husband performed on the dilapidated convent they chose fortheir new residence. As its ochre and azure floor tiles emerged,challenges outside the dwelling mounted. From squatters to a surlypriest next door, along with a close-knit community wary ofoutsiders, Loomis tackled the social challenges head-on, throughpersistent dialogue-and baking. "On Rue Tatin "includes deliciousrecipes that evoke the essence of this region, such as Apple andThyme Tart, Duck Breast with Cider, and Braised Chicken i

MARVELOUS . . . BREATHTAKING. --The New York Times Book Review "MAILER SHINES . . . Explaining Kennedy's assassination throughthe flaws in Oswald's character has been attempted before, notablyby Gerald Posner in Case Closed and Don Delillo in Libra. Butneither handled Oswald with the kind of dexterity and literaryimagination that Mailer here supplies in great force. . . .Oswald's Tale weaves a story not only about Oswald or Kennedy'sdeath but about the culture surrounding the assassination, one thatremains replete with miscomprehensions, unraveled threads and lackof resolution: All of which makes Oswald's Tale more true-to-lifethan any fact-driven treatise could hope to be. . . . VintageMailer." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "FASCINATING . . . A MASTER STORYTELLER . . . Mailer gives us ourclearest, deepest view of Oswald yet. . . . Inside three pages youare utterly absorbed." --Detroit Free Press "MAILER AT HIS BEST . . . LIVELY AND CONVINCING . . .EXTREMELY LUCI

Christopher (Kit) Lukas’s mother committed suicide when hewas a boy. He and his brother, Tony, were not told how she died. Noone spoke of the family’s history of depression and bipolardisorder. The brothers grew up to achieve remarkable success; Tonyas a gifted journalist (and author of the classic book, CommonGround ), Kit as an accomplished television producer anddirector. After suffering bouts of depression, Kit was able toconfront his family’s troubled past, but Tony never seemed to findthe contentment Kit had attained–he killed himself in 1997. Writtenwith heartrending honesty, Blue Genes captures thedevastation of this family legacy of depression and details thestrength and hope that can provide a way of escaping itsgrasp.

Dennis Rodman shoots from the lip as he talks about everythingfrom the NBA and his game, his sexuality, dating, his wild flingwith superstar Madonna, and morality. Reprint."

After two thousand years of flawed history, here at last is amagnificent new biography of Mary Magdalene that draws her out ofthe shadows of history and restores her to her rightful place ofimportance in Christianity.Throughout history, Mary Magdalene hasbeen both revered and reviled, a woman who has taken on manyforms—witch, whore, the incarnation of the eternal feminine, thedevoted companion (and perhaps even the wife) of Jesus. In thisbrilliant new biography, Bruce Chilton, a renowned biblicalscholar, offers the first complete and authoritative portrait ofthis fascinating woman. Through groundbreaking interpretations ofancient texts, Chilton shows that Mary played a central role inJesus’ ministry and was a seminal figure in the creation ofChristianity. Chilton’s de*ions of who Mary Magdalene was and what she didchallenge the male-dominated history of Christianity familiar tomost readers. Placing Mary within the traditions of Jewish femalesavants, Chilton presents a visionary figure who was fully imm

A PRESIDENTIAL DYNASTY. AN ARAB TERRORIST ATTACK. DEMOCRACYUNDER SIEGE. Mario Puzo envisioned it all in his eerily prescient1991 novel, The Fourth K. President Francis Xavier Kennedy is elected to office, in largepart, thanks to the legacy of his forebears–good looks, privilege,wealth–and is the very embodiment of youthful optimism. Too soon,however, he is beaten down by the political process and, disabusedof his ideals, he becomes a leader totally unlike what he has beenbefore. When his daughter becomes a pawn in a brutal terrorist plot,Kennedy, who has obsessively kept alive the memory of his uncles’assassinations, activates all his power to retaliate in a series ofviolent measures. As the explosive events unfold, the world andthose closest to him look on with both awe and horror.