This highly original book by William Zinsser, author of theclassic guide On Writing Well, tells you how to write about thepeople and places and events in your life that have been importantto you—whether you’re writing a memoir, a family history or just arecollection of experiences you’d like to preserve or more fullyunderstand. Zinsser’s method is to take you on a memoir of his own:13 chapters in which he recalls dramatic, amusing and ofteninspiring moments in his long and unusually varied life as awriter, editor, teacher and traveler. Along the way in these memoirs William Zinsser pauses to explainthe technical decisions he made as he wrote them. They are the samedecisions you’ll have to make as you write about your own life:matters of selection, condensation, focus, attitude, voice andtone. Written with elegance, warmth and humor, Writing About YourLife gives you the tools to organize and recover your past and theconfidence to believe in your life narrative. It also gives youpermission—t

An excellent,reassuring book for women and their partners. It carries the womanalong step-by-step in the rediscovery of her own sexuality and thepleasure it will bring her. Liberated or not, single or married,young or old, all women will find this book accessible andsupportive.

If there were a code you could learn that would enable you tobecome a wonderful teacher - of any young person in your life -wouldn't you want to learn it? The Essential 55 collects togetherthe amazingly effective rules that Ron Clark used to become anextraordinary - and award-winning - teacher. Through trial anderror, he has distilled fifty-five ideas that have helped himtransform apathetic students, in some of the most deprived andchallenging circumstances, into prize-winning scholars. Coveringall aspects of life - from the classroom to the world, from humaninteractions to cafeteria manners - Ron Clark shows that withdetermination, discipline and regular rewards, the children youstick by will be the children you eventually admire.

The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine.The tragedy is that my story could have been his. Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year ofeach other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimoreneighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on streetcorners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police.How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decoratedveteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the otherended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore,the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer thisprofound question. In alternating narratives that take readers fromheart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, TheOther Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys tryingto find their way in a hostile world.

In May 1787, in an atmosphere of crisis, delegates met inPhiladelphia to design a radically new form of government.Distinguished historian Richard Beeman captures as never before thedynamic of the debate and the characters of the men who laboredthat historic summer. Virtually all of the issues in dispute—theextent of presidential power, the nature of federalism, and, mostexplosive of all, the role of slavery—have continued to provokeconflict throughout our nation's history. This unprecedented booktakes readers behind the scenes to show how the world's mostenduring constitution was forged through conflict, compromise, andfragile consensus. As Gouverneur Morris, delegate of Pennsylvania,noted: "While some have boasted it as a work from Heaven, othershave given it a less righteous origin. I have many reasons tobelieve that it is the work of plain, honest 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

An intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible waythey intersect, from the incomparable, bestselling author HarukiMurakami.While simply training for New York City Marathon would beenough for most people, Haruki Murakami's decided to write about itas well. The result is a beautiful memoir about his intertwinedobsessions with running and writing, full of vivid memories andinsights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become awriter. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich andrevelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly privatewriter and for the exploding population of athletes who findsimilar satisfaction in athletic pursuit.

In this forceful manifesto, Hirsch argues that childrenin the U.S. are being deprived of the basic knowledge that wouldenable them to function in contemporary society. Includes 5,000essential facts to know.

In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist SoniaNazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy whobraves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in theUnited States. When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor tofeed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States.The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he caneat better and go to school past the third grade. Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But shestruggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to comeback. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls,Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeingher again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go findher. Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than aslip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number.Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up thelength of Mexico the only way he c

A chilling, fascinating, and nearly forgotten historicalfigure is resurrected in a riveting work that links the fascism ofthe last century with the terrorism of our own. Written with verveand extraordinary access to primary sources in several languages,Icon of Evil is the definitive account of the man who during WorldWar II was called “the führer of the Arab world” and whose uglylegacy lives on today. In 1921, the beneficiary of an appointment the British would liveto regret, Haj Amin al-Husseini became the mufti of Jerusalem, themost eminent and influential Islamic leader in the Middle East. Foryears, al-Husseini fomented violence in the region against the Jewshe loathed and wished to destroy. Forced out in 1937, he eventuallyfound his way to the country whose legions he desperately wished tojoin: Nazi Germany. Here, with new and disturbing details, David G. Dalin and John F.Rothmann show how al-Husseini ingratiated himself with his hero,Adolf Hitler, becoming, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, an

First published in 1967, Writing and Difference, a collection of Jacques Derrida's essays written between 1959 and 1966, has become a landmark of contemporary French thought. In it we find Derrida at work on his systematic deconstruction of Western metaphysics. The book's first half, which includes the celebrated essay on Descartes and Foucault, shows the development of Derrida's method of deconstruction. In these essays, Derrida demonstrates the traditional nature of some purportedly nontraditional currents of modern thought—one of his main targets being the way in which "structuralism" unwittingly repeats metaphysical concepts in its use of linguistic models. The second half of the book contains some of Derrida's most compelling analyses of why and how metaphysical thinking must exclude writing from its conception of language, finally showing metaphysics to be constituted by this exclusion. These essays on Artaud, Freud, Bataille, Hegel, and Lévi-Strauss have served as introductions to Derrida's no