In the first full-scale biography of Mary Stuart in more thanthirty years, John Guy creates an intimate, gripping portrait ofone of history's greatest women and depicts her world and her placein the sweep of history with stunning immediacy. Bringing togetherall surviving documents and uncovering a trove of new sources forthe first time, Guy dispels the popular image of Mary Queen ofScots as a romantic leading ladyachieving her ends through femininewiles and establishes her as the intellectual and political equalof Elizabeth I. Through Guy's pioneering research and "fabulouslyreadable" prose, we come to see Mary as a skillful diplomat,maneuvering ingeniously among a dizzying array of factions thatsought to control or dethrone her. An enthralling, myth-shatteringlook at a complex woman and ruler and her time, Queen of Scots"reads like Shakespearean drama, with all the delicious plottingand fresh writing to go with it" (AtlantaJournal-Constitution).

This comprehensive, original portrait of the life and work ofone of America's greatest poets--set in the social, cultural, andpolitical context of his time--considers the full range of writingsby and about Whitman, including his early poems and stories, hisconversations, letters, journals, newspaper writings, and daybooks. of photos.

In her acclaimed collections Happy Family and Music Minus One,Jane Shore traced her life from childhood to coming of age toparenthood. Now, in A Yes-or-No Answer, Shore etches thepersistence of the past in a life that has moved into a mature newphase as a member of the baby boom generation. Recalling her Jewishchildhood in New Jersey, living in the apartment above the family'sclothing store, Shore lovingly imagines her parents, now gone,reunited with relatives over a Scrabble board in the afterlife. Thepoet's teenage daughter sorts through the "vintage" clothes of hermother's own hippie days. Cherished items left behind -- an addressbook, a piano, an easy chair, a favorite doll -- continue to hauntthe living. The poems in A Yes-or-No Answer dignify memory throughprecise detail, with a voice that will resonate for a generation ata crossroads.

After twenty years as a foreign correspondent in tumultuouslocales, Judith Matloff is ready to return to her native New YorkCity and start a family with her husband, John. Intoxicated by WestHarlem’s cultural diversity and, more important, its affordability,Judith impulsively buys a stately fixer-upper brownstone in theneighborhood–only to discover that this dream house was once acrack den and that calling it a “fixer upper” is an understatement.Thus begins the couple’s odyssey to win over brazen drug dealers,delinquent construction workers, and eccentric neighbors in one ofthe biggest drug zones in the country. It’s a far cry from utopia,but it’s a start, and Judith and John do all they can to carve outa comfortable life–and, over time, come to appreciate theneighborhood’s rough charms. A wry, reflective, and hugelyentertaining memoir, Home Girl is for anyone who has longedto go home, however complicated the journey.

William Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engagingtelling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through carefulscrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and ofaccounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into themoral development of a great politician — one who made the choiceto go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’sfullest moral possibilities. As Lincoln’s Virtues makes refreshingly clear, Lincoln wasnot born with his face on Mount Rushmore; he was an actual humanbeing making choices — moral choices — in a real world. In anaccount animated by wit and humor, Miller follows this unschooledfrontier politician’s rise, showing that the higher he went and thegreater his power, the worthier his conduct would become. He wouldbecome that rare bird, a great man who was also a good man.Uniquely revealing of its subject’s heart and mind, it represents amajor contribution to our understanding and of Lincoln, and to theperennial American discu

She has a job in Paris, a handsome Frenchman, a beautifulbilingual toddler, and an adorable apartment with breathtakingviews. So why does Catherine Sanderson feel that her life is comingapart? Stuck in a relationship quickly losing its heat, overwhelmedby the burdens of motherhood, and restless in a dead-end job,Catherine reads an article about starting an online diary, and on aslow day at work–voilà–Petite Anglaise is born. But what begins asa lighthearted diversion, a place to muse on the fish-out-of-waterchallenges of expat life, soon gives way to a raw forum whereCatherine shares intimate details about her relationship, herdiscontents, and her most impulsive desires. When one of herreaders–a charming Englishman–tries to get close to the girl behindthe blog, Catherine’s real and virtual personas collide, forcingher to choose between life as she knows it and the possibility ofmore.

The only thing the writers in this book have in common is thatthey've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccermoms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos,and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to anunderrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled andworshipped. Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of shortmemoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetrycovering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gatherpieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributionsfrom art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoiristDavid Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man forRent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and menright off the streets, girls participating in the first-everNational Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and RuthMorgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work,Human Rights, and Migration Conference. Se

A wild, lyrical, and anguished autobiography, in which CharlesMingus pays short shrift to the facts but plunges to the verybottom of his psyche, coming up for air only when it pleases him.He takes the reader through his childhood in Watts, his musicaleducation by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, andCharlie Parker, and his prodigious appetites--intellectual,culinary, and sexual. The book is a jumble, but a glorious one, bya certified American genius.

Here is a multidimensional playland of ideas from the world'smost eccentric Nobel-Prize winning scientist. Kary Mullis islegendary for his invention of PCR, which redefined the world ofDNA, genetics, and forensic science. He is also a surfer, a veteranof Berkeley in the sixties, and perhaps the only Nobel laureate todescribe a possible encounter with aliens. A scientist of boundlesscuriosity, he refuses to accept any proposition based on secondhandor hearsay evidence, and always looks for the "money trail" whenscientists make announcements.

A writer renowned for his insight into the mysteries of the bodynow gives us a lambent and profoundly moving book about themysteries of family. At its center lies Sherwin Nuland’sRembrandtesque portrait of his father, Meyer Nudelman, a Jewishgarment worker who came to America in the early years of the lastcentury but remained an eternal outsider. Awkward in speech andmovement, broken by the premature deaths of a wife and child, Meyerruled his youngest son with a regime of rage, dependency, andhelpless love that outlasted his death. In evoking their relationship, Nuland also summons up the warmthand claustrophobia of a vanished immigrant New York, a world thatimpelled its children toward success yet made them feel liketraitors for leaving it behind. Full of feeling and unwaveringobservation, Lost in America deserves a place alongside suchclassics as Patrimony and Call It Sleep .

Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the monumentalwork that assured T.E. Lawrence's place in history as "Lawrence ofArabia." Not only a consummate military history, but also acolorful epic and a lyrical exploration of the mind of a great man,this is one of the indisputable classics of 20th century Englishliterature. Line drawings throughout.