In Listening to Whales, Alexandra Morton shares spellbindingstories about her career in whale and dolphin research and what shehas learned from and about these magnificent mammals. In the late1970s, while working at Marineland in California, Alexandrapioneered the recording of orca sounds by dropping a hydrophoneinto the tank of two killer whales. She recorded the variedlanguage of mating, childbirth, and even grief after the birth of astillborn calf. At the same time she made the startling observationthat the whales were inventing wonderful synchronized movements, abehavior that was soon recognized as a defining characteristic oforca society. In 1984, Alexandra moved to a remote bay in British Columbia tocontinue her research with wild orcas. Her recordings of the whaleshave led her to a deeper understanding of the mystery of whaleecholocation, the vocal communication that enables the mammals tofind their way in the dark sea. A fascinating study of the profoundcommunion between humans and whales

Succeeds more than any previous book in bringing Ali into focus. . . as a starburst of energy, ego and ability whose like willnever be seen again.-- The Wall Street Journal "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"-- Time "Penetrating . . . reveal[s] details that even close followers of[Ali] might not have known. . . . An amazing story." -- The NewYork Times On the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay)stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded asan irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six roundslater Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion:He was "a new kind of black man" who would shortly transformAmerica's racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions ofheroism. No one has capturedAli--and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated--withgreater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David Remnick, thePulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin's Tomb (and editor of The New Yorker ). In charting Ali's rise fro

A gathering ofbrilliant and viciously funny recollections from one of thetwentieth century’s most famous literary enfants terribles. Written in 1980 but published here for the first time, thesetexts tell the story of the various farces that developed aroundthe literary prizes Thomas Bernhard received in his lifetime.Whether it was the Bremen Literature Prize, the Grillparzer Prize,or the Austrian State Prize, his participation in the acceptanceceremony—always less than gracious, it must be said—resulted inscandal (only at the awarding of the prize from Austria’s FederalChamber of Commerce did Bernhard feel at home: he received thatone, he said, in recognition of the great example he set forshopkeeping apprentices). And the remuneration connected with theprizes presented him with opportunities for adventure—of thenew-house and luxury-car variety. Here is a portrait of the writer as a prizewinner: laconic,sardonic, and shaking his head with biting amusement at the w

No one is better poised to write the biography of JamesHerriot than the son who worked alongside him in the Yorkshireveterinary practice when Herriot became an internationallybestselling author. Now, in this warm and poignant biography, JimWight ventures beyond his father's life as a veterinarian to revealthe man behind the stories--the private individual who refused toallow fame and wealth to interfere with his practice or his family.With access to all of his father's papers, correspondence,manu*s, and photographs--and intimate recollections of thefarmers, locals, and friends who populate the James Herriotbooks--only Jim Wight could write this definitive biography of theman who was not only his father but his best friend.

How does he assess the information that is brought to him? Howdoes his personal or political philosophy, or a moral sense,sustain him? How does he draw inspiration from those around him?How does he deal with setbacks and disasters? In this brilliantclose-up look at Winston Churchill's leadership during the SecondWorld War, Gilbert gets to the heart of the trials and strugglesthat have confronted the world's most powerful leaders, even up tocurrent politicians such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Basing the book on his intimate knowledge of Churchill's privateand official papers, Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s officialbiographer, looks at the public figure and wartime propaganda, toreveal a very human, sensitive, and often tormented man, whonevertheless found the strength to lead his nation forward from thedarkest and most dangerous of times.

An erudite history of medicine...a welcome addition to anymedical collection. -- Booklist How does medical science advance? Popular historians would have usbelieve that a few heroic individuals, possessing superhumantalents, lead an unselfish quest to better the human condition. Butas renowned Yale surgeon and medical historian Sherwin B. Nulandshows in this brilliant collection of linked life portraits, thetheory bears little resemblance to the truth. Through the centuries, the men and women Who have shaped theworld of medicine have been not only very human people but alsovery much the products of their own times and places. Presentingcompelling studies of great medical innovators and pioneers,Doctors gives us the extraordinary story of the development ofmodern medicine -- told through the lives of thephysician-scientists whose deeds and determination paved the way.Ranging from the legendary Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, toAndreas Vesalius, whose Renaissance masterwork on anatomy offeredinval

Book De*ion Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic ofIran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretlygathered seven of her most committed female students to readforbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads stagedarbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of theuniversities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, thegirls in Azar Nafisi’s living room risked removing their veils andimmersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. ScottFitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In thisextraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with theones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkableexploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebrationof the liberating power of literature. Amazon.com An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, ReadingLolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and itsability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, afterresigning

A majestic literary biography, a truly new, surprisingly freshportrait. -- Newsday A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice National Book Critics Circle Award finalist A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. .. . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh." --The Philadelphia Inquirer While Virginia Woolf--one of our century's most brilliant andmercurial writers--has had no shortage of biographers, none hasseemed as naturally suited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribingto Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness ofidentity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude ofperspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer andthe woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictionsintact. Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicideare brought into balance with the immensity of her literaryachievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity andwit, and her sanity and strength. It

Theodore Rex is the story—never fully toldbefore—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms asPresident of the United States. A hundred years before thecatastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in theaftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chiefexecutives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhumanenergy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat theproblems of race and labor relations and trust control while makingthe Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Buthis most historic achievement remains his creation of a nationalconservation policy, and his monument millions of acres ofprotected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TRleaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputationsecure as one of our greatest presidents.

Charles I waged civil wars that cost one in ten Englishmentheir lives. But in 1649 Parliament was hard put to find a lawyerwith the skill and daring to prosecute a king who claimed to beabove the law. In the end, they chose the radical lawyer JohnCooke, whose Puritan conscience, political vision, and love ofcivil liberties gave him the courage to bring the king to trial. Asa result, Charles I was beheaded, but eleven years later Cookehimself was arrested, tried, and executed at the hands of CharlesII. Geoffrey Robertson, a renowned human rights lawyer, provides avivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposinglong-hidden truths: that the king was guilty, that his executionwas necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament, that theregicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen asnational heroes. Cooke’s trial of Charles I, the first trial of ahead of state for waging war on his own people, became a forerunnerof the trials of Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic

This classic story of a boy and a dog growing up in small-townAmerica by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willie Morris is "writtenwith the gentle wisdom of an E.B. White and the eternal youth of aHuck Finn" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution). Author reading tour.

Drawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literarybiographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, PeterAckroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare--andbrings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. Withcharacteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us insixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape–the industry,the animals, even the flowers–that would appear in Shakespeare’splays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood andthe fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor andwriter. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constantreviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details withprofound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd hasproduced an altogether engaging masterpiece.

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story ofthe Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and JohnRomero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popularculture. And they provoked a national controversy. More thananything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream,escaping the broken homes of their youth to produce the mostnotoriously successful game franchises in history— Doom and Quake — until the games they made tore them apart. This is astory of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry—a powerfuland compassionate account of what it's like to be young, driven,and wildly creative.

In Franklin and Lucy, acclaimed author and historian Joseph E.Persico explores FDR’s romance with Lucy Rutherfurd. Persico’sprovocative conclusions about their relationship are informed by arevealing range of sources, including never-before-publishedletters and documents from Lucy Rutherfurd’s estate that attest tothe intensity of the affair, which lasted much longer than waspreviously acknowledged. FDR’s connection with Lucy also creates anopportunity for Persico to take a more penetrating look at theother women in FDR’s life. We come to see more clearly how FDR’sinfidelity contributed to Eleanor Roosevelt’s eventualtransformation from a repressed Victorian to perhaps the greatestAmerican woman of her century; how FDR’s strong-willed motherhelped to strengthen his resolve in overcoming personal and publicadversity; and how both paramours and platonic friends completedthe world that FDR inhabited. In focusing on Lucy Rutherfurd andthe other women who mattered to Roosevelt, Persico renders

Saucerful of Secrets is the first in-depth biography of thisvery private group. At the heart of the saga is Syd Barrett, thegroup's brilliant founder, whose public decline into shatteredincoherence--attributable in part to his marathon use of LSD--isone of the tragedies of rock history. The making of Dark Side ofthe Moon and Floyd's other great albums is recounted in detail, asare the mounting of "The Wall"? ? and the creation of the flyingpigs, crashing? ? planes, "Mr. Screen" and the other elements oftheir spectacular stage shows. The book also explores the manybattles between bass player/song writer Roger Waters and the restof the group, leading up to Water's acrimonious departure for asolo? ? career in 1984 and his unsuccessful attempt to disolve thegroup he had left behind. Saucerful of Secrets is an electrifying account of thisground-breaking, mind-bending group, covering every period of theircareer from? ? earliest days to latest recordings. It is full of? ?revealing information that will

In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form ofhistory, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, AlbertEinstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the definingyears of the twentieth century. Einstein in Berlin In the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern sciencetraveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigiousposition in the very center of European scientific life to a manwho had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. AlbertEinstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up hisnew post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. “Take a goodlook,” he said to his wife as they walked away from their house.“You will never see it again.” In between, Einstein’s Berlin years capture in microcosm theodyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens withextravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These aretumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at oncewitness to and architect of his day--and

Let It Blurt is the raucous and righteous biography of LesterBangs (1949-82)--the gonzo journalist, gutter poet, and romanticvisionary of rock criticism. No writer on rock 'n' roll ever livedharder or wrote better--more passionately, more compellingly, morepenetratingly. He lived the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, guzzling boozeand Romilar like water, matching its energy in prose that eruptedfrom the pages of Rolling Stone, Creem, and The Village Voice.Bangs agitated in the seventies for sounds that were harsher,louder, more electric, and more alive, in the course of which hecharted and defined the aesthetics of heavy metal and punk. He wastreated as a peer by such brash visionaries as Lou Reed, PattiSmith, Richard Hell, Captain Beefheart, The Clash, Debbie Harry,and other luminaries. Let It Blurt is a scrupulously researched account of LesterBangs's fascinating (if often tawdry and unappetizing) life story,as well as a window on rock criticism and rock culture in theirmost turbulent and creative years

Book De*ion Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years,four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an Americanclassic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about herprivate life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.A NEW YORKTIMES Notable Book of the YearA Book-of-the-Month-Club MainSelection Amazon.com From Publishers Weekly Beloved actress Hepburn's episodic autobiography spent 24 weekson PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a BOMC main selection incloth. From Booklist From School Library Journal Katherine Hepburn is, at 84, still the positive, feisty,upper-class lady she portrayed in The Philadelphia Story . Herautobiography, clearly not ghostwritten, tells some stories of herlife but not all--she comes from a class that didn't let it allhang out. Her 27-year affair with Spencer Tracy is discussed withfond memories (the years together were to her ``absolutebliss'')--the idea that it was scandalous at the time doesn't

Adored by many, loathed by some, General George S. Patton,Jr., was one of the most brilliant military strategists in history.War As I Knew It is the personal and candid account of hiscelebrated, relentless crusade across western Europe during WorldWar II. First published in 1947, this absorbing narrative draws onPatton's vivid memories of battle and his detailed diaries, fromthe moment the Third Army exploded onto the Brittany Peninsula tothe final Allied casualty report. The result is not only agrueling, human account of daily combat and heroic feats -including a riveting look at the Battle of the Bulge - but avaluable chronicle of the strategies and fiery personality of alegendary warrior. Patton's letters from earlier military campaignsin North Africa and Sicily, complemented by a powerfulretrospective of his guiding philosophies, further reveal a man ofuncompromising will and uncommon character, which made "Georgie" ahousehold name in mid-century America. With a new introduction.

Book De*ion Isaac Newton was born in a stone farmhouse in 1642, fatherlessand unwanted by his mother. When he died in London in 1727 he wasso renowned he was given a state funeral—an unheard-of honor for asubject whose achievements were in the realm of the intellect.During the years he was an irascible presence at Trinity College,Cambridge, Newton imagined properties of nature and gave themnames—mass, gravity, velocity—things our science now takes forgranted. Inspired by Aristotle, spurred on by Galileo’s discoveriesand the philosophy of Descartes, Newton grasped the intangible anddared to take its measure, a leap of the mind unparalleled in hisgeneration. James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius, and one of the mostacclaimed science writers of his generation, brings the reader intoNewton’s reclusive life and provides startlingly clear explanationsof the concepts that changed forever our perception of bodies,rest, and motion—ideas so basic to the twenty-first century, it cant

A selection of the remarkable letters of Emily Dickinson in anelegant Pocket Poet edition. The same inimitable voice and dazzling insights that make EmilyDickinson’s poems immortal can be found in the whimsical, humorous,and often deeply moving letters she wrote to her family and friendsthroughout her life. The selection of letters presented hereprovides a fuller picture of the eccentric recluse of legend,showing how immersed in life she was: we see her tending hergarden; baking bread; marking the marriages, births, and deaths ofthose she loved; reaching out for intellectual companionship; andconfessing her personal joys and sorrows. These letters, invaluablefor the light they shed on their author, are, as well, a purepleasure to read.