Immensely readable...A Chicano Manchild in the PromisedLand." -- Publishers Weekly Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971,Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano layer andnotorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr.Gonzo," a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite forfood, drugs, and life on the edge. Written with uninhibited candor and manic energy, this book isAcosta's own account of coming of age as a Chicano in thepsychedelic sixties, of taking on impossible cases while breakingall tile rules of courtroom conduct, and of scrambling headlong insearch of a personal and cultural identity. It is a landmark ofcontemporary Hispanic-American literature, at once ribald, surreal,and unmistakably authentic. "Acosta has entered counterculture folklore. This is the lifestory of a man whose pain is made real, whose roots are inquestion, and whose society seems to be fragmenting aroundhim." -- Saturday Review of Lite

In the years following his and Francis Crick’s toweringdiscovery of DNA, James Watson was obsessed with finding twothings: RNA and a wife. Genes, Girls, and Gamow is the marvelouschronicle of those pursuits. Watson effortlessly glides between hisheartbreaking and sometimes hilarious debacles in the field of loveand his heady inquiries in the field of science. He also reflectswith touching candor on some of science’s other titans, from fellowNobelists Linus Pauling and the incorrigible Richard Feynman toRussian physicist George Gamow, who loved whiskey, limericks, andcard tricks as much as he did molecules and genes. What emerges isa refreshingly human portrait of a group of geniuses and a candid,often surprising account of how science is done.

I don’t want to get out of bed.I’m so stupid.I did so manythings wrong.I don’t know what to do.I’m going to be in so muchtrouble.What am I going to do?I’m completely screwed.In 1991,fourteen-year-old Brent Runyon came home from school, doused hisbathrobe in gasoline, put it on, and lit a match. He sufferedthird-degree burns over 85% of his body and spent the next yearrecovering in hospitals and rehab facilities. During that year ofphysical recovery, Runyon began to question what he’d done,undertaking the complicated journey from near-death back to highschool, and from suicide back to the emotional mainstream oflife.In the tradition of Running with Scissors and Girl,Interrupted , The Burn Journals is a truly remarkablebook about teenage despair and recovery.

“Moonshiners put more time, energy, thought, and loveinto their cars than any racer ever will. Lose on the track and yougo home. Lose with a load of whiskey and you go to jail.” —JuniorJohnson, NASCAR legend and one-time whiskey runner Today’s NASCAR is a family sport with 75 million loyal fans,which is growing bigger and more mainstream by the day. PartDisney, part Vegas, part Barnum Bailey, NASCAR is also amultibillion-dollar business and a cultural phenomenon thattranscends geography, class, and gender. But dark secrets lurk inNASCAR’s past. Driving with the Devil uncovers for the first time the truestory behind NASCAR’s distant, moonshine-fueled origins and paintsa rich portrait of the colorful men who created it. Long before thesport of stock-car racing even existed, young men in the rural,Depression-wracked South had figured out that cars and speed weretickets to a better life. With few options beyond the farm orfactory, the best chance of escape was running moonshine.

Offers a remarkable perspective on how a brutal mobster couldlead a sweet home life as a suburban dad.” —New York Times “One of the most searing volumes ever written about the mob .. . An] unforgettable memoir.” —Publishers Weekly “Admirers of Mafia fiction . . . should enjoy DeMeo’s attemptto strip off the gaudy veneer of what is, what was, and [what]always will be very dirty business.” —Detroit Free Press

Loretta Lynn’s classic memoir tells the story of her earlylife in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, and her amazing rise to the topof the music industry. Born into deep poverty, married at thirteen, mother of six, and agrandmother by the time she was twenty-nine, Loretta Lynn went onto become one of the most prolific and influential songwriters andsingers in modern country music. Here we see the determination andtalent that led to her trailblazing career and made her the firstwoman to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country MusicAssociation and the first woman to receive a gold record in countrymusic.

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.

Curtis spares few intimate details about his years as aHollywood lothario, including his teenage affair with a redheaded,ponytailed Marilyn Monroe.–USA Today He was the Golden Boy of the Golden Age. Dashing and debonair,Tony Curtis arrived on the scene in a blaze of bright lights andcelluloid. His good looks, smooth charm, and natural talent earnedhim fame, women, and adulation–Elvis copied his look, and theBeatles put him on their Sgt. Pepper album cover. But the Hollywoodlife of his dreams brought both invincible highs and debilitatinglows. Now, in his captivating, no-holds-barred autobiography, TonyCurtis shares the agony and ecstasy of a private life in the publiceye. Curtis revisits his immense body of work–including the classicsHoudini, Spartacus, and Some Like It Hot–and regales readers withstories of his associations with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier,and director Billy Wilder, as well as paramours Natalie Wood andMarilyn Monroe, among others. Written with humor and grace,

He was the Sultan of Swat. The Caliph of Clout. The Wizard ofWhack. The Bambino. And simply, to his teammates, the Big Bam. Fromthe award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller TedWilliams comes the thoroughly original, definitively ambitious, andexhilaratingly colorful biography of the largest legend ever toloom in baseball—and in the history of organized sports. “[Montville is] one of America’s best sportswriters.” —ChicagoTribune Babe Ruth was more than baseball’s original superstar. Foreighty-five years, he has remained the sport’s reigning titan. Hehas been named Athlete of the Century . . . more than once. But whowas this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why is so little known abouthis childhood, his private life, and his inner thoughts? In The BigBam, Leigh Montville, whose recent New York Times bestsellingbiography of Ted Williams garnered glowing reviews and offered anexceptionally intimate look at Williams’s life, brings histrademark touch to this groundbreakin

From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, thisbrilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. JanetMalcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend ofSylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plathbiographies. Features a new Afterword by Malcolm.

“On our first date, Rich ordered a chocolate soufflé at thebeginning of the meal, noting an asterisk on the menu warningdiners of the wait involved. At the time, I imagined he did itpartly to impress me, which it did, though today I know well thathe’s simply the type of man who knows better than to turn down ahot-from-the-oven soufflé when one is offered to him.” When Michelle Maisto meets Rich–like her, a closet writer with afierce love of books and good food–their single-mindedness at thetable draws them together, and meals become a stage for their longcourtship. Finally engaged, they move in together, but sitting downto shared meals each night–while working at careers, trying towrite, and falling into the routines that come to define ahome–soon feels like something far different from their firstdinner together. Who cooks, who shops, who does the dishes? Rich craves the lightfare his mother learned to prepare as a girl in China, but Michelleleans toward the hearty dishes h

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.

A spirited and intimate look at American icon and activistPete Seeger, and his life and his accomplishments. Pete Seeger transformed a classic American musical style into aform of peaceful protest against war, segregation, and nuclearweapons. Drawing on his extensive talks with Seeger, Alec Wilkinsondelivers a first hand look at Seeger's unique blend of independenceand commitment, charm, courage, energy, and belief in humanequality and American democracy. We see Seeger, the child,instilled with a love of music by his parents; Seeger, theteenager, hearing real folk music for the first time; Seeger, theyoung adult, singing with Woody Guthrie. And finally, Seeger theman marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King in Selma, standing upto McCarthyism, and fighting for his beloved Hudson River. Thegigantic life captured in this slender volume is truly an Americananthem.