Readers > New Books

Nonfiction, June 2004

—: The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongues (July 2004)

820.9 G331 2004

Wendy Lesser, a celebrated essayist in her own right, has put together a book brimming with pleasures for lovers of literature, travel, memoir and, above all, language. Among the contributors are Amy Tan, Bharati Mukherjee and Josef Skvorecky.
Bone, Eugenia: At Mesa's Edge: Cooking and Ranching in Colorado's North Fork Valley (June 2004)

641.59788 B712a 2004

When this Manhattan food writer reluctantly moved to rural Colorado to satisfy her discontented husband, she discovered that the best food is found in our own backyards. She shares her story and more than 100 homegrown recipes.
Botha, Ted: Mongo: Adventures in Trash (June 2004)

790.132 B749m 2004

Focusing on collectors of "mongo" — any discarded item that is rescued from the trash — this is a tour of the weird and fascinating world of people who really do find treasure in other people's trash.
Byrd, Robert C.: Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency (July 2004)

973.931 B995L 2004

Senator Byrd argues that now is the time to return to the values and processes that made America great, and to speak the truth to an increasingly aggressive and imperial White House.
Burrough, Bryan: Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 (July 2004)

364.973 B972p 2004

Burrough's account of America's greatest crime wave and the birth of the FBI is the history of America's first war on crime.
Calhoun, Charles C.: Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life (June 2004)

B-L853c 2004

Calhoun's Longfellow gives life to the most popular American poet who ever lived, a 19th-century cultural institution of extraordinary influence.
Carter, David: Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (June 2004)

306.766 C323s 2004

Dispelling long-held myths, Carter reveals the truth behind the 1969 Greenwich Village riots. Based on over a decade of research, hundreds of interviews, and an exhaustive search of public and private records, he gives us the definitive account.
Clinton, Bill: My Life (June 2004)

B-CL617m 2004

My Life is a candid portrait of a global leader who decided early in life to devote his intellectual and political gifts, and his extraordinary capacity for hard work, to serving the public. It is told openly, directly, in Clinton's own recognizable voice.
Cruz, Celia: Celia: My Life (July 2004)

782.42164 C957c 2004

This is the authorized, posthumous autobiography of the Queen of Salsa's extraordinary — and until now, largely private — life.
Dewdney, Christopher: Acquainted With the Night: Excursions Through the World after Dark (June 2004)

818.5 D515a 2004

Dewdney takes readers on a journey through the nocturnal realm, covering bedtime stories, festivals of the night, fireworks, nightclubs, astronomy, sleep and dreams, the graveyard shift, ladies of the night, the art of night and more.
Durr, R. A.: The Coldman Cometh: A Family's Adventure in the Alaska Bush (July 2004)

979.804 D965c 2004

This memoir of a remarkable quest explores a reconnection to the wilds and offers an in-depth report of a radical experiment in alternative living.
Gaita, Raimond: The Philosopher's Dog: Friendships With Animals (July 2004)

636.7 G144p 2004

Philosopher Raimond Gaita has always been fascinated by animals — their obvious intelligence and disturbing brutality, their uncanny responsiveness to our moods and needs, the deep feelings they elicit from us and seem to return. Here Gaita trains the lens of philosophy on the mystery and beauty of animals he has known and loved.
Gee, Henry: Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome (July 2004)

599.935 G297j 2004

Evolutionary biologist Gee delivers a lucid explanation of what the sequencing of the human genome really tells us, and explains that the next frontier is understanding how they interact to direct the growth of an organism.
Hakkakiyan, Ru'ya: Journey From the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (August 2004)

B-Ha127j 2004

This lyrical coming-of-age story creates an intimate portrait of life in Tehran: the author's family and friends, her life at school, her observations of Iran's political life and her longing to escape a sense of displacement from her home, culture and language.
Herman, Eleanor: Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (July 2004)

940.099 H551s 2004

Herman shares the truth about the illicit relationships of some of history's most powerful men — and the women who slept with them to get to the top.
Klare, Michael: Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (August 2004)

333.8232 K63b 2004

Klare issues a warning to the United States, the most powerful and most dependent global consumer of oil. With urgency, he delineates the United States' predicament and cautions that it is time to change our energy policies, before we spend the next decades paying for oil with blood.
Kozak, Warren: The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser (July 2004)

B-Be4638k 2004

Journalist Kozak profiles the remarkable life and timeless wisdom of Hasidic rabbi Haskel Besser, friend and adviser to political leaders and world travelers, and brilliant scholar of Judaism.
Lanyon, Anna: The New World of Martin Cortes (July 2004)

B-Co8185L 2004

Lanyon looks at the absorbing life of Cortes, the illegitimate son of a conquistador and an indigenous American woman, who lived grandly and suffered greatly in the new and old worlds of 16th century Spain.
Leuci, Bob: All the Centurions: A New York City Cop Remembers His Years on the Street, 1961-1981 (July 2004)

363.2092 L652a 2004

Leuci takes readers into the world of the New York City Police Department at a time when the city was crumbling under its own weight, drugs were taking over the poorer neighborhoods and crime was rampant on the streets and subways.
Lewan, Todd: The Last Run: A True Story of Rescue and Redemption on the Alaska Seas (July 2004)

910.452 L669L 2004

Lewan tells an epic tale of the daring helicopter rescue of an Alaskan fishing vessel wrecked in the worst Arctic storm in years.
Lumsden, Linda J.: Inez: The Life and Time of Inez Milholland (July 2004)

B-Mi599L 2004

Lumsden presents the colorful life of Inez Milholland, one of America's most celebrated suffragists and independent new women.
Martin, Paul: Counting Sheep: The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams (July 2004)

612.821 M382c 2004

To sleep, to dream: Counting Sheep reflects the centrality of these activities to our lives and helps readers respect, understand and extract more pleasure from that delicious time when they're lost to the world.
McCarthy, Susan: Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild (July 2004)

591.51 M123b 2004

This new book combines science and true stories to explore the way animals discover their worlds, learning what they must know to survive.
McFarland, Philip James: Hawthorne in Concord (July 2004)

B-H399m 2004

McFarland presents an appreciative portrait that illuminates the periods Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the village of Concord, Massachusetts, capturing the flavor and essence of his life, enriched by friendships with Thoreau and Emerson.
Rapoport, Nessa: House on the River: A Summer Journey (July 2004)

818.5 R219h 2004

A nostalgic summer vacation resulted in this evocative memoir, which explores the deep bonds across generations, the power of memory to shape a person's life, and the way loss can be distilled into a source of consolation. It is the story of an enchanting journey on water and an inner journey inflected by a vibrant and joyful relationship to family and faith.
Ricks, Christopher B.: Dylan's Visions of Sin (June 2004)

782.42162 D996ri 2004

Literary critic Ricks presents a scholarly, in-depth analysis of Bob Dylan's lyrics.
Singer, Mark: Somewhere in America: Under the Radar with Chicken Warriors, Left-Wing Patriots, Angry Nudists, and Others (May 2004)

973.92 S617s 2004

Reich addresses how liberals can begin to reascend the political ladder by reclaiming the courage of their convictions, organizing those marginalized by society, and finding effective ways to minimize the abuse of wealth and power in our political system.
Slichter, Jacob: So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales From a Drummer's Life (June 2004)

781.66092 S633s 2004

Jake takes readers on a step-by-step journey of his evolution from fledgling drummer to globetrotting performer and gives us a guide to the inner workings of the music industry and a witty look at what happens just before and during one's 15 minutes of fame.
Strauss, Barry S.: The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece — And Western Civilization (July 2004)

938.03 S912b 2004

A scholar who has reexamined the original sources presents a perceptive work of military history and an analysis of the cultural differences between and within the contending Persian and Greek factions.
Swope, Sam: I Am a Pencil: A Teacher, His Kids, and Their World of Stories (July 2004)

372.623 S979i 2004

Swope tells the story of how a reading, writing and imagining workshop he gave to a third-grade class in Queens turned into a three-year project, as he was drawn deep into their real and imaginary lives, their problems, hopes and fears.
Troost, J. Maarten: The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (June 2004)

919.681 T855s 2004

After racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs, author Troost decided the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the Earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. This is his hilarious story.
Weiss, Philip: American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps (June 2004)

364.1523 W432a 2004

Twenty-five years after a young Peace Corps volunteer was murdered and her killer set free, Weiss unravels the truth behind what happened on the South Pacific island of Tonga and why the government suppressed the case.
Weschler, Lawrence: Vermeer in Bosnia: A Reader (July 2004)

700 W511v 2004

From a master chronicler of the marvelous, here is a much-anticipated new collection of more than 20 pieces from the past two decades.