809.03 B358p 2005
In this wide-ranging guide to essential reading, Bayley examines classics, neglected gems and masterpieces of our time — from Jane Austen to Milan Kundera, Leo Tolstoy to John Ashbery, and from Robert Lowell's messy persona to George Orwell's self-canonization.
Bishop, Holley
Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey — The Sweet Liquid Gold That Seduced the World (April 2005)
638.16 B622r 2005
Bishop follows beekeeper Donald Smiley on his daily tasks in the steamy Florida panhandle. Combining passionate research, rich detail and fascinating anecdotes, this is a look at the oldest and most delectable food in the world.
Bordewich, Fergus M.
Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (April 2005)
973.7115 B728b 2005
This book of epic scope describes America's first racially integrated, religiously inspired political movement for change: the Underground Railroad, a movement peopled by daring heroes and heroines and everyday folk.
Bramwell, Tony
Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles (April 2005)
782.42166 B369bra 2005
Bramwell looks back at his life with The Beatles beginning in post-war Liverpool where he was childhood friends with John, Paul and George. His story reveals fresh insights into the Beatles' childhoods and families, their early recordings and songwriting, the politics at Apple Records and many other amazing stories.
Brown, Oral Lee
The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extraordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of 1st Graders to College (April 2005)
370.92 B879p 2005
This inspiring book is the story of Brown's unending desire to make a difference by guiding a group of students from first grade to college. Brown and her foundation are now committed to adopting a new crop of kids to send to college every four years.
Bundy, Carol
The Nature of Sacrifice: A Biography of Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., 1835–64 (April 2005)
B-L914b 2005
Bundy draws on a wealth of family papers and public archives for her vivid portrayal of a privileged young Yankee who became a battle-hardened soldier and revered officer.
Burk, Martha
Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It (April 2005)
305.42 B9585c 2005
The women's advocate who dared suggest that the nation's premier golf club open its door to women provides an analysis of the international firestorm of debate about "women's place" that raged from the kitchen table to the White House.
Carroll, Sean B.
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom (April 2005)
571.85 C319e 2005
As described in this fascinating book, Evo Devo is evolutionary development biology, the third revolution in the science, which shows how the endless forms of animals — butterflies and zebras, trilobites and dinosaurs, apes and humans — were made and evolved.
Cohen, Roger
Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis' Final Gamble (April 2005)
940.5472 C678s 2005
Cohen tells the little-known story of 350 American POWs used as slave labor by the Nazis, and why there was no particular recognition for these prisoners.
Conradi, Peter J.
Going Buddhist: Panic and Emptiness, the Buddha and Me (March 2005)
294.344 C754g 2005
It often takes a crisis to see what a life's shape has been, to learn what really matters. For Peter Conradi, biographer of Iris Murdoch, the moment came in 1982. This is his account of the new life-journey on which he subsequently embarked; a self-help book for cynics, it makes clear that "going Buddhist" is neither a quick fix nor a one-shot deal. Drawing on his conversations with Murdoch, and the remarkable letters they exchanged, Conradi seeks to explain the beauty of Buddhism.
Dole, Robert J.
One Soldier's Story: A Memoir (April 2005)
B-Do687o 2005
In his own words, Bob Dole relates his legendary World War II story — a personal odyssey of courage, sacrifice and faith. With insight and candor, Dole also focuses on the words, actions and selfless deeds of countless American heroes with whom he served.
Doran, Phil
The Reluctant Tuscan (April 2005)
945.5 D693r 2005
After 25 years of losing her husband to Hollywood, Doran's wife decided it was time for a change, so on one of her many solo trips to Italy she surprised her husband by purchasing a broken-down 300-year-old farmhouse for them to restore. Doran recounts his transition from a successful but overworked writer-producer in Hollywood to someone rediscovering himself and his wife while in Italy, finding happiness in the last place he expected to.
Eig, Jonathan
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (April 2005)
796.357 G31e 2005
Drawing on hundreds of new interviews and previously unpublished letters, this comprehensive biography of Lou Gehrig reveals one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
Friedman, Thomas L.
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (April 2005)
303.4833 F912w 2005
With his ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the globalization of the world happened at the dawn of the 21st century; what it means to countries, companies, communities and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt.
Gierach, John
Still Life with Brook Trout (April 2005)
799.124 G454sL 2005
Gierach's latest masterwork of streamside philosophy is a witty account of all that makes fishing unique and addictive.
Gilchrist, Ellen
The Writing Life (March 2005)
813.5 G467w 2005
Gilchrist brings together 50 essays and vignettes centered on the transforming magic of literature and the teaching and writing of it. Several essays discuss her appreciation of other writers, from Shakespeare to Larry McMurtry, and the lessons she learned from them. Humorous and insightful, she assesses her own abilities as an instructor and confronts the challenge of inspiring students to attain the discipline and courage to pursue the sullen art.
Griggs, Jeff
Guru: My Days with Del Close (April 2004)
792.028 C645g 2005
Griggs gives the reader the essentials of Close's biography: his childhood in Kansas, early years as an actor, countercultural exploits in the 1960's, years with the Compass Players and then with Second City, experimentation with every drug imaginable, which cost him his health and ultimately his life.
Heinemann, Larry
Black Virgin Mountain: A Return to Vietnam (April 2005)
959.7043 H468b 2005
From the author of the National Book Award–winning Vietnam War novel Paco's Story comes an equally haunting memoir of his searing year as a combat soldier in Vietnam and of the ghosts he encounters on his return there 30 years later.
Kelly, Linda Armstrong
No Mountain High Enough: Raising Lance, Raising Me (April 2005)
B-K297n 2005
From the mother of Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong comes this story of the resilience of the human spirit and the effect of great parenting. In this memoir, Kelly recounts her transformation from a poverty-stricken teen in the Dallas projects to a role model for mothers everywhere.
Koch, Stephen
The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles (April 2005)
B-H489k 2005
Both a biographical portrait and history-in-miniature, The Breaking Point explores the time Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos shared in the Spanish Civil War, an ideological adventure that brought their literary rivalry to the breaking point.
Kroodsma, Donald E.
The Singing Life of Birds: The Art and Science of Listening to Birdsong (April 2005)
598.2 K93s 2005
Through highly personal stories, Kroodsma puts the reader inside the mind of a research scientist to explore how and why birds sing and how we can better understand them through their songs.
Kurzweil, Ray
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (April 2005)
Futurist Kurzweil is one of the best-known advocates for the role of machines in the future of humanity. In his latest foray into the future, he envisions an event — the "singularity" — in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that our bodies and brains will merge with our machines. In addition to outlining these fantastic changes, Kurzweil also considers their social and philosophical ramifications.
Meyers, Jeffrey
Impressionist Quartet: The Intimate Genius of Manet and Morisot, Degas and Cassatt (May 2005)
759.4 M613i 2005
Portraying them as individuals and as fellow conspirators in a new way of seeing and representing the world, Jeffrey Meyers brings to life this influential group of painters. The result is a book that offers readers a fresh way of looking at these artists and the masterpieces they created.
Mitnick, Kevin D.
The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers (March 2005)
005.8 M684ai 2005
Mitnick, the world's most celebrated hacker, devotes his life to helping businesses and governments combat data thieves, cybervandals and other malicious computer intruders.
Paglia, Camille
Break, Blow, Burn (April 2005)
821.009 P138b 2005
With her knowledge of both classic and contemporary cultures, Paglia sheds light on the raw power of a wailing pop lyric as easily as she does on the cryptic wit of a line of Emily Dickinson. Here is the book — and the dazzling mind behind it — to entice readers to begin or renew a passionate engagement with poetry.
Parker, Douglas M.
Ogden Nash: The Life and Work of America's Laureate of Light Verse (April 2005)
B-Na175p 2005
For years, readers have longed for a biography to match Nash's charm, wit and good nature; now we have it in Parker's absorbing life of the poet.
Preston, Diane
Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima (April 2005)
303.483 P937b 2005
Here is the epic story of the half century between the discovery of radium and the detonation of "Little Boy" over Hiroshima, during which an exhilarating quest to unravel the secrets of the material world led to the knowledge of how to destroy it.
Queen, William
Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (April 2005)
364.106 Q36u 2005
A breathless, adrenaline-charged read, Under and Alone puts readers on the street with members of the Mongols, America's most violent outlaw motorcycle gang, and with the law-enforcement agents who risk everything to bring them in.
Ramos, Jorge
Dying to Cross: The Worst Immigrant Tragedy in American History (April 2005)
364.1 R175d 2005
From the Emmy Award–winning journalist and bestselling author comes a gripping narrative account of the tragic deaths of 19 immigrants in Texas as they tried to make their way across the Mexican-American border.
Reichl, Ruth
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (April 2005)
641.509 R351g 2005
This new volume of Reichl's memoirs recounts her "adventures in deception," as she goes undercover in the world's finest restaurants.
Schiff, Stacy
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (April 2005)
327.73044 S333g 2005
"In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin — 70 years old, without any diplomatic training and possessed of the most rudimentary French — convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy.
Service, Robert
Stalin: A Biography (March 2005)
B-S782se 2005
Overthrowing the conventional image of Stalin as an uneducated political administrator inexplicably transformed into a pathological killer, Service reveals a more complex and fascinating story behind this notorious 20th-century figure.
Timm, Uwe
In My Brother's Shadow: A Life and Death in the SS (April 2005)
B-Ti483i 2005
Both nuanced and measured, this meditation on German history and guilt is a renowned German novelist's memoir of his brother, who joined the SS and was killed at the Russian front.
Ung, Loung
Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind (April 2005)
B-Un29L 2005
In this lyrical sequel to First They Killed My Father, Ung describes her school years in Vermont as a Cambodian refugee and her sister Chou's struggle to survive in Cambodia.
