Nonfiction, May 2005

With broad perspective, acute insight and humor, Steven Biel explores the strangely enduring life of America's most popular painting.

Featuring a detailed study of 400 murders, plus FBI files, this title will appeal to readers interested in profiling, true crime and murder mysteries, and the inner workings of the human mind.

This is an amateur astronomer's beautifully written account of a year spent observing the cosmos and building an observatory in his New England backyard.

A journalist's obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators and the strange band of surfer-scientists who follow them.

A riveting behind-the-scenes look at the mysterious world of three-star French haute cuisine is revealed through the biography of one of France's most celebrated chefs — Bernard Loiseau, who ended his own life in 2003, after one of his restaurant's ratings took a disappointing drop.

Chorost chronicles his journey from deafness to hearing, from human to cyborg, and how it transformed him. Written with self-deprecating, dry wit, this volume explores hearing, sound and software that can now mend the senses.

Croke tells the true story of Ruth Harkness, bohemian socialite and dress designer, who in 1936 headed into one of the most dangerous corners of the world to search for the most mysterious animal of the day. Everything was against Ruth Harkness: her sex, her city softness and her complete lack of experience. But with the help of her dashing guide, with whom she became romantically involved, Harkness succeeded. The lady and the panda became an international sensation.

This collection of original cartoons and never-before-published work takes readers on a unique journey through the life and times of one of the 20th century's most notorious and influential counter-culture artists.

Diamond's provocative and vivid account makes clear that Iraq — and by extension, the United States — will spend many years climbing its way out of the hole that was dug during the American occupation in Iraq.

Doonan revisits his formative years and the defiantly eccentric, loveably odd family he calls his own. The essays chronicle the misadventures of the Doonan clan in all their endearingly dysfunctional glory.

Evoking the romance and adventure of the old-fashioned train journey, journalist Andrew Eames recreates Agatha Christie's ride on the Orient Express.

Garreau argues that an acceleration of technology is rapidly setting the course of the next stage of human evolution, raising serious questions about the future of culture, society and humanity itself.

In this new biography, Gordon proposes that at each stage of a passionate and courageous life — as teacher, writer, lover and traveler — Mary Wollstonecraft was an original. She had advanced ideas on education, and her views on single motherhood, family responsibilities, working life, domestic affections, friendships and sexual relationships now look astonishingly modern.

This colorful account is a richly researched, enthralling look that portrays the color red as a driving force in history and empire since ancient times.

This timely and compelling family memoir candidly tells the story of one family, an attempted teen suicide, and the emotional and practical struggle to get help.

Donald Hall's celebrated book of poems Without was written for his wife, Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995. Kenyon was 19 years younger than Hall and a student poet at the University of Michigan when they met. This is an intimate account of their 23-year marriage, nearly all of it spent in New Hampshire at Eagle Pond Farm. This portrait of the inner moods of "the best marriage I know about," as Hall has written, is laid against the stark medical emergency of Jane's leukemia, which ended her life in 15 months.

A veteran foreign correspondent reports on the results of his interviews with nine Hutus who helped to kill 50,000 out of their 59,000 Tutsi neighbors. This testimony of the Rwanda horror reconsiders the foundation of human morality and ethics.

From the author of Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence.

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporting team comes the extraordinary and inspiring story of Mother Antonia, who at middle age found her life's calling by bringing the transformative power of her spiritual guidance to the most hardened criminals.

Kennedy introduces the rich history of the 8th and 9th century and the men and women of the palaces at Baghdad and Samarra — the caliphs, viziers, eunuchs and women of the harem — who fashioned the glorious days of the Arabian Nights.

Krall reveals how the lives of World War II survivors are shaped in surprising ways by the twists and turns of historical events. The reader is thrown into a world where love, hatred, compassion and indifference appear in places where we least expect them.

In a political travelogue, Larkin tells of the year she spent traveling through Burma exploring life in this police state, using the life and work of George Orwell as her compass.

The author of three Kennedy biographies presents a biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger, his rise to fame and power and his marriage to Maria Shriver.

This powerful, touching memoir vividly recounts how Li's grandmother's traditional Chinese cuisine helped the author bridge the cultural divide in an America in which she is a minority. Interspersed throughout this poignant memoir are the author's personal recipes, most from her grandmother's kitchen.

Logan combines science, philosophy, spirituality and history with a quirky curiosity about why the natural world works the way it does. In lively literary prose, he narrates the biography of the tree that since time immemorial has been a symbol of loyalty and strength, generosity and renewal.

In 35 years and dozens of trips to Ireland, Lynch has found a template for the larger world inside the small one, the planet in the local parish. Part memoir, part cultural study, Booking Passage is a brilliant, often comedic guidebook for those Lynch calls "fellow travelers, fellow pilgrims" making their way through the complexities of their own lives and times.

In the tradition of Salt and Stiff, MacInnis takes a wide-ranging and provocative look — teeming with little-known facts and engaging stories — at a subject of the direst interest.

In this sweeping dual biography, Larry McMurtry explores the lives, the legends and above all the truth about two larger-than-life American figures.

The last foreign journalist in Zimbabwe, Meldrum was seized and expelled in May 2003, forced to leave for writing "bad things" about Mugabe's regime. Meldrum describes what it meant to live through this period of hope and tragedy. Ultimately, however, this is a story of the triumph of hope — of doctors, teachers, journalists and lawyers who refuse to accept the abuses of Mugabe's rule.

Humans have a remarkable knack for surviving harsh environments. But how do people really endure the world's most remote and inhospitable landscapes, where nature still reigns and where the physical geography is raw and unforgiving? Geographer and travel writer Middleton puts his body and mind to the test in an attempt to find the answer.

Weaving history with observations of people, places and art, Pamuk shows Istanbul's transformation from the seat of faded imperial glory to the capital of a modern nation at the dizzying crossroads of East and West.

Vividly evoking the richness of the Florentine Renaissance and the Medicis' glittering circle, replete with artists, popes and kings, Medici Money is a brilliant look into the origins of modern banking and its troubled relationship with art and religion.

This is the inside story of the Nobel Prize sperm bank, the most radical experiment in human breeding in U.S. history. More than 200 children were born from this sperm bank between 1980 and 1999. It is also the story of the meetings between the children and their donor fathers.

For more than 50 years Eli Wallach has held a special place in film and theater, and in a tale rich with anecdotes, wit and insight he recounts his life in a world unlike any other.

In what may become the most talked-about memoir of the year, the founding editor of McSweeney's takes readers on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest and most grandiose of families.

Scarred by decades of conflict and occupation, the African nation of Eritrea has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war. The way international power politics can play havoc with a country's destiny gives the story of Eritrea a resonance and a tragic dimension beyond imagining.