- BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS
- "Gore
Vidal"
by Fred Kaplan
Though biographer Fred Kaplan writes, "I prefer my subjects dead," it is lucky for readers that he made
an exception for Gore Vidal. This biography of the writer, actor, and cultural critic--to name just a few of Vidal's vocations--is packed with memorable
vignettes and American social history.
- "Dutch:
A Memoir of Ronald Reagan"
by Edmund Morris
Edmund Morris's big book about Ronald Reagan may be the most controversial authorized biography
ever written. Find out what happens when a Pulitzer-winning historian turns a president's life into a kind of weirdly revealing historical novel.
- "Hitler's
Pope"
by John Cornwell
John Cornwell decided to write about Pope Pius XII to lay to rest the decades-long rumors that the
pontiff had aided and abetted Hitler's rise to power and the extermination of Europe's Jews. In "Hitler's Pope," however, Cornwell reveals that what
he found in the Vatican's archives confirmed even the most malicious rumors and his own deepest fears.
- "Saint
Augustine"
by Garry Wills
"Saint Augustine," by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and cultural critic Garry Wills, is a 145-page
biography of a saint whose collected works total 13 volumes. Despite its brevity, the book offers a complex and compelling interpretation of Augustine's
life and work.
- "The
Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind the New York Times"
by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones
This mammoth history of the dynasty that created and controls the New York Times is as epic in
its scope as is the role of the newspaper in America. And like any good epic, the story is filled with its fair share of personal ambition, disappointment,
competing heirs to the throne, fierce loyalties, and powerful intrigue.
- "Between
Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945"
by Leo Marks
At the age of 8, Leo Marks discovered the great game of codemaking and -breaking in his father's London
bookshop, thanks to a first edition of Poe's "The Gold-Bug." At 23, as World War II was being played out in earnest, he hoped to use his strengths
for the Allies. But Marks's urgent, witty memoir, "Between Silk and Cyanide" begins with his failure to get into British Intelligence's cryptographic
department.
- HISTORY
- "The
Plutonium Files"
by Eileen Welsome
While developing the atomic bomb, the U.S. government ran tests
on the effects of plutonium on humans, exposing subjects to the
radioactive substance without their knowledge. "The Plutonium
Files" tells the story of these victims of bad science.
- "The
Sword and the Shield"
by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin
A secret dissident working in the KGB archive stole copies of
its most highly classified files every day for over a decade.
In 1992 he defected with his entire collection. These shocking
revelations about the KGB's worldwide network come out for the
first time in "The Sword and the Shield."
- "The Hungry Years: A Narrative History
of the Great Depression 1929-1939" by T.H. Watkins
The stock-market crash. "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?"
Breadlines. "The Hungry Years" tells the story of the
Great Depression through the lives, and the voices, of the Americans
who lived it.
- "Secret War in Shanghai" by Bernard Wasserstein
Even after the Imperial Japanese Army invaded in 1941, Shanghai
remained a center of corruption, espionage, and vice. In "Secret
War in Shanghai," Bernard Wasserstein presents a portrait
of the city and the spies, gangsters, and powerbrokers who inhabited
its dens.
- "Millennium Year by Year"
DK Publishing's "Millennium Year by Year" is the most
ambitious, presenting a chronicle of the world's events, 1000
to 1999, in the style of lavishly illustrated newspaper articles.
- "A People's History of the United
States: 1492-Present"
by Howard Zinn
Narrower in scope but great in influence, Howard Zinn's classic
"A People's History of the United States" covers over
500 years of American history, from Columbus to Clinton, and provides
an outlet for the oft-unheard voices of women, Native Americans,
and African Americans.
- "The Century" by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster
Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster zoom further in on "The
Century," an America-centric view of the 20th century acclaimed
for its photographs and first-person narratives.
- "Don Troiani's Civil War" by Don Troiani
"I try to paint it how it was." That's how artist Don
Troiani explains his remarkable paintings. As evidenced by the
nearly 100 examples of his work included in this volume, Troiani's
work really brings home the day-to-day experience of the war--sometimes
boring, sometimes frightening. "Don Troiani's Civil War"
captures the beauty and detail of the artist's work and provides
an excellent introduction to the War Between the States.
- LITERATURE
- "Why
Read the Classics?"
by Italo Calvino
Dissing the Western canon has become our age's greatest literary
spectator sport. But in "Why Read the Classics?" Italo
Calvino comes to the defense of those (predominantly) Dead White
Males. Singing the praises of Homer and Voltaire, Conrad and Borges,
he answers his own question with typical, epigrammatic eloquence.
- "Hearts in Atlantis" by Stephen King
Soft-pedaling the horror in "Hearts in Atlantis," Stephen
King instead comes up with a collection of astute, touching fictions.
In five interlinked tales he explores the lost continent of American
life, from the Eisenhower era to today--and retrieves some surprising
treasures from the past.
- "The Dangerous Husband" by Jane Shapiro
"The Dangerous Husband" is a black-comic account of
how things can go wrong with Mr. Right. The narrator of Jane Shapiro's
razor-sharp novel thinks she's stumbled into a kind of matrimonial
seventh heaven--until her new hubby's eccentricities go from charming
to disturbing to downright lethal.
- "The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh" by Evelyn Waugh
In his novels, Evelyn Waugh chronicled the decline and fall of
the British aristocracy with mordant, mirthful accuracy. But readers
of "The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh" will discover
that he was equally masterful--and equally amusing--when it came
to the short form.
- "The Voyage of the Narwhal" by Andrea Barrett
Andrea Barrett's tale of 19th-century Arctic travel and travail
is truly an epic of discovery--geographical, scientific, and (of
course) personal.
- "The Farming of Bones" by Edwidge Danticat
Set in the Dominican Republic of the 1930s, Edwidge Danticat's
second novel contains more than its share of historical tragedy.
But it's also packed with tart, poetic prose and astute observations
of human character.
- "Birds of America" by Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore's rapid-fire alternation of mirth and deep melancholy
is so perfectly suited to the short form that readers will greet
her latest story collection with an audible sigh of delight.
- BUSINESS AND INVESTING
- "The
Long Boom"
by Peter Schwartz, Peter
Leyden, and Joel Hyatt
There's nothing half-empty
about Peter Schwartz, Peter Leyden, or Joel Hyatt. In "The Long Boom,"
this trio envision a world of extended life spans, hydrogen power, a real
space age, and unparalleled prosperity.
- "Sony:
The Private Life"
by John Nathan
John Nathan puts two faces--Masaru
Ibuka and Akio Morita--behind one of the most respected and dominant companies
of this century. In "Sony: The Private Life," Nathan traces Sony's beginnings
from postwar Japan to the giant it is today.
- "Dialogue
and the Art of Thinking Together"
by William Issacs
William Issacs knows how
to make groups work better--but only if they can learn how to speak and
listen. Here Issacs offers a perceptive look
at the art of communication and how it affects us at work and in the rest
of our lives.
- "Weaving
the Web"
by Tim Berners-Lee
- "The
Innovator's Dilemma"
by Clayton M. Christensen
Many consider Clayton Christensen's
"The Innovator's Dilemma" to be the business book of the '90s. In it, Christensen
looks at why great businesses often fail: not because of poor management
practices, but because they were not able to grapple with new, disruptive
technologies effectively.
- "Customers.com"
by Patricia Seybold
Here's a candidate for best
business book of the year. In "Customers.com," Patricia Seybold shows how
companies such as National Semiconductor, American Airlines, and Photodisc
have gotten their edge by thinking hard about their customers. After all,
it's the customer, stupid!
- "Smart
Money Decisions"
by Max Bazerman
Do you feel like you spent
more than you needed on that last car? Do you dread going into a job negotiation?
Max Bazerman's "Smart Money Decisions"
shows you how to separate your feelings from your money and get the upper
hand in most any transaction.
- "The
Gorilla Game"
by Geoffrey A. Moore,
Paul Johnson, and Tom Kippola
Gorillas can sit anywhere
they want, especially those with a license to print money. But finding
the big gorilla in the jungle of technology stocks is not as easy as it
seems, unless you've got Geoffrey Moore's "The Gorilla Game" as a guide.
Now updated in a second edition that also covers Internet stocks.
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