Books
'night, Mother is a taut and fluid drama that addresses different emotions and special relations. By one of America's most talented playwrights, this play won the Dramatists Guild's prestigious Hull-Warriner Award, four Tony nominations, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.
'night, Mother had its world premiere at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December 1982. It opened on Broadway in March 1983, directed by Tom Moore and starring Anne Pitoniak and Kathy Bates; a film, starring Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek, was released in 1986.
A wonderfully readable anthology of our greatest poetry, chosen by the author of A Little History of Poetry "Does anyone know more about poetry than John Carey? Almost certainly not."--The Times A poem seems a fragile thing. Change a word and it is broken. But poems outlive empires and survive the devastation of conquests. Celebrated author John Carey here presents a uniquely valuable anthology of verse based on a simple principle: select the one-hundred greatest poets from across the centuries, and then choose their finest poems. Ranging from Homer and Sappho to Donne and Milton, Plath and Angelou, this is a delightful and accessible introduction to the very best that poetry can offer. Familiar favorites are nestled alongside marvelous new discoveries--all woven together with Carey's expert commentary. Particular attention is given to the works of female poets, like Christina Rossetti and Charlotte Mew. This is a personal guide to the poetry that shines brightest through the ages. Within its pages, readers will find treasured poems that remain with you for life.
NPR Best Books of 2019
Chicago Tribune Best Books of 2019
Chicago Review of Books Best Poetry Book of 2019
O Magazine Best Books by Women of Summer 2019
The Millions Must-Read Poetry of June 2019
LitHub Most Anticipated Reads of Summer 2019
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event--which lasted eight days and resulted in thirty-eight deaths and almost 500 injuries--through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history, and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.
A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER "[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces."
--The New York Times Book Review "Here is a field guide, a boon, a bible, for the urban curious. Your city's secret anatomy laid bare--a hundred things you look at but don't see, see but don't know. Each entry is a compact, surprising story, a thought piece, an invitation to marvel. Together, they are almost transformative. To know why things are as they are adds a satisfying richness to daily existence. This book is terrific, just terrific."
--Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Grunt, and Gulp "The 99% Invisible City brings into view the fascinating but often unnoticed worlds we walk and drive through every day, and to read it is to feel newly alive and aware of your place in the world. This book made me laugh, and it made me cry, and it reminded me to always read the plaque."
--John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All The Way Down A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean? Or stopped to consider why you don't see metal fire escapes on new buildings? Or pondered the story behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships? 99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs. Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
--The New York Times Book Review "Here is a field guide, a boon, a bible, for the urban curious. Your city's secret anatomy laid bare--a hundred things you look at but don't see, see but don't know. Each entry is a compact, surprising story, a thought piece, an invitation to marvel. Together, they are almost transformative. To know why things are as they are adds a satisfying richness to daily existence. This book is terrific, just terrific."
--Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Grunt, and Gulp "The 99% Invisible City brings into view the fascinating but often unnoticed worlds we walk and drive through every day, and to read it is to feel newly alive and aware of your place in the world. This book made me laugh, and it made me cry, and it reminded me to always read the plaque."
--John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All The Way Down A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean? Or stopped to consider why you don't see metal fire escapes on new buildings? Or pondered the story behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships? 99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs. Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
A Child of the Century, Ben Hecht’s autobiographical memoir, was first published in 1954 to great critical acclaim. Hecht offers philosophical meditations on the nature of God and the self as well as keen, firsthand portraits of big-city newsrooms, postwar Germany, 1920s New York intellectuals and artists, and golden-age Hollywood. He shares anecdotes from his days working with Hollywood legends such as the Marx brothers, authors Sherwood Anderson and Dorothy Parker, actress Fanny Brice, and producer David O. Selznick. With a new introduction by David Denby, this reissued volume will introduce Hecht and his work to a new generation of readers.
On the surface, A Corpse in the Koryo is a crackling good mystery novel, filled with unusual characters involved in a complex plot that keeps you guessing to the end.
---Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post
One of Publishers Weekly Top 100 Books of 2006
One of Booklist's Best Genre Fiction of 2006
One of the Chicago Tribune's best mystery/thrillers of 2006
Simple orders for Inspector O, until he realizes they have led him far, far off his department's turf and into a maelstrom of betrayal and death. North Korea's leaders are desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decade's-old kidnappings and murders---and Inspector O discovers too late he has been sent into the chaos. This is a world where nothing works as it should, where the crimes of the past haunt the present, and where even the shadows are real.
Author James Church weaves a story with beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart after decades as an intelligence officer. . . . an outstanding crime novel. . . . a not-to-be-missed reading experience.
---Library Journal (starred) Inspector O is completely believable and sympathetic . . . The writing is superb, too . . . richly layered and visually evocative.
---Booklist (starred) . . . an impressive debut that calls to mind such mystery thrillers as Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park. . . .
---Publishers Weekly (starred)
Throughout its history, America has been defined through maps. Whether made for military strategy or urban reform, to encourage settlement or to investigate disease, maps invest information with meaning by translating it into visual form. They capture what people knew, what they thought they knew, what they hoped for, and what they feared. As such they offer unrivaled windows onto the past. In this book Susan Schulten uses maps to explore five centuries of American history, from the voyages of European discovery to the digital age. With stunning visual clarity, A History of America in 100 Maps showcases the power of cartography to illuminate and complicate our understanding of the past. Gathered primarily from the British Library's incomparable archives and compiled into nine chronological chapters, these one hundred full-color maps range from the iconic to the unfamiliar. Each is discussed in terms of its specific features as well as its larger historical significance in a way that conveys a fresh perspective on the past. Some of these maps were made by established cartographers, while others were made by unknown individuals such as Cherokee tribal leaders, soldiers on the front, and the first generation of girls to be formally educated. Some were tools of statecraft and diplomacy, and others were instruments of social reform or even advertising and entertainment. But when considered together, they demonstrate the many ways that maps both reflect and influence historical change. Audacious in scope and charming in execution, this collection of one hundred full-color maps offers an imaginative and visually engaging tour of American history that will show readers a new way of navigating their own worlds.
Winner, 2020 JDC-Herbert Katzki Award for Writing Based on Archival Material, given by the Jewish Book Council
The astonishing story of the efforts of scholars and activists to rescue Jewish cultural treasures after the Holocaust
A master crime writer . . . Seicho Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society.--The New York Times Book Review A stellar psychological thriller with a surprising and immensely satisfying resolution that flows naturally from the book's complex characterizations. Readers will agree that Matsumoto (1909-1992) deserves his reputation as Japan's Georges Simenon.-Publishers Weekly
While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wife--who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings--ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?
When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife's death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life...Seicho Matsumoto was Japan's most successful thriller writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit.