Ira Glass

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

A collection of stories-some well known, some more obscure-capturing some of the best storytelling of this golden age of non-fiction.

An anthology of the best new masters of non-fiction storytelling, personally chosen and introduced by Ira Glass, the producer and host of the award-winning public radio program This American Life.

These pieces-on teenage white collar criminals, buying a cow, Saddam Hussein, drunken British soccer culture, and how we know everyone in our Rolodex - are meant to mesmerize and inspire.

The New Kings of Nonfiction

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Neil Gaiman

Short Fictions and Illusions

In the deft hands of Neil Gaiman, magic is no mere illusion . . . and anything is possible. In Smoke and Mirrors, Gaiman's imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders—where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality, obscured by smoke and darkness yet brilliantly tangible, in this extraordinary collection of short works by a master prestidigitator. It will dazzle your senses, touch your heart, and haunt your dreams.

Smoke and Mirrors

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Rachel Maddow

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The Unmooring of American Military Power

Identifying what the author believes to be a battle between the priorities of civilian life and the war, the host of the critically acclaimed The Rachel Maddow Show explains that today's focus on national security is actually compromising national stability, tracing the historical events and contributing factors that have promoted a deeply militarized American culture.

Drift

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Paul Beatty

A Novel

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

The Sellout

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Thomas Hardy

The life of a simple country girl in nineteenth-century England is destroyed by her father's determination to use her in order to regain the family's former social standing.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

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Arthur Doyle

Venture back in time to Victorian London to join literature's greatest detective team -- the brilliant Sherlock Holmes and his devoted assistant, Dr. Watson -- as they investigate a dozen of their best-known cases. Originally published in 1892, this is the first and best collection of stories about the legendary sleuth. It's also the least expensive edition available.
Featured tales include several of the author's personal favorites: "A Scandal in Bohemia" -- in which a king is blackmailed by a former lover and Holmes matches wits with the only woman to attract his open admiration -- plus "The Speckled Band," "The Red-Headed League," and "The Five Orange Pips." Additional mysteries include "The Blue Carbuncle," "The Engineer's Thumb," "The Beryl Coronet," "The Copper Beeches," and four others.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Norman Mailer

Stephen Rojack is a decorated war hero, a former Congressman, and a certified public intellectual with his own television show. He is also married to the very rich, very beautiful, and utterly amoral Deborah Caughlin Kelly. But one night, in the prime of his existence, he hears the moon talking to him on the terrace of a fashionable New York high-rise, and it is urging him to kill himself. It is almost as a defense against that infinitely seductive voice that Rojack murders his wife.
In this wild battering ram of a novel, which was originally published to vast controversy in 1965, Norman Mailer creates a character who might be a fictional precursor of the philosopher-killer he would later profile in The Executioner's Song. As Rojack runs amok through the city in which he was once a privileged citizen, Mailer peels away the layers of our social norms to reveal a world of pure appetite and relentless cruelty. Sensual, horrifying, and informed by a vision that is one part Nietzsche, one part de Sade, and one part Charlie Parker, An American Dream grabs the reader by the throat and refuses to let go.

An American Dream

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Mario Vargas Llosa

Helen Lane

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars, and every kind of outcast. It is a place where history and civilization have been wiped away. There is no money, no taxation, no marriage, no census. Canudos is a cauldron for the revolutionary spirit in its purest form, a state with all the potential for a true, libertarian paradise--and one the Brazilian government is determined to crush at any cost.

In perhaps his most ambitious and tragic novel, Mario Vargas Llosa tells his own version of the real story of Canudos, inhabiting characters on both sides of the massive, cataclysmic battle between the society and government troops. The resulting novel is a fable of Latin American revolutionary history, an unforgettable story of passion, violence, and the devastation that follows from fanaticism.

The War of the End of the World

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Dave Eggers

A struggling American businessman travels to a rising Saudi Arabian city with the hopes of securing a contract that will earn him a commission large enough to stave off his economic woes and hold his family together.

A Hologram for the King

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Sarah Vowell

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Stories from the New World

"Take the Cannoli" is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Hailed by "Newsweek" as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," Vowell has an irresistible voice -- caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged -- that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life.

While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears.

"Take the Cannoli" is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns.

Take the Cannoli

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Max H. Bazerman

In Negotiating Rationally, Max Bazerman and Margaret Neale explain how to avoid the pitfalls of irrationality and gain the upper hand in negotiations.

For example, managers tend to be overconfident, to recklessly escalate previous commitments, and fail to consider the tactics of the other party. Drawing on their research, the authors show how we are prisoners of our own assumptions. They identify strategies to avoid these pitfalls in negotiating by concentrating on opponents' behavior and developing the ability to recognize individual limitations and biases. They explain how to think rationally about the choice of reaching an agreement versus reaching an impasse. A must read for business professionals.

Negotiating Rationally

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Robert D. Austin

Shannon O'Donnell

Richard L. Nolan

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The day-to-day challenges faced by the average CIO are not usually the stuff of epic drama--except when they are. Enter our hero: Jim Barton, the new CIO of the fictional IVK Corporation. He is the creation of authors Robert Austin, Richard Nolan, and Shannon O’Donnell, and his story gives a practical yet entertaining look at the true adventures of an IT leader. Based on the authors’ years of first-hand experience with diverse companies, the story begins as the IVK Corporation struggles to recover from a period of slowing growth and falling stock prices. An aggressive new CEO handpicks Barton to be CIO--even though Barton has no background in IT. We follow Barton’s adventures as he discovers what effective IT management is all about, deals with the everyday challenges of the job, responds to major crises, and remakes the company’s technology capabilities into a vital strategic asset. Read the book from beginning to end or treat it as a series of case studies; the "ways of using this book” section explains which chapters cover which subjects, while the authors' reflection questions help you puzzle through the problems in each episode. Now fully updated and with a new preface by the authors,The Adventures of an IT Leader is an engaging way to enhance your IT leadership skills.

The Adventures of an IT Leader, Updated Edition with a New Preface by the Authors

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Emilia Hart

"A spellbinding story about what may transpire when the natural world collides with a legacy of witchcraft."
--Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary

I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha's mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives--and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

Weyward

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Otto Penzler

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Here, Otto Penzler collects eighty-three wonderful stories about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, published over a span of more than a hundred years.

The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

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Steven D. Levitt

Stephen J. Dubner

A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

Freakonomics

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Amy Poehler

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

In a perfect world . . . We'd get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching dumb movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our coworkers and difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we'd all be friends with Amy—someone who seems so fun, is full of interesting stories, tells great jokes, and offers plenty of advice and wisdom (the useful kind, not the annoying kind you didn't ask for, anyway). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved SNL alumni and cofounder of the Upright Citizens' Brigade, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as acting double for Meryl Streep, and her other gig as the mom of two young sons, she's not available for movie night. Luckily we have the next best thing: Yes Please, Amy's hilarious and candid book. A collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers, Yes Please offers Amy's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs." Yes Please is chock-full of words and wisdom to live by.

Yes Please

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Carrie Fisher

This bestselling Hollywood novel by the witty author of Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic that was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. When we first meet the extraordinary young actress Suzanne Vale, she’s feeling like “something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting.” Suzanne is in the harrowing and hilarious throes of drug rehabilitation, trying to understand what happened to her life and how she managed to land in a “drug hospital.” Just as Fisher’s first film role—the precocious teenager in Shampoo—echoed her own Beverly Hills upbringing, her first book is set within the world she knows better than anyone else: Hollywood. This stunning literary debut chronicles Suzanne’s vivid, excruciatingly funny experiences inside the clinic and as she comes to terms with life in the outside world. Postcards from the Edge is more than a book about stardom and drugs. It is a revealing look at the dangers—and delights—of all our addictions, from money and success to sex and insecurity.

Postcards from the Edge

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Ellen Weissman

Ellen Weissman

@knittingbernina

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Ira Glass

The New Kings of Nonfiction

Neil Gaiman

Smoke and Mirrors

Rachel Maddow

Drift

Paul Beatty

The Sellout

Thomas Hardy

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Arthur Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Norman Mailer

An American Dream

Mario Vargas Llosa; Helen Lane

The War of the End of the World

Dave Eggers

A Hologram for the King

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Max H. Bazerman

Negotiating Rationally

Robert D. Austin; Shannon O'Donnell; Richard L. Nolan

The Adventures of an IT Leader, Updated Edition with a New Preface by the Authors

Emilia Hart

Weyward

Otto Penzler

The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

Steven D. Levitt; Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Carrie Fisher

Postcards from the Edge

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Ira Glass

The New Kings of Nonfiction

Neil Gaiman

Smoke and Mirrors

Rachel Maddow

Drift

Paul Beatty

The Sellout

Thomas Hardy

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Arthur Doyle

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Norman Mailer

An American Dream

Mario Vargas Llosa; Helen Lane

The War of the End of the World

Dave Eggers

A Hologram for the King

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Max H. Bazerman

Negotiating Rationally

Robert D. Austin; Shannon O'Donnell; Richard L. Nolan

The Adventures of an IT Leader, Updated Edition with a New Preface by the Authors

Emilia Hart

Weyward

Otto Penzler

The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

Steven D. Levitt; Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Carrie Fisher

Postcards from the Edge

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