The Spell of the Sensuous
Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Written by David Abram

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 25, 1997
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-77639-0 (0-679-77639-7)

Winner of the Lannan Award for Nonfiction

David Abram's award-winning work of natural philosophy is already transforming debates at the forefront of environmental studies, psychology, anthropology, literary theory, and philosophy.  Praised for "combining poetic passion with intellectual rigor and daring," (Lannan Award citation), The Spell of the Sensuous explores the earthly, ecological dimensions... Read more >

Homelands and Waterways
The American Journey of the Bond Family, 1846-1926
Written by Adele Logan Alexander

Format: Trade Paperback, 720 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 18, 2000
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-75871-6 (0-679-75871-2)

Homelands and Waterways traces the rise of a resolute African American family (the author's own) from privation to the middle class. In so doing, it explodes the stereotypes that have shaped and distorted our thinking about African Americans--both as slaves and in freedom. Adele Logan Alexander's account is the result of... Read more >

Centuries of Childhood
A Social History of Family Life
Written by Philippe Aries

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 12, 1965
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-394-70286-5 (0-394-70286-7)

The theme of this extraordinary book is the evolution of the modern conception of family life and the modern image  of the nature of children. Aries traces the evolution of the concept of childhood from the end of the Middle Ages, when the child was regarded as a small adult, to the... Read more >

The Hour of Our Death

Written by Philippe Aries

Format: Trade Paperback, 696 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 22, 2008
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-394-75156-6 (0-394-75156-6)

This remarkable book—the fruit of almost two decades of study—traces in compelling fashion the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the present day. A truly landmark study, The Hour of Our Death reveals a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perceptions... Read more >

God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man
A Saltwater Geechee Talks About Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia
Written by Cornelia Walker Baily and Christena Bledsoe

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: July 17, 2001
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49377-2 (0-385-49377-0)

Cornelia Walker Bailey models herself after the African griot, the tribal storytellers who keep the history of their people. Bailey’s people are the Geechee, whose cultural identity has been largely preserved due to the relative isolation of Sapelo, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. In this rich account, Bailey... Read more >

Intertwined Lives
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle
Written by Lois W. Banner

Format: Trade Paperback, 576 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 7, 2004
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-77612-3 (0-679-77612-5)

A uniquely revealing biography of two eminent twentieth-century American women. Close friends for much of their lives, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead met at Barnard College in 1922, when Mead was a student, Benedict a teacher. They became sexual partners (though both married), and pioneered in the then male-dominated discipline of... Read more >

Jihad vs. McWorld
Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy
Written by Benjamin Barber

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
On Sale: July 30, 1996
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-38304-4 (0-345-38304-4)

With an introduction that addresses the terrorist attacks of September 11th. This is a timely, compelling, and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers... Read more >

Aman
The Story of a Somali Girl
As told to Virginia Lee Barnes and Janice Boddy

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 29, 1995
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-76209-6 (0-679-76209-4)

This is the extraordinary first-person account of a young woman's coming of age in Somalia and her struggles against the obligations and strictures of family and society.  By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a... Read more >

In Praise of Nepotism
A History of Family Enterprise from King David to George W. Bush
Written by Adam Bellow

Format: Trade Paperback, 576 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: July 13, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49389-5 (0-385-49389-4)

Nepotism is one of those social habits we all claim to deplore in America; it offends our sense of fair play and our pride in living in a meritocracy. But somehow nepotism prevails; we all want to help our own and a quick glance around reveals any number of successful families... Read more >

Lilac and Flag

Written by John Berger

Format: Trade Paperback, 188 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 27, 1992
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73719-3 (0-679-73719-7)

Berger renders the movement of a people and the passing of a way of life in his masterwork, the Into Their Labours trilogy. With Lilac and Flag, the Alpine village of the two earlier volumes has been forsaken for the mythic city of Troy. Here, amidst the shantytowns, factories, and opulent... Read more >

Once in Europa

Written by John Berger

Format: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 27, 1992
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73716-2 (0-679-73716-2)

The second volume in the Into Their Labours trilogy, Once in Europa is a luminous collection of interwoven stories which serves as a portrait of two worlds--a small Alpine village bound to the earth and by tradition, and the restless, future-driven culture that will inevitably invade it. The instrument of entrapment... Read more >

Pig Earth

Written by John Berger

Format: Trade Paperback, 208 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 27, 1992
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73715-5 (0-679-73715-4)

With this haunting first volume of his Into Their Labours trilogy, Berger begins his chronicle of the eclipse of peasant cultures in the twentieth century. Set in a small village in the French Alps, Pig Earth relates the stories of skeptical, hard-working men and fiercely independent women; of calves born and... Read more >

The East, the West, and Sex
A History of Erotic Encounters
Written by Richard Bernstein

Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: June 2, 2009
Price: $27.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-41409-1 (0-375-41409-6)

A rich and seductive narrative of the powerful erotic pull the East has always had for the West—a pervasive yet often ignored aspect of their long historical relationship—and a deep exploration of the intimate connection between sex and power.

Richard Bernstein defines the East widely—northern Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific... Read more >

Daisy Bates in the Desert
A Woman's Life Among the Aborigines
Written by Julia Blackburn

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 8, 1995
Price: $13.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74446-7 (0-679-74446-0)

In 1913, at the age of 54, Daisy Bates went to live in the deserts of South Australia. Brilliantly reviewed, astonishingly original, this "eloquent and illuminating portrait of an extraordinary woman" (New York Times Book Review) tells a fascinating, true story in the tradition of Isak Dinesen and Barry Lopez. Read more >

Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe

Written by John Boswell

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 30, 1995
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-75164-9 (0-679-75164-5)

The result of twelve years of research, Same Sex Unions in Premodern Europe focuses on Boswell's discovery of Catholic and Orthodox liturgies for same-sex unions, here translated into English for the first time. These ceremonies, which were performed throughout Christendom into modern times, are shown to bear striking resemblance to heterosexual... Read more >

Gig
Americans Talk About Their Jobs
Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe and Sabin Streeter

Format: Trade Paperback, 688 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: August 21, 2001
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-609-80707-1 (0-609-80707-2)

Taking their cue from Studs Terkel's book Working, the editors of word.com have produced a book that provides real insight into how people work and how they describe their jobs. Composed of more than 120 monologues Gig allows disparate people—from a wide variety of occupations and locations—to describe their day to... Read more >

The Frenzy of Renown
Fame and Its History
Written by Leo Braudy

Format: Trade Paperback, 684 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 25, 1997
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-77630-7 (0-679-77630-3)

For Alexander the Great, fame meant accomplishing what no mortal had ever accomplished before. For Julius Caesar, personal glory was indistinguishable from that of Rome. The early Christians devalued public recognition, believing that the only true audience was God. Marilyn Monroe owed much of her fame to the fragility that led... Read more >

The Secrets of Mariko
A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family
Written by Elisabeth Bumiller

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 29, 1996
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-77262-0 (0-679-77262-6)

Following a housewife named Mariko through the course of a year, this remarkable and revealing book offers an intimate look at the emotional, spiritual, and social lives of Japanese women and men.  Elisabeth Bumiller, a reporter for The Washington Post, somehow managed to break through Mariko's instinctive reserve and, in observing her... Read more >

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
Why the Greeks Matter
Written by Thomas Cahill

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: July 27, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-49554-7 (0-385-49554-4)

In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Cahill brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of ancient Greece.

The Greeks invented everything from Western warfare to mystical prayer, from logic to statecraft. Many of their achievements, particularly in art and philosophy, are widely... Read more >

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
Why the Greeks Matter
Written by Thomas Cahill

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
On Sale: October 28, 2003
Price: $27.50
ISBN: 978-0-385-49553-0 (0-385-49553-6)

In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Cahill brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of ancient Greece. The Greeks invented everything from Western warfare to mystical prayer, from logic to statecraft. Many of their achievements, particularly in art and philosophy, are widely... Read more >

The Turning Point
Science, Society, and the Rising Culture
Written by Fritjof Capra

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: August 1, 1984
Price: $21.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-34572-8 (0-553-34572-9)

The dynamics underlying the major problems of our time-cancer, crime, pollution, nuclear power, inflation, the energy shortage-are all the same. We have reached a time of dramatic and potentially dangerous change, a turning point for the planet as a whole. We need a new vision of reality, one that allows the... Read more >

The Culture of Disbelief

Written by Stephen L. Carter

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 1, 1994
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-47498-6 (0-385-47498-9)

In The Culture of Disbelief, Stephen L. Carter explains the vital separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or treating religious believers with disdain. Carter uses liberal means to arrive at what are often considered conservative ends. Explaining how preserving a special... Read more >

Thank You and Ok!
An American Zen Failure in Japan
Written by David Chadwick

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Shambhala
On Sale: May 8, 2007
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 978-1-59030-470-9 (1-59030-470-5)

David Chadwick began his Zen study under the legendary Japanese master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1966. Much later, Suzuki Roshi’s successor said of Chadwick: “Years of expensive Zen training gone to waste.”

In 1988 Chadwick flew to Japan to begin a four-year period of voluntary exile and remedial education. In THANK YOU... Read more >

Factory Girls
From Village to City in a Changing China
Written by Leslie T. Chang

Format: Trade Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
On Sale: August 4, 2009
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52018-8 (0-385-52018-2)

Winner of the 2009 Asian American Literary Award For Nonfiction, given by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop
Winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Research Nonfiction
A New York Times Notable Book of 2008
One of the Washington Post’s best books of 2008
A Seattle Times best nonfiction book of 2008
One of the Christian... Read more >

Hurricane Katrina
Response and Responsibilities, Second Edition
Edited by John Brown Childs

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
On Sale: August 26, 2008
Price: $10.00
ISBN: 978-1-55643-792-2 (1-55643-792-7)

The voices gathered in this book represent critical and personal responses to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. They are a second volley following the immediate journalism, and suggest the kind of dialogue, critical analysis and hopeful spirit that will be necessary in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast. All essays were... Read more >