The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City

Written by Alan Ehrenhalt

Format: Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: April 24, 2012
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-27274-4 (0-307-27274-5)

In The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City we travel the nation with Alan Ehrenhalt, one of our leading urbanists, as he explains how America’s cities are changing, what makes them succeed or fail, and what this means for our future.

Just a couple of decades ago, we... Read more >

Root Shock
How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About It
Written by Mindy Fullilove

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
On Sale: August 30, 2005
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-345-45423-2 (0-345-45423-5)

They called it progress. But for the people whose homes and districts were bulldozed, the urban renewal projects that swept America starting in 1949 were nothing short of assault. Vibrant city blocks—places rich in history—were reduced to garbage-strewn vacant lots. When a neighborhood is destroyed its inhabitants suffer “root shock”: a... Read more >

Capital Losses
A Cultural History of Washington's Destroyed Buildings, Second Edition
Written by James M. Goode

Format: Hardcover, 541 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
On Sale: March 17, 2003
Price: $69.95
ISBN: 978-1-58834-105-1 (1-58834-105-4)

Before the passage of critical preservation legislation in 1978, the Nation’s Capital lost an irreplaceable assembly of architecturally and culturally significant buildings. Wanton destruction in the name of progress–particularly in the decades immediately following World War II–resulted in a legacy forever lost, a cultural heritage destroyed by the wrecker’s ball. By... Read more >

the immigrant suite
hey xenophobe! who you calling foreigner?
Written by Hattie Gossett

Format: Trade Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
On Sale: December 4, 2007
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-58322-778-7 (1-58322-778-4)

Writing from the upper west side of Manhattan, where Harlem intersects with waves of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Korea, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, India, Native America, and from all over the globe, hattie gossett vividly invokes her neighborhood experience. With wit and candor, she questions why so many... Read more >

Walking Home
The Life and Lessons of a City Builder
Written by Ken Greenberg

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Vintage Canada
On Sale: August 7, 2012
Price: $21.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-35815-8 (0-307-35815-1)

One of the world’s foremost urban designers shares his passion and methods for rejuvenating neglected cities and argues passionately for the importance and possibilities of their renewal.

From a youth spent in the boroughs of New York City and other great cities of the world, to his beginnings as an architect in... Read more >

Sustainable Urbanism and Beyond
Rethinking Cities for the Future
Edited by Tigran Haas

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Rizzoli
On Sale: April 3, 2012
Price: $75.00
ISBN: 978-0-8478-3836-3 (0-8478-3836-6)

The city in the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including social and economic stratification, wasteful consumption of resources, transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and major metropolitan areas, and in the next two decades the number of city dwellers is estimated to... Read more >

The Hidden Dimension

Written by Edward T. Hall

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 1, 1990
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-08476-5 (0-385-08476-5)

An examination of various cultural concepts of space and how differences among them affect modern society. Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal. Read more >

Building Suburbia
Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000
Written by Dolores Hayden

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: November 9, 2004
Price: $18.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72721-4 (0-375-72721-3)

A lively history of the contested landscapes where the majority of Americans now live, Building Suburbia chronicles two centuries in the birth and development of America’s metropolitan regions.

From rustic cottages reached by steamboat to big box stores at the exit ramps of eight-lane highways, Dolores Hayden defines seven eras of suburban... Read more >

The Experience of Place
A New Way of Looking at and Dealing With our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside
Written by Tony Hiss

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: October 1, 1991
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73594-6 (0-679-73594-1)

This is a significant new analysis of the impact on our senses of our everyday surroundings: the subtle and pervasive ways in which, from childhood and throughout our lives, we experience place, and how the experience affects us for good or ill. Hiss shows how society can continue to grow without... Read more >

Let Them Call Me Rebel
Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy
Written by Sandord D. Horwitt

Format: Trade Paperback, 618 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 31, 1992
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-73418-5 (0-679-73418-X)

In the course of his flamboyant career as an all-purpose activist, Saul Alinsky went from organizing working-class ethnics in one of Chicago’s most blighted neighborhoods to mapping out strategies for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. He enlisted allies-from Catholic clergymen to labor unionists and black activists-in battles... Read more >

The Rivals
Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship
Written by Johnette Howard

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
On Sale: June 13, 2006
Price: $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-7679-1885-5 (0-7679-1885-1)

Praise for THE RIVALS:

“For all our seeming familiarity with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, Johnette Howard takes us deep inside the greatest rivalry in tennis history to reveal how it took the two champions the length of their twenty year tennis war to truly know and love each other and themselves... Read more >

Crash Course
The American Automobile Industry's Road to Bankruptcy and Bailout-and Beyond
Written by Paul Ingrassia

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: January 11, 2011
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8075-2 (0-8129-8075-1)

With an updated Afterword by the author

This is the epic saga of the American automobile industry’s rise and demise, a compelling story of hubris, missed opportunities, and self-inflicted wounds that culminates with the president of the United States ushering two of Detroit’s Big Three car companies—once proud symbols of prosperity—through bankruptcy... Read more >

Cities and the Wealth of Nations

Written by Jane Jacobs

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: March 12, 1985
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-394-72911-4 (0-394-72911-0)

"Learned, iconoclastic and exciting...Jacob's diagnosis of the decay of cities in an increasingly integrated world economy is on the mark." --The New York Times Book Review
"Not only comprehensible but entertaining...Like Mrs. Jacobs' other books, it offers a concrete approach to an abstract and elusive subject. That, all by itself, makes for... Read more >

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Written by Jane Jacobs

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: December 1, 1992
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74195-4 (0-679-74195-X)

A direct indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what... Read more >

Decoded

Written by Jay-Z

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
On Sale: November 1, 2011
Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8115-5 (0-8129-8115-4)

Expanded paperback edition of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller features 16 pages of new material, including 3 new songs decoded.

Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one... Read more >

Decoded

Written by Jay-Z

Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
On Sale: November 16, 2010
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6892-0 (1-4000-6892-4)

Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.

“Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate... Read more >

Orange Is the New Black
My Year in a Women's Prison
Written by Piper Kerman

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
On Sale: March 8, 2011
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52339-4 (0-385-52339-4)

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years ago. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the... Read more >

Strength in What Remains

Written by Tracy Kidder

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: May 4, 2010
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7761-5 (0-8129-7761-0)

Selected for Common Reading at:
Alvernia University
Arcadia University
Caldwell College
Claremont McKenna College
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Penn State Berks
Stanford University
Trinity College
University of Delaware
Western Michigan University

All Iowa Reads 2012
Reading Together 2011, Kalamazoo Public Library

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award


In Strength in What Remains, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder gives us the story... Read more >

Strength in What Remains

Written by Tracy Kidder

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Publisher: Random House
On Sale: August 25, 2009
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6621-6 (1-4000-6621-2)

Selected for Common Reading at the University of Delaware, 2010

Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award

To watch the book's trailer, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcAQFNLacfw

Tracy Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and common reading program classic Mountains Beyond Mountains, has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the... Read more >

The City
A Global History
Written by Joel Kotkin

Format: Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Modern Library
On Sale: October 10, 2006
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-75651-1 (0-375-75651-5)

If humankind can be said to have a single greatest creation, it would be those places that represent the most eloquent expression of our species’s ingenuity, beliefs, and ideals: the city. In this authoritative and engagingly written account, the acclaimed urbanist and bestselling author examines the evolution of urban life over... Read more >

The Other Side of the River
A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma
Written by Alex Kotlowitz

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: January 19, 1999
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-47721-5 (0-385-47721-X)

"A riveting portrait of a racially troubled America in the 1990's"—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"A vivid American microcosm, a telling tableau of the way we are."—The New York Times

From the author of There Are No Children Here, this is the true story of two towns in southern Michigan separated by a river-and the... Read more >

There Are No Children Here
The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America
Written by Alex Kotlowitz

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: January 5, 1992
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-26556-0 (0-385-26556-5)

A New York Public Library “Book of the Century.” An essential introductory sociology source, There Are No Children Here traces two years in the lives of ten-year-old Lafeyette and seven-year-old Pharoah Rivers as they struggle to beat the odds and grow up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Kotlowitz avoids... Read more >

Amazing Grace
The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
Written by Jonathan Kozol

Format: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: June 26, 2012
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3566-0 (0-7704-3566-1)

The author of Savage Inequalities, a New York Times best-seller, and Rachel and Her Children, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, tells the stories of a handful of children who have--through the love and support of their families and dedicated community leaders--not yet lost their battle with the perils... Read more >

The Shame of the Nation
The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
Written by Jonathan Kozol

Format: Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Broadway
On Sale: August 1, 2006
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5245-5 (1-4000-5245-9)

"The Shame of the Nation is a national wake-up call... It should be required reading."--Marian Wright Edelman, CEO and Founder, Children's Defense Fund

Over the last 15 years, the state of inner-city public schools has been in a steep and continuing decline. Since the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in... Read more >

The Devil in the White City
Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Written by Erik Larson

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 10, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-72560-9 (0-375-72560-1)

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the... Read more >