Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death... > Read more

In The Rope Walk, Carrie Brown crafts a luminous story of a young girl's coming of age during a crucial summer in New England. On her tenth birthday Alice meets two visitors to her quiet town: Theo, the African American grandson of her father's best friend, and Kenneth, an artist who... > Read more

The third novel in Yasmina Khadra's bestselling trilogy about Islamic fundamentalism has the most compelling backdrop of any of his novels: Iraq in the wake of the American invasion. A young Iraqi student, unable to attend college because of the war, sees American soldiers leave a trail of humiliation and grief... > Read more

Narrated in a bold, fearless, unforgettable voice and set against the lush, panoramic backdrop of Hawaii, The Descendants is a stunning debut novel about an unconventional family forced to come together and re-create its own legacy.

Matthew King was once considered one of the most fortunate men in Hawaii. His missionary... > Read more

“There are places that I have never forgotten. A little cobbled street in a smoky mill town in the North of England has haunted me for the greater part of my life. It was inevitable that I should write about it and the people who lived on both sides of its... > Read more

Oil on the Brain is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry—the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day.

Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. Where does all this gas come... > Read more

What is Un Lun Dun?

It is London through the looking glass, an urban Wonderland of strange delights where all the lost and broken things of London end up . . . and some of its lost and broken people, too–including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas; Obaday Fing, a tailor whose... > Read more

Hip hop first became a part of the mainstream music industry in the early 1980s, when major record labels released albums from such accessible groups as Run DMC and the Sugarhill Gang. But the true origins of one of the most powerful pop-cultural influences in the world are in the spontaneous... > Read more

Whether acclaimed food writer Madhur Jaffrey was climbing the mango trees in her grandparents' orchard in Delhi or picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint, tucked into freshly baked spiced pooris, today these childhood pleasures evoke for her the tastes and textures of growing up.

This... > Read more

“My manners were the first ingredient that set me apart from my peers,” notes the suave and stylish Fonzworth Bentley, Sean “Diddy” Combs’s former personal assistant and a celebrity in his own right. Now, in this one-of-a-kind book, Bentley shares his surefire strategies for success.

Just how does a guy move from... > Read more

Cheerleading has come a long way since its beginnings at a Minnesota football game in 1888. Then, all you had to do was stand and yell; today, cheerleading is one of the nation’s most popular pastimes (over 80 percent of US high schools have cheerleading squads), a challenging physical activity whose... > Read more

Welcome to Animal House, where occupancy is strictly limited to the furry, the feathered, the hoofed, and the clawed. In this tongue-in-cheek peek at critters great and small, photographer Catherine Ledner has brought the animals indoors to create a collection of magical and clever portraits unlike any you’ve ever seen before... > Read more

At twelve, Howard Dully was guilty of the same crimes as other boys his age: he was moody and messy, rambunctious with his brothers, contrary just to prove a point, and perpetually at odds with his parents. Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr... > Read more

From celebrated comic artist Mike Mignola and award-winning novelist Christopher Golden comes a work of gothic storytelling like no other. Reminiscent of the illustrated tales of old, here is a lyrical, atmospheric novel of the paranormal—and a chilling allegory for the nature of war.

“Why do dead men rise up to torment... > Read more

All over the world there are people struggling to master the quirks and challenges of English. In today's America, many millions of them are Latino—and in this eloquent collection, nearly 60 of the best known contribute fascinating, revealing, often touching essays on the very personal process each went through to achieve... > Read more

Internationall renowned film auteu Takeshi Kitano has been applauded for his challenging portrayals of manhood and men, most notably rogue gifures. Discerning fans of his cinematic oeuvre, however, have also appreciated the lyrical sensibility that infuses even his most violent works. In Boy, Kitano's essential vision is filtered through crystalline prose... > Read more

A bold re-imagining of our civilization’s greatest tale of war, from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Silk.

In An Iliad, Alessandro Baricco re-creates the siege of Troy through the voices of twenty-one Homeric characters, in the narrative idiom of our modern imagination. From the return of Chryseis to the burial of... > Read more

Summer vacation becomes a season in hell for an ordinary family who unwittingly stir something invisible, insidious, and insatiable from its secret slumber–unleashing a wave of horror only the darkest evil could create, that only a master of spine-tingling terror like John Saul could orchestrate. For deep in the shadows in... > Read more

David Dornstein was twenty-five years old, with dreams of becoming a great writer, when he boarded Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Thirty-eight minutes after takeoff, a terrorist bomb ripped the plane apart over Lockerbie, Scotland. Almost a decade later, Ken Dornstein set out to solve the riddle of... > Read more

A Tribe Called Quest • Beastie Boys • De La Soul • Eric B. & Rakim • The Fugees • KRS-One • Pete Rock & CL Smooth • Public Enemy • The Roots • Run-DMC • Wu-Tang Clan • and twenty-five more hip-hop immortals

It’s a sad fact: hip-hop album liners have... > Read more

THIS RICHLY INFORMATIVE JOURNEY INTO THE 1970S CAPTURES THE EXPLOSIVE POWER OF THE BLACK PERFORMERS, MUSICIANS, FILMMAKERS, AND ATHLETES WHO IGNITED A CULTURAL REVOLUTION.

WHAT SINGER/SONGWRITER WAS THE FIRST WHITE PERFORMER TO APPEAR ON SOUL TRAIN?
WHAT PHILADELPHIA 76ER MADE NBA HISTORY WHEN, AGAINST THE KANSAS CITY KINGS, HIS TWO-HANDED DUNK SHATTERED THE...

“To be up on stage, shoving food in your face, beats everyday existence for most people.” —David “Coondog” O’Karma, competitive eater

“Hungry” Charles Hardy. Ed “Cookie” Jarvis. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut. Will such names one day be looked back upon as the pioneers of a new manifestation of... > Read more

Our generation made hip-hop. But hip-hop also made us. Why are suburban kids referring to their subdivision as “block”? Why has the pimp become a figure of male power? Why has dodging the feds become an act of honor long after one has made millions as a legitimate artist? What happens...

In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence.

Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team, as well as their family members and supporters, to an exhibition game in Chile had crashed... > Read more

Zoology is the story of Henry Elinsky, a college flunk-out who takes a job at the Central Park Zoo and discovers that becoming an adult takes a lot more than just a weekly paycheck. > Read more