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100 Great Operas And Their Stories
Written by Henry W. Simon

An invaluable guide for both casual opera fans and afficionados, this volume contains act-by-act descriptions of operatic works ranging from the early seventeenth century masterworks of Monteverdi and Purcell to the modern classics of Menotti and Britten. Written in a lively anecdotal style, entries include character descriptions, historical background, and much... Read More
 


101 Stories of the Great Ballets
Written by George Balanchine and Francis Mason

Authored by one of the ballet's most respected experts, this volume includes scene-by-scene retellings of the most popular classic and contemporary ballets, as performed by the world's leading dance companies. Certain to delight long-time fans as well as those just discovering the beauty and drama of ballet.
 


13 Steps Down
Written by Ruth Rendell

Mix Cellini has just moved into a flat in a decaying house in Nottinghill, where he plans to pursue his two abiding passions--supermodel Nerissa Nash, whom he worships from afar, and the life of serial killer Reggie Christie, hanged fifty years earlier for murdering at least eight women. Gwendolen Chawcer, Mix’s... Read More
 


13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
Written by Jane Smiley

Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling novelist Jane Smiley celebrates the novel–and takes us on an exhilarating tour through one hundred of them–in this seductive and immensely rewarding literary tribute.

In her inimitable style–exuberant, candid, opinionated–Smiley explores the power of the novel, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just... Read More
 


1491
Written by Charles C. Mann

In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of... Read More
 


1876
Written by Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted... Read More
 


1898
Written by David Traxel

"History composed with zest and care and an eye for the anecdote."--The Boston Globe

In 1898, David Traxel tells the story of this watershed year, a year of foreign conflict, extravagant adventure, and breakneck social change that forged a new America--a sudden empire with many far-flung possessions, a dynamic new player upon... Read More
 


The 21st Century Economy--A Beginner's Guide
Written by Randy Charles Epping

 


Twenty-eight Artists and Two Saints
Written by Joan Acocella

Here is a dazzling collection from Joan Acocella, one of our most admired cultural critics: thirty-one essays that consider the life and work of some of the most influential artists of our time (and two saints: Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene).

Acocella writes about Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and chemist... Read More
 


Three Plays
Written by Eugene O'Neill

These three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.
 


31 Days
Written by Barry Werth

In 31 Days, acclaimed historian Barry Werth takes readers inside the White House during the tumultuous days of August 1974, following Richard Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president," Gerald Ford.

The Watergate scandal had torn the country apart. In a dramatic, day-by-day account of the new administration’s inner... Read More
 


33 Moments of Happiness
Written by Ingo Schulze

An intriguing, fabulously bizarre debut collection of short stories by prize-winning German writer Ingo Schulze, author of Simple Stories.

These thirty-three macabre, often comical short pieces revolve around moments of odd bliss–moments seized by characters who have found ways to conquer the bleakness of everyday life in the chaotic world of post-communist... Read More
 


334
Written by Thomas M. Disch

 


44 Scotland Street
Written by Alexander McCall Smith

Welcome to 44 Scotland Street, home to some of Edinburgh's most colorful characters. There's Pat, a twenty-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbor, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below... Read More
 


Los 7 pasos para ser más feliz
Written by Isabel Gomez-Bassols

Mi motivación para escribir este libro, más que nada, es que los seres humanos se den cuenta de que tienen el poder dentro de sí mismos de hacer cambios en su vida. Con este libro te daré las herramientas para cambiar tu vida y encontrar la felicidad en tu interior. -... Read More
 


The 7 Stages of Motherhood
Written by Ann Pleshette Murphy

This refreshingly candid parenting book puts mothers—not children—center stage. Ann Pleshette Murphy provides a reassuring, wise, and often wildly funny mix of anecdotes and advice as she describes the seismic shifts in women’s lives and identities from pregnancy through a child’s graduation. She draws on countless conversations with mothers and with child... Read More
 


72 Hour Hold
Written by Bebe Moore Campbell

Trina is eighteen and suffers from bi-polar disorder, making her paranoid, wild, and violent. Frightened by her own child, Keri searches for help, quickly learning that the mental health community can only offer her a seventy-two hour hold. After these three days Trina is off on her own again.

Fed up... Read More
 


8 Ball Chicks
Written by Gini Sikes

Dismissed by the police as mere adjuncts to or gofers for male gangs, girl gang members are in fact often as emotionally closed off and dangerous as their male counterparts. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their jackets for defense, they initiate drive-by shootings, carry out car jackings... Read More
 


9 Highland Road
Written by Michael Winerip

Before Julie Callahan came to the house at 9 Highland Road in Glen Cove, New York, she had spent a good part of her young life in mental hospitals, her mental and emotional coherence nearly destroyed by a childhood of sexual abuse. Fred Grasso, a schizophrenic, had lived in a filthy... Read More
 


A Is for American
Written by Jill Lepore

What ties Americans to one another? What unifies a nation of citizens with different racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds? These were the dilemmas faced by Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as they sought ways to bind the newly United States together.

In A is for American, award-winning historian Jill... Read More
 


A Is for Ox
Written by Barry Sanders

 


Anna Christie, The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape
Written by Eugene O'Neill

 


Aama in America
Written by Broughton Coburn

 


Abandon
Written by Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer’s intoxicating new novel is at once a stylish intellectual mystery and a pulse-quickening love story—the love in question being at once sacred and profane.

John Macmillan, a classically reticent Englishman who has moved to California to study the poems of the Sufi mystic Rumi, unexpectedly becomes involved in two equally... Read More
 


ABC
Written by David Plante

From the critically acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels comes a luminous and haunting story about grief and obsession, and about the need for meaning at the center of all of our lives.

In ABC’s unforgettable opening scene, Gerard, Peggy, and their 6-year-old son Harry are canoeing in a... Read More
 


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