Voices of the Old Sea


Norman Lewis - 1984
    Voices of the Old Sea describes his three successive summers in that almost medieval community where life revolved around the seasonal sardine catches, Alcade's bar, and satisfying feuds with neighboring villages. It's lucky Lewis was there when he was. Soon after, Spain was discovered by its neighbors in a more prosperous northern Europe, and the tourist tide that ensued flowed inexorably over the old ways of the town and its inhabitants.

Darwin's Dreampond: Drama in Lake Victoria


Tijs Goldschmidt - 1994
    These small fish form a species flock -- closely related species that have descended from a common ancestor and radiated, or fanned, into different specializations -- that is the most spectacular in the world, fascinating anatomists, ecologists, ethologists, and evolutionary biologists alike. The process of speciation was still under way until just recently, when the introduction of the large, predatory Nile perch so disrupted the Lake's intricate ecosystem that the glorious spectrum of cichlids has almost vanished. Darwin's Dreampond tells the evolutionary story of the extraordinary "furu" and the battlefield leading to extinction. Tijs Goldschmidt skillfully blends a masterful discussion of the principles of neo-Darwinian evolution and speciation with a history of Lake Victoria's ecosystem. The science unfolds in the context of the engaging first-person narrative of Goldschmidt's adventures and misadventures as a field researcher. An astute observer and a clear and witty writer, he warmly portrays the colors and textures of the landscapes and the lives of the local people as he interacts with them during the course of his fieldwork.

A Personal Record


Joseph Conrad - 1912
    It is also an artistic and political manifesto. The introduction traces Conrad's sources and gives the history of writing and reception. The essay on the text and the apparatus set out the textual history. The notes explain literary and historical references, identify places, and gloss foreign terms. Four maps and a genealogical table supplement this explanatory material. This edition of A Personal Record, established through modern textual scholarship, presents Conrad's reminiscences and the volume's two prefaces in forms more authoritative than any so far printed.

The Bogey Man: A Month on the PGA Tour


George Plimpton - 1968
    This is really a book about a kind of madness with rules, and anyone can appreciate the appeal of that." -Newsweek THE BOGEY MAN remains arguably the funniest book on golf ever written.George Plimpton here joins the pro golf circuit for a month of self-imposed torture in the name of bringing professional sport to the sphere of the average man. Arnold Palmer, Dow Finsterwald, Wlater Hagan, and others populate this intriguing, classic, candid view from the first tee.

The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries, 1939 - 1955


John Colville - 1985
    An intimate and unvarnished view of Winston Churchill at his best.

Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1545-1879


Noel Perrin - 1979
    This little book is both thought-provoking and a delight to read. Edwin O. Reischauer, Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

The Oldest Dead White European Males & Other Reflections on the Classics


Bernard Knox - 1991
    A reexamination of the importance of the classics reminds readers of the contributions those early thinkers made to present-day society, including philosophy, theater, rhetoric, oratory, biology, zoology and other arts and sciences.

Laughing in the Hills


Bill Barich - 1980
    Author Bill Barich explores explores the day-to-day internal world of horse racing-- from the backside to the backstretch. This entertaining story of the lives and tribulations of various racetrack personalities is sure to extract every human emotion. The author's summer adventure after a family tragedy finds him living the life many diehard racing enthusiasts wish they could. Barich's adventure discovers more than he could ever imagine about something much bigger than racing-life itself.

The Sea and the Jungle


H.M. Tomlinson - 1912
    First published in 1912, The Sea and the Jungle remains one of the most popular accounts of a traveler's experience in Amazonia. As Peter Matthiessen observed fifty years later, " The Sea and the Jungle is one of the few level-headed works in the literature of this region. . . . accurate and difficult to improve upon."

The Worm Forgives the Plough


John Stewart Collis - 1975
    His account of this time perfectly captures the city-dweller's naivety and wonder both at the workings of nature and the toughness of life on a farm. Collis's thoughtful curiosity leads him to explore a broad variety of subjects - from humorous sketches of the characters he works alongside to beautifully written pieces such as Contemplation Upon Ants, The Mystery of Clouds, Colloquy on the Rick and celebrations of the earthworm, the pea and potato.Includes While Following the Plough (1946) and Down to Earth (1947).Cover illustration by Angie Lewin.

The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity and Other Appetites


Adam Phillips - 1998
    If you are disturbed by the idea that to grow up is to learn to live with disillusionment, if you are fascinated by the perplexity of child-rearing, or if you fear you were more creative as a child, The Beast in the Nursery offers an illuminating and possibly life-changing experience.     In four interrelated essays, Adam Phillips arrives at startling new insights into issues that preoccupied Freud, showing in the process that far from having lost its relevance, psychoanalysis is still one of our most incisive tools for the exploration of the human psyche and its possibilities.  Phillips transforms the genre of the essay into an instrument for intellectual investigation of the most absorbing kind.

Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb


Thomas Powers - 2000
    . . [a] powerful book." -- New York Times One of the last secrets of World War II is why the Germans failed to build an atomic bomb. Germany was the birthplace of modern physics; it possessed the raw materials and the industrial base; and it commanded key intellectual resources. What happened? In Heisenberg's War, Thomas Powers tells of the interplay between science and espionage, morality and military necessity, and paranoia and cool logic that marked the German bomb program and the Allied response to it. On the basis of dozens of interviews and years of intensive research, Powers concludes that Werner Heisenberg, who was the leading figure in the German atomic effort, consciously obstructed the development of the bomb and in a famous 1941 meeting in Copenhagen with his former mentor Neils Bohr in effect sought to dissuade the Allies from their pursuit of the bomb. Heisenberg's War is a "superbly researched and well-written book" (Time) whose extraordinary story engrosses-and haunts.

The Auberge Of The Flowering Hearth


Roy Andries de Groot - 1973
    Impressed by the devotion of its owners — les Mesdemoiselles Artraud and Girard — to perpetuating the tradition of supreme country dining, Mr. de Groot returned to the inn to record their recipes for natural country soups, heavy winter stews, roasted meats, pâtes, terrines, and fruity and spirituous desserts — the best of French cooking.Superb food, fine wine, and the perfect blending of both into a series of menus for memorable lunches and dinners, together with the unique French Alpine recipes that build each meal — these are the ingredients of this remarkable book, now considered a classic.

Hermit Of Peking: The Hidden Life Of Sir Edmund Backhouse


Hugh R. Trevor-Roper - 1976
    In fact, they were so fantastic that the author felt obliged to discover all he could about the man who had written them: and what he reveals here is the story of one of the most outrageous forgers, confidence tricksters and eccentrics of the century.

A Book of One's Own: People and Their Diaries


Thomas Mallon - 1984
    Mallon has written a new introduction for this edition which comments on the political consequences of keeping a journal, as in the former controversy involving Sen. Bob Packwood. A diarist himself, Mallon places journal writers in history, fleshing them out with both background and witty anecdote.