Walden and Other Writings


Henry David Thoreau - 1854
    B. White Naturalist, philosopher, champion of self-reliance and moral independence, Henry David Thoreau remains not only one of our most influential writers but also one of our most contemporary. This unique and comprehensive edition gathers all of Thoreau's most significant works, including his masterpiece, Walden (reproduced in its entirety); A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; selections from Cape Cod and The Maine Woods; as well as "Walking," "Civil Disobedience," "Slavery in Massachusetts," "A Plea for Captain John Brown," and "Life Without Principle." Taken together, they reveal the astounding range, subtlety, artistry, and depth of thought of this true American original.Includes a Modern Library Reading Group Guide

Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM


Sarah Berman - 2021
    The more secretive those connections are, the more exclusive you feel. Little did you know, you just joined a cult.Sex trafficking. Self-help coaching. Forced labor. Mentorship. Multi-level marketing. Gaslighting. Investigative journalist Sarah Berman explores the shocking practices of NXIVM, a global organization run by Keith Raniere and his high-profile enablers (Seagram heir Clare Bronfman; Smallville actor Allison Mack; Battlestar Galactica actor Nicki Clyne). Through the accounts of central NXIVM figures, Berman unravels how young women seeking creative coaching and networking opportunities found themselves blackmailed, literally branded, near-starved, and enslaved. With the help of the Bronfman fortune, Raniere built a wall of silence around these abuses, leveraging the legal system to go after enemies and whistleblowers.Don't Call It a Cult shows that these abuses looked very different from the inside, where young women initially received mentorship and protection. Don't Call It a Cult is a riveting account of NXIVM's rise to power, its ability to evade prosecution for decades, and the investigation that finally revealed its dark secrets to the world. It explores why so many were drawn to its message of empowerment yet could not recognize its manipulative and harmful leader for what he was—a criminal.

Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era


Saul Austerlitz - 2019
    A quarter of a century later, new fans are still finding their way into the lives of Rachel, Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, and Phoebe, and thanks to a combination of talented creators, its intimate understanding of its youthful audience, and its reign during network television’s last moment of dominance, Friends has become the most influential and beloved show of its era.Noted pop culture historian Saul Austerlitz is here to tell us how it happened. Utilizing exclusive interviews with creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman, executive producer Kevin Bright, director James Burrows, and many other producers, writers, and cast members, Generation Friends tells the story of Friends’ creation, its remarkable decade-long run, and its astonishing Netflix-fueled afterlife. Readers will learn how the show was developed and cast, written and filmed. They’ll be reminded of episodes like the one about the trivia contest, the prom video, and the London trip. And, of course, the saga of Ross and Rachel. They’ll also discover surprising details—that Monica and Joey were the show’s original romantic couple, how Danielle Steel probably saved Jennifer Aniston’s career, and why Friends is still so popular that if it was a new show, its over-the-air broadcast reruns would be the ninth-highest-rated program on TV. The show that defined the 1990s remains wildly popular today and has a legacy that has endured beyond wildest expectations. And in this hilarious, informative, and entertaining book, readers will now understand why.“A treat for Friends fans, from OG Must See TV viewers to the new generation of streamers, full of insights into what made a quintessential ’90s phenomenon into a lasting, international classic for the ages. You’ll get your share of juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits, from vicious writers’-room debates about Rachel and Joey’s romance to the time the producers almost moved the setting to Minneapolis (seriously). But you’ll also get a hit of nostalgia for a time when an entire nation hung on the fate of Ross and Rachel, and plenty of smart analysis of why Friends was the right show at the right time … and also continues to be the right show at an entirely different time.” —Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia

The Glass Teat


Harlan Ellison - 1970
    The Borealis Legends line is a tribute to the creators of the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres as we know them today.

Journals


Kurt Cobain - 2002
    His journals reveal an artist who loved music, who knew the history of rock, and who was determined to define his place in that history. Here is a mesmerizing, incomparable portrait of the most influential musician of his time.

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)


Philippa Perry - 2019
    Yet for so many families, these relationships go can wrong and it may be difficult to get back on track. In The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad that You Did), renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows how strong and loving bonds are made with your children and how such attachments give a better chance of good mental health, in childhood and beyond.She'll help you to:- Understand how your own upbringing may be impacting upon your parenting style- Contain, express, accept and validate your own and your child's feelings- Understand that all behaviour is communication- Break negative cycles and patterns- Accept that you will make mistakes and what to do about themAlmost every parent loves their children, but by following the refreshing, sage and sane advice and steps in this book you will also find yourselves liking one another too.

Why I Don't Write


Susan Minot - 2020
    In each of these stories Minot explores the difficult geometry of human relations, the lure of love and physical desire, and the lifelong quest for meaning and connection. Her characters are all searching for truth, in feeling and in action, as societal norms are upended and justice and coherence flounder. Urgent and immediate, precisely observed, deeply felt, and gorgeously written, the stories in Why I Don't Write showcase an author at the top of her form.

Black Holes: The Reith Lectures


Stephen Hawking - 2016
    Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers.”In 2016 Professor Stephen Hawking delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on a subject that fascinated him for decades – black holes.In these flagship lectures the legendary physicist argued that if we could only understand black holes and how they challenge the very nature of space and time, we could unlock the secrets of the universe.

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties


Tom O'Neill - 2019
    What really happened in 1969? In 1999, when Tom O'Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren't the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they'd gladly complied. But when O'Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's narrative, long enshrined in the best-selling Helter Skelter. Before long, O'Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he'd never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career. He was obsessed. Searching but never speculative, CHAOS follows O'Neill's twenty-year effort to rebut the "official" story behind Manson. Who were his real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement act on their many chances to stop him? And how did he turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's hunt for answers leads him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from the Summer of Love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with cover-ups and coincidences. Featuring hundreds of new interviews and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. In those two dark nights in Los Angeles, O'Neill finds the story of California in the sixties: when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia-or dystopia-was just an acid trip away.

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House


Michael Wolff - 2018
    Brilliantly reported and astoundingly fresh, Fire and Fury shows us how and why Donald Trump has become the king of discord and disunion.

Dunkirk: The History Behind the Major Motion Picture


Joshua Levine - 2017
    The true history of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians involved in the nine-day skirmish has passed into legend. Now, the story Winston Churchill described as a 'miracle' is narrated by bestselling author Joshua Levine in its full, sweeping context, including new interviews with veterans and survivors.Told from the viewpoints of land, sea and air, Joshua Levine’s Dunkirk is a dramatic account of a defeat that paved the way to ultimate victory and preserved liberty for generations to come.

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy


Bill Simmons - 2009
    And The Book of Basketball is that book. Nowhere in the roundball universe will you find another single volume that covers as much in such depth as this wildly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining look at the past, present, and future of pro basketball.From the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time, Simmons opens–and then closes, once and for all–every major pro basketball debate. Then he takes it further by completely reevaluating not only how NBA Hall of Fame inductees should be chosen but how the institution must be reshaped from the ground up, the result being the Pyramid: Simmons’s one-of-a-kind, five-level shrine to the ninety-six greatest players in the history of pro basketball. And ultimately he takes fans to the heart of it all, as he uses a conversation with one NBA great to uncover that coveted thing: The Secret of Basketball.Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down (even for Celtic-haters), The Book of Basketball offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game’s finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.* More to the point, he’s the only one crazy enough to try to pull it off.

The Best American Crime Reporting 2009


Jeffrey Toobin - 2009
    Featuring stories of fraud, murder, theft, and madness, the Best American Crime Reporting series has been hailed as “arresting reading” (People) and the best mix of “the political, the macabre, and the downright brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly).The color of blood / Calvin Trillin --Breaking the bank / L. Jon Wertheim --Body snatchers / Dan P. Lee --Everyone will remember me as some sort of monster / Mark Boal --The fabulous fraudulent life of Jocelyn and Ed / Sabrina Rubin Erdely --True crime / David Grann --The day Kennedy died / Michael J. Mooney --The Zankou chicken murders / Mark Arax --Mexico's red days / Charles Bowden --Hate and death / R. Scott Moxley --Dead man's float / Stephen Rodrick --Non-lehtal force / Alec Wilkinson --American murder mystery / Hanna Rosin --Stop, thief! / John Colapinto --Tribal wars / Matt McAllester

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea


Kim Cooper - 2005
    It includes a dozen rare images, most never before seen.

African Europeans: An Untold History


Olivette Otélé - 2020
    But as early as the third century, St Maurice—an Egyptian— became the leader of a legendary Roman legion. Ever since, there have been richly varied encounters between those defined as ‘Africans’ and those called ‘Europeans’, right up to the stories of present-day migrants to European cities. Though at times a privileged group that facilitated exchanges between continents, African Europeans have also had to navigate the hardships of slavery, colonialism and their legacies.Olivette Otele uncovers the long history of Europeans of African descent, tracing an old and diverse African heritage in Europe through the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary. This hidden history explores a number of questions very much alive today. How much have Afro-European identities been shaped by life in Europe, or in Africa? How are African Europeans’ stories marked by the economics, politics and culture of the societies they live in? And how have race and gender affected those born in Europe, but always seen as Africans?African Europeans is a landmark celebration of this integral, vibrantly complex slice of European history.