A NYRB Classics OriginalWinner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize for TranslationA young soldier learns the true meaning of fear amidst the carnage of World War I in this literary masterpiece and “one of the most effective indictments of war ever written” (Wall Street Journal)1915: Jean Dartemont heads off to the Great War, an eager conscript. The only thing he fears is missing the action. Soon, however, the vaunted “war to end al...

In 1915, Jean Dartemont heads off to the Great War, an eager conscript. The only thing he fears is missing the action. Soon, however, the vaunted "war to end all wars" seems like a war that will never end: whether mired in the trenches or going over the top, Jean finds himself caught in the midst of an unimaginable, unceasing slaughter. After he is wounded, he returns from the front to discover a world where no one knows or wants to know any of this. Both the public and the authorities go ...

A noted linguist examines extinct languages, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the mysteries of as-yet undeciphered writings, in this scholarly work.While certain ancient languages were passed down continuously through the ages, many others were ignored for centuries. When scholars began to decipher these extinct languages in the early nineteenth century, they uncovered previously inaccessible riches of knowledge and history. Yet much work remains to be done on undeciphe...

** AMERICAN FICTION AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST NEW FICTION 2021 **** FINALIST FOR THE 2021 SHELF UNBOUND AWARD FOR BEST FICTION **** LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 SOMERSET PRIZE/CHANTICLEER INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FOR BEST LITERARY AND CONTEMPORARY FICTION **For Fans of Emily Fridlund's History of Wolves and Fiona Mozley's Elmet.This stunning debut uses the irresistible scenario of a hermit living in near-complete s...

" Babel is an endlessly interesting book, and you don't have to have any linguistic training to enjoy it . . . it's just so much fun to read." —NPREnglish is the world language, except that 80 percent of the world doesn't speak it. Linguist Gaston Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world's people in their mother tongues, you'd need to know no fewer than twenty languages. In Babel, he sets out to explore these top twenty worl...

An insider’s view of science reveals why many scientific results cannot be relied upon – and how the system can be reformed.Science is how we understand the world. Yet failures in peer review and mistakes in statistics have rendered a shocking number of scientific studies useless – or, worse, badly misleading. Such errors have distorted our knowledge in fields as wide-ranging as medicine, physics, nutrition, education, genetics, economics, and the search for extrat...

Based on a true story, a gripping historical novel about a German immigrant who becomes embroiled in a Nazi spy ring operating in New York City in the early days of World War II.At the end of the 1930s, Europe is engulfed in war. Though America is far from the fighting, the streets of New York have become a battlefield. Anti-Semitic and racist groups spread hate, while German nationalists celebrate Hitler’s strength and power. Josef Klein, a German immigrant, remai...

“An elegant and accessible” investigation of quantum mechanics—“highly recommended” for students of the sciences, sci-fi fans, and anyone interested in the strange world of quantum physics (Forbes)Rules of the quantum world seem to say that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time and a particle can be in two places at once. And that particle is also a wave; everything in the quantum world can described in terms of waves—or entirely in terms of pa...

The national-bestselling author of Mary Queen of Scots delivers a masterful biography of the Puritan rebel Oliver Cromwell: "Rich and extraordinary" ( The New York Times).In Cromwell, award-winning biographer Antonia Fraser tells of one of England's most celebrated and controversial figures, often misunderstood and demonized as a puritanical zealot. Oliver Cromwell rose from humble beginnings to spearhead the rebellion against King Charle...

A tale of cave bears and comet strikes and a hundred million years of history by the bestselling author of Here on Earth: "Marvelous."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)In Europe: A Natural History, world-renowned scientist, explorer, and conservationist Tim Flannery applies the eloquent interdisciplinary approach he used in his ecological histories of Australia and North America to the story of Europe. He begins 100 million years ago, wh...

An ingenious, dystopian novel of one young woman’s resistance against the constraints of an oppressive society, from the inventive imagination of Joyce Carol Oates“Time travel” — and its hazards—are made literal in this astonishing new novel in which a recklessly idealistic girl dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled (future) world and is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America — “Wainscotia, Wisconsin”—that existed eighty y...

The pioneering and still essential text on semantics, urging readers to improve human communication and understanding with precise, concrete language.In 1938, Stuart Chase revolutionized the study of semantics with his classic text, The Tyranny of Words. Decades later, this eminently useful analysis of the way we use words continues to resonate. A contemporary of the economist Thorstein Veblen and the author Upton Sinclair, Chase was a social the...