A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past century.This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.Probing why so few works have been added to the canon since 1930, Mauceri examine...

“We, the Jury has what most legal thrillers lack—total authenticity, which is spellbinding.” —James PattersonOn the day before his twenty-first wedding anniversary, David Sullinger buried an ax in his wife’s skull. Now, eight jurors must retire to the deliberation room and decide whether David committed premeditated murder—or whether he was a battered spouse who killed his wife in self-defense.Told from the perspective of over a dozen participants ...

Aristotle Onassis was a born orator, and Jackie Kennedy would sit and listen to him spin off tales and stories—often racy—by the hour. A speaker of seven languages, he could keep a dinner party of some of the world’s most sophisticated conversationalists spellbound. Even Jackie couldn’t help but drop her reserve and laugh with him. America’s First Lady simply never knew anyone quite as free or exotic as Aristotle Onassis, a paradoxical blend of raconteur and ruffian.Beginning with ...

We are living through a time of upheaval and social unrest, with increasing threats to global health, democratic institutions, and the world’s economies. But behind the alarming headlines is another issue that must be quickly addressed: the role of workers is being transformed—and often rendered obsolete—by automation and artificial intelligence.As Jamie Merisotis, the president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, argues in Human Work In the Age of Smart Machines

Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, E. B. White’s stroll around Manhattan remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America’s foremost literary figures. The New York Times named Here Is New York one of the ten best books ever written about the metropolis, and the New Yorker called it “the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.”Included with this essay are two short poems by E. B. White: “Commuter” ...

When Picasso became Picasso: the story of how an obscure young painter from Barcelona came to Paris and made himself into the most influential artist of the twentieth centuryIn 1900, an eighteen-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol...

In this collection of more than thirty essays, published in the New York Times, Esquire, and the New Republic, the vast range of Saul Bellow’s nonfiction is made abundantly clear. In Bellow’s capable hands, a single essay can range fluidly across topics as various as the talents of President Roosevelt, the economic narrative of Jay Gatsby, and childhood adventures in Chicago. This rich mix of literary, political, and personal musings allows Bellow to explore subjects as e...

In The Sundowner's Dance, an elderly widower relocates to a retirement community and discovers his new neighbors are worshipping a meteorite.Todd Keisling's latest novel—pitched as Cocoon meets The Color Out of Space—is crawling with grief, odd neighbors, and cosmic horrors.

A collection of treasured stories by the unchallenged master of American fictionNobel Prize winner Saul Bellow has deservedly been celebrated as one of America’s greatest writers. For more than sixty years he stretched our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts with his exhilarating perceptions of life. Here, collected in one volume and chosen by the author himself, are favorites such as “What Kind of Day Did You Have?” “Leaving the Yellow House,” and a previously...

In print for over fifty years, One Man’s Meat continues to delight readers with E. B. White’s witty, succinct observations on daily life at a Maine saltwater farm.Too personal for an almanac, too sophisticated for a domestic history, and too funny and self-doubting for a literary journal, One Man’s Meat can best be described as a primer of a countryman’s lessons and a timeless recounting of experience that will never go out of style.

“Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling.”—TimeThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Neal Stephenson is continually rocking the literary world with his brazen and brilliant fictional creations—whether he’s reimagining the past (The Baroque Cycle), inventing the future (Snow Crash), or both (Cryptonomicon). With Reamde, t...

**PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION • KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • From the author of the landmark bestseller Lawrence in Arabia comes a stunningly revelatory narrative history of the Iranian Revolution, one of the most momentous events in modern times. This groundbreaking work exposes the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American government and traces the...