A fun, lively, and learned excursion into the alphabet—and cultural history.Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions: the alphabet.The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A thr...

Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions--the alphabet.The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern readers...

"The connection between geography and progress is fundamental," writes Robert Sack in the introduction to the present volume. Touching on both moral and material progress, six of the world's leading geographers and environmental historians explore differing aspects of this connection. Thomas Vale discusses whether progress is discernible in the natural realm; Kenneth Olwig examines fundamental changes that occurred to the notion of progress with the rise of modernity, while David Lowenthal...

Think Like a ChampionIn the world of elite sports, victory is often attributed to physical and athletic prowess alone. But what if the key to unlocking your full potential lies not in your physical abilities, but in your mindset?In Extreme Balance, three renowned experts on performance, motivation, and competition dive into the unexplored territory of the mind, paradoxically revealing the one mindset that can truly elevate your game: the ability to...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice SelectionOne of President Bill Clinton’s “Best Things I’ve Read This Year”From the acclaimed historian and New Yorker writer comes this urgent manifesto on the dilemma of nationalism and the erosion of liberalism in the twenty-first century.At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America

"Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, IndependentThe ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold sy...

**"A world-class intellectual. . . . [Colin Woodard’s] research can help Americans rediscover their common identity in spite of all the attempts to divide them." —Garry Kasparov"A powerful paradigm for understanding the defining hot button issues of contemporary America and the action we can take to bridge our cultural divisions and save the republic." —The Next Big Idea Club“A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous—and disturbing—explanatory power.” —Kir...

**A major new history from our most trusted voice on the Revolutionary era, the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, and featured in THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, on PBS.An astounding look at how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and th...

An epic, revelatory account of the Battle of Gettysburg, where George Meade, Lincoln's unexpected choice to lead the Union army, defeated Robert E. Lee and changed the course of the Civil War, from the award-winning author of James Monroe: A LifeBy mid-1863, the Civil War, with Northern victories in the West and Southern triumphs in the East, seemed unwinnable for Abraham Lincoln. Robert E. Lee’s bold thrust into Pennsylvania, if successful, could mean Sou...

**An Apple Best Book of the MonthFrom award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb**Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable.In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interc...

**A NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEARLonglisted for the 2026 Cundill History PrizeAn extraordinary work of revisionist history that centers Africa in the life of one of our greatest philosophers: "Excellent, short, and highly readable.... Traces a grittier story of a life lived almost entirely in a small area of what is now eastern Algeria, where Augustine’s local origins and experience profoundly shaped both his life and his thought. Conybeare’s argument is that because ...

**A frank, hands-on guide to using AI at work, unpacking for the curious and skeptical alike the “24 Laws” of AI and revealing strategies that businesses of every size can use to free up time, innovate, and add to the bottom line—from a Wall Street Journal tech columnist“The antidote to AI panic. Read it. You’ll breathe easier.”—Scott Galloway, NYU Stern School of Business professor and co-host of Pivot with Kara Swisher“A clear, practical, and hype-free g...