NONFICTION
Released: Jan. 3, 2012
"A profound demonstration of what needs to be recognized, reconciled and forgiven if current crises are to be overcome."
A vigorous retelling of Haiti's history intended to revive the promise of the world's first black-led republic.
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 7, 2012
"The best book yet written on India in the throes of a brutal transition."
In her debut, Pulitzer Prize–winning
New Yorker staff writer Boo creates an intimate, unforgettable portrait of India's urban poor.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Meticulously researched and packed with not just technological details, but sociopolitical and cultural details as well--the definitive history of the computer."
That we live in a digital universe is indisputable; how we got there is a mesmerizing tale brilliantly told by science historian Dyson (
Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957–1965, 2002, etc.).
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NONFICTION
Released: March 27, 2012
"An erudite discussion both profoundly sympathetic and richly analytical."
A simultaneously scholarly and deeply personal analysis of evangelical communities in America.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 9, 2012
"Wilson succeeds in explaining his complex ideas, so attentive readers will receive a deeply satisfying exposure to a major scientific controversy."
Never shy about tackling big questions, veteran evolutionary biologist Wilson (The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, 2006, etc.) delivers his thoughtful if contentious explanation of why humans rule the Earth.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 10, 2012
"Stellar cultural writing--Bissell has the knowledge and wit to earn his provocations."
A whip-smart, occasionally pugnacious collection of essays on culture from a wide-ranging critic.
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NONFICTION
Released: April 24, 2012
"An exquisitely reasoned, skillfully written treatise on big issues of everyday life."
Sandel (Government/Harvard Univ.;
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, 2010, etc.) sounds the alarm that the belief in a market economy diminishes moral thought.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"Subtitled "A Comic Drama," the narrative provides even fewer laughs than its predecessor but deeper introspection."
A psychologically complex, ambitious, illuminating successor to the author's graphic-memoir masterpiece.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"A report of a fascinating new theory on the Earth's origins written in a sparkling style with many personal touches."
Hazen (Earth Science/George Mason Univ.;
Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins, 2005, etc.) offers startling evidence that "Earth's living and nonliving spheres" have co-evolved over the past 4 billion years.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"Leaks, reserves, PACs, hydrofracking, bloated corporate profits and more: all pertinent concerns nicely handled by Coll in this engaging, hard-hitting work."
NONFICTION
Released: May 1, 2012
"The Johnson project deserves equal praise."
The fourth volume of one of the most anticipated English-language biographies of the past 30 years.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 4, 2012
"A timely portrait of Texas delivered with Collins' unique brand of insightful humor."
New York Times political columnist Collins (When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, 2009, etc.) zeroes in on what makes Texas so important and why the rest of the country needs to know and care about what's happening there.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 7, 2012
"A superb examination of the never-ending effort to enhance life, as well as the commensurate refusal to ever let it go."
A sharp, illuminating history of ideas showing how America has wrestled with birth, childhood, work, marriage, old age and death.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 12, 2012
"Stott masterfully shows how Darwin, by discovering the mechanism of natural selection, made a unique contribution, but he did not stand alone—nor did he claim to."
Stott (English Literature and Creative Writing/Univ. of East Anglia; The Coral Thief, 2009, etc.) conjures up the spirits of Darwin's scientific predecessors in this excellent follow-up to Darwin and the Barnacle (2003).
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012
"A consummate professional explores the attic of his life, converting rumination to art."
The acclaimed novelist (
Sunset Park, 2010, etc.), now 65, writes affectingly about his body, family, lovers, travels and residences as he enters what he calls the winter of his life.
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NONFICTION
Released: Aug. 28, 2012
"Cleareyed, compassionate and hopeful."
The award-winning author of
Death at an Early Age (1967) tells the stories of the later lives of poor children who grew up in the Bronx.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Certainly, Hitchens died too soon. May this moving little visit to his hospital room not be the last word from him."
A jovially combative riposte to anyone who thought that death would silence master controversialist Hitchens (
Hitch-22, 2010, etc.).
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"A poignant, galvanizing, meaningful tribute."
Fifty years after the publication of Rachel Carson's seminal
Silent Spring, Pulitzer Prize nominee Souder (
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, 2004, etc.) examines the legacy and lasting impact of Carson's passionate environmental work.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Truly remarkable, composed with all the precision and insight you expect from a law professor, marked by all the elegance and sparkling readability you don't."
Artfully mixing law, history and sharp analysis, a Yale law professor examines the persistent struggle to reconcile justice and humanitarianism in America's conduct of war.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Taking on a looming subject with intelligence and wit, Simmons manages to take the full measure of her man."
NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"Aspects of a spy novel, a writer's autobiography and a victim's affidavit pulsing with resentment and fear combine to reveal a man's dawning awareness of the primacy of freedom."
The frightening, illuminating and disturbing memoir by the author of
The Satanic Verses, the book that provoked a death sentence from the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 2012
"A wonderful, eye-opening account of humans versus disease that deserves to share the shelf with such classics as Microbe Hunters and Rats, Lice and History."
Nature writer and intrepid traveler Quammen (
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, 2006, etc.) sums up in one absorbing volume what we know about some of the world's scariest scourges: Ebola, AIDS, pandemic influenza--and what we can do to thwart the "NBO," the Next Big One.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"Brilliantly juxtaposes Marvel with its best characters: flawed and imperfect, but capable of achieving miraculous feats."
NONFICTION
Released: Nov. 13, 2012
"An outstanding biography that reveals an overlooked steeliness at Jefferson's core that accounts for so much of his political success."
NONFICTION
Released: Nov. 13, 2012
"An informative and moving book that raises profound issues regarding the nature of love, the value of human life and the future of humanity."
National Book Award–winning journalist Solomon (
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, 2001, etc.) uses issues raised by disability to examine the nature of parenthood, the definition of disability and the ability to control reproduction to create designer children.
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