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: Jan. 3, 2012
"Will the partnership prevail? Stay tuned, but hope for the best--for, they warn, "[i]f urgent steps are not taken to rein in nuclear weapons...a catastrophic attack is virtually inevitable.""
Timely portrait of an alliance, seemingly unlikely, of former Cold War mavens now committed to nuclear disarmament.
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NONFICTION
Released: Jan. 10, 2012
"A rich record of the vicissitudes of publishing during an inimitable time and place."
A dense, detailed, priceless eyewitness account of the making of a literary generation between Paris and New York.
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NONFICTION
Released: Jan. 24, 2012
"An intriguing and potentially life-altering examination of the human psyche that is sure to benefit both introverts and extroverts alike."
An enlightened Wall Street survivor exhorts wallflowers everywhere to embrace their solitude-seeking souls and fully appreciate the power of the lone wolf.
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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: Feb. 7, 2012
"A provocative, intellectually rigorous book written clearly and with an admirable lack of hatred."
A well-reported study of disaffected groups who hate other groups whose members look or think differently than the haters.
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 14, 2012
"A highly creative, illuminating, genre-resisting history."
The strange, sad, hilarious story of the Soviet Union's blind pursuit of a Communist paradise, told through a mix of history and fiction, using both to get to the truth.
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 28, 2012
"A frank, exhaustive, marvelously readable study."
A sharp, clear, deeply researched examination of the consistent application of the founding religious principles to American foreign policy, from the colonists' sense of a Protestant exceptionalism to President Barack Obama's "Good Niebuhr Policy."
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NONFICTION
Released: Feb. 28, 2012
"A complicated, elegiac, beautiful attempt to reconcile the physical bayt (home) and the spiritual."
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 6, 2012
"Gritty, gripping and often heartbreaking--an impressive piece of narrative nonfiction."
NONFICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Impressive research underlies a well-told story that's simultaneously depressing (what a nasty species we are) and inspiring (what a wonderful species we are)."
Partisan bickering, back-stabbing rivalries, xenophobia, character assassination, political moves that would make Machiavelli blush--no, not Washington circa 2011, but the Washington Capitol in the 1850s.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 6, 2012
"Rothkopf delivers a lively, accessible treatment of a multifaceted, complex subject."
Rothkopf (
Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making, 2009, etc.) uses a wide-angle lens to examine the relation between public and private power.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 13, 2012
""I am neither indifferent to, nor weary of, this world; had I a hundred lives, I know I would not tire of it," he writes. Intelligent readers will find it hard to argue."
Love and death go hand in hand in the life of journalist and filmmaker Lanzmann, who at 84 delivers his first book (originally published in France in 2009): a beautifully written memoir driven by both the writer's passion for living and his memories of lost friends.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 19, 2012
"Exceptional observations of the biological world worthy of any naturalist's library."
NONFICTION
Released: March 20, 2012
"A candid, inspiring narrative of the author's brutal physical and psychological journey through a wilderness of despair to a renewed sense of self."
Unsentimental memoir of the author's three-month solo hike from California to Washington along the Pacific Crest Trail.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 21, 2012
"Thoughtful, heartfelt and frequently moving, like the best music."
NONFICTION
Released: March 26, 2012
"A surprising, sobering look at one of the deadliest terror networks in history and the American spy agencies charged with bringing it down."
Superlative storytelling and crackling reportage define a pulse-pounding narrative tracing the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
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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: March 27, 2012
"A transformative work that joins the hands of Art and Science and makes them acknowledge their close kinship."
In a polymathic performance, a Nobel laureate weaves together the theories and practices of neuroscience, art and psychology to show how our creative brains perceive and engage art--and are consequently moved by it.
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NONFICTION
Released: March 27, 2012
"Keeping a critical eye on the evidence and a skeptical one on theories, Tattersall confirms his status among world anthropologists by delivering a superior popular explanation of human origins."
A veteran anthropologist writes a superb overview of how our species developed (a long process) and how we grew smart enough to dominate the planet (a short process in which evolution played little part).
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NONFICTION
Released: April 1, 2012
"A bracing cooperative effort taking readers as close to war as humanly possible."
NONFICTION
Released: April 3, 2012
"With humor and verve, Maddow lays a solid basis for that hoped-for interview with Cheney (fingers crossed)."
In her hard-hitting debut, popular MSNBC host Maddow examines how the country has lost control of its national-security policy.
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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 11, 2012
"A vital, essential addition to the shelf of great books about New Orleans."
A vital, loving chronicle of the colorful life and frequently hard times of the New Orleans R&B singer and self-styled "Emperor of the Universe."
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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: April 26, 2012
"The author's compelling argument for Laguna Honda's philosophy of "slow medicine" will make readers contemplate if perhaps the body should be viewed more as a garden to be tended rather than a machine to be fixed."
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
"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
"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 wide-ranging, marvelously complete overview of a diverse, teeming civilization poised for ruin."
A bright, hard glimpse at the final thriving days of European Jewry and the first edges of its unraveling.
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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: May 8, 2012
"Though he's a little too enamored with "angel-headed hipsters" and "fairy dust," Talbot takes the reader much deeper than cliché, exploring a San Francisco that tourists never discover."
An ambitious, labor-of-love illumination of a city's soul, celebrating the uniqueness of San Francisco without minimizing the price paid for the city's free-spiritedness.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 8, 2012
"In a well-researched, disinterested analysis, the authors show that collisions of ego, personality and politics can often result in creation, not destruction."
Two
Time magazine editors chart the zigzag arc of relationships among the men who have occupied the White House since the mid-20th century.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 22, 2012
"A deeply argued call to action from a lucid, impassioned polemicist."
A concise, cogent assessment of the 2008 banking disaster and how the fallout has affected the country.
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NONFICTION
Released: May 29, 2012
"Still, the best portrait of Cronkite--that legendary journalist, certainly worthy of a big biography--that we have."
Oversized biography of the larger-than-life newscaster, still a byword for a TV anchor, at least among viewers of a certain age.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 1, 2012
"As exciting, sprawling and multifarious as a shining city on a hill."
Smith (
Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon, 2007, etc.) composes a polyphonic paean to our urban past, present and future.
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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 5, 2012
"Superbly crafted tale of Cold War America's dark underside."
A harrowing account of Colorado's Rocky Flats plutonium plant by a woman who grew up nearby.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 5, 2012
"At once stimulating and warmhearted, with sentences of drop-dead beauty and acuity on nearly every page."
Another superb essay collection from novelist Hustvedt (
The Summer without Men, 2011, etc.).
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NONFICTION
Released: June 5, 2012
"In each chapter, Blackwell finds he loves the polluted places for all the ways they aren't ruined. With great verve, and without sounding preachy, he exposes the essence and interconnectedness of these environmental problems."
Humor and dry wit lighten a travelogue of the most polluted and ravaged places in the world.
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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
"A provocative discussion of the deeper causes of our current discontent, written with verve and meriting wide interest."
In this forcefully written debut,
Nation editor at large and MSNBC host Hayes examines some of the consequences of accumulating institutional failures.
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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: June 18, 2012
"A call for a new American revolution, passionately proclaimed."
An unabashedly polemic, angry manifesto that is certain to open eyes, intensify outrage and incite argument about corporate greed.
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NONFICTION
Released: June 26, 2012
"A fascinating addition to the study of decision-making. File alongside Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Ariely and other similar writers."
A leading expert on financial market regulation studies the virtues of delay and even inaction.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 3, 2012
"Authoritative but never dry, stripping away soothing myths of national unity and victimhood, this is a painful but necessary historical task superbly done."
A breathtaking, numbing account of the physical and moral desolation that plagued Europe in the late 1940s.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
"An exquisite--and often exquisitely depressing--patchwork of joy and pain."
Captivating samplings of one doctor's tour of duty inside the country's oldest and perhaps most illustrious public hospital.
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NONFICTION
Released: July 17, 2012
"In an impressive narrative, the author renders esoteric DNA concepts accessible to lay readers."
Science writer Kean (
The Disappearing Spoon: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, 2010) returns with another wide-ranging, entertaining look at science history, this time focusing on the many mysteries of DNA.
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POWER, INC.: THE EPIC RIVALRY BETWEEN BIG BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT--AND THE RECKONING THAT LIES AHEAD
THE VIOLINIST'S THUMB: AND OTHER LOST TALES OF LOVE, WAR, AND GENIUS, AS WRITTEN BY OUR GENETIC CODE
