NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 22, 2012
"Alternately sad, defiant, carefree and understated, this journey into a world hidden in plain sight is well worth taking."
A journalist ingratiates himself with a band of day laborers on the mean streets of Delhi, India.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 15, 2012
"A breathtaking study of "walking as enabling sight and thought rather than encouraging retreat and escape.""
Macfarlane (English/Cambridge Univ.;
The Wild Places, 2008, etc.) returns with another masterful, poetic travel narrative.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 22, 2012
"Provocative, illuminating and entertaining--an exemplary work of philosophy and history whose author's deep learning is lightly worn."
An ambitious survey not of politics itself, but of the way Westerners have thought about politics for 2,500 years.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"A clear, insightful vision of a health care system that could bring about a better, healthier world."
Two doctors envision a future in which many illnesses could be prevented, where "disease, not death…will be the medical failure."
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"Lucent prose illuminates a man obscured for years in history's shadows."
New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Egan (
The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, 2009, etc.) returns with the story of the astonishing life of Edward Curtis (1868–1952), whose photographs of American Indians now command impressive prices at auction.
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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. 23, 2012
"A splendid assemblage of significant work by one of our keenest observers. "
NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"A historian's history that deserves pride of place in every library."
Historian and journalist Jones (
Countdown to Valkyrie: The July Plot to Kill Hitler, 2008, etc.) enlightens and delights in this history of the London Tower.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 30, 2012
"Joyful reading about a groundbreaking study and its participants."
A fascinating account of the 268 individuals selected for the Harvard Study of Adult Development (the "Grant Study"), which "began in 1938 as an attempt to transcend medicine's usual preoccupation with pathology and learn something instead about optimum health and potential and the conditions that promote them."
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012
"Incisive, reflective and unfailingly stimulating. It wouldn't hurt Mendelsohn to occasionally pass up an opportunity to remind readers he's the smartest guy in the room, but then again, he almost always is."
Another top-notch collection of previously published criticism from Mendelsohn (
How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, 2008, etc.).
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012
"Beautifully constructed reflections and careful sifting of Jefferson's thoughts and deeds."
A well-rendered yet deeply unsettling look behind the illusion of the happy slaves of Monticello.
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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: Oct. 16, 2012
"A profound and richly satisfying reckoning with the movies and what they mean."
Thomson (
The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder, 2009, etc.) brings his encyclopedic knowledge of film and idiosyncratic, allusive style to bear on this ambitious consideration of the history of motion pictures and their effect on the audience.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"With a vast dramatis personae and stage, Hyde's book sheds considerable light on the 19th-century development of the nation. Highly recommended."
NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"Sobering stories about the politics of power--its loss, its gain--and the deep human suffering that inevitably results."
When the Bolshevik Revolution came in 1917, the new order began transforming aristocrats into paupers, exiles and corpses--a transformation that consumed decades.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 30, 2012
"Meticulously researched, suspenseful and engrossing."
A comprehensive examination of hot, competitive yoga, its cultlike following and the author's immersion into the practice.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 9, 2012
"Even though we know the answers to most of the questions--Will our heroine win the coveted role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl? Will she live happily ever after with her Prince Charming, Elliott Gould?--this book makes getting to them a treat."
Hollywood chronicler Mann (
How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, 2010, etc.) divulges the blood, sweat and tears that propelled a diva's rise to stardom.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012
"A well-told, direct story of endurance and courage in the face of death and destruction on an apocalyptic scale, as moving and powerful as any novel."
The history of Polish Jews who fought Nazi brutality, retold in the stories of some truly remarkable young men and women.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 30, 2012
"A fascinating mix of cutting-edge science with philosophy and theology."
A biophysicist examines the relationship between chance and necessity at the boundary between life and inanimate objects.
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NONFICTION
Released: Oct. 25, 2012
"Art lovers, Renaissance junkies and even travelers will love this book, which brings these two geniuses to vivid life and teaches how easy it is to love art."
Guardian art critic Jones rejoices in revealing the talents of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo and the challenge of deciding who was the true master.
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