NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"A copiously examined life rendered with humor and heart."
Veteran character actor Tobolowsky, perhaps best known for his role in
Groundhog Day, offers a beguiling collection of autobiographical essays detailing his experiences in and out of show business.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012
"A superb biography of a fiercely driven explorer who traveled across the last inaccessible areas on earth before technical advances made the journey much easier."
Bown (
1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half, 2012, etc.) delivers an intensely researched, thoroughly enjoyable life of one of history's best explorers.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 24, 2012
"This diligently researched and masterfully written exposition will appeal to Anglophiles and fans of literary biography."
A perceptive biography that traces an author's trajectory from disillusioned prose scribe to acclaimed poet.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 24, 2012
"Such a large historical project could have easily descended into tedious and dry academia, but instead, all three volumes are briskly paced, well-researched and insightful. Aficionados of urban histories, in particular, will find much to enjoy."
This ambitious three-volume history, overseen by Moore (Judaic Studies and History/Univ. of Michigan;
American Jewish Identity Politics, 2008, etc.), provides a lively, much-needed overview of the role that Jews have played in the history and success of the Big Apple, helping to transform it into "a city of promises, some fulfilled, some pending, some beckoning new generations."
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"A triumph of scholarship."
NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"A moving story of an American musical original."
With the assistance of Dunn (
Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?: And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had to Ask, 2009, etc.), Lauper tells her alternately harrowing, hopeful and hilarious life story.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"In that sense--and given the talk of "real" American-ness that persists today--Mattson's excellent book is a timely companion to the current election season. The question is: Who's playing Nixon?"
A cocker spaniel and a plain cloth coat become emblems of the paranoid-style right-wing politics of the 1950s, courtesy of one Richard Milhous Nixon.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"Investigative journalism at its best, as Johnston seeks to comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable."
Veteran investigative reporter Johnston reveals how businesses, with the consent of government agencies, rip off consumers in plain sight.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"The author's passion, thorough research and imaginative heart produce one revelation after another."
The author of
The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2003) returns with a tour de force about Johann Sebastian Bach and a description and assessment of the recordings that have made his work an essential part of our culture.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 18, 2012
"Essential reading for anyone interested in justice or memoir."
NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 14, 2012
"Insightful and convivial account of a bright, bountiful life dedicated to words, information and wonder."
The digital media revolution powers a lifelong journalist's sharp, business-minded autobiography.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 12, 2012
"Highly recommended--anyone at all interested in music will learn a lot from this book."
From the former Talking Heads frontman, a supremely intelligent, superbly written dissection of music as an art form and way of life.
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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. 11, 2012
"A brilliant exposition of the possibility of science and religion, each in its own way, contributing to a better world."
A leading Jewish theologian argues that both religious fundamentalists and neo-Darwinian atheists such as Richard Dawkins have it wrong when they contend that science and religious faith are incompatible.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012
"Not flawless, but one of the best recent analyses of the contemporary woes of American economics and politics."
Remarkably comprehensive and coherent analysis of and prescriptions for America's contemporary economic malaise by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Smith (
Rethinking America, 1995, etc.).
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 10, 2012
"A rich, highly readable examination of the seeds of poppies, trade, greed, grandeur and an international partnership that remains uneasy and perilous."
The author of
Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (2010) returns with the story of America's first voyages to the Middle Kingdom, where Americans and Chinese looked at each other with wonder, alarm and calculation.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 10, 2012
"Survivors of traumatic events often do not recover without help from others, and Gonzales' excellent book is an education for those wishing to be of use in a stressful, often frightening world."
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. 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
"A stellar biography of a complicated subject: Max's portrait skillfully unites Wallace's external and internal lives."
A thorough, understated account of the life of the pioneering author and how his addictions and fiction intersected.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Playfully drawn and provocatively written, the memoir reinforces Bell's standing among the first rank of the genre's artists."
"Graphic memoir" only hints at the artistry of a complex, literary-minded author who resists the bare-all confessionalism so common to the genre and blurs the distinction between fiction and factual introspection.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
"Well-written and bursting with ideas, this will be essential reading for anyone who cares about childhood in America."
Turning the conventional wisdom about child development on its head,
New York Times Magazine editor Tough (
Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, 2008) argues that non-cognitive skills (persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence) are the most critical to success in school and life.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2012
"A gripping celebration of physical and mental endurance."
A memoir of an astonishing trip walking "nine million-odd steps" for more than two years along the Amazon River's course from Peruvian headwaters to Brazilian mouth.
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NONFICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2012
"A contemplative, profoundly moving meditation on life, love and death."
In her debut,
Los Angeles Review poetry and translations editor Chernov probes her grief over losing a much-loved father and the inability of contemporary society to accept profound emotion.
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