In 1948, most white people in the North had no idea how unjust life was for the ten million African Americans living in the South. But that suddenly changed after Ray Sprigle, a white journalist from Pittsburgh, went undercover and lived as a black man in the Jim Crow South.
What did boys do in a small town when there were no televisions, or video games? They whitewashed fences, floated down rivers, traded marbles, formed secret societies, smoked pipes, and, on occasion, managed to attend their own funerals. They may have been a bit mischievous, but as Aunt Polly said when she believed Tom dead, “He was the best-hearted boy that ever was.”
One night, Inspector Montalbano dreams of a stormy sea, which he knows represents unease and loss of control. The next day, a boat is found in the port of Vigata, and within it, the body of a disfigured corpse. The waterfront has also drawn in an eighty-five-foot luxury boat passengered by fifty carefree souls and a somewhat shadowy crew. They will have to stay in Vigata until the investigation is over-- the man, it seems, was poisoned, and it is the yacht's owner and sailors Montalbano is focused on.
The Age of Voltaire is an in-depth examination of France and England in the first half of the eighteenth century. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter the English ideas that inspired the Enlightenment in France -- skepticism, scientific experiment, constitutional government, "natural rights," and individual liberty; the salons of Paris, where the wits and thinkers of all Europe gathered to exchange ideas; the philosophes -- intellectuals, playwrights, and poets who consulted and consorted with kings and queens; Voltaire himself -- the incarnation of the Enlightenment and a devotee of reason who still defended religious faith; Mme. Pompadour, patron of the philosophes, who seduced King Louis XV and through him influenced French policy; the Augustan Age in English literature--Alexander Pope's poetry, Jonathan Swift's satires, and the novels of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding; and the growing parasitism of the aristocracy and rising power of the commercial class.
When 30-year-old math genius James Fenster is blown up in his Amsterdam hotel room, via the precise detonation of military-grade rocket fuel, shortly before he was due to address a World Trade Organization conference, Henri Poincare´, aging Interpol agent and great-grandson of a legendary mathematician, investigates.
A wealthy family tries and fails to seal themselves off from the chaos of post-World War II life surrounding them in this novel by one of Germany's most important postwar writers.
Johann Friedrich von Allmen, a bon vivant of dandified refinement, has exhausted his family fortune. But his prospects take a sharp turn when opportunity presents itself and he absconds with five priceless art nouveau bowls, embarking on a high-risk, potentially violent bid to cash them in.
When Lincoln Smith gets his heart broken he joins the French Foreign Legion. On his way to an ancient and exotic country at the edge of the Sahara Desert, Lincoln encounters a number of curious characters from a desert hermit to a crocodile cult that worships the god of death. He meets them all with his own charming brand of courage and resourcefulness.
Seymour Morris exposes hundreds of startling facts that never made it into the textbooks, examining how little-known people and events played influential roles in the great American story.
A rash of burglaries has Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The criminals are so brazen that their leader starts sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich.. He is besotted by Angelica's charms, but when one of the burglars turns up dead, Montalbano must snap out of his fantasy and unmask his challenger.
When a colleague extends his summer vacation, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is forced to stay in Vigata and endure the August heat. Montalbano's long-suffering girlfriend, Livia, joins him with a friend--husband and young son in tow--to keep her company during these dog days of summer. But when the boy suddenly disappears into a narrow shaft hidden under the family's beach rental, Montalbano uncovers something terribly sinister. As the inspector spends the summer trying to solve this perplexing case, Livia refuses to answer his calls and Montalbano is left to take a plunge that will affect the rest of his life.
The surprising final chapter of a great American lifeWhen the first volume of Mark Twain's uncensored Autobiography was published in 2010, it was hailed as an essential addition to the shelf of his works and a crucial document for our understanding of the great humorist's life and times. This third and final volume crowns and completes his life's work.
Babbitt turns the spotlight on middle America and strips bare the hypocrisy of business practice, social mores, politics, and religious institutions. In his introduction and notes Gordon Hutner explores the novel's historical and literary contexts, and highlights its rich cultural and social references.
Assuming the responsibilities of governing France after the death of his prime minister, Louis XIV embarks on a love affair with his sister-in-law, Henriette, triggering a scandal that is complicated by a finance minister's growing power and a mysterious boy with an iron mask.
1870s, Sicily. Much to the displeasure of Vigata's stubborn populace, the town has just been unified under the Kingdom of Italy. They're now in the hands of a new government they don't understand and definitely don't like. Eugenio Bortuzzi has been named prefect for Vigàta, a regional representative from the Italian government to oversee the town. But the rowdy and unruly Sicilians don't care much for this rather pompous mainlander nor the mediocre opera he's hell-bent on producing in their new municipal theater.
Admiral Naismith (aka Lord Miles Vorkosigan) and the Dendarii arrive on Earth for a well deserved rest. When someone tries to kill Miles, he must juggle both his identities to unravel the complicated plot, which reveals an unexpedted ally.
Using council records, autobiographies and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A narrative that changed forever the idea of how the West was really won.
Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his uneventful bachelor's life as a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. He is not far down the hereditary list for the emperorship. Thankfully, new heirs have directed that headache elsewhere, leaving Ivan to enjoy his life on Komarr, far from the court politics of his home system. But when an old friend in Barrayaran intelligence asks Ivan to protect a young woman who may be on the hit list of a criminal syndicate, Ivan's chivalrous nature takes over.
The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
