Beautiful and enchanting--Washington Post

Sometimes a second chance comes in the most unexpected way....

Following the loss of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. She retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit: Each day was an impersonation of the one before with only a slight shuffle--as though even for death there is a queue.

Then, one cold winter night, a chance encounter with a mouse sets Helen on a surprising journey. Over the course of two weeks in a small English town, this reclusive widow discovers an unexpected reason to live.

Sipsworth is a reminder that there is always reason for hope. No matter what we have planned for ourselves, sometimes life has plans of its own. With profound compassion, Simon Van Booy illuminates not only a deep friendship forged between two lonely creatures, but the reverberations of goodness that ripple out from that unique bond.

BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER

Brings Isabella Stewart Gardner fully, intimately alive--irrepressible and avid for life. In this richly compelling novel, Emily Franklin beautifully conjures this extraordinary woman and her world.--Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children

A deeply evocative portrayal of the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, the daring trailblazer who not only created an inimitable legacy in American art but also transformed a city.

By the time Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum in 1903 to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d'art, she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston's polite society. But when Isabella first arrived in Boston in 1861, she was twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she received from stuffy bluebloods, she strived to fit in. After two devastating tragedies and rejection from upper society, Isabella discovered her spirit and cast off expectations.

Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas, and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform nineteenth century thinking in the twentieth century. Isabella becomes her own person, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden. With a mission to make art accessible to the public, Isabella becomes the first woman to open a museum in the United States.

The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.

An intimate, autobiographical poetry collection from legendary artist and activist, Joan Baez.

Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.

While Baez has been writing poetry for decades, she's never shared it publicly. Poems about her life, her family, about her passions for nature and art, have piled up in notebooks and on scraps of paper. Now, for the first time ever, her life is shared revealing pivotal life experiences that shaped an icon, offering a never-before-seen look into the reminiscences and musings of a great artist.

Like a late-night chat with someone you love, this collection connects fans to the real heart of who Joan Baez is as a person, as a daughter and sister, and as an artist who has inspired millions.

All roads begin somewhere and today's U. S. highway system began with an exploratory, cross-country ride, led by 28-year-old Army lieutenant colonel, Dwight Eisenhower. This is the story of that coast-to-coast journey and how the dream of connecting America with roads began.

Before he led the liberation of Europe, before he became our nation's 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower's made a road trip in 1919 from Washington D.C. to California. The expedition proved to be a crucial chapter in the history of America as it laid the groundwork to make automobile travel the fastest and easiest way to move around the country, also setting in motion the nation's future love affair with cheap crude.

The 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy of eighty-one trucks and other military vehicles traveled more than 3,000 precarious miles along the most famous road of the day, the Lincoln Highway, which ran between New York City and San Francisco. World War I had illustrated the importance of being able to move large amounts of troops and equipment quickly over long distances, and Eisenhower's mission was to evaluate whether the country's emerging network of paved roadways could handle such a task. It was an experience Eisenhower would never forget. Decades later, as president, he drew on that experience to push through the Interstate Highway Act of 1956.

Ike's Road Trip adds an important chapter to the story of the midwestern president who is often seen as America's grandfather. Eisenhower will also be seen as a modern visionary during a pivotal moment: his persistent trust in cheap petroleum proved to be a blueprint for modern America as he helped facilitate the most significant energy transition of the twentieth century. Today, we are experiencing perhaps the most important energy transition since Eisenhower's day--from petroleum to renewables--and that change will require minds as equally visionary as his.

A profound and provocative journey through the human body from a surgeon and award-winning writer. Weston's evocative descriptions will change how readers see the body....This captivates.--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

What does it mean to live in a body? For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. She'd forged an unconventional path, first studying humanities and getting an entry-level job in publishing, before a spark of inspiration set her on the path to becoming a doctor.

Medicine teaches us how a body functions, but it doesn't help us navigate the reality of living in one. As Weston became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient herself, she found herself grappling with the gap between scientific knowledge and unfathomable complexity of human experience.

In this captivating exploration of the body, Weston dissolves the boundaries that usually divide surgeon and patient, pushing beyond the limit of what science has to tell us about who we are and leaning on her roots in the humanities. Focusing on our individual organs, not just under the intense spotlight of the operating theatre, but in the central role they play in the stories of our lives, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges: more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could have imagined.

Intimate, penetrating and original, Alive is about our bodies and bonds, the richness and brevity of existence, and the thread of mortality that connect us all.

Who am I to tell my story? And how can we grant ourselves permission to write the stories we're compelled to tell when we've been told we shouldn't?

Without fail, almost every writer--new or experienced--has faced dire questions of permission and story ownership: there is something that they want to write about, that they need to write about. Yet: they can't. They have been warned not to. They might be paralyzed with shame, threatened with shunning, chastened into silence. Even if what they need to write about has defined them and their worldviews.

But what if they did? What if you did?

After writing three critically-acclaimed memoirs and a decade of teaching memoir workshops at every level, Elissa Altman has helped students face the elephant in every writer's room: how to craft the stories that are most vital to them despite the voices that have told them not to. Permission is a master course, not only on how to craft memoir, but how to begin and keep going when you've been told you can't, and how to how to give yourself permission to transcend the fear that keeps vital stories from being written.

We are the storytelling species; this book will inspire and guide all creatives to a place of transformation, of freedom from the constraints of shame and fear in all their forms, and to the understanding and recognition of the ethics of story-making, art-making, truth-telling, and creative soul-saving.

I must refrain from shouting what a brilliant work this is (pr teritio). Farnsworth has written the book as he ought to have written it - and as only he could have written it (symploce). Buy it and read it - buy it and read it (epimone).--Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage

Everyone speaks and writes in patterns. Farnsworth is your guide to patterns known as rhetorical figures that can make your words more emphatic, memorable, and effective.

This book details the timeless principles of rhetoric from Ancient Greece to the present day, drawing on examples in the English language of consummate masters of prose, such as Lincoln, Churchill, Dickens, Melville, and Burke.

Most rhetorical figures amount to departures from simple and literal statement, such as repeating words, putting words into an unexpected order, leaving out words that might have been expected, asking questions and then answering them. All apply to the composition of a simple sentence or paragraph--repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them.

Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric is for anyone who wants to be a better speaker or writer.

Remarkable.--Wall Street Journal

A thinking person's guide to a better life. Ward Farnsworth explains what the Socratic method is, how it works, and why it matters more than ever in our time. Easy to grasp yet challenging to master, the method will change the way you think about life's big questions. A wonderful book.--Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex.

About 2,500 years ago, Plato wrote a set of dialogues that depict Socrates in conversation. The way Socrates asks questions, and the reasons why, amount to a whole way of thinking. This is the Socratic method--one of humanity's great achievements. More than a technique, the method is an ethic of patience, inquiry, humility, and doubt. It is an aid to better thinking, and a remedy for bad habits of mind, whether in law, politics, the classroom, or tackling life's big questions at the kitchen table.

Drawing on hundreds of quotations, this book explains what the Socratic method is and how to use it. Chapters include Socratic Ethics, Ignorance, Testing Principles, and Socrates and the Stoics. Socratic philosophy is still startling after all these years because it is an approach to asking hard questions and chasing after them. It is a route to wisdom and a way of thinking about wisdom. With Farnsworth as your guide, the ideas of Socrates are easier to understand than ever and accessible to anyone.

As Farnsworth achieved with The Practicing Stoic and the Farnsworth's Classical English series, ideas of old are made new and vital again. This book is for those coming to philosophy the way Socrates did--as the everyday activity of making sense out of life and how to live it--and for anyone who wants to know what he said about doing that better.

American Blacks are entering a new phase in the struggle against white supremacy. Standing firmly in the African American tradition, Walton believes in the possibility of reconciliation with those whites who desire it, offering a hand of friendship and pragmatic ideas for paths forward.

Born into the Civil Rights Movement, author Anthony Walton observed firsthand the opening of opportunity for racial reconciliation. He also saw systemic racism and the vicious backlash against Black progress embodied in the Southern Strategy, Tea Party, and MAGA. Over time, Walton came to believe that moving forward requires a Third Reconstruction to accomplish what remains: better health outcomes, secure voting rights, and sustained economic and educational opportunity. Only this approach, he believes, will accomplish what remains unfinished for true African American equality.

Blending social history, bracing analysis, and autobiography, this dazzling collection includes essays published in The New York Times and The Atlantic--including Willie Horton and Me and the much-anthologized Technology vs. African Americans--as well as new work that probes Walton's earlier thinking. Throughout, the author delivers insights that wrestle with the hydra-headed, ever-changing realities of an American society in which the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The End of Respectability illuminates recent American history as experienced by a writer who has remained open to hope, unfazed by failures, and unflinchingly dedicated to the truth. This book will leave you changed. And just may incite you to be a part of the change we need.

A book wonderful to read and startling to contemplate....both the history of science and the reinterpretation of myths have been enriched immensely.--Washington Post

A seminal work of scientific and philosophical exploration. Ever since the Greeks coined the language we commonly use for scientific description, mythology and science have developed separately. But what if we could prove that all myths have one common origin in a celestial cosmology? What if the gods, the places they lived, and what they did are but ciphers for celestial activity, a language for the perpetuation of complex astronomical data?

Drawing on scientific data, historical and literary sources, the authors argue that our myths are the remains of a preliterate astronomy, an exacting science whose power and accuracy were suppressed and then forgotten by an emergent Greco-Roman world view. This fascinating book throws into doubt assumptions of Western science about the unfolding development and transmission of knowledge. This is a truly seminal and original thesis, a book that should be read by anyone interested in science, myth, and the interactions between the two.

BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER

Brings Isabella Stewart Gardner fully, intimately alive--irrepressible and avid for life. In this richly compelling novel, Emily Franklin beautifully conjures this extraordinary woman and her world.--Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children

A deeply evocative portrayal of the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, the daring trailblazer who not only created an inimitable legacy in American art but also transformed a city.

By the time Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her Italian palazzo-style home as a museum in 1903 to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d'art, she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston's polite society. But when Isabella first arrived in Boston in 1861, she was twenty years old, newly married to a wealthy trader, and unsure of herself. Puzzled by the frosty reception she received from stuffy bluebloods, she strived to fit in. After two devastating tragedies and rejection from upper society, Isabella discovered her spirit and cast off expectations.

Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas, and letters, meeting such kindred spirits as Henry James and Oscar Wilde. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform nineteenth century thinking in the twentieth century. Isabella becomes her own person, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden. With a mission to make art accessible to the public, Isabella becomes the first woman to open a museum in the United States.

The Lioness of Boston is a portrait of what society expected a woman's life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her own terms.

Farnsworth beautifully integrates his own observations with scores of quotations from Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and others. This isn't just a book to read--it's a book to return to, a book that will provide perspective and consolation at times of heartbreak or calamity.--The Washington Post

See more clearly, live more wisely, and bear the burdens of this life with greater ease--here are the greatest insights of the Stoics, in their own words. Presented in twelve lessons, Ward Farnsworth systematically presents the heart of Stoic philosophy accompanied by commentary that is clear and concise.

A foundational idea to Stoicism is that we appear to go through life reacting directly to events. That appearance is an illusion. We react to our judgments and opinions--to our thoughts about things, not to things themselves. Stoics seek to become conscious of those judgments, to find the irrationality in them, and to choose them more carefully.

In chapters including Emotion, Adversity, Virtue, and What Others Think, here is the most valuable wisdom about living a good life from ages past--now made available for our time.

A book of deep and practical wisdom, and uncommon common sense, by one of the nation's most eminent educators. F. Washington Jarvis was headmaster of Boston's Roxbury Latin School, the oldest school in continuous operation in North America. This book, winner of the 2001 Christopher Award, collects Jarvis's addresses, reprinted from his school's publications.
His approach is anecdotal. If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is ten times as true when you are speaking to young teenagers. They are gripped by the story of how real people cope with real situations. They are interested when you share with them the concrete realities of your own life and experience, and they are almost always willing to listen to adults who actually believe in something, who actually stand for something.
The author never talks down to his audience. He knows that students are asking the deepest questions, questions about whether life has meaning and purpose. He also knows that teenagers often find themselves caught by surprise in situations where they have to make tough decisions. And he believes that they are willing, even eager, to know how others have coped in similar situations.

The uproarious true adventures of a dog who doesn't understand that he's a dog -- and the boy who loved him. Funny, heartwarming, and true, this is a classic story of a very imaginative kid and one very unusual dog.

Funny and poignant, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be is a lively portrait of an unorthodox childhood and an unforgettable friendship. Growing up in on the frontier of Saskatoon, Canada, the legendary adventurer and naturalist, Farley Mowat, received a gift from his mom: a dog she bought for four cents. Farley quickly named him Mutt.

Mutt displayed skills at hunting and retrieving that were either pure genius or just plain crazy -- once going so far as to retrieve a plucked and trussed ruffed grouse from the grocer. Mutt also loved riding passenger in an open car wearing goggles and climbing both trees and ladders -- the perfect companion for a child with a love for animals and misadventures.

Originally published for young people, this is a memoir by the author Never Cry Wolf that will delight dog lovers of all ages.

Friendship, resourcefulness, adventures Here's the classic tale of two families of children who band together against a common foe: an uncle who claims he's too busy for his nieces.

The Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) are on school holiday in the Lake District and are sailing a borrowed catboat named Swallow, when they meet the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy), who sail the boat, Amazon. The children camp together on Wild Cat Island where a plot is hatched against the Blackett's Uncle Jim who is too busy writing his memoirs to be disturbed.

Fireworks--literally--ensue along with a dangerous contest, a run-in with houseboat burglars, and the theft of Uncle Jim's manuscript. How all this is resolved makes for an exciting and very satisfying story. Uncle Jim ends up apologizing for missing his nieces' adventures all summer--thankfully, readers won't miss a thing.

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series has stood the test of time. More than just great stories, each one celebrates independence and initiative with a colorful, large cast of characters. Like the entire series that follows, this book is for children or grownups, anyone captivated by a world of adventure and imagination, exploring and setting sail.

A classic for young readers, and parents, who believe in the magic of Christmas. I absolutely adored it. It had a cracking plot and a perfect tone throughout.--J. K. Rowling

Little Polly Flowerdew lives with her two maiden aunts, and she is absolutely sure that something special is going to happen this Christmas. Her aunts will not leave the door unlocked on Christmas Eve so Polly leaves her bedroom window open, just in case the three wise men decide to come visit.

When Polly wakes up on Christmas morning...

The morning star still shone, and when Polly opened the window the air was crisp and cool. She leaned out farther, her eyes wide, for three ships were sailing towards the harbor. One had a red sail and one had a brown sail, and one had a sail like the wing of a swan.

Their cottage is visited by three wise men, one of whom has come home to stay after a long absence. This is a moving, lyrical, and endearing chapter book treasure, celebrating the magic as well as the mystery of Christmas. Charmingly illustrated with ink drawings by Margot Tomes, it is a perfect Christmas read-aloud for young children and parents.

Two women, living in America's heartland, unearth shocking secrets about the men they love and question the lives they chose.

P is on deadline. She should be translating. Instead, she's writing obsessively about her favorite color: chartreuse. A literary translator in Arkansas (of all places), she's married to Mac, a professional feminist too slick for his own good. As the COVID lockdown commences, P discovers a secret about her husband, one that upends her understanding of her life's trajectory. In the widening gulf between who she is and who she thought she might be, she imagines a double, someone very like her, but less lonely, more independent, more angry, more maternal, more fun...

Now we meet another P a novelist. She's married to a successful poet and translator called Mat. It's a second marriage--her first fell apart when she came upon a secret concealed by her then-husband. This P is exhausted and enraged: by racial microaggressions, by structural obstacles, by her husband's dubious responses to her ambitions. Then the pandemic falls and her new novel falters, along with everything else she (and everyone else) had planned. In this new stillness, though, she starts to see her marriage differently. And, unexpectedly, she begins an essay, about her favorite color: chartreuse.

The Charterhouse of Padma is full of delicious surprises, revelations, and sharply observed truths about what is to be brown, a woman, a wife, a mother, and an artist. Exhilarating, electrifying, charged with incisive intellect and humor, this is a novel for anyone who ever wondered how, or if, they ever chose the thing they love.

A short novel that's a treat for animal lovers - an Englishman rescues a mistreated donkey in Pakistan and now both have to travel overland across half the world, home to suburban London. En route, they encounter drug smugglers, carpet salesmen, and hosts of every variety until they finally hitch a lift from Hector, an aristocratic Brit who drives a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, in which the two eccentric Englishmen successfully smuggle the donkey across the English channel. Brian Sewell's short novel has all the characteristics of the best British prose: the wry understatement, the love of travel and adventure, the unremitting affection for animals of all kinds. If you love animals, you'll love joining this journey

A must-read for the craftsperson, artisan and artist. In his beautiful book, Peter Korn invites us to understand craftsmanship as an activity that connects us to others, and affirms what is best in ourselves.--Matthew Crawford, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft

Woodworking, handicrafts --the rewards of creative practice, bringing something new and meaningful into the world through one's own vision, make us fully alive. Peter Korn explains his search for meaning as an Ivy-educated child of the middle class who finds employment as a novice carpenter on Nantucket, transitions to self-employment as a designer/maker of fine furniture, takes a turn at teaching at Colorado's Anderson Ranch Arts Center, and finally founds a school in Maine: the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, an internationally respected, non-profit institution.

How does the making of objects shape our identities? How does creative work enrich our communities and society? What does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn poignantly probes for answers in this book that is for the artist, artisan, crafter, do-it-yourselfer inside us all.

A cantankerously funny view of books and the people who love them. It does take all kinds and through the misanthropic eyes of a very grumpy bookseller, we see them all--from the Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) to the Parents Secretly After Free Childcare.

From behind the counter, Shaun Bythell catalogs the customers who roam his shop in Wigtown, Scotland. There's the Expert (divided into subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman).

Then there's the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), and the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter). Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer--all add up to one of the funniest book about books you'll ever find.

Shaun Bythell (author of Confessions of a Bookseller) and his mordantly unique observational eye make this perfect for anyone who loves books and bookshops.