A masterpiece of women's frontier experience! --KATHY SCHULZ, author of The Underground Railroad in Ohio

This is an amazing
book, and I couldn't stop reading it. --JOAN SILBER, PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Secrets of Happiness and Improvement

An awesome account of female survival at a horrific time. --BOOKLIST

A
most unusual portrait of early America based on a rare family document, in which a young mother's years in captivity with the Shawnee prove to be the best years of her life.

It's 1779 and a young white woman named Margaret Erskine is venturing west from Virginia, on horseback, with her baby daughter and the rest of her family. She has no experience of Indians, and has absorbed most of the prejudices of her time, but she is open-minded, hardy, and mentally strong, a trait common to most of her female descendants--Sallie Bingham's ancestors.

Bingham had heard Margaret's story since she was a child but didn't see the fifteen pages Margaret had dictated to her nephew a generation after her captivity until they turned up in her mother's blue box after her death. Devoid of most details, this restrained account inspired Bingham to research and imagine and fill the gaps in her story and to consider the tough questions it raises. How did Margaret, our narrator, bear witnessing the murder of her infant? How did she survive her near death at the hands of the Shawnee after the murder of the chief? Whose father was her baby John's, born nine months after her taking? And why did her former friends in Union, Virginia, turn against her when, ransomed after four years, she reluctantly returned?

This is the seldom told story of the making of this country in the years of the Revolution, what it cost in lives and suffering, and how one woman among many not only survived extreme hardship, but flourished.

Ravens in Berlin . . . Parakeets in Brooklyn . . . Chickens
in Tel Aviv . . . Spiders in Cognac. City creatures spark the imagination and
intellect in words and art by this father-daughter team.

Odd Birds & Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary) is an
illustrated collection of brief observations on city creatures. Inspired
by the tradition of the medieval bestiary, bestiarum vocabulum, a
12th-century bestselling genre that chronicled animals and beings both
real and fantastical, the book features pithy impressions of birds and animals
that delight, confound, and edify, written by Peter Wortsman, coupled
with detailed naturalist artwork by his daughter, Aurélie
Bernard Wortsman.

Featured creatures include:

• Pigeons: When, finally, it takes flight . . . this
  asphalt-colored bird is like a piece of the pavement which by some fluke of
  gravity broke loose and is foolishly falling upward by mistake.

• Seagulls: Fallen splinters of eternity, they hang
  overhead with the equanimity and mild disdain of angels in a medieval
  altarpiece, and unlike pigeons, refuse any direct contact with man.

• Ants: Micro-managers in three-piece bodies,
  ants parody human antics to a tee. Or is it the other way around?

• Dust mites: Every time you scratch yourself or comb
  your hair, you are feeding the tiny intruders with the detritus of self.

With four-color images throughout, printed in a beautiful hardbound
edition, this one-of-a-kind volume will please the discerning animal lover,
traveler, art lover, iconoclast, and literati on your gift list--and, of course,
also you!

With an introduction by Richard Howard, these elegant short stories describe imaginary nineteenth-century middle European royalty with urbane humor, loving characterizations, and Twilight Zone twists.

In August 1906, Chauncey Canfield committed to his publisher a found text: the diary, ostensibly verified, of one Alfred T. Jackson, a pioneer miner who joined the Gold Rush from his home in Norfolk, Connecticut, migrating to Rock Creek, Nevada County, California, where he cabined and worked. The Diary covers two years of Jackson's life, and provides us with one of the richest documents of a period of perhaps unequaled importance to the expansion of the United States.

PEN Faulkner Award winner; Bennett is a New York Genet. New Statesman

Born to great riches, lord of vast feudal estates and many palaces, Felix Youssoupoff led the life of a Grand Lord in the days before the Russian Revolution. Married to a niece of Czar Nicholas II, he could observe at close range the rampant corruption and intrigues of the imperial court, which culminated in the rise to power of the sinister monk Rasputin. Finally, impelled by patriotism and his love for the Romanoff dynasty, which he felt was in danger of destroying itself and Russia, he killed Rasputin in 1916 with the help of the Grand Duke Dimitri and others. More than any other single event, this deed helped to bring about the cataclysmic upheaval which ended in the advent of the Soviet regime. Here is an unforgettable true story of intrigue, murder, and revenge.

AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NOVEL BASED ON A TRUE STORY

Delaney['s] splendid
fictional biography of Cary Grant . . . perfectly befits the glamour and fakery
of his subject. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Everyone wants to be Cary Grant, mused the world's most famous leading man. Even I want to be Cary Grant.

It's 1959, and the 55-year-old man who calls himself Cary
Grant is at the peak of a charmed career. He's also on a turbulent journey to
find the core of a self he hardly seems to know anymore. Introduced to the wonder
drug LSD as part of his therapy at The Psychiatric Institute of Beverly Hills,
he embarks on upward of one hundred psychedelic trips--at times harrowing journeys.
And on the way, he rediscovers the long-ago boy who faced the world as Archie
Leach, the earnest, gap-toothed stilt walker and tumbler he once was, long ago.

In The Acrobat, fiction writer Edward J. Delaney takes on
the elusive character of Cary Grant. He imagines the inner life of a man who spent
a career brilliantly creating a persona as ethereal as his best roles. As Grant
launches on LSD-fueled trajectories of discovery, The Acrobat likewise transports
readers through his fractured upbringing, his start in English vaudeville, his
life on the Hollywood sets, and his relationships with fellow travelers prominent in his
life: Howard Hughes, Randolph Scott, Blake Edwards, Tony Curtis, two of the five
women he married, and more. Amid the endless versions of himself and the
characters he's played, he yearns to shape himself into something singular, forged from
the layers of illusion he's smilingly foisted on the world, and for which the world
has come to love him. This riveting dramatization of the actor's life takes us
beyond the firm terrain that biographies tread, to offer a new perspective on a
complex Hollywood legend.

The portrait of a friendship expressed through James Schuyler's letters (1954-1958) to Frank OHara.

The only available source for the exact words of Joan of Arc, compiled from the transcript of her trials and rearranged as an autobiography by Willard Trask.

Dedicated to the glory of literature, reading and writing are joined and transformed in exquisite continuity.

Told as much through images as through words, a young Nepalese man's globe-spanning relationship with the father of American surrealism changes the course of his life and gives him a new set of roots.

In 1973, poet, photographer, collage artist, and sculptor
Charles Henri Ford convinced a
young Nepalese waiter at his hotel in Kathmandu to come work as his all-purpose
helper. Nineteen-year-old Indra Tamang, who spoke minimal English, was soon
enjoying an education and a life he could not have imagined. He quickly
graduated from cooking and running errands to attending social engagements with
Charles, to accompanying the artist on his international travels, eventually
becoming his collaborator, and more of a son than an employee.

Charles was a magnet for creative people, and during the '70s,
'80s, and '90s, Indra found himself at the center of seemingly every fantastic
little universe in New York, Paris, Crete, and Kathmandu, often as a quiet
observer taking photographs and making mental notes. There was Studio 54, Andy
Warhol's Factory, the teas that Charles would host at the Dakota, attended by
regulars such as Tennessee Williams, Quentin Crisp, Patti Smith, and Henry
Geldzahler; there were special dinners at the United Nations; visits to Mary
McCarthy and Leonor Fini; and chats in the elevator with neighbors like John
and Yoko and Lauren Bacall. Charles gave Indra a second upbringing, one that
Indra absorbed with tremendous curiosity and enthusiasm. In turn, Indra brought
Charles into his family's village in Nepal, introducing him to a world that not
many Westerners were privileged to see, especially then. Indra managed to shuttle
between these two vastly different worlds, marrying and having children in
Nepal, though not revealing this to Charles for quite some years.

In 2010, Indra Tamang became the object of global
fascination after inheriting two apartments from Charles's sister, the actress
Ruth Ford. The story in the Wall Street Journal described a Nepalese butler
who grew up in a mud hut and ended up owning property in one of New York's
most famous buildings. The attention that followed inspired Indra to write this
richer and more accurate account of his life. Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and ephemera from the private collections of Charles and Indra, some never before shown, and gathered together for the first time,
readers will discover that nothing about Indra's curious years with Charles
and his friends was ordinary or predictable in any
way.

Majestic, playful, brainy, heart-wrenching, Katharine Coles's tenth collection of poems at once celebrates and elegizes: her teachers and parents--both dead at ninety--who still issue advice (some good, some not) from beyond the grave; the creatures who pass through her canyon quarter-acre; the moon as it rises and sets; even her Levi's shrink-to-fits, when she realizes she'll never wear out another pair. The poems guide us with their empathy, sometimes yoked with a wry irony, around the physics of interactions. [John Kinsella] More than anything, this is a book about presence: haunted by the past yet firmly rooted in the also-haunting now, Coles keeps spinning, finding herself in words, in her body, in time.

Four generations of outrageous, of-the-moment characters thrive amidst hardship in their own way, turning the myth of the Old West on its head.

These eighteen short stories reverse commonly held assumptions about the American West. Four generations of a mixed family, Native, Hispanic, and white, live with the problems we've all heard about: alcohol and drug addiction, dependency on a fraying welfare system, poverty, and violence.

Unlikely learning and unlikely sources of wisdom abound in these stories. During those long winter nights when Dad took off for Sheridan--no liquor allowed on the rez but Sheridan is only about twenty miles west, Fat Annie tells the boy known as Sure Enough some truths about women that will guide him for the rest of his life. Running away on horseback from the imposition of ashes at his Jesuit boarding school, eleven-year-old Jimmy James finds this little lady priest in the town park. She makes the cross with ashes on his horse's head, then tells Jimmy James that no matter what he has done or will do, the Lord forgives him. Jimmy James felt the cross burn into him worse than any brand. A bizarre accident in How Daddy Lost His Ear results in an equally bizarre wedding. And one of the many white ladies who appear briefly and disappear fast finally gets Cowboy to tell the truth.

These men, women, and children don't just endure. They thrive in their own peculiar style, turning seemingly tragic outcomes into sources of outrageous humor, and nourishing indelible family ties. This is the West as it was and is, a complex web of traditions and surprising, even shocking, ways of turning hardship into triumph.

No one who has ever read this remarkable novel and looked at human life through Barbusse's peephole can ever forget the experience.-Robert Baldick

It is Barbusse, not Gide, not Proust and not Maurois whose work marks the great turning point in French twentieth-century literature.-Jean Favrille

Hell is the most highly focused study of voyeurism ever written. A young man staying in a Paris boarding house finds a hole in the wall above his bed. Through this he obsessively studies the private moments and secret activities of his neighbors. Marriage, adultery, lesbianism, religion and death are all seen through this small spy hole.

Decades ahead of its time Hell shocked and scandalized the reviewing public when first released in English. Even so, The New Republic praised the beauty of the book's nervous yet fluid rhythms. . . . Every simile is faultlessly keyed. The book sweeps away life's illusions.

A meditative interrogation of nature and the modern world with a collection poetry that fashions a refuge out of itself.

Nantes, city of Breton and Rimbaud, is reconstructed from a memory based on Gracq's childhood lycee.

This suburban California coming of age navigates Trinidad's personal history in the shadow of Hollywood, against the dramas of the 1960s and '70s.

Trinidad's pieces teach us how memory and history are forms of yearning, and about what can and cannot be recovered. --Amy Gerstler

This is the writing of a poet who loves the world into language. --Aaron Smith

Poet David Trinidad's past is rich fodder for a collection of memory pieces that wind the reader through the underbelly of 1960s and '70s America--and Southern California, more specifically. In Trinidad's recollections, the proximity to Hollywood both glamorizes and condemns the bustling suburbs. Stains of the Manson murders and adoration for The Boys in the Band are documented with the same care as fascinations with Barbie dolls and twelve-cent comic books. The struggles of an awkward gay teenager meld into the weighty anecdotes of a young man who befriends famous writers, acts as a historian for familial legacies, and confronts the limitations of desire.

The title piece, Digging to Wonderland, presents a young David Trinidad and his friend Nancy as they tunnel into the ground of her backyard, in search of the next great adventure. Ultimately, we witness a childhood spent under the threat of annihilation: So the 'twinkly lights' in the hills above Chatsworth were actually missiles armed with nuclear warheads. And without knowing it, I grew up under their spell.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.--Anne Frank

The illuminated medieval manuscripts known as Books of Hours have been used to guide contemplation and prayer for centuries, with their intricate designs and exquisite coloring. Devotional poet, priest, and National Book Award nominee Spencer Reece has revived the tradition with a collection of over 50 vibrant watercolors inspired by his life journeys and his reflections on faith. His brushstrokes guide us from the bustling restaurants of Madrid, to the expansive seas of Morocco, to the coastal tranquility of Old Lyme, Connecticut. Each painting faces a quote from an acclaimed writer or spokesperson that has inspired him, among them Emily Dickinson, James Baldwin, Elizabeth Bishop, Katharine Hepburn, and Janis Joplin. The perfect gift for Easter, Mother's Day, or any occasion, All the Beauty Still Left is a delight whose evocative images and memorable accompanying texts are sure to provoke contemplation and reflection for readers of all faiths.

A BOOKLIST EDITORS' CHOICE, 2021

Diane Glancy once again puts Indigenous women at the center of American history in her account of a young Inupiat woman who survived a treacherous arctic expedition alone.

This moving retelling of a heroic woman's journey demonstrates that history lives through an intimate connection between two women beyond time's borders.--Booklist, starred review

In September 1921, a young Inupiat woman named Ada Blackjack traveled to Wrangel Island, 200 miles off the Arctic Coast of Siberia, as a cook and seamstress, along with four professional explorers. The expedition did not go as planned. When a rescue ship finally broke through the ice two years later, she was the only survivor.

Diane Glancy discovered Blackjack's diary in the Dartmouth archives and created a new narrative based on the historical record and her vision of this woman's extraordinary life. She tells the story of a woman facing danger, loss, and unimaginable hardship, yet surviving against the odds where four experts could not. Beyond the expedition, the story examines Blackjack's childhood experiences at an Indian residential school, her struggles as a mother and wife, and the faith that enabled her to survive alone on a remote island in the Arctic Sea.

Glancy's creative telling of this heroic tale is a high mark in her award-winning hybrid investigations of suffering, identity, and Native American history.

A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION OF 2022

A sudden catastrophe in Europe exposes the slow-motion destruction of a generation of Venezuelans and their struggle against repression.

In The Lisbon Syndrome, a disaster annihilates Portugal's capital. In Caracas, Lisbon's sister city and home to many thousands of Portuguese, few details filter through the censored state media.

Fernando runs a theater program for young people in Caracas, teaching and performing classics like Macbeth and Mother Courage. His benefactor, Old Moreira, is a childless Portuguese immigrant who recalls the Lisbon of his youth. Fernando's students suffer from what they begin to call the Lisbon syndrome, an acute awareness that there are no possibilities left for them in a country devastated by a murderous, criminal regime. A series of confrontations between demonstrators and government forces draw the students and their teacher toward danger. One disappears into the state secret prisons where dissidents are tortured. The arts center that was their sanctuary is attacked, and Fernando is pulled into the battle in the streets.

The Lisbon Syndrome is the most trenchant contemporary novel to offer a glimpse of life and death in Venezuela. But Sánchez Rugeles's bleak vision is lightened by his wry humor, and by characters who show us the humanity behind stark headlines.