Here, in this compelling assembly of writings, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard explores the world of natural facts and human meanings.

Miss Jessie's is a memoir and business guide rich with inspirational life lessons and unique business advice from Miko Branch, the Chief Executive Officer of the dynamic Miss Jessie's the company that revolutionized the hair-care industry.When Miko and her sister, Titi, were children, their grandmother Miss Jessie taught them independence and showed them the value of being "do it yourself" women, all while whipping up homemade hair concoctions at her kitchen table. As a co-founder of Miss Jessie's, Miko reveals how she and Titi applied their grandmother's lessons to create a successful business from scratch. Miss Jessie's chronicles the Branch sisters' remarkable story. When they were children, their stern father encouraged them to become self-reliant and not to depend on their looks to get ahead. Taking this message to heart, they blossomed into business owners and leaders in their field, using ingenuity and without borrowing a dime. They soaked up the entrepreneurial and creative culture of the early hip-hop era on the streets of Brooklyn in the late 1990s, and in the high-end salons of Manhattan. They blended these inspirations to establish a business that has gone from their kitchen table to the shelves of major retailers around the globe, revolutionizing the hair-care industry. A charming and enlightening look at the women behind the brand, Miss Jessie's is chock-full of entertaining stories and invaluable instruction that can be applied to any business: an authentic expression that the American Dream is possible.

Thousands of books have examined the effects of parents on their children. But almost none have thought to ask: What are the effects of children on their parentsIn All Joy and No Fun, award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior tries to tackle this question, isolating and analyzing the many ways in which children reshape their parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits, their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of sources in history, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, and anthropology she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the homes of ordinary parents around the country. The result is an unforgettable series of family portraits, starting with parents of young children and progressing to parents of teens. Through lively and accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations and luxuriate in some of its fi nest rewards.Meticulously researched yet imbued with emotional intelligence, All Joy and No Fun makes us reconsider some of our culture's most basic beliefs about parenthood, all while illuminating the profound ways children deepen and add purpose to our lives. By focusing on parenthood, rather than parenting, the book is original and essential reading for mothers and fathers of today and tomorrow.

What started as an underground party business—run and dominated by youths and hustlers—grew into the music business's greatest and biggest success. The Underground Is Massive is the first-ever big-picture history of the American electronic dance music underground, viewed through the lens of nineteen parties over thirty years—from the black, gay underground clubs of Chicago and Detroit's elite teen-party scene through nineties "electronica" to today's EDM-festival juggernaut, the book takes in the rise of the Internet and Burning Man, 9/11, and the collapse of the record business—and vividly charts why and how it took nearly three decades after electronic dance music became a global youth soundtrack for it to hit big in the land that birthed it. Through unparalleled insider access to anecdotes, interviews, and history, Michaelangelo Matos demystifies how what once belonged to a devoted audience of casual partiers and diehard dancers has become America's soundtrack of choice and changed the music industry completely. Matos expertly tackles the vast diversity of EDM's musical landscape, its technologically prophetic yet illicit origins, and the path by which underground raves grew into fiercely successful music festivals. Taking in legendary artists from Frankie Knuckles to Moby as well as the biggest names in EDM—Diplo, Skrillex, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Ti?sto, and Daft Punk—Matos's deep mix of sources and wide-lens overview of the culture make every chapter a page-turning revelation.

Conceived in love and possibility, Bonaventure Arrow didn't make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. No one knows that Bonaventure silence is filled with resonance a miraculous gift of rarified hearing that encompasses the Universe of Every Single Sound. Growing up in the big house on Christopher Street in Bayou Cymbaline, Bonaventure can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He can also hear the gentle voice of his father, William Arrow, shot dead before Bonaventure was born by a mysterious stranger known only as the Wanderer. Bonaventure remarkable gift of listening promises salvation to the souls who love him: his beautiful young mother, Dancy, haunted by the death of her husband; his Grand-mère Letice, plagued by grief and a long-buried guilt she locks away in a chapel; and his father, William, whose roaming spirit must fix the wreckage of the past. With the help of Trinidad Prefontaine, a Creole housekeeper endowed with her own special gifts, Bonaventure will find the key to long-buried mysteries and soothe a chorus of family secrets clamoring to be healed.

Dorothea Benton Frank is a native of the South whose novels vividly capture the wild beauty, laid-back atmosphere, earthy characters, and charming eccentricities of life in South Carolina's Lowcountry. Written with compelling honesty and emotional depth, her stories have touched readers from coast to coast, and propelled her to the top ranks of bestsellerdom nationwide. Now this remarkable writer revisits some of her most unforgettable characters in this enchanting new story sure to make you laugh and cry. Return with her to Tall Pines Plantation in this long-awaited sequel to her beloved bestseller Plantation. . . . When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family. The Queen of Tall Pines, her late mother, was a force of nature, but now she is gone, leaving Caroline and the rest of the family uncertain of who will take her place. In the lush South Carolina countryside, old hurts, betrayals, and dark secrets will surface, and a new generation will rise along the banks of the mighty Edisto River.Wonderfully evocative, infused with humor and poignancy, and rich with the lyrical cadences of the South, Lowcountry Summer is vintage Dorothea Benton Frank, a deeply moving novel you'll want to savor and share.

LOUISE PENNY calls Peter Robinson's new novel In the Dark Places a "thrilling, brilliantly plotted, beautifully paced" read. Available August 11, 2015—preorder your copy today!Acclaimed internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson delivers a fast-paced, nail-biting thriller in which Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks must face his most challenging and personal case yetA distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she's found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin—a punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house to retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control.But trouble is only beginning for Annie, the Eastvale force, and Banks, and this time, the fallout may finally do the iconoclastic inspector in. For it turns out that Erin's best friend and roommate is none other than Tracy Banks, the DCI's daughter, who was last seen racing off to warn the owner of the gun, a very bad boy indeed.Thrust into a complicated and dangerous case intertwining the personal and the professional as never before, Annie and Banks—a bit of a bad boy himself—must risk everything to outsmart a smooth and devious psychopath. Both Annie and Banks understand that it's not just his career hanging in the balance, it's also his daughter's life.

From the author of the number one Canadian bestseller The Birth House comes the story of a young girl abandoned to the streets of post-Civil War New York City. "I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart."Set on the streets of Lower Manhattan in 1871, The Virgin Cure is the story of Moth, a girl abandoned by her father and raised by a mother telling fortunes to the city's desperate women. One summer night, twelve-year-old Moth is pulled from her bed and sold as a servant to a finely dressed woman. It is this betrayal suffered at the hands of her own mother that changes her life forever.Knowing that her mother is so close while she is locked away in servitude, Moth bides her time until she can escape, only to find her old home deserted and her mother gone without a trace. Moth must struggle to survive alone in the murky world of the Bowery, a wild and lawless enclave filled with thieves, beggars, sideshow freaks, and prostitutes. She eventually meets Miss Everett, the proprietress of an "Infant School," a brothel that caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for "willing and clean" companions—desirable young virgins like Moth.Moth also finds friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician struggling against the powerful forces of injustice, who teaches Moth to question and observe the world around her. The doctor hopes to protect Moth from falling prey to a terrible myth known as the "virgin cure"—the tragic belief that deflowering a "fresh maid" can cleanse the blood and heal men afflicted with syphilis—that has destroyed the lives of other Bowery girls.Ignored by society, unprotected by the law, Moth dreams of independence. But there's a high price to pay for freedom, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

What do you imagine when you hear the name . . . Bradbury?You might see rockets to Mars. Or bizarre circuses where otherworldly acts whirl in the center ring. Perhaps you travel to a dystopian future, where books are set ablaze . . . or to an out-of-the-way sideshow, where animated illustrations crawl across human skin. Or maybe, suddenly, you're returned to a simpler time in small-town America, where summer perfumes the air and life is almost perfect . . . almost.Ray Bradbury—peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors—is a literary giant whose remarkable career has spanned seven decades. Now twenty-six of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.

This e-book edition of the New York Times bestselling novel The Hurricane Sisters includes an excerpt from Frank's new novel, All the Single Ladies.Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people's lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.So where is Clayton, Liz's husbandHe seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretionAnd Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. Who's in charge of this familyThe wake-up call is about to arrive.The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

She wanted to be more daring, but one small risk is about to cost her everything?—maybe even her life.Bold and adventurous in her work as owner of one of Manhattan's boutique interior design firms, Kit Finn couldn't be tamer in her personal life. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, Kit resolves to do something risky for once. When she literally bumps into a charming stranger at her hotel, she decides to make good on her promise and act on her attraction.But back in New York, when Kit arrives at his luxury apartment ready to pick up where they left off in the Keys, she doesn't recognize the man standing on the other side of the door.Was this a cruel joke or part of something truly sinisterKit soon realizes that she's been thrown into a treacherous plot, which is both deeper and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. Now the only way to protect herself, her business, and the people she loves is to find out the true identity of the man who has turned her life upside down.Adrenaline-charged and filled with harrowing twists at every turn, The Wrong Man will keep readers riveted until the final page.

Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Wednesday Sisters, returns with a transportive World War II novel—inspired by real frontline stories—about journalists who, together, race the Allies to occupied Paris for the scoop of their lives.Opening in Normandy on June 29, 1944, The Race for Paris follows two American female war correspondents on their quest to document (and make) history by covering the Allied liberation of Paris. Jane is a young, single journalist for the Nashville Banner. When she's assigned to cover a field hospital, she meets Olivia, "Liv," an Associated Press photographer. However, unlike their male colleagues, Liv and Jane are constantly confronted by red tape and derision because the military believes women cannot handle the rigors of combat journalism. Jane is resigned to making the most of her assignment, but Liv is determined to get to Paris. After failing to win over her commanding officer, she goes AWOL—and seizing her chance to make a name for herself, Jane joins her. Reluctantly accompanied by Fletcher, a male British military reporter, the two women chase their story through the gunfire, carnage, and death scarring the French countryside. Their journey is further complicated by emotional bonds, romantic tensions, and one woman's secret—a secret with the power to end her career and, perhaps, her life.Inspired by pioneering World War II journalists such as Margaret Bourke-White and Martha Gellhorn—who paved the way for Christiane Amanpour, Marie Colvin, and Lynsey Addario—The Race for Paris combines riveting storytelling with deft literary craftsmanship and extensive research in a passionate narrative of women driven to transcend the limitations of their time.

In the days that followed Karen's decision to postpone the abortion, she became increasingly aware of the unique position pregnancy afforded her. . . .For the first time in her life, she began to feel that she could do something that changed the way people thought. . . .It might be the best idea she would ever have.Karen Halloway is a philosophy graduate student, searching for a dissertation topic strong enough to change the world. When she accidentally gets pregnant, she has the epiphany she's been looking for—a way to transform the situation into an object lesson for mankind.A surprising story of freedom, choice, and desperate measures, Strange Animals is a fiendishly suspenseful and eye-opening novel from one of our most provocative writers.

A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories that illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, and the veneer of civilization over our darkest urges.Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In "Girl on Girl," a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can't have in "Meteorologist Dave Santana." And in the title story, a long-fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. Below the quotidian surface of Diane Cook's worlds lurks an unexpected surreality that reveals our most curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior. Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of "not-needed" boys takes refuge in a murky forest where they compete against one another for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched from their suburban yards by a man who stalks them. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulsesWhy are people drawn together in such messy, needful waysWhen the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselvesAs entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.

A gifted writer makes her fiction debut with this lyrical and haunting story of missed chances and enduring love, set against the backdrop of high society Charleston, which asks the eternal question: can we ever truly go home again?When Eliza Poinsett left the elegant world of Charleston for college, she never expected it would take her ten years to return. Now she is an art historian in London with a charming Etonian boyfriend who adores her. But the past catches up with her when she runs into Henry, a former boyfriend from Charleston, at a wedding in the English countryside.Already unnerved by the earlier encounter, Eliza's carefully guarded equilibrium is shattered when she meets Henry again in Charleston, where she's come for her stepsister's debut, a decade after she first left. Set against a backdrop of stately homes, the seductive Lowcountry landscape, and the entangled lives of families who trace their ancestors back for generations, 2 hinges on Eliza's difficult choice: must she risk everything for which she has worked so hard to be with the only man she has ever truly loved?2 is an evocative, melancholy novel about one woman's love—for both a man and an unforgettable city. Emotionally resonant, beguiling in its atmosphere, it illuminates the elusive notion of home, and explores whether we can ever truly go back to the place—and the people—that indelibly shaped us.

He died in the darkness, and they find his body at sunrise. He lies on Venice’s most popular beach, his throat slit and his tongue cut out.Italian police captain Kat Tapo suspects a ritual murder. Evidence points to the shadowy brotherhood of the Freemasons, but its members won’t cooperate with a policewoman. If Kat wants to solve this case, she’ll need to use all the allies she has: friends, lovers, hackers, spies.Working alongside her American colleague, US Army lieutenant Holly Boland, Kat soon realizes that she needs to look beyond the crowded streets of Venice for answers. From the United States to North Africa to the virtual world of Carnivia, created by notorious hacker Daniele Barbo, Kat is in a deadly race against time to unlock the secrets of Italy’s past—before Venice itself starts to burn. . . .?

Arjie is "funny."The second son of a privileged family in Sri Lanka, he prefers staging make-believe wedding pageants with his female cousins to batting balls with the other boys. When his parents discover his innocent pastime, Arjie is forced to abandon his idyllic childhood games and adopt the rigid rules of an adult world. Bewildered by his incipient sexual awakening, mortified by the bloody Tamil-Sinhalese conflicts that threaten to tear apart his homeland, Arjie painfully grows toward manhood and an understanding of his own "different" identity.Refreshing, raw, and poignant, Funny Boy is an exquisitely written, compassionate tale of a boy's coming-of-age that quietly confounds expectations of love, family, and country as it delivers the powerful message of staying true to one's self no matter the obstacles.

An acclaimed surgeon specializing in weight loss delivers a paradigm-shifting examination of the diet and health industry’s focus on protein, explaining why it is detrimental to our health, and can prevent us from losing weight.Whether you are seeing a doctor, nutritionist, or a trainer, all of them advise to eat more protein. Foods, drinks, and supplements are loaded with extra protein. Many people use protein for weight control, to gain or lose pounds, while others believe it gives them more energy and is essential for a longer, healthier life. Now, Dr. Garth Davis, an expert in weight loss asks, “Is all this protein making us healthier?”The answer, he emphatically argues, is NO. Too much protein is actually making us sick, fat, and tired, according to Dr. Davis. If you are getting adequate calories in your diet, there is no such thing as protein deficiency. The healthiest countries in the world eat far less protein than we do and yet we have an entire nation on a protein binge getting sicker by the day.As a surgeon treating obese patients, Dr. Davis was frustrated by the ever-increasing number of sick and overweight patients, but it wasn't until his own health scare that he realized he could do something about it. Combining cutting-edge research, with his hands-on patient experience and his years dedicated to analyzing studies of the world’s longest-lived populations, this explosive, groundbreaking book reveals the truth about the dangers of protein and shares a proven approach to weight loss, health, and longevity.

A highly entertaining collection of never-before-seen stories and several previously published pieces from the bestselling master of crime fiction Elmore LeonardOver his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackles with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for popular fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre.Marked by his unmistakable humor and grit, the stories in this collection—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition. In these tales Leonard explores new voices and locations, from the bars of small border towns in New Mexico to the seedy clubs of Detroit, from a film set in Hollywood where a struggling actor collapses in a valiant death again and again to a hotel in Southern Spain where oblivious, vacationing American couples drink the night away, and even to a military base in Kuala Lumpur and a small town in Mississippi during the Civil War. The stories also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz, who must face an old rival who returns seeking revenge, and weary former matador Eladio Montoya, who spends exhausting days working as a migrant farmer.Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal a developing artist on the cusp of greatness.

Susan Choi's first novel, The Foreign Student, was published to remarkable critical acclaim. The New Yorker called it "an auspicious debut," and the Los Angeles Times touted it as "a novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness," naming it one of the ten best books of the year. American Woman, this gifted writer's second book, is a novel of even greater scope and dramatic complexity, about a young Japanese-American radical caught in the militant underground of the mid-1970s.When 25-year-old Jenny Shimada steps out of the Rhinecliff train station in New York's Hudson Valley, the last person she expects to see is Rob Frazer, a shadowy figure from her previous life. On the lam for an act of violence against the American government, Jenny agrees to take on the job of caring for three younger fugitives whom Frazer has spirited out of California. One of them, the granddaughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in San Francisco, has become a national celebrity. Kidnapped by a homegrown revolutionary group, Pauline shocked America when she embraced her captors' ideology, denouncing family and class to enlist in their radical cell.American Woman unfolds the story of Jenny and her charges -- Pauline, Juan, and Yvonne, the remains of the busted revolutionary cadre -- as they pursue their destinies from an old farmhouse in upstate New York back to California. Provocative, suspenseful, and often wickedly comic, the novel explores the psychology of the young radicals -- outsiders all -- as isolation and paranoia inevitably undermine their ideals. American Woman is a tour de force with chilling resonance for readers today.

A house as old as Fiercombe Manor holds many secrets within its walls. But which dark chapter of its history is haunting Alice, a young woman staying there during the course of a fateful summer?In 1933, naive twenty-two-year-old Alice is pregnant, unmarried, and disgraced. She can no longer share her parents' London home, so her desperate mother concocts a cover story and begs her old friend, Mrs. Jelphs, for help. The housekeeper at rural Fiercombe Manor, Mrs. Jelphs is moved by Alice's "plight" as a new widow and agrees to watch over her in the secluded English countryside until the baby is born and given up for adoption. Because the manor house's owners, Lord and Lady Stanton, no longer live there, Alice's only company will be Mrs. Jelphs and her skeleton staff.Thirty years before Alice's arrival, Lady Elizabeth Stanton awaits the birth of her second child, fervently hoping he will be the boy her husband desires. But as her time nears, she is increasingly tormented by memories of what happened with her first baby and terrified that history will repeat itself . . . with devastating consequences.At first, Fiercombe Manor offers Alice a welcome relief from her mother's disapproving gaze. But she begins to sense that all is not well in the picturesque Gloucestershire valley. After a chance encounter with Tom, the young scion of the Stanton family, Alice discovers that Fiercombe's beauty is haunted by the clan's tragic past. She is determined to exorcise the ghosts of the idyllic, isolated house.Nothing can prepare Alice for what she uncovers. Can she escape the tragic fate of the other women who have lived in the Fiercombe valley?