With the profound maturity and exquisite eye for detail that never failed to capture readers of her prize-winning novels, Carol Shields dazzles with these remarkable stories. Generous, delightful, and acutely observed, this essential collection illuminates the miracles that grace our lives; it will continue to enchant for years to come.

Ponder, if you willWhat happens to your Social Security number when you dieWhy are peanuts listed as an ingredient in plain M&MsWhy is Barbie's hair made out of nylon, but Ken's hair is plasticWhat makes up the ever-mysterious "new-car smell"Pop-culture guru David Feldman demystifies these topics and so much more in Do Penguins Have Knees-- the unchallenged source of answers to civilization's most perplexing questions.Part of the Imponderables series, Do Penguins Have Kneesarms readers with the knowledge about everyday life that encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs just don't have. And think about it, where else are you going to get to the bottom of how beer was kept cold in the Old West?

Tom Piazza's award-winning portrait of a city in crisis, with a new preface from the author, ten years after.Ten years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the disaster that followed, promises were made, forgotten, and renewed. What would become of New Orleans in the years aheadHow would this city and its people recover and what meaning would its story have, for America and the world?In Why New Orleans Matters, first published only months after the disaster, award-winning author and longtime New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and still-evolving future of this great and vital American metropolis. Piazza evokes the sensuous textures of the city that gave us jazz music, Creole cooking, and a unique style of living; he examines the city's undercurrents of corruption and racism, and explains how its people endure and transcend them. And, perhaps most important, he bears witness to the city's spirit: its grace and beauty, resilience and soul.In the preface to this new edition, Piazza considers how far the city has come in the decade since Katrina, as well as the challenges it still faces and reminds us that people in threatened communities across America have much to learn from New Orleans' disaster and astonishing recovery.

"Time equals progression progression equals death."The equation is logical. But few of us think of each moment and each physical movement as comprising a path to our certain end. Surely such torture would drive us mad. But for Ed Zine, who suffers from a debilitating form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), this statement is a mantra that holds him prisoner figuratively and literally. Ed's OCD tells him, illogically, that if going forward in time moves him closer to death, reversing the action will carry him away from it, and if he can hold back the progression of time he will not age. If he doesn't age, the people he loves will never die. This obsession, triggered by the horrific experience of having secretly witnessed his mother's death at the age of eleven, keeps him trapped in a nightmare of perpetual rewinding rituals. Walking from his bed to the bathroom takes seven to ten hours and 16,384 precise, but necessary, movements forward and backward, with each step and turn having potentially dire, even fatal, consequences or so his OCD convinces him. The tens of thousands of exacting rituals stop him from showering altogether for two years, as he lives isolated in the chaos of a basement littered with refuse and human waste. But the filth in which Ed lives and the placement of the things he hoards from a tiny ball of lint to an unopened bar of soap to an unwashed pair of sweatpants all represent important placeholders of time in the grand scheme of irrationally keeping his loved ones alive and well.It would be a full year from their first meeting before Ed would come to fully trust world-renowned OCD specialist, Harvard professor, and decorated Vietnam War hero Michael Jenike enough to allow him to enter the dark prison created by his isolating obsession. Breaking the rules of traditional medicine, Michael, who was carrying emotional scars from his own traumatic past, from the loss of too many young men Ed's age with whom he served in the war, would travel many long hours from Boston to Ed's home, and spend countless hours treating him. Finally, with all treatments exhausted, and all hope lost, the unconditional friendship between Ed and Michael remains. The bond of honor that intertwines their lives enables Ed to use his amazing mind to break down OCD and heal himself as a way to reward Dr. Jenike for his compassion.

What if history had a sound trackWhat would it tell us about ourselvesBased on a thirty-part BBC Radio series and podcast, Noise explores the human dramas that have revolved around sound at various points in the last 100,000 years, allowing us to think in fresh ways about the meaning of our collective past.Though we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives have always been hugely influenced by our need to hear and be heard. To tell the story of sound music and speech, but also echoes, chanting, drumbeats, bells, thunder, gunfire, the noise of crowds, the rumbles of the human body, laughter, silence, conversations, mechanical sounds, noisy neighbors, musical recordings, and radio is to explain how we learned to overcome our fears about the natural world, perhaps even to control it; how we learned to communicate with, understand, and live alongside our fellow beings; how we've fought with one another for dominance; how we've sought to find privacy in an increasingly noisy world; and how we've struggled with our emotions and our sanity.Oratory in ancient Rome was important not just for the words spoken but for the sounds made the tone, the cadence, the pitch of the voice how that voice might have been transformed by the environment in which it was heard and how the audience might have responded to it. For the Native American tribes first encountering the European colonists, to lose one's voice was to lose oneself. In order to dominate the Native Americans, European colonists went to great effort to silence them, to replace their "demonic" "roars" with the more familiar "bugles, speaking trumpets, and gongs."Breaking up the history of sound into prehistoric noise, the age of oratory, the sounds of religion, the sounds of power and revolt, the rise of machines, and what he calls our "amplified age," Hendy teases out continuities and breaches in our long relationship with sound in order to bring new meaning to the human story.

A poignant memoir of three generations of women and the white dresses that adorned them As a successful journalist at Good Morning America, Mary Pflum Peterson's persona is at odds with her complicated childhood, where she watched her brilliant yet emotionally vulnerable mother, Anne, unravel before her eyes. But their love of white dresses always united them—from their baptism dresses to their wedding gowns, white dresses embodied hope and new beginnings. After her mother's sudden death, Mary dug deep to understand the events that led to Anne's breakdown. At twenty-one, Anne entered a convent, but lengthy periods of enforced fasting, isolation, and constant humiliation drove her to flee almost a decade later. Hoping to find new purpose as a wife and mother, she married, and was devastated when Mary's father revealed himself to be gay. Anne retreated into chaos. By the time Mary was ten, their house was cluttered with broken appliances, stacks of mail, and teetering piles of assorted "treasures." But in spite of everything, their bond endured. Through the white dresses, pivotal events in their lives were celebrated, marking the journey through loss and redemption as Mary tried to save Anne from herself.

When Edward VI died in 1553, the extraordinary fact was that there was no one left to claim the title of king of England. For the first time, England would have a reigning queen but the question was which one: Katherine of Aragon's daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth; or one of their cousins, Lady Jane Grey or Mary, Queen of Scots. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward's death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror, came tantalizingly close to securing the crown for herself. And between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries three more exceptional women Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou discovered how much was possible if pre-sumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly and just how quickly they might be vilified as "she-wolves" for their pains.The stories of these women, told here in all their vivid detail, expose the paradox that female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman, and the king was the head of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?

In 1900, while excavating on Crete, the charismatic Victorian archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed inscribed clay tablets amid the ruins of a lavish Bronze Age palace. Written by palace scribes circa 1450 b.c., the * they displayed featuring outline drawings of swords, chariots, and horses' heads, as well as other tiny pictograms resembled no alphabet ever seen. Evans named the * Linear B, and from the start it posed a deep mystery. No one knew what language Linear B recorded, much less what the curious in*ions meant. If the tablets could be deciphered, they would open a portal onto a refined, wealthy, and literate society that had flourished in Greek lands three thousand years earlier, a full millennium before the glories of the Classical Age.The Riddle of the Labyrinth is the true story of the quest to solve one of the most mesmerizing riddles in history Linear B and of the three brilliant, obsessed, and ultimately doomed investigators whose combined work would eventually crack the code. There was Evans, who had discovered the * but could never unravel it; Alice Kober, the fiery American scholar whose vital work on Linear B never got the recognition it deserved; and Michael Ventris, the haunted English architect who would solve the riddle triumphantly at the age of thirty only to die four years later under circumstances that remain the subject of speculation even now.For half a century some of the world's foremost scholars tried to coax the tablets to yield their secrets. Then, in 1952, the * was deciphered seemingly in a single stroke not by a scholar but by Ventris, an impassioned amateur whose obsession with the tablets had begun in childhood. The decipherment brought him worldwide acclaim. But it also cost him his architectural career, his ties to his family, and quite possibly his life.That is the narrative of the decipherment as it has been known thus far. But a major actor in the drama has long been missing: Alice Kober, a classicist at Brooklyn College. Though largely forgotten today, she came within a hair's breadth of deciphering Linear B before her own untimely death in 1950. As The Riddle of the Labyrinth reveals, it was Kober who built the foundation on which Ventris's decipherment stood, an achievement that until now has been all but lost to history. Drawing on a newly opened archive of Kober's papers, Margalit Fox restores this unsung heroine to her rightful place at last.Above all, this book is a detective story in the tradition of Dava Sobel and Simon Winchester. As Fox narrates the lives of Evans, Kober, and Ventris, she takes readers step-by-step through the forensic process involved in cracking a secret code from the past. Following the three investigators as they hunt down, analyze, and interpret a series of linguistic clues hidden within the * itself, The Riddle of the Labyrinth offers the first complete account of one of the most fascinating conundrums of all time.

Ja RuleInternational Platinum Recording StarJa Rule has sold 30 million records worldwide. His unwavering talent has relentlessly captured our attention with his addictive beats, clever lyrics and his undeniable presence. Ja Rule has been performing for over a decade to audiences that can't get enough of his distinctively raw sound. His triumphs have brought him undreamed-of success and celebrity; his tribulations have visited upon him notoriety and unforgiving media attention. But who is Ja Rule?Multiple-Award-Winning ArtistUnruly reveals the real man behind the persona that dominates the stage and emerges from his music. In this emotive page-turner, we get to know who lives behind the performer. Ja Rule, honestly and unapologetically, delves into the pain of being a fatherless child, raised by a single mother, and eventually growing to fulfill his dreams of becoming an iconic figure in hip-hop and beyond. He shares his humble and bold reflections, which are meant to be proof for young people everywhere that if you can see it, you can be it. And he speaks with brutal candor of his own staggering mistakes, including gun possession, senseless violence, drug dealing, petty theft, substances and alcohol, and, ultimately, landing behind bars. Hip-Hop ImpresarioUnruly is riveting and humorous as Ja Rule shares stories close to his heart: losing his virginity in a stairwell landing, falling head over heels in love with his junior high school sweetheart and going on to make her his wife and the mother of his children and refreshing and surprising, with rich stories ranging from renting $30,000-a-month mansions, to scrubbing his own prison cell, to traveling the world, becoming enriched by foreign cultures and sounds. Husband, Father, SonThis intimate book is a collection of powerful memories and lessons, reflecting a certain vulnerability that can only be interpreted as inner strength. Here we see Ja Rule for the sensitive, loving person that he has become. Unruly shows that the souls of young urban men are often unseen. Here is a truly revolutionary effort from a gifted, passionate artist.

From a dusty diamond in Brooklyn to the hallowed grounds of Yankee Stadium, Willie Randolph has always loved the game of baseball, and over the course of his storied career, he has amassed a remarkable list of accomplishments All-Star second baseman, World Series champion, manager but, above all, he has been a Yankee. For almost thirty years, Randolph was a part of Yankee lore and mythology, whether playing with the legends Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson and witnessing the infamous Bronx Zoo at its rowdiest, or coaching as the Core Four of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Jorge Posada rose to fame and ushered in a new era of Yankee dominance.In his long-awaited memoir, Willie Randolph shares stories from his life in pinstripes, opening up about the team that raised him and the city that molded him. With unparalleled perspective into three generations of team history, the former Yankee captain offers fresh, firsthand insight into some of the greatest players to ever play the game and the greatest teams ever to call the Bronx their home. From Don Mattingly to Bernie Williams, Goose Gossage to Mariano Rivera, and Billy Martin to Joe Torre, Randolph presents a view of baseball history from the inside, describing how teams became dynasties and managers became legends all in the shadow of the man who brought them together, the Boss, George Steinbrenner.But though Randolph is a Yankee through and through, he is first and foremost a quintessential New Yorker. Brooklyn raised and groomed, he shares memories of a rise that could only happen in the Big Apple from the projects of East New York to the house that Ruth built. Along the way, he discusses his triumphs and struggles on and off the field, as well as his time spent as manager of the Mets.As fascinating and thoughtful as Randolph himself, The Yankee Way is a moving portrait of a legendary team, a unique city, and a remarkable man.

Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get BraziliansWhy do bras hurtWhy the incessant talk about babiesAnd do men secretly hate them?Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from the riot of adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother. With rapier wit, Moran slices right to the truth whether it's about the workplace, strip clubs, love, fat, abortion, popular entertainment, or children to jump-start a new conversation about feminism. With humor, insight, and verve, How To Be a Woman lays bare the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues not only for women today but also for society itself.

Identifies the major ideas that college and university students will encounter in a basic psychology course and explores connections with Christian belief.

From the voice of a generation: The most highly anticipated autobiography of the year, and the story of a man who... is a Londoner and a Mod.... wanted The Who to be called The Hair.... loved The Everly Brothers, but not that "drawling dope" Elvis.... wanted to be a sculptor, a journalist, a dancer and a graphic designer.... became a musician, composer, librettist, fiction writer, literary editor, sailor.... smashed his first guitar onstage, in 1964, by accident.... heard the voice of God on a vibrating bed in rural Illinois.... invented the Marshall stack, feedback and the concept album.... once speared Abbie Hoffman in the neck with the head of his guitar.... inspired Jimi Hendrix's pyrotechnical stagecraft.... is partially deaf in his left ear.... stole his windmill guitar playing from Keith Richards.... followed Keith Moon off a hotel balcony into a pool and nearly died.... did too much cocaine and nearly died.... drank too much and nearly died.... detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died.... helped rescue Eric Clapton from heroin.... is banned for life from Holiday Inns.... was embroiled in a tabloid scandal that has dogged him ever since.... has some explaining to do.... is the most literary and literate musician of the last 50 years.... planned to write his memoir when he was 21.... published this book at 67.

From New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned doctor and geneticist Francis Collins, a book that will forever change how you think about your body, your health, and the future of medicine.A scientific and medical revolution has crept up on us, based on study after study, from hundreds of laboratories around the world. It is no longer just a theoretical shift: every one of us will be touched by it, and many of us already have been. The meaning of disease, our understanding of the human body, and crucial decisions about what we all need to know and what choices we make about our health are at stake. Welcome to the new world of personalized medicine.Twenty-one million Americans are affected by 6,000 so-called rare and orphan diseases, many of which are primarily attributable to misspelled genes. And virtually all diseases have a significant hereditary component. There have been many stories in the media about women who are testing to see if they have a mutation that leads to breast cancer, or family members who are strongly at risk for heart disease or Huntington's disease. Yet the revolution is much more fundamental than this: diabetes, heart disease, the common cancers, mental illness, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, and more all of these diseases are having their secrets unlocked. Now, with a simple home test, costing a few hundred dollars, you can learn the secrets of your own DNA.Francis Collins has been at the forefront of this revolution. He was, for fifteen years, the head of the international Human Genome Project, and he now serves as the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He knows, better than anyone, how widespread are the misperceptions about human genetics. Just in the past decade, most of what you think you know about DNA has been overturned. Much of the advice given routinely by health care providers is ill informed, so you need to educate yourself about this rapidly moving area of medicine. You are guaranteed to face some surprises, and some difficult choices about personal knowledge, treatment, and family risk.Yet this book is overwhelmingly hopeful and inspiring, offering helpful advice in every chapter. Nearly every day, diseases that were barely understood, or completely misunderstood, are being redefined. Families that faced common problems, without hope, are now discovering a new world of understanding, treatment, and prevention. You owe it to yourself to learn about your DNA: how it works, what it reveals, and the benefits and limits of this new knowledge.

A noted author and Jungian analyst teaches how to use dreams and inner exercises to achieve personal wholeness and a more satisfying life.

151 combat missions 21 hard kills on surface-to-air-missile sites 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor 1 Purple HeartSure to rank as one of the greatest aviation memoirs ever written, Viper Pilot is an Air Force legend's thrilling eyewitness account of modern air warfareFrom 1986 to 2006, Lt. Col. Dan Hampton was a leading member of the Wild Weasels, the elite Air Force fighter squadrons whose mission is recognized as the most dangerous job in modern air combat. Weasels are the first planes sent into a war zone, flying deep behind enemy lines purposely seeking to draw fire from surface-to-air missiles and artillery. They must skillfully evade being shot down and then return to destroy the threats, thereby making the skies safe for everyone else to follow. Today these vital missions are more hazardous than direct air-to-air engagement with enemy aircraft. Hampton's record number of strikes on high-value targets make him the most lethal F-16 Wild Weasel pilot in American history. This is his remarkable story.Taught to fly at an early age by his father, Hampton logged twenty years and 608 combat hours in the world's most iconic fighter jet: the F-16 "Fighting Falcon," or "Viper" as its pilots call it. Hampton spearheaded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, leading the first flight of fighters over the border en route to strike Baghdad. In the war that followed, he engaged in a series of brilliantly executed missions that earned him three Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor; he notably saved a U.S. Marine unit from certain death by taking out the surrounding enemy forces near Nasiriyah. Two years earlier, on 9/11, Hampton's father was inside the Pentagon when it was attacked; with his dad's fate unknown, Hampton was scrambled into American skies and given the unprecedented orders to shoot down any unidentified aircraft. Hampton also flew critical missions in the first Gulf War, served on the Air Combat Command staff during the Kosovo War, and was injured in the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack.With manned missions rapidly giving way to remote-controlled UAV drones, Viper Pilot may be the last memoir by a true hero of the skies. Gripping and irreverently humorous, it is an unforgettable look into the closed world of fighter pilots and modern air combat.

Ina book destined to become a classic, biologist and acclaimed nature writer Bernd Heinrich takes readers on an eye-opening journey through the hidden life of a forest.

On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office–leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.But Nella's life changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist–an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways...Johannes's gift helps Nella pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand–and fear–the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation...or the architect of their destruction?Enchanting, beautifully written, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

This brilliantly imagined debut tells the story of Flora 717, a devout young worker bee who finds herself in possession of a deadly secretFlora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen. A feat of bravery grants her access to the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all—daring to challenge the Queen's preeminence—enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the hive's strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by a greater power: a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, and her society—and lead her to perform unthinkable deeds.Thrilling, suspenseful, and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees and its dazzling young heroine will forever change the way you look at the world outside your window.

Sharp and moving reflections and ruminations on the artistry and craft of writing from one of our most iconoclastic, pivoting, and celebrated masters.Charles Bukowski's stories, poems, and novels have left an enduring mark on our culture. In this collection of previously unpublished material—letters to publishers, editors, friends, and fellow writers—Bukowski shares his insights on the art of creation.On Writing reveals an artist brutally frank about the drudgery of work and canny and uncompromising about the absurdities of life—and of art. It illuminates the hard-edged, complex humanity of a true American legend and countercultural icon—the "laureate of American lowlife" (Time)—who stoically recorded society's downtrodden and depraved. It exposes an artist grounded in the visceral, whose work reverberates with his central ideal: "Don't try."Piercing, poignant, and often hilarious, On Writing is filled not only with memorable lines but also with Bukowski's trademark toughness, leavened with moments of grace, pathos, and intimacy.

Before he died, Melissa's father told her about stars. He told her that the brightest stars weren't always the most beautiful—that if people took the time to look at the smaller stars, if they looked with a telescope at the true essence of the star, they would find real beauty. But even though Melissa knows that beauty isn't only skin deep, the people around her don't seem to feel that way. There's her gorgeous sister, Ashley, who will barely acknowledge Melissa at school; there's her best friend, Ryan, who may be falling in love with the sophisticated Courtney; and there's Melissa's mother, who's dating someone new, someone Melissa knows will never be able to replace her father. To make sure she doesn't lose her father completely, Melissa spends her time trying to piece together the last of his secrets and finishing a journal he began—one about love and relationships and the remarkable ways people find one another.?But when tragedy strikes, Melissa has to start living and loving in the present as she realizes that being beautiful on the outside doesn't mean you can't be beautiful on the inside.This is a lyrical tale of love, loss, and self-discovery from the author of The September Sisters.