Growing interest in reparations for African Americans has prompted a range of responses, from lawsuits against major corporations and a march in Washington to an anti-reparations ad campaign. As a result, the link between slavery and contemporary race relations is more potent and obvious than ever. Grassroots organizers, lawmakers, and distinguished academics have embraced the idea that reparations should be pursued vigorously in the courts and legislature. But others ask, Who should payAnd could reparations help heal the wounds of the past?This comprehensive collection -- the only of its kind -- gathers together the seminal essays and key participants in the debate. Pro-reparations essays, including contributions by Congressman John Conyers Jr., Christopher Hitchens, and Professor Molefi Asante, are countered with arguments by Shelby Steele, Armstrong Williams, and John McWhorter, among others. Also featured are important documents, such as the First Congressional Reparations Bill of 1867 and the Dakar Declaration of 2001, as well as a new chapter on the current status and future direction of the movement.

Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including the memoir of her parents, An American Childhood; the Northwest pioneer epic The Living; and the nonfiction narrative Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A gregarious recluse, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Here is a fresh perspective on the last tumultuous years of the Soviet Union and an exquisitely poetic travelogue.With a keen grasp of Russia's history, a deep appreciation for its architecture and iconography, and an inexhaustible enthusiasm for its people and its culture, Colin Thubron is the perfect guide to a country most of us will never get to know firsthand. Here, we can walk down western Russia's country roads, rest in its villages, and explore some of the most engaging cities in the world. Beautifully written and infinitely insightful, Among the Russians is vivid, compelling travel writing that will also appeal to readers of history and current events and to anyone captivated by the shape and texture of one of the world's most enigmatic culture.

The golden age of tennis came crashing down suddenly at the 1981 U.S. Open when the stoical Swede, Bj?rn Borg, lost to his brash young rival, John McEnroe, in the final at Flushing Meadows. Through the lens of that era's final tournament, and the play of the other semifinalists, Jimmy Connors and Vitas Gerulaitis, High Strung chronicles the lives and careers of the men who made those Wild West days of tennis so memorable: "Ice Borg," who secretly harbored an inner madman; McEnroe, the tortured, bratty genius; Connors, the game's beloved blue-collar anti-hero; Ilie Nastase, the Romanian clown; Gerulaitis, the New York charmer; and Ivan Lendl, who became a harbinger of tennis's high-powered future. The struggles these men shared were as compelling off the court as they were on.

If You Don't Buy This Book, You're a Racist.Have you ever been called "too black" or "not black enough"Have you ever befriended or worked with a black personIf you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you.Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has over thirty years' experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black.Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from "How to Be The Black Friend" to "How to Be The (Next) Black President" to "How to Celebrate Black History Month."To provide additional perspective, Baratunde assembled an award-winning Black Panel three black women, three black men, and one white man (Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like) and asked them such revealing questions as:"When Did You First Realize You Were Black?""How Black Are You?""Can You Swim?"The result is a humorous, intelligent, and audacious guide that challenges and satirizes the so-called experts, purists, and racists who purport to speak for all black people. With honest storytelling and biting wit, Baratunde plots a path not just to blackness, but one open to anyone interested in simply "how to be."

From the co-author of Lakota Woman, which has sold more than 150,000 paperback copies, comes a compelling account detailing the unique experiences and spiritual knowledge accumulated by four generations of powerful medicine men.

Full-time hairdressers and part-time private detectives, Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin—the Domestic Equalizers—have dealt with cheating spouses, shady business deals, Elvis-obsessed shoe thieves, even murder. But ghostsThat's a whole new rodeo!Justin Sadler's just coming to terms with the absence of his dear departed Rachel—but now he's not so sure she's departed! Every time he goes home he knows someone's been there—and if it's not Rachel trying to communicate from beyond, it's someone else who's trying to drive him stark raving bonkers. So the Equalizers are on the case, with the help of an El Paso psychic who's so dead-on, it's scary. It's enough to make any good ol' gal's big hair stand on end!The investigation leads them toward one of their tiny West Texas town's more unsavory characters—and, all things considered, Debbie Sue would much rather be cuddling in the arms of her hubby, the sexiest cop in the whole nation of Texas. But the Equalizers will never say die . . . even when dealing with the restless dead.

Unicorns are just like us. They have problems, stresses, and like to blow off some steam. Author and illustrator C. W. Moss explores the inner psyche of the single-horned in Why Unicorn Drinks . A follow-up to Unicorn Being a Jerk , this volume of 67 four-color illustrations and captions gives readers a glimpse into the sad reality of life as a mythical creature, and reveals what drives Unicorn to the bottle. As fans of Moss' online comic undoubtedly know, Why Unicorn Drinks pours a double-shot of laughter and irreverence. You'll never look at a unicorn the same way again.

On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below. With this celebrated sentence, Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper seeks to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His study leads to his own death -- and to the author timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. The Bridge of San Luis Rey is now reissued in this handsome hardcover edition featuring a new foreword by Russell Banks. Tappan Wilder has written an engaging and thought-provoking afterword, which includes unpublished notes for the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, illuminating photographs, and other remarkable documentary material. Granville Hicks insightful comment about Wilder suggests an inveterate truth: As a craftsman he is second to none, and there are few who have looked deeper into the human heart.

Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living and one of the wonders of the world. In eighty-one brief chapters, the Tao Te Ching llods at the basic predicatment of being alive and gives advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit. This book is about wisdom in action. It teaches how wo work for the good with the efforless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao (the basic principle of the universe) and applies equally to good government and sexual love, to childrearing, business, and ecology. The Tao Te Ching is the most widely traslated book in world literature, after the Bible. Yet the gemlike lucidity of the original has eluded most previous translations, and they have obscured some of its central ideas. Now the Tao Te ching has been rendered into English by the eminent scholar and traslator Stephen Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell's Dropping Ashes on the Buddha is a modern Zen classic, and his translations of Rilke and of the Book of Job have already been called definitive for our time.

IACP Cookbook Award Winner (Culinary Travel) Part Grand Tour of France, part history of French cuisine: an irresistible journey, from Paris to Provence, to find the perfect meal An expat Paris resident for more than twenty years, John Baxter began noticing an alarming trend: just as species of plants and animals are rapidly facing extinction globally, so too are the traditional ingredients and techniques of classic French cooking and eating. Indeed, he worried that the soul of the world most revered national cuisine is in danger of disappearing, as centuries-old ways of cooking, preparation, and farming wither away. Spurred to action, Baxter set off across the country on an unforgettable quest to taste the last great French dishes before they disappear forever from Paris surviving haute cuisine establishments to the tiny local restaurants that still serve the remarkable regional dishes of Provence, Normandy, Cote d Azur, and more.

Flying the not-so-friendly skies... In her more than fifteen years as an airline flight attendant, Heather Poole has seen it all. She's witnessed all manner of bad behavior at 35,000 feet and knows what it takes for a traveler to become the most hated passenger onboard. She's slept in flight attendant crashpads in "Crew Gardens," Queens sharing small bedrooms crammed with bunk beds with a parade of attractive women who come and go at all hours, prompting suspicious neighbors to jump to the very worst conclusions. She's watched passengers and coworkers alike escorted off the planes by police. She can tell you why it's a bad idea to fall for a pilot but can be a very good one (in her case) to date a business-class passenger. Heather knows everything about flying in a post-9/11 world and she knows what goes on behind the scenes, things the passengers would never dream. Heather's true stories in Cruising Attitude are surprising, hilarious, sometimes outrageously incredible the very juiciest of "galley gossip" delightfully intermingled with the eye-opening, unforgettable chronicle of her fascinating life in the sky.

Bestselling authors and world-renowned marketing strategists Al and Laura Ries usher in the new era of public relations. Today's major brands are born with publicity, not advertising. A closer look at the history of the most successful modern brands shows this to be true. In fact, an astonishing number of brands, including Palm, Starbucks, the Body Shop, Wal-Mart, Red Bull and Zara have been built with virtually no advertising. Using in-depth case histories of successful PR campaigns coupled with those of unsuccessful advertising campaigns, The Fall of Advertising provides valuable ideas for marketers -- all the while demonstrating why advertising lacks credibility, the crucial ingredient in brand building, and how only PR can supply that credibility; the big bang approach advocated by advertising people should be abandoned in favor of a slow build-up by PR; advertising should only be used to maintain brands once they have been established through publicity. Bold and accessible, The Fall of Advertising is bound to turn the world of marketing upside down.

In the fall of 1930, David Packard left his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, to enroll at Stanford University, where he befriended another freshman, Bill Hewlett. After graduation, Hewlett and Packard decided to throw their lots in together. They tossed a coin to decide whose name should go first on the notice of incorporation, then cast about in search of products to sell. Today, the one-car garage in Palo Alto that housed their first workshop is a California historic landmark: the birthplace of Silicon Valley. And Hewlett-Packard has produced thousands of innovative products for millions of customers throughout the world. Their little company employs 98,400 people and boasts constantly increasing sales that reached $25 billion in 1994. While there are many successful companies, there is only one Hewlett-Packard, because from the very beginning, Hewlett and Packard had a way of doing things that was contrary to the prevailing management strategies. In defining the objectives for their company, Packard and Hewlett wanted more than profits, revenue growth and a constant stream of new, happy customers. Hewlett-Packard success owes a great deal to many factors, including openness to change, an unrelenting will to win, the virtue of sustained hard work and a company-wide commitment to community involvement. As a result, HP now is universally acclaimed as the world most admired technology company; its wildly successful approach to business has been immortalized as The HP Way . In this book, David Packard tells the simple yet extraordinary story of his life work and of the truly exceptional company that he and Bill Hewlett started in a garage 55 years ago.

In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) Lou Gehrig disease an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. She was forty-four years old, with a devoted husband and three young children, and she had only one year of health remaining. Susan decided to live that year with joy. She quit her job as a journalist and spent time with her family. She built an outdoor meeting space for friends in her backyard. And she took seven trips with the seven most important people in her life. As her health declined, Susan journeyed to the Yukon, Hungary, the Bahamas, and Cyprus. She took her sons to swim with dolphins, and her teenage daughter, Marina, to Kleinfeld bridal shop in New York City to see her for the first and last time in a wedding dress. She also wrote this book. No longer able to walk or even to lift her arms, she tapped it out letter by letter on her iPhone using only her right thumb, the last finger still working. However, Until I Say Good-Bye is not angry or bitter. It is sad in parts how could it not bebut it is filled with Susan optimism, joie de vivre, and sense of humor. It is a book about life, not death. One that, like Susan, will make everyone smile. From the Burger King parking lot where she cried after her diagnosis to a snowy hot spring near the Arctic Circle, from a hilarious family Christmas disaster to the decrepit monastery in eastern Cyprus where she rediscovered her heritage, Until I Say Good-Bye is not only Susan Spencer-Wendel unforgettable gift to her loved ones a heartfelt record of their final experiences together but an offering to all of us: a reminder that every day is better when it is lived with joy.

Written in radiant prose and with stunning psychological acuity, award-winning author Sarah Cornwell's What I Had Before I Had You is a deeply poignant story that captures the joys and sorrows of growing up and learning to let go.Olivia Reed was fifteen when she left her hometown of Ocean Vista on the Jersey Shore. Two decades later, divorced and unstrung, she returns with her teenage daughter, Carrie, and nine-year-old son, Daniel, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Distracted by thoughts of the past, Olivia fails to notice when Daniel disappears from her side. Her frantic search for him sparks memories of the summer of 1987, when she exploded out of the cocoon of her mother's fierce, smothering love and into a sudden, full-throttle adolescence, complete with dangerous new friends, first love, and a rebellion so intense that it utterly recharted the course of her life.Olivia's mother, Myla, was a practicing psychic whose powers waxed and waned along with her mercurial moods. Myla raised Olivia to be a guarded child, and also to believe in the ever-present infant ghosts of her twin sisters, whom Myla took care of as if they were alive—diapers, baby food, an empty nursery kept like a shrine. At fifteen, Olivia saw her sisters for the first time, not as ghostly infants but as teenagers on the beach. But when Myla denied her vision, Olivia set out to learn the truth—a journey that led to shattering discoveries about herself and her family.Sarah Cornwell seamlessly weaves together the past and the present in this riveting debut novel, as she examines the relationships between mothers and daughters, and the powerful forces of loss, family history, and magical thinking.

A strange and compelling unkillable woman decides to leave home, and the story begins. Fleur Pillager takes her mother's name, Four Souls, for strength and walks from her Ojibwe reservation to the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. She is seeking restitution from and revenge on the lumber baron who has stripped her reservation. But revenge is never simple, and she quickly finds her intentions complicated by her own dangerous compassion for the man who wronged her. The two narrators of Four Souls are from utterly different worlds. Nanapush, a "smart man and a fool," is both Fleur's savior and her conscience. He tells Fleur's story and tells his own. He would like a calm and discriminating love with his sweetheart, Margaret. He is old and would like to face death with his love beside him. Instead the two find themselves battling out their last years. When the childhood nemesis of Nanapush appears and casts his eye toward Margaret, Nanapush acts out an absurd revenge of his own and nearly ends up destroying everything. The other narrator, Polly Elizabeth Gheen, is a pretentious and vulnerable upper-crust fringe element, a hanger-on in a wealthy Minneapolis family, a woman aware of her precarious hold on those around her. To her own great surprise the entrance of Fleur Pillager into her household and her life effects a transformation she could never have predicted. In the world of interconnected novels by Louise Erdrich, Four Souls is most closely linked to Tracks. All these works continue and elaborate the intricate story of life on a reservation peopled by saints and false saints, heroes and sinners, clever fools and tenacious women. Four Souls reminds us of the deep spirituality and the ordinary humanity of this world, and is as beautiful and lyrical as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

Hailed by Utne Reader as "a visionary" and the San Francisco Chronicle as "the X-rated intellectual," Susie Bright is indisputably the sexpert of our times. Now, in a frank and intimate look at our own erotic experience, she delves into the most personal aspects of sex and shows us how our sexual passion can be a source of creativity and inspiration. By her own example and insight, she helps us to discover our own erotic story and sexual philosophy. How do talking, reading, and writing about sex affect your actual sex life What are the real differences between men's and women's sense of the eroticWhy is it so threatening to consciously address sexual desire in the first placeIs there a line to be drawn in erotic creativity--can you go too farIs the best erotic expression soulfulHow can articulate erotic expression make us better lovers and, more important, better peopleBright concludes with an "erotic manifesto" that is a call for everyone to reclaim sexuality, cast off sexual shame, overcome repression, and become true sexual beings. She offers up "rules to live by," which include debunking your own fantasy life, appreciating the simplest erotic gesture, and taking inspiration from everyone but instruction from no one. Bright's work celebrates the joy of sexual creativity--and the very uniqueness of each individual's sense of the erotic. Susie Bright is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including The Best American Erotica series, the first three editions of Herotica, Sexwise, and The Sexual State of the Union. She has written for Esquire, Playboy, Village Voice, New York Times Book Review, and is a regular columnist for the on-line magazine Salon. She lectures and performs at theaters and universities nationwide and currently lives in Northern California. How do you really feel about sex"I want to cut through all the labels and politics, and reveal what I've learned about sex - what has been transformational for me as a lover, a parent, a daughter, and an artist. I want to argue that sexuality is the soul of the creative process, and that erotic expression of any kind is a personal revolution." -- from Full Exposure Bestselling author and erotic pioneer Susie Bright boldly crosses our culture's most private boundary--our personal eroticism--and reveals the ways in which individual sexual expression has the power to inspire, challenge, and transform all aspects of our lives. Bright explores some of the most complex questions about sexuality today, including: how our emotional and sexual lives intertwine, how we can come clean about our true desire, and what sexual expression teaches us about our bodies. She offers an erotic manifesto of seventeen straightforward guidelines for gaining erotic freedom.

Over the course of a storied literary career that has spanned more than half a century, Ray Bradbury has taken us to wonderful places: across vast oceans to foreign lands, onto summer porches of small-town America, through dark and dangerous forests where predators wait, into the hypnotic mists of dream, back to a halcyon past to remember, forward into an exhilarating future, and rocketing through outer space.In We'll Always Have Paris—a new collection of never-before-published stories—the inimitable Bradbury once again does what few writers have ever done as well. He delights us with prose that soars and sings. He surprises and inspires, exposing truths and provoking deep thought. He imagines great things and poignantly observes human foibles and frailties. He enchants us with the magic he mastered decades ago and still performs flawlessly. In these pages, radio voices become indomitable flesh and the dead arise to recapture life. There is joy in an eccentric old man's dance for the world and wonder over the workings of humankind's best friend, O Holy Dog. Whether he's exploring the myriad ways to be reborn, or the circumstances that can make any man a killer, or returning us to Mars, Bradbury opens the world to us and beckons us in.Get ready to travel far and wide once again with America's preeminent storyteller. His tales will live forever. We will always have Bradbury—and for that reason, we are eternally blessed.

Ray Bradbury is, indisputably, one of America's greatest storytellers. The recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, he ranks among the most beloved -- and widely read -- of American authors. In The Cat's Pajamas, this "latter-day O. Henry" (Booklist) takes us on an amazing walk through his six-decade career, presenting twenty-two tales -- some old, some new, all but two never before published.Here you will find stories strange and scary, nostalgic and bittersweet, humorous and heart-touching, ranging from the not-so-long-gone past to an unknowable future: a group of senators drinks a bit too much -- and gambles away the United States; a newlywed couple buys an old house and finds their fledgling relationship tested; two mysterious strangers arrive at a rooming house and baffle their fellow occupants with strange crying in the night; a lonely woman takes a last chance on love. The final piece in the collection is a story-poem, a fond salute from Bradbury to his literary heroes Shaw, Chesterton, Dickens, Twain, Poe, Wilde, Melville, and Kipling.The Cat's Pajamas is just that -- the bee's knees -- a touching, timeless, and tender collection from the incomparable Ray Bradbury, and a anoramic view of an amazingly long, rich, and fertile creative career.

When Georgia Quillian returns to her hometown of Miami, her husband, Graham, and their young son in tow, she is hoping for a fresh start. The family has fled Illinois trailing scandal and disappointment, the fallout from Graham's severe sleep disorder and Georgia's failed business. To make matters worse, their charming three-year-old son, Frankie, has for months refused to speak a word.Although Georgia is still grieving her mother's death from five years earlier, her father and stepmother offer warm welcome—and a slip for the dilapidated houseboat Georgia and Graham have chosen to call home. On a lark, Georgia takes a job as an errand runner for a reclusive artist who lives in the middle of the bay, and she soon finds that time spent with the intense hermit might help Frankie find the courage to speak, and might also help her reconcile the woman she was with the woman she has become.But when Graham leaves to work on a research vessel in Hurricane Alley, and the truth behind Frankie's mutism is revealed, the family's challenges return, more complicated than before. As a hurricane bears down on South Florida later that summer, Georgia must face the fact that her choices have put her only child in grave danger.Sea Creatures is a mesmerizing exploration of the high stakes of marriage and parenthood, the story of a woman forced to choose between her husband, her child, and the possibility of new love.