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Abide with me : a novel
Elizabeth Strout.
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294 p. ; 25 cm.
"Author Elizabeth Strout welcomes readers back to the archetypal, lovely landscape of northern New England, where the events of her first novel, Amy and Isabelle, unfolded. In the late 1950s, in the small town of West Annett, Maine, a minister struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss. At the same time, the community he has served so charismatically must come to terms with its own strengths and failings - faith and hypocrisy, loyalty and abandonment - when a dark secret is revealed." "Tyler Caskey has come to love West Annett, "just up the road" from where he was born. The short, brilliant summers and the sharp, piercing winters fill him with awe - as does his congregation, full of good people who seek his guidance and listen earnestly as he preaches. But after suffering a terrible loss, Tyler finds it hard to return to himself as he once was. He hasn't had The Feeling - that God is all around him, in the beauty of the world - for quite some time. He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family's tragedy." "A congregation that had once been patient and kind during Tyler's grief now questions his leadership and propriety. In the kitchens, classrooms, offices, and stores of the village, anger and gossip have started to swirl. And in Tyler's darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation's humanity - and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all."--BOOK JACKET.
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The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain ; with an introduction by John Seelye ; notes by Guy Cardwell.
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xxxiii, 327 p. : map ; 20 cm.
Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Intended at first as a simple story of a boy's adventures in the Mississippi Valley-a sequel to Tom Sawyer-the book grew and matured under Twain's hand into a work of immeasurable richness and complexity. More than a century after its publication, the critical debate over the symbolic significance of Huck's and Jim's voyage is still fresh, and it remains a major work that can be enjoyed at many levels: as an incomparable adventure story and as a classic of American humor.
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Affliction
Russell Banks.
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355 p ; 24 cm.
Wade Whitehouse, divorced, estranged from his young daughter, spends his days as a well-driller, snow-plow operator, and policeman, his nights in a wind-swept trailer park. But when a union boss is killed in an apparent hunting accident near Wade's home, and he is convinced that it is murder, he seizes the event as a chance to right many wrongs - unaware that as he unravels the mystery he himself will become unravelled. Soon his hunger for justice and self-respect become inseparable from a desperate violence. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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The affluent society
John Kenneth Galbraith.
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xii, 276 p. ; 21 cm.
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The age of American unreason
Susan Jacoby.
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xx, 356 p. ; 25 cm.
"Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. She surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudointellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the mass media, triumphalist religious fundamentalism, mediocre public education, a dearth of fair-minded public intellectuals on the right and the left, and, above all, a lazy and credulous public." "Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment - from television to the Web - and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. With reading on the decline and scientific and historical illiteracy on the rise, an increasingly ignorant public square is dominated by debased media-driven language and received opinion."--BOOK JACKET.
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The age of innocence
Edith Wharton ; introduction by Louis Auchincloss.
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xxiii, 270 p. ; 21 cm.
Deeply moving study of the tyrannical and rigid requirements of New York high society in the late 19th century and the effect of those strictures on the lives of 3 people.
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Aging with grace : what the nun study teaches us about leading longer, healthier, and more meaningful lives
David Snowdon.
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viii, 242 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm.
In 1986 epidemiologist Dr. David Snowdon embarked on a revolutionary scientific study that would forever change the way we view aging and old age. Dubbed the "Nun Study" because it involves a unique population of 678 Catholic sisters, this remarkable long-term research project remains today at the forefront of some of the world's most significant research on aging. This remarkable book by one of the world's leading experts on Alzheimer's disease combines fascinating high-tech research on the brain with the heartfelt story of the aging nuns who are teaching scientists how we grow old — and how we can do so with grace. The Nun Study's findings are already helping scientists unlock the secrets to living a longer, healthier life. Yet Aging With Grace is more than a groundbreaking health and hard-science book. It is the story of an altar boy who grew up to be a scientist studying the effects of aging on nuns. It is the poignant and inspiring stories of the nuns themselves. Ranging in age from 75 to 104, these remarkable women have allowed Dr. Snowdon access to their medical and personal records — and they have agreed to donate their brains upon death. In Aging With Grace, we accompany Dr. Snowdon on his loving visits to nuns like Sister Clarissa, who at the age of 90 drives around the convent in a motorized cart she calls her "Chevy" and knows as much about baseball as any die-hard fan a third her age. Then there is 104-year-old Sister Matthia, who until her death in 1998 knitted two pairs of mittens a day and prayed every evening for each of the four thousand students she taught over the years. These bright, articulate, and altruistic women have much to teach us about how faith, wisdom, and spirituality can influence the length and quality of our lives. We also follow Dr. Snowdon into the lab as he and his colleagues race to decode one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity. We discover: * Why high linguistic ability in early life seems to protect against Alzheimer's * Which ordinary foods in the diet defend the brain against aging * Why preventing strokes and depression is key to avoiding dementia * Why it's never too late to start an exercise program * What role heredity plays, and how lifestyle can increase our chances for a mentally vital old age * How intangibles like community and faith help us age with grace Both cutting-edge science and a personal prescription for hope, Aging With Grace shows how old age doesn't have to mean an inevitable slide into illness and disability; rather, it can be a time of promise and productivity, intellectual and spiritual vigor, and continuing freedom from disease.
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The agony and the ecstasy : a biographical novel of Michelangelo
Irving Stone.
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776 p. ; 18 cm.
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Ahab's wife, or, The star-gazer : a novel
Sena Jeter Naslund.
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668 p.
"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last". An epic-scale, brilliant and compelling saga, inspired by a brief passage in "Moby Dick", chronicles the life of Captain Ahab's wife. Selected by "Time" as one of the five best novels of 1999. Illustrations throughout.
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Alexander Hamilton
Ron Chernow.
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818 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
"Alexander Hamilton was arguably the most important figure in American history who never attained the presidency, but he had a far more lasting impact than many who did." "An illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, Hamilton rose with stunning speed to become George Washington's aide-de-camp, a battlefield hero, a member of the Constitutional Convention, the leading author of The Federalist Papers, and head of the Federalist party. As the first treasury secretary, he forged America's tax and budget systems, customs service, coast guard, and central bank. Chernow offers the whole sweep of Hamilton's turbulent life: his exotic, brutal upbringing; his brilliant military, legal, and financial exploits; his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and Monroe; his shocking illicit romances; his enlightened abolitionism; and his famous death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July 1804." "Throughout, Chernow blends Hamilton's public and private selves to present a fully rounded portrait of this handsome, witty, controversial genius and his poignant relations with his wife, Eliza, and their eight children. Hamilton's countless exploits never cramped his prolific literary labors. Chernow brings to light nearly fifty previously undiscovered essays as he explores Hamilton's fiery journalism, his youthful poetry, his magisterial state papers, and his revealing missives to colleagues and friends. Moreover, he conjures up portraits of Hamilton's celebrated peers, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Burr with all their shortcomings as well as their oft-sung triumphs."--BOOK JACKET.
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All Aunt Hagar's children
Edward P. Jones.
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x, 399 p. ; 24 cm.
Edward P. Jones, a prodigy of the short story, returns to the form that first won him praise in this new collection of stories, All Aunt Hagar's Children. Here he turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them in the city, people who in Jones's masterful hands emerge as fully human and morally complex. With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw behind them and the future uncertain, Jones's cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.
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American gospel : God, the founding fathers, and the making of a nation
Jon Meacham.
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xii, 399 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
"In this book, Jon Meacham tells the human story of how the Founding Fathers viewed faith, and how they ultimately created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice." "Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating. Secularists point to a "wall of separation between church and state," while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. As Meacham shows in this brisk narrative, neither extreme has it right. American Gospel makes it clear that the nation's best chance of summoning what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" lies in recovering the spirit and sense of the Founding."--BOOK JACKET.
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