John Lescault

"Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe. Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it...

The “monumental” New York Times bestseller in which a Catholic explores the problem of anti-Semitism through Church history (The Washington Post).

A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book

In this “masterly history” (Time), National Book Award-winning author James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s

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A gifted American artist finds fame, fortune, and tragedy in Europe in this classic tale. Working in obscurity, sculptor Roderick Hudson finds a generous patron in Rowland Mallet, an art aficionado so captivated by the young man's work, he offers to take Hudson with him to Europe. Mallet soon falls in love with Miss Mary Garland, a distant cousin of Hudson's who lives with the family and tends to his aging mother. Unfortunately, Hudson has already...

"Deals with the war between the wheat grower and the railroad trust." "First novel in 'The Epic of Wheat,' a projected trilogy. Set mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco, it shows the conflict between wheat ranchers and the railroad ('The Octopus') that is the lifeline of trading and shipping. The bloody encounter at the climax of the novel is based on the 'Mussel Slough Tragedy' of May, 1880. The novel roughly covers the period of the...

In this scathing book, the author produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential...

Thoreau's classic account of his meditative, beach-combing walking trips to Cape Cod in the early 1850s, reflecting on the elemental forces of the sea, with an introduction by Paul Theroux
Cape Cod chronicles Henry David Thoreau’s journey of discovery along this evocative stretch of Massachusetts coastline, during which time he came to understand the complex relationship between the sea and the shore. He spent his nights in...

Outrageous demagogue or charismatic visionary? In this powerful new biography, Richard D. White, Jr., brings Huey Long to life in all his blazing, controversial glory.

From the moment he took office as governor in 1928 to the day an assassin’s bullet cut him down in1935, Huey Long wielded all but dictatorial control over the state of Louisiana. A man of shameless ambition and ruthless vindictiveness, Huey orchestrated elections, hired and fired

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New Hampshire is Robert Frost's poetic tour de force. It won the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in poetry. While Frost had been a respected poet before New Hampshire's release New Hampshire forever cemented Frost's standing as the greatest American Poet. If you've never read Frost, this is the book with which to start. It includes some of his most beloved poems such as "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and "Fire and Ice."...

The bestselling novel of financial speculation in the Progressive Era from the author of McTeague.
 
Curtis Jadwin had to compete with other suitors to secure his wife’s hand in marriage, but after a year of marital bliss, he finds himself captivated by another: the high-stakes competition at the Chicago Board of Trade. At first merely dabbling in wheat speculation, Jadwin soon becomes obsessed with making deals...

In this compact yet comprehensive history of ancient Greece, Thomas R. Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century BC. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general readers alike. Now in its second edition, this...