"To read David Ferry's Bewilderment is to be reminded that poetry of the highest order can be made by the subtlest of means. The passionate nature and originality of Ferry's prosodic daring works astonishing transformations that take your breath away. In poem after poem, his diction modulates beautifully between plainspoken high eloquence and colloquial vigor, making his distinctive speech one of the most interesting and ravishing achievements of...

Search the annals of military history and you will discover no end of quirky characters and surprising true stories: The topless dancer who saved the Byzantine Empire. The World War I battle that was halted so a soccer game could be played. The scientist who invented a pigeon-guided missile in 1943. And don't forget the elderly pig whose death triggered an international crisis between the United States and Great Britain. This is the kind of history...

A collection of lesser-known presidential tales relates such accounts as Abraham Lincoln's saber duel, George Washington's whiskey business, and the Ronald Reagan movie that saved the fortieth president's life decades later.

"Sister Jane Manning, one of the first African Americans to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, returns to Nauvoo to find that Joseph Smith, her prophet and friend, has been assassinated. Jane spends a sleepless night with his widow, Emma, sitting watch over the body of the Prophet, as a whirlwind of memory, loss, and confusion leaves them wondering how either one will be able to move forward." --

A novel set in the vineyards of Northern California that tells the story of a young girl who, in the wake of a tragic accident, seeks solace in a damaging love affair with a much older man. Eva, a divorced and happily remarried mother of three, runs a small bookstore in a town north of San Francisco. When her second husband, John, is killed in a car accident, her family's fragile peace is once again overtaken by loss. Emily, the eldest, must grapple...

Winner of the National Book Award

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory and the Oprah's Book Club selection Bewilderment comes Richard Powers's The Echo Maker, a powerful novel about family and loss.
"Wise and elegant . . . The mysteries unfold so organically and stealthily that you are unaware of his machinations until they come to stunning fruition . . . Powers accomplishes

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"A richly layered novel of love, ambition, and duplicity, set against the storied seascape of Newport, Rhode Island. A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest--the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress's diamond necklace--launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry...

In the picaresque series of sketches in Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens wrote one of the masterpieces of comic fiction, and presented readers with some of the most colorful and beloved characters of all time. In Dickens' first novel, initially based on a series of illustrations, members of the eponymous club recount their various experiences and encounters as they travel around England. Without the dark themes that dominated so many of his novels,...

After leaving her life behind to go to college in New York, Marin must face the truth about the tragedy that happened in the final weeks of summer when her friend Mabel comes to visit.