In The Home that Was My Country, Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek chronicles her return to her family home in Damascus and the history of the Jabban apartment building. Here, generations of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians lived, worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters. In telling the story of her family over the course of the last century, Alia brings to light the triumphs and failures that have led Syria to where it is today.

"Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of presidents including, besides Lincoln,...

"A celebrated Irish writer's magisterial, brilliantly insightful chronicle of the wrenching transformations that dragged his homeland into the modern world. Fintan O'Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government?in despair, because all the young people were leaving?opened the country to foreign investment and popular culture. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity. In We Don't...

Examines the events and personalities of the summer of 1927 when America's story was one of brawling adventure, reckless optimism and delirious energy.

"The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family's extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for The Washington Post When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But it wasn't long before they noticed a marked difference between Jonas and his brother,...

"Inspired by a rough-and-tumble journey across country and down river, David Gessner makes the case for a new environmentalism. In a frank, funny, and incisive call to arms that spans from the Cape Wind Project to the Monkey Wrench Gang, he considers whywe do or do not fight to protect and restore wilderness, and reminds us why it's time to join the fray. Though environmental awareness is on the rise, our march toward ecological collapse continues....

In a time of death and terror, Leymah Gbowee brought Liberia's women together--and together they led a nation to peace. As a young woman, Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that tore apart her life and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. As a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action, propelled by her realization that it is women who...

"A front-of-the-house Kitchen Confidential from a career maître d'hotel who manned the front of the room in New York City's hottest and most in-demand restaurants. From the glamorous to the entitled, from royalty to the financially ruined, everyone who wanted to be seen-or just to gawk-at the hottest restaurants in New York City came to places Michael Cecchi-Azzolina helped run. His phone number was passed around among those who wanted to curry favor,...

"My great-grandmother was both enslaved and a pastry cook who was famous for her biscuits and cakes. There is power in that." -Cheryl Day, in the New York Times And from this position of strength comes Day's next cookbook: a complete book of Southern baking recipes written by this great-grandchild of a former slave who is also one of our country's most acclaimed bakers. In a tome filled with recipes for both savory and sweet baked goods and pastries,...

"Home to some of humankind's first great civilizations and the birthplace of many of our most important intellectual achievements, the land that is now Iraq has a long and remarkable history. Readers will discover how Iraq was first settled and how it became the country it is today. They will also find out what life is like for the average Iraqi citizen, from what people eat to where they work and what they do for fun, and learn about the country's...