Letters, diaries, memoirs, interviews, ballads, newspaper articles, and speeches depict life and events in the American colonies in the second half of the eighteenth century, with an emphasis on the years of the Revolutionary War.

"A perfect match of writer and subject: one of our most brilliant biographers takes on one of our greatest living playwrights--with his cooperation and access to a trove of hitherto unseen material. Tom Stoppard is a towering and beloved literary figure. Known for his dizzying narrative inventiveness and intense attention to language, he deftly deploys art, science, history, politics, and philosophy in works that span a remarkable spectrum of literary...

In the late sixties and early seventies, Los Angeles was a hotbed of musical creativity--the home base of Joni Mitchell, the Eagles, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, among many others. Now, drawing on exclusive interviews with many of the leading players, music journalist Hoskyns recreates the excitement, ferment, and energy of those years. We see the genesis of Crosby, Stills, and Nash at Joni Mitchell's...

"The final collection of new poems from one of our finest and most beloved poets. The poems in this wonderful collection touch all of the events and places that meant the most to Philip Levine. There are lyrical poems about his family and childhood, the magic of nighttime and the power of dreaming; tough poems about the heavy shift work at Detroit's auto plants, the Nazis, and bosses of all kinds; telling poems about his heroes--jazz players, artists,...

"A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization and our own, from one of the most exciting young historians writing today. Migration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: these forces shaped Joseph Conrad's destiny at the dawn of the twentieth century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature,...

A poignant look at the thirty-year journey of one of our country's great naturalist writers, Why I Came West explores how Rick Bass fell in love with the mystique of the West (and the Yaak Valley of northwestern Montana in particular) as a dramatic landscape, as an idea, and as a way of life. In a series of moving chapters, Bass describes his own transformation into the writer, hunter, and environmental activist that he is today. He profiles how the...

The Rice Room is a brilliant and moving memoir of growing up in Oakland's Chinatown, by one of America's preeminent journalists. Ben Fong-Torres was the third child of first-generation Chinese parents. His father came to America via the Philippines, adding "Torres" to his name to convince immigration officials that he was Filipino, since there were strict limits on the number of Chinese immigrants that were allowed. His mother came into the country...

"So many works of golfing history focus on the greats: the best players, the most prestigious championships, the hardest courses, and the like. But most avid golfers are average players, relishing in the joy of the sport itself. In Golf's Iron Horse, celebrated golf writer John Sabino chronicles the previously untold story of Ralph Kennedy, a golf amateur whose love of the game set him on par to play more courses than anyone before. A founding member...

This volume is a biography of the queen of England from 1558 until 1603, Elizabeth I. She was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. After a lonely and often perilous childhood during which Elizabeth was once imprisoned and was nearly executed by her half-sister, Mary. A 25-year-old Elizabeth ascended to the throne when Mary died. Elizabeth's reign is known as the Elizabethan era, famous above all for the flourishing of English drama, led...

""Bold, provocative...illuminates why we're having fewer babies, the middle class is stagnating, unemployment is shifting, and new powers are rising." - Adam Grant The world you know is about to end-will you be prepared for what comes next? A groundbreaking analysis from one of the world's foremost experts on global trends. Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered...