Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is a partial autobiography by C.S. Lewis that describes his conversion to Christianity. Unlike typical autobiographies, this book contains less detail about specific events because Lewis's primary aim was not historical documentation. Instead, he sought to identify and describe the events surrounding his accidental discovery of, and consequent search for, the phenomenon he labeled "Joy." This word was the best translation he could make of the German idea of Sehnsucht, or longing.

Although the book is not devoid of information about Lewis's life, the principal theme is Joy as he defined it. This Joy was a longing so intense for something so good and so high up that it couldn't be explained with words. Throughout his life, he was struck with "stabs of joy" and finally finds what it's for at the end.

Lewis recounts his early years with a mix of amusement and pain, including his experiences at Malvern College in 1913, aged 15. He described the school as "a very furnace of impure loves" but defended the practice as "the only chink left through which something spontaneous and uncalculating could creep in."

The book's last two chapters cover the end of his search as he moves from atheism to theism and then from theism to Christianity, ultimately discovering the true nature and purpose of Joy and its place in his life.

It is important to note that the book is not connected with his unexpected marriage later in life to Joy Gresham. The marriage occurred long after the period described, though not long after the book was published. His friends were quick to notice the coincidence, remarking that he'd really been "Surprised by Joy."

The title also alludes to Wordsworth's poem, "Surprised by Joy - Impatient As The Wind," which relates an incident when Wordsworth forgot the death of his beloved daughter.

Worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger and feelings of condemnation: all these are attacks on the mind. If readers suffer from negative thoughts, they can take heart! Joyce Meyer has helped millions win these all-important battles. In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds. She teaches how to deal with thousands of thoughts that people think every day and how to focus the mind the way God thinks. And she shares the trials, tragedies, and ultimate victories from her own marriage, family, and ministry that led her to wondrous, life-transforming truth--and reveals her thoughts and feelings every step of the way. This special updated edition includes an additional introduction and updated content throughout the book.

Dave Pelzer's remarkable journey from a child who lived in terror of his unstable, violently unpredictable mother's every move, to his emergence as an inspiration the world over is a remarkable tale of survival and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Dave Pelzer's three volumes of memoirs - A Child Called 'It', The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave - brought this story of courage and triumph against all odds to the world, becoming global bestsellers.

My Story brings these volumes together, following Dave from a childhood spent in fear, his tempestuous teenage years haunted by the spectre of his mother, through to his adulthood, and his great achievement of not only understanding and reconciling the story of his own life, but his dedication to helping others overcome similar adversity.

It is a remarkable story of courage and survival, already embraced by millions and destined to inspire millions more.

Amazing Grace is Jonathan Kozol’s classic book on life and death in the South Bronx—the poorest urban neighborhood of the United States. He brings us into overcrowded schools, dysfunctional hospitals, and rat-infested homes where families have been ravaged by depression and anxiety, drug-related violence, and the spread of AIDS.

But he also introduces us to devoted and unselfish teachers, dedicated ministers, and—at the heart and center of the book—courageous and delightful children. The children we come to meet through the friendships they have formed with Jonathan defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.

Amidst all of the despair, it is the very young whose luminous capacity for love and transcendent sense of faith in human decency give reason for hope.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in a Jewish firm in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account.

A Child Called "It" is a memoir by Dave Pelzer that recounts the harrowing details of his childhood, marked by extreme abuse at the hands of his alcoholic mother. The story is a testament to one child's resilience in the face of unimaginable adversity. Dave's mother subjected him to a series of tortuous and unpredictable games that almost cost him his life. Stripped of his identity, he was regarded not as her son, but as a slave, and he was referred to as an "it" rather than a boy.

With his bed being an old army cot in the basement and his clothes nothing but tattered rags, Dave's existence was a living nightmare. Food was a luxury, often just spoiled scraps that even dogs would refuse. Isolated and alone, Dave's dreams and determination to find a loving family kept him alive. This memoir is not just a tale of suffering, but also a story about the power of hope and the will to survive.

Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem, and the Confidence Gap is a groundbreaking book by Peggy Orenstein that explores the decline in confidence among young girls as they reach adolescence.

Inspired by an American Association of University Women survey, Orenstein investigates the obstacles girls face in school, at home, and within our culture. Through months of observation and interviews with eighth-graders from diverse communities, she uncovers the causes behind traditional patterns of self-censorship and self-doubt.

Orenstein brings to life the struggles of real young women dealing with eating disorders, sexual harassment, and declining academic achievement. She skillfully highlights the adolescent roots of issues that remain significant throughout the lives of American women.

This book challenges us to rethink how we raise and educate girls, making it a must-read for anyone interested in empowerment and social change.

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American.

It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a brilliant work by Michel Foucault, one of the most influential philosophers since Sartre. This provocative study explores the evolution of the justice system, focusing primarily on France.

Foucault challenges existing ideas surrounding prison reforms from the late 1700s and early 1800s, even into the twentieth century. He suggests that the shift away from public executions towards incarceration was a means of reframing the power dynamics between society and the individual.

The book delves into how the focus of punishment has shifted from the prisoner's body to the soul. It provides a highly provocative account of how penal institutions have become integral to societal control.

Through this work, Foucault offers an in-depth analysis of how modern penitentiaries emerged and how they reflect broader social structures and power relations.

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod is an exhilarating tale of endurance and adventure. Join Gary Paulsen and his team of dogs as they face the brutal challenges of the Iditarod race. This gripping story immerses you in a world where snowstorms, frostbite, and dogfights are just the beginning.

Experience the thrill of moose attacks, the struggle against sleeplessness, and the surreal nature of hallucinations as Paulsen pushes himself and his dogs to their limits. This journey is filled with moments of humor, unexpected camaraderie, and the relentless push to go on.

Winterdance is not just a story about a race; it's a testament to the bond between humans and animals, and the sheer willpower required to survive in the harshest conditions.

How We Die offers a profound meditation and portrait of the experience of dying. It elucidates the decisions that can be made to allow each person an understanding of death, as well as their own choice of death.

This definitive resource on perhaps the single most universal human concern—death—addresses contemporary issues in end-of-life care. It includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the current state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus.

Sherwin Nuland's masterful work is even more relevant today, discussing how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is a disturbing and fiercely beautiful account of growing up Chinese-American in California. The young Kingston lives in two worlds: the America to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother's "talk stories."

Her mother tells her traditional tales of strong, wily women warriors - tales that clash puzzlingly with the real oppression of women. Kingston learns to fill in the mystifying spaces in her mother's stories with stories of her own, engaging her family's past and her own present with anger, imagination, and dazzling passion.

As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of her mother’s tales clash jarringly with the harsh reality of female oppression out of which they come. Kingston’s sense of self emerges in the mystifying gaps in these stories, which she learns to fill with stories of her own. A warrior of words, she forges fractured myths and memories into an incandescent whole, achieving a new understanding of her family’s past and her own present.

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales by Oliver Sacks is a fascinating exploration of the human mind through seven detailed and captivating portraits of neurological patients.

Oliver Sacks, renowned for his blend of scientific rigor and human compassion, takes us into the uncanny worlds of his subjects. These include a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating, and an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident but finds new creative power in black and white.

Among the stories is an autistic professor with a Ph.D. in animal science, who finds the complexity of human emotion so bewildering that she feels "like an anthropologist on Mars."

Through these extraordinary individuals, Sacks explores what it is to feel, to sense, to remember, and to be a coherent self in the world. This book is not just an observation of interesting cases but a profound insight into the nature of human identity and resilience.

Join Oliver Sacks on a journey that challenges our understanding of the human condition and reveals the infinite complexities of the human mind.

The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, celebrated by The Washington Post as “not just a book but a spontaneous act of generosity.” Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road Less Traveled. With sales of more than seven million copies in the United States and Canada, and translations into more than twenty-three languages, it has made publishing history, with more than ten years on the New York Times bestseller list.

Written in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to help us explore the very nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us learn how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one’s own true self. Recognizing that, as in the famous opening line of his book, “Life is difficult” and that the journey to spiritual growth is a long one, Dr. Peck never bullies his readers, but rather guides them gently through the hard and often painful process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding.

This is a book you will cherish for a lifetime, for within its pages are the secrets of making all your dreams come true. Based on natural laws that govern all of creation, this book shatters the myth that success is the result of hard work, exacting plans, or driving ambition.

Deepak Chopra offers a life-altering perspective on the attainment of success: When we understand our true nature and learn to live in harmony with natural law, a sense of well-being, good health, fulfilling relationships, and material abundance spring forth easily and effortlessly.

Deepak Chopra is the bestselling author of numerous books and audio programs that cover every aspect of mind, body, and spirit. His groundbreaking books blend physics and philosophy, the practical and the spiritual, with dynamic results.

The Seven Laws of Success distills the essence of Chopra's teachings into seven simple, yet powerful, principles that can easily be applied to create success in all areas of your life. Filled with timeless wisdom and practical steps you can apply right away, this is a book you will want to read and refer to again and again.

Who would have thought that Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, A.A. Milne's beloved storybook characters, would cause such a stir demonstrating the fundamentals of Taoist philosophy?

A perfect gift for any occasion, these two phenomenal paperback bestsellers are available for the first time in an elegantly packaged boxed set.

Illustrated throughout.

The Road to Serfdom is a classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics. This influential book has both inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for decades. Originally published in England in 1944, The Road to Serfdom offers a passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production.

Friedrich A. Hayek argues that the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia, but to the horrors experienced in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, the book garnered immediate attention and popularity. The first printing of 2,000 copies sold out instantly, and within six months, more than 30,000 copies were sold.

A perennial best-seller, The Road to Serfdom has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States alone, not including its British edition or the many translations into languages such as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese. It stands alongside works by Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relationship between individual liberty and government authority.

This influential book continues to impact political and social climates, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions in the 1980s, and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s.

In the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across America. A famous actress (and her unborn child), an heiress to a coffee fortune, a supermarket owner and his wife were among the seven victims. A thin trail of circumstances eventually tied the Tate-LeBianca murders to Charles Manson, a would-be pop singer of small talent living in the desert with his "family" of devoted young women and men. What was his hold over them? And what was the motivation behind such savagery?

In the public imagination, over time, the case assumed the proportions of myth. The murders marked the end of the sixties and became an immediate symbol of the dark underside of that era. Vincent Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, and this book is his enthralling account of how he built his case from what a defense attorney dismissed as only "two fingerprints and Vince Bugliosi." The meticulous detective work with which the story begins, the prosecutor's view of a complex murder trial, the reconstruction of the philosophy Manson inculcated in his fervent followers…these elements make for a true crime classic. Helter Skelter is not merely a spellbinding murder case and courtroom drama but also, in the words of The New Republic, a "social document of rare importance."

Escape from Freedom explores the paradox of freedom and the human tendency towards authoritarianism. If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of this landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time.

Erich Fromm delves into the forces shaping modern society and the causes of authoritarian systems. While the rise of democracy liberated some, it also birthed a society where individuals feel alienated and dehumanized. Using psychoanalysis as a tool, Fromm analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as evidenced by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

This examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in Europe also explains how economic and social constraints can lead to authoritarianism. A timeless classic, it offers a profound understanding of the anxiety underlying our darkest impulses.

Cool. The concept has distinctly American qualities and it permeates almost every aspect of contemporary American culture. From Kool cigarettes and the Peanuts cartoon's Joe Cool to West Side Story ("Keep cool, boy.") and urban slang ("Be cool. Chill out."), the idea of cool, in its many manifestations, has seized a central place in our vocabulary.

Where did this preoccupation with cool come from? How was Victorian culture, seemingly so ensconced, replaced with the current emotional status quo? From whence came American Cool?

These are the questions Peter Stearns seeks to answer in this timely and engaging volume. American Cool focuses extensively on the transition decades, from the erosion of Victorianism in the 1920s to the solidification of a cool culture in the 1960s. Beyond describing the characteristics of the new directions and how they altered or amended earlier standards, the book seeks to explain why the change occurred. It then assesses some of the outcomes and longer-range consequences of this transformation.

Mensagem é o único livro de poemas de Fernando Pessoa publicado em português durante a sua vida. É também realmente um só poema, como escreveu, dada a unidade perfeita conseguida pelo seu canto das grandezas passadas da nação - que se refletem no futuro, potenciadas pelo Quinto Império.

Sem a simetria de composição nem a vastidão narrativa da epopeia clássica, é a obra minimal de um Supra-Camões concentrado na construção de um mito, o de D. Sebastião, entendido como a síntese da ousadia dos heróis anteriores e como a promessa de um "dia claro" por vir.

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's attitude of experimenting, of testing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances, in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities.

All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.

In the end, love is more important than everything and it will conquer and overcome anything. Or that’s how Damon saw it, anyway. Damon wanted a book that talked a lot about love.

Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool’s Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man’s life. Damon’s story is one of life-long struggle, his love for Celeste, the compassion of family, and a fight to the end for integrity.

A testimony to the power of love, April Fool’s Day is also about understanding: how when we confront our worst, we can become our best.

Michel de Montaigne was one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, singlehandedly responsible for popularising the essay as a literary form. This Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Essays is translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech.

In 1572, Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading, and reflection. There, he wrote his constantly expanding 'assays', inspired by the ideas he found in books contained in his library and from his own experience. He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience. But, above all, Montaigne studied himself as a way of drawing out his own inner nature and that of men and women in general. The Essays are among the most idiosyncratic and personal works in all literature and provide an engaging insight into a wise Renaissance mind, continuing to give pleasure and enlightenment to modern readers.

With its extensive introduction and notes, M.A. Screech's edition of Montaigne is widely regarded as the most distinguished of recent times.

The Fire Next Time is a powerful and provocative document that galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement when it first appeared in 1963. Written by James Baldwin, this national bestseller provides a searing examination of racial injustice and its consequences.

The book consists of two "letters" written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. In these letters, Baldwin exhorts Americans, both black and white, to confront and attack the terrible legacy of racism. The work is at once a personal reflection on Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a broader commentary on the state of race relations in America.

Described by the The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle… all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of American literature, urging us to confront the oppressive institutions of race, religion, and nationhood itself, while insisting on shared resilience and love as a way forward.

Wake up and take control of your life! From the bestselling author of Inner Strength, Unlimited Power, and MONEY Master the Game, Anthony Robbins, the nation's leader in the science of peak performance, shows you his most effective strategies and techniques for mastering your emotions, your body, your relationships, your finances, and your life.

The acknowledged expert in the psychology of change, Anthony Robbins provides a step-by-step program teaching the fundamental lessons of self-mastery that will enable you to discover your true purpose, take control of your life, and harness the forces that shape your destiny.

In Rain of Gold, Victor Villaseñor weaves the parallel stories of two families and two countries, bringing us the timeless romance between the volatile bootlegger who would become his father and the beautiful Lupe, his mother. These are men and women in whose lives the real and the fantastical exist side by side, and in whose hearts the spirit to survive is fueled by a family’s unconditional love.

This non-fiction saga is an all-American story of poverty, immigration, struggle, and success. It focuses on three generations of the Villaseñor family, their spiritual and cultural roots back in Mexico, their immigration to California, and their overcoming of poverty, prejudice, and economic exploitation.

Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi. She had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself, visited frequently by her lover, the big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, for whom she would make up stories like Scheherazade. In Africa, "I learned how to tell tales," she recalled many years later. "The natives have an ear still. I told stories constantly to them, all kinds." Her account of her African adventures, written after she had lost her beloved farm and returned to Denmark, is that of a master storyteller, a woman whom John Updike called "one of the most picturesque and flamboyant literary personalities of the century."

In the spring of 1983, Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by.

One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s.

As it interweaves these narratives of dying and accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.

The vast majority of Americans have, at one point or another, gotten drunk, smoked, dabbled with drugs, gambled, sworn, or engaged in adultery. During the 1800s, "respectable" people struggled to control these behaviors, labeling them "bad" and the people who indulged in them unrespectable. In the twentieth century, these minor vices were transformed into a societal complex of enormous and pervasive influence. Yet the general belief persists that these activities remain merely harmless "bad habits," individual transgressions more than social problems. Not so, argues distinguished historian John C. Burnham in this pioneering study.

In Bad Habits, Burnham traces the growth of a veritable minor vice-industrial complex. As it grew, activities that might have been harmless, natural, and sociable fun resulted in fundamental social change. When Burnham set out to explore the influence of these bad habits on American society, he sought to discover why so many "good" people engaged in activities that many, including themselves, considered "bad." What he found, however, was a coalition of economic and social interests in which the single-minded quest for profit allied with the values of the Victorian saloon underworld and bohemian rebelliousness. This combination radically inverted common American standards of personal conduct.

Bad Habits, then, describes, in words and pictures, how more and more Americans learned to value hedonism and self-gratification—to smoke and swear during World War I, to admire cabaret night life, and to reject schoolmarmish standards in the age of Prohibition. Tracing the evolution of each of the bad habits, Burnham tells how liquor control boards encouraged the consumption of alcohol; how alcoholic beverage producers got their workers deferred from the draft during World War II; how convenience stores and accounting firms pursued profits by pushing legalized gambling; how "swinging" Playboy bankrolled a drug advocacy group; how advertising and television made the Marlboro Man a national hero; how drug paraphernalia was promoted by national advertisers; how a practical joker/drug addict caused a shortage of kitty litter on Long Island; and how the evolution of an entire sex therapy industry helped turn sexual experience into a new kind of commodity. Altogether, a lot of people made a lot of money. But what, the author asks, did these changes cost American society?

This illustrated tour de force by one of the most distinctive and important voices in social history reveals John C. Burnham at his provocative and controversial best.

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness, and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside favela. Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage.

It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing – and controversial – is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.

Darkness Visible tells the story of William Styron's recovery, laying bare the harrowing realities of clinical depression and chronicling his triumph over the disease that had claimed so many great writers before him. In the summer of 1985, Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide, leading him to seek hospitalization before the dark tide engulfed him.

His final words are a call for hope to all who suffer from mental illness that it is possible to emerge from even the deepest abyss of despair and “once again behold the stars.”

In November 1965, some 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister battalion was chopped to pieces.

Together, these actions at the landing zones X-Ray and Albany constituted one of the most savage and significant battles of the Vietnam War. How these men persevered—sacrificed themselves for their comrades and never gave up—makes a vivid portrait of war at its most inspiring and devastating.

General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier.

It reveals to us, as rarely before, man's most heroic and horrendous endeavor.

A Natural History of the Senses is a vibrant celebration of our ability to smell, taste, hear, touch, and see. Poet, pilot, naturalist, journalist, essayist, and explorer, Diane Ackerman weaves together scientific fact with lore, history, and voluptuous description. The resulting work is a startling and enchanting account of how human beings experience and savor the world.

This book is at once an ingenious exploration of the physical processes underlying our perceptions and an eloquent ode to life—a rare combination of science and poetry. Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine, and the music played by the planet Earth.

Join Ackerman in this delightful journey that gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.

Ralph Moody was eight years old in 1906 when his family moved from New Hampshire to a Colorado ranch. Through his eyes, the pleasures and perils of ranching in the early twentieth century are experienced.

Join them in auctions and roundups, family picnics, irrigation wars, tornadoes, and wind storms that give authentic color to Little Britches. These wonderfully told adventures equip Ralph to take his father's place when it becomes necessary.

This book is newly republished in a hardcover edition with a 1950s cover, jacket, and pictorial endpages. Interior illustrations by Edward Shenton.

Diet for a Small Planet is the extraordinary book that taught America the social and personal significance of a new way of eating. It remains a complete guide for eating well in the twenty-first century.

Sharing her personal evolution and how this groundbreaking book changed her own life, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappé offers an all-new, even more fascinating philosophy on changing yourself—and the world—by changing the way you eat.

The Diet for a Small Planet features:

• Simple rules for a healthy diet
• Streamlined, easy-to-use format
• Food combinations that make delicious, protein-rich meals without meat
• Indispensable kitchen hints—a comprehensive reference guide for planning and preparing meals and snacks
• Hundreds of wonderful recipes

Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone.

Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

City at the Point provides an insightful overview of scholarly research on the history of Pittsburgh, a city often used as a case study for measuring social change. This book synthesizes both published and previously unpublished literature, offering a comprehensive look at how this knowledge relates to broader understandings of urbanization and urbanism.

This work is especially useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on environmental politics and policy making. It can also serve as a valuable supplement for courses on public policy making in general.

In August 1984, Michigan housewife Betty Mahmoody accompanied her husband to his native Iran for a two-week vacation. To her horror, she found herself and her four-year-old daughter, Mahtob, virtual prisoners of a man rededicated to his Shiite Moslem faith, in a land where women are near-slaves and Americans are despised. Their only hope for escape lay in a dangerous underground that would not take her child.

Now the true story of this courageous woman and her breathtaking odyssey bursts upon the screen in the Pathe Entertainment production starring Academy Award-winner Sally Field Not Without My Daughter is a Literary Guild Alternate Selection.

In Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda introduces readers to a new approach for the first time, exploring his own final voyage into the teachings of don Juan. He shares with us what it is like to truly “stop the world” and perceive reality on his own terms.

Originally drawn to Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus for his knowledge of mind-altering plants, bestselling author Carlos Castaneda immersed himself entirely in the sorcerer’s magical world. Ten years after his first encounter with the shaman, Castaneda examines his field notes and comes to understand what don Juan knew all along—that these plants are merely a means to understanding the alternative realities that one cannot fully embrace on one’s own.

Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein presents a deep dive into the philosophies of mind, language, and meaning. This work is a distillation of two decades of intensive philosophical exploration.

Wittgenstein's approach in this book challenges traditional views and provides a new perspective on how we understand and interact with the world through language. His unique insights make this book a cornerstone in the field of philosophy.

Explore the intricacies of language and its role in shaping our thoughts and perceptions. Philosophical Investigations invites you to question and ponder the very nature of understanding and communication.

The Story of Philosophy offers a brilliant and concise account of the lives and ideas of the great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Nietzsche, Bergson, Croce, Russell, Santayana, James, and Dewey.

Few write for the non-specialist as well as Will Durant, and this book is a splendid example of his eminently readable scholarship. Durant’s insight and wit never cease to dazzle. The Story of Philosophy is a key book for any reader who wishes to survey the history and development of philosophical ideas in the Western world.

Wiseguy is Nicholas Pileggi's remarkable bestseller, offering the most intimate account ever printed of life inside the deadly high-stakes world of what some people call the Mafia. This is the story of Henry Hill, shared in fascinating and brutal detail, revealing the never-before-revealed day-to-day life of a working mobster.

Explore his violence, wild spending sprees, his wife and mistresses, and his code of honor. Discover the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas. Experience the secret life inside the mob—from one who’s lived it.

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure — a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage.

On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land — the Polynesian island of Puka Puka.

Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of daring and courage — a magnificent saga of men against the sea.

When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880–1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil.

Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex. This book delves into the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

Foucault challenges the norms and invites readers to rethink the complex relationships between sex, power, and identity. Through this work, he provides a critical lens on how sexuality is perceived and its impact on society.

A woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder reveals her harrowing journey from abuse to recovery in this #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography written by her own multiple personalities.

Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was terrifying: Truddi’s mind and body were inhabited by the Troops—ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood.

For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her own stepfather—abuse that began when she was only two years old. It was a past that Truddi didn’t even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began...

Written by the Troops themselves, When Rabbit Howls is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with Truddi Chase, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal hell—and an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.

Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.

Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.