Cancer researchers, Ireland's battlefields, and civil rights leaders help Gladwell demonstrate the hidden truths behind the weak and the powerful. Gladwell also heads into the classroom to examine common misconceptions about how we define advantages and disadvantages.
Nikki Fife, out on parole after spending eight years in prison for the murder of her husband, hires investigator Kinsey Milhone to find out who really killed Laurence, a ruthless divorce attorney who had a wealth of enemies.
Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion. He was a rough-hewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn't straighten all the way. But, thanks to the efforts of three men, Seabiscuit became one of the most spectacular performers in sports history.
The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the...
The rascally Thomas of Hookton, aka Le Batard, and his band of not-so-merry mercenaries are bidden by the Earl of Northhampton to unearth the lost sword of Saint Peter in this recreation of the Battle of the Poitiers in 1356 wherein a severely outnumbered English army defeats the French and captures the Poiters and French King John II.
Perry's IQ is only 76, but he's not stupid. His grandmother taught him everything he needs to know to survive: She taught him to write things down so he won't forget them. She taught him to play the lottery every week. And, most important, she taught him whom to trust. When Gram dies, Perry is left orphaned and bereft at the age of thirty-one. Then his weekly Washington State Lottery ticket wins him 12 million dollars, and he finds he has more family...
Roberto Clemente, a former Pittsburgh Pirate, was that rarest of athletic figures who transcended sports. Now, in this full-scale biography, Maraniss shares the remarkable life and career of the great major leaguer and humanitarian who perished in a plane crash while on his way to deliver medical, food, and clothing supplies to those stricken by an earthquake in Nicaragua.
"In a forceful but humane narrative, former soldier and head of the West Point history department Ty Seidule's Robert E. Lee and Me challenges the myths and lies of the Confederate legacy-and explores why some of this country's oldest wounds have never healed. Ty Seidule grew up revering Robert E. Lee. From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S. Army, every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who...
In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. Owen Meany believes he didn't hit the ball by accident. He believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after 1953 is extraordinary and terrifying. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a coming-of-age tale that ranks among the most cherished American classics....
"Till now there's been no magic for Harry Potter. He lives with the miserable Dursleys at number four, Privet Drive. His room is the cupboard under the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years. But then a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And there he finds not only friends, flying sports on broomsticks, and magic in everything...
The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard...
Dwayne Hoover, a successful automobile dealer in Midland City, suddenly decides that he is a machine and begins to act accordingly. Science fiction writer Kilgore Trout is on his way to the Midland City Festival of the Arts. When they meet, the result is catastrophe.
Presents a classic edition of the 1961 satire of military bureaucracy, focusing on the story of John Yossarian, a bombadier in World War II who is trying to avoid getting killed while at the same time dealing with a colonel who keeps upping the number of missions he must fly.
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbour from hell'. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty...
The international bestselling romantic comedy "bursting with warmth, emotional depth, and...humor," (EntertainmentWeekly) featuring the oddly charming, socially challenged genetics professor, Don, as he seeks true love. The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who's decided it's time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches...
When two teens, one gay and one straight, meet accidentally and discover that they share the same name, their lives become intertwined as one begins dating the other's best friend, who produces a play revealing his relationship with them both.
"Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a seminal novel of the 1960s. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants--a counterculture classic that inspired the 1975 film adaptation, widely considered one of the greatest movies ever made"--
