Shaping Memories offers short essays by notable black women writers on pivotal moments that strongly influenced their careers. With contributions from such figures as novelist Paule Marshall, folklorist Daryl Cumber Dance, poets Mari Evans and Camille Dungy, essayist Ethel Morgan Smith, and scholar Maryemma Graham, the anthology provides a thorough overview of the formal concerns and thematic issues facing contemporary black women writers.

Editor Joanne Veal Gabbin offers an introduction that places these writers in the context of American literature in general and African American...
View More...

A haunting story of love and war from "one of the world's great contemporary writers" (Barack Obama), the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists.

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full...
View More...

Things to Know About Me

by Jules Bloom

1. I am a scrambled-eggs-and-chocolate-milk type person.

2. I have an audition for a TV commercial (which would be great if I were a tall-icy-drink type person.)

3. I am in between best friends right now.

4. I am worried that the audition will be a disaster. (See #1 and #3 )

Jules doesn't want to ruin THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME, and she's willing to turn to anyone for help--even her know-it-all ex-best friend If only that lovely n...
View More...

"A marvelous book... thought provoking and highly entertaining."
--Jerome Groopman, New York Times bestselling author of How Doctors Think

"Ariely not only gives us a great read; he also makes us much wiser."
--George Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics

"Revolutionary."
--New York Times Book Review

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-...
View More...

"A marvelous book... thought provoking and highly entertaining."
--Jerome Groopman, New York Times bestselling author of How Doctors Think

"Ariely not only gives us a great read; he also makes us much wiser."
--George Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics

"Revolutionary."
--New York Times Book Review

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-...
View More...

The last book on Judaism you will ever have to buy, this hilarious tome from three comedy legends contains the sweetness of an apricot rugelach and all the wisdom of a matzoh ball.

Why do random Jewish holidays keep springing up unexpectedly? Why are yarmulkes round? Who was the first Jewish comedian?

These baffling questions and many more are answered by the comedic powerhouse trio of Dave Barry, Adam Mansbach, and Alan Zweibel. In A Field Guide to the Jewish People the authors dissect every holiday, rite of passage, and tradition, unravel a long a...
View More...

A Lover's Discourse, at its 1978 publication, was revolutionary: Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. Rich with references ranging from Goethe's Werther to Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert, A Lover's Discourse artfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves.

A stone lion roars...
A sleek black cat speaks...
A faun leaps from the canvas of a painting...

When Jared, Shireen, and Miranda are each given one glittering gift from an old Venetian shopkeeper, they never fathom the powers they are now able to unleash; they never expect that their very reality is about to be utterly upended. And the adventure has hardly begun.

For in another...
View More...

During the Nazis' brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet ...
View More...