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“There are books
that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There
are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A
book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as
offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments:
that’s how I sell books.”
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a
literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the
Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his
intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken
hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through
literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great
love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never
opened.
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Henrietta Lacks, as
HeLa, is known to present-day scientists for her cells from cervical
cancer. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land
as her slave ancestors, yet her cells were taken without her knowledge
and still live decades after her death. Cells descended from her may
weigh more than 50M metric tons.
HeLa cells were vital for
developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and
the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro
fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold
by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave.
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A former girlfriend of
Hugh Hefner describes how her years inside the Playboy Mansion went from
a fairytale of A-list celebrity parties to an oppressive regime of
strict rules, scheduled sex, and a total loss of identity, so much so
that she even contemplated suicide.
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From the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO's Girls
comes a hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal
essays that establishes Lena Dunham as one of the most original young
talents writing today.
In Not that Kind of Girl, Dunham
illuminates the experiences that are part of making one's way in the
world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight
despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full
of men twice your age, finding true love, and, most of all, having the
guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told.
For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit and Unbroken, the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics
Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the
University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for
an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the
attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard
workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern
and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf
Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
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“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”
In
a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American
history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his
son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding
our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire
on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most
heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through
slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered
out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find
a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this
fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
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Now a New York Times Bestseller
A
hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and
perils of modern romance from one of this generation’s sharpest comedic
voices
At some point, every one of us embarks on
a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of
relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a
deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different
from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have
more romantic options than at any point in human history. With
technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options
are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?
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