"Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style of oral history, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of Communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals....

"The extraordinary life of James Monroe: soldier, senator, diplomat, and the last Founding Father to hold the presidency, a man who helped transform thirteen colonies into a vibrant and mighty republic. Critically acclaimed author Tim McGrath has delved into an astonishing array of primary sources, many rarely seen since Monroe's own time, to conjure up this remarkable portrait of an essential American statesman and president."--

"As deeply rewarding as her fiction, a selection of Ann Beattie's essays, chosen and introduced by the author. From appreciations of writers, photographers, and other artists, to notes on the craft of writing itself, this is a wide-ranging, and always penetrating collection of writing never before published in book form. Ann Beattie, a master storyteller, has been delighting readers since the publication of her short stories in the 1970s and her first...

Are philosophy and religion - reason and faith - fundamentally at odds? From today's strict division between questions of logic and questions of belief, one might think so. But for 1,000 years during a pivotal era of Western thought, reason and faith went hand-in-hand in the search for answers to the most profound issues investigated by Christianity's most committed scholars: Can God's existence and attributes be established by reason alone? Are there...

"On the assumption that John Updike was correct when he asserted, in a 1978 letter to Joyce Carol Oates, that "Nobody can read like a writer, " Why I Like This Story presents brief essays by forty-eight leading American writers on their favorite American short stories, explaining why they like them. The essays, which are personal, not scholarly, not only tell us much about the story selected, they also tell us a good deal about the author of the essay,...

"Dr. Toby Fleishman wakes up each morning surrounded by women. Women who are self-actualized and independent and know what they want--and, against all odds, what they want is Toby. Who knew what kind of life awaited him once he finally extracted himself from his nightmare of a marriage? Who knew that there were women out there who would actually look at him with softness and desire? But just as the winds of his optimism are beginning to pick up, they're...

Unlike other faiths, Confucianism and Daoism focus almost entirely on life in this world, not the next. So how do followers find meaning and consolation in the face of their deaths? The answers can be found in the distinct approaches of the great Chinese thinkers Confucius and Zhuangzi.

One crucial test of any philosophy of life is whether it's helpful in unpleasant, unavoidable situations. Learn how Stoicism passes this test by looking at what Seneca (in three powerful letters of consolation he wrote to friends and family) has to say about the fundamental subjects of grief and distress.