Running a successful fashion empire in Paris and New York that hides the pain of a failed marriage, Timmie O'Neill endures a sequence of meaningless relationships before a surprise bout of appendicitis places her under the care of alluring but married French doctor, Jean-Charles Vernier.

The follow-up to Pinker's groundbreaking The Better Angels of Our Nature presents the big picture of human progress: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. Far from being a naive hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against...

Looking to some of the world's greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day,...

Lucy and his mother are taking a trip to Italy, where Lucy's oldest friend now lives. The exact nature of their friendship is one of the many mysteries Lucy hopes to untangle in the history he's writing of his hometown and family.

The lives of Jack and Joy Griffin always seem to come back to Cape Cod, where they honeymooned, as they experience the ups and downs of life, including the deaths of Jack's parents, the marriage of their daughter, and Jack and Joy's divorce.

One of the last unheralded heroic stories of World War II: the U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community's monumental contribution to that effort. One of the indelible images of World War II is of an explosion at sea--a U-boat attack, a ship in flames, and an ocean full of men swimming for their lives. The Mathews Men tells the story of what it was like...

This collection of stories illuminates moments that shape a life, from a dream or a sexual act to simple twists of fate that turn a person out of his or her accustomed path and into another way of being. Set in the countryside and towns of Lake Huron, these stories about departures and beginnings, accidents, dangers, and homecomings both virtual and real, paint a portrait of how strange, dangerous, and extraordinary the ordinary life can be.

From the influential and hugely popular "New York Times" columnist and bestselling author of "Bobos in Paradise" comes a landmark exploration of how human beings and communities succeed.

Blends together history and nature writing to provide a new perspective on Yellowstone and what it has come to represent, explaining the park's relationship to America throughout history. "As America's premier national park, Yellowstone today stands for wilderness, ecological science, and natural beauty. But those associations, and others, have evolved since the park's founding in 1872. Evocatively written and masterfully researched, [this book]...

Today, we remember the Kennedys as an iconic American family - the vanguard of wealth, power, and style, rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple, Patrick and Bridget Kennedy, who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched...