David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courilof Affair (Everyman’s Library)
by Irene Nemirovsky, Translated by Sandra Smith

Hardcover $25.00 - 10%

In 2006 English readers worldwide were introduced to Irène Némirovsky’s rediscovered masterpiece, Suite Française, which topped just about every “best of” list that year, including our own. Thanks to the editors of the Everyman’s Library 20th-Century Classics series, a second wave of the prolific author’s writing has just hit our shores. In a single volume, readers can find four of Nemirovsky’s gem-like early novellas–David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, and The Courilof Affair–with all the trimmings: a shrewd introduction by Claire Messud (The Emperor’s Children) and a detailed chronology of the author’s life and times. These first novellas demonstrate Némirovsky’s genius for exposing an individual’s virtues and flaws, much like a jeweler examining a diamond under a loupe. Potentially one-dimensional characters such as a greedy businessman or a spiteful teenager emerge from these stories as multi-faceted figures whose questionable beliefs and actions compel us to re-examine our own. Don’t miss these short, but potent tales.

Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones (33 1/3 Series)
by David Smay

Paperback $10.95

Two entwined narratives run through the creation of Swordfishtrombones and form the backbone of this book. As the 1970s ended, Waits felt increasingly constrained and trapped by his persona and career. Bitter and desperately unhappy, he moved to New York in 1979 to change his life. It wasn’t working. But at his low point, he got the phone call that changed everything: Francis Ford Coppola tapped Tom to write the score for One From the Heart. Waits moved back to Los Angeles to work at Zoetrope’s Hollywood studio for the next 18 months. He cleaned up, disciplined himself as a songwriter and musician, collaborated closely with Coppola, and met a script analyst named Kathleen Brennan - his “only true love”.

They married within 2 months at the Always and Forever Yours Wedding Chapel at 2am. Swordfishtrombones was the first thing Waits recorded after his marriage, and it was at Kathleen’s urging that he made a record that conceded exactly nothing to his record label, or the critics, or his fans. There aren’t many love stories where the happy ending sounds like a paint can tumbling in an empty cement mixer.

Kathleen Brennan was sorely disappointed by Tom’s record collection. She forced him out of his comfortable jazzbo pocket to take in foreign film scores, German theatre, and Asian percussion. These two stories of a man creating that elusive American second act, and also finding the perfect collaborator in his wife give this book a natural forward drive.

Critique of Everyday Life (3-volume Boxed Set)
by Henri Lefebvre (Author), Translated by John Moore & Gregory Elliott

Paperback $60.00

“The more needs a human being has, the more he exists,” quips Lefebvre in a savage critique of consumerist society, first published in 1947. The French philosopher, historian and Marxist sociologist, who died this summer at age 90, meditates on the dehumanization and ugliness smuggled into daily life under cover of purity, utility, beauty. He deconstructs leisure as a form of social control, spanks surrealism for its turning away from reality, and attempts to get past the “mystification” inherent in bourgeois life by analyzing Chaplin’s films, Brecht’s epic theater, peasant festivals, daydreams, Rimbaud and the rhythms of work and relaxation. Rejecting the inauthentic, which he perceives in a church service or in rote work from which one is alienated, Lefebvre nevertheless seeks to unearth the human potential that may be inherent in such rituals.

Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself (NYRB Classics)
by Robert Montgomery Bird

Paperback $16.95

Popular and well-regarded in his time as a playwright and novelist, Bird (1806-1854) has slipped out of American literature, but this 1830s medley of satire mingled with moral philosophy, while a period artifact, riffs winningly on the social and political culture of Bird’s America. Hoping to find buried treasure, the indolent Lee stumbles upon a “stone dead” neighbor. No sooner does he utter, “Oh, that I might be Squire Higginson!” than his wish is granted. Alas, Lee finds himself not only “with the gout and a scolding wife,” but accused of murdering himself. Thus begin his peregrinations by metempsychosis, with a lesson to be had from each new body taken. As Dulmer Dawkins, Lee finds that the price of being “a favorite among the women” is debt. Arriving South a few jumps later, Lee becomes Nigger Tom, a body he soon exigently escapes, only to pick a body that suffers from “dyspepsy.” From there, Lee explores the animal world (a dog), the inanimate (a coffee pot), and the dubiously historical (a French emperor). The various morals, as clear as they are, don’t spoil the fun of following Lee as he tries to get back to the farm.

Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology
Edited by Evgeny Bunimovitch, Translated by J. Kates

Paperback $14.95

Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Hopeless Romantic (Paperback)
by Christopher Phillips

Paperback $14.95

Christopher Phillips goes to the heart of philosophy and Socratic discourse to discover what we’re all looking for: the kind of love that makes life worthwhile. That is, love not defined only as eros, or erotic love, but in all its classical varieties. Love of neighbor, love of country, love of God, love of life, and love of wisdom. Phillips’s explorations take us from New Orleans at Mardi Gras and the gambling dens of Las Vegas to the last evangelical revival presided over by Billy Graham. He talks with moms and dads about “parent love,” with inmates of a maximum-security prison about “unconditional love,” with Hurricane Katrina refugees and a family who took them in, and with Japanese seniors and schoolchildren in Hiroshima Peace Park. Throughout, he enriches his dialogues with commentary on the great philosophers of love from the ancients to Rumi to Ayn Rand and Anaïs Nin.

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton
by Carl Bernstein

Paperback $15.95

A Woman in Charge is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein’s illuminating account of Hillary Rodham Clinton, revealing the complex of motivations and machinations behind her extraordinary life and career. Drawing on over 200 interviews with Clinton associates (both colleagues and adversaries), as well as major pieces written by and about the former First Lady, Bernstein has constructed an indelible portrait of perhaps the most polarizing figure in American politics, from her midwestern roots to her own presidential ambitions.

American Movie Critics: From Silents Until Now
by Phillip Lopate

Paperback $19.95

Devotion
by Howard Norman

Paperback $13.95

Norman’s intriguing, if at times baffling, sixth novel opens with a fight between Canadians David Kozol and his father-in-law, William Field, outside a hotel in London “on the morning of August 19, 1985.” That date is important—it’s just days after Kozol’s marriage to William’s daughter, Maggie—and an ensuing accident seriously injures William, the caretaker of a Nova Scotia estate on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. The result is a particularly strange domestic situation: Kozol assumes William’s duties on the estate; Maggie refuses to see her husband; William vows revenge on his son-in-law. Uncovering why the men were fighting and what separates the young couple drives the plot. Norman (The Bird Artist) uses the avian world as a counterpoint to the human one. William is devoted to the swans on the estate; Maggie wants in her own life the kind of devotion the swans embody. This quirky story deals with a powerful theme: how love endures despite our best efforts to sabotage it.

Streetwear: The Insider’s Guide
by Steven Vogel

Paperback $25.00

The first definitive guide to clothes inspired by urban youth culture, written and produced by those involved in this fast-growing fashion force, Streetwear offers an insider’s view of this subculture phenomenon-cum-industry. Hundreds of sketches, graphics, and photos present an encyclopedic overview of street style and fashion, while candid interviews bring together more than forty leading streetwear designers from around the world. Streetwear focuses not only on designers, but also on the magazines, Web publishers, and creative agencies that help drive these trends today. With its unique access and detailed reference section, Streetwear is the new bible for urban culture enthusiasts, documenting the appeal of a style that has exploded across the globe.

Hand Job: A Catalog of Type
by Michael Perry

Paperback $35.00

Chock-full of inspiration for designers an eye candy for those who just dress like them. Hand Job is about the next generation of superstars, from frighteningly talented students to rising taste makers Deanne Cheuk and Kevin Lyons. It’s hours of fun.

Extensions
by Adam Mornement

Hardcover $40.00 - 10%

The vast majority of architects cut their teeth designing small-scale additions to private homes. Extensions can be added to roofs, gardens, and underneath buildings or can even be strapped on to the sides.

Following a brief introduction, the book is divided into chapters featuring 40 projects that extend spaces up, down, to the rear, to the side, on the roof, internally, and outdoors. Each case study explains how the architects faced design challenges at the same time as meeting their clients’ needs. Details covered include choice of materials, planning issues, time, and cost.

The book also raises issues that clients ought to consider when commissioning an architect to design an extension, from developing a brief to the finished product. At the end of the book there is practical advice for anyone thinking about extending their own property.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
by Neil Shubin

Hardcover $24.00 - 10%

A Note from Author Neil Shubin

This book grew out of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. On account of faculty departures, I ended up directing the human anatomy course at the University of Chicago medical school. Anatomy is the course during which nervous first-year medical students dissect human cadavers while learning the names and organization of most of the organs, holes, nerves, and vessels in the body. This is their grand entrance to the world of medicine, a formative experience on their path to becoming physicians. At first glance, you couldn’t have imagined a worse candidate for the job of training the next generation of doctors: I’m a fish paleontologist.

It turns out that being a paleontologist is a huge advantage in teaching human anatomy. Why? The best roadmaps to human bodies lie in the bodies of other animals. The simplest way to teach students the nerves in the human head is to show them the state of affairs in sharks. The easiest roadmap to their limbs lies in fish. Reptiles are a real help with the structure of the brain. The reason is that the bodies of these creatures are simpler versions of ours.

During the summer of my second year leading the course, working in the Arctic, my colleagues and I discovered fossil fish that gave us powerful new insights into the invasion of land by fish over 375 million years ago. That discovery and my foray into teaching human anatomy led me to a profound connection. That connection became this book.

I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir
by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Hardcover $23.95 - 10%

house…and making peace with the ghosts that dwell in our hearts.

For Jennifer Boylan, creaking stairs, fleeting images in the mirror, and the remote whisper of human voices were everyday events in the Pennsylvania house in which she grew up in the 1970s. But these weren’t the only specters beneath the roof of the mansion known as the “Coffin House.” Jenny herself—born James—lived in a haunted body, and both her mysterious, diffident father and her wild, unpredictable sister would soon become ghosts to Jenny as well.

I’m Looking Through You is an engagingly candid investigation of what it means to be “haunted.” Looking back on the spirits who invaded her family home, Boylan launches a full investigation with the help of a group of earnest, if questionable, ghostbusters. Boylan also examines the ways we find connections between the people we once were and the people we become. With wit and eloquence, Boylan shows us how love, forgiveness, and humor help us find peace—with our ghosts, with our loved ones, and with the uncanny boundaries, real and imagined, between men and women.