Binu and The Great Wall: The Myth of Meng
by Su Tong, translated by Howard Goldblatt

Hardcover $24.00 - 10%

From the author of the international hit Raise the Red Lantern comes a gorgeous reimagining of the myth of the girl whose tears collapsed the Great Wall—the seminal myth in Chinese culture. Su Tong is China’s most provocative young writer. Binu and the Great Wall is spellbinding and shocking—a tour de force from an artist called “a writer to watch” by Kirkus Reviews and “a true literary talent” by Anchee Min. In Peach village, crying is forbidden. But as a child, Binu never learned to hide her tears. Shunned by the villagers, she faced a bleak future until she met Qiliang, an orphan who offered her his hand in marriage. Then, one day, Qiliang disappears. Binu learns that he has been transported hundreds of miles and forced to labor on a project of terrifying ambition and scale—the building of the Great Wall. Binu is determined to find and save her husband. Inspired by her love, she sets out on an extraordinary journey toward Great Swallow Mountain with only a blind frog for company. What follows is an unforgettable story of passion, hardship, and magical adventure.

World Made by Hand: A Novel
by James Howard Kunstler

Hardcover $24.00 - 10%

In the best-seller The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler explored how the terminal decline of oil production had the potential to put industrial civilization out of business. With World Made By Hand Kunstler makes an imaginative leap into the future, a few decades hence, and shows us what life may be like after these coming catastrophes—the end of oil, climate change, global pandemics, and resource wars—converge. For the townspeople of Union Grove, New York, the future is not what they thought it would be.  Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy. And the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren’t sure. As the heat of summer intensifies, the residents struggle with the new way of life in a world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields and rivers replenished with fish. A captivating, utterly realistic novel, World Made by Hand takes speculative fiction beyond the apocalypse and shows what happens when life gets extremely local.

Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Meth Addiction
by David Sheff

Hardcover $24.00 - 10%

From Publishers Weekly
Expanding on his New York Times Magazine article, Sheff chronicles his son’s downward spiral into addiction and the impact on him and his family. A bright, capable teenager, Nic began trying mind- and mood-altering substances when he was 17. In months, use became abuse, then abuse became addiction. By the time Sheff knew of his son’s condition, Nic was strung out on meth, the highly potent stimulant. While his son struggles to get clean, his second wife and two younger children are pulled helplessly into the drama. Sheff, as the parent of an addict, cycles through denial and acceptance and resistance. The author was already a journalist of considerable standing when this painful story began to unfold, and his impulse for detail serves him personally as well as professionally: there are hard, solid facts about meth and the kinds of havoc it wreaks on individuals, families and communities both urban and rural. His journey is long and harrowing, but Sheff does not spare himself or anyone else from keen professional scrutiny any more than he was himself spared the pains—and joys—of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery. Real recovery creates—and can itself be—its own reward; this is an honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
by Timothy Keller

Hardcover $24.95 - 10%

Although a vocal minority continues to attack the Christian faith, for most Americans, faith is a large part of their lives: 86 percent of Americans refer to themselves as religious, and 75 percent of all Americans consider themselves Christians. So how should they respond to these passionate, learned, and persuasive books that promote science and secularism over religion and faith? For years, Tim Keller has compiled a list of the most frequently voiced “doubts” skeptics bring to his Manhattan church. And in The Reason for God, he single-handedly dismantles each of them. Written with atheists, agnostics, and skeptics in mind, Keller also provides an intelligent platform on which true believers can stand their ground when bombarded by the backlash. The Reason for God challenges such ideology at its core and points to the true path and purpose of Christianity.

Why is there suffering in the world? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Why isn’t Christianity more inclusive? Shouldn’t the Christian God be a god of love? How can one religion be “right” and the rest “wrong”? Why have so many wars been fought in the name of God? These are just a few of the questions even ardent believers wrestle with today. In this book, Tim Keller uses literature, philosophy, real-life conversations and reasoning, and even pop culture to explain how faith in a Christian God is a soundly rational belief, held by thoughtful people of intellectual integrity with a deep compassion for those who truly want to know the truth.

Tattooing the World: Pacific Designs in Print and Skin
by Juniper Ellis

Paperback $27.50

In the 1830s an Irishman named James F. O’Connell acquired a full-body tattoo while living as a castaway in the Pacific. The tattoo featured traditional patterns that, to native Pohnpeians, defined O’Connell’s life; they made him wholly human. Yet upon traveling to New York, these markings singled him out as a freak. His tattoos frightened women and children, and ministers warned their congregations that viewing O’Connell’s markings would cause the ink to transfer to the skin of their unborn children. In many ways, O’Connell’s story exemplifies the unique history of the modern tattoo, which began in the Pacific and then spread throughout the world. No matter what form it has taken, the tattoo has always embodied social standing, aesthetics, ethics, culture, gender, and sexuality. Tattoos are personal and corporate, private and public. They mark the profane and the sacred, the extravagant and the essential, the playful and the political. From the Pacific islands to the world at large, tattoos are a symbolic and often provocative form of expression and communication.

Tattooing the World is the first book on tattoo literature and culture. Juniper Ellis traces the origins and significance of modern tattoo in the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists, travelers, missionaries, scientists, and such writers as Herman Melville, Margaret Mead, Albert Wendt, and Sia Figiel. Traditional Pacific tattoo patterns are formed using an array of well-defined motifs. They place the individual in a particular community and often convey genealogy and ideas of the sacred. However, outside of the Pacific, those who wear and view tattoos determine their meaning and interpret their design differently. Reading indigenous historiography alongside Western travelogue and other writings, Ellis paints a surprising portrait of how culture has been etched both on the human form and on a body of literature.

The Welsh Girl
by Peter Ho Davies

Paperback $13.95

From Publishers Weekly
Esther, a WWII-era Welsh barmaid, finds her father—a fiercely nationalistic, anti-English shepherd—provincial; she daydreams that she’ll elope to London with her secret sweetheart, an English soldier. In short order, Esther is raped by her boyfriend, and her Welsh village is turned into a dumping ground for German prisoners. Meanwhile, Karsten, a German POW who is mortified that he’d ordered his men to surrender, believes that only by escaping can he find redemption. Davies (Equal Love) uses the familiar tensions of WWII Britain to nice ensemble effect: among the more nuanced secondary characters is a British captain who is the son of a German-Jewish WWI hero—the man’s father had always considered himself a Lutheran until the Nazi ascension forced him to flee Germany. As Esther begins to question her own allegiances, Karsten comes into her orbit. What makes this first novel by an award-winning short-storyteller an intriguing read isn’t the plot—which doesn’t quite go anywhere—but the beautifully realized characters, who learn that life is a jumble of difficult compromises best confronted with eyes wide open.

Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path Through Divorce
by Gabriel Cohen

Paperback $14.95

About a million people get divorced in the U.S. every year; an estimated three million people practice Buddhism in the U.S., with interest in the topic widely growing. The first book to focus explicitly on both subjects, Gabriel Cohen’s Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path through Divorce (Da Capo Lifelong Books; March 1st, 2008) shows how to use Buddhist insights to heal the stress and heartbreak of romantic breakups.

Gabriel Cohen has written for the New York Times and Time Out New York and has taught writing at NYU. The author of three novels, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Bryan Adams
by Bryan Adams

Paperback $22.95

At first, Bryan Adams’ photography was closely linked to his life as a music icon. As a Canadian rock star who has sold more than 60 million records since the early eighties, this multi-talented artist also photographed the backstage scene, and later for his own album covers. However, before long he was also shooting advertising campaigns for British designer John Richmond. Next, came highly acclaimed photographs in such prestigious magazines as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Several successful projects followed, including a tribute to his native land entitled Made in Canada, Haven which chronicled the upper echelons of British society, and American Women for fashion designer Calvin Klein. His work combines the vital energy of rock with the eclectic sophistication of his international upbringing. He has received extensive acclaim for his portraits of luminaries such as Pink, Hillary Clinton, and Pamela Anderson. In 2006, Adams received the German Lead Award for his series of portraits of Mickey Rourke.

Zen Ties
written & illustrated by Jon J Muth

Hardcover $17.99

From Publishers Weekly
Stillwater, the giant panda who taught Zen parables to siblings Karl, Addy and Michael in Zen Shorts, continues to combine his slow-moving grace with genuine spiritual tranquility. This time, Michael faces a daunting spelling bee, and Stillwater, first seen wearing a necktie, introduces the three to Miss Whitaker, an elderly neighbor whose crabby outbursts have frightened them. Stillwater’s inward eye sees through her anger to her fear and loneliness. She turns out to be a marvelous spelling coach (Just like plants, words have roots, she tells Michael. Roots of words can teach you to spell), and when Michael wins a red ribbon, the pictures show the whole group sharing his victory with their own red ribbons—the Zen ties of the title. (Zentai is Japanese for the whole or the entire, as in all of us together.) A subplot featuring Koo, Stillwater’s nephew, drifts a bit; he’s a cute little panda who punctuates the action with Zen-influenced haiku (and allows Muth another pun: Hi, Koo!). Muth’s brush is as sure as ever; Stillwater’s big, blunt paws and hunched-over listening posture are irresistible, and Miss Whitaker’s delicate face and snow-white hair beautifully counterpoint the vignettes of youthful play. From a religious tradition that makes no theological demands and that will be unfamiliar to most readers, Stillwater offers a model of pure saintliness, and children will instantly respond to him. All ages.

No End in Sight: Iraq’s Descent into Chaos
by Charles Ferguson

Paperback $17.95

The Fish Can Sing     *NEW EDITION
by Halldor Laxness, introduction by Jane Smiley

Paperback $14.00

From Publishers Weekly
Laxness, Iceland’s best-known fiction writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize for literature, authored well over 60 novels and other books before his death in 1998 at the age of 90. This lyrical novel, first published in English in 1966 (nine years after its original publication in Iceland), concerns a boy named Alfgr¡mur Hannson of Brekkukot, the humble fishing cottage where he is raised by adoptive grandparents. The novel’s plot–if so formal a term may be used to describe the tale’s slow and meandering progress through Alfgr¡mur’s uneventful youth–involves an Icelandic singing star known as Gardar H¢lm. All Iceland, except for H¢lm’s own mother and the folks at Brekkukot, dote on H¢lm because of his international reputation for performing lieder. Yet few have ever heard him sing–the beloved H¢lm is growing old and he is mysteriously elusive. Young Alfgr¡mur may also be a gifted singer, and he tracks H¢lm down assiduously. Once he finds him, however, he learns that singing is only one way of seeking “the one true note”–and he who has heard that note never sings again. Laxness portrays the backwardness of turn-of-the-century Iceland with gentle humor and irony. Tiny Iceland needs its “singing fish”–celebrities like Gardar H¢lm, and perhaps Alfgr¡mur Hannson–but the moral of Laxness’s lovely fable references a simpler sentiment: glory may just as well be sought in the humblest walks of life.

Civilization: A New History of the Western World
by Roger Osborne

Paperback $16.95

From Publishers Weekly
This stimulating survey steers a middle course between triumphal pageant of progress and postmodern bricolage of clashing perspectives to attempt a coherent narrative of Western history. Historian Osborne (The Floating Egg: Episodes in the Making of Geology) traces a lucid, thoughtful overview of European and American history from Stonehenge and the Greco-Roman era to the present. Tying together his account are a few broad themes, most prominently the development of rationalism—the use of abstract reasoning to uncover universal laws governing nature and society—from its Platonic origins to its apotheosis in Western science and its malevolent influence on Soviet communism. This often sinister rationalism works in counterpoint, and sometimes opposition, to what he sees as the redeeming organicity of Western culture, its rootedness in human adaptation to changing environments and practical needs in a multitude of contexts, from the growth of medieval towns to the rise of Hollywood and rock ‘n’ roll. Some pronouncements, like Osborne’s insistence on the unique ferocity of Western warfare, aren’t persuasive, and the paragraph he accords the Rolling Stones’ 1969 Altamont concert is one too many. But one judges such a book less by its historiographical synthesis than by the wealth of provocative insights it throws up, and by that measure Osborne succeeds admirably.

Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
by Steven Bach

Paperback $16.95

From Booklist
Riefenstahl revered “what was beautiful, strong, and healthy,” but her greatest achievements, the paradigmatic films Triumph of the Will and Olympia were made to glorify Hitler and the Third Reich. In his penetrating and superbly well-written biography, Bach ponders the difficult questions raised by Riefenstahl’s many-chaptered life (she was 101 when she died in 2003). Is there a moral dimension to art? Is devotion to making art an excuse for moral failings? As Bach expertly elucidates the opportunistic Riefenstahl’s exploits as a dancer, actress, filmmaker, Nazi insider, African adventurer, photographer, and deep-sea diver, he takes measure, as no one else has, of her ruthless ambition, idealized aesthetics, and extreme egocentricity. Dexterously fitting together newly recovered puzzle pieces, Bach presents evidence suggesting that Riefenstahl was part Jewish; explicates her close relationships with Hitler, Goebbels, and Albert Speer; documents her use of “film slaves” borrowed from “holding pens for the Holocaust”; and analyzes her “self-righteous entitlement” and personal revisionist history. Possessed of phenomenal vitality and physical courage, if lacking in compassion and integrity, Riefenstahl loved fairy tales, and, as Bach so perceptively and artistically reveals, she succeeded in living one, however insidious.

The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution
by Barnet Schecter

Paperback $16.00

From Publishers Weekly
Schecter here presents in sometimes overwhelming detail the story of New York from the beginning of the American Revolution in the spring of 1775 to the city’s evacuation by the British late in 1783. The military operations of 1776 are the central focus, as the British occupied the city in order to advance up the Hudson River and unite with another force coming down from Canada. British Gen. William Howe landed troops on Long Island and routed the colonial army on August 27. In despair but persevering, Gen. George Washington listened to subordinates and managed to evacuate his troops from Long Island that night, even as the British navy awaited nearby. And Washington kept running, evacuating New York City in mid-September (with some minor fighting at Harlem Heights, Throg’s Neck and White Plains) and withdrawing into New Jersey after losing more than 2,600 captured at Fort Washington. The British navy held New York City under martial law for the rest of the war, forced to maintain its presence there after the army moved to the South. Schecter details the lives of area loyalists, more than 29,000 of whom went to Canada after the war. Although many readers will find some of the abundant operational material hard going, Schecter’s research is impeccable, and his battlefield tour of today’s New York brings immediacy to the story. 8 maps and 65 illus.

Julius Shulman: Palm Springs
compiled and edited by Michael Stern, Alan Hess

Hardcover $55.00 - 10%

Through Julius Shulman’s lens, the architecture of Southern California became iconic images of modernism. His photographs heralded the glamor and casual elegance of a lifestyle and architecture that has become revered worldwide. Focusing on the desert paradise of Palm Springs, which was his seminal crucible, this book presents his masterpieces. Images range from Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House and Albert Frey’s Raymond Loewy House, to Paul R. Williams’ house for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Frank Sinatra’s house, John Lautner’s house for Bob Hope, as well as other famous landmarks. The book features more than sixty buildings by fifteen of the most notable mid-twentieth-century architects. With new photography and images culled from his personal collection as well as the Getty Center, this book includes many images never before seen.

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame, illus. by Robert Ingpen

Hardcover $19.95

Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) worked primarily as a banker during his life. His masterpiece The Wind in the Willows grew out of the stories he told his young son. Robert Ingpen has designed, illustrated, and written more than 100 published works of fiction and nonfiction, among them Around the World in 80 Days, The Jungle Book, and the centenary edition of Peter Pan and Wendy. In 1986 he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for his contribution to children’s literature.

Lee Friedlander: Photographs - Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes
by Lee Friedlander

Hardcover $85.00 - 10%

A natural chronicler of all things uniquely American, photographer Lee Friedlander here puts his lens to the work of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), designer of many of this country’s most iconic public landscapes and the father of North American landscape architecture. Olmsted was responsible for a staggering number of America’s greatest parks, including the Niagara reservation (North America’s oldest state park), Washington Park, the Biltmore Estate, the U.S. Capitol building landscape and entire parkway systems in Buffalo and Louisville. His most famous work remains New York City’s Central Park, a pioneering egalitarian gesture that was very unusual at the time for its ready accessibility. This book, published to coincide with The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2008 exhibition, compiles 89 photographs made by Friedlander in Olmsted’s public parks and private estates.
This stunning collection of rich tritones celebrates the complex, idiosyncratic picture-making of one of the country’s greatest living photographers, and also arrives upon the 150 year anniversary of Olmsted’s 1858 design for Central Park. Rambling across bridges and through open meadows and dense undergrowth, Friedlander locates a pure pleasure in Olmsted’s designs–in the meticulous stonework, the balance of exposure to shade, and in the mature, weather-beaten trees that attest to the durability of Olmsted’s vision.