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This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
This I Believe



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"To hold this range of beliefs in the palm of your hand is as fine, as grounding, as it was hearing them first on the radio. Heartfelt, deeply cherished beliefs, doctrines for living (yet none of them doctrinaire). Ideas and ideals that nourish. You can see it in their faces, in the photos in this book. And read it in their words. I'm so proud that NPR helped carry this Edward R. Murrow tradition into a new century. And so glad to have it in print, to encounter again and again."—Susan Stamberg, special correspondent, National Public Radio
This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women
This I Believe II



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"In the second collection derived from the extraordinarily popular and influential National Public Radio program This I Believe, pithy, personal, and stealthily affecting essays grapple with life's big questions from myriad perspectives and with refreshingly positive energy . . . Infused with gratitude and hope, these declarations are at once grounding and uplifting."—Booklist
Big Girl Small: A Novel
Big Girl Small



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Judy Lohden is your above-average sixteen-year-old, with a voice that can shake an auditorium. She should be the star of Darcy Arts Academy, so why is she...
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Nickel and Dimed



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"A valuable and illuminating book . . . We have Barbara Ehrenreich to thank for bringing us the news of America's working poor so clearly and directly, and conveying with it a deep moral outrage . . . She is our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism."—Dorothy Gallagher, The New York Times Book Review
The Good Soldiers:
The Good Soldiers


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"Against the tradition of combat memoirs, [Finkel] chooses to keep himself out of the action, so that The Good Soldiers sometimes reads more like a novel than a reporter’s journal, with Finkel as the omniscient narrator . . . The Good Soldiers is more than a splendid account of men in combat. It will stand as the classic book about an extremely challenging war."—Daniel Ford, Durham, New Hampshire, Michigan War Studies Review
The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction
The Thinking Life



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"The most provocative and useful book I’ve read in years." —Robert Sutton, New York Times bestselling author of The No Asshole Rule How do we turn off the...
The Trouble Is the Banks: Letters to Wall Street
The Trouble Is the Banks



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As seen in the New York Times Week in Review, Harper’s Magazine, and discussed on NPR’s Marketplace. The Trouble is the Banks collects 150 letters that...
Change Comes to Dinner: How Vertical Farmers, Urban Growers, and Other Innovators Are Revolutionizing How America Eats
Change Comes to Dinner



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“Katherine Gustafson is a troubadour for sustainable food, inviting us to jump into her rental car as she maps the inspiring alternative food system emerging across the United States. And here’s a pleasant surprise: we don’t spend any time in the privileged bubbles of Brooklyn or Berkeley; Gustafson’s expansive and hopeful portrait puts the rest of America back in the picture. Change Comes To Dinner shows us the outline of a sane food system: now it’s up to us to fill it in.”—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

The Outsourced Self: What Happens When We Pay Others to Live Our Lives for Us
The Outsourced Self



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"Hochschild isn't really interested in the extremes of the outsourced life. She wants to know what it feels like to be caught in the middle of it. An ethnographic sociologist rather than a quantifier of social trends, Hochschild elicits thoughtful reflections from ordinary people. Then she uses those reflections to chart the confusing intersections between commerce and private life that we all have to navigate now that the purveyors of personal assistance have built strip malls on nearly every acre of our inner selves . . . Hochschild's big contribution . . . is to tally the subtler costs of outsourcing: the 'de­personalization of our bonds with others,' the failure to enjoy the process of finding love or planning a wedding, the missing out on one's children's childhoods—all the little non-tragedies that add up to a thinner, sadder life."—The New York Times Book Review
Luminous Airplanes: A Novel
Luminous Airplanes



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A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice In September 2000, a young computer programmer comes home from a festival in the Nevada desert and learns that...
The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--Designing for Abundance
The Upcycle



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From the authors of Cradle to Cradle, we learn what’s next: The Upcycle The Upcycle is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Cradle to Cradle, one of the most...
Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times
Beautiful Souls



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“An act of conscience describes an action motivated by loyalty to a conviction, but it usually requires the defiance of other loyalties . . . Press's real achievement in this short book is not in his research or analysis, but in his refusal to flinch from that disquieting fact . . . He knows that those who act bravely are all the more likely to feel anguished, since they know what's at stake. In some ways this book is a thoughtful gesture of support. That might sound like a small thing, but it's not.”—Louisa Thomas, The New York Times Book Review
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Justice



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"What Justice does, and does very well, is teach. Sandel explains theories of justice based on utilitarianism (minimize social harm), libertarianism (maximize personal freedom) and communitarianism (cultivate civic virtue) with clarity and immediacy honed by years of classroom presentation; the ideas of Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Robert Nozick and John Rawls have rarely, if ever, been set out as accessibly. Sandel’s virtuosic untangling of Kant’s notorious knots, in under 40 pages, is worth the price of admission by itself . . . In terms we can all understand, [Justice] confronts us with the concepts that lurk, so often unacknowledged, beneath our conflicts.”—Jonathan Rauch, The New York Times Book Review
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
What Money Can't Buy



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"I found myself over and over again turning pages and saying, 'I had no idea.' I had no idea that in the year 2000 . . . 'a Russian rocket emblazoned with a giant Pizza Hut logo carried advertising into outer space,' or that in 2001, the British novelist Fay Weldon wrote a book commissioned by the jewelry company Bulgari . . . I knew that stadiums are now named for corporations, but had no idea that now 'even sliding into home is a corporate-sponsored event' . . . I had no idea that in 2001 an elementary school in New Jersey became America's first public school 'to sell naming rights to a corporate sponsor.'"—Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Manifest Injustice: The True Story of a Convicted Murderer and the Lawyers Who Fought for His Freedom
Manifest Injustice



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"Mr. Siegel brilliantly creates for the reader the essence of a jury trial: two sides, two narratives, two bodies of evidence and two theories of interpretation. Manifest Injustice stays with the reader long after the last page for it is not just a story of one man, but a fascinating indictment of our judicial system as a whole." —New York Journal of Books
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore



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“One of the most thoughtful and fun reading experiences you’re likely to have this year . . . extremely charismatic . . . deeply funny . . . there’s so much largehearted magic in this book . . . Sloan is remarkably gifted and has an obviously deep affection for both literature and technology.”—Michael Schaub, NPR Books 
The Barbarian Nurseries: A Novel
The Barbarian Nurseries



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“The Barbarian Nurseries is a book of extraordinary scope and extraordinary power. Héctor Tobar's second novel sweeps its central character from almost-serfdom and sends her on an odyssey through the teeming mysteries of Los Angeles and the wild jungles of the California judicial system . . . Tobar, a Los Angeles Times columnist, moves nimbly in and out of the minds of a host of characters, viewing even those who seem on the surface the least sympathetic with an awed authorial tenderness. The chief surprise of The Barbarian Nurseries is that, despite the social and ethnic schisms it so acutely explores, it turns out to be such a warm novel.” —Los Angeles Times

Zahra's Paradise:
Zahra's Paradise


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Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, Zahra’s Paradise is the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has...
Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist:
Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist


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"Ray Anderson is a personal inspiration for me and for anyone trying to find their way in this new world of green business.  He may be ‘radical’ but he’s also a profit-seeking businessman. Confessions tells an amazing first-hand story of a personal and business transformation, a journey from being a cold-eyed capitalist to being . . . a cold-eyed capitalist, but just with a much larger perspective on what profitable really means.  Ray has found a new path that’s good for the planet and great for his business.  He’s showing the world how it’s done yet again."—Andrew Winston, environmental strategist, author of Green Recovery and co-author of Green to Gold
The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project)
The Limits of Power

American Empire Project


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“This compact, meaty volume ought to be on the reading list of every candidate for national office in November's elections. In an age of cant and baloney, Andrew Bacevich offers a bracing slap of reality. The Limits of Power is gracefully written and easy to read . . . chockablock with provocative ideas and stern judgments. Bacevich's brand of intellectual assuredness is rare in today's public debates. Many of our talking heads and commentators are cocksure, of course, but few combine confidence with knowledge and deep thought the way Bacevich does here. His big argument is elegant and powerful.”—The Washington Post
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
A Long Way Gone



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"What is it about African wars that is so disturbing? Why do they unsettle us so? . . . The great benefit of Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, is that it may help us arrive at an understanding of this situation. Beah's autobiography is almost unique, as far as I can determine—perhaps the first time that a child soldier has been able to give literary voice to one of the most distressing phenomena of the late 20th century: the rise of the pubescent (or even prepubescent) warrior-killer . . . A Long Way Gone is his first, remarkable book. . . . Beah's memoir joins an elite class of writing: Africans witnessing African wars . . . A Long Way Gone makes you wonder how anyone comes through such unrelenting ghastliness and horror with his humanity and sanity intact. Unusually, the smiling, open face of the author on the book jacket provides welcome and timely reassurance. Ishmael Beah seems to prove it can happen."—William Boyd, The New York Times Book Review
No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process
No Impact Man



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"No Impact Man is a deeply honest and riveting account of the year in which Colin Beavan and his wife attempted to do what most of us would consider impossible. What might seem inconvenient to the point of absurdity instead teaches lessons that all of us need to learn. We as individuals can take action to address important social problems. One person can make a difference."—Marion Nestle, author of What to Eat
Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America
Escape from Slavery



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"Bok takes the Sudanese government and world leaders to task for their indifference to his people's suffering. Although he at first was an unwilling ambassador, he has become a leading voice for the antislavery movement in the United States."—Detroit News and Free Press

"A touching modern-day slave narrative that is more than just an account of [Bok's] journey from childhood to manhood under the worst of circumstances . . . Pages of historical details are eye-opening and provide a glimpse into what can happen when religion is the impetus in the governing of a nation . . . An informative, inspiring read."—The Boston Globe
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
Arc of Justice



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Winner of the National Book Award

"Masterful . . . An important, scholarly work . . . The writing is graceful [and] it endows the story with the majesty and consequence of an epic . . . This is the kind of book that causes students to major in history."—Paul Butler, The Boston Globe

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