Harvard Book Store

"Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome FELICIA C. SULLIVAN as she reads from The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here: Scenes from a Life, a deeply personal and moving memoir. ..."

"Harvard Book Store is honored to host acclaimed surgeon and bestselling author PAULINE W. CHEN, who examines how death is treated in the medical world in her singular new book. ..."

"Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome SUSAN JACOBY, who combines historical analysis with contemporary observation to dissect a new American cultural phenomenon in her latest book ..."

"Harvard Book Store is pleased to host Cantabrigian author and former New York Times critic and reporter SARAH BOXER. She will be joined by Megan Sullivan of Bookdwarf.com and the Boston Phoenix's Sharon Steel in a conversation about blogs, those who write them, and why we read them. ..." ($5 charge)

"Harvard Book Store is honored to host the Kennedy School's JOSEPH S. NYE for a discussion of what true leadership is and how it relates to power. ..."

"Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome award-winning author ASKOLD MELNYCZUK for a reading and discussion of his latest novel. His father’s British military uniform, an oversize glass jar, and a letter written in a language he can’t read: these are the only things James kept of his inheritance ... (още)after his father’s untimely death. ..."

"Harvard Book Store is pleased to host Pulitzer Prize-winning human-rights journalist CHRIS HEDGES who looks at the state of the battle about faith in America in his new book. ..."

Talk, Q&A, book signing. Cost $5. First Parish Church is at the corner of Church Street and Mass. Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. (617)661-1424 ext.5. The Translator was a LibraryThing Early Review selection.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to present historian and Harvard visiting scholar KRISTIE MACRAKIS as she explores the world of one of the most effective and feared spy agencies in history. More fascinating than fiction, Seduced by Secrets reveals the classified technical methods and sources of the ... (още)Stasi (East German Ministry for State Security) as it stole secrets from abroad and developed gadgets at home. Seduced by Secrets draws on confidential files from Stasi archives to demonstrate that the Stasi overestimated the power of secrets to solve problems and created an insular spy culture more intent on securing its power than protecting national security. Macrakis recreates the Stasi's secret world of technology through biographies of agents, defectors, and officers, and by visualizing James Bond–like techniques and gadgets. Macrakis adds a new dimension to our understanding of the Stasi by bringing the topic into the realm of espionage history and exiting the political domain.

$5 tickets on sale now. Harvard Book Store is honored to host MARK VONNEGUT for a presentation and discussion of Armageddon in Retrospect, "a posthumous collection of fiction and nonfiction once again plumbing the madness and soul-destroying inhumanities of war" (Kirkus Reviews) by his father, KURT ... (още)VONNEGU

Harvard Book Store is delighted to host sports radio personality and bestselling sportswriter MICHAEL HOLLEY as he looks at the changing face of baseball and the inner workings of a budding baseball dynasty.

Harvard Hillel welcomes Indiana University professor MICHAEL L. MORGAN as he presents The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy. Modern Jewish philosophy emerged in the seventeenth century, with the impact of the new science and modern philosophy on thinkers who were reflecting upon the ... (още)nature of Judaism and Jewish life. This collection of new essays examines the work of several of the most important of these figures, from the seventeenth to the late-twentieth centuries, and addresses themes central to the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy: language and revelation, autonomy and authority, the problem of evil, messianism, the influence of Kant, and feminism.

$5 tickets on sale now. Harvard Book Store is most pleased to welcome Chilean novelist and memoirist extraordinaire ISABEL ALLENDE to read from her latest memoir The Sum of Our Days. In The Sum of Our Days, Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death ... (още)of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. And she recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allende’s books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately, The Sum of Our Days offers a unique tour of this writer’s inner world and of the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host novelist and social commentator JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER as he reads from his new novel World Made by Hand. In his nonfiction The Long Emergency, celebrated social commentator Kunstler explored how the age of globalization and mankind’s explosive progress over ... (още)the last two hundred years was based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. He observed that the terminal decline of oil production, combined with the perils of climate change, had the potential to put industrial civilization out of business. Offering a shocking vision for the coming trauma of our post-oil future, The Long Emergency was a tremendous success and a bestseller, selling over 100,000 copies. In World Made by Hand, a work of speculative fiction, Kunstler makes a leap into the future, a few decades hence, and shows us what life may be like following the long emergency. For the townspeople of Union Grove, New York, the future is not what they thought it would be. After the catastrophes converged—the end of oil, climate change, global pandemics, and resource wars—they are doing whatever they can to get by. 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, our narrator, Robert Earle, former marketing executive turned carpenter, and his fellow residents of Union Grove struggle with the new way of life. Their challenges play out in a fully realized world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields and rivers replenished with fish.

Harvard Hillel is pleased to welcome SANDRA RAPOPORT for a discussion of her new nonfiction work, Moses’ Women. Rapoport is co-author of this feminist re-telling of the Bible’s Exodus saga. While the Exodus story revolves around Moses, history’s premier prophet, ... (още)lawgiver and religious heroic figure, the story cannot be told without an understanding of the women in his life. The Bible tells us that Moses was born to Yocheved, daughter of Levi, third son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob. He was watched over by his sister, Miriam, drawn from the Nile waters by Batya, daughter of the Egyptian Pharaoh, raised as Egyptian royalty, and married to Zipporah, daughter of the high priest of Midian. But there is more depth and drama to these women’s lives than what appears in the spare biblical text, and it is the Jewish biblical commentaries who unveil these layered nuances. This book draws upon these sources and recounts how the Hebrew midwives resisted carnal intimidation by the Egyptian Pharaoh; what occurred between Moses, Zipporah, and the angel of death that night in the desert inn; why Moses abandoned Zipporah; how Miriam championed her sister-in-law, Zipporah, and was punished for it; and the identity of Moses’ mysterious Kushite Woman. Moses’ Women weaves these biblical narratives and the commentaries into a stunning chronicle of the women who reared Moses, bore his children, advised him, helped him lead an unruly people, and intervened to save him time and again, when his very life was trembling in the balance.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning historian GORDON S. WOOD as he reflects on the historian’s craft and its place in American culture. History is to society what memory is to the individual: without it, we don't know who we are, and we can't make wise decisions about ... (още)where we should be going. In The Purpose of the Past, Brown University historian Wood examines the sea change in the field of history through considerations of some of its most important historians and their works. His book serves as both a history of American history—neither wholly a celebration nor a critique—and an argument for its ongoing necessity. These are both the best of times and the worst of times for American history. New currents of thought have brought refreshing and vitally necessary changes to the discipline, expanding its compass to include previously under examined and undervalued groups and subjects. At the same time, however, strains of extreme, even nihilistic, relativism have assaulted the relevance, even the legitimacy, of the historian's work. The divide between the work of academic and popular historians has widened into a chasm, separating some of the field's most important new ideas from what would give them much greater impact: any kind of real audience.

Harvard Book Store, as part of Harvard Square Business Association's April 12th Bookish Ball festivities, honoring Harvard Square's bookstores, is pleased to present PICO IYER for a discussion of his new, unprecedented profile of the Dalai Lama. "This is a brilliant pairing of writer and subject. ... (още)Iyer has known the Dalai Lama, spiritual and political leader of Tibet, for more than 30 years, thanks to a long-ago connection between the writer's father, an Oxford don born in India, and a young Dalai Lama. And so the acute global observer Iyer, a travel writer, essayist and novelist, has long followed the fortunes of the astute globalist Tibetan Buddhist, who travels the world but can never go home to his Chinese-occupied country. "This is not a biography but an extended journalistic analysis of someone deep enough for several lifetimes, as Tibetan Buddhists believe. Iyer organizes his observations by smart descriptions of aspects of the Dalai Lama's work and character: icon, monk, philosopher, politician. This allows him to plumb different sides of His Holiness, whom he demythologizes even as he expresses a clear-eyed respect for the leader's achievements." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) Bookish Ball activities are free and open to the public throughout Harvard Square on April 12. Please visit the Harvard Square Business Association website, http://harvardsquare.com, for more details.

The Center for Family Connections (CFFC) and Adoption and Foster Care (AFC) Mentoring are pleased to present actress, comedian, and novelist ALISON LARKIN (The English American), who will entertain you, read from her debut novel, and take questions as part of this fund-raiser at the Hotel Marlowe. Ms. ... (още)Larkin will be joined by CFFC founder and CEO Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Penny Callan Partridge, and musician and performer Bob Childs for an evening of entertainment and money raised for a great cause. Seating is limited and reservations are required. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased by contacting Katherine Walker at the Center for Family Connections: (phone) 617.547.0909; (email) cffc@kinnect.org; (website) www.kinnect.org

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host poets MARY JO FIRTH GILLETT and BETSEY HOUGHTON for a reading from their new collections of verse.

Harvard Hillel is honored to host former Vermont governor and ambassador to Switzerland MADELEINE M. KUNIN as she explores women’s role in government and contemporary leadership. Pearls, Politics, and Power is a call to action for new political engagement and leadership from the women of America. ... (още)Informed by conversations with elected women leaders from all levels, former three-term Vermont governor and ambassador to Switzerland Madeleine M. Kunin’s core message is that America needs an infusion of new leadership to better address the major problems of our time. To see how women can achieve that goal, she combines her personal experience in politics; the lessons of past women’s movements; the stories of young women today who have new ideas about their role in society; and interviews with a wide range of women in positions of power, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Representatives Loretta Sanchez, Linda Sanchez, Deborah Pryce, and Tammy Baldwin.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome novelist JACK O’CONNELL as he reads from his latest novel The Resurrectionist. Part classic noir thriller, part mind-bending fantasy, The Resurrectionist is a wild ride into a territory where nothing is as it appears. It is the story of Sweeney, a druggist ... (още)by trade, and his son, Danny, the victim of an accident that has left him in a persistent coma. Hoping for a miracle, they have come to the fortresslike Peck Clinic, whose doctors claim to have "resurrected" two patients who were lost in the void. What Sweeney comes to realize, though, is that the real cure to his son's condition may lie in Limbo, a fantasy comic book world into which his son had been drawn at the time of his accident. Plunged into the intrigue that envelops the clinic, Sweeney's search for answers leads to sinister back alleys, brutal dead ends, and terrifying rabbit holes of darkness and mystery.

Cambridge Forum is pleased to present renowned political and economic commentator KEVIN PHILLIPS for a discussion of the state of American capitalism today. From the book's subtitle, it doesn't sound good. Join the Cambridge Forum audience on April 15th to hear Mr. Phillips' respected opinions.

Harvard Book Store is delighted to welcome ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH to present The Miracle at Speedy Motors, his latest novel in the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Featuring Precious Ramotswe—Botswana’s leading, and only, female private detective— the No.1 Ladies’ Detective ... (още)Agency novels have become worldwide bestsellers. In the newest installment, The Miracle at Speedy Motors, Precious Ramotswe had never thought that there might be disadvantages to being the best-known lady detective in Botswana until she receives a threatening anonymous letter. While she ponders the identity of the letter-writer, Mma Ramotswe has a further set of problems to solve, both professional and personal. There is an adopted child’s poignant search for her true family, and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni’s pursuit of an expensive miracle for their own foster daughter Motholeli.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host novelist RICHARD PRICE to read from his latest work, Lush Life. "So, what do you do?” Whenever people asked him, Eric Cash used to have a dozen answers. Artist, actor, screenwriter... But now he’s thirty-five years old, and he’s still living on the Lower ... (още)East Side, still in the restaurant business, still serving the people he wanted to be. What does Eric do? He manages. Not like Ike Marcus. Ike was young, good-looking, people liked him. Ask him what he did, he wouldn’t say tending bar. He was going places—until two street kids stepped up to him and Eric one night and pulled a gun. At least, that’s Eric’s version.

Harvard Book Store and Harvard Hillel are pleased to welcome Harvard Law's NOAH FELDMAN as he looks at the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the shari'a—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world. Western powers call it a threat to democracy. ... (още)Islamist movements are winning elections on it. Terrorists use it to justify their crimes. What, then, is the shari'a? Given the severity of some of its provisions, why is it popular among Muslims? Can the Islamic state succeed—should it? Feldman reveals how the classical Islamic constitution governed through and was legitimated by law. He shows how executive power was balanced by the scholars who interpreted and administered the shari'a, and how this balance of power was finally destroyed by the tragically incomplete reforms of the modern era. The result has been the unchecked executive dominance that now distorts politics in so many Muslim states. Feldman argues that a modern Islamic state could provide political and legal justice to today's Muslims, but only if new institutions emerge that restore this constitutional balance of power. The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State gives us the history of the traditional Islamic constitution—its noble beginnings, its downfall, and the renewed promise it could hold for Muslims and Westerners alike.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Columbia University professor PHILIP BOBBITT as he brings together historical, legal, and strategic analyses to understand the idea of a “war on terror.” In Terror and Consent, Bobbitt declares that the United States is the chief cause of global networked ... (още)terrorism because of overwhelming American strategic dominance. This is not a matter for blame, he insists, but grounds for reflection on basic issues. We have defined the problem of winning the fight against terror in a way that makes the situation virtually impossible to resolve. We need to change our ideas about terrorism, war, and even victory itself. Bobbitt argues that the United States has ignored the role of law in devising its strategy, with fateful consequences, and has failed to reform law in light of the changed strategic context. Along the way he introduces new ideas and concepts—Parmenides’ Fallacy, the Connectivity Paradox, the market state, and the function of terror as a by-product of globalization—to help us prepare for what may be a decades-long conflict of which the battle against al Qaeda is only the first instance.

Harvard Book Store and Harvard Hillel are excited to present n+1 founding editor KEITH GESSEN to read from his praised first novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men. “A debut novel from Russian-born translator Gessen that skewers the literary and romantic ambitions of three well- educated, tightly ... (още)wound young men… Gessen strikes a marvelous balance between pitilessness and affection toward these young men, and manages the impressive feat of being simultaneously savage and tender. A fiercely intelligent, darkly funny first novel.” —Kirkus (starred review) A charming yet scathing portrait of young adulthood at the opening of the twenty-first century, All the Sad Young Literary Men charts the lives of Sam, Mark, and Seth, as they overthink their college years, underthink their love lives, and struggle through the encouragement of the women who love and despise them to find a semblance of maturity, responsibility, and even literary fame. Heartbroken in his university town, Mark tries to focus his attention on his graduate work concerning Russian revolt, only to be lured again and again to the free pornography on the library computers. Sam binds himself to the task of crafting “the first great Zionist epic” even though he speaks no Hebrew, has never visited Israel, and is not a practicing Jew. Seth, thwarted by inherited notions of greatness and memories of his broken family, finds solace in the arms of the selfless woman who most reminds him of his past. At every turn, at each character’s misstep, All the Sad Young Literary Men signals the arrival of a brave and trenchant new writer.

Harvard Book Store is excited to host historian HOWARD ZINN and cartoonist MIKE KONOPACKI as they present their graphic adaptation of Zinn's bestselling grassroots history book, A People's History of the United States. Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States ... (още)has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies, become required classroom reading throughout the country, and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful book, A People’s History triggered new thought in the way history is told, displacing the official versions with their emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they were lived, from the bottom up. Now Howard Zinn, historian Paul Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell, in vibrant comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of A People’s History: the centuries-long story of America’s actions in the world. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of 9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I, Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host Barnard College and Columbia University sociology professor JONATHAN RIEDER as he discusses the life and endeavors of one of America’s greatest moral and political leaders. “You don’t know me,” Martin Luther King, Jr. once declared to those who criticized ... (още)his denunciation of the Vietnam War, who wanted to confine him to the ghetto of “black” issues. Now, forty years after being felled by an assassin’s bullet, it is still difficult to take the measure of the man: apostle of peace or angry prophet; sublime exponent of a beloved community or fiery Moses leading his people up from bondage; black preacher or translator of blackness to the white world? This book explores the extraordinary performances through which King played with all of these possibilities, and others too, blending and gliding in and out of idioms and identities. Taking us deep into King's backstage discussions with colleagues, his preaching to black congregations, his exhortations in mass meetings, and his crossover addresses to whites, The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me tells a powerful story about the tangle of race, talk, and identity in the life of this revolutionary leader.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome award-laureled author and former Ploughshares editor DON LEE to read from his novel and comic satire, Wrack and Ruin. Lyndon Song, a renowned sculptor, has fled New York City to become a Brussels sprouts farmer in the small California town of Rosarita Bay. ... (още)Lyndon has a brother, Woody, an indicted financier turned movie producer, and Woody has a plan, involving a golf-course resort on Lyndon’s land and an aging kung-fu diva from Hong Kong with a mean kick and a meaner drinking problem. A dreadlocked buddy with an artificial leg, a small plot of exceptionally lush marijuana, two field biologists studying western snowy plovers, a disgraced museum curator, and Lyndon’s great love, the impulsive mayor of Rosarita Bay—these are only some of the complications in Lyndon and Woody’s lives over one madcap Labor Day weekend.

Cambridge Forum and the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard welcome Greg Graffin, the lead singer and songwriter for seminal punk band Bad Religion, as he receives the 2008 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. The award, which was given last year to novelist Salman Rushdie, is sponsored ... (още)by the Humanist Chaplaincy and Harvard Secular Society. Graffin, who is also a life sciences professor at UCLA and an expert in religious belief among scientists, will speak about his experience in music and science and his views on humanism in general, ideas which he discusses in length with history professor Preston Jones in the book Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant?: A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity. Graffin will follow his acceptance speech with an acoustic performance and a question and answer session.

Harvard Book Store is delighted to host New York Times bestselling author ELIZABETH STROUT as she reads from her latest work, a collection of thirteen narratives bound together by the presence of one memorable character: Olive Kitteridge. At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, ... (още)at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist SUSAN GRIFFIN as she looks at the potential of democracy and what it means to be an American citizen today. In this exploration of American history, which emphasizes the inner lives of pivotal historical ... (още)figures, Griffin demonstrates that ultimately democracy is not only a system of governance, but, in its fullest form, represents a revolution in consciousness—one that is still unfolding today. Beginning with a study of the life and thought of Thomas Jefferson, Griffin identifies two battling aspects of the American psyche: the “psychology of empire,” characterized by a desire for safety, order, and control, and the “psychology of democracy,” characterized by equality, empathy, and truth telling. According to Griffin, these two psychologies have been battling each other for supremacy from our country’s earliest inception. Griffin’s probing exploration of American history is interwoven with passages of personal memoir exploring her upbringing and political awakenings in 1950s California. Griffin argues that the birth of American democracy signaled a fundamental shift in our most deeply held values and understandings. Yet, she also suggests that the work of establishing democracy in this country has not been completed. We are still wrestling with the promise of democracy today and, as American citizens, are deeply impacted by the ongoing struggle between tyranny and freedom.

Neiman is a moral philosopher committed to making the tools of her trade relevant to real life. In Moral Clarity, she shows how resurrecting a moral vocabulary—good and evil, heroism and nobility—can steer us clear of the dogmas of the right and the helpless pragmatism of the left. In search of a ... (още)framework for forming clear opinions and taking responsible action on today’s urgent political and social questions, Neiman reaches back to the eighteenth century, retrieving a set of virtues—happiness, reason, reverence, and hope—that were held high by every Enlightenment thinker. She shows that the pursuit of moral clarity is not a matter of religious faith but is open to all who are committed to these ideals, believers and nonbelievers alike. And she draws on literature, evolutionary theory, and other contemporary research to show why, by keeping before us the distinction between the real and the possible, these ideals continue to guide and inspire.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome military historian and former foreign correspondent MAX HASTINGS to discuss the final year—and world-changing events—of the Pacific war against Japan. By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory ... (още)would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan’s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast stage of Asia, with massive clashes of naval and air forces, fighting through jungles, and barbarities by an apparently incomprehensible foe. In recounting the saga of this time and place, Max Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the theater’s key figures—MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors—American, British, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese—caught in some of the war’s bloodiest campaigns. Hastings discusses Japan’s war against China, now all but forgotten in the West, MacArthur’s follies in the Philippines, the Marines at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria. He analyzes the decision-making process that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which, he argues, ultimately saved lives. Finally, he delves into the Japanese wartime mind-set, which caused an otherwise civilized society to carry out atrocities that haunt the nation to this day.

Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning first-time novelist MIN JIN LEE as she reads from Free Food for Millionaires. "Competence can be a curse." So begins Min Jin Lee's debut novel about class, society, and identity. Casey Han's four years at Princeton have given her many things: "a refined diction, ... (още)an enviable golf handicap, a popular white boyfriend, an agnostic's closeted passion for reading the Bible, and a magna cum laude degree in economics. But no job and a number of bad habits." Casey's parents, who live in Queens, are Korean immigrants working in a dry cleaner, desperately trying to hold onto their culture and identity. Their daughter, on the other hand, has entered into the upper echelon of rarified American society via scholarships. But after graduation, Casey's trust-fund friends see only opportunity and choices while Casey sees the reality of having expensive habits without the means to sustain them. As Casey navigates Manhattan, we see her life and the lives of those around her: her sheltered mother, scarred father, her friend Ella who's always been the good Korean girl, Ella's ambitious Korean husband and his Caucasian mistress, Casey's white fiancé, and then her Korean boyfriend, all culminating in a portrait of New York City and its world of haves and have-nots. "I read a terrific debut novel this week. It’s always heartening to find a good new writer, but what’s especially delightful about Min Jin Lee and her new novel, called Free Food for Millionaires, is that she’s taken up the expansive form of the nineteenth century novel and its concerns about money, marriage, and duty, to create a kind of Korean-American riff on all those sagas, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, where the principled heroine sometimes behaves like a downright fool.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR FRESH AIR

Today, between forty and sixty nations, home to close to two billion people, have either collapsed or are teetering on the brink of failure. The world's worst problems—terrorism, drugs, human trafficking, absolute poverty, ethnic conflict, disease, genocide—originate in such states, and the international ... (още)community has devoted billions of dollars to solving the problem. Yet, by and large, the effort has not succeeded. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. Now they offer an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked, and advance a new solution to this most pressing of global crises. Their state-building strategy, which assigns responsibility equally among the international community, national leaders, and citizens, maps out a clear path to political and economic stability.

In Grammar for the Soul, Lawrence Weinstein shows that simple grammar such as syntax and punctuation can be utilized as tools for change and growth, just as yoga and the martial arts are used for self-improvement. He compares the realm of grammar to a kind of psycho-social gymnasium, where—instead ... (още)of weights, a treadmill, mats, and a balance beam—one finds active verbs, passive verbs, periods, apostrophes, dashes, and a thousand other pieces of linguistic equipment, each of which, when properly deployed, can provide exercise for the spirit.

Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist TONY HORWITZ as he tells of an eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America. On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he’s mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus’s sail in 1492 ... (още)to Jamestown’s founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America. A blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers. Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida’s Fountain of Youth to Plymouth’s sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

Harvard Book Store and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research are honored to present Georgetown University sociology professor MICHAEL ERIC DYSON as he examines the death of one of the twentieth-century's great leaders and its impact on the United States. On April ... (още)4, 1968, at 6:01 PM, while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King, Jr., was fatally shot. Only hours earlier King ended his final speech with the words, “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.” Dyson uses the fortieth anniversary of King’s assassination as the occasion for a provocative and fresh examination of how King fought, and faced, his own death, and how we should use his death and legacy. Dyson also reevaluates the fate of Black America over the four decades that followed King’s death. He investigates the ways in which African Americans have in fact made it to the Promised Land of which King spoke, while shining a bright light on the ways in which the nation has faltered in the quest for racial justice. He also probes the virtues and flaws of charismatic black leadership that has followed in King’s wake, from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama.

Johnson takes us to those times when the world seemed filled with mysterious forces, when scientists were dazzled by light, by electricity, and by the beating of the hearts they laid bare on the dissecting table. We see Galileo singing to mark time as he measures the pull of gravity, and Newton carefully ... (още)inserting a needle behind his eye to learn how light causes vibrations in the retina. William Harvey ties a tourniquet around his arm and watches his arteries throb above and his veins bulge below, proving that blood circulates. Luigi Galvani sparks electrical currents in dissected frog legs, wondering at the twitching muscle fibers, and Ivan Pavlov makes his now-famous dogs salivate at ascending chord progressions. For all of them, diligence was rewarded. In an instant, confusion was swept aside and something new about nature leaped into view. In bringing us these stories, Johnson restores some of the romance to science, reminding us of the existential excitement of a single soul staring down the unknown.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host Newsweek's senior Washington correspondent and columnist HOWARD FINEMAN as he looks at the value of arguing to modern American welfare. Mixing vivid scenes and figures from the campaign trail with forays into four hundred years of American history, Fineman shows ... (още)that every debate, from our nation’s founding to the present day, is rooted in one of thirteen arguments that—thankfully—defy resolution. It is the very process of never-ending argument, Fineman explains, that defines us, inspires us, and keeps us free. At a time when most public disagreement seems shrill and meaningless, Fineman makes a cogent case for nurturing the real American dialogue.

Harvard Book Store welcomes FAREED ZAKARIA, editor of Newsweek International, as he argues that the "rise of the rest" is the great story of our time in his latest work, The Post-American World. "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins ... (още)Fareed Zakaria's new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era?

Harvard Book Store is pleased to present Harvard University professor ROBERT H. BATES as he discusses his latest work, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late Century Africa. In the later decades of the 20th century, Africa plunged into political chaos. States failed, governments became predators, ... (още)and citizens took up arms. In When Things Fell Apart, Robert H. Bates advances an explanation of state failure in Africa. In so doing, he not only plumbs the depths of the continent's late-century tragedy, but also the logic of political order and the foundations of the state. This book covers a wide range of territory by drawing on materials from Rwanda, Sudan, Liberia, and Congo. Written to be accessible to the general reader, it is nonetheless a must-read for scholars and policymakers concerned with political conflict and state failure.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to host defense analyst for The Nation, MICHAEL T. KLARE to discuss how the world's diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of power. Recently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was ... (още)blocked by Congress amidst warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources. Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments, rather than corporations, are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world—where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging “Chindia” juggernaut—the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies in international cooperation.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine and frequent contributor to The New Yorker DAVID SAMUELS as he turns a journalistic eye on today's world with his two latest works. Including profiles of Pacific Northwest radicals and Nevada nuclear test site workers, ... (още)alongside coverage of Pentagon press conferences and the Super Bowl in Detroit, Only Love Can Break Your Heart is a collection of David Samuels's reporting of both the tragic and comic dissonances bubbling up from the gap between the American promise of endless nirvana and the lives of ordinary citizens who struggle to live out their dreams.

Harvard Book Store and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government are pleased to welcome award-winning writer PREETA SAMARASAN and Atlantic Monthly and Wall Street Journal contributor V. V. GANESHANANTHAN to read from their debut novels, followed by a conversation about political identity in literature. In ... (още)Preeta Samarasan's Evening Is the Whole Day, when the family's rubber-plantation servant girl is dismissed for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha's life. In the space of several weeks, her grandmother died under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, left for Columbia University, gone forever. Circling through years of family history to arrive at the moment of Uma's departure—stranding her worshipful younger sister in a family, and a country, slowly going to pieces—Evening Is the Whole Day illuminates one Indian immigrant family's layers of secrets and lies, while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself. V. V. Ganeshananthan tells the story of how Yalini, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, she is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present. While Kumaran's loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family's roots—and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils—through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran's death and his daughter's politically motivated nuptials edge closer, in the tradition of her family, Yalini too must decide where she stands.

Harvard Book Store and UpStairs on the Square present leading importer of limited-production wines NEAL I. ROSENTHAL, who takes readers on an intimate tour through family-owned vineyards in France and Italy and reflects upon the last three decades of change in the world of wine in his new book. In the ... (още)late 1970s, Rosenthal set out to learn everything he could about wine. Today, he is one of the most successful importers of traditionally made wines produced by small family-owned estates in France and Italy. Rosenthal has immersed himself in the culture of Old World wine production, working closely with his growers for two and sometimes three generations. He is one of the leading exponents of the concept of “terroir”—the notion that a particular vineyard site imparts distinct qualities of bouquet, flavor, and color to a wine. In Reflections of a Wine Merchant, Rosenthal brings us into the cellars, vineyards, and homes of these vignerons, and his delightful stories about his encounters, relationships, and explorations—and what he has learned along the way—give us an unequaled perspective on winemaking tradition and what threatens it today. Ticket purchase includes a wine tasting, hors d'oeuvre, a reading and book signing, and conversation with the author in an intimate setting.

Harvard Book Store is honored to host University of Chicago professor MARTHA NUSSBAUM for a discussion of her latest work, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality In one of the great triumphs of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, the founders of the future ... (още)United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a constitutional order dedicated to fair treatment for people’s deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, acclaimed scholar Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy. Yet today there are signs that this legacy is misunderstood. The prominence of a particular type of Christianity in our public life suggests the unequal worth of citizens who hold different religious beliefs, or no beliefs. Other people, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution. Liberty of Conscience is a historical and conceptual study of the American tradition of religious freedom. Weaving together political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases, this is a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history but is now in serious danger.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome New York Times science writer CARL ZIMMER to tell the story of the one species on earth science knows best of all, E. coli: • Within days of being born, we are infected with billions of E. coli. They will inhabit each and every one of us until we ... (още)die. E. coli is notorious for making people gravely ill, but engineered strains of the bacteria save millions of lives each year. • Despite its microscopic size, it contains over four thousand genes that operate a staggeringly sophisticated network of millions of molecules. • Scientists are rebuilding E. coli from the ground up, redefining what it means to be alive. In the tradition of classics like Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell, Zimmer has written a fascinating and accessible investigation into what it means to be alive. Zimmer traces E. coli's remarkable history, as scientists used it to discover how genes work and then to launch the entire biotechnology industry. While some strains of E. coli grab headlines by causing deadly diseases, scientists are retooling the bacteria to produce everything from human insulin to jet fuel.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome bestselling author ALEXANDRA FULLER (Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight) to read from her newest book The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, Fuller's rendering of the brief and poignant life of one of Wyoming's native sons. Colton H. Bryant never wanted to leave Wyoming. ... (още)When it was time for him to marry and make money on his own, he took up as a hand on an oil rig. It was dangerous work, but Colton was the third generation in his family to work on the oil patch and he claimed it was in his blood. And anyway, he joked, he always knew he'd die young. Colton did die young, and he died on the rig—falling to his death because the drilling company had neglected to spend two thousand dollars on the mandated safety rails that would have saved his life. His family received no compensation.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to present prizewinning journalists Harwood and Seib, who reveal how today’s Washington power game really works in their new book. Pennsylvania Avenue, the 1.2-mile stretch between the White House and the Capitol, is where the influential and ambitious congregate. Through ... (още)stories of party strategists, money men, policy-makers, fixers, socialites, lobbyists, spinners, deal-makers, and more, Harwood and Seib explore the great political transformations that have altered in a fundamental way the relationship between Americans and their government.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome acclaimed short fiction writer and poet GIL ADAMSON to read from her first novel. "Set in 1903, Adamson's compelling debut tells the wintry tale of 19-year-old Mary Boulton (widowed by her own hand) and her frantic odyssey across Idaho and Montana. The details ... (още)of Boulton's sad past—an unhappy marriage, a dead child, crippling depression—slowly emerge as she reluctantly ventures into the mountains, struggling to put distance between herself and her two vicious brothers-in-law, who track her like prey in retaliation for her killing of their kin. "Boulton's journey and ultimate liberation—made all the more captivating by the delirium that runs in the recesses of her mind—speaks to the resilience of the female spirit in the early part of the last century. Lean prose, full-bodied characterization, memorable settings and scenes of hardship all lift this book above the pack. Already established as a writer of poetry (Ashland) and short stories (Help Me, Jacques Cousteau), Adamson also shines as novelist." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Harvard Book Store is delighted to host leading ornithologists KENN KAUFMAN and TIM GALLAGHER to discuss their respective new books, which combine birding history, personal memoir, and travelogue. At age sixteen, KAUFMAN left home to travel the world in search of birds. Now a grown man and a renowned ... (още)ornithologist, he has come back to visit his ailing mother and explain to her what drove his obsession with bird life. His explanation forms a series of interlocking tales from the frontier where the world of birds intersects with the world of the humans who pursue them. Flights Against the Sunset brings together nineteen essays, mostly adapted from Kaufman's long-running column in Bird Watcher's Digest. They weave an original story that examines how we communicate about our passions with those who do not share the same interests and how to celebrate the world of infinite possibilities and wonder. GALLAGHER mines his lifelong obsession with falcons for an answer in this engaging volume interweaving memoir, history, and travelogue. An entire subculture of the sport exists outside the mainstream of American society, consisting of obsessed individuals who still use the ancient training techniques and language of falconry. What salve to his spirit did falconry provide when it ignited his passion at age twelve? Beset by a turbulent childhood dominated by a brutal and violent father, Gallagher turned to this sport for emotional release. He offers us a unique glimpse into contemporary falconry, and the result is a surprisingly frank and revealing personal story.