With his disarmingly simple style and complex imagination, Ray Bradbury has seized the minds of American readers for decades.This collection showcases thirty-two of Bradbury's most famous tales in which he lays bare the depths of the human soul. The thrilling title story, A Sound of Thunder, tells of a hunter sent on safari — sixty million years in the past. But all it takes is one wrong step in the prehistoric jungle to stamp out the life of a delicate and harmless butterfly — and possibly something else much closer to home ...

With millions of acres of amber waves of grain and a myriad of purple mountains majesty to choose from, selecting a vacation destination in the United States can be overwhelming. That’s why Fodor’s USA focuses on the best trips from sea to shining sea—-from the vineyards of Napa Valley to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to the streets of Manhattan. Each section contains all of the crucial information that readers have come to expect from Fodor’s, including the best of the best in hotels, attractions, and restaurants.

Highlights Include:
·A selective approach, focusing on the best trips.
·Evocative itineraries that highlight the best that each destination has to offer and give travelers the freedom to choose among routes.
·Inspirational yet practical, this is a guide that readers can flip through at home to select their trip—-as well as take along to use when they’re on their vacation.
·Cultural close-ups give readers a comprehensive picture of each region, including its claims to fame, favorite foods, and local lingo.
Planning tools, including routes linking multiple destinations, tips for what to see en route, and restaurant and hotel listings for “stopover cities,” help travelers plan unforgettable road trips.

Nothing defines America like baseball. And nothing defines baseball like the Yankees. From their historic beginnings in 1903 to the modern-day dynasty that won World Series championships in '96, '98, '99, and 2000, this team has given us a century of triumphs and heartbreaks, legends and lore. This definitive album captures that century in words, stats, and pictures. Included are such luminaries as Yogi Berra, Scott Brosius, Chris Chambliss, Don Larsen, and Bob Sheppard-as well as portraits of the greats, from Mickey Mantle to Don Mattingly, from Vic Raschi to Allie Reynolds, from Joltin' Joe DiMaggio to Derek Jeter.

You'll also find:
€ Picks and profiles of the greatest (and worst) Yankees teams
€ Quotes, lists, trivia, and tributes
€ Tales of fierce rivalries and unforgettable moments
€ The hallowed history of the "House That Ruth Built;" the infamous "pine tar incident;" Larsen's perfect game during the '56 World Series; Lou Gehrig's stirring 1939 speech; the roller-coaster ride of the 2001 series, and other memorable Yankees moments

For Yankee fans, or anyone who loves baseball, owning A Yankee Century is like having a clubhouse pass to the most fabled franchise in all of sports.

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2008
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2008
A Washington Post Best Book of 2008
An Economist Best Book of 2008
A New York Best Book of 2008
A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of 2008
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2008
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

At the heart of this vibrant saga is a vast ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean; its purpose, to fight China’s vicious nineteenth-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.

In a time of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together a diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt raja to a widowed tribeswoman, from a mulatto American freedman to a freespirited French orphan. As their old family ties are washed away, they, like their historical counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais, or ship-brothers. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span continents, races, and generations.

The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, the exotic backstreets of Canton. But it is the panorama of characters, whose diaspora encapsulates the vexed colonial history of the East itself, that makes Sea of Poppies so breathtakingly alive—a masterpiece from one of the world’s finest novelists.

From the author of the best-selling Snow Falling on Cedars, a dazzling new novel about youth and idealism, adulthood and its compromises, and two powerfully different visions of what it means to live a good life.

John William Barry has inherited the pedigree—and wealth—of two of Seattle’s elite families; Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish. Nevertheless, when the two boys meet in 1972 at age sixteen, they’re brought together by what they have in common: a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them, together and often, into Washington’s remote backcountry, where they must rely on their wits—and each other—to survive.

Soon after graduating from college, Neil sets out on a path that will lead him toward a life as a devoted schoolteacher and family man. But John William makes a radically different choice, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods, convinced that it is the only way to live without hypocrisy. When John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, Neil finds himself drawn into a web of secrets and often agonizing responsibility, deceit, and tragedy—one that will finally break open with a wholly unexpected, life-altering revelation.
Riveting, deeply humane, The Other is David Guterson’s most brilliant and provocative novel to date.

Today’s writers need more spunk than Strunk: whether it's the Great American e-mail, Madison Avenue advertising, or Grammy Award-winning rap lyrics, memorable writing must jump off the page. Copy veteran Constance Hale is on a mission to make creative communication, both the lyrical and the unlawful, an option for everyone.

With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Syntax covers grammar’s ground rules while revealing countless unconventional syntax secrets (such as how to use—Gasp!—interjections or when to pepper your prose with slang) that make for sinfully good writing. Discover how to:

*

Distinguish between words that are “pearls” and words that are “potatoes”

*

Avoid “couch potato thinking” and “commitment phobia” when choosing verbs

*

Use literary devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphor (and understand what you're doing)

Everyone needs to know how to write stylish prose—students, professionals, and seasoned writers alike. Whether you’re writing to sell, shock, or just sing, Sin and Syntax is the guide you need to improve your command of the English language.

We're in the midst of the greatest financial crisis of our time. Do you know what really happened? Are you prepared for what's to come?

When every headline delivers bad news, and each morning market bell seems to usher in yet another bank debacle, stock market plunge or dire warning about the end of access to credit; threats to our savings and security; and the collapse of the entire financial system as we know it. . . . It's hard to keep up.

But we can't afford to be in the dark just because we can no longer bear to turn on the news.

Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas, The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It makes sense of the madness, revealing how the crisis is affecting our financial lives and what steps we should take to inform and protect ourselves. This comprehensive, practical and accessible book delivers: An inside look at the financial wizardry, easy money and overconfidence that drove the subprime crisis, credit crunch and market meltdownAn analysis of the New World Order—the banking behemoths, the government's role—and how it will affect Main StreetA look at what's safe: a rundown of which investments are protected and which aren't and how fund protection has changedIndividual investor strategies: stocks, bonds, retirement and real estate (and whether you should think seriously about "the mattress")

From the most authoritative source for business and economic news and written by one of the most trusted voices in financial reporting, The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It is the only book you'll need to navigate the storm ahead.

The passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young men drift casually through college and beyond—hanging out, partying, playing with tech toys, watching sports. But beneath the appearance of a simple extended boyhood, a more dangerous social world has developed, far away from the traditional signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood—a territory Michael Kimmel has identified as "Guyland."

In mapping the troubling social world where men are now made, Kimmel offers a view into the minds and times of America's sons, brothers, and boyfriends, and he works toward redefining what it means to be a man today—and tomorrow. Only by understanding this world and this life stage can we enable young men to chart their own paths, stay true to themselves, and emerge safely from Guyland as responsible and fully formed male adults.

A nostalgic and reverent look at The House That Ruth Built — the most famous and historic baseball stadium in professional sports

Relive 85 years of memories in Yankee Stadium with a DVD highlighting the Golden Age of Yankee stadium, exclusively produced for Yankee Stadium: A Tribute and narrated by legendary Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson.

Since its opening in 1923, Yankee Stadium has been the scene of 26 championship titles and some of the greatest achievements in baseball history, including Babe Ruth's 60th home run during the 1927 season, the race fro the home run title between teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, Jim Abbott's 1993 no-hitter, and Aaron Boone's 2006 game-winning run against the Red Sox to clinch the American League Championship Series. Yankee Stadium: A Tribute is a celebration of this great landmark and its history, a beautiful piece of nostalgia for the missions of fans who have visited baseball's most celebrated ballpark.

The House That Ruth Built was the stage for scores of other athletic events, including football and boxing. It has played host to some of the world's most important cultural events, including the first papal mass in North America in 1965 and the first memorial service for the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Yankee Stadium: A Tribute — written with the cooperation of key Yankee players from the past and present — celebrates this great monument and the unforgettable events of its 85-year history.

The definitive biography of one of America’s greatest writers, from the author of the acclaimed masterpiece Virginia Woolf.

Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Hermione Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton—tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction.

Born in 1862, Wharton escaped the suffocating fate of the well-born female, traveled adventurously in Europe and eventually settled in France. After tentative beginnings, she developed a forceful literary professionalism and thrived in a luminous society that included Bernard Berenson, Aldous Huxley and most famously Henry James, who here emerges more as peer than as master. Wharton’s life was fed by nonliterary enthusiasms as well: her fabled houses and gardens, her heroic relief efforts during the Great War, the culture of the Old World, which she never tired of absorbing. Yet intimacy eluded her: unhappily married and childless, her one brush with passion came and went in midlife, an affair vividly, intimately recounted here.

With profound empathy and insight, Lee brilliantly interweaves Wharton’s life with the evolution of her writing, the full scope of which shows her far to be more daring than her stereotype as lapidarian chronicler of the Gilded Age. In its revelation of both the woman and the writer, Edith Wharton is a landmark biography.

As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented, provocative, and timely anthology, gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries.

Classics of the environmental imagination—the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—are set against the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. Here are some of America’s greatest and most impassioned writers, taking a turn toward nature and recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of “nature” join ecologists’ memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page color portfolio of illustrations.

The Last Picture Show is one of Larry McMurtry's most powerful, memorable novels — the basis for the enormously popular movie of the same name. Set in a small, dusty, Texas town, The Last Picture Show introduced the characters of Jacy, Duane, and Sonny: teenagers stumbling toward adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love. Populated by a wonderful cast of eccentrics and animated by McMurtry's wry and raucous humor, The Last Picture Show is wild, heartbreaking, and poignant — a coming-of-age novel that resonates with the magical passion of youth.

A visionary look at the evolution and future of India by a preeminent business leader

India’s recent economic boom—similar in scope to that of the United States during the early 1990s or Europe’s during the 1970s—has triggered tremendous social, political, and cultural change. The result is a country that, while managing incredible economic growth, has also begun to fully inhabit its role on the world political stage. In this far-ranging look at the central ideas that have shaped this young nation, Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekani offers a definitive and original interpretation of the country’s past, present, and future.

India’s future rests on more than simply economic growth; it also depends on reform and innovation in all sectors of public life. Imagining India traces the efforts of the country’s past and present leaders as they work to develop new frameworks that suit India’s specific characteristics and challenges. Imagining India charts the ideas that are crucial to India’s current infrastructure revolution and quest for universal literacy, urbanization, and unification; maps the ideological battlegrounds of caste, higher education, and labor reform; and argues that only a safety net of ideas—from social security to public health to the environment—can transcend political agendas and safeguard India’s economic future.

As a cofounder of Infosys, a global leader in information technology, Nandan Nilekani has actively participated in the company’s rise in the last fifteen years. In Imagining India, he uses the global experience and understanding he has gained at Infosys as a springboard from which to discuss the future of India and its role as a global citizen and emerging economic giant.

A fascinating window into the future of India, Imagining India engages with the central ideas and challenges that face the country—from within and as a part of the global economy—and charts a new way forward for a nation that has proved itself to be young, impatient, and vitally awake.