"Throughout his career, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa has grappled with the concept of Latin America on a global stage. Examining liberal claims and searching for cohesion, he continuously weighs the reality of the continent against the image it projects, and considers the political dangers and possibilities that face this diverse set of countries. Now this illuminating and versatile collection assembles these never-before-translated criticisms...

"Between getting into a tangle with a corrupt local judge, and discovering a disturbing black-market business, Dr. Siri Paiboun, the ex-national coroner of Laos and his friend Inspector Phosy have their hands full in the thirteenth installment of Colin Cotterill's quirky, critically acclaimed series. Dr. Siri Paiboun, the ex-national coroner of Laos, may have more experience dissecting bodies than making art, but when he manages to smuggle a fancy...

"Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time has captured the imagination of millions--from literary sensation to timeless classic and now a major motion picture. A Light So Lovely tells the story of the woman at the center of it all--her imagination, her faith, her pattern of defying categories, and what readers today can learn from her legacy. Bestselling and beloved author Madeleine L'Engle, Newbery winner for A Wrinkle in Time, was known the world round...

"A glorious call to throw off restraint and balance in favor of excess, abandon, and disproportion, in essays ranging from such topics as mindfulness, decluttering, David Cronenberg, and consent. In her debut essay collection, "brilliant and stylish" (The Washington Post) critic Becca Rothfeld takes on one of the most sacred cows of our time: the demand that we apply the virtues of equality and democracy to culture and aesthetics. The result is a...

"A collection of previously published essays and profiles by the legendary critic Janet Malcolm. The title piece of this wonderfully eclectic collection is a profile of the fashion designer Eileen Fisher, whose mother often said to her, "Nobody's looking at you." But in every piece in this volume, Malcolm looks closely and with impunity at a broad range of subjects, from Donald Trump's TV nemesis Rachel Maddow, to the stiletto-heel-wearing pianist...

A Little Devil in America is an urgent project that unravels all modes and methods of black performance, in this moment when black performers are coming to terms with their value, reception, and immense impact on America. With sharp insight, humor, and heart, Abdurraqib examines how black performance happens in specific moments in time and space -- midcentury Paris, the moon, or a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. At the outset of this project,...

"Obsessively watched and critically ignored, sitcoms were a distraction, a gentle lullaby of a kinder, gentler America--until suddenly the artificial boundary between the world and television entertainment collapsed. In this book we track the growth of the sitcom, following the path that leads from I love Lucy to The Phil Silvers show; from The Dick Van Dyke show to The Mary Tyler Moore show; from M*A*S*H to Taxi; from Cheers to Roseanne; from Seinfeld...

From the Publisher: The Importance of Living is a wry, witty antidote to the dizzying pace of the modern world. Lin Yutang's prescription is the classic Chinese philosophy of life: Revere inaction as much as action, invoke humor to maintain a healthy attitude, and never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing-indeed, eager-to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joy...

The first time Lynn Melnick listened to a Dolly Parton song in full, she was 14 years old, in the triage room of a Los Angeles hospital, waiting to be admitted to a drug rehab program. Already in her young life as a Jewish teen in the 1980s, she had been the victim of rape, abuse, and trauma, and her path to healing would be long. But in Parton’s words and music, she recognized a fellow survivor. In this powerful, incisive work of social and self-exploration,...

"Pediatrician Mark Vonnegut has spent forty years treating children for coughs, fevers, ear infections, and sometimes more serious complaints. In that time he has seen the American medical system change in ways he couldn't have imagined as a medical student--some of them good, others not so good. But what hasn't changed is his commitment to his young patients, whose stories fill the pages of this book. There's Anna Maria, a little girl with an incurable...