Three Summers is the remarkable true story of Ron Hamm, whose life changed forever when, at just ten years old, he was chosen to travel with world evangelist Harrison Price during three unforgettable summers in 1957, 1958, and 1959. What began as the extraordinary opportunity for a gifted young guitarist and singer became a journey that would shape his faith, character, and calling for the rest of his life.From small-town Tennessee to revival meetings acro...

Many people love the American Southwest without truly understanding it. Ross Randall Calvin did and we are the richer for it. Calvin began his search as a pilgrim health-seeker, believing he had left the “known world” behind when he fled the East for New Mexico. There he soon found to our benefit that he could use his observational skills and intellect to fashion a picture that helped him and us comprehend those unique factors that make New Mexico what it is—its history, people, culture, c...

Desert environment leaves its stark impress upon plants, animals, and men. And Ross Calvin tells the beautifully strange story of New Mexico-its ancient culture, the coming of the Spanish friars, the Spanish occupation, pueblo life, the Apaches and their long warfare with the whites, cattle and sheep raising and cowboys and outlaws, and the old trails, and the coming of the railroads-treating all these in the light of the physical features and physical conditions of the country. Calvin kne...

What does it mean to be out walking in the world, whether in a landscape or a metropolis, on a pilgrimage or a protest march? In this first general history of walking, Rebecca Solnit draws together many histories to create a range of possibilities for this most basic act. Arguing that walking as history means walking for pleasure and for political, aesthetic, and social meaning, Solnit homes in on the walkers whose everyday and extreme acts have shaped our culture, from the peripatetic phi...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Anna Quindlen presents a “swift and compelling paean to the joys of books” (Booklist).“Like the columns she used to write for the New York Times, [How Reading Changed My Life] is tart, smart, full of quirky insights, lapidary, and a pleasure to read.”—Publishers Weekly“Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. . . . Yet of all the many things in w...

"Bee School" is a business fable that should be on the Required Reading List of every MBA candidate.Loaded with useful insights, it's an entertaining "inside job" by a graduate of a leading eastern business school.Plus, it's beautifully illustrated for our Visual Age.

Do you believe that Ring Around the Rosie refers to the Black Death? Or that Eskimos have 50 (or 500) words for "snow"? Or that "Posh" is an acronym for "Port Out, Starboard Home"? If so, you badly need this book. In Word Myths, David Wilton debunks some of the most spectacularly wrong word histories in common usage, giving us the real stories behind many linguistic urban legends. Readers will discover the true history behind such popular words and expressions such as "rule of thumb," "the...

Teary, big-eyed orphans and a multitude of trashy knockoffs epitomized American kitsch art as they clogged thrift stores for decades.When Adam Parfrey tracked down Walter Keane-the credited artist of the weepy waifs, for a San Diego Reader cover story in 1992-he discovered some shocking facts. Decades of lawsuits and countersuits revealed the reality that Keane was more of a con man than an artist, and that he forced his wife Margaret to sign his name to her own paintings....

A love for reading is one of the most precious gifts that we can give children. It nurtures their imagination and creativity, lets them explore other worlds, and opens their minds to new truths and knowledge in appealing, inspiring ways. But how can we sort through thousands of children's books to discover the really worthwhile ones? Elizabeth Wilson offers us a newly revised, comprehensive guide to the very best in children's literature. Just as in the original volume, she comments on the t...

"The stories are interesting and the scientific approaches used to investigate them are fascinating." ― The Paintsville Herald (Kentucky)What constitutes historical truth is often subject to change based on new evidence. In this book, former detective Joe Nickell demonstrates the techniques used in solving some of the world's most perplexing mysteries, such as the authenticity of Abraham Lincoln's celebrated Bixby letter; the 1913 disappearance of writer a...

Mark Doty brings the vitality and imagination that illuminate his own work to his selections for the twenty-fifth volume in the Best American Poetry series. He has chosen poems of high moral earnestness and poems in a comic register; poems that tell stories and poems that test the boundaries of innovative composition. This landmark edition includes David Lehman’s keen look at American poetry in his foreword, Mark Doty’s gorgeous introduction, and notes from the po...

Every year since 1988 a major poet has selected seventy-five poems for publication in The Best American Poetry. The series has quickly grown in both sales and prestige, as poetry itself has seen a remarkable resurgence in popularity and vitality, fueled by established poets at the peak of their powers and a new generation of daring voices. As we approach the millennium, now is the opportune moment to take stock of american poetry and choose the work that will stand the tes...