Bücher veröffentlicht von Harper Perennial

"A genius . . . a writer who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine." -- The New YorkerBrave New World author Aldous Huxley on enlightenment and the "ultimate reality."In this anthology of twenty-six essays and other writings, Aldous Huxley discusses the nature of God, enlightenment, being, good and evil, religion, eternity, and the divine. Huxley consistently examined the spiritual basis of both the individual and human society, always seeking to reach an authentic and clearly defined experience of the divine. Featuring an introduction by renowned religious scholar Huston Smith, this celebration of "ultimate reality" proves relevant and prophetic in addressing the spiritual hunger so many feel today.

Faced with the loss of her mother, Suzy, to cancer at sixty, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Rosman longs to find answers to the questions that we all wrestle with after losing someone we love. So she does what she does best: she opens her notebook and starts investigating.Thumbing through her late mother's address book, Rosman embarks on a cross-country odyssey, tracking down total strangers from whom she hopes to learn about a woman she once thought she couldn't know better. With a reporter's eye for detail and nuance, Rosman creates a vivid, unflinching, and unforgettable portrait of a privately remarkable mother and woman. In the process, Rosman tells a universal tale of loss and love, capturing the angst families confront when wading through the world of doctors and hospitals, the poignancy and pain that come as a life ends, and the humor that helps transform sadness into a new and powerful brand of happiness.

Adam Shepard boldly and ingeniously proved the viability of the American Dream in his first book, Scratch Beginnings. Now he tells us that the years we spend in college are The Best Four Years of our lives--and he offers a lively, entertaining, and eminently insightful guide on how to make the most of the college experience from orientation to graduation.

Merritt Fowler is a natural caretaker who has spent most of her life attending to the emotional needs of those closest to her: her beautiful, erratic younger sister, Laura; her self-sacrificing physician husband, Pom; and now Pom's destructive, Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Exhausted and confused by the burdens she's taken on, Merritt faces a new crisis when a fierce family quarrel makes her fragile sixteen-year-old daughter, Glynn, flee their Atlanta home to seek sanctuary in California with Aunt Laura, a Hollywood actress whose career is in decline. Following Glynn west and deciding to stay there—against her irate husband's wishes—Merritt hopes to heal the ever-widening fissures between mother and daughter, sister and sister. And on an impulsive trip up the coast into the Santa Cruz Mountains—earthquake country—the three women will have to confront their separate demons in order to save and change their lives.

The eldest of seven children,born low-caste and female in rural India,Mamta is abused and rejected by a father whocan see no reason to “water someone else’s garden” until ahusband is found for her. Seeking escape in matrimony, Mamta beginsher wedded life with hope—but is soon forced to flee her village and thehorrors of her arranged marriage to the bustle of a small city. Saved from becomingone of the nameless and faceless millions of rejected humanity by thesalvation of sublime love, Mamta struggles to find a precarious state ofacceptance and make peace with her past.Powerfully affecting and uplifting, set against a vivid and colorful backgroundof Eastern life, Dipika Rai’s Someone Else’s Garden transcends geographicaldivides and cultural chasms to brilliantly expose the commonalityof the human condition, compelling us to seek answerswithin ourselves to humanity’s eternalquestions: Is life random?Do we have a destiny?

"You Don't Love This Man is an exquisite puzzle....Which is more gorgeous, more satisfying here, the story itself, or the language DeWeese uses to tell it?" --Mary Rechner, author of Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated WomenSet in the Pacific Northwest, Dan Deweese's debut novel delivers a witty, heartfelt, and keenly observed day-in-the-life of one father of the bride, casting luminous insight into marriage, fatherhood, and bank robbery. Readers of Benjamin Kunkel, Joshua Ferris, and Kevin Wilson, as well as fans of contemporary American masters like Philip Roth and Tobias Wolff, will be enthralled by Deweese's evocative, literary exploration of an everyman protagonist's quiet struggles and tender joys on one of the most monumental days in his life.

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, at age eighty-five, she had become the world's most popular author. At the end of 2004, following the death of Christie's daughter, Rosalind, a remarkable legacy was revealed: seventy-three handwritten volumes of notes, lists, and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays, and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in the beloved author's unmistakable handwriting, are revelations about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own autobiography, this remarkable book includes a wealth of excerpts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters—plus, two complete, recently discovered Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

Passionate and brilliantly rendered, Small Wars questions how honor can exist amid cruelty and asks what becomes of intimacy in the grinding gears of empire.A major in the British Army, Hal Treherne is a dedicated soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. He is eager to lead his men into combat; his wife, Clara, however, is relieved when they are posted instead to seemingly peaceful sun-kissed Cyprus. But war erupts over unification with Greece, the island is consumed by violence—and Hal discovers that his military training cannot help him navigate the minefields of moral compromise that lie beneath every battle he fights. Clara grows fearful of her increasingly distant husband. When she needs him most, she finds the once-tender Hal a changed man—a betrayal that is only part of the shocking personal crisis to come.

One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which Adam loses everything--home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, cell phone--never to get them back.William Boyd's electrifying follow-up to the Costa Award-winning Restless, Ordinary Thunderstorms is a profound and gripping novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the seamy underbelly of every city.

Who killed Dr. Harvey Burdell in his opulent Manhattan town house?At once a gripping mystery and a richly detailed excavation of a lost age, 31 Bond Street is a spellbinding tale of murder, sex, greed, and politics in 1857 New York. Author Ellen Horan interweaves fact and fiction—reimagining the sensational nineteenth-century crime that rocked the city a few short years before the Civil War ripped through the fabric of the nation, while transporting readers back to a time that eerily echoes our own.Though there are no clues to the brutal slaying of wealthy Dr. Burdell, suspicion quickly falls on Emma Cunningham, the refined, pale-skinned widow who managed his house and servants. An ambitious district attorney seeks a swift conviction, but defense attorney Henry Clinton is a formidable obstacle—a man firmly committed to justice and the law, and to the cause of a frightened, vulnerable woman desperately trying to save herself from the gallows.

Why does the film Magnolia end in a downpour of frogs?Is the serpent in the Garden of Eden the devil or just a snake?How do people use the Bible to argue different sides of today's most controversial issues?Why did Metallica's bass player name their song "Creeping Death" after watching The Ten Commandments?Where does the fish symbol of the Christian faith come from?Who is the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who opens the seven seals of a cosmic scroll?Without either promoting or undermining specific beliefs, religious studies professor Kristin Swenson offers an intelligent, humorous, highly accessible, engaging, and illuminating guide to the Bible--incorporating biblical scholarship with contemporary pop culture references to help readers better understand the most talked about book of all time.

In this riveting mystery from New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline Winspear, Maisie Dobbs is hired to unravel a case of wartime love and death, an investigation that leads her to a doomed affair between a young cartographer and a mysterious nurse.August 1914. As Michael Clifton is mapping land he has just purchased in California's beautiful Santa Ynez Valley, war is declared in Europe--and duty-bound to his father's native country, the young cartographer soon sets sail for England to serve in the British army. Three years later, he is listed as missing in action.April 1932. After Michael's remains are unearthed in France, his parents retain London psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs, hoping she can find the unnamed nurse whose love letters were among their late son's belongings. It is a quest that leads Maisie back to her own bittersweet wartime love--and to the stunning discovery that Michael Clifton was murdered in his dugout. Suddenly an exposed web of intrigue and violence threatens to ensnare the dead soldier's family and even Maisie herself as she attempts to cope with the impending loss of her mentor and the unsettling awareness that she is once again falling in love.

A breathtaking tale of love, loyalty, and intrigue set in the early days of World War II from the acclaimed author of Soul CatcherWorld War II seems lost for the beleaguered Soviets as they struggle to hold back the rising German tide at Sevastopol. But a fearless female sniper inspires hope during her nation's darkest hour. Word of the extraordinary Soviet heroine, Tat'yana Levchenko, reaches American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who invites the beautiful assassin to tour the United States with her. For the Russians, Tat'yana's visit is an opportunity to gain support and valuable U.S. intelligence. But Tat'yana knows she is a pawn in a deadly game of treachery and deceit, forced to question the motivations of everyone around her . . . even the dashing and sympathetic American captain assigned as her translator. And then, as suddenly as she rose to international fame, Tat'yana vanishes without a trace.Her strange disappearance will remain a mystery for decades--until a determined journalist stumbles across Tat'yana's story . . . and uncovers the astonishing truth.

From Terry Castle, the brilliant cultural commentator whom Susan Sontag called "the most expressive, most enlightening literary critic at large today," comes a long-awaited collection of captivating personal essays. The title piece at the heart of the anthology—Castle's candid, wry, and rueful retelling of her romantic involvement with a female professor during graduate school—is a pitch-perfect recollection of the fiascoes of youth. Here, also, are classic Castle short works, including "Desperately Seeking Susan," a droll and bittersweet account of her friendship with Sontag; "My Heroin Christmas," a darkly humorous examination of addiction, her family and stepsiblings, and the late, great saxophonist Art Pepper; and the picaresque "Travels with My Mother," a rollicking tour through lesbianism, art, and the difficult yet transcendent paintings of Agnes Martin.The Professor is Terry Castle at her best: utterly distinctive, wise, frank, and fearless.

"Devotion's biggest triumph is its voice: funny and unpretentious, concrete and earthy--appealing to skeptics and believers alike. This is a gripping, beautiful story." -- Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep"I was immensely moved by this elegant book." -- Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, LoveDani Shapiro, the acclaimed author of the novel Black and White and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion, is back with Devotion: a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion is sure to appeal to all those dealing with the trials and tribulations of what Carl Jung called "the afternoon of life."

Buried in info? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper, disks, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians--they can help!Those who predicted the death of libraries forgot to consider that, in the automated maze of contemporary life, none of us--expert and hopelessly baffled alike--can get along without human help. And not just any help: we need librarians, the only ones who can save us from being buried by the digital age. This Book Is Overdue! is a romp through the ranks of information professionals--from the blunt and obscenely funny bloggers to the quiet, law-abiding librarians gagged by the FBI. These are the pragmatic idealists who fuse the tools of the digital age with their love for the written word and the enduring values of free speech, open access, and scout-badge-quality assistance to anyone in need.

Evelyn Waugh was already famous when Brideshead Revisited was published in 1945. The chronicle of a household, a family, and a journey of religious faith—an elegy for a vanishing world—Waugh's masterwork was a tribute and testimony to a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier. The Lygons of Madresfield were every bit as glamorous, eccentric, and fascinating as their fictional Brideshead counterparts, their story just as compelling, filled with secrets and betrayals, scandals and unwavering love.Mad World is Paula Byrne's innovative and engrossing biography of Evelyn Waugh, recalling the loves and obsessions that shaped his world and his writing, capturing Waugh through the friendships that mattered most to him, and exploring how he encoded the defining experiences of his adult life in his greatest literary work.

In nineteenth-century industrial America, while Carnegie provided the steel, Rockefeller the oil, Morgan the money, and Vanderbilt the railroads, Pulitzer ushered in the modern mass media. James McGrath Morris chronicles the epic story of Joseph Pulitzer, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant who amassed great wealth and extraordinary power during his remarkable rise through American politics and journalism. Based on years of research and newly discovered documents, Pulitzer is a classic, magisterial biography. It is a gripping portrait of the media baron who transformed American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence, and of the grueling legal battles he endured for freedom of the press that changed the landscape of American newspapers and politics.

Angela Clark is in love—with the most fabulous city in the world! When Angela catches her boyfriend with another woman at her best friend's wedding, she's heartbroken and desperate to run away. With little more than a crumpled bridesmaid dress, a pair of Louboutins, and her passport in hand, Angela decides to jump on a plane for . . . NYC!Settling into a cute hotel and quickly bonding with benevolent concierge Jenny—a chatterbox Oprah wannabe with room for a new best friend—Angela heads out for a New York makeover, some serious retail therapy, and a whirlwind tour of the city. Before she knows it, she's dating two sexy guys and blogging about her Big Apple escapades for a real fashion magazine. But while it's one thing telling readers about your romantic dilemmas, it's another working them out for yourself. Angela has fallen head over heels for the city that never sleeps, but does she heart New York more than home?

"The trouble with trying to read passages from the Adrian Mole Diaries aloud is that you find yourself laughing so hard you can't go on. It's that kind of book." --Kansas City Star "As sad and devastating as it is laugh-out-loud funny. A delight!" --New York Times The agonizingly funny, captivatingly poignant journals of England's bespotted everyboy are now available again. An international phenomenon and perennial favorite since their initial publication made a splash in Thatcher's Britain more than twenty years ago, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 3/4 is now side-by-side with its hilarious sequel The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole in this collected single volume.

America's greatest idea factory isn't Bell Labs, Silicon Valley, or MIT's Media Lab. It's the secretive, Pentagon-led agency known as DARPA. Founded by Eisenhower in response to Sputnik and the Soviet space program, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) mixes military officers with sneaker-wearing scientists, seeking paradigm-shifting ideas in varied fields—from energy, robotics, and rockets to doctorless operating rooms, driverless cars, and planes that can fly halfway around the world in just a few hours. Michael Belfiore was given unpre-cedented access to write this first-ever popular account of DARPA. The Department of Mad Scientists contains material that has barely been reported in the general media—in fact, only 2 percent of Americans know much of anything about the agency. But as this fascinating read demonstrates, DARPA isn't so much frightening as it is inspiring—it is our future.

So, what do you get an atheist for Christmas? This collection of smart, funny essays, of course--short works by 42 resolutely secular-minded geniuses about how to survive (and even enjoy) the holiday season...without feeling the Christmas Spirit move you. Editors Robin Harvie and Stephanie Meyers have gathered writers, celebrities, comedians, and scientists to deliver essays ranging from the hilarious to the reflective to the charmingly absurd in The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, a perfect gift for the Pastafarian who has everything, the Scrooge who wants nothing, and anyone else interested in the diverse meanings that Christmas can hold.

"[A] testament to a great spirit, a woman who lived in terrifying proximity to one of the greatest writers of all time, and who understood exactly the high price she would have to pay for this privilege."--Jay Parini, author of The Last StationTranslated by Cathy Porter and with an introduction by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy chronicles in extraordinary detail the diarist's remarkable marriage to the legendary man of letters, Count Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Set against the backdrop of Russia's turbulent history at the turn of the 20th century, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy offers a fascinating look at a remarkable era, a complicated artist, and the extraordinary woman who stood at his side.

Q: What do Tiger, Paris, Lindsay, Alec, and Oprah have in common with the enduring characters of Anton Chekhov?A: Love, loss, pride, yearning, heartbreak, renewal, transcendence: the very stuff of life.The immortal stories of Anton Chekhov have long entranced readers with their insights into the universal truths of human behavior . . . but you've never read them quite like this. Former friends Nicole and Paris exchange prickly pleasantries in "Tall and Short."Talk-show host Dave narrowly averts another potential domestic crisis in "A Transgression."Reality star Kim shares her newfound notoriety with Khloe and Kourtney in "Joy."In a witty, graceful, and revelatory feat of literary reinvention, acclaimed novelist and humorist Ben Greenman takes nineteen of Chekhov's greatest stories and recasts them with some of the best-known luminaries of our time—with eye-opening, and oddly ennobling, results.

Loyalty, loss, and the ties that bind: These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a "novel cookbook" that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than eighty delicious recipes.Lifelong friends Lilly and Val are united as much by their differences as by their similarities. In childhood, "LillyPad" and "ValPal" form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets . . . and recipes—from Lilly's "Lovelorn Lasagna" to Valerie's "Forgiveness Tapenade." The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val's bond across the decades: through the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred—until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

"Elegant and engrossing....Henderson is a talent to watch."--Danielle Trussoni, author of Angelology "This is not a book you'll soon forget."--Sara Gruen, author of Water for ElephantsThe gripping debut novel from Litpark.com founder and Pushcart Prize-nominee Susan Henderson, Up From the Blue is a dazzling tour de force that unfolds against the backdrop of 1970s America--a tumultuous era of desegregation, school busing, and the early rise of modern-day feminism. The story of an imaginative young girl struggling to make sense of her mother's mysterious disappearance, Up From the Blue is enthralling fiction that delves into complex family relationships, in the vein of Jennifer McMahon, Katrina Kittle, and Laura Kasischke.

Max Zajack's life is cheap rooms, dead-end jobs, and suicidal fantasies until he meets the alluring and mysterious Olivia Aphrodite, and everything goes to hell.Max is a struggling musician and wannabe writer. His life is in a rut until one night, while playing a gig at a local club, he gazes out into the crowd and sees Olivia. Before long, they are sharing a bed and host of dark vices that begin to consume them. Their love turns toxic, sending them spiraling downward toward the inevitable. Violently romantic, viscerally honest, Hating Olivia is the story of two loners whose obsessive love brings them to the edge of destruction.

The daughter of James I, the Princess Elizabeth would not be merely her father's pawn in the royal marriage market.The court of James I is a dangerous place, with factions led by warring cousins Robert Cecil and Francis Bacon. While Europe seethes with conflict between Protestants and Catholics, James sees himself as a grand peacemaker—and wants to make his mark by trading his children for political treaties.Henry, Prince of Wales, and his sister, Elizabeth, find themselves far more popular than their distrusted father, a perilous position for a child of a jealous king. When Elizabeth is introduced to one suitor, Frederick, the Elector Palatine, she feels the unexpected possibility of happiness. But her fate is not her own to choose—and when her parents brutally withdraw their support for the union, Elizabeth must take command of her own future, with the help of an unexpected ally, the slave girl Tallie, who seeks her own, very different freedom.

"If anyone can divine the contents of The Lost Symbol, it's Dan Burstein." --New York magazineWith Secrets of the Lost Symbol, co-authors Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer delve into the real history, science, and hidden meanings behind Dan Brown's latest blockbuster novel, The Lost Symbol. As they have done previously with their extraordinary New York Times bestsellers Secrets of the Code and Secrets of Angels & Demons, Burstein and de Keijzer explore the themes, conspiracies, mythologies, codes, encrypted signs, and alternate histories--from the birth of Knights Templar to the present day--popularized by the acclaimed creator of The Da Vinci Code, giving them fresh and fascinating relevance while separating truth from fantasy.