Bücher veröffentlicht von Houghton Mifflin

In stories that move deftly from the magical to the mundane, the simple to the surreal, The King of Limbo showcases a mature talent that calls to mind such greats as Alice Munro and Andre Dubus. Here are drifters, waitresses, horse trainers, housewives, a Nigerian foreign exchange student, a fisherman's wife, a cat with a cause. Blending magical realism and a pitch-perfect ear for the expressions of the human heart, Adrianne Harun presents a cast of unforgettable characters caught in limbo between their reality and their dreams. Set in locales as diverse as a fictional town on the Northwest coast and a Connecticut boarding school, these stories chart physical and emotional landscapes with equal precision and grace. Vacationers dawdle in souvenir shops. Locals quietly observe the superstitions of the sea. A woman, overcome by the loss of a child, runs her car into a Victorian house, only to be adopted by the house's elderly residents. A killer on the loose prompts a newlywed couple to employ a mannequin as a decoy for marital bliss. Again and again Adrianne Harun displays a unique ability to view the world from a dazzling array of perspectives. The King of Limbo confirms the arrival of a writer to watch.

“Both gritty and sublime” (Seattle Times), The Last Canyon tells the story of John Wesley Powell’s 1869 voyage of exploration through the Grand Canyon, the last great expedition of discovery in United States history. In this vivid novel, John Vernon intertwines two stories – that of Powell and his crew, and that of a band of Paiute Indians, known as the Shivwits, who lived on the north rim of the canyon. As the novel moves inexorably toward a violent encounter between the two groups, Vernon deftly leads us into perilous geographical and emotional territory. Powell’s adventure is a story of triumph, hardship, bravery, and ultimate loss.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin asked how a rain forest could contain so many species: ?What explains the riot?? The same question occupies the scientists who toil on Panama's Barro Colorado Island today. Tropical and steamy, these six square miles comprise the best-studied rain forest in the world, a locus of scientific activity since 1923. In THE TAPIR'S MORNING BATH, Elizabeth Royte weaves together her own adventures on Barro Colorado with tales of researchers struggling to parse the intricate workings of the rain forest, the most complicated natural system on the planet. Through the lens of the field station, she also traces the history of modern biology from its earliest days of collection and classification through the decline of the naturalist to the days of intense niche specialization and rigorous scientific quantification. As Royte counts seeds and sorts insects, collects monkey dung and radiotracks bats, she begins to wonder: what is the point of such arcane studies? The world over, rain forests are rapidly disappearing and species are going extinct. While humanizing the scientists in the field, she explores the tension between their research and the reality of a world that may not have time for the answers.

The Street of Clocks, Thomas Lux's first all-new collection since 1994, is a significant addition to the work of an utterly original, highly accomplished poet. The poems gathered here are delivered by a narrator who both loves the world and has intense quarrels with it. Often set against vivid landscapes - the rural America of Lux's childhood and unidentified places south of the border - these poems speak from rivers and swamps, deserts and lawns, jungles and the depths of the sea.

Harvey Cox, the eminent Christian theologian and scholar of religion, offers an intimate tour through the Jewish year certain to inform and enlighten Jews and non-Jews alike. As a member of an interfaith household, Cox has had ample opportunity to reflect upon the essence of Judaism and its complex relationship to Christianity. Organized around the Jewish calendar from Rosh Hashanah to Yom ha-Atzmaíut, Common Prayers illuminates the meanings of Jewish holidays as well as traditions surrounding milestone events such as death and marriage. Describing in elegant, accessible language the holidays’ personal, historical, and spiritual significance and the lessons they offer us, Cox “is instructive and enlightening, revealing the depth and passion of his religious thought and practice” (Boston Herald). As seen through his eyes, the Jewish holidays offer a wellspring of discovery and reflection for every reader.

In this novelistic romp that is by turns hilarious and brilliant, John Barth spoofs his own place in the pantheon of contemporary fiction and the generation of writers who have followed his literary trailblazing. Coming Soon!!! is the tale of two writers: an older, retiring novelist setting out to write his last work and a young, aspiring writer of hypertext intent on toppling his master. In the heat of their rivalry, the writers navigate, and sometimes stumble over, the cultural fault lines between print and electronic fiction, mentor and mentee, postmodernism and modernism.

In this revised and updated edition of the book that thousands of cooks have turned to when they have a question, the science authority Howard Hillman provides the latest findings about everything from cooking methods, equipment, and food storage to nutrition and health concerns.

It is spring in the village of Thrush Green. In neighboring Lulling, Charles Henstock admires the blooming garden of his new vicarage, glad that the squabbles with his parishoners in Affairs at Thrush Green are settled. And yet the good vicar wistfully recalls his former home - the ugly, old rectory of Thrush Green, which burned to the ground. Now, from the rectory's ruins, the villagers are building eight retirement homes for the older folks most in need. But how to choose who will live there? How will they get on together? And how will they accommodate the dogs, cats, and birds that must come along? The spring has brought a new crop of dilemmas, but Dr. Henstock and the villagers are determined to make the old people feel at home in Thrush Green. In the end, harmony is restored to this tiny fictional world. With wit and grace, Miss Read has charmed numerous critics and won the loyalty of readers who will happily find themselves once more At Home in Thrush Green.

Ever since the publication of Village School 35 years ago, Miss Read's numerous novels set in Thrush Green and Fairacre have been bestsellers all over the world. The "new Miss Read" focuses on Thrush Green's two former schoolteachers, now retired, who return for a visit.

Face it: no self-respecting young adult likes to be caught out of the know. But few teenagers have the time or inclination to plow through Web sites, almanacs, and weighty reference books to find the answers to all their questions. The Book of Lists for Teens is an informative, lively, and engaging source of information about all kinds of things, and it's fun. It's all here: everything that matters most to people aged twelve to sixteen, from lists on cyberfun, music, and movies to advice about social pressures, family matters, and planning for the future. Packed with Internet addresses, recommended reading, and project ideas, The Book of Lists for Teens provides a resource that goes far beyond its pages.Featuring: • Tips for raising well-adjusted parents • Consumer scams especially aimed at teens • Foods to eat before taking a test • Tips for buying a stereo • How to stay safe at concerts • Reasons to keep a private journal (and ways to make sure it stays that way?private!) And much, much more . . .

Upon publication, Anita Silvey's comprehensive survey of contemporary children's literature, Children's Books and Their Creators, garnered unanimous praise from librarians, educators, and specialists interested in the world of writing for children. Now The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators assembles the best of that volume in one handy, affordable reference, geared specifically to parents, educators, and students. This new volume introduces readers to the wealth of children's literature by focusing on the essentials — the best books for children, the ones that inform, impress, and, most important, excite young readers. Updated to include newcomers such as J. K. Rowling and Lemony Snicket and to cover the very latest on publishing and educational trends, this edition features more than 475 entries on the best-loved children's authors and illustrators, numerous essays on social and historical issues, thirty personal glimpses into craft by well-known writers, illustrators, and critics, and invaluable reading lists by category. The Essential Guide to Children's Books and Their Creators summarizes the canon of contemporary children's literature, in a practical guide essential for anyone choosing a book for or working with children.

An indispensable and timely guide, Risk is the authority for assessing threats to your health and safety.We continually face new risks in our world. This essential family reference will help you understand worrisome risks so you can decide how to stay safe and how to keeps risks in perspective. Expert authors David Ropeik and George Gray include information on:- 50 top hazards - your likelihood of exposure - the consequences - ways to reduce your riskThey cover topics such as:- cancer - biological weapons - indoor air pollution - pesticides - radiation

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.This year's Best American Short Stories features a rich mix of voices, from both intriguing new writers and established masters of the form like Michael Chabon, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Ford, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Arthur Miller. The 2002 collection includes stories about everything from illicit love affairs to family, the immigrant experience and badly behaved children -- stories varied in subject but unified in their power and humanity. In the words of this year's guest editor, the best-selling author Sue Miller, "The American short story today [is] healthy and strong . . . These stories arrived in the nick of time . . . to teach me once more what we read fiction for."

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. In his introduction to this year's collection, James Ellroy explores the differences between the novel and the short story. Included here are experts at both forms. Featuring renowned novelists like Stuart Kaminsky, Michael Connelly, Joe Gores, and Robert B. Parker, as well as veterans of this series like Brendan DuBois, Michael Downs, Joyce Carol Oates, and Clark Howard, this edition will delight readers with its wide variety and peerless quality.

The Best American Travel Writing 2002 is edited by Frances Mayes, the author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany and the master of “running away to live in the place of one’s dreams” (Los Angeles Times). Giving new life to armchair travel for 2002 are David Sedaris on God and airports, Kate Wheeler on a most dangerous Bolivian festival, André Aciman on the eternal pleasures of Rome, and many more.

One year before the protests in Tiananmen Square, Rosemary Mahoney participated in a teaching exchange between Harvard and Hangzhou University. At Hangzhou she was able to overcome her students' usual rigidity and achieve a rare and intimate glimpse of their culture and their attitudes. This remarkable memoir captures both the dreams and the grim realities her Chinese students faced within the confines of an oppressive political regime.

We were awash in money and spellbound by celebrity and scandal. It was a time of breathtaking strides in science and unprecedented possibility. A time of squandered opportunities and grave distraction. A time of tragic complacency and belief in our invulnerability. In The Best of Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Haynes Johnson looks back on the decade that defied anyone's expectations, for better or worse. With a sharp eye for the quote or detail that perfectly captures a moment in time, Johnson tells the whole story, no holds barred, of the roller-coaster, self-indulgent nineties when America paid no attention to gathering foreign storms or looming economic collapse. The product of four years of interviews with the decade's most influential players, this is in the best tradition of timeless social history--a memorable portrait of the entire wonderful yet woeful decade that ended in the cataclysmic flames of September 11. A James H. Silberman BookNational BestsellerNow with a New Foreword, Afterword, and PostscriptIn offering this paperback edition of the bubble years, I hope the stories I tell of that newly old America will illuminate how in a few short years we went from the best of times to the worst of times. In my Afterword, I suggest what lessons we must learn from that experience to avoid further disasters and close the circle on some events that typified the period. --Haynes JohnsonFrom the new Foreword

After eighteen years of marriage, an art historian wakes up one morning to find his wife standing in the bedroom doorway with her bags packed, leaving him with no explanation. Alone in his Copenhagen apartment, he tries to make sense of his enigmatic marriage and life. Memories of driving a cab, quiet walks in the snow, and intense sojourns in Paris and New York pass through his mind in fleeting images. The more he thinks of his wife, however, the more mysterious she becomes to him. Slowly he realizes that two people can live together for years without ever really knowing each other, and that the most important encounters in one's life are dictated by chance, not design. Exploring with great subtlety the secret, unpredictable connections between men and women, Silence in October is a psychological novel of immense acuity and masterful storytelling.

Delicious and nourishing recipes that are easy to eat and swallowThe simple act of eating is a challenge for millions of people whose ability to chew and swallow has been compromised by the debilitating effects of age or disease. The Easy-to-Swallow, Easy-to-Chew Cookbook presents a collection of more than 150 nutritious recipes that make eating enjoyable and satisfying for anyone who has difficulty chewing or swallowing. It also shares helpful tips and techniques to make eating easier for the elderly and those with such diseases as Parkinson's, AIDS, or head and neck cancers.

From one of America's greatest men of letters, our sublime master of manners, comes his novel, Her Infinite Variety. Louis Auchincloss has been called "our most astute observer of moral paradox among the affluent" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), and his fiction described as that which "has always examined what makes life worth living" (Washington Post Book World). Now he brings us the rollicking tale of an unforgettable woman of mid-twentieth century America: the devilish, forever plotting, yet wholly beguiling Clara Hoyt. A romantic early in life, Clara gets engaged-much to her mother's horror-to the lackluster Bobbie Lester. Soon after her Vassar graduation, however, Clara sees the error of her ways, spurns Bobbie, and slyly enthralls the well-bred and fabulously wealthy Trevor Hoyt, the first of her husbands. Soon she lands a job at a tony magazine, and so begins her wildly entertaining course to the inner sanctum of New York's aristocracy and into the boardrooms of the publishing world. In a world where women still had to wield the weapons of allure and charm, above all else, to secure positions of power, Clara, one of the last of her kind, succeeds marvelously. Auchincloss gives us, in Clara, an irresistible Cleopatra, lovely, wily, and mercurial. As Shakespeare wrote of that feminine creation, "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety."