For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered. In Lincoln, acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan explores the life of America's sixteenth president through his use of language as a vehicle both to express complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. Like the other great canonical writers of American literature—a status he is gradually attaining—Lincoln had a literary career that is inseparable from his life story. An admirer and avid reader of Burns, Byron, Shakespeare, and the Old Testament, Lincoln was the most literary of our presidents. His views on love, liberty, and human nature were shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature.

Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his audience with equal and enduring effectiveness. Kaplan focuses on the elements that shaped Lincoln's mental and imaginative world; how his writings molded his identity, relationships, and career; and how they simultaneously generated both the distinctive political figure he became and the public discourse of the nation. This unique account of Lincoln's life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln's legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy.

Illuminating and engrossing, Lincoln brilliantly chronicles Abraham Lincoln's genius with language.

Author: Fred Kaplan
Hardcover:  416 pages
Company: Harper  (2008-11-01) (2008-10-28)
ISBN: 0060773340
List Price: $27.95
Amazon Price: $6.70
Used Price: $4.89

The story of Daniel Boone is the story of America—its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Bestselling, critically acclaimed author Robert Morgan reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surround him.

This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years—a hero as important to American history as his more political contemporaries George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Extensive endnotes, cultural and historical background material, and maps and illustrations underscore the scope of this distinguished and immensely entertaining work.

Author: Robert Morgan
Paperback:  538 pages
Company: Algonquin Books  (2008-09-23)
ISBN: 1565126157
List Price: $18.95
Amazon Price: $2.36
Used Price: $3.01

A concise and appealing look at the strangest number in the universe and its continuing role as one of the great paradoxes of human thought

The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now, as Y2K fever rages, it threatens a technological apocalypse. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.

In Zero science journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers--from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists--who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in the dark core of a black hole and the brilliant flash of the Big Bang. Today, zero lies at the heart of one of the biggest scientific controversies of all time, the quest for a theory of everything.

Readers of Fermat's Enigma, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Seeing and Believing, and Longitudewill find the revealingly illustrated Zero freshly informative, easy to understand, and--infinitely--fascinating.

Author: Charles Seife
Paperback:  256 pages
Company: Penguin (Non-Classics)  (2000-09-01) (2000-09-05)
ISBN: 0140296476
List Price: $15.00
Amazon Price: $6.90
Used Price: $3.99

In America’s Constitution, one of this era’s most accomplished constitutional law scholars, Akhil Reed Amar, gives the first comprehensive account of one of the world’s great political texts. Incisive, entertaining, and occasionally controversial, this “biography” of America’s framing document explains not only what the Constitution says but also why the Constitution says it.

We all know this much: the Constitution is neither immutable nor perfect. Amar shows us how the story of this one relatively compact document reflects the story of America more generally. (For example, much of the Constitution, including the glorious-sounding “We the People,” was lifted from existing American legal texts, including early state constitutions.) In short, the Constitution was as much a product of its environment as it was a product of its individual creators’ inspired genius.

Despite the Constitution’s flaws, its role in guiding our republic has been nothing short of amazing. Skillfully placing the document in the context of late-eighteenth-century American politics, America’s Constitution explains, for instance, whether there is anything in the Constitution that is unamendable; the reason America adopted an electoral college; why a president must be at least thirty-five years old; and why–for now, at least–only those citizens who were born under the American flag can become president.

From his unique perspective, Amar also gives us unconventional wisdom about the Constitution and its significance throughout the nation’s history. For one thing, we see that the Constitution has been far more democratic than is conventionally understood. Even though the document was drafted by white landholders, a remarkably large number of citizens (by the standards of 1787) were allowed to vote up or down on it, and the document’s later amendments eventually extended the vote to virtually all Americans.

We also learn that the Founders’ Constitution was far more slavocratic than many would acknowledge: the “three fifths” clause gave the South extra political clout for every slave it owned or acquired. As a result, slaveholding Virginians held the presidency all but four of the Republic’s first thirty-six years, and proslavery forces eventually came to dominate much of the federal government prior to Lincoln’s election.

Ambitious, even-handed, eminently accessible, and often surprising, America’s Constitution is an indispensable work, bound to become a standard reference for any student of history and all citizens of the United States.


From the Hardcover edition.

Author: Akhil Reed Amar
Paperback:  672 pages
Company: Random House Trade Paperbacks  (2006-09-12) (2006-09-12)
ISBN: 0812972724
List Price: $18.00
Amazon Price: $10.20
Used Price: $6.78

“A remarkable historical, political, and economic
examination of the dollar.” –Booklist

Craig Karmin’s in-depth “biography” of the dollar examines the power of the Federal Reserve, the inner sanctums of foreign central banks that stockpile currency, and the little-known circles of foreign exchange traders who determine a currency’s worth. It’s “a surprisingly entertaining and informative social history of the currency that makes the world economy go round,” says Kirkus Reviews.

“An incredible book that should be required reading for anyone whose future depends on understanding how the dollar is valued and manipulated." –Timothy Ferriss, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek

“An indispensible guide to understanding the way both the U.S. and the world economies work and the dollar’s role in keeping the economic skids greased." –Ram Charan, coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and The Game-Changer

“It’s hard to imagine a more entertaining book on such a vital subject.” –Bloomberg.com

“Craig Karmin’s fortuitously timed Biography of the Dollar argues that the greenback’s recent plunge is more than just a market tumble.”–Portfolio


Author: Craig Karmin
Paperback:  272 pages
Company: Three Rivers Press  (2009-04-07) (2009-04-07)
ISBN: 0307339874
List Price: $13.95
Amazon Price: $7.87
Used Price: $7.17

For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered. In Lincoln, acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan explores the life of America's sixteenth president through his use of language as a vehicle both to express complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. Like the other great canonical writers of American literature—a status he is gradually attaining—Lincoln had a literary career that is inseparable from his life story. An admirer and avid reader of Burns, Byron, Shakespeare, and the Old Testament, Lincoln was the most literary of our presidents. His views on love, liberty, and human nature were shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature.

Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his audience with equal and enduring effectiveness. Kaplan focuses on the elements that shaped Lincoln's mental and imaginative world; how his writings molded his identity, relationships, and career; and how they simultaneously generated both the distinctive political figure he became and the public discourse of the nation. This unique account of Lincoln's life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln's legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy.

Illuminating and engrossing, Lincoln brilliantly chronicles Abraham Lincoln's genius with language.

Author: Fred Kaplan
Paperback:  384 pages
Company: Harper Perennial  (2010-02-01) (2010-02-02)
ISBN: 0060773367
List Price: $15.99
Amazon Price: $10.87

"Awe-inspiring . . . a masterly synthesis."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Deeply penetrating, intensely thought-provoking and thoroughly informed . . . one of the most important general surveys of Africa that has been produced in the last decade." --The Washington Post

In 1978, paleontologists in East Africa discovered the earliest evidence of our divergence from the apes: three pre-human footprints, striding away from a volcano, were preserved in the petrified surface of a mudpan over three million years ago. Out of Africa, the world's most ancient and stable landmass, Homo sapiens dispersed across the globe. And yet the continent that gave birth to human history has long been woefully misunderstood and mistreated by the rest of the world.

In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist John Reader brings to light Africa's geology and evolution, the majestic array of its landforms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism as well as recent political troubles and triumphs. Written in simple, elegant prose and illustrated with Reader's own photographs, Africa: A Biography of the Continent is an unforgettable book that will delight the general reader and expert alike.

"Breathtaking in its scope and detail." --San Francisco Chronicle

Author: John Reader
Paperback:  816 pages
Company: Vintage  (1999-09-07) (1999-09-07)
ISBN: 067973869X
List Price: $18.95
Amazon Price: $11.49
Used Price: $9.60

Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name “A. Lincoln.” In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity–what today’s commentators would call “authenticity”–whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life.

Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln’s personal, political, and moral evolution. White shows us Lincoln as a man who would leave a trail of thoughts in his wake, jotting ideas on scraps of paper and filing them in his top hat or the bottom drawer of his desk; a country lawyer who asked questions in order to figure out his own thinking on an issue, as much as to argue the case; a hands-on commander in chief who, as soldiers and sailors watched in amazement, commandeered a boat and ordered an attack on Confederate shore batteries at the tip of the Virginia peninsula; a man who struggled with the immorality of slavery and as president acted publicly and privately to outlaw it forever; and finally, a president involved in a religious odyssey who wrote, for his own eyes only, a profound meditation on “the will of God” in the Civil War that would become the basis of his finest address.

Most enlightening, the Abraham Lincoln who comes into focus in this stellar narrative is a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, unafraid to “think anew and act anew.”

A transcendent, sweeping, passionately written biography that greatly expands our knowledge and understanding of its subject, A. Lincoln will engage a whole new generation of Americans. It is poised to shed a profound light on our greatest president just as America commemorates the bicentennial of his birth.



Author: Ronald C. White Jr.
Hardcover:  816 pages
Company: Random House  (2009-01-13) (2009-01-13)
ISBN: 1400064996
List Price: $35.00
Amazon Price: $18.21
Used Price: $16.23

A delightful romp through history with all its economic forces laid bare, Cod is the biography of a single species of fish, but it may as well be a world history with this humble fish as its recurring main character. Cod, it turns out, is the reason Europeans set sail across the Atlantic, and it is the only reason they could. What did the Vikings eat in icy Greenland and on the five expeditions to America recorded in the Icelandic sagas? Cod--frozen and dried in the frosty air, then broken into pieces and eaten like hardtack. What was the staple of the medieval diet? Cod again, sold salted by the Basques, an enigmatic people with a mysterious, unlimited supply of cod. As we make our way through the centuries of cod history, we also find a delicious legacy of recipes, and the tragic story of environmental failure, of depleted fishing stocks where once their numbers were te fate of the universe. Here--for scientist and layperson alike, for philosopher, science-fiction reader, biologist, and computer expert--is a startlingly complete and rational synthesis of disciplines, and a new, optimistic message about existence.

Author: Mark Kurlansky
Paperback:  304 pages
Company: Penguin (Non-Classics)  (1998-07-01)
ISBN: 0140275010
List Price: $15.00
Amazon Price: $6.99
Used Price: $3.10

George Washington insisted that his portrait be painted with one. Daniel Boone created a legend with one. Abraham Lincoln shot them on the White House lawn. And Teddy Roosevelt had his specially customized.

Now, in this first-of-its-kind book, historian Alexander Rose delivers a colorful, engrossing biography of an American icon: the rifle. Drawing on the words of soldiers, inventors, and presidents, based on extensive new research, and encompassing the Revolution to the present day, American Rifle is a balanced, wonderfully entertaining history of this most essential firearm and its place in American culture.

In the eighteenth century American soldiers discovered that they no longer had to fight in Europe’s time-honored way. With the evolution of the famed “Kentucky” Rifle—a weapon slow to load but devastatingly accurate in the hands of a master—a new era of warfare dawned, heralding the birth of the American individualist in battle.

In this spirited narrative, Alexander Rose reveals the hidden connections between the rifle’s development and our nation’s history. We witness the high-stakes international competition to produce the most potent gunpowder . . . how the mysterious arts of metallurgy, gunsmithing, and mass production played vital roles in the creation of American economic supremacy . . . and the ways in which bitter infighting between rival arms makers shaped diplomacy and influenced the most momentous decisions in American history. And we learn why advances in rifle technology and ammunition triggered revolutions in military tactics, how ballistics tests—frequently bizarre—were secretly conducted, and which firearms determined the course of entire wars.

From physics to geopolitics, from frontiersmen to the birth of the National Rifle Association, from the battles of the Revolution to the war in Iraq, American Rifle is a must read for history buffs, gun collectors, soldiers—and anyone who seeks to understand the dynamic relationship between the rifle and this nation’s history.

Author: Alexander Rose
Hardcover:  512 pages
Company: Delacorte Press  (2008-10-21) (2008-10-21)
ISBN: 0553805177
List Price: $30.00
Amazon Price: $14.00
Used Price: $16.27

Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we "dress up" for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, choirs, and seminaries? This volume reveals the startling truth: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is not rooted in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence in the first-ever book to document the full story of modern Christian church practices.

Author: Frank Viola, George Barna
Hardcover:  336 pages
Company: BarnaBooks  (2008-01)
ISBN: 141431485X
List Price: $17.99
Amazon Price: $11.20
Used Price: $11.94

Is it possible that we have left Christ out of Christianity? Is the faith and practice of American Christians today more American than Christian? These are the provocative questions Michael Horton addresses in this thoughtful, insightful book. He argues that while we invoke the name of Christ, too often Christ and the Christ-centered gospel are pushed aside. The result is a message and a faith that are, in Horton's words, "trivial, sentimental, affirming, and irrelevant." This alternative "gospel" is a message of moralism, personal comfort, self-help, self-improvement, and individualistic religion. It trivializes God, making him a means to our selfish ends. Horton skillfully diagnoses the problem and points to the solution: a return to the unadulterated gospel of salvation.

Author: Michael Horton
Hardcover:  272 pages
Company: Baker Books  (2008-11-01)
ISBN: 0801013186
List Price: $19.99
Amazon Price: $12.23
Used Price: $12.99

For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite—that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style.

Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon and offers a how-to approach for Protestants eager to remain faithful to their tradition while becoming a vital spiritual community. As Butler Bass delved into the rich spiritual life of various Episcopal, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran churches, certain consistent practices—such as hospitality, contemplation, diversity, justice, discernment, and worship—emerged as core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover authentic Christian faith and witness today.

This hopeful book, which includes a study guide for groups and individuals, reveals the practical steps that leaders and laypeople alike are taking to proclaim an alternative message about an emerging Christianity that strives for greater spiritual depth and proactively engages the needs of the world.

Author: Diana Butler Bass
Paperback:  336 pages
Company: HarperOne  (2007-10-01) (2007-10-02)
ISBN: 0060859490
List Price: $14.99
Amazon Price: $8.00
Used Price: $6.71

The Story of Christianity, Volume 1, is an informative, interesting, and consistently readable narrative history. It brings alive the people, dramatic events, and ideas that shaped the first fifteen centuries of Europe, such as the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the New World. Historian Justo Gonzalez shows how various social, political, and economic movements affected Christianity's internal growth.

Gonzalez skillfully weaves in relevant details from the lives of prominent figures from the apostles to John Wycliffe, tracing out core theological issues and developments as reflected in the lives and struggles of leading thinkers within the various traditions of the church. "The history of the church, while showing all the characteristics fo human history, is much more than the history of an institution or movement," Gonzalez stresses. "It is a history of the deeds of the spirit in and through the men and women who have gone before in the faith." The Story of Christianity demonstrates at each point what new challenges and opportunities faced the church, and how Christians struggled with the various options open to them, thereby shaping the future direction of the church.

The Story of Christianity will serve as a fascinating introduction to the panoramic history of Christianity for students and teachers of church history, for pastors, and for general readers.

Author: Justo L. Gonzalez
Paperback:  448 pages
Company: HarperOne  (1984-07-18) (1984-07-18)
ISBN: 0060633158
List Price: $23.99
Amazon Price: $12.95
Used Price: $10.41

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power and hierarchy. In A People's History of Christianity, historian and religion expert Diana Butler Bass reveals an alternate history that includes a deep social ethic and far-reaching inclusivity: "the other side of the story" is not a modern phenomenon, but has always been practiced within the church. Butler Bass persuasively argues that corrective—even subversive—beliefs and practices have always been hallmarks of Christianity and are necessary to nourish communities of faith.

In the same spirit as Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work The People's History of the United States, Butler Bass's A People's History of Christianity brings to life the movements, personalities, and spiritual disciplines that have always informed and ignited Christian worship and social activism.

A People's History of Christianity authenticates the vital, emerging Christian movements of our time, providing the historical evidence that celebrates these movements as thoroughly Christian and faithful to the mission and message of Jesus.

Author: Diana Butler Bass
Hardcover:  368 pages
Company: HarperOne  (2009-03-01) (2009-03-03)
ISBN: 0061448702
List Price: $25.99
Amazon Price: $14.03
Used Price: $14.03

World-renowned Jesus scholar Marcus J. Borg shows how we can live passionately as Christians in today's world by practicing the vital elements of Christian faith.

For the millions of people who have turned away from many traditional beliefs about God, Jesus, and the Bible, but still long for a relevant, nourishing faith, Borg shows why the Christian life can remain a transforming relationship with God. Emphasizing the critical role of daily practice in living the Christian life, he explores how prayer, worship, Sabbath, pilgrimage, and more can be experienced as authentically life-giving practices.

Borg reclaims terms and ideas once thought to be the sole province of evangelicals and fundamentalists: he shows that terms such as "born again" have real meaning for all Christians; that the "Kingdom of God" is not a bulwark against secularism but is a means of transforming society into a world that values justice and love; and that the Christian life is essentially about opening one's heart to God and to others.

Author: Marcus J. Borg
Paperback:  234 pages
Company: HarperOne  (2004-09-01) (2004-08-17)
ISBN: 0060730684
List Price: $14.95
Amazon Price: $6.38
Used Price: $2.69

A forceful and accessible discussion of Christian belief that has become one of the most popular introductions to Christianity and one of the most popular of Lewis’s books. Uncovers common ground upon which all Christians can stand together.

Author: C. S. Lewis
Hardcover:  256 pages
Company: Harper  (2001-03-01) (2001-03-06)
ISBN: 0060652888
List Price: $24.99
Amazon Price: $14.43
Used Price: $10.15

Nearly two decades ago Hank Hanegraaff's award-winning Christianity in Crisis alerted the world to the dangers of a cultic movement within Christianity that threatened to undermine the very foundation of biblical faith. But in the 21st century, there are new dangers-new teachers who threaten to do more damage than the last.

These are not obscure teachers that Hanegraaff unmasks. We know their names. We have seen their faces, sat in their churches, and heard them shamelessly preach and promote the false pretexts of a give-to-get gospel. They are virtual rock stars who command the attention of presidential candidates and media moguls. Through make-believe miracles, urban legends, counterfeit Christs, and twisted theological reasoning, they peddle an occult brand of metaphysics that continues to shipwreck the faith of millions around the globe:

"God cannot do anything in this earthly realm unless we give Him permission."

"Keep saying it-'I have equality with God'-talk yourself into it."

"Being poor is a sin."

"The Jews were not rejecting Jesus as Messiah; it was Jesus who was refusing to be the Messiah to the Jews!"

"You create your own world the same way God creates His. He speaks, and things happen; you speak, and they happen."

Christianity in Crisis: 21st Century exposes darkness to light, pointing us back to a Christianity centered in Christ.

From the Preface:

"Having lost the ability to think biblically, postmodern Christians are being transformed from cultural change agents and initiators into cultural conformists and imitators. Pop culture beckons, and postmodern Christians have taken the bait. As a result, the biblical model of faith has given way to an increasingly bizarre array of fads and formulas."

Author: Hank Hanegraaff
Hardcover:  432 pages
Company: Thomas Nelson  (2009-03-03)
ISBN: 0849900069
List Price: $22.99
Amazon Price: $12.41
Used Price: $11.37

In this groundbreaking book, renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins offers a lost history, revealing that, for centuries, Christianity's center was actually in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, with significant communities extending as far as China. The Lost History of Christianity unveils a vast and forgotten network of the world's largest and most influential Christian churches that existed to the east of the Roman Empire. These churches and their leaders ruled the Middle East for centuries and became the chief administrators and academics in the new Muslim empire. The author recounts the shocking history of how these churches—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died.

Jenkins takes a stand against current scholars who assert that variant, alternative Christianities disappeared in the fourth and fifth centuries on the heels of a newly formed hierarchy under Constantine, intent on crushing unorthodox views. In reality, Jenkins says, the largest churches in the world were the “heretics” who lost the orthodoxy battles. These so-called heretics were in fact the most influential Christian groups throughout Asia, and their influence lasted an additional one thousand years beyond their supposed demise.

Jenkins offers a new lens through which to view our world today, including the current conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Without this lost history, we lack an important element for understanding our collective religious past. By understanding the forgotten catastrophe that befell Christianity, we can appreciate the surprising new births that are occurring in our own time, once again making Christianity a true world religion.

Author: Philip Jenkins
Hardcover:  336 pages
Company: HarperOne  (2008-11-01) (2008-10-28)
ISBN: 0061472808
List Price: $26.95
Amazon Price: $14.55
Used Price: $8.00

Is it reasonable to have faith in God? Can intelligent, educated people really believe what the Bible says? Or do the atheists have it right--has Christianity been disproven by science and discredited as a guide to morality? Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza (The Enemy at Home; What's So Great about America) responds head-on to the anti-God arguments of prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens and defeats them on their own terms. What's So Great about Christianity provides believers with a straightforward tool kit for meeting the challenge of modern atheism and secularism; for nonbelievers, it offers a compelling apologetic that will challenge their assumptions and affirm that there really is something great about Christianity.

Author: Dinesh D'Souza
Paperback:  368 pages
Company: Tyndale House Publishers  (2008-10-24) (2008-11-04)
ISBN: 1414326017
List Price: $14.99
Amazon Price: $8.49
Used Price: $7.84

With millions of records now available online, those interested in their family history have a wealth of information—and misinformation—at their fingertips. In this book, author Kimberly Powell, the About.com Guide to Genealogy, helps both novice and experienced genealogists sort it all out. She shows readers where to search and which key-words they’ll need to create an accurate family tree—from start to finish. With this book, readers will learn how to create an online search strategy, use search engines and Soundex to find kin, reach out to others with peer-to-peer record swapping, discover useful records from around the world, and more. Packed with tips on free databases, search sites, and downloadable government records, readers will have all they need to use the Web to dig out their family’s true tale!

Author: Kimberly Powell
Paperback:  304 pages
Company: Adams Media  (2008-10-17)
ISBN: 1598694979
List Price: $15.95
Amazon Price: $9.82
Used Price: $8.94

Fully updated and revised, this bestselling genealogy guide helps you tap into the wealth of global ancestry records and offers proven strategies for both traditional and electronic research. How to Do Everything: Genealogy, Second Edition explores basic rules of genealogical evidence, evaluation of source materials, research methods, and successful techniques for web-based research. You'll get new information on DNA-based records, social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, the latest hardware and software, and much more.

Author: George G. Morgan
Paperback:  456 pages
Company: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media  (2009-04-09)
ISBN: 0071625348
List Price: $24.99
Amazon Price: $15.44
Used Price: $15.17

On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) is a book about interpretation and the history of ethics which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both. This is the most sustained of Nietzsche's later works and offers one of the fullest expressions of his characteristic concerns. The introduction places his ideas within the cultural context of his own time and stresses the relevance of his work for a contemporary audience.

Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Paperback:  208 pages
Company: Oxford University Press, USA  (2009-01-15)
ISBN: 0199537089
List Price: $11.95
Amazon Price: $6.42
Used Price: $4.95

This user-friendly volume offers readers an opportunity to understand the craft of genealogy, explore their roots, perform online research, and begin to discover their true identities. Includes new information on the release of the 1930 census, the pros and cons of online research, and creating family trees.

Author: Christine Rose, Kay Germain Ingalls
Paperback:  384 pages
Company: Alpha  (2006-01-03)
ISBN: 1592574300
List Price: $18.95
Amazon Price: $10.92
Used Price: $5.96

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of the past 150 years and On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) is his most important work on ethics and politics. A polemical contribution to moral and political theory, it offers a critique of moral values and traces the historical evolution of concepts such as guilt, conscience, responsibility, law and justice. This is a revised and updated edition of one of the most successful volumes to appear in Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Keith Ansell-Pearson has modified his introduction to Nietzsche's classic text, and Carol Diethe has incorporated a number of changes to the translation itself, reflecting the considerable advances in our understanding of Nietzsche in the twelve years since this edition first appeared. In this new guise the Cambridge Texts edition of Nietzsche's Genealogy should continue to enjoy widespread adoption, at both undergraduate and graduate level.

Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Paperback:  242 pages Student Edition
Company: Cambridge University Press  (2006-10-30)
ISBN: 052169163X
List Price: $17.99
Amazon Price: $6.00
Used Price: $2.74

This book offers novice and experienced reference librarians an introduction to tried-and-true genealogy techniques and resources. With the help of four case studies, Simpson outlines a basic starting strategy for conducting genealogy research. Later chapters deal specifically with genealogical librarianship: how to conduct a reference interview, continuing and professional development, and basic resources every collection should have. Charts, screen shots, and examples of public documents are also included; while a series of appendices present the case studies in their entirety.

Genealogy is one of the most popular hobbies in the United States, and is heavily researched in public libraries and historical repositories. Increasingly, major genealogy resources are available online at libraries through subscription databases or free on the internet. As a result, librarians face the overwhelming task of helping a large audience of genealogists cope with an ever growing flood of new resources.

This book offers novice and experienced reference librarians an introduction to tried-and-true genealogy techniques and resources. With the help of four case studies, Simpson outlines a basic starting strategy for conducting genealogy research. Later chapters deal specifically with genealogical librarianship: how to conduct a reference interview, continuing and professional development, and basic resources every collection should have. Charts, screen shots, and examples of public documents are also included; while a series of appendices present the case studies in their entirety.

Author: Jack Simpson
Paperback:  192 pages
Company: Libraries Unlimited  (2008-09-30) (2008-09-30)
ISBN: 1591585147
List Price: $40.00
Amazon Price: $35.99
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Researching your genealogy online is like being a kid in a candy store. So many neat things catch your eye that it’s difficult to decide which one to try. That’s where Genealogy Online For Dummies, 5th Edition comes in. This completely practical handbook helps you become a smart, discriminating researcher from the moment you start your investigation.

Unlike other genealogy books, this easy-to-use guide does more than show you how to access and use online resources; it lays out a sensible organized process you can follow to make your research more efficient and achieve your genealogical goal faster. You'll learn how to start your research before you go online, understand traditional methods of genealogy, identify Web sites that will be most helpful to your research, get vital information and statistics from government records, and much, much more Discover how to: Use basic online and offline research techniques Develop a plan for your research Integrate Internet resources to achieve your genealogical goal Create Web sites where family members can make contact Access domestic records for births, deaths, immigration, and more Research ethnic ancestry through international records Verify what you find Protect your research

Complete with a companion CD-ROM packed with valuable genealogy software, Genealogy Online For Dummies puts you in touch with all of the tools, resources, methods, and know-how you need to make your research into your family history a total success.

Author: Matthew L. Helm, April Leigh Helm
Paperback:  384 pages
Company: For Dummies  (2008-03-17)
ISBN: 0470240571
List Price: $24.99
Amazon Price: $0.53
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Professional Genealogy is a manual by professionals for everyone serious about genealogy. For librarians who struggle to help a whole new class of patrons, it provides a bridge to the methods, sources, and minutiae of history, up-close and personal. For established genealogical professionals, it offers benchmarks by which they can advance their skills and place their businesses on sounder footing. For all those who dream of turning a fascinating hobby into a successful career, Professional Genealogy details the preparation and the processes

Author: Elizabeth Shown Mills
Hardcover:  654 pages
Company: Genealogical Publishing Company  (2001-05-01)
ISBN: 0806316489
List Price: $44.95
Amazon Price: $40.00
Used Price: $35.95

Since 1984, The Source has set the standard for family history references, winning the ALA "Best Reference" award and earning the top spot on Family Chronicle's "Top 10 Genealogical Books" list. As it's name suggests, it is the industry's most comprehensive guide to the full spectrum of genealogical resources in America! Each chapter in this new edition is a mini seminar written by an expert in a specific genealogical field that shows what sources are available, how to find them, and most importantly, how to use them.

The Internet has changed the genealogical landscape in the ten years since The Source's last revision. The many contributors to this volume explore these new online sources and place them in context with timeless family history research principles. New or updated chapters include chapters dedicated to computers, the American colonial era, references and guides, and more.

Whether you're a brand new genealogist trying to figure out where to begin, or a seasoned expert who's hit the proverbial brick wall The Source has the answers. Not only will it help you effectively use every imaginable type of genealogical record found in America, but you'll also learn how to take advantage of time-tested and cutting-edge research techniques, as well as ways to use your existing data as a springboard to more ancestral discoveries.

Learn where to find and how to use vital resources like:

- Databases, indexes, directories and other finding aids
- Birth, death and cemetery records
- Marriage and divorce records
- Census records Church records
- Court records Land & Tax records
- Military records Business and employment records
- Additional chapters focus on tracking ethnic origins using immigration records and other resources for Native American, African American, Hispanic, and Jewish-American research

This new third edition includes the following features and more:

-Edited by Loretto Dennis "Lou" Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Leubking, two of the most respected leaders in the field of family history.
-Each chapter's author is among the elite experts in their individual fields of study.
-Each chapter is structured like a mini-seminar, with advise, tips, and direction from a qualified expert in the field.
-Four new chapters have been added.
-Each chapter now includes information on key Internet sites to help you with your family history.
-The Foundations chapter gives an informative overview of how to do a family history research.


Hardcover:  992 pages
Company: Ancestry Publishing  (2006-06-01)
ISBN: 1593312776
List Price: $79.95
Amazon Price: $55.54
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In every field of study there is one book that rises above the rest in stature and authority and becomes the standard work in the field. In genealogy that book is Val Greenwood's Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Arguably the best book ever written on American genealogy, it is the text of choice in colleges and universities or wherever courses in American genealogy are taught. Of the dozens of textbooks, manuals, and how-to books that have appeared over the past twenty-five years, it is the one book that is consistently praised for setting a standard of excellence. The Researcher's Guide has become a classic. While it instructs the researcher in the timeless principles of genealogical research, it also identifies the various classes of records employed in that research, groups them in convenient tables and charts, gives their location, explains their uses, and evaluates each of them in the context of the research process. Designed to answer practically all the researcher's needs, it is both a textbook and an all-purpose reference book. And it is this singular combination that makes The Researcher's Guide the book of choice in any genealogical investigation. It is also the reason why if you can afford to buy only one book on American genealogy in a lifetime, this has to be it. This new 3rd edition incorporates the latest thinking on genealogy and computers, specifically the relationship between computer technology (the Internet and CD-ROM) and the timeless principles of good genealogical research. It also includes a new chapter on the property rights of women, a revised chapter on the evaluation of genealogical evidence, and updated information on the 1920 census. Little else has changed, or needs to be changed, because the basics of genealogy remain timeless and immutable. This 3rd edition of The Researcher's Guide, then, is a clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date account of the methods and aims of American genealogy--an essential text for the present generation of researchers--and no sound genealogical project is complete without it.

Author: Val D. Greenwood
Hardcover:  662 pages
Company: Genealogical Publishing Company  (2001-01-01)
ISBN: 0806316217
List Price: $29.95
Amazon Price: $22.98
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Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club.
Her father's "bunny rabbit."
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure.
A sharp tongue.
A chip on her shoulder.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend:  the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Landau-Banks.
No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer.
Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society.
Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.
Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.
When she knows Matthew's lying to her.
And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:
Possibly a criminal mastermind.

This is the story of how she got that way.  


Author: E. Lockhart
Hardcover:  352 pages Bargain Price
Company: Hyperion Book CH  (2008-03-25) (2008-03-25)
List Price: $16.99
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The illuminating national bestseller: "Vertiginously exciting…vibrantly imagined….[Krauss is] a prodigious talent."—Janet Maslin, New York Times A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.

This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss—Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power. .

Author: Nicole Krauss
Paperback:  272 pages
Company: W.W. Norton & Co.  (2006-05-17)
ISBN: 0393328627
List Price: $13.95
Amazon Price: $4.94
Used Price: $2.06

Author: John J. Newman
Paperback: 
Company: Amsco School Pubns Inc  (2003-01)
ISBN: 1567656609
List Price: $28.35
Amazon Price: $28.19
Used Price: $12.00

For most of New York's early history, Ellis Island had been an obscure little island that barely held itself above high tide. Today the small island stands alongside Plymouth Rock in our nation's founding mythology as the place where many of our ancestors first touched American soil. Ellis Island's heyday—from 1892 to 1924—coincided with one of the greatest mass movements of individuals the world has ever seen, with some twelve million immigrants inspected at its gates. In American Passage, Vincent J. Cannato masterfully illuminates the story of Ellis Island from the days when it hosted pirate hangings witnessed by thousands of New Yorkers in the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century when massive migrations sparked fierce debate and hopeful new immigrants often encountered corruption, harsh conditions, and political scheming.

American Passage captures a time and a place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic and bittersweet accounts of the immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all play an important role in Ellis Island's chronicle. Cannato traces the politics, prejudices, and ideologies that surrounded the great immigration debate, to the shift from immigration to detention of aliens during World War II and the Cold War, all the way to the rebirth of the island as a national monument. Long after Ellis Island ceased to be the nation's preeminent immigrant inspection station, the debates that once swirled around it are still relevant to Americans a century later.

In this sweeping, often heart-wrenching epic, Cannato reveals that the history of Ellis Island is ultimately the story of what it means to be an American.

Author: Vincent J. Cannato
Hardcover:  496 pages
Company: Harper  (2009-06-01) (2009-06-09)
ISBN: 0060742739
List Price: $27.99
Amazon Price: $17.83
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Author: Tom Standage
Paperback:  311 pages
Company: Walker Publishing Company  (2006-05-16) (2006-05-16)
ISBN: 0802715524
List Price: $15.95
Amazon Price: $7.99
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Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Author: Howard Zinn
Paperback:  768 pages
Company: Harper Perennial Modern Classics  (2005-08-01) (2005-08-02)
ISBN: 0060838655
List Price: $18.95
Amazon Price: $10.81
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