"A Mystery of Mysteries is a biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author's life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes. It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him...

A man of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talent - musician, inventor, composer, poet, and even amateur mycologist - John Cage became a central figure of the avant-garde early in his life and remained at that pinnacle until his death in 1992 at the age of eighty. The author presents a comprehensive look at the life of this remarkable artist. The book begins with Cage's childhood in interwar Los Angeles and his stay in Paris from 1930 to 1931,...

"Jesmyn Ward's universally acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from, in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young men dear to her, including her beloved brother--to accidents, murder, and suicide. Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet their lives had been connected, by identity and place, and as Jesmyn dealt with these losses,...

At his death, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was universally acknowledged in America and England as ""the Great Romancer."" Novels such as The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables and stories published in such collections as Twice-Told Tales continue to capture the minds and imaginations of readers and critics to this day. Harder to capture, however, were the character and personality of the man himself. So few of the essays that appeared...

Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics--a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in Congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of our democracy. He explores those forces--from the fear of losing, to the perpetual need to raise money, to the power of the media--that can stifle even the best-intentioned...

This volume presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended. Eschewing chronology and organization, Twain simply meanders from observation to anecdote and between past and present. There are reminiscences from his youth of landscapes, rural idylls, and Tom Sawyeresque japes; acid-etched profiles of friends and enemies, from his "fiendish" Florentine...

Fascinating Mathematical People is a collection of informal interviews and memoirs of sixteen prominent members of the mathematical community of the twentieth century, many still active. The candid portraits collected here demonstrate that while these men and women vary widely in terms of their backgrounds, life stories, and worldviews, they all share a deep and abiding sense of wonder about mathematics. Featured here--in their own words--are major...

Just before he died in Chicago, legendary thief Cresta revealed to Crowley, a retired Boston police detective, how he planned and carried out the capers that had baffled both the police and his colleagues for decades.

Hermann Hesse's stories inspired nonconformity and a yearning for universal values to supplant the political fanaticism tearing Europe apart. Initially, critics thought his work inaccessible to Americans, but the counterculture of the 1960s--and subsequent generations of admirers--emphatically proved the opposite. Gunnar Decker weaves together previously unavailable sources to offer a unique interpretation of the life and work of Hermann Hesse. Drawing...

Profiles John Adams, an influential patriot during the American Revolution who became the nation's first vice president and second president. "In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States...