National Network for Equitable Library Service

An illuminating profile of the world champion chess player and political activist by the acclaimed author of Searching for Bobby Fischer. Over the course of his unprecedented career, Garry Kasparov dominated the chess world with astonishing creativity and explosive passion. In this unforgettable work of reportage, author Fred Waitzkin "captures better than anyone-including Kasparov himself in his own memoir-the various sides of this elusive genius" (The Observer).

A "smoldering indictment" of the corrupt influences that rescued Ronald Reagan's career, made him millions, and shaped his presidency (Library Journal). Founded in 1924, the Music Corporation of America got its start booking acts into speakeasies run by such notorious Chicago mobsters as Al Capone. How then, in only a few decades, did MCA become the driving force behind music publishing, radio, recording artists, Hollywood, and the burgeoning television industry' Enter Ronald Reagan. By the late 1950s, Reagan was a passe movie actor.

The creator of Perry Mason's Edgar Award-winning account of miscarriages of justice, wrongful convictions, legal battles, and landmark reversals. In 1945, Erle Stanley Gardner, noted attorney and author of the popular Perry Mason mysteries, was contacted by an overwhelmed California public defender who believed his doomed client was innocent. William Marvin Lindley had been convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl along the banks of the Yuba River, and was awaiting execution at San Quentin.

This "perceptive" and "satisfying" biography of George Washington by an award-winning historian "deserves a place on every American"s bookshelf" (The New York Times Book Review). James Thomas Flexner"s masterful four-volume biography of America"s first president, which received a special Pulitzer Prize citation and a National Book Award for its concluding installment, is the definitive chronicle of Washington"s life and a classic work of American history.

The award-winning account of a critical yet overlooked Civil War campaign from the author of Mountains Touched with Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863. Though he barely escaped expulsion from West Point, John Bell Hood quickly rose through the ranks of the Confederate army. With bold leadership in the battles of Gaines' Mill and Antietam, Hood won favor with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. But his fortunes in war took a tragic turn when he assumed command of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

New York Times Bestseller: The nightmare odyssey of a charismatic serial killer and a trail of terror stretching halfway around the world. There was no pattern to the murders, no common thread other than the fact that the victims were all vacationers, robbed of their possessions and slain in seemingly random crimes.

Edgar Award Winner: The "gripping" true story of a beautiful Texas socialite, her ambitious husband, and a string of mysterious deaths (Los Angeles Times). Joan Robinson Hill was a world-class equestrian, a glamorous member of Houston high society, and the wife of Dr. John Hill, a handsome and successful plastic surgeon. Her father, Ash Robinson, was a charismatic oil tycoon obsessed with making his daughter's every dream come true. Rich, attractive, and reckless, Joan was one of the most celebrated women in a town infatuated with money, power, and fame.

Pioneer heart surgeons and bitter rivals: The "thoroughly engrossing" true story of doctors Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley (The New York Times Book Review). By 1970, the Texas Medical Center in Houston was the leading heart institute in the world, home to the field's two most distinguished surgeons: Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey and his young and ambitious disciple, Dr. Denton Arthur Cooley. Their combined mastery in occlusive disease, coronary artery bypass surgery, angioplasty, and heart transplants was unparalleled.

These transcendent, lyrical essays on the West announced Gretel Ehrlich as a major American writer-"Wyoming has found its Whitman" (Annie Dillard). Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn't leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on "the planet of Wyoming," a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life.

Ten essays on nature, ritual, and philosophy "that are so point-blank vital you nearly need to put the book down to settle yourself" (San Francisco Chronicle). Gretel Ehrlich's world is one of solitude and wonder, pain and beauty, and these elements give life to her stunning prose. Ever since her acclaimed debut, The Solace of Open Spaces, she has illuminated the particular qualities of nature and the self with graceful precision. In Islands, the Universe, Home, Ehrlich expands her explorations, traveling to the remote reaches of the earth and deep into her soul.