National Network for Equitable Library Service

Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues includes the very best of Bill Moyers's conversations from the celebrated weekly PBS broadcast Bill Moyers Journal, with luminaries ranging from The Wire creator David Simon, anthropologist Jane Goodall, food journalist Michael Pollan, and many others. The book is an unparalleled entrEe into the debates, the intellectual and cultural currents, and above all the fascinating people that have so powerfully shaped our times.

The author's observations on the great nineteenth-century Russian writers-Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Gorky, Tolstoy, and Turgenev. "This volume...'ever once fails to instruct and stimulate. This is a great Russian talking of great Russians" (Anthony Burgess). Edited and with an Introduction by Fredson Bowers; illustrations.

For two decades, first at Wellesley and then at Cornell, Nabokov introduced undergraduates to the delights of great fiction. Here, collected for the first time, are his famous lectures, which include Mansfield Park, Bleak House, and Ulysses. Edited and with a Foreword by Fredson Bowers; Introduction by John Updike; illustrations.

"All men, everywhere, have asked the same questions: Whence we come, what kind of thing we are, and at least some intimation of what may become of us..." So begins Nobel Prize-winning scientist George Wald's 1970 Massey Lectures, now in print for the first time ever. Where did we come from, who are we, and what is to become of us - these questions have never been more urgent. Then, as now, the world is facing major political and social upheaval, from overpopulation to nuclear warfare to environmental degradation and the uses and abuses of technology.

A collection of interviews with contemporary Londoners from all parts of the city and all walks of life.

In January 1953, William S. Burroughs began an expedition into the jungles of South America to find yage, the fabled hallucinogen of the Amazon. From the notebooks he kept and the letters he wrote home to Allen Ginsberg, Burroughs composed a narrative of his adventures that later appeared as The Yage Letters. For this edition, Oliver Harris has gone back to the original manuscripts and untangled the history of the text, telling the fascinating story of its genesis and cultural importance.

This charming classic love story, first published in 1970, brings together twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, at the time, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer in London at 84, Charing Cross Road. Through the years, though never meeting and separated both geographically and culturally, they share a winsome, sentimental friendship based on their common love for books. Their relationship, captured so acutely in these letters, is one that has touched the hearts of thousands of readers around the world.

Is China's rise unstoppable? Powered by the human capital of 1.3 billion citizens, the latest technological advances, and a comparatively efficient system of state-directed capitalism, China seems poised to become the global superpower this century. But the Middle Kingdom also faces a series of challenges. From energy scarcity to environmental degradation to political unrest and growing global security burdens, a host of factors could derail China's global ascent. In this edition of The Munk Debates - Canada's premier international debate series - former U.S.

In the sweep of human history, the European Union stands out as one of humankind's most ambitious endeavours. It encompasses half a billion people, twenty-seven member states, twenty-three languages, and an economy valued at over $15 trillion. Modern Europe's stunning achievements aside, its sovereign debt crisis has shaken the world's largest political and economic union to its core. Can the federal institutions and shared values of Europeans meet the challenges of debt crisis that are as much political as economic?

In the 2007 CBC Massey Lectures, Alberto Manguel leads us back into our literary tradition to find insight about one of the most contentious issues of our time: the rise of ethnic nationalism. The end of ethnic nationalism -- building societies around sets of common values -- seems like a good idea. But something is going wrong. Manguel suggests we should look at what stories have to teach us about society. With wit and erudition, Manguel looks at what visionaries, poets, novelists, essayists, and filmmakers have to say about building societies.