Notable Nonfiction 2008

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize; a New York Times Notable Book. Andrew Jackson is regarded as the inventor of the modern American presidency as we know it today, ushering in a new era in which the people,... more info...

Dick Cheney, code-named "Angler" by the Secret Service, has approached the levers of power obliquely, skirting the orderly lines of authority he once enforced as White House chief of staff. Barton Gellman,... more info...

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year. The Bacardis of Cuba, builders of a rum-distilling dynasty, came of age with their nation and helped define what it meant to be Cuban. The company... more info...

In 2004 Masha Gessen underwent genetic testing and found out that she possessed a mutation that predisposed her to ovarian and breat cancer. A life altering revelation, Gessen quickly entered a club on... more info...

In what can only be called a monumental chronicle of one of the most thrilling legal triumphs in American history, author Jonathan Mahler has succeeded in shining a much needed light on the question of... more info...

In "Champlain's Dream," Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Hackett Fischer presents the first comprehensive biography of Samuel de Champlain in decades. Born in France in a time of great religious turmoil,... more info...

Pulitzer Prize-winner Samantha Power returns with a brilliant portrait of one of the last half century's most inspiring and important humanitarians, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Before his death in a terrorist... more info...

With the aid of in depth interviews with Condoleezza Rice and more than 150 others, including colleagues, family members, government officials, and critics, Elisabeth Bumiller paints a comprehensive portrait... more info...

When America panicked after September 11, a few ambitious Washington politicians took the opportunity to consolidate the power of the President at the expense of the Congress and courts. At the same time,... more info...

As near definitive as a one-volume work can be, Ted Gioia brings the same clear-eyed musical analysis and commonsense empathy to bear on the subject as he's long brought to bear on jazz. This is a remarkable... more info...

From the best-selling author of the acclaimed The Island At The Center Of The World. On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, the influential and controversial French philosopher Rene Descartes was... more info...

An extraordinary tour d'horizon of the 'new' Middle East, with on-the-ground reportage of the ideas and movements driving change across the region - and the obstacles they confront. Through a powerful... more info...

Depicting the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools needed to make more informed decisions. From the... more info...

In this reverently wrought memoir of love, loss, and recovery award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken shares with us a story that is as profound as it is humane. "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination"... more info...

China has 130 million migrant workers, nearly all of them under thirty. Here, Leslie T. Chang tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women whom she follows over the course... more info...

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize; a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year. Through the eyes of New York Times foreign correspondent Christopher... more info...

This gripping and significant book brings alive more than two hundred years of humanitarian interventions. It illuminates the passionate debates between conscience and imperialism ignited by the first... more info...

The original brain child of the Encyclopedia Britannica and University of Chicago, the Great Books of Western Civilization was advertised to encompass all the knowledge necessary, in fifty-four volumes... more info...

The contemporary American composer incisively relates his life story, offering a no-holds-barred portrait of the rich musical scene of 1970s California, and of his contemporaries & colleagues, including... more info...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award Winner; A New York Times Bestseller. This stunning epic work tells the story of the Heminges, whose close blood ties to President Thomas Jefferson had... more info...

The bestselling author of "The World is Flat" offers a new take on the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising energy competition. He proposes an ambitous national strategy--one he calls "Geo-Greenism"--which... more info...

A New York Times Notable Book. From high school in Tennessee, to discovering her passion for journalism at the University of North Carolina, to a career reporting from everywhere except Africa as a foregin... more info...

In reviewing John Wray's novel, Lowboy (2009), James Wood writes, "Fiction is at once real and imaginary. Not real at one moment and flickeringly illusory the next...but both at once, as if a ghost had... more info...

In a civilization that is always hungry to assign meaning to a new concept, for some reason it's the old ideas that elude us the most. Words like 'good', 'evil', 'heroism', and 'nobility', are things that... more info...

In this searingly honest and darkly comic memoir acclaimed journalist David Carr guides readers through his more than checkered past, as he attempts to unfurl his own history. "The Night of the Gun" begins... more info...

It would seem that today we are comfortable casting an indifferent eye on the state of American politics unless there is a major scandal. But it's important to remember the past and learn from our mistakes,which... more info...

A memoir on mortality, one that touches on faith and science and family, as well as a rich array of exemplary figures who over the centuries have confronted the same questions Julian Barnes now poses about... more info...

Using her vast literary skill and unique understanding of the dance world, Julie Kavanagh has created the definitive portrait of one of the 20th century's most iconic dancers: Rudolf Nureyev. Tracing his... more info...

In 1963, Hollywood's movie studios were contentedly churning out the westerns, prudish sex comedies, and overblown historical epics that had consistently made those who dominate the industry very, very... more info...

This international bestseller describes "the rise of the rest" - the political and economic ascendance of countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Kenya. Zakaria outlines the contemporary... more info...

MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the idea that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Based on groundbreaking research and the experiences we have every day,Ariely shows how a slew of seemingly... more info...

In our present modern society, most of us have been taught, or else just come to understand, that the open expression of racism is not only wrong but hurtful as well. Yet, at the same time, it is still... more info...

In the critically acclaimed "Armageddon," readers witnessed the struggle for Germany at the close of WWII as never before. Now in the companion volume "Retribution," award-winning author and historian... more info...

Ann Hathaway was the wife of the most famous playwright in English history, yet very little has been written about her. Her name was ommitted from Shakespeare's will and the scholars who have written about... more info...

Bestselling journalist Linda Robinson has written a glowing biography of General David Petraeus. He encouraged soldiers to get involved in the poliitics of their mission and allowing commanders at every... more info...

In the years between the end of WWII and the mid-1950s, the popular culture of today was invented in the pulpy, boldly illustrated pages of comic books. But no sooner had comics emerged than they werebeaten... more info...

In "They Knew They Were Right" author Jacob Heilbrunn traces the roots of neoconservatism back to its origins in the 1930s and then proceeds to bring readers up to date on the party's current role within... more info...

(Vintage Civil War Library). National Book Award Finalist. More than 600,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War; an equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. Here,... more info...

When Julia Blackburn's mother, Rosalie, was diagnosed with leukemia, the two women rekindled and strengthened a bond which had all but died under the weight of a heavy feeling of jealousy and betrayal.... more info...

Are you looking for a memoir that focuses on one man's desire to own a house, his subsequent purchase of that house, and the emotional strain he puts his family through? Then look no further than Miranda... more info...

Tom Vanderbilt examines the perceptual limits and cognitive underpinnings that make us worse drivers than we think we are. He demonstrates why plans to protect pedestrians from cars often lead to more... more info...

Not sincethe economic perils experienced between the years 1979-1983 has the scourge of decline loomed so intently above our heads. With a sub-prime mortgage crises already playing out before our eyes... more info...

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Horowitz made an unsettling discovery: despite all his education, he'd reached middle age with a 3rd-grader's understanding of early America. Having mislaid the entire... more info...

Waking Giant captures the turbulence of a democracy spanning the years from 1815 to 1848 - a nation caught in the throes of the slavery controversy, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization.... more info...

Early one April morning, eighteen-year-old Billy Frank Gilley, Jr., killed his mother, father, and younger sister. After years of physical and mental abuse, Billy and his other sister, Jody, were now,... more info...

In this remarkably original portrait of two American literary originals author and professor Brenda Wineapple has successfully recreated one of the Nation's most sincere and enduring friendships. "White... more info...

When author & controversial Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul first set out on his expedition through the written word, it was with a sole intention: to achieve greatness as a writer. Throughout his career he... more info...