Bøger udgivet af W. W. Norton & Company

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book-it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Duncan uncovers how it has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office, and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists' living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and-of course-indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart-and we have been for eight hundred years.

Churchill is generally considered one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, if not the greatest of all, revered for his opposition to appeasement, his defiance in the face of German bombing of England, his political prowess, his deft aphorisms, and his memorable speeches. He became the savior of his country, as prime minister during the most perilous period in British history, World War II, and is now perhaps even more beloved in America than in England.And yet Churchill was also very often in the wrong: he brazenly contradicted his own previous political stances, was a disastrous military strategist, and inspired dislike and distrust through much of his life. Before 1939 he doubted the efficacy of tank and submarine warfare, opposed the bombing of cities only to reverse his position, shamelessly exploited the researchers and ghostwriters who wrote much of the journalism and the books published so lucratively under his name, and had an inordinate fondness for alcohol that once found him drinking whisky before breakfast. When he was appointed to the cabinet for the first time in 1908, a perceptive journalist called him "the most interesting problem of personal speculation in English politics." More than a hundred years later, he remains a source of adulation, as well as misunderstanding.This revelatory new book takes on Churchill in his entirety, separating the man from the myth that he so carefully cultivated, and scrutinizing his legacy on both sides of the Atlantic. In effervescent prose, shot through with sly wit, Geoffrey Wheatcroft illuminates key moments and controversies in Churchill's career-from the tragedy of Gallipoli, to his shocking imperialist and racist attitudes, dealings with Ireland, support for Zionism, and complicated engagement with European integration.Charting the evolution and appropriation of Churchill's reputation through to the present day, Churchill's Shadow colorfully renders the nuance and complexity of this giant of modern politics.

This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago?Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. ("Become a doctor!") He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America's enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y.Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.

Family and nation formed a reliable bedrock of security for precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi. She was a Young Pioneer, helping to lead her country toward the future of perfect freedom promised by the leaders of her country, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. Then, almost overnight, the Berlin Wall fell and the pillars of her society toppled. The local statue of Stalin, whom she had believed to be a kindly leader who loved children, was beheaded by student protestors.Uncomfortable truths about her family's background emerged. Lea learned that when her parents and neighbors had spoken in whispers of friends going to "university" or relatives "dropping out," they meant something much more sinister. As she learned the truth about her family's past, her best friend fled the country. Together with neighboring post-Communist states, Albania began a messy transition to join the "free markets" of the Western world: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. Her father, despite his radical left-wing convictions, was forced to fire workers; her mother became a conservative politician on the model of Margaret Thatcher. Lea's typical teen concerns about relationships and the future were shot through with the existential: the nation was engulfed in civil war.Ypi's outstanding literary gifts enable her to weave together this colorful, tumultuous coming-of-age story in a time of social upheaval with thoughtful, fresh, and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political, and on deep questions about freedom: What does freedom consist of, and for whom? What conditions foster it? Who among us is truly free?

Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode's backyard, but it was only when a bushfire threatened that she truly paid them attention. She soon realized how much she had to learn about these complex and mysterious animals.In vivid, descriptive prose, Clode embarks on a delightful and surprising journey through evolutionary biology, natural history and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has become the lone survivor of a once-diverse family of uniquely Australian marsupials.Koala investigates the remarkable physiology of these charismatic creatures. Born the size of tiny "jellybeans," joeys face an uphill battle, from crawling into their mother's pouch to being weaned onto a toxic diet of gum-tree leaves, the koalas' single source of food.Clode explores the complex relationship and unexpected connections between this endearing species and humans. She explains how koalas are simultaneously threatened with extinction in some areas due to disease, climate change and increasing wildfires, while overpopulating forests in other parts of the country.Deeply researched and filled with wonder, Koala is both a tender and inquisitive paean to a species unlike any other and a call to ensure its survival.

Since the earliest known marker denoting the edge of one land and the beginning of the next-a stone column inscribed with Sumerian cuneiform-borders have been imagined, mapped, moved, and fought over. In The Edge of the Plain, James Crawford skillfully blends history, travel writing, and reportage to trace these borderlines throughout history and across the globe.What happens on the ground when we impose lines on a map that contradict how humans have always lived-and moved? Crawford confronts that question from bloody territorial disputes in Mesopotamia, to the Sápmi lands of Scandinavia, the shifting boundaries of the Israel-Palestine conflict, efforts to build a wall on the United States-Mexico border, and the dangerous border crossings pursued by migrants into Europe.And yet the role of borders extends beyond specific sites of conflict. On the largest scale, borders define the limits of empire-the two walls in Britain that once represented the northwestern edge of the Roman Empire; the mythological eastern gate supposedly closed off by Alexander the Great; China's virtual "Great Firewall." On the smallest, human scale, cell walls are the last physical barrier against disease, after lines of quarantine have failed.Finally, as The Edge of the Plain reveals, humans have not only made their mark on the landscape: the landscape itself is now changing, more and more rapidly due to climate change. Crawford introduces us to both the Alpine watershed-one such shifting, natural borderline-and the "Great Green Wall" in Africa, envisioned as an international, community-built bulwark against desertification.Borders are as old as human civilization, and focal points for today's colliding forces of nationalism, climate change, globalization, and mass migration. The Edge of the Plain illuminates these lines of separation past and present, how we define them-and how they define us.

Balancing emotional openness with formal restraint, April Bernard proves once again a poet who "harmonizes the raucous and the classic, the songful and the wry, the courtly and the quick" (Wayne Koestenbaum). Throughout her sixth collection, Bernard searches for "the world behind the world," a spiritual realm of justice and peace, music and grace. The host of saints present in this parallel world includes poets-John Ashbery, Thomas Wyatt, Gerard Manley Hopkins-as well as folklore spirits, animals wild and domestic, and personal ghosts.Mystical, daring, expertly crafted, and ironic, The World Behind the World embarks on a wide-ranging journey through memory and loss to reach "that other world, where nothing human can wreck us." Along the way, the poet conjures lush woodlands and icy oceans, wry conversations with voices from the past, and transformative moments of reckoning and healing. Rising up from despair, anger, and grief, this powerful collection proposes a moving, personal faith.

In eight extraordinary volumes spanning five decades, Ellen Bryant Voigt has created a body of work distinguished by its formal precision, rigorous intelligence, and meticulous observation of nature, history, and domestic life. From the subtly evocative images of Claiming Kin (1976) to the mosaic of sonnets and voices conjuring a prescient narrative of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Kyrie (1995) to fierce encounters with mortality in the National Book Award finalist Shadow of Heaven (2002) and the propulsive inventions of Headwaters (2013), the evolution of Voigt's astonishing creative and technical mastery is on full display. This definitive collection showcases the brilliant career of "a quintessential American elegist" (Katy Didden, Kenyon Review).From "Apple Tree"O my soul,it is not a small thing,to have made from three,this one, this one life.

Seventeen-year-old Bucky Yi knows nothing about his birth country of South Korea or his bio-dad's disappearance; he can't even pronounce his Korean name correctly. Running through the woods of rural Washington State with a tire tied to his waist, his sights are set on one all-American goal: to become a college football player.So when a misadventure with his adoptive family leads the U.S. government to deport him to South Korea, he's forced to navigate an entirely foreign version of his life. One mishap leads to another, and as an outsider, Bucky has to fall back on not just his raw physical strength, but resources of character and attitude he didn't know he had. In an expat bar in Seoul, in the bleak barracks of his Korean military, on a remote island where an erratic sergeant fights a shadow-war with North Korean spies, and in the remote town where he seeks out his drunken, indebted biological father, Bucky has to assemble the building blocks of a new language and stubbornly rebuild himself from scratch. That means managing his ego, insecurities, sexual desires, family legacies, and allegiances in order to make it back home-wherever that might be-and determine who he is to himself, who he is to others, and what kind of man he wants to become.

Every student and teacher is different but there's one thing each has in common: a responsive nervous system ready for action. Whether it's a fight breaking out in the playground, a difficult conversation with a parent or an impromptu fire drill, understanding how the nervous system responds can help keep teachers and students on an even keel.Polyvagal Theory (PVT) has had a tremendous impact on the mental health field, shedding light on how the nervous system predictably moves between different states in response to changing situations. School consultant Debra Em Wilson introduces PVT to educators and shows how using PVT-guided strategies can help create optimal learning environments. When school staff understand the role of the nervous system in learning, they can better help students develop the skills leading to increased resilience, adaptability and flexibility: essential qualities for social, emotional and academic success.

It's the mid-1950s and Margot Thornsen is growing up between a Park Avenue apartment in New York City and her family's sumptuous Oyster Bay estate, as the presumed heir to her late grandfather's steel fortune. Stuck in the mores and bores of WASP society with its cocktail parties and white-gloved galas, Margot is constantly rubbing against the strictures of her domineering mother, who never misses an opportunity to lecture her on the importance of marrying well. Meanwhile, Margot dreams of microscopes and beetles and books.As she comes of age in the 1960s, a time of war and assassinations and riots, Margot's path diverges and she finds herself in the expansive world of Radcliffe College, navigating a new age of sexual liberation, scientific discovery, acid trips, and rock 'n' roll. The old rule book has been burned. There are no more limits. But now that she can choose, what does Margot really want?Hailed for her "intelligent and heartfelt fiction" (Kirkus Reviews), Wendell Steavenson writes with grace, precision, and great psychological perception. With Margot, she has crafted an intimate portrayal of the quiet torment of young women of the era, a comically caustic mother-daughter story, and a memorable evocation of one woman's passion for the wonder of science.

A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he's fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound.Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders-whether they be national, ethnic, or religious-and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction.

Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it's also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called "the oil of our time."The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and "dead zones" in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide-which risks rising conflict and even war.With The Devil's Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.

Decades of research document plants' impressive abilities: they communicate with each other, manipulate other species, and move in sophisticated ways. Lesser known, however, is that although plants may not have brains, their internal workings reveal a system not unlike the neuronal networks running through our own bodies. They can learn and remember, possessing an intelligence that allows them to behave in flexible, forward-looking, and goal-directed ways.In Planta Sapiens, Paco Calvo, a leading figure in the philosophy of plant signaling and behavior, offers an entirely new perspective on plants' worlds, showing for the first time how we can use tools developed to study animal cognition in a quest to understand plant intelligence. Plants learn from experience: wild strawberries can be taught to link light intensity with nutrient levels in the soil, and flowers can time pollen production to pollinator visits. Plants have social intelligence, releasing chemicals from their roots and leaves to speak to and identify one another. They make decisions about where to invest their growth, judging risk based on the resources available. Their individual preferences vary, too-plants have personalities.Calvo also illuminates how plants inspire technological advancements, from robotics to AI. Most importantly, he demonstrates that plants are not objects: they have their own agency. If we recognize plants as actors alongside us in the climate crisis-rather than seeing them simply as resources for carbon capture and food production-plants may just be able to help us tackle our most urgent problems.

The agave plant was never destined to become tasteless, cheap tequila. Follow Gary Nabhan and David Suro Pinera on the trail with archaeologists and botanists to caves where 9,000-year-old remains of agaves have been found, and then fast track to the 1990s, the peak of the "margarita craze," before a deadly cocktail of microbes devastated blue agave plants on Mexican lands.Culled from decades of fieldwork and interviews with mezcaleros in eight Mexican states, Agave Spirits reveals the stunning innovations emerging today across the mezcal supply chain and offers solutions for improving sustainability and equity. Thousands of years of tradition are inspiring a new generation of individuals (including women), with an explosion of cutting-edge science pointing a way forward for the betterment of the drink and the lives of the people who create it. Agave Spirits boldly delights in the most flavourful and memorable spirits humankind has ever sipped and savoured.

Before the First World War, enthusiasm for a borderless world reached its height. International travel, migration, trade and progressive projects on matters ranging from women's rights to world peace reached a crescendo. Yet in the same breath, an undercurrent of reaction was growing, one that would surge ahead with the outbreak of war and its aftermath.In Against the World, a sweeping and ambitious work of history, acclaimed scholar Tara Zahra examines how nationalism, rather than internationalism, came to ensnare world politics in the early twentieth century. The air went out of the globalist balloon with the First World War as quotas were put on immigration and tariffs on trade, not only in the United States but across Europe, where war and disease led to mass societal upheaval. The "Spanish flu" heightened anxieties about porous national boundaries. The global impact of the 1929 economic crash and the Great Depression amplified a quest for food security in Europe and economic autonomy worldwide. Demands for relief from the instability and inequality linked to globalisation forged democracies and dictatorships alike, from Gandhi's India to America's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. Immigration restrictions, racially constituted notions of citizenship, anti-Semitism and violent outbursts of hatred of the "other" became the norm-coming to genocidal fruition in the Second World War.Millions across the political spectrum sought refuge from the imagined and real threats of the global economy in ways strikingly reminiscent of our contemporary political moment: new movements emerged focused on homegrown and local foods, domestically produced Hardbacking and other goods, and back-to-the-land communities. Rich with astonishing detail gleaned from Zahra's unparalleled archival research in five languages, Against the World is a poignant and thorough exhumation of the popular sources of resistance to globalisation. With anti-globalism a major tenet of today's extremist agendas, Zahra's arrestingly clearsighted and wide-angled account is essential reading to grapple with our divided present.

It has been more than thirty years since the term "flash fiction" was first coined, perfectly describing the power in the brevity of these stories, each under 1,000 words. Since then, the form has taken hold in the American imagination. For this latest installment in the popular Flash Fiction series, James Thomas, Sherrie Flick, and John Dufresne have searched far and wide for the most distinctive American voices in short-short fiction. The 73 stories collected here speak to the diversity of the American experience and range from the experimental to the narrative, from the whimsical to the gritty. Featuring fiction from writers both established and new, including Aimee Bender, K-Ming Chang, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Bryan Washington, Robert Scotellaro, and Luis Alberto Urrea, Flash Fiction America is a brilliant collection, radiating creativity and bringing together some of the most compelling and exciting contemporary writers in the United States.

The new educational paradigm for student mindfulness: Daniel Rechtschaffen's The Way of Mindful Education and The Mindful Education Workbook, now available in a two-book set.

During his impeachment proceedings, Richard Nixon boasted, "I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in twenty-five minutes seventy million people will be dead." Nixon was accurately describing not only his own power but also the power of every American president in the nuclear age.Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon each contemplated using nuclear weapons-Eisenhower twice, Kennedy three times, Johnson once, Nixon four times. Whether later presidents, from Ford to Obama, considered using them we will learn only once their national security papers are released.In this incisive, masterfully argued new book, award-winning social theorist Elaine Scarry demonstrates that the power of one leader to obliterate millions of people with a nuclear weapon-a possibility that remains very real even in the wake of the Cold War-deeply violates our constitutional rights, undermines the social contract, and is fundamentally at odds with the deliberative principles of democracy.According to the Constitution, the decision to go to war requires rigorous testing by both Congress and the citizenry; when a leader can single-handedly decide to deploy a nuclear weapon, we live in a state of "thermonuclear monarchy," not democracy.The danger of nuclear weapons comes from potential accidents or acquisition by terrorists, hackers, or rogue countries. But the gravest danger comes from the mistaken idea that there exists some case compatible with legitimate governance. There can be no such case. Thermonuclear Monarchy shows the deformation of governance that occurs when a country gains nuclear weapons.In bold and lucid prose, Thermonuclear Monarchy identifies the tools that will enable us to eliminate nuclear weapons and bring the decision for war back into the hands of Congress and the people. Only by doing so can we secure the safety of home populations, foreign populations, and the earth itself.

Praised and condemned for its aggressive coverage of the Vietnam War, the American press has been both commended for breaking public support and bringing the war to an end and accused of misrepresenting the nature and progress of the war. While in-depth combat coverage and the instantaneous power of television were used to challenge the war, Clarence R. Wyatt demonstrates that, more often than not, the press reported official information, statements, and views. Examining the relationship between the press and the government, Wyatt looks at how difficult it was to obtain information outside official briefings, what sort of professional constraints the press worked under, and what happened when reporters chose not to "get on the team."

One cold November morning in Perser, Oklahoma, Sheriff Jerry Martin receives a disturbing call: a local fifteen-year-old has disappeared. The boy, J.T., who is half Mexican, half Chickasaw and has been raised by his grandmother, is known for starting trouble. Sheriff Martin sets out on a fevered search, determined to find J.T., even as the hunt reopens wounds from a traumatic event in his past. In a seemingly parallel but ultimately intersecting story, Hickson Crider, a veteran of the first Iraq war, discovers a mysterious crevice, perfectly round and seemingly bottomless, in his backyard. The hole becomes Hickson's obsession-and an ominous clue in Sheriff Martin's investigation.Aaron Gwyn's perceptive, quietly beautiful prose is "reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor" (Kirkus Reviews), engaging us in a tale that is both savage and burning with heart, about the after effects of war, violence, faith, and random acts of devotion.

Behind the scenes of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, a war of wits known as "The Great Terror." In 1801, as Napoleon's Grande Armee faced an army of English volunteers across the Channel, a secret war of espionage and subversion was being fought by shadowy men with little-known names. New weaponsrockets, submarines, and torpedoeswere being developed in France by the American inventor Robert Fulton. Even during the lull of the Peace of Amiens, when English tourists flocked to Paris, the secret war continued. Drawing on diaries, letters, and newspapers, Tom Pocock provides a wonderful picture of the years 1801-5, and of the people caught up in these unique events: Nelson blockading the French at sea for two years while his beloved Emma Hamilton waited at home; Jane Austen and her naval brothers; the admirals, generals, and politicians on both sides; and perhaps most interesting of all, those lesser-known men such as Congreve, Moreau, and Pichegru, who were responsible for a new kind of warfare. 16 pages of b/w illustrations.

Scientists are racing to unravel the code of life in our DNA sequences. But once we know the code, will we know what life means? Will we know what to do with the powerful - healing, destructive, and marketable - information we will have?Barbara Katz Rothman's warm, learned, passionate, and humorous voice is just the one we need to guide us through some of the most loaded issues and technologies of our time - ones that bear on the most intimate aspects of our lives. Her astute observations about the new genetics are combined with personal reflections: about raising a black child; the risks of cancer; midwives and pregnancy; the social web into which we are born; motherhood; time, growth, chance, and all the indefinable things that make us human. She helps us to think about the place of genetic science in our own lives, its role in our social world, and how we choose to think about human life itself.A genetic map will take us places, but we need an imagination to see the relationship between DNA and public policy, between genes and the society we live in, and to understand why human life can't be reduced to genetics. Rothman inspires that imagination, in a book that is essential reading.

For years, Gioia Timpanelli has held audiences rapt with her retellings of ancient tales, often appearing with Robert Bly, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and Gary Snyder. Here, in fiction full of warmth and resonances--characters we can't help but recognize, prose and imagery that play on the strings of the soul--Timpanelli draws on her deep knowledge of these old stories and their wisdoms to create a new and refreshing kind of storytelling, with hints of both Italo Calvino and Angela Carter. In "A Knot of Tears," a woman's locked-up life is transformed by a parrot who tells tales; her story becomes a subtle and surprising meditation on the necessity of being true to oneself and others. In "Rusina, Not Quite in Love," a strange and lovely retelling of the story of the Beauty and the Beast, a young woman escapes family and society--especially the grasp of her superficial and beastly sisters--to find consolation and beauty in nature and its muse. In each case, women of very different backgrounds--one aristocratic, one impoverished--find solitary spaces from which they can emerge as artists and shapers of their own destinies. With a sense of character unusual in contemporary fiction (not mere personality, but moral character) and a gentle, lyric touch, Timpanelli blends the seeming simplicity of folktale with a richly textured understanding of human nature. With great integrity and affection for language, her work teaches about love and solitude, honesty and art.

On the face of it, the Ford-Carter years seem completely forgettable. They were years of weak presidential leadership and national drift. Yet, as Laura Kalman shows in this absorbing narrative history, the contours of our contemporary politics took shape during these years. This was the incubation period for a powerful movement on the right that was to triumph with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. These years also marked the coming of age of the social movements of the 1960s, as their causes moved from the streets to the courts for mediation. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and the scope of privacy rights had immense social and political impact. The nation experienced an energy crisis, a sharp economic downturn, and a collision with fundamentalism in Iran that set the terms for coming crises. Kalman's navigation of this eventful political and social terrain is expert and riveting.

It's winter in New Hampshire, the economy is booming, the vice president is running for president, and his Secret Service people are very, very tense.Meet Vi Asplund, a young Secret Service agent mourning her dead father. She goes home to New Hampshire to see her brother Jens, a computer genius who just might be going mad-and is poised to make a fortune on Big If, a viciously nihilistic computer game aimed at teenagers. Vi's America, as she sees it in the crowds, in her brother, and in her fellow agents, is affluent, anxious, and abuzz with vague fantasies of violence.Through a gallery of vivid characters-heroic, ignoble, or desperate-Mark Costello's hilarious novel limns the strategies, both sound and absurd, that we conjure to survive in daily life.

Who was Judas Iscariot and why did he betray Jesus? Despite the recent recovery of a Gnostic Gospel bearing his name, the centrality of Judas has gone largely ignored. Yet, because of gaps and incongruities in biblical accounts about him, artists throughout the ages have returned to the twelfth apostle, who inaugurates Jesus' death and resurrection.In this comprehensive, probing book, Susan Gubar explains how Judas came to stand for the Jewish people and how he personifies a composite Judeo-Christianity that illuminates ambivalent relationships between Christians and Jews as well as changing attitudes toward the body, blood, and money; greed and hypocrisy; suicide and repentance; homosexuality and divinity. Over twenty centuries, a figure of disgrace turns into a dignitary. Gubar shows how Jesus' most notorious disciple-known for a kiss-has provoked profound reflections on the problem of evil that still resonate today.