Paul Theroux

One of the most impressive living American writers. New York Times

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Florida

A Novel

From the acclaimed author of The Mosquito Coast and The Bad Angel Brothers comes a riveting new novel exploring one of English literature's most beloved and controversial figures--George Orwell--and the early years as an officer in colonial Burma that transformed him from Eric Blair, the British Raj policeman, into Orwell the anticolonial writer. At age nineteen, young Eton graduate Eric Blair set sail for India, dreading the assignment ahead. Along with several other young conscripts, he would be trained for three years as a servant of the British Empire, overseeing the local policemen in Burma. Navigating the social, racial, and class politics of his fellow British at the same time as he learned the local languages and struggled to control his men would prove difficult enough. But doing all of this while grappling with his own self-worth, his sense that he was not cut out for this, is soon overwhelming for the young Blair. Eventually, his clashes with his superiors, and the drama that unfolds in this hot, beautiful land, will change him forever.

Burma Sahib

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Christophe Galfard

The Universe Explained. Finally. Quantum physics, black holes, string theory, the Big Bang

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond

"If Ms. Frizzle were a physics student of Stephen Hawking, she might have written THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HAND, a wild tour through the reaches of time and space, from the interior of a proton to the Big Bang to the rough suburbs of a black hole. It's friendly, excitable, erudite, and cosmic."
--Jordan Ellenberg, New York Times besteselling author of How Not To Be Wrong

Quantum physics, black holes, string theory, the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes: even if we are interested in these fundamental concepts of our world, their language is the language of math. Which means that despite our best intentions of finally grasping, say, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, most of us are quickly brought up short by a snarl of nasty equations or an incomprehensible graph.

Christophe Galfard's mission in life is to spread modern scientific ideas to the general public in entertaining ways. Using his considerable skills as a brilliant theoretical physicist and successful young adult author, The Universe in Your Hand employs the immediacy of simple, direct language to show us, not explain to us, the theories that underpin everything we know about our universe. To understand what happens to a dying star, we are asked to picture ourselves floating in space in front of it. To get acquainted with the quantum world, we are shrunk to the size of an atom and then taken on a journey. Employing everyday similes and metaphors, addressing the reader directly, and writing stories rather than equations renders these astoundingly complex ideas in an immediate and visceral way.

Utterly captivating and entirely unique, The Universe in Your Hand will find its place among other classics in the field.

The Universe in Your Hand

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Robert Dana

Poetry. After serving in the South Pacific at the end of World War II Robert Dana moved to Iowa, where he attended Drake University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poetry has won several awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. Retired from teaching after forty years as Poet-in-Residence at Cornell College, he has also served as Distinguished Visiting Writer at Stockholm University and at several American colleges and universities.

Summer

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Phil Cousineau

Jeff "The Dude" Dowd

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Illuminating Words for the Long Night's Journey into Day

In Burning the Midnight Oil, word-wrangler extraordinaire Phil Cousineau has gathered an eclectic and electric collection of soulful poems and prose from great thinkers throughout the ages. Whether beguiling readers with glorious poetry or consoling them with prayers from fellow restless souls, Cousineau can relieve any insomniac's unease. From St. John of the Cross to Annie Dillard, Beethoven to The Song of Songs, this refreshingly insightful anthology soothes and inspires all who struggle through the dark of the night. These "night thoughts" vividly illustrate Alfred North Whitehead's liberating description of "what we do without solitude" and also evoke Henry David Thoreau's reverie, "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." The night writers in Cousineau's vesperal collection range from saints, poets, and shamans to astronomers and naturalists, and tells of ancient tales and shining passages from the most brilliant (albeit insomniac) writers of today. These poetic ponderances sing of the falling darkness, revel in dream-time, convey the ache of melancholy, conspire against sleeplessness, vanquish loneliness, contemplate the night sky, rhapsodize on love, and languorously greet the first rays of dawn. Notable night owls include Rabandranath Tagore, Mary Oliver, Manley Hopkins, Jorge Borges and William Blake.

Burning the Midnight Oil

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Carlo Rovelli

An introduction to modern physics by a founder of the loop quantum gravity theory shares seven succinct lessons on topics ranging from general relativity and quantum mechanics to elementary particles and black holes.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

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J. R. Moehringer

A Memoir

The bestselling memoir that captured the hearts of readers and critics nationwide is now available in paperback In the tradition of This Boy's Life and The Liar's Club, J.R. Moehringer's The Tender Bar is a raucous, poignant, luminously written memoir about a boy striving to become a man, and his romance with a bar. A national bestseller that was named one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2005 by the New York Times, The Tender Bar will reach an even larger audience in paperback.

The Tender Bar

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Bill Bryson

"Destined to become a modern classic of science writing" 

The author of A Walk in the Woods traces the Big Bang through the rise of civilization, documenting his work with a host of the world's most advanced scientists and mathematicians to explain why things are the way they are. Reprint. 125,000 first printing.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

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W. B. Yeats

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

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Garrison Keillor

As heard on The Writer's Almanac

Another wonderful poetry anthology from Garrison Keillor-rooted in the American landscape.

 

Greatness comes in many forms, and as Garrison Keillor demonstrates daily on The Writer's Almanac, the most affecting poems in the canon are in plain English. Third in Keillor's series of anthologies, Good Poems, American Places brings together poems that celebrate the geography and culture that bind us together as a nation. Think of these poems as postcards from the road, by poets who've gotten carried away by a particular place-a town in Kansas, a kitchen window in Nantucket, a Manhattan street, a farm in western Minnesota. Featuring famous poets and brash unknowns alike, the verses in this exhilarating collection prove that the heart can be exalted anywhere in America.

Good Poems, American Places

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When Garrison Keillor published Good Poems, he touched a chord in readers across America. The anthology of poems he selected for their “wit, their simplicity, their passion, and their utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with” inspired thousands to buy what was for many their first book of poetry.Now, in Good Poems for Hard Times, Keillor has pondered over the archives of his beloved Writer’s Almanacradio show to select a batch of consoling, rousing, and truthful poems guaranteed to raise flagging spirits or to inspire those in need of a dose of wisdom or honesty. But these poems are not about suffering. They’re intended to reach us and stricken friends by holding out a picture of the grace of ordinary life. Above all, this eclectic anthology, including works from Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, Charles Simic, Billy Collins, Robert Frost, Kenneth Rexroth, and many more, fit Keillor’s definition of “good”: memorable, beautifully worded, and accessible. They’re not highbrow. They’re not stuffy. But when hard times send us skidding into the meridian, the poems collected here are what we need them to be: just plain good.

Good Poems for Hard Times

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Kevin Young

Poems of Grief and Healing

Poetry serves a unique role in our lives, distilling human experience and emotion down to truths as potent as they are brief. There are two times most people turn to it: for love and loss.The Art of Losingwill be the first anthology of its kind, delivering poetry with a purpose. Editor Kevin Young has introduced and selected 150 devastatingly beautiful poems that embrace the pain and heartbreak of mourning. Divided into five sections (Reckoning, Remembrance, Rituals, Recovery, and Redemption), with poems by some of our most beloved poets as well as the best of the current generation of poets,The Art of Losing is the ideal a gift for a loved one in a time of need and for use by ministers, rabbis, and palliative care workers who tend to those who are experiencing loss.
Among the poets included: Elizabeth Alexander, W.H. Auden, Amy Clampitt, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, Louise Gluck, Ted Hughes, Galway Kinnell, Kenneth Koch, Philip Larkin, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, Marianne Moore, Sharon Olds Mary Oliver, Robert Pinsky, Adrienne Rich, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Derek Walcott, and James Wright.

The Art of Losing

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Thomas Jefferson

Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness

Were Thomas Jefferson alive to read this book, he would recognize every sentence, every elegant turn of phrase, every lofty, beautifully expressed idea. Indeed, every word in the book is his. In an astonishing feat of editing, Eric S. Petersen has culled the entirety of Thomas Jefferson’s published works to fashion thirty-four original essays on themes ranging from patriotism and liberty to hope, humility, and gratitude. The result is a lucid, inspiring distillation of the wisdom of one of America’s greatest political thinkers. From his personal motto—“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”—to his resounding discourse on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson defined the essential truth of the American spirit. In the essays that Petersen has crafted from letters, speeches, and public documents, Jefferson’s unique moral philosophy and vision shine through. Among the hundreds of magnificent sentences gathered in this volume, here are Jefferson’s pronouncements on Gratitude: “I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations— to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements and under all circumstances, to be open and generous.” Religion: “A concern purely between our God and our consciences.” America’s national character: “It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate; to surmount every difficulty with resolution and contrivance.” Public debt: “We shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves.” War: “I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.” In stately measured cadences, these thirty-four essays provide timeless guidance on leading a spiritually fulfilling life. Light and Liberty is a triumphant work of supreme eloquence, as uplifting today as when Jefferson first set these immortal sentences on paper.

Light and Liberty

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Thomas E. Ricks

Inspirational, restores faith in our country 

What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

New York Times Bestseller

Editors' Choice --New York Times Book Review

"Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country." --James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense 

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics--and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation.



On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation's founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders' thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works--among them the Iliad, Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world.

The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew.

First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

First Principles

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Charles Willeford

A Hoke Moseley Novel

After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious El Dorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn’t think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over ten years of cases wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures. But the pieces never quite add up to revenge, and the few clues he has keep connecting to a dimwitted hooker, and her ex-con boyfriend and the bizarre murder of a Hare Krishna pimp. Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.

Miami Blues

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Charles Ray Willeford

I Was Looking for a Street

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Selections from 150 years of the publication The Nation by all tha major writers of the times

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

150th Anniversary 

The Nation

Edward Gorey

Wry, whimsical illustrations and cartoons by Edward Gorey

Amphigorey Also

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Chris Van Allsburg

Beautiful illustrations by the author. Pages are in perfect condition but slipcover has some rips.

Young Walter litters and refuses to sort trash for recycling, until he dreams of an overcrowded and polluted future which terrifies him into taking care of the earth.

Just a Dream

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Paisley Rekdal

Memoir of photographer Edward S. Curtis illustrated with many photographs from the Old West

An American Family Photo Album

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Asian American Studies. Native American Studies. INTIMATE is a hybrid memoir and "photo album" that blends personal essay, historical documentary, and poetry to examine the tense relationship between self, society, and familial legacy in contemporary America. Typographically innovative, INTIMATE creates parallel streams, narrating the stories of Rekdal's Norwegian-American father and his mixed-race marriage, the photographer Edward S. Curtis, and Curtis's murdered Apsaroke guide, Alexander Upshaw. The result is panoramic, a completely original literary encounter with intimacy, identity, family relations, and race.

Intimate

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Linda Przybyszewski

Many pages of colored illustratiod snout yhe history of women's fashion

The Women Who Once Made America Stylish

A prize-winning dressmaker and history professor discusses how modern women have lost the fashion sense and ability to professionally, appropriately and flatteringly and describes how the Dress Doctors from the first half of the twentieth century helped women look their best. 25,000 first printing.

The Lost Art of Dress

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Frederic Brussat

Mary A. Brussat

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life

This rich treasury of inspirational readings answers the universal question: How can I live a spiritual life every day?

Spiritual Literacy

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Eric Maisel

 Illustrated guide to San Francisco's literary sites

A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul

Thirty essays for aspiring writers highlight the creative resources of the city by the bay, identifying several famous writers who lived in the city and making creativity-promoting recommendations for visitors, prospective residents, and writers struggling with earthquake fears.

A Writer's San Francisco

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James Zug

The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World

The riveting story of John Ledyard, a uniquely American pioneer and influential character, describes the remarkable travels of the eighteenth-century New Englander who accompanied Captain Cook on his final voyage, attempted to locate the source of the Niger River, dreamed of traveling solo around the world, and became the first American to see Alaska, Hawaii, and America's west coast. 30,000 first printing.

American Traveler

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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Staff

Contains many pages of historical photographs and paintings

San Francisco in Art and Literature

San Francisco holds a special place in the American imagination. Throughout the decades, the Golden Gate has seduced scores of people who have come seeking fortune and freedom. Its steep streets and salty characters have inspired some of the most acclaimed artists and writers of our time. Pairing great works of art with literature that evokes the city's cosmopolitan charm, this book celebrates all the things that make San Francisco one of the most intriguing places in the world. City by the Bay features stunning masterpieces of photography, painting, and graphic arts all drawn from the world-renowned collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Poignant passages from classic and contemporary poetry, essays, and novels have been carefully selected to accompany each image. These combinations recreate the experience of a stroll through the city's famous neighborhoods from Fisherman's Wharf to Chinatown. A true reflection of the personality and spirit of San Francisco, City by the Bay offers a keepsake album that tourists, San Franciscans, and art-lovers everywhere will cherish alike. Featuring the work of the following: Ansel Adams * Isabel Allende * Maya Angelou * Joan Didion * Richard Diebenkorn * Dashiell Hammett * Jack Kerouac * Dorothea Lange * Jack London * Armistead Maupin * Amy Tan * Wayne Thiebaud * Mark Twain

Browse by categories

Paul Theroux

Burma Sahib

Christophe Galfard

The Universe in Your Hand

Robert Dana

Summer

Phil Cousineau; Jeff "The Dude" Dowd

Burning the Midnight Oil

Carlo Rovelli

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

J. R. Moehringer

The Tender Bar

Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything

W. B. Yeats

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats

Garrison Keillor

Good Poems, American Places

Garrison Keillor

Good Poems for Hard Times

Kevin Young

The Art of Losing

Thomas Jefferson

Light and Liberty

Thomas E. Ricks

First Principles

Charles Willeford

Miami Blues

Charles Ray Willeford

I Was Looking for a Street

Multiple

The Nation

Edward Gorey

Amphigorey Also

Chris Van Allsburg

Just a Dream

Paisley Rekdal

Intimate

Linda Przybyszewski

The Lost Art of Dress

Frederic Brussat; Mary A. Brussat

Spiritual Literacy

Eric Maisel

A Writer's San Francisco

James Zug

American Traveler

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Staff

City by the Bay

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