Böcker utgivna av Alfred A. Knopf

At the beginning of 1945, relations between America and the Chinese Communists couldn't have been closer. Chinese leaders talked of America helping to lift China out of poverty; Mao Zedong himself held friendly meetings with U.S. emissaries. By year's end, Chinese Communist soldiers were setting ambushes for American marines; official cordiality had been replaced by chilly hostility and distrust, a pattern which would continue for a quarter century, with the devastating wars in Korea and Vietnam among the consequences. In China 1945, Richard Bernstein tells the incredible story of the sea change that took place during that year-brilliantly analyzing its far-reaching components and colorful characters, from diplomats John Paton Davies and John Stewart Service to Time journalist, Henry Luce; in addition to Mao and his intractable counterpart, Chiang Kai-shek, and the indispensable Zhou Enlai. A tour de force of narrative history, China 1945 examines American power coming face-to-face with a formidable Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations.

Now in paperback, this stunning collection of elegies--a finalist for the National Book Award--bears witness to the small beauties and inevitable losses of our transient life.Elegy for a Broken Machine is a son''s lament for his father. It takes us from the luminous world of childhood to the fluorescent glare of operating rooms and recovery wards, and into the twilight lives of those who must go on. In one poem Phillips watches his sons play "Mercy" just as he did with his brother: hands laced, the stronger pushing the other back until he grunts for mercy, "a game we played // so many times / I finally taught my sons, // not knowing what it was, / until too late, I''d done." Phillips documents the unsung joys of midlife, the betrayals of the human body, and his realization that as the crowd of ghosts grows, we take our places, next in line. The result is a twenty-first-century memento mori, fashioned not just from loss but also from praise, and a fierce love for the world in all its ruined splendor.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2017 contains twenty breathtaking stories—by a vibrant mix of established and emerging writers—selected by the series editor from the thousands published in literary magazines over the previous year. The collection includes essays by the three eminent guest jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and a comprehensive resource list of the many magazines and journals, both large and small, that publish short fiction.  “Too Good To Be True,” Michelle Huneven“Something for a Young Woman,” Genevieve Plunkett“The Buddhist,” Alan Rossi“Garments,” Tahmima Anam“Protection,” Paola Peroni“Night Garden,” Shruti Swamy“A Cruelty,” Kevin Barry“Floating Garden,” Mary La Chapelle“The Trusted Traveler,” Joseph O’Neill“Blue Dot,” Keith Eisner“Lion,” Wil Weitzel“Paddle to Canada,” Heather Monley“A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness,” Jai Chakrabarti“The Bride and the Street Party,” Kate Cayley“Secret Lives of the Detainees,” Amit Majmudar“Glory,” Lesley Nneka Arimah“Mercedes Benz,” Martha Cooley“The Reason Is Because,” Manuel Muñoz“The Family Whistle,” Gerard Woodward“Buttony,” Fiona McFarlaneThe jurors this year are David Bradley, Elizabeth McCracken, and Brad Watson.For author interviews, photos, and more, go to www.ohenryprizestories.com

A contemporary requiem--an earthy yet elegant reconsideration of the Tristan and Iseult story, from the former poet laureate of Brooklyn. In D. Nurkse''s wood of Morois, the Forest of Love, there''s a fine line between the real and the imaginary, the archaic and the actual, poetry and news. The poems feature the voices of the lovers and all parties around them, including the servant Brangien; Tristan''s horse, Beau Joueur; even the living spring that flows through the tale ("in my breathing shadow / the lovers hear their voices / confused with mine / promising a slate roof, / a gate, a child . . . "). Nurkse brings us an Iseult who has more power than she wants over Tristan''s imagination, and a Tristan who understands his fate early on: "That charm was so strong, no luck could free us." For these lovers, time closes like a book, but it remains open for us as we hear both new tones and familiar voices, eerily like our own, in this age-old story made new again.

Welcome to Little Wood, the tiniest town around! The first in a new picture-book series from innovative textile artist and photographer, Sabina Gibson. Wolfie is a little shy, but she loves to paint. Her friends and neighbors all want to see what she is working on, but she is not ready to share just yet. As she makes her way around Little Wood, she meets Bear, Rabbit, and Badger and paints them as they go about their day.   Soon she is brave enough to show everyone what she has been doing—and the whole town is invited to her art show! Who did Wolfie paint? And what will she paint next?   In the vein of Sylvanian Families, Calico Critters, and Richard Scarry, Wolfie Paints the Town is the start of a sweet series from artist Sabina Gibson, introducing four lovable characters and the charming town of Little Wood, a place readers will want to visit again and again.

A gorgeous, lyrical picture-book biography of Vincent van Gogh by the Caldecott Honor team behind The Noisy Paint Box.   Vincent can’t sleep . . . out, out, out he runs!               flying through the garden—marigold, geranium, blackberry, raspberry— past the church with its tall steeple, down rolling hills and sandy paths meant for sheep, He dives at last into the velvety, violet heath, snuggles under a blanket of sapphire sky,  and looks up, up, up . . . to visit with the stars.    Vincent van Gogh often found himself unable to sleep and wandered under starlit skies. Those nighttime experiences provided the inspiration for many of his paintings, including his most famous, The Starry Night. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime—but he continued to pursue his unique vision, and ultimately became one of the most beloved artists of all time.   From the same team behind the Caldecott Honor Book The Noisy Paint Box, Vincent Can’t Sleep is a stunning book that offers insight into the true meaning of creativity and commitment.   Praise for The Noisy Paint Box:   “Even those who aren’t inspired to visit a museum will take away the lesson of Kandinsky’s life: Listen to what excites you and follow its call.” —The New York Times   * “Rosenstock’s prose strikes a balance between lightheartedness and lyricism. GrandPré’s paintings conjure up an entire epoch . . . breathing life into all the characters.” —Publishers Weekly, starred   * “The rich word choice is a delight: pistachio, cobalt, and saffron introduce readers to colors while hissing, blaring, and whispering reveal the sounds of the colors. . . . This is a beautiful blend of colors, music, and life.” —Booklist, starred   * “A rich, accomplished piece about a pioneer in the art world.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred   * “The book offers diverse potential for different types of study, whether one is reading for information or for pleasure. Outstanding.” —School Library Journal, starred

A stunning new collection of beautiful houses and gardens that have appeared in the pages of Vogue over the last decade, with more than 400 full-color photographs.  Lavishly illustrated, Vogue Living: Country, City, Coast is an irresistible look at some of the most spectacular houses and gardens whose owners come from the worlds of fashion, design, art and society to be published as a book for the first time. Here is Tory Burch’s stylish and informal Southampton estate, Lauren and Andres Santo Domingo’s glamorous duplex in Paris, Dries Van Noten’s romantic house and garden in Belgium, Alexa and Trevor Traina’s dramatic and colorful San Francisco house, Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber’s lakeside Canadian cabin, shoe maestro Bruno Frisoni and designer Hervé Van der Straeten’s modern house in the heart of Tangier, Stella McCartney’s grand English country garden, Olya and Charles Thompson’s richly patterned Brooklyn house, and the old-world Wilshire estate of Gela Nash-Taylor and Duran Duran’s John Nash Taylor and many more.     These breathtaking houses and gardens have been photographed by such celebrated photographers as François Halard, Oberto Gili,  Mario Testino and Bruce Weber among others; such writers as Hamish Bowles, Joan Juliet Buck, Plum Sykes, Jonathan Van Meter and Chloe Malle give you an intimate view of the owners and how they live. This book is a look at some of the world’s most iconic houses and gardens—not only rich in ideas for all readers but a resource and inspiration for designers, architects, and landscape architects as well.

From the creator/editor of Who Shot Rock & Roll ("I loved this book" -Dwight Garner, The New York Times. "Whatever Gail Buckland writes, I want to read"), a book that brings together the work of 165 extraordinary photographers, most of their images heralded, most of their names unknown; photographs that capture the essence of athletes' mastery of mind/body/soul against the odds, doing the impossible, seeming to defy the laws of gravity, the laws of physics, and showing what human will, discipline, drive, and desire look like when suspended in time. The first book to show the range, cultural importance, and aesthetics of sports photography, much of it legendary, all of it powerful.Here, in more than 280 spectacular images-more than 130 in full color-are great action photographs; portraits of athletes, famous and unknown; athletes off the field and behind the scenes; athletes practicing, working out, the daily relentless effort of training and achieving physical perfection.Buckland writes that sports photographers have always been central to the technical advancement of photography, that they have designed longer lenses, faster shutters, motor drives, underwater casings, and remote controls, allowing us to see what we could never see-and hold on to-with the naked eye. Here are photographs by such masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Danny Lyon, Walker Evans, Annie Leibovitz, and 160 more, names not necessarily known to the public but whose photographic work is considered iconic . . . Here are photographs of Willie Mays . . . Carl Lewis . . . Ian Botham . . . Kobe Bryant . . . Magic Johnson . . . Muhammad Ali . . . Serena Williams . . . Bobby Orr . . . Stirling Moss . . . Jesse Owens . . . Mark Spitz . . . Roger Federer . . . Jackie Robinson.Here is the work of the great sports photographers Neil Leifer, Walter Iooss Jr., Bob Martin, Al Bello, Robert Riger, and Heinz Kleutmeier of Sports Illustrated, who was the first to put a camera at the bottom of an Olympic swimming pool and photograph swimmers from below . . . Here are pictures by Charles Hoff, the New York Daily News photographer of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, whose images of the 1936 Berlin Olympics still inspire shock and awe . . . and those of Ernst Haas, whose innovative color pictures of bullfighting of the 1950s remain poetic evocations of a bloody sport . . . To make the selections for Who Shot Sports, Buckland, a former curator of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain and Benjamin Menschel Distinguished Visiting Professor at Cooper Union, has drawn upon the work of more than fifty archives, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to Sports Illustrated, Condé Nast, Getty Images, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, L'Équipe, The New York Times, and the archives of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne.Here are classic and unknown sports images that capture the uncapturable, that allow us to experience "kinetic beauty," and that give us the essence and meaning-the transcendent power-of sports.

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2015An NBC Latino Selection for Ten Great Latino Books Published in 2015Arriving in Buenos Aires in 1913, with only a suitcase and her father's cherished violin to her name, seventeen-year-old Leda is shocked to find that the husband she has travelled across an ocean to reach is dead. Unable to return home, alone, and on the brink of destitution, she finds herself seduced by the tango, the dance that underscores every aspect of life in her new city. Knowing that she can never play in public as a woman, Leda disguises herself as a young man to join a troupe of musicians. In the illicit, scandalous world of brothels and cabarets, the line between Leda and her disguise begins to blur, and forbidden longings that she has long kept suppressed are realized for the first time. Powerfully sensual, The Gods of Tango is an erotically charged story of music, passion, and the quest for an authentic life against the odds.

With over one million copies sold, this series of modern classics about the charming Penderwick family, from National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Jeanne Birdsall, is perfect for fans of Noel Streatfeild and Edward Eager. Springtime is finally arriving on Gardam Street, and there are surprises in store for each member of the family. Some surprises are just wonderful, like neighbor Nick Geiger coming home from war. And some are ridiculous, like Batty's new dog-walking business. Batty is saving up her dog-walking money for an extra-special surprise for her family, which she plans to present on her upcoming birthday. But when some unwelcome surprises make themselves known, the best-laid plans fall apart. Filled with all the heart, hilarity, and charm that has come to define this beloved clan, The Penderwicks in Spring is about fun and family and friends (and dogs), and what happens when you bring what's hidden into the bright light of the spring sun.

Adrift in Buenos Aires, Layne Mosler was hungry-for an excellent (and cheap) meal, for a great story, for a new direction. A chance recommendation from a taxi driver helped her find all these things, and sparked a quest that would take her to three cities, meeting people from all walks of life, and finding an array of unexpected flavors. A story about following your passion, the pleasures of not always knowing your destination, and the beauty of chance encounters, Driving Hungry is a vivid, and inspiring, read from first to last.

From master storyteller and New York Times bestselling Historian H. W. Brands comes the definitive biography of a visionary and transformative president In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan's personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan's administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan's remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Reagan is a storytelling triumph, an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation.

Yoga has never been more popular. Throughout the United States, people are turning to this ancient practice as a response to the pressures of today’s hectic world.   In Meditations on Intention and Being, acclaimed yoga teacher Rolf Gates draws on twenty years of teaching experience to explore and explain how to take the mindfulness of yoga off the mat and integrate it into every aspect of life.   Presented in the form of 365 inspirational daily reflections, Gates helps readers—from experienced yogis to novices seeking a little tranquility—to fundamentally reconsider their relationships with their minds, bodies, and the universe around them through self-reflection. Over the course of seven chapters, he explores Effortlessness, Nonviolence, The Spirit of Practice, Mindfulness, Compassion and Loving-kindness, Equanimity and Joy, and Intention and Being, giving readers the tools they need to effect positive changes in their lives.

This fascinating portrait of two of the most brilliant theater artists of the twentieth century—and the women who made their work possible—is set against the explosive years of the Weimar Republic.Among the most outsized personalities of the sizzling, decadent period between the Great War and the Nazis’ rise to power were the renegade poet Bertolt Brecht and the avant-garde composer Kurt Weill. These two young geniuses and the three women vital to their work—actresses Lotte Lenya and Helene Weigel and writer Elisabeth Hauptmann—joined talents to create the theatrical masterworks The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, only to split in rancor as their culture cracked open and their differences became irreconcilable. The Partnership is the first book to tell the full story of one of the most important creative collaborations of the last century, and the first to give full credit to the women who contributed their enormous gifts. Theirs is a thrilling story of artistic daring entwined with sexual freedom during the Weimar Republic’s most fevered years, a time when art and politics and society were inextricably mixed.

Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a passionately loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, hundreds of students reported sexual assaults to the local police. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical.In these pages, acclaimed journalist Jon Krakauer investigates a spate of campus rapes that occurred in Missoula over a four-year period. Taking the town as a case study for a crime that is sadly prevalent throughout the nation, Krakauer documents the experiences of five victims: their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the skepticism directed at them by police, prosecutors, and the public; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. These stories cut through abstract ideological debate about acquaintance rape to demonstrate that it does not happen because women are sending mixed signals or seeking attention. They are victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from our justice system. Rigorously researched, rendered in incisive prose, Missoula stands as an essential call to action.

The World of Raymond Chandler shows how Chandler precariously balanced the values of a classical English education against those of a fast-evolving America during the years before the Great War; how he adopted Los Angeles as his home after WWI, with Hollywood in turn adopting him (and adapting his works); how his detective hero and alter ego Philip Marlowe evolved over the years; and, above all, what it is to be a writer, and in particular one writing in the “other language” of hardboiled fiction.   Acclaimed biographer and historian Barry Day deftly interweaves images and text, using quotations from Chandler’s novels, short stories, letters, and interviews, to craft a unique portrait of the mystery writer’s life and times.

“What do you mean, he’s asked how much I am?” asked a stunned Eden Collinsworth upon learning that a Chinese businessman had inquired if she were available for purchase. Despite this precarious introduction to China, no country has fascinated Collinsworth more during a career that has moved her around the world. Convinced that—despite the nation’s status as a world leader—the Chinese are still socially uncomfortable with their Western counterparts, she collaborated with a major Chinese publisher to produce a bestselling Western etiquette guide.           Now, in these pages, Collinsworth tells the unforgettable story of the year she spent living among the Chinese while writing a book featuring advice on such topics as the rules of the handshake, making sense of foreigners, and behavior that is considered universally rude. Informative, hilarious, and thought-provoking, I Stand Corrected is at once an entertaining memoir and essential reading for those looking to understand the mores of the rapidly changing—and increasingly important—nation that is China.

Lucas Mann was only thirteen years old when his brother Josh—charismatic and ambitious, funny and sadistic, violent and vulnerable—died of a heroin overdose. Although his brief life is ultimately unknowable, Josh is both a presence and an absence in the author’s life that will not remain unclaimed. As Josh’s story is told in kaleidoscopic shards of memories assembled from interviews with his friends and family, as well as from the raw material of his journals, a revealing, startling portrait unfolds. At the same time, Mann pulls back to examine his own complicated feelings and motives for recovering memories of his brother’s life, searching for a balance between the tension of inevitability and the what ifs that beg to be asked. Through his investigation, Mann also comes to redefine his own place in a family whose narrative is bisected by the tragic loss.  Unstinting in its honesty, captivating in its form, and profound in its conclusions, Lord Fear more than confirms the promise of Mann’s earlier book, Class A; with it, he is poised to enter the ranks of the best young writers of his generation.

Jack Brennan is a Marine Corps sergeant whose infantry squad has been cleared to return home from a grueling deployment to Afghanistan. A few years prior, Sergeant Brennan lost one of his closest friends—a young combat veteran—to suicide and has vowed to do everything in his power to keep his Marines from a similar fate. On their last night in-country, Brennan, who has long kept a tattered copy of the Odyssey with him on deployment, shares his version of Homer’s classic with his fellow soldiers to help prepare them for the transition back home.   Brennan plunges into a rich retelling of Odysseus’s long journey home from the battlefield at Troy, during which Odysseus and his men confront numerous obstacles—from the lure of a psychedelic lotus plant to ghoulish shades in the Land of the Dead to the seductive songs of the deadly Sirens—as they try to make it back to Greece. Along the way, Brennan and his fellow Marines map the struggles faced by Odysseus and his men onto their own—isolation, addiction, guilt, depression, and loss. Through his retelling, Brennan reminds his squad that the gulf separating the battlefield from the home front is deep, wide, and sometimes hard to cross—that it is possible to travel all the way home and, like the characters in the Odyssey, still feel lost at sea.   Tragic, poignant, and at times funny and hopeful, The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan brilliantly conveys the profound challenges that many of today’s veterans face upon returning to civilian life, even as it tells “the oldest war story of all time.”

An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history.In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus's trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain's reputation for centuries. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella's influence. Using new scholarship, Downey's luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.

A great way to introduce children to classical music. America’s first Children''s Poet Laureate has written all-new verses to accompany the composer Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals, and the illustrator of the Harry Potter books has turned these rollicking rhymes into a picture-book fun fest. Included is a CD of the music and of Jack Prelutsky reading the verses. A note to parents and teachers by Judith Bachleitner, head of the music department at the prestigious Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, suggests ways preschoolers can act out the music—tromp like an elephant, hop like a kangaroo, glide like a swan—or, for older children, be creatively inspired by this joyful work.

Two hundred eighty-eight delicious recipes carefully worked out so that you can reproduce, in your own kitchen, the true flavors of Cajun and Creole dishes. The New Orleans cookbook whose authenticity dependability, and wealth of information have made it a classic.

The most comprehensive field guide available to the fabulous mysteries above--a must-have for any enthusiast's day pack or home library--from the go-to reference source for over 18 million nature lovers.The National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky provides a concise guided tour of the heavens, from planets in our solar system to the constellations in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, stars, galaxies, astronomical bodies, phenomena, comets, and more. Featuring a durable vinyl binding, over 700 full-color photographs, sky charts, and constellation charts, as well as detailed descriptive text, this comprehensive, easy-to-use field guide is the perfect companion volume for any stargazer.