Böcker utgivna av Houghton Mifflin

In Senior Year, Dan Shaughnessy focuses his acclaimed sports writing talents on his son Sam's senior year of high school, a turning point in any young life and certainly in the relationship between father and son. Using that experience, Shaughnessy circles back to his own boyhood and calls on the many sports greats he's known over the years -- Ted Williams, Roger Clemens, Larry Bird -- to capture that uniquely American rite of passage that is sports.Growing up, Dan Shaughnessy was so baseball-obsessed that he played games by himself and didn?ft even let himself win. His son, Sam Shaughnessy, came by his own love of sports naturally and was a natural hitter who quickly ascended the ranks of youth sports. Now nicknamed the 3-2 Kid for his astonishing ability to hover between success and failure in everything he does, Sam is finally a senior, and it's all on the line: what college to attend; how to keep his grades up and his head down until graduation; and whether his final high school baseball season, which features foul weather, a hitting slump, and a surprising clash with a longtime coach, will end in disappointment or triumph.All along the way, Dad is there, chronicling that universal experience of putting your child out on the field -- and in the world -- and hoping for the best. With gleaming insight, wicked humor, and, at times, the searching soul of an unsure father, Shaughnessy illuminates how sports connect generations and how they help us grow up -- and let go.

If you had to pick the top ten iconic sporting events, what would they be? Jim Gorant asked himself this question, and the answer resulted in a yearlong journey into the heart of sports. From the Kentucky Derby to the Super Bowl, from a day game at Wrigley Field to a fortnight at Wimbledon, from the NCAA Final Four to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, Gorant takes us along for the ride, evoking the best (and sometimes the worst) sports has to offer. He enters the inner sanctum of NASCAR, witnesses Jack Nicklaus teeing off for the last time at the Masters, and takes part in one of college football's biggest rivalries -- Ohio State versus Michigan.Part adventure, part pilgrimage, Fanatic is a rollicking story of the ultimate sports road trip. Through this transformative journey Jim Gorant learned a little more about what it means to be a fan and a lot more about himself.

For her acclaimed collection of stories, Red Ant House, Joyce Carol Oates hailed Ann Cummins as "a master storyteller." The San Francisco Chronicle called her "startlingly original." Now, in her debut novel, Cummins stakes claim to rich new literary territory with a story of straddling cultures and cheating fate in the American Southwest. Yellowcake introduces us to two unforgettable families-one Navajo, one Anglo-some thirty years after the closing of the uranium mill near which they once made their homes. When little Becky Atcitty shows up on the Mahoneys' doorstep all grown up, the past comes crashing in on Ryland and his lively brood. Becky, the daughter of one of the Navajo mill workers Ryland had supervised, is now involved in a group seeking damages for those harmed by the radioactive dust that contaminated their world. But Ryland wants no part of dredging up their past-or acknowledging his future. When his wife joins the cause, the messy, modern lives of this eclectic cast of characters collide once again, testing their mettle, stretching their faith, and reconnecting past and present in unexpected new ways. Finely crafted, deeply felt, and bursting with heartache and hilarity, Yellowcake is a moving story of how everyday people sort their way through life, with all its hidden hazards.

In a world dominated by fast food and fake food, establishing healthy eating habits in children is one of the greatest concerns for parents -- and potentially one of the greatest challenges. Fortunately, the renowned physician Dr. David Ludwig developed a proven lifestyle plan that has benefited thousands of families. Here he shares his nine-week program, offering the tools -- including tasty recipes, motivational tips, and activities -- that can help families prevent the kitchen table from becoming a battleground.

We treat disease as our enemy. Germs and infections are things we battle. But what if we've been giving them a bum rap? From the earliest days of life on earth, disease has evolved alongside us. And its presence isn't just natural but is also essential to our health. Drawing on the latest research, Zuk answers a fascinating range of questions about disease: Why do men die younger than women? Why are we attracted to our mates? Why does the average male bird not have a penis? Why do we--as well as insects, birds, pigs, cows, goats, and even plants--get STDs? Why do we have sex at all, rather than simply splitting off copies of ourselves like certain geckos? And how is our obsession with cleanliness making us sicker? In this witty, engaging book, evolutionary biologist Zuk makes us rethink our instincts as she argues that disease is our partner, not our foe. Reconsider the fearsome parasite!

The award-winning poet Michael Collier's elegiac fifth collection is haunted by spectral figures and a strange, vivid chorus of birds: From a cardinal that crashes into a window to a gathering of turkey vultures, Collier engages birds as myth-makers and lively messengers, carrying memories from lost friends. The mystery of death and the vital absence it creates are the real subjects of the book. Collier juxtaposes moments of quotidian revelation, like waking to the laughing sounds of bird song, with the drama of Greek tragedy, taking on voices from Medea. As Vanity Fair praised, his poems ?tread nimbly between moments of everyday transcendence and spiritual pining.?

Throughout his writing life Donald Hall has garnered numerous accolades and honors, culminating in 2006 with his appointment as poet laureate of the United States. White Apples and the Taste of Stone collects more than two hundred poems from across sixty years of Hall's celebrated career, and includes poems recently published in The New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, and the New York Times. It is Hall's first selected volume in fifteen years, and the first to include poems from his seminal bestseller Without. Those who have come to love Donald Hall's poetry will welcome this vital and important addition to his body of work. For the uninitiated it is a spectacular introduction to this critically acclaimed and admired poet.

Roger Tory Peterson's unique perspective on birding comes to life in these highly personal narratives. Here he relates his adventures during a lifetime of birding and traveling the world to observe and record nature. Though Peterson was widely known for his illustrations, this collection reminds us to reconsider his accomplishments as a photographer, for Peterson was nearly as passionate about photography as he was about painting. The essays and photographs included here were carefully selected by Bill Thompson III, the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest, which ran the column ?All Things Reconsidered? during the last twelve years of Peterson's life.

When fifteen-year-old Grace Stanley's brother is killed in a car accident, she does what any typical girl would do--she loses it. She blames herself, denounces God, and gives up on school, her friends, and her churchgoing family. Then along comes a "saintly" and nerdy new girl, Philomena, who literally saves Grace's life and helps her find her way back to herself.

Eleven-year-old Joyce lives with her reclusive uncle, Old Dad, who runs the town garbage dump--which is why the kids at school call her the Dump Queen. Her only friend is Mrs. Fish, the new school custodian whose wild outfits and uninhibited personality inspire her nickname, "Crazy Fish." When Mrs. Fish is around, everything in Joyce's life seems okay. So when fiercely independent Old Dad falls ill, Joyce must convince him to accept her friend's help.

This superb Pulitzer Prize?winning collection gives voice to failure with a wry, deft touch from one of this country's most engaging and uncompromising poets. In Failure, Philip Schultz evokes the pleasures of family,marriage, beaches, and dogs; New York City in the 1970s; revolutions both interior and exterior; and the terrors of 9/11 with a compassion that demonstrates he is a master of the bittersweet and fierce, the wondrous and direct, and the brilliantly provocative. Filled with poems of "heartbreaking tenderness that [go] beyond mere pity" (Gerald Stern), Failure is a collection to savor from this major American poet.

A spell that gets you land, money, long golden hair, or a date to the prom can't be a curse, can it? A curse just gets you "dead." Or does it?. . . In these ten stunning short stories, boys and girls learn firsthand just what magic spells, enchantments, and curses really can do.

Just out of college, Patricia Hampl was mesmerized by a Matisse painting in the Art Institute of Chicago: an aloof woman gazing at goldfish in a bowl, a Moroccan screen behind her. In Blue Arabesque, Hampl explores the allure of this lounging woman, immersed in leisure, so at odds with the rush of the modern era. Hampl's meditation takes us to the Cote d'Azur and to North Africa, from cloister to harem, pondering figures as diverse as Eugene Delacroix, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Katherine Mansfield. Returning always to Matisse's portraits of languid women, she discovers they were not decorative indulgences but something much more. Moving with the life force that Matisse sought in his work, Blue Arabesque is Hampl's dazzling and critically acclaimed tour de force.

For environmentally critical times, Courage for the Earth is a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writingRachel Carson's lyrical, popular books about the sea, including her best-selling The Sea Around Us, set a standard for nature writing. By the late 1950s, Carson was the most respected science writer in America.She completed Silent Spring (1962) against formidable personal odds, and with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history. In Silent Spring, Carson asserted that ?the right of the citizen to be secure in his own home against the intrusion of poisons applied by other persons? must surely be a basic human right. She was the first to challenge the moral vacuity of a government that refused to take responsibility for or to acknowledge evidence of environmental damage.In this volume, today's foremost scientists and writers give compelling evidence that Carson's transformative insights -- her courage for the earth -- are giving a new generation of activists the inspiration they need to move consumers, industry, and government to action.Contributors include John Elder, Al Gore, John Hay, Freeman House, Linda Lear, Robert Michael Pyle, Janisse Ray, Sandra Steingraber, Terry Tempest Williams, and E. O. Wilson

Just as Jay Gatsby was haunted by Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fizgerald was haunted by his own great first love - a Chicago socialite named Ginevra. Alluring, capricious, and ultimately unavailable, she would become his first muse, the inspiration for such timeless characters as Gatsby's Daisy and Isabelle Borge in This Side of Paradise. Caroline Preston's astute perceptions of her characters and the cultural landscapes they inhabit have earned her work comparisons to to that of Anne Tyler, Alison Lurie, and Diane Johnson. Now, in this richly imagined and ambitious novel, Preston deftly evokes the entire sweep of Ginevra's life - from her first meeting with Scott to the second act of her sometimes charmed, sometimes troubled life. Ginevra was sixteen, a rich man's daughter who had been told she was pretty far too often for her own good. Scott was nineteen, a poor boy full of ambition. They met at a country club dance in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January 1916. For almost a year they wrote each other letters - so long, breathless, and yearning that they often required more than one envelope. But despite their intense epistolary romance, the relationship wouldn't last. After throwing him over with what he deemed "supreme boredom and indifference," she impulsively married a handsome aviator from the right society background. Ruminating over what might have been had she picked the writer instead of the flier, she furtively reads the now famous Fitzgerald's work. When she sees herself - much to her surprise - in his characters, it's not just as the spoiled debutante he'd known; he's also uncannily predicted the woman she's become, cracks and all. An affecting story of two people, one famous, one known only through her portrayals in enduring works of fiction, Gatsby's Girl is a tremendously entertaining and moving novel about the powerful forces of first love, memory, and art.

This original paperback brings together for the first time all of Donald Hall's writing on Eagle Pond Farm, his ancestral home in New Hampshire, where he visited his grandparents as a young boy and then lived with his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, until her death. It includes the entire, previously published Seasons at Eagle Pond and Here at Eagle Pond; the poem ?Daylilies on the Hill? from The Painted Bed; and several uncollected pieces. In these tender essays, Hall tells of the joys and quiddities of life on the farm, the pleasures and discomforts of a world in which the year has four seasons -- maple sugar, blackfly, Red Sox, and winter. Lyrical, comic, and elegaic, they sing of a landscape and culture that are disappearing under the assault of change.