Böcker utgivna av Picador USA

In his unique, funny, and haunting reports from "Elsewhere," Hank Stuever records the odd and touching realities of modern life in everyday places. Elsewhere might be revealed in the tract-house adventures of a home-décor reality show, at a discount funeral home in a strip mall, or in the story of an armed man named Honey Bear in the hunt for his beloved but now missing sleeper sofa which he left in a store unit. Off Ramp shows us America through the humorous gaze of Hank Stuever, who finds beauty in the midst of the most unlikely and invisible lives and places.

Stephen Elliott does not know what to think of American voters, this year's desperate and heated run for presidency, or the legitimacy of the political system. He doesn't know whether to love John Kerry or try to love Howard Dean or try, simply, to get excited about Politics. But what he does know is that most Americans are as confused, taxed and broken-hearted as he is. Looking Forward To It is the chronicle of one ordinary fellow's skeptical -- and hilarious -- journey through the election process. It is on the campaign trail that he will meet washed-out campaign managers, idealistic publicists, corrupt journalists, world-weary auditorium janitors, recovering drug addicts, and, of course, politicians. His report documents a journey into the center of "the thing", our country, where Americans high and low come together to participate in the most profound gesture of democracy: the election.

"I grew up on a farm,"--the year is l974, the place Sweetriver College, and Beatrice Wolfe is telling the story of her life to the glamorous young professor Philippa Sayres. So begins the achingly funny, often heartbreaking story of Beatrice's quest to escape the gothic eccentricity of her family and find an authentic identity of her own.Married in a misbegotten passion, her parents are totally unsuited to farming or to any kind of business. When they finally lose their "farm," Bea's family spirals out of control. Still under Philippa's spell, Bea moves to the city of Hartford and joins a lesbian community, and becomes so committed to her new gay identity that she barely notices she's falling in love with a man--a man just risen from the ashes of addiction, whose re-creation of himself she threatens to undo.

Growing Up Fast tells the life stories of Shayla, Jessica, Amy, Colleen, Liz, and Sheri--six teen mothers whom Joanna Lipper first met in 1999 when they were enrolled at the Teen Parent Program in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Less than a decade older than these teen parents, she was able to blend into the fabric of their lives and make a short documentary film about them. Over the course of the next four years she continued to earn their trust as they shared with her the daily reality of their lives and their experiences growing up in the economically depressed post-industrial landscape of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

It is 1955 in Las Vegas, and the Chicago mob man Mo Weiner is bankrolling ex-boxer Worthless Worthington Lee and the city's first all-black hotel-casino. The Ivory Coast is rising up from the dust, on the wrong side of town. And out of the shadows steps Deacon, a white horn player with a dark past and a genius for jazz. Mo mistakes him for a hitman. Worthless takes him for a friend. Anita, the mixed-race beauty he falls for, wants him for herself. And Haney, the corrupt and racist cop who runs this hot desert oasis of sin and sand, wants him rubbed out.

The National BestsellerThe sudden trace of a disturbing, forgotten aroma compels Stephen Wheatley to return to the site of a dimly remembered but troubling childhood summer in wartime London. As he pieces together his scattered memories, we are brought back to a quiet, suburban street where two boys--Keith and his sidekick, Stephen--are engaged in their own version of the war effort: spying on the neighbors, recording their movements, and ferreting out their secrets. But when Keith utters six shocking words, the boy's game of espionage takes a sinister and unintended turn, transforming a wife's simple errands and the ordinary rituals of family life into the elements of adult catastrophe.Childhood and innocence, secrecy, lies and repressed violence are all gently laid bare as once again Michael Frayn powerfully demonstrates that what appears to be happening in front of our eyes often turns out to be something we cannot see at all.

A concentration camp survivor confronts one of the most heated and vexed questions of the Holocaust: what price survival? In 1943, sixteen-year-old Paul Steinberg was arrested in Paris and deported to Auschwitz. A chemistry student, Steinberg was assigned to work in the camp's laboratory alongside Primo Levi, who would later immortalize his fellow inmate as "Henri," the ultimate survivor, the paradigm of the prisoner who clung to life at the cost of his own humanity. "One seems to glimpse a human soul," Levi wrote in If This Is a Man, "but then Henri's sad smile freezes in a cold grimace, and here he is again, intent on his hunt and his struggle; hard and distant, enclosed in armor, the enemy of all."Now, after fifty years, Steinberg speaks for himself. In an unsparing act of self-scrutiny, he traces his passage from artless adolescent to ruthless creature determined to do anything to live. He describes his strategies of survival: the boxing matches he staged for the camp commanders, the English POWs he exploited, the maneuvers and tactics he applied with cold competence. Ultimately, he confirms Levi's judgment: "No doubt he saw straight. I probably was that creature, prepared to use whatever means I had available." But, he asks, "Is it so wrong to survive?"Brave and rare, Speak You Also is a profound and necessary addition to the body of Holocaust writing: a survivor's reckoning with culpability and survival.

How has one stone created empires, ruined lives, inspired lust and emptied wallets throughout history? A diamond version of Susan Orleans' "The Orchid Thief", this work aims to take you on a journey to the cold heart of the world's most unyielding gem.

Has globalization failed us? The promises of economic stability, increased prosperity, and cultural cooperation seem more like a pipe dream than ever before. But rather than stop globalization, Charles Derber challenges us to rewrite its rules in order to fulfill its potential as an agent of democracy and global harmony. In this provocative and optimistic work, one of the first examinations of globalization after September 11, 2001, Derber argues that only a democratic cure--begun at the grassroots level--will end global terror and economic insecurity. People Before Profit provides an essential understanding of our world economy as well as a practical guide for building a stable and more equitable global community.

A Southeast Booksellers Association Best Book of the YearJess Kirkman returns to the North Carolina mountain town of his boyhood to tend to his ailing mother, and clean out his deceased father's workroom. What he discovers there leads him-and the reader-on an unforgettable journey through the secret life of Jess's father, Joe Robert, which culminates in a moment of profound mystery and comedy.

A fascinating biography of one of the most popular, colorful, and notorious American poets of our century.The legendary Southern poet James Dickey never shied away from cultivating a heroic mystique. Like Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway, he earned a reputation as a sportsman, boozer, war hero, and womanizer as well as a great poet, novelist, screenwriter, and essayist. But James Dickey made lying both a literary strategy and a protective camouflage; even his family and closest friends failed to distinguish between the mythical James Dickey and the actual man. Henry Hart sees lying as the central theme to Dickey's life; and in this authoritative, immensely entertaining biography he delves deep behind Dickey's many masks. Letters, anecdotes, tall tales and true ones, as well as the reluctant but finally candid cooperation of Dickey himself animate Hart's narration of a remarkable life. Readers of Dickey's National Book Award-winning poetry, his bestselling novel Deliverance, and anyone who witnessed his electrifying readings of his work will savor this book.

Set amid the chaos of West Africa's civil wars, this novel tells the story of two teenagers growing up while rival ethnic groups fight for control of their country.

In 1919, Mathilde Donnay, a young wheelchair-bound woman in France, begins a quest to find out if her fianc , supposedly killed in the line of duty two years earlier, might still be alive. Reprint. 50,000 first printing. (A Warner Bros.

A love letter to the complicated yet sustaining love of mothers and daughters.

In this probing look at the woman behind "Little Women," Reisen explores Alcott's life in the context of her works, all of which are to some extent autobiographical.

A twisted work of debut literary horror centred on a group of friends who find themselves unwittingly trapped on an island with a vengeful Typhoid Mary.

From the author of The Fever comes a dramatic history of pandemics: "If the words, and beyond, in [the] subtitle don't grab a reader's attention, they should" (Booklist, starred review)

This Is Not My Beautiful Life is a hilariously funny and unexpectedly moving memoir of a just-functional family, and the story of how Victoria lost her parents to prison and nearly lost her mind. Fortunately, she discovered that sanity sometimes lurks in the most unexpected places.

An incisive essay collection that became a cult classic, from the author of Unspeakable.

The endearingly bitter writer, Amy Gallup has happily isolated herself from the world spending the last two decades teaching and reviewing - she's done a lot of thinking... but very little writing. On an unassuming morning, in her slippers, Amy trips in her backyard, goes head-over-heels, and into the side of a birdbath.

Challenging the daily clamour of US sabre rattling, this title argues that America should renounce thirty years of failed strategy and engage with Iran - just as Nixon revolutionized US foreign policy by going to Beijing and realigning relations with China. It states that America must "go to Tehran" if it is to avert strategic catastrophe.

Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt's marriage is one of the most celebrated and scrutinized partnerships in presidential history. It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes and has only become more controversial since their deaths. This title paints a portrait of a tender lifelong companionship, born of mutual admiration and compassion.

When she is twelve years old, Canada moves with her mother and father to Ankara, Turkey, where her father has been stationed by the government. While her father disappears on official business, Canada and her mother find themselves in the company of gossipy embassy wives and wealthy Turkish women.

The founding principle of the US was that the rule of law would be the great equalizer in American life. This book exposes an un-American justice system that incentivizes elite criminality, protects an oligarchical political culture, and sanctions immunity at the top and unyielding mercilessness for everyone else.