Jamaica Kincaid presents a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful presence at the very center of the little girl's existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother's benign shadow. Looking back on her childhood, she reflects, "It was in such a paradise...

From the award-winning author of Annie John comes a brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua. 'If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the prime minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a prime minister would want an airport named after him-why not a school, why not a hospital,...

"McFadden's reissued second novel takes an unflinching look at the corrosive nature of alcoholism ... This is not a story of easy redemption ... McFadden writes candidly about the treacherous hold of addiction." -Publishers Weekly "Riveting... . So nicely avoids the sentimentality that swirls around the subject matter. I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes." -Toni Morrison, author of Beloved "The...

"The Girl Who Fell from the Sky can actually fly." -The New York Times Book Review   Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on their Chicago rooftop. Forced to move to a new city, with her strict African American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and...

"Southern Gothic is alive and well!" - Amazon reviewerCousins Billy and Roy were just two mischievous boys--probably meaner than most--but still just bored, country kids looking for some adventure and excitement.During the nights they spent with their grandmother, their favorite pastime was spying on the tenants of their grandmother's rental houses.Over the years, the two had spied on all of their grandmother's renters at one time or another, but...

"When the magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie back in time, they land in the tallest tree in Yosemite, California where they join nature conservationist, John Muir, and US President Teddy Roosevelt on a historic trip through the woods"--

"In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later, he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction." Twain and his daughter, Clara Clemens,...

"The best-selling author of Vagina, Give Me Liberty, and The End of America illuminates a dramatic buried story of gay history--how a single English law in 1857 led to a maelstrom, with reverberations lasting down to our day"--

"New Orleans has long been America's most magical city, inhabited by a fascinating visible and invisible world, full of mysteries, known for its decadence and haunted by its spirits. If Salem is famous for its persecution of witches, New Orleans is celebrated for its embrace of the magical, mystical, and paranormal. New Orleans is the historical stronghold of traditional African religions, spirituality, and voudou in the US. There is a mysterious...

Rolling Stone founder, co-editor, and publisher Jann Wenner offers a "touchingly honest" and "wonderfully deep" memoir from the beating heart of classic rock and roll (Bruce Springsteen). Jann Wenner has been called by his peers "the greatest editor of his generation." His deeply personal memoir vividly describes and brings you inside the music, the politics, and the lifestyle of a generation, an epoch of cultural change that swept America and beyond....