Author: Barbara W. Tuchma
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: vietnam, troy, folly, march
Number of Pages: 447
Published: 1985-02-12
List price: $16.95
ISBN-10: 0345308239
ISBN-13: 9780345308238

Twice a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, author Barbara Tuchman now tackles the pervasive presence of folly in governments through the ages. Defining folly as the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interersts, despite the availability of feasible alternatives, Tuchman details four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly in government: the Trojan War, the breakup of the Holy See provoked by the Renaissance Popes, the loss of the American colonies by Britain’s George III, and the United States’ persistent folly in Vietnam. THE M

Author: Christina Schwarz
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: book, club, oprah, novel, ruth, drowning
Number of Pages: 368
Published: 2001-07-31
List price: $15.00
ISBN-10: 0345439104
ISBN-13: 9780345439109

Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 2000: For 19th-century novelists--from Jane Austen to George Eliot, Flaubert to Henry James--social constraint gave a delicious tension to their plots. Yet now our relaxed morals and social mobility have rendered many of the classics untenable. Why shouldn’t Maisie know what she knows? It will all come out in family therapy anyway. The vogue for historical novels depends in part on our pleasure in reentering a world of subtle cues and repressed emotion, a time in which a young woman could destroy her life by saying yes to the wrong man. After all, t

Author: David Halberstam
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: brightest
Number of Pages: 720
Published: 1993-10-26
List price: $18.00
ISBN-10: 0449908704
ISBN-13: 9780449908709

"A rich, entertaining, and profound reading experience." -- The New York Times"[The] most comprehensive saga of how America became involved in Vietnam. It is also the Iliad of the American empire and the Odyssey of this nation’s search for its idealistic soul. THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST is almost like watching an Alfred Hitchcock thriller." -- The Boston Globe"Deeply moving . . . We cannot help but feel the compelling power of this narrative . . . . Dramatic and tragic, a chain of events overwhelming in their force, a distant war embodying illusions and myths, terror and violence, confus

Author: Aldo Leopold
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: essays, reflections, outdoor, almanac, county, sand
Number of Pages: 320
Published: 1986-12-12
List price: $7.99
ISBN-10: 0345345053
ISBN-13: 9780345345059

Published in 1949, shortly after the author’s death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book’s pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought tha

Authors:Carl Sagan, Ann Druya,
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: candle, science, world, haunted, demon
Number of Pages: 480
Published: 1997-02-25
List price: $17.00
ISBN-10: 0345409469
ISBN-13: 9780345409461

Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues."A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto f

Author: Lloyd Strayhor
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: living, everyday, guide, numerology, numbers
Number of Pages: 416
Published: 1987-09-12
List price: $7.99
ISBN-10: 0345345932
ISBN-13: 9780345345936

If you can count on your fingers you can use numerology. Learn how to harness the power of numbers with this unique guide, and reveal the secrets of your personality, which lottery numbers you should choose, when is the best time to make decisions, what cities are best for you to live in, how can you tell if someone is right for you, and much, much more.

Author: Kathryn Finney
Publisher: Ballantine Book
Keywords: looking, fabulous, guide, ultimate, fashionista, budget
Number of Pages: 240
Published: 2006-05-30
List price: $14.00
ISBN-10: 0812975162
ISBN-13: 9780812975161

Good news: You don’t have to sacrifice style just to pay your electric bill. Kathryn Finney, a.k.a. the Budget Fashionista, is the expert on all things chic and cheap. Now she opens up her Prada bag of shopping and style tips to make you fashionably frugal, with change to spare. It’s as easy as 1-2-3!1. Know your budget: Learn innovative, money-saving ways to increase your clothing funds. 2. Know your style: Get helpful hints from fashion insiders and use them to develop your own mode of self-expression. 3. Know your bargains: Discover the art of scoring exclusive friends-and-family coupon