counterpoint

When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family—a wife and two kids—the interlocking fates of both families lead t...

A personal and highly original take on the history of six commercial plants, Seeds of Change illuminates how sugar, tea, cotton, the potato, quinin...

A personal and highly original take on the history of six commercial plants, Seeds of Change illuminates how sugar, tea, cotton, the potato, quinin...

Seeds of Wealth is a collection of elegant essays focusing on the economic and cultural consequences of the exploitation of timber, tobacco, rubber...

A young painter, coming of age in San Francisco’s bohemian 1950s, meets his teacher—Shunryu Suzuki, a pivotal figure in Buddhist America—and dedica...

A selection from the letters of Dashiell Hammett, the American writer of crime fiction.Here is Hammett the family man, distant but devoted; Hammett...

Provocatively blurring the lines between autobiography, short fiction, and essay, Greg Bottoms presents a series of fifteen honest and beautifully ...

A master of the short form, Gina Berriault stands somewhere between Chekhov and Isaac Babel in style and psychological acuity. "Berriault writes re...

The "raging frenzy" of the sex drive, to use Plato's phrase, has always defied control. However, that's not to say that the Sumerians, Victorians, ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER"This novel is studded with sharp observations . . . Babitz’s talent for the brilliant line, honed to a point, never interferes ...

A surprise–filled shellfish survey dishes up “ample oyster facts, figures and literary lore” (Publishers Weekly). When award–winning Texas food wri...

"Read [him] with pencil in hand, make notes, and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here." —T...

"Polchin knows the era, and brings to his account a wealth of colorful supporting detail . . . With its layers of taboos and public spectacle, the ...

"Polchin knows the era, and brings to his account a wealth of colorful supporting detail . . . With its layers of taboos and public spectacle, the ...

Contrary to its contemporary image, deniable covert operations are not something new. Such activities have been ordered by every president and ever...

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, society, and the f...

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, society, and the f...

A tantalizing true story of one of literature’s most enduring enigmas is at the heart of this “lively, even sprightly book” (Michael Dirda, The Was...

Shame in the Blood, or Shinobugawa, is considered one of the finest contemporary love stories in all of modern Japanese literature. The narrator, a...

A close-up look at the scandals that rocked the San Francisco Zen Center, a leader in alternative religious practice and the counterculture in Amer...

Wildlife and nature films are a hugely popular entertainment genre: networks such as Animal Planet and Discovery are stars in the cable television ...

Critically acclaimed when first published in Japanese, the late Meisei Goto's novel Shot by Both Sides climbs inside a mind forever wounded by the ...

A philosopher takes a second look at sayings, proverbs, and bits of homespun wisdom: “Every society needs its guardian of good sense: Baggini is ou...

New Orleans's idiosyncrasies have been embraced by the world; Patty Friedmann gives us a tender, hilarious portrait of them in her new novel Side E...